The Skydocks of Aethelgard didn't just smell of pine and ozone; they smelled of raw, unadulterated fear.

  Wanhan walked along the edge of the massive ironwood piers, the howling wind tearing at his coarse wool cloak. Below his boots, the planks had gaps wide enough to see the churning, slate-grey clouds thousands of feet below. A single slip on the ice meant a two-mile freefall into the abyss.

  He loved it. The thin air made his newly enhanced [Endurance] work for every breath, sending a sharp, hyper-focused clarity straight to his brain.

  Tiny, on the other hand, looked like he was going to vomit.

  "Twenty captains," the dwarf groaned, his mittened hands gripping the inner guardrail so hard his knuckles were white. "We flashed a platinum writ at twenty different veteran sky-hunters, and every single one of them laughed in our faces or told us to jump off the pier. Nobody is flying into the Slipstream Peaks."

  "They are merchants and scavengers," Mata said. The blind elf walked smoothly along the very edge of the icy pier, completely unfazed by the sheer drop. "They fly heavy, slow galleons meant to haul timber. The Wyvern hunts slow prey. They are not cowards, dwarf. They are just mathematically certain of their own deaths."

  "So we need a ship that isn't slow," Wanhan said, his left hand resting on the comforting heat of Volatile Fenrir.

  He scanned the docks. Most of the moored ships were massive, bloated things. They had wide, deep hulls designed for cargo, lifted by clusters of glowing alchemical bladders and propelled by heavy, sluggish runic sails. They were floating fortresses.

  But fortresses couldn't dodge.

  "We don't need a galleon," Wanhan muttered, his eyes narrowing as he looked past the bustling commercial piers, toward the shadowy, dilapidated edge of the harbor. "We need a knife."

  He led them away from the polished ironwood and into the slums of the Skydocks. Here, the piers were splintered and slick with spilled grease. The ships moored in this sector weren't hauling legitimate cargo; they were smugglers, blockade runners, and desperate thrill-seekers.

  At the very end of a rotting dock, moored by a single, frayed iron chain, sat a vessel that made Tiny gasp in pure, engineering horror.

  It didn't have a massive cargo hold. It barely had a deck. It looked like a massive, rusted spearhead constructed of jagged iron and blackened drake-bone. Instead of a cluster of floating bladders, its hull was lined with massive, over-charged runic thrusters that looked like they had been violently salvaged from a military cruiser and bolted on with sheer willpower.

  It wasn't built to haul. It was built to break the sound barrier.

  Painted hastily on the side of the battered iron bow was the name: The Slipstream Drifter.

  "By the Founder's blueprints," Tiny whispered, horrified. "The thrust-to-weight ratio on that deathtrap is suicidal. If they open those thrusters full throttle, the G-force will rip the mast right out of the deck!"

  "Exactly," a sharp, gravelly voice echoed from above.

  Wanhan looked up. Hanging upside down from the main rigging, suspended by a pair of heavy leather climbing boots, was a woman.

  She wore a heavy, fleece-lined leather coat smeared with black engine grease. Half her head was shaved, the other half a wild mop of braided black hair. A heavy pair of brass aeronaut goggles rested on her forehead, and a jagged, pale frost-burn scar cut violently across her left cheek.

  She held a heavy iron wrench in one hand, casually tossing it into the air and catching it as she stared down at them.

  "The mast did rip out," the woman smirked, her voice easily cutting through the howling wind. "Twice. So I reinforced the hull with deep-core tungsten and bolted the rigging directly into the primary thruster block. Now, when I hit the throttle, the ship doesn't break. The crew just blacks out."

  She dropped from the rigging, landing on the icy pier with a heavy, practiced thud. She was tall, lean, and moved with the coiled energy of a cornered predator.

  "Captain Rook," she introduced herself, wiping a smudge of grease off her chin with the back of her glove. She looked at the dwarf clinging to the rail, the blind elf standing on the edge of the abyss, and finally, her eyes locked onto Wanhan's pinned-up right sleeve.

  She let out a sharp, barking laugh.

  "Well, you definitely aren't the harbor inspectors," Rook grinned, tossing her wrench onto a nearby crate. "You look like a punchline to a terrible tavern joke. What does a crippled kid, a blind elf, and an asthmatic dwarf want with the fastest, most dangerously illegal cutter in Aethelgard?"

  Wanhan didn't smile. He stepped forward, the wind whipping his cloak back to reveal the dark, lopsided scabbard of Volatile Fenrir.

  "We want to hunt the Aether-Lung Wyvern," Wanhan said, his voice dead calm. "And we need a pilot crazy enough to fly us into the Slipstream Peaks."

  Rook’s grin vanished instantly. The amusement in her eyes was replaced by a cold, hard stare.

  "The Wyvern?" Rook spat, crossing her arms over her grease-stained coat. "You're holding a sword, kid. Not a ballista. That thing is armored in Mark III equivalent scale, it breathes kinetic wind-shear that can snap a galleon in half, and it hunts at twelve thousand feet. You don't hunt it. You survive it."

  "We can kill it," Wanhan stated, his Level 9 aura flaring slightly, projecting a dense, undeniable weight into the freezing air. "I just need you to put me close enough to hit it. And keep the ship steady enough so I don't fall off when I swing."

  Rook stared at him for a long, silent moment. She looked at the sword, feeling the faint, unnatural heat radiating from the scabbard, battling the mountain chill.

  "You're serious," Rook muttered, shaking her head. "You actually think you can melee a sky-terror. Look, kid. Even if I believed you could scratch it, my ship doesn't fly for charity. Alchemical fuel is expensive, and Wyvern country means burning a lot of it just to stay in the air. I have debts. I don't take suicide missions."

  Wanhan didn't argue. He just reached into his heavy cloak with his left hand.

  He pulled out the platinum-stamped Guild writ they had extorted from the High Forge Master. He casually flicked his wrist, snapping the heavy parchment open so the golden ink caught the harsh mountain sunlight.

  "I'm not asking for charity, Captain," Wanhan said, holding the blank check out over the howling abyss. "I'm buying your ship, your thrusters, and your life for the next forty-eight hours. Name your price."

  Rook’s eyes locked onto the platinum-stamped writ fluttering in the freezing wind.

  For a long moment, the only sound on the dilapidated pier was the howl of the high-altitude gale and the violent flapping of the parchment. Rook leaned in, her eyes tracing the unmistakable indentation of a High Forge Master's signet ring in the corner of the paper. It wasn't a fake. It was a blank check from the Canopy.

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  The cocky, grease-stained smirk melted off her face, replaced by a look of sheer, calculating hunger.

  "You're not just crazy," Rook breathed, her voice dropping the sarcastic edge. "You're heavily funded crazy. That changes the math."

  "The math is simple," Wanhan said, his Level 9 [Endurance] keeping his hand perfectly steady despite the biting cold. "You fly us up into the Slipstream Peaks. You find the Wyvern. You get us close enough to crack its armor, and you get us back to the docks in one piece. Do that, and you can write whatever number you want on this paper."

  Rook looked at the one-armed teenager, the shivering dwarf, and the blind elf. She looked back at her rusted, over-charged cutter bobbing in the abyss.

  "A hundred and fifty gold," Rook stated, her jaw setting. "Half up front to cover the alchemical burn and the wear on my thrusters. The other half when we land with the Wyvern's gland. And if the beast shreds my hull, you buy me a new ship."

  Wanhan didn't blink. He lowered the writ and turned his head. "Tiny. Pay the captain."

  The dwarf let out a strangled, agonizing whine that sounded like a dying kettle. With trembling, soot-stained hands, Tiny reached into his heavy leather satchel, pulled out a thick pouch of gold coins, and practically threw it at the pilot.

  Rook caught the heavy sack with one hand. The unmistakable, weighty clink of solid gold brought a feral, adrenaline-fueled grin back to her scarred face.

  "Welcome aboard the Drifter," Rook laughed, spinning on her heel and vaulting gracefully over the jagged iron railing onto the deck of her ship. "Try not to bleed on the primary manifold! We launch in two minutes!"

  Wanhan stepped over the gap, his boots landing heavily on the dark, oil-stained ironwood deck. The ship was brutally utilitarian. There were no cargo holds, no passenger cabins, and no luxury. The deck was dominated by a massive, central runic engine block that pulsed with an angry, unstable violet light. Thick, braided copper cables ran like veins across the floorboards, connecting the engine to the oversized thrusters mounted on the rear hull.

  Tiny scrambled aboard, dropping to his hands and knees to inspect the glowing engine block. He took one look at the wiring and went completely pale.

  "By the Founder's blueprints," Tiny gasped, his dwarven engineering instincts screaming in terror. "She bypassed the alchemical limiters. She routed the raw, unrefined aether directly into the combustion chambers! This isn't a ship! It's a bomb with a steering wheel!"

  "It only explodes if you slow down!" Rook shouted cheerfully from the helm, a raised platform at the rear of the ship lined with heavy brass levers and glowing dials. She kicked a heavy iron latch, and the massive alchemical bladders suspended above them hissed, filling with lighter-than-air gas.

  Mata glided onto the deck, her head tilting toward the roaring engine. "It is loud. It vibrates with violence. I like it."

  "Strap in!" Rook ordered, pulling a pair of heavy leather aviator goggles down over her eyes. "There are D-rings bolted to the deck! Use the harness lines! When I open the throttle, gravity is going to try and throw you off the back of the ship!"

  Wanhan didn't look for a harness. He walked to the bow, the sharply angled front of the ship that pointed out into the endless, cloud-choked expanse. He planted his boots wide on the ironwood deck, his newly enhanced [Agility] and [Strength] locking his body into a perfect, balanced stance. He rested his left hand on the hilt of Volatile Fenrir.

  "I don't strap in," Wanhan muttered to himself, feeling the familiar, coiled heat of the blade.

  Tiny, however, practically mummified himself in leather straps, bolting his harness to the thickest piece of iron he could find near the mast.

  "Mooring chains released!" Rook yelled. She grabbed the two largest brass levers on the console. "Hold onto your stomachs, ground-pounders! We are breaking the sky!"

  Rook slammed the levers all the way forward.

  The Slipstream Drifter didn't float away from the docks. It detonated.

  A deafening, concussive roar erupted from the rear thrusters. A shockwave of violet alchemical fire blasted the icy pier, instantly vaporizing the frost. The sheer, terrifying G-force hit them like a physical wall.

  Tiny screamed as he was slammed flat against the deck, his cheeks peeling back from the pressure.

  Wanhan’s boots skidded backward an inch, but his System-enhanced stats flared to life. His muscles locked, his skeleton absorbing the crushing kinetic force. The wind transformed into a solid, howling force that threatened to rip his cloak clean off his shoulders.

  The ship shot forward, tearing through the cloud layer like a jagged iron spear. The Skydocks vanished in a fraction of a second, replaced by the blinding, freezing white void of the upper atmosphere.

  They weren't just flying. They were tearing a hole in the sky.

  Wanhan leaned into the impossible wind, his eyes narrowing as the jagged, floating islands of the Slipstream Peaks began to materialize in the clouds ahead.

  "Bring us to twelve thousand feet, Captain!" Wanhan roared over the screaming engines, a dark, adrenaline-fueled smile carving across his face. "Let's go find a monster!"

  At twelve thousand feet, the sky stopped being an empty void and turned into a graveyard.

  The Slipstream Drifter tore through the freezing cloud layer, bursting into the blinding, high-altitude sunlight of the Slipstream Peaks. Wanhan’s breath caught in his throat. Suspended in the sky around them were massive, jagged islands of solid blue ice and dark stone, floating silently in the anti-gravity currents.

  The air was razor-thin. Every breath felt like inhaling crushed glass, but Wanhan’s Level 9 [Endurance] forcefully regulated his heartbeat, pumping heavily oxygenated blood to his freezing extremities.

  "Alchemical manifolds at seventy percent!" Rook screamed from the helm, her goggles coated in a thin layer of frost. She violently wrenched a brass lever, banking the iron-hulled cutter sideways to thread the needle between two massive, floating glaciers. "If we push it higher, the bladders will burst from the pressure!"

  "Keep the speed up!" Wanhan roared back over the howling wind. He was standing dead-center on the deck, his boots planted wide, perfectly riding the violent pitch and yaw of the ship like a veteran sailor. His [Agility] processed the shifting center of gravity instantly, keeping him anchored without a single strap.

  "Kid!" Tiny shrieked, his voice barely audible. The dwarf was still bolted to the deck near the mast, his face green. "How are we supposed to find one monster in an entire mountain range of floating ice?!"

  "We don't find it!" Mata called out. The blind elf had abandoned the safety of the deck. She was perched on the very tip of the ship’s iron bowsprit, balancing over the two-mile drop with terrifying grace. Her ears twitched wildly, filtering out the roar of the thrusters. "We brought the loudest, most aether-rich engine in the sky! We rang the dinner bell!"

  Mata’s head suddenly snapped straight up.

  "Above us!" she shrieked, dropping flat against the ironwood just as the sun was entirely blotted out.

  Wanhan looked up.

  A shadow the size of a merchant galleon passed over the Drifter.

  The Aether-Lung Wyvern didn't flap its wings. It didn't need to. It dropped from the clouds like a falling mountain, its massive, leathery wings locked in a lethal dive. Its scales weren't organic; they were a thick, overlapping slate-grey that looked exactly like Mark III steel. But the most terrifying feature was its chest.

  Deep, glowing fissures pulsed along its throat and ribcage, radiating a sickening, violet alchemical light. The Aether-Gland.

  "Brace!" Rook screamed, slamming her boot into a heavy iron pedal.

  The Wyvern opened its massive, jagged jaws. It didn't breathe fire. It exhaled a concentrated, localized shockwave of kinetic wind-shear.

  A distortion in the air, dense and heavy as a solid wall of water, slammed down toward the ship.

  Rook killed the right thruster and over-cranked the left. The Slipstream Drifter violently snapped into a ninety-degree barrel roll.

  The wind-shear clipped the edge of the hull. The sheer concussive force sounded like a cannonball hitting an iron bell. The ship violently shuddered, the deck groaning under the massive stress.

  Gravity instantly tried to rip Wanhan off the deck and throw him into the abyss.

  He didn't panic. He dropped his center of mass, his Level 9 [Strength] driving his boots hard into the ironwood planks. He slid three feet toward the edge, his boots smoking against the friction, before he arrested his momentum, his left hand gripping the heavy iron railing.

  "It's circling back!" Tiny screamed, pointing a trembling finger at the sky.

  The Wyvern pulled out of its dive, its massive wings snapping open with a sound like tearing canvas. It caught an updraft, banking sharply around a floating glacier, its glowing violet chest pulsing as it prepared for a second pass. It wanted the ship's engine block.

  Wanhan stood up, the ship leveling out under Rook's frantic steering. He let go of the railing.

  Snick.

  He drew Volatile Fenrir.

  The second the dark Mark IV steel cleared the scabbard, the blistering heat hit the freezing, high-altitude air. A massive plume of white steam violently hissed off the lopsided blade, obscuring Wanhan's silhouette in a cloud of localized thermal exhaust. The tungsten pommel flared, the Alchemical Ember recognizing the presence of a predator.

  "Rook!" Wanhan roared, his voice cutting through the mechanical shriek of the engines. He pointed the smoking, glowing blade directly at the incoming, multi-ton sky-terror.

  "Don't run from it!" Wanhan yelled, his eyes locking onto the glowing violet gland on the beast's chest. "Cut the throttle and angle the bow up! Bring me close enough to hit it!"

  Rook stared down at him from the helm, her jaw dropping. The Wyvern was charging them at terminal velocity, and the one-armed teenager was asking for a head-on collision.

  A wild, completely unhinged grin spread across the captain's scarred face.

  "You're the boss, One-Hand!" Rook cackled, her hands flying over the brass levers. "Hold onto your soul!"

  Rook violently yanked the primary yoke back and killed the forward thrust. The Drifter pitched sharply upward, the heavy iron bow pointing directly at the descending Wyvern.

  The monster roared, its jaws opening to unleash another kinetic blast.

  Wanhan crouched on the rising deck, his left arm cocked back, Fenrir glowing like a miniature sun in the freezing void. The math was gone. The physics were just a feeling in his blood.

  He was going to shatter the sky.