Chapter 6: Prison Break

"You’re going to pay for this!" The Silvered, with the broken wrist, raged; condensed green energy materialized and flowed through his other arm.

He leaped forward, aiming at Rayleigh’s head.

’Is it just me, or is this guy simply the dumbest person on the entire planet right now? He broke one wrist with that attack, and now he’s just rushing in for a second without caution. Are these the Silvereds meant to protect Skylark City?’ Rayleigh wondered amusingly.

At the last second, Rayleigh decided to test a theory about himself. He decided to do something drastic.

’Deactivate Energy Field’

► [Energy Field Deactivated]

►[ Caution, ARS does not recommend deactivating energy field ]

Rayleigh raised his fists just in time to catch the Silvered’s glowing fists right before it connected with his head.

’I’m stronger!’ A half-bewildered Rayleigh thought.

Struggling against Rayleigh’s grip, the Silvered tried to yank his arm away, but he failed miserably. Fear was almost completely written all over his face with the realization that he had picked a fight with the wrong citizen.

"Come here!" Rayleigh pulled his weight completely and slammed his body into a wall like a dummy.

CRACK!

The Silvered couldn’t even scream; the pain in his bones was far too intense for even as little as a squeal.

Rayleigh turned his attention to the two remaining Silvered agents. A sinister yet villainous grin appeared on his lips. "Your turn."

He didn’t even think. He threw his legs forward, covered the distance between himself and the two remaining Silvered within a second.

’I’m faster now!’

Rayleigh threw a clenched fist packed with force at one Silvered. The agent’s reaction speed was as poor as someone’s bank account.

POW!

Rayleigh’s fist connected with his jaw; his body flung sideways like it weighed nothing. He was down in a single punch.

The third Silvered, not waiting to end up like his superiors, immediately bolted.

Rayleigh unknowingly took great detail of his speed, his running pace, style, and feet movement. The system chimed suddenly.

► [ Running pace calculated ]

► [ Speed: 1.65 meters per second ]

’I can cover five meters in a single second!’

Rayleigh could easily catch up with the third Silvered and beat him down, but he decided against it. As far as he knew, the Silvered was already beaten. Going after him was slightly psychotic.

The two Silvered agents still lay sprawled across the floor, groaning and slithering in pain like worms.

Based on his assault with the first Silvered, the leader of the group, Rayleigh immediately assumed the rest were all lower-ranking agents who were only ranked as an Awakened.

Individuals with the Rune Gene also had heirachy. Awakened were the weakest in all areas: speed, vitality, and endurance. Even their rune powers themselves were weak.

The next was Ascendant, followed by Titan, Ethereal, and with Transcendent being the most powerful rank in the world.

Only a few people had reached that stage, and they were usually world leaders or working under the world leader in one of the five cities.

Rayleigh predicted the three Silvereds to be mere Awakened, and he was right. That made defeating them a walk in the park.

If he hadn’t had the Romulus System, he would have gotten his ass kicked, but ever since acquiring the system and stepping foot back on Earth, ever since the system came back online, he felt stronger than the average human.

He wasn’t a Runer, yes, but he was stronger than the average non-runer

Taking one last look at his victims, Rayleigh turned around and exited the alleyway. With the little credits he had left, he purchased a train ticket, and not long after that, he arrived home.

Rayleigh threw his access terminal across the room, and it landed on his crumpled bed with precision. Seven years ago, he would have acknowledged this minor achievement and probably bragged about it to Tris for hours to come.

But that wasn’t the case. There was no Tris, and there was nothing to take pride in.

All alone in his lonely apartment gave Rayleigh time to ponder. The silence that filled the space only made it even more worthwhile, causing a stray thought to suddenly slither its way into Rayleigh’s mind like a rogue intruder.

’What if I can get Tris out of incarceration?’ But as quickly as that thought came, Rayleigh disregarded it by calling out its impossibility.

There was no way he could file for an appeal. The Admiral was an elite citizen of Tron City, and there was no way anyone would take her case seriously. The Admiral had probably pulled a lot of strings to turn the whole situation in his favor.

Rayleigh was at a loss as to what to do; he decided to sleep on it, but he suddenly remembered he was yet to check what the system had unlocked earlier for him.

"Open attribute."

►[ATTRIBUTES]

►[ Strength: 5 ]

►[ Agility: 5 ]

►[ Speed: 5 ]

►[ Endurance: 5 ]

►[ Intelligence: 5 ]

►[ Perception: 5 ]

►[ Willpower: 5 ]

►[ Cosmic Control: 0 ]

►[ Luck: 5 ]

►[ Available Attribute Points: 0 ]

►[ Level-Up SP: 0/50]

"Open weapon and defense system simultaneously."

Rayleigh wasn’t sure if he could open two tabs at once, but he tried it anyway.

►WEAPON SYSTEM

►[ Energy Weapons ]

►[ Ballistic Weapons. Lv 5 ]

►[ Melee Weapons. Lv. 10 ]

►[ Heavy Weapons. Lv. 15 ]

►[ Orbital Weapons. Lv 20 ]

►[ Experimental Weapons. Lv 30 ]

►[ Summoned Weapons. Lv 50 ]

►[DEFENSE SYSTEM]

►[ Energy Shield ]

►[ Locked ]

►[ Locked ]

►[ Locked ]

►[ Locked ]

►[ Locked ]

►[ Locked ]

►[ Locked ]

►[ Locked ]

►[ Locked ]

"Guess I’ll just have to keep leveling up and unlock all these mystery weapons and defense systems."

Rayleigh was about to close the system when another stray thought, more favorable this time around, wandered into his mind.

’What if I break her out of prison?

◇◇◇

The next morning, Rayleigh didn’t give the sun the opportunity to rise at the horizon before he exited his apartment in a haste.

That idea from last night, as fallible as it sounded, never left Rayleigh’s mind. All through the night, he thought about a few things, such as the idea that he had something called an Advanced Romulus System, and he took out three Silvereds without breaking a sweat.

If he should be doing anything right now, it was a prison break, and his mind was firmly decided on that.

The problem with that thought, however, was that Rayleigh knew she was incarcerated just like he was, but he didn’t know where. He was going to find that out... illegally.

Skylark, just like any place in the world, had its underworld and a black market. Through this, one could get access to a couple of things such as illegal weapons, minerals, illegal IDs, and possibly access to confidential records like an inmate profile.

Rayleigh knew about this place, and he knew exactly who to meet to get information regarding Tris’ current location.

Just up ahead, a platform jutted out from the cracked pavement, half-buried.

He walked up and stood on it. For a moment, nothing happened, then the ground rumbled beneath his feet, and a glass tube shot up from the ground, sealing him inside.

Rayleigh stared at his reflection for a while. His face had gotten more chiseled over the years.

A weary sigh escaped his lips as the platform split open beneath him. The tube dragged him straight down into the darkness, and the world above swallowed up in seconds.

When the tube finally slowed and the glass hissed open, Rayleigh stepped out into an entirely different world, one that he was familiar with.

The underground stretched out endlessly, lit by strips of artificial light bolted into a stone ceiling that replicated the sky.

Vendors shouted over one another, hawking things no one could even name.

The entire place of the underground was chaos, but a controlled kind of chaos—like the people down here had built something functional out of nothing.

Rayleigh moved through the crowd, weaving past a group haggling over what looked like rune-infused blades until he spotted the store he was looking for.

The owner looked up from behind the counter, and his face lit up the moment he saw Rayleigh.

"No way. No way!" The man rounded the counter fast. "Rayleigh Pierce, out here in the flesh. Heard you got released. Congrats, man, seriously."

"Been a while, Wes," Rayleigh said with a small smile.

"A while? Try seven years." Wes leaned against the counter and folded his arms. He looked roughly Rayleigh’s age, twenty-three maybe, though working in the underground had a way of aging people faster than normal.

"So what brings you down here? Don’t tell me you missed my ugly face."

"I need information on an inmate." Rayleigh dropped the small talk and went straight to the point.

No one needed to call any names. They both knew exactly who he was talking about.

"Well, that’s a little more complicated than getting weapons and IDs."

"I know. I’ll pay whatever you need."

Wes hesitated for a second. "Give me a few minutes."

He disappeared into the back of the store, leaving Rayleigh standing there with his thoughts racing.

A few minutes went by longer than anyone would’ve liked before Wes returned, holding a small terminal in his hands.

"Found her," Wes said, tapping the screen before turning it toward Rayleigh. "Tris Pierce. Inmate profile confirms she’s being held on RZ-012."

"Of course, they’d send her to a Red Zoned Planet," Rayleigh gritted his teeth. Red Zoned planets weren’t just dangerous. They were home to some of the worst profanities the universe had ever produced. Higher-tier creatures that made the beasts on green zones like the Reptilian look like puppies.

If Tris was really being kept there, she wasn’t just serving a sentence; she was surviving one.

That one familiar sound pinged in Rayleigh’s head.

►[ New system objective assigned ]

►[ Find a space shuttle capable of off-planet travel ]

►[ Reward for task completion is unknown. Complete task to receive reward ]

Rayleigh looked back up at Wes and asked,

"Is there any way I can get a space shuttle around here?"