Zarek drove the motorcycle like it was an extension of himself, topping out at speeds of 40 miles an hour despite the congestion on the freeway.
He could feel that Priya was holding onto him pretty tight. She definitely wanted to complain about the speed, but this was a necessary evil.
No one would expect him to be going at this sort of pace. One wrong move, a single wrong turn, and they would probably die.
This was why he had chosen to wear a helmet instead of being too big to use one.
But he was also quite confident in himself as well.
Scouting Skills, much like Talents, often had unique secondary and tertiary effects that would normally take many years to bear out. But Zarek had the benefit of knowing all of them already.
Sensing the Godsfall Droplet location in Turned was just one of the extra secondary benefits of his C-Class Scouting Skill. Another that was an extension of this was amplified senses in general.
A feeling of muscle-mind connection, a fluidity of thought from what one saw with their eyes and how their bodies reacted to that stimulus…
That was the true benefit of a C-Class Scouting Skill.
Of course, these benefits were very muted compared to what one could get from a Skill or Talent that actually focused on this. But if you had the experience, you could squeeze that fruit for all the juice it was worth.
"Hold on tight," Zarek called out over the howling winds.
Priya was already doing so, but she tightened her grip further.
Zarek leaned back and the front wheel kicked up quickly, slamming down even faster. The back tire skidded as they leapt onto the body of a car.
The feeling of Priya burying her cheek into his back hard seemed to make Zarek focus all the more.
By this point on the freeway, the somewhat bridge-like feel it was giving off had become a very real one. Up ahead, there was a wide river it crossed over, curving and crisscrossing highways forming loops around it.
There was no direct path to these that didn't require taking detours that would have cost them quite a few minutes. So Zarek just chose to skip out over them all.
The roof of the car beneath them thickly collapsed, but Zarek had already sent the motorcycle flying off the side of the freeway.
They free-fell from above, crashing down toward another congested highway of cars.
BANG!
The suspension of the motorcycle whined and groaned, the wheels skidding in protest as it almost flailed out of Zarek's control. But his core flexed, his arms becoming akin to steel-laced vipers.
He leaned the motorcycle to the left and then took a hard right, just barely swerving out of the way of the back of a tall, white truck.
Kicking the vehicle into high gear, he sped off, shooting even faster than they had come.
'Good luck finding us now.'
**
"Alright, we'll get off here. Are you okay?" Zarek asked over two hours later.
"No. No, I am not okay. Did you just want to see how close we could come to death?" Priya pouted.
"Well, we're alive, aren't we?" Zarek grinned.
Priya rolled her eyes. "You better take me somewhere I can take a shower soon. Otherwise…" her voice trailed off as she realized she didn't have a good threat to use.
"Otherwise you'll make me smell you?" Zarek finished for her. "Don't worry, I'll still love you even if you're a little stinky."
"Zarek!" Priya protested, then quickly buried her nose into her shirt to see if she was starting to give off something less than savory.
Zarek could only laugh at her antics. "Come on. We're headed into the city now. We'll need to keep our heads on a swivel."
Unlike the situation near the school, this place… it was like Zarek's own backyard.
Regardless of the life, he always ended up here first. He knew all the powers in the region and knew of the exact situation of the Godsfall Tear in this region as well.
The Tear would be opening up tomorrow, or in about twelve hours from now, in a not-so-good part of the city.
Zarek had always been stubborn and hard-headed, as Priya liked to put it. When the Godsfall Apocalypse first began, he found the idea of putting his life in the hands of the government ridiculous, so he had found his own way at the first opportunity.
This metropolitan area had the mayor's mansion, but the government officials were no longer here, having retreated to a region that was more easily defensible and with a much lower population density.
A military base.
Because of that, the main city had become a free-for-all of corporate elites, random standouts, and gangs that all happened to have the same goals as the young Zarek.
Regardless of the life, Zarek had managed to make his mark in this place. He didn't believe that this time would be any different.
Stepping into the city with Priya by his side, he spotted Locus Tower in the distance. Its peak was almost like a pair of glass blades facing one another, and there was a pulse of red right at its center.
That pulse of red was a Godsfall Tear that had already been closed to the public, and it was the very same Godsfall Tear that Zarek had entered and claimed success in every time.
Right now, though, that Skill he loved so much had instead become bait. While all the powerhouses he was used to facing were distracted by it, he would kindly enter the Godsfall Tear they always ignored.
Usually, it was ignored by coincidence, only because his favorite Godsfall Tear always appeared first. But who was he to complain? He would just bully a few small fry first before staking his claim on his city again.
However, when Zarek stepped foot into the city, his eyes narrowed.
He had known it before, but he could already sense that getting his second and third Talents would be harder. Now he knew why he got that sense.
There was a shift in the timeline here.