Adam stayed in the shadows, watching the guards at the front gate—two bulky guys with rifles, tattoos, and very punchable faces. He'd need to distract them. Something loud. Something big.
He smirked.
Sneaking around the side, Adam spotted a small metal shed—probably used for tools or storage. Perfect. He crouched beside it, taking a breath. Focus. He closed his eyes and reached inside himself, to the warmth of the arcane Morgana taught him to feel. It was like grabbing a spark in the dark. A flicker. An ember. His fingers tingled.
Then—flames.
They danced in his hands, swirling like tiny serpents made of heat. He grinned and gently lobbed the fireball at the shed.
It exploded into flames instantly.
The fire roared to life, and within seconds, the guards were screaming and running toward it, yelling for help, grabbing extinguishers, losing their minds.
Adam ducked into a nearby alley and giggled. "Works every time."
Channeling magic into his legs, he felt the rush—power surging through him like a shot of espresso straight to the soul. He dashed forward, fast as hell, sliding under the gate and into the warehouse. He stayed low, hearing footsteps approach. Without a second thought, he melted into the shadows.
A small figure passed him.
Wait… was that a kid?
Yeah, definitely a kid. No more than twelve. He pushed a cart loaded with canisters. Shimmer canisters.
"…Is this 'bring your kid to work day' for drug dealers?" Adam whispered, baffled.
He followed the boy quietly down a sloped hallway, deeper into the warehouse. The air grew thicker, more toxic. A chemical haze clung to the walls. Then, they entered a massive underground chamber. Adam froze.
Dozens of kids. Ages ten to maybe fourteen. All of them working.
Some stirred vats of glowing liquid. Others carried canisters or poured powder into machines. Each wore a gas mask. They looked dead on their feet—eyes dull, movements robotic.
Above them, on the metal rafters, a group of older gang members lounged with drinks in hand, laughing and joking like they were watching a comedy show. Their weapons were the same types Silco's gang used—glow-etched rifles, jagged machetes,bats with nails on them.
Adam's fists clenched.
Child labor. These bastards were using kids.
He narrowed his eyes, pulled his bow from his back, and selected a special arrow. Morgana had taught him about runes, but he'd found a little something extra—when he messed up a protection rune and pumped it full of magic, it blew up. And not just a little.
A big-ass boom.
He'd made a few of those mistakes-on-purpose.
Adam notched the rune arrow as it started to glow electricity running through it, aimed at the pillar holding up the gang's rafter lounge, and let it fly. The arrow whistled through the air—
BOOM!
The explosion shook the chamber. The rafter tilted violently, throwing gang members off like ragdolls. Screams erupted. Chaos.
He stepped from the shadows.
"Hey, uh… you kids are free now. Go live your lives or something."
The kids all turned to look at him. Confused. Scared. Silent.
Then they pulled out knives. Clubs. One even had a wrench.
"…Huh?"
A ginger kid with a bowl cut stepped forward, scowling. "If we bring you to Silco, we'll probably get a bonus."
"…You little shits are paid!?" Adam yelled, backing up as they charged him. "I thought y'all were slaves!"
He narrowly dodged a knife swing. "I lit a building on fire for you!"
Another kid tried to stab him. He sidestepped. "I was gonna be your hero! Like Batman meets Robin!"
This was getting out of hand.
He summoned fire to his hands and let it swirl around him, glowing orange and red, the heat rising fast. His eyes burned with magic.
"All right, listen up you sugar-goblin demons! Leave. Or I make fried child nuggets. Your call."
They froze. Dropped their weapons. Ran screaming.
One of them—the ginger, of course—flipped him off and hit an alarm button before bolting.
Great.
Sirens blared. Lights flashed red.
"Course. There's always an alarm," Adam sighed, pulling out his sword. "And now…"
Dozens of armed guards stormed the room, weapons ready, shimmer already coursing through their veins. They looked high, strong, and insane.
He held up his sword, smirking. "You can leave now, and I'll only bruise you. Or… we can fight, and I ruin your week."
They laughed.
"Okay. Your call."
Adam shot forward, magic enhancing every muscle. He zipped to the side, delivering a brutal kick to one guy's ribs, launching him into another. He moved like a blur, dodging swings, flipping over a baton, smacking the back of a guy's head with the blunt end of his sword.
He wasn't going for kills. These guys might've had shit pasts. Maybe Silco pulled them out of the gutter with promises of food and respect. Adam knew how tempting that kind of deal was.
So he went easy. Kind of.
Just concussions. Broken bones. One guy probably had a dislocated jaw now. He'd live.
Probably.
Adam wiped sweat from his brow, planting several rune-marked arrows around the shimmer vats, ready to blow the place sky-high.
Then he heard it.
Thud.
Thud.
THUD.
A massive shape lumbered into view.
"What now?" Adam groaned, turning.
It was huge. Eight feet tall, maybe more. One arm was grotesquely massive, dragging on the floor, muscles twisted and purple. The other was tiny—normal human-sized, like it hadn't grown with the rest of the body. Its face was hidden by a metal mask, tubes snaking from it into its back, pumping shimmer nonstop.
Its eyes glowed purple.
Its skin had the shimmer glow.
"Awesome. It's Bane's retarded cousin."
The thing let out a guttural roar, slamming its huge fist into the ground hard enough to crack concrete.
Adam took a step back.
"All right… boss fight time."
He tightened his grip on his sword, fire flickering at his fingertips, heart racing.
"…Let's dance, ugly."
Absolutely! Here's the continuation of your chapter, keeping the tone, humor, inner thoughts, and cinematic style intact:
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The beast charged.
Adam barely had time to curse before it lunged at him like a freight train on crack. He ducked, rolled to the side, and felt the shockwave of the monster's foot slamming into the ground behind him. Concrete cracked like glass, sending dust and debris flying in all directions.
"Okay!" Adam shouted, gripping his sword tight. "Guess talking it out isn't on the table. Good to know."
He ran in, sword glowing faintly with magic as he channeled his energy into a powerful strike. He aimed for the beast's chest and swung, the blade cutting into its thick, purplish skin—only to get lodged halfway in.
"…Shit."
The monster roared in his face, shimmer-fueled rage boiling out of its mask's vents. Its breath smelled like chemicals, blood, and death. Adam planted a foot on its chest and yanked hard, but the blade didn't budge.
"You're not even that muscular, you ugly Shrek-ass Bane reject," he grunted.
The creature raised its massive arm and swatted him like a fly. Adam flew through the air, bounced off a crate, and groaned as he hit the ground.
He spit blood. "Okay… that one actually hurt."
He saw his sword still sticking out of the monster's chest and knew he wasn't going to win this the normal way.
"Fine," he muttered, pushing himself to his feet, "we'll do this the anime way."
He sprinted, magic crackling into his legs as he zoomed around behind the monster. His fingers ignited with flame as he boosted his speed again. He slid under its next swing and came up behind it.
"Attack on Titan style, baby!" he shouted, slashing across the backs of its heels. His smaller blade sliced through flesh and tendon. The beast let out a distorted scream and collapsed onto one knee, shaking the warehouse with the impact.
"Thought you'd like that," Adam panted, then immediately went to work.
He leapt up onto the creature's back, using its spine like a ramp. The smaller arm flailed uselessly while the large one tried to grab him. Adam was too fast. With another surge of magic into his legs, he launched high into the air, above the monster's head.
He raised his hand, magic glowing and swirling into his muscles, feeding his strength. Then, with a yell, he dropped down like a meteor.
His feet slammed into the creature's shoulders, and in one swift, brutal motion, he gripped the hilt of his sword, still stuck in its chest—and drove it upward, right into its skull.
The blade punched through bone with a sickening crack. The creature spasmed violently, letting out one last pained roar before its body went limp and collapsed with a ground-shaking thud.
Adam stood on top of its twitching corpse, panting heavily.
"Holy crap," he muttered, blood dripping from his lip. "I just beat the shit out of a shimmer-fueled mutant like I was fucking Levi. That was sick."
He hopped down from the body, grabbing his sword and yanking it out with a wet squelch. He gave it a shake, sending chunks of shimmer-corrupted flesh and blood flying off.
"Poor bastard you were probably a person once with a family or a piece of shit who finally got the consequences of his actions either way hope you rest in peace"Adam said patting the giant corpse,it wasn't weird to feel sympathy for the fallen he didn't like to kill but he knew it was necessary at times like now.
Then he turned to the vats.
There were four massive ones, filled to the brim with the swirling, toxic purple liquid. Each one bubbled like a cauldron from hell. He didn't know how much shimmer this was, but judging by the industrial setup, it had to be enough to keep half of Zaun high for months.
He pulled out his knife and approached the first vat.
"I've never done this to anything bigger than an arrow head don't know how this is gonna turn out b let's make some noise."
He carved the unstable rune—his own special magic bomb symbol—deep into the side of the metal. The glowing lines sizzled with magic as he poured his energy into it. He felt it hum beneath his fingertips.
One down.
He sprinted to the second, then the third. Same process. Carve, charge, move. His breathing was rough now. He'd used a lot of magic today. His muscles ached. His head pounded.
But this?
This was worth it.
He got to the last vat and carved the rune faster this time, less clean, more reckless. The magic sparked and sizzled dangerously.
"Okay. That's definitely unstable as hell. Time to go."
He turned on his heel and sprinted, magic pouring into his legs again. His body screamed in protest, but he pushed harder, faster, darting through the underground corridors of the warehouse, dodging broken machinery and collapsed catwalks.
As he burst out the side door into the cold Zaun night, he dove into the nearest alley and turned to look back.
For a moment… nothing.
"What the hell did it not wor-
Then—
BOOM.
The explosion lit up the sky. The warehouse went up in a blast of purple fire and smoke, the shimmer igniting in an eruption of corrupted arcane energy. The shockwave knocked him back, and he hit the wall with a grunt.
He sat there, breathing heavily, watching the flames rise higher.
The entire block probably heard that.
Silco sure as hell would.
"Hope that wakes you up, asshole," Adam muttered, dragging himself to his feet.
"Jesus I need a break,I still need to find an inn or something to stay at I wonder if they got a bed and breakfast around here I could go for some pancakes after all that".
Sirens were already starting to blare in the distance. Lights flickered on in the buildings around him. Someone screamed. Others shouted. Zaun was reacting.
Good.
He pulled his hood up and started walking away from the flames, blending into the shadows like he was never there.
"I'm so freaking cool"