TENG!

  The first stroke of midnight struck the clock tower like a giant hammer. The vibration was not just a sound; it was a physical shockwave that knocked dust from between the bricks and made his teeth rattle.

  Ulric couldn't hear his own breathing. He could only feel his lungs burning and his pulse pounding in his temples. His right hand clutched the Intian-graph camera to his chest as if it were a newborn baby, while his left hand—its ring and little fingers broken—hung limply at his side, sending blinding signals of pain with every pump of his heart.

  He ran down the spiral iron staircase. His feet slipped on the metal grating, slippery with machine oil. Third floor. Second floor.

  Above, the clang of metal and the sound of Anna's gunfire were faintly audible amid the ringing of bells. The girl was holding off the mechanical spider monster alone for Ulric's sake.

  I have to get out. I have to bring this evidence.

  Ulric reached the landing between the second and first floors. The small exit door he had broken open earlier was visible below, leaking a little light from the fireworks outside. Hope.

  However, that hope was extinguished instantly.

  The light from the lume-stick he was holding flickered, then died. Not because it had run out of energy, but because it had been swallowed. The shadow of the support pillar in front of Ulric suddenly lengthened. Unnaturally. The laws of optics were violated. The shadow did not fall away from the light source, but crept upward, stood upright, and detached itself from the wall.

  Ulric slowed his pace, his shoes squeaking on the metal. In front of him, blocking the way to the exit, stood the Second Shadow Soldier.

  This one was different. There were no additional mechanical arms on his back. No thick armor. His body was slender, wrapped in a black suit that seemed to be made of solid smoke. His helmet was plain, without any facial features, absorbing every photon of light that dared to approach.

  The soldier raised his right hand. The shadow floor beneath Ulric's feet suddenly became liquid. Ulric felt his feet being sucked in. Not mud, but cold, sticky darkness.

  “Get out of the way!” Ulric shouted, his voice cracking.

  The soldier did not respond. He stamped his foot. From the pool of shadow, sharp black spikes shot out, aiming for Ulric's stomach.

  Ulric's survival instincts took over his academic logic. He couldn't fight, but he was an Earth elementalist. And this tower... its outer walls were made of brick.

  Ulric slammed his back against the curved tower wall behind him. He closed his eyes, channeling his untrained Intian into his palms. “Wall!” he shouted desperately.

  His magic was premature. Rough. The bricks in the wall did not form a neat protective wall. Instead, the old mortar between the stones exploded.

  Stone dust, gravel, and brick fragments spurted out of the wall, creating a thick cloud of dust right in front of the Shadow Soldier's face. The shadow spikes missed, embedding themselves into the wall beside Ulric's head, only grazing his cheek.

  Ulric didn't wait for the dust to settle. He took advantage of the visual chaos. He leaped to the side, vaulted over the staircase railing, and dropped himself onto a pile of sandbags on the floor below.

  His fall was not graceful. His shoulder slammed into the hard floor. The camera in his arms survived, but Ulric's glasses cracked.

  He crawled backward. Above, the Shadow Soldier pierced the cloud of dust without coughing. He glided down—not jumping, but sliding through the shadow of the stairs—landing silently three meters in front of Ulric.

  The soldier's hands changed shape. His fingers lengthened into solid blades of smoke. He stepped forward. Slowly. Savoring the terror of his prey.

  Ulric backed up until his back hit a giant, slowly turning gear. He was trapped. In front of him was a shadow monster. Behind him was a meat grinder.

  “Help...” whispered Ulric.

  ***

  Meanwhile, twenty meters above Ulric's head.

  Anna wasn't fighting. She was dancing in hell.

  TENG! (Third bell).

  The fifth floor shook. Shadow Soldier A (the Spider) charged forward. The four mechanical arms on his back moved independently, stabbing the air like spears searching for flesh. Their tips glowed green with poison.

  Anna leapt backward, somersaulting in the air to avoid the thrust that destroyed the iron floor she had been standing on a second ago. She had no magic. She had no energy shield. All she had was physics and killer instinct.

  At her waist, a homemade grapple gun hissed. Steel cable shot out, wrapping around a steam pipe in the ceiling. Anna pulled the trigger, and her body lifted into the air, floating beyond the reach of the spider's arms.

  “You're slow for a can of sardines!” Anna taunted, swinging above the monster's head.

  At the highest point of her swing, Anna released one hand from the grapple gun's grip. That hand drew a short-barreled revolver from her left thigh. Not ordinary lead bullets. Bullets with Flash-Powder cores—magnesium powder.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Two shots hit the Spider Soldier's helmet. The bullets exploded in a blinding flash of white light.

  The Shadow Soldier—a creature that relied on darkness—squeaked (the sound of metal scraping). He retreated, his mechanical arms moving wildly to cover his light-blinded “face.”

  Anna landed on a spinning horizontal gear. Her legs bent perfectly to cushion the impact. But before she could catch her breath, her eyes caught movement below.

  On the ground floor. Ulric. He was cornered against the wall by a second Shadow Soldier. The smoke blade was raised high, ready to sever the nerd's head.

  “Damn it,” Anna cursed.

  Her focus was divided. In front of her, the Spider Soldier was recovering from his momentary blindness. Below, Ulric would be dead in seconds.

  Anna didn't think. She acted. She aimed her revolver downwards, at Shadow Soldier B. The distance was far. The target was moving. And Ulric was in the line of fire.

  The bullet flew downward. It missed Soldier B's head, but hit his shoulder. The magnesium explosion burned smoke from his shoulder. Soldier B flinched, his attack veered off course, his smoke blade hitting the iron floor next to Ulric's ear, creating black sparks.

  “RUN, YOU IDIOT!” Anna yelled from above.

  But her shout came at a high price. The Spider Soldier in front of her took advantage of the opening. One of its mechanical legs shot out.

  The sharp tip of the leg slashed Anna's left arm. Fresh blood spurted out, staining her black leather suit. Her grapple gun pistol slipped from her grasp, falling into the depths of the tower.

  Anna staggered, nearly falling from the gear. A burning pain spread through her arm. She had lost her primary means of mobility. And now she was trapped atop the spinning gear, facing the enraged iron spider.

  The monster lowered its body, preparing to leap and kill.

  ***

  Anna's shot gave him one second. Ulric didn't waste it.

  Soldier B, his shoulder smoking from the magnesium bullet, roared silently. His physical form was slightly unstable, shaking like a broken television signal.

  Ulric saw an old iron pipe lying next to his feet, torn from the wall by the explosion. Its end was serrated and sharp. He was no fighter. But he knew geology. He knew structure. And he knew that shadows needed a surface to cling to.

  Ulric grabbed the pipe with his broken left hand (ignoring the pain that made him want to vomit). Not to hit the soldier. That would be suicide. Ulric hit the floor.

  He channeled the rest of his earth magic into the pipe, using it as a conductor to the iron floor. “Tremor!”

  The floor beneath them was not earth, but its foundation was embedded in the ground. Ulric's magical tremors traveled through the iron, toward the bolts holding the grating floor where Soldier B stood.

  The bolts, rusted for a hundred years, were not strong enough to withstand the resonance of the earth magic. Then, the bolts broke.

  The grating floor beneath the Shadow Soldier's feet collapsed. The soldier lost his balance, his feet sinking into the cable shaft below. His shadow flickered, trying to grab the edge of the iron.

  Ulric didn't wait to see if his enemy had fallen. He got up, grabbed his camera, and ran as fast as he could toward the exit, which was only five meters away.

  “Just a little more...”

  ***

  Anna held her bleeding left arm. She no longer had a grapple gun. She only had two daggers on her belt and a revolver with three bullets left. The Spider Soldier jumped.

  Flying through the air, its four mechanical legs aimed at Anna's heart.

  Anna didn't dodge. She threw herself onto the spinning gears. The spider's attack narrowly missed her nose, its legs sticking to the surface of the gears.

  The mechanical legs pierced the metal gears. And because the gears were spinning (driven by a giant clockwork engine), the legs got stuck. The soldier tried to pull his legs out, but the clockwork engine's torque was too strong. The gears kept spinning, dragging the Spider Soldier's body closer to a collision with another, larger gear.

  The Pinch Point.

  Anna rolled to the side, away from the danger zone. She watched the soldier struggle, the machine on his back hissing frantically. But it was too late.

  The soldier's body was dragged into the gap between two giant teeth. CRUNCH. The sickening sound of metal grinding, armor crushing, and bones breaking echoed. The soldier screamed before his body was crushed, jamming the gears just before the mighty clockwork machine crushed him into scrap.

  The bell stopped ringing. The clockwork mechanism was jammed by the “debris” in its gears.

  Anna stood up, breathing heavily. Blood dripped from her fingertips. She had won. But it wasn't over yet.

  She looked down. Ulric was already at the door. But Soldier B—the one who had fallen—was crawling back up. He turned into a liquid shadow on the wall, moving faster than a human could run, chasing Ulric like a black wave.

  Ulric's distance to the door: 2 meters. The Shadow's distance to Ulric: 3 meters. The Shadow was faster.

  Anna couldn't shoot again. Her angle was blocked by the pipe. She didn't have time to go down the stairs.

  Anna saw a roll of steel cable from an old freight elevator next to her. At the end was a 50 kg iron weight.

  “Hope your head is as hard as a rock, Bookworm,” Anna prayed.

  She kicked the cable lock lever. The cable came loose. The iron weight fell freely from a height of twenty meters.

  Ulric heard a whistling sound above him. His instincts screamed to stop. He braked right at the doorway.

  The iron weight hit the floor right in front of Ulric's nose. Right where he should have stepped a second later. The iron floor dented, creating a shockwave.

  But Anna's target wasn't Ulric. Her target was the shadow behind Ulric.

  The weight fell on the elongated shadow of Soldier B. The shadow was pinned down. The soldier was held back, jerked backward as if his feet were nailed to the floor.

  “GET OUT, Ulric!” Anna shouted from above, her voice echoing in the now silent tower (because the clock had stopped).

  Ulric didn't need to be told twice. He kicked the door open wide. The cold New Year's Eve air and the cheers of the city immediately hit his face. The contrast was insane. He jumped out, falling and rolling in the snow in the alley beside the tower.

  He was safe. He hugged his camera. He cried. But he didn't stop. He got up and limped away, disappearing into the crowd of people celebrating the party, becoming just another anonymous face in the sea of humanity.

  ***

  Anna watched Ulric escape. Her shoulders slumped in relief. The main mission was a success.

  However, below, Shadow Soldier B managed to free himself from the iron weights. His smoke form reunited. He did not chase Ulric. He knew he had failed to capture the eyewitness.

  The soldier slowly looked up. His featureless face stared straight ahead. Toward Anna.

  He didn't chase Ulric because there was another target left. A target trapped inside the tower, wounded, and out of weapons.

  The soldier began to crawl up the wall. Not using the stairs. He crawled vertically like a lizard, defying gravity. And this time, he was angry. The black aura around him exploded, forming dozens of sharp needles.

  Anna tore her sleeve, tightly binding the cut on her left arm. She bit down on the knot to secure it. She took two daggers from her belt. She stood at the edge of the fifth-floor platform. There was no way out. The door below was blocked by enemies. The roof door was locked from the outside.

  Anna smiled slightly behind her cloth mask. The smile of a fighter who knew she might not see the sunrise this year.

  “Alright, Ugly Shadow,” Anna twirled her daggers. “Ulric is gone. Now it's just you and me.”

  The soldier leaped from the wall, charging toward Anna in midair. Anna leaped to meet him.

  The last flare of light from the stained-glass window illuminated their silhouettes colliding in the air.

  Darkness.