Though the asphalt far below shimmered like dark water beneath the gibbous moon, Josh did not step back, nor did the tremor in his legs betray him, for he anchored himself against the wind that clawed at his coat as though the city itself sought to drag him into its depths.
Behind him, the slow crunch of boots over pavement approached with a deliberation more harrowing than rage, each step measured, each breath drawn with a ritual hush that thickened the air. The men, cloaked in tattered leather and washed in soot, carried no weapons in hand yet moved with the certainty of those who never doubted the outcome.
In their silence, the ending was already spoken.
"Aw, look at you, legs shaking, eyes twitching. What's the plan, little bird? Are you gonna flap those arms and pray for wind?"
Under the jaundiced rooftop lights, the iron club glinted, its worn surface marked with dents from past acts of disobedience.
The burly man's grip tightened, and with it, a slow grin crept across his face, not of amusement, but of expectation, as though this moment had been tempered in the fire of that first, wrathful swing he made in his childhood.
Josh stood motionless, though not from defiance, the cords of his muscles had begun to fray under the pressure of knowing, with complete and irrevocable clarity, that there would be no path forward to be unbroken.
As panic churned beneath his skin and that desperate wish flickered like a match struck in fog, the wind rose, not as breeze but as force, lifting him with a violence too precise to be chance.
His feet tore from the rooftop, and the city dropped away like a vanished thought.
"What?!"
Terror clung to him more tightly than gravity ever had, for as the wind hurled him upward, past antennas and flickering rooftop signs, the sky unfolded with the indifference of a godless dream.
Josh did not soar by choice but was carried, limbs rigid, breath broken, eyes wide with the horror of flight.
"Hold up. How's that clown legit flying?!"
A stunned stillness overtook the rooftop as the burly man stood frozen, the iron club forgotten in his grip, his expression cracked open by something more ancient than fear.
Josh, drifting above them, had become an impossible figure framed against the night, held aloft not by machines or ropes but by a wind that bore no sound and offered no sign of why.
For a heartbeat, the world paused its turning.
Then the air stilled.
Whatever force had gripped him let go, sudden and without grace, and he dropped, his body twisting as the weight of existence seized him once more.
"Ahhh! Save me!"
Josh's body plummeted through open air, uncontrolled and without resistance. His limbs jerked involuntarily as the descent accelerated, the reflexive tension in his muscles strained against the inevitable.
Air pushed hard against his face, stealing heat and breath, but he remained conscious of every brutal second.
Far above, the ledge grew smaller as the leader of the thugs who had initiated the sequence stood still, watching. Around him, others remained silent, their faces unreadable.
The brawny figure pivoted deliberately, his gaze sweeping across those gathered. The motion was slow, deliberate, without urgency.
Then, in a single controlled gesture, he opened his mouth to speak.
"That kid flew on his own, alright? I didn't even touch the damn runt! Wind pulled a sneak attack. You saw it. Don't hang this on me... testify, dammit."
Behind the stunned leader, the rest stood in silence, their certainty splintered by what they had just seen, each man caught in the cruel balance between having witnessed the impossible and being unable to convince even himself it had occurred.
The wind had no warning, no logic, no motive. It came like a story told in reverse, vanishing before it could be understood.
Meanwhile, the ground below rose with accelerating fury, and Josh, caught in the grip of gravity's final word, shut his eyes against the oncoming blur. There was no dignity in it, no defiance, only the hollow taste of irony as he braced for the end.
Just as the wind's betrayal seemed complete and the ground prepared to swallow him whole, a burst of white light flared into being around his falling frame, not summoned by will nor summoned at all, but arriving with the certainty of something long coiled and finally triggered.
The force struck him like a wall turned upward, halting the descent in a blink so brutal it cracked the air itself.
Josh's body, still braced for death, was yanked into a new direction, the plunge reversed with such violent elegance that it felt less like rescue than rebirth.
The world blurred, curved, and then soared.
"Ahhh!"
Josh shrieked again, his voice cracking through the open sky as his body, wrenched upward by that unnatural surge, reached its apex and began to shift.
He had no time to brace, no time to pray, only the paralyzing realization that he was being returned, as if some invisible hand had plucked him out of error and flung him back to the place of reckoning.
Weightlessness had left him hollowed, g-force had twisted his center, and the brush against death had frayed every thread of meaning.
Staggering to his knees, he trembled, then leaned forward and began to vomit softly into the concrete.
"Hey... hey, young lad, are you feeling better? Don't go dying on me, eh."
Through the haze of nausea and the faint tremble still crawling up his spine, a voice found its way into Josh's ears, faint yet deliberate, like something spoken through wind but meant only for him.
He raised his head, the effort sharp and slow, and saw an elderly figure standing just ahead, gaze lowered with quiet warmth.
There was no severity in the man's face, nor anything mundane, only a calm so absolute it subdued the world around it.
His hair and beard flowed white without frailty, and a soft golden aura curled around his form, painting him in a light that felt both magical and unassailable.
Behind him, the debt hunters lay unmoving.
Josh froze, his breath catching as the sight before him tore through the boundaries of reason, and in the space left behind, memory surged.
From the scattered pages of dog-eared novels to glowing screens filled with cosmic light and chosen heroes, every fantastical tale he had ever devoured crashed against the present like waves against glass.
They arrived not in order but in rhythm, cascading through his mind without mercy, as though every half-believed story had been hiding this exact moment inside its heart.
The man before him was no longer just a figure of rescue.
He was the sign, the threshold, the herald.
With a soundless cry, Josh dropped to his knees and struck the ground with his forehead, tears spilling freely as awe overtook him.
"Immortal one, thank you! I really thought I was a goner just now!"
The elder, whom Josh had just addressed as an Immortal, lifted one hand to his beard and ran his fingers through it with quiet deliberation, a faint smile rising to his lips as though amused by the formality.
"Ah, that spell? Just a little slip-up, spooked my tiny friend is all. Now, forget that... why were those folks after you, hmm?"
Josh stared in disbelief, his mind unable to form a coherent thought as the words settled into place.
Not divine reprieve, not cruel destiny twisting its blade, just a misfire, raw and stupid. That sky-shattering blast, that whiplash ascent, that plummet scraping breath from lungs, it wasn't orchestrated, it wasn't earned.
'I know that now. I lived it. No plan, no purpose. Just an Immortal's mistake, and me caught in the recoil. But is it really worth living this life of misery?'
Though confusion still clouded his thoughts, one truth clung stubbornly within him.
It was the Immortal who had reached into that fatal moment and drawn him back from the brink. And now, as the Immortal gently spoke again, countless grievances surged upward, heavy and sudden in his heart.
"You shouldn't have saved my pitiful existence... after Mom died, Dad lost it, getting hooked on gambling, burned through all our fortune, racked up millions he couldn't pay... then ditched me and vanished!"
Feeling the weight of his snot and tears as something unworthy before a being of such presence, Josh hastily wiped his face, shame creeping into his hands.
After regaining some composure, he lifted his head and continued speaking.
"I got into Princeton, sure, and I thought that meant something. The creditor found me, asking eight digits I might never see in this lifetime. My girlfriend left the second she heard."
"They hauled me off like luggage, said I'd be free the moment my old man shows his face. Till then? I'm just their disposable runner. And the way things look... I might be stuck like this forever."
Tears carved unbroken trails down his cheeks as Josh gave voice to the years he had buried, each sentence thick with quiet misery. The path ahead appeared already sealed, an endless stretch of toil beneath weight he had never chosen.
To live each day as a hunted drifter or spend a lifetime buried beneath debt, both are punishment without reprieve, there was no difference at all!
Across from him, the Immortal remained still, the glow around him quieted, and in his eyes rested a sympathy unspoken, sharpened by the weight of what he had just heard.
"Young lad... you've been through enough, haven't you? Let's call this fate. I see real promise in you. So how about this... This Immortal gifts you a system. Something special, just for you. Sound good?"
Josh shuddered, the chill not from fear but from the overwhelming weight of stunned gratitude. To have met an Immortal at all had seemed like the full measure of fortune, a once-in-a-lifetime grace drawn from the realm of fantasy.
Yet now, as those words settled into him, the reality stretched further than belief.
This was not mere favor, not simple mercy. It was a gift of power, bestowed without demand, offered freely upon their first meeting, and it struck him with a force more disorienting than the wind that had carried him into the sky.
"Honorable Immortal… you're serious? You didn't mix me up with someone else, right? Like, this wasn't meant for some chosen heir or something?"
The Immortal said nothing and merely smiled, a quiet curve of the lips that implied his judgment remained as sharp and unshaken as ever.
Josh stood trembling, emotion surging too wildly to contain, his vision blurred once more by tears that did not rise from fear, but from a warmth reaching through the hollowness carved by years of hardship.
He looked upon the elder with reverence, heart swelling beneath the weight of gratitude.
At once, a sphere of pure white light emerged, quiet yet immeasurably bright.
"Come now, young one, there is no need to doubt thy intentions. Simply stretch forth thy hand and take this small ball of light."
At the sound of the Immortal's words, Josh stepped forward without hesitation and seized the ball of light, his fingers closing around it as if afraid it might vanish.
It rested gently in his palms, radiating a subtle warmth that pulsed like a steady breath.
The glow it cast was not blinding, but tender, wrapping his hands in soft brilliance, as though the light itself had been shaped to comfort rather than to dazzle.
"Begin system transfer."
The instant the Immortal's words passed into the air, the ball of white light flared in Josh's hands, its glow intensifying into something nearly blinding, as though a sun had bloomed between his fingers.
The warmth deepened, no longer gentle but urgent, coursing through his arms with a force that felt both sacred and overbearing.
In the midst of that brilliance, the Immortal spoke again, his voice calm yet unmistakably weighty, resonating through the light as if it were part of the command itself.
"Quickly now, young one! Swear that thou dost accept the Conqueror Mechanism, and that thou shalt never forsake it, not for the rest of thy life."
'Conqueror Mechanism. Intimidating name, sure. But why does the vow read like a marriage vow? What am I conquering, exactly? Territory, or someone's heart?'
Josh had no time to think and hurriedly said.
"I swear. I accept the Conqueror System, and I will never abandon it in my entire life!"