Zenless Zone Zero Section 6 Novels & Stories

Below her, on the vast plain of the desk, the rest of the pack was struggling with the Physics-Shock. Zane was hunched over, his hands pressed against the wood-grain laminate. To him, the desk was a continent, and the gravity of this higher dimension was crushing his Sovereign-frame. His obsidian skin was dulling, turning into a matte-grey carbon fiber as the room’s ambient light refused to render his "Divine" properties. Kael was staring at the glowing blue LED of the computer’s power button. To a boy made of data-fire, that single light was a sun—a raw, uncurated source of energy that made his own blue-hex flames look like a flickering match.

Two figures stood at the observation glass. Ahead: a frozen expanse older than recorded history. Below: a sealed experimental depth zone. At its center— A structure marked extinct. Activated. A low-frequency pulse emerged. Perfect alignment. With Alexander’s heartbeat. Vivienne’s retinal interface triggered without input. No command issued. No permission granted. Red text formed directly in her vision. WELCOME HOME, SUBJECT ZERO.

Thirty-nine seconds. "It is not a bomb," Zane said. His hands did not stop moving. His eyes were scanning the server architecture, following the logic of the countdown sequence through the rig's control infrastructure. "It is a scuttle," he said. "The legs are rigged to blow. The whole structure goes underwater in about four minutes once the sequence completes." "Stop it," Lucian said. "Working on that." Twenty-six seconds. The servers hummed. Zane moved through the system the way he moved through a defensive line, reading the gaps before they opened, committing to the decision a half second before anyone else saw it.

And now I was going back to it. Nocturne was busy as usual, LUNARIS loomed ahead, black glass and silver curves towering above the rest of the district. Across the street was a sleek shopping center. Lucien pulled up to the curb in front of the mall. “You got an hour,” Zane said. “Here’s my card.” “Limit?” He gave me a look that said, ‘are you kidding me?’ “Right, no limit,” I answered myself and Lucien laughed. “Call me if anything happens, but I doubt anything will. If you don’t feel safe, come straight to Lunaris. Understood?”

••• <9AM> Jezebel watched her surroundings carefully, making sure no one's watching before stepping into the capture zone Of all the buildings in the clan, it's the only one with a rotating camera,so far you can calculate the time taken for it's rotation to each angle. She stood by the door, watching the camera as it prepared to rotate to another angle, then she began counting the minutes. Immediately it turned to the left angle in two minutes, she slipped into the right angle and got her burner phone. She dialled the only line in it, and her heart skipping beats as he watched the camera nervously.

"We have thirty seconds before the 'Zero-Point' reactor goes critical! We have to fly!" Dante didn't hesitate. He scooped up the golden boy in one arm and grabbed Jago with the other. His asymmetrical wings—one violet-lead, one red-fire—erupted from his back, smashing through the remaining structural pillars. "Zora, move!" Dante roared. I looked at the monitor one last time. The "Void-Islands" coordinate was burned into my retinas. 12°N, 3°E. The heart of the Forbidden Zone.

Holding, flowing with the breach, making sharp reads on pressure. The eight? Mixed, three held, four staggered, one... frozen. That one would wash out. Zino, brilliant. Zone 5 under full crush and he was pivoting, repositioning others. Reading Boris’ angles faster than I expected. I made a mental note. The kid had more in him than we’d tapped. Sora... reckless. Moved too wide, gave up her line. Not a loss, but she’d need drilling. Annabelle’s voice crackled soft in my earpiece: “Zone 6, tremble. Pitch is still holding steady.”