Arcane-Shattering time(Timebomb)

After finally attaching the last part to my hoverboard, I was at last able to fly toward the main workstation. Though this was an unexpected attack, it was still within the guards' training to fire at any intruders or escapees. The guards throughout the station fired shot after shot. They tried, and they failed.

The workers—tinkers and heavy lifters for the chem-gems—all looked up at the catwalks above their heads, where the guards were firing in panic, missing their targets. I zigzagged, turned, weaved, and spun. This was it—the feeling of living on the edge. One mishap, one mistake, could doom me. But nevertheless, I moved forward, tilting and gliding with an almost surreal determination, persevering through it all.

I had a rifle in my hand, but I didn't use it like a rifle. Instead, I wielded it more like a club, using the butt end as the main impact. I pulled my arms back in a bat-swinging motion. My next target was shooting to kill but missing every shot. He was the first in line and the easiest to take down. As I swung, the guard had no time to evade—only enough to brace for impact. But it was too much for him. I had the momentum, and he didn't have the stability to withstand such force. The first guard fell.

This style of fighting, reminiscent of my old timeline, felt far too familiar. It was my old lifestyle coming back to me. In a different timeline, I might have been a student, a lover, a mechanic. But that life was long gone for me. I had forged this new lifestyle from my habits of survival and determination. I was in my element, doing what I had tried to forget for so long.

Without thinking, I tilted my hoverboard, pressing my back foot down to apply pressure. The front of the hoverboard pointed upward. The workers and tinkers fell silent, watching the scene unfold. The hoverboard was new to this world—after all, I was its inventor. One might even call it otherworldly.

A bullet whizzed past me, and another passed underneath the hoverboard. Then, from three directions, three more bullets tried to catch me mid-flight. But I was airborne. I had practiced and practiced. There were no limits in the sky, no laws or rules to bind me, no gravity to pull me down, no need for stagnation. I stomped my back foot harder on the hoverboard, boosting myself upward at incredible speed. The bullets meant to trap me didn't make it in time.

The green line of light trailing behind me was small, yet it captured everyone's attention. They knew from working in the mines that it was chem-fuel—the very substance that had propelled Zaun into this mechanical age. Seeing it used for something other than mechanical arms, limbs, or prototypes was mind-blowing, truly astounding to watch.

I danced past the bullets, soaring near the ceiling, then tilted downward, gliding past the catwalks and iron bridges toward the guards at ground level. I began knocking them down, one after another. Using the catwalk bridges as cover made it difficult for the guards above to shoot at me, as their line of sight was blocked.

It had been months since I'd last touched a hoverboard, let alone a makeshift one. It had its limits and could break at any moment. But I had faith—not just in my skills and the years I'd spent learning to fly, but in my firm belief in turning the impossible into the possible.

As the guards on the lower level kept falling one by one, the workers watched from the sidelines, their jaws open in surprise and awe. This was nothing they had ever seen before. It was a fast-paced spectacle unfolding before their eyes, like a miracle. One man against many—very few could do that.

Through the chaos, my body rejected the feelings of tension and frustration I'd carried for months. Now, it was as if my body was being reborn. The stress and anger melted away, replaced not by aggression, but by faith. This flying, this spinning and dancing through the sky—it was familiar. It was welcoming.

I moved through the motions I had learned and practiced over and over when first mastering the hoverboard. It had taken time, but the thought of becoming one with the wind, true to the wind, had turned the learning process into a passion—a reason to keep going.

I moved toward the upper section now, heading for the catwalks. The guards knew it was futile to shoot at me in the open, so they all ran to the tunnel walls, where they thought it would be easier to take aim. But that was a mistake—a grave mistake.

From my pocket, I pulled out a small explosive I had made. I was no expert in crafting these, but that didn't mean I wasn't familiar with them. In my timeline, I'd had to deal with Jinx and her deadly explosives on many occasions. I'd learned how to dismantle them, stop them, or even repurpose them. Jinx was a crazed genius, but a genius nonetheless.

I had used a small explosive earlier to destroy the communication hub and kept one last explosive with me. With the guards huddled in one place, it would be easy to take them out. But just as I was about to throw the bomb, a piercing shot rang out from nowhere.

The shot wasn't aimed at me but at the hoverboard's chem-engine, destroying it in an instant.

"Damnit!" I shouted, looking at the wreckage. From the open doorway leading to the main section of the workstation, a blue-haired girl with a pistol in hand stared at me with icy blue eyes. I couldn't do anything but jump from the hoverboard onto the catwalk.

But as I jumped, I didn't forget to throw the bomb—not at the blue-haired girl, but at the group of guards in the hall. As the bomb flew toward them, a second shot rang out, piercing the explosive midair. It blew up, not only destroying the hall's ceiling but also shaking the entire workstation and collapsing the catwalk bridge.