By morning, Black Lantern charms were being thrown into gutters all over the city. Some player killers tried to claim they had bought them for fashion. Grace arrested them anyway when victims identified the charms.
Riley bought every leftover copper bell he could find, melted them down, and made me throwing coins that rang when they hit people in the forehead. He called them guilt tokens. I called them hilarious.
The next problem came from the sky garden district, where several high-rise dungeons had grown bridges between rooftops. The bridges were made of vines, glass, and arrogance. They looked pretty from the ground, which was exactly how you knew they were dangerous.
Low rank players went there to collect healing fruit that grew on the edges. Player killers went there because low rank players went there. Nature is simple when everyone involved is awful.
Grace sent me a tip about missing gatherers. Serena was clearing a gate on the east side and could not leave. Riley offered to sell me a parachute made from curtain fabric and wing bones. I asked if it worked. He said it had not failed twice. I did not ask what happened the first time.
I entered the sky garden as an E-rank instead of an F. That was the trick. After the train incident, some crews had finally learned that obvious F-ranks walking alone might be me. So I upgraded the bait. An E-rank was still weak enough to bully, but not famous enough to make them hesitate.
The garden smelled like rain and monster saliva. Flowers bigger than cars opened and closed along the rooftop edges. Bridges stretched over streets far below. Wind moved through broken office towers, carrying whispers from players hiding in the leaves.
I walked slowly, pretending to limp.
Three fruit gatherers watched me from behind a planter. Real F-ranks, real fear. I gave them a tiny shake of my head so they would stay hidden.
Then I made my E-rank flicker down to F for one second.
The hunters noticed. Six players rose from the flowers wearing vine cloaks. Their ranks ranged from C to A, which meant they were not desperate. They were bored.
Bored evil people are worse than hungry evil people, because hunger stops when the stomach is full. Boredom keeps inventing games.
One asked why I was alone. I said my friends got scared. He said that was smart of them. Another cut the bridge behind me with a vine blade, leaving me stranded on a rooftop garden with them. Below us, birds made of stained glass circled between buildings.
They still did not attack. Careful again. I was starting to miss idiots.
The leader told me to hand over my fruit basket. I held up my empty basket. He looked offended, like I had robbed him by not being worth robbing.
Then he ordered one of the hidden F-ranks to come out and search me.
That was clever and disgusting. If the frightened gatherer touched me, the hunters could pretend they had not done anything. If I resisted and hurt the gatherer by accident, they could make me look like the aggressor.
I sighed. The apocalypse had made me strong, but it had also made me very tired of creative cowards.
So I changed the game.
I displayed D. The hunters frowned. Then C. The hidden gatherers gasped. Then B. The vine cloaks stepped back.
Then I dropped back to F so fast the letter looked like it had fallen off a cliff.
The sudden collapse made the leader laugh by reflex. He thought my power had failed. He lunged forward to grab my throat before anyone else could claim the prize.
Aggressor confirmed.
I loved reflexes. They were honesty escaping the mouth through the hands.
My S-rank ignited. The garden bowed. Actual trees bent away from me like they had remembered an appointment somewhere else.
I grabbed the leader's wrist, spun him once, and threw him into the sky. Not off the building. Up. He flew through a cloud shaped like a screaming goat, clipped a floating bridge, and bounced back down wrapped in his own vine cloak. I shadow stepped through the shadow of a passing glass bird and appeared above him. One heel drop sent him into the rooftop soil, where the garden immediately tried to grow flowers around his embarrassment.
The others attacked at once. Good. The red marks bloomed like ugly fruit.
I turned the rooftop into a stage. I lowered my rank to F every time one of them aimed at me, then revealed S at the moment of impact, letting predator reversal turn their attacks into openings. One sword shattered against my jacket. One arrow curved away because my aura scared the wind.
One player tried to wrap me in thorn vines, so I let them tighten, smiled, and made my displayed rank flicker through F, E, D, C, B, A, and S like a slot machine built by a maniac. The vines got confused.
That should not have been possible. But monsters and magic both hate uncertainty. The thorn skill did not know whether to bind a weak target gently or restrain a strong target with full force. It chose both and ripped itself apart. Riley would have cried if he had seen the material waste.
I saved the hidden gatherers, cut the bridge back into place, and carried all six red marked hunters to the nearest rooftop crystal by hanging them from my chain like laundry. The crystal pulled them into glass cells suspended over the street, which felt dramatic and educational.
Before I left, one of the real F-ranks asked why I kept pretending to be weak.
I told him because evil people tell the truth with their choices when they think nobody can punish them.
He nodded like that was wise. Then I tripped over a root while leaving and ruined the mood.