Lyn clutched her battered ledger with a death grip, her scream barely audible over the roaring protest of the overloaded steam engine.
The Land Crawler Mk.I was hurtling down the winding mountain path of the Shattered Spine at a suicidal velocity.
In the rearview mirror, I could see the massive, makeshift metal sled we were towing. The five-ton Aether-Geode was lashed to the center, surrounded by dozens of rescued slaves. They had tied themselves to the crate and the sled's guardrails like sardines, emitting a collective shriek of terror with every violent jolt of the chassis.
It was like a runaway heavy-duty tractor dragging a refugee-laden lifeboat, drifting along the edge of a literal abyss.
Up in the cloud layer, the radar screen flickered with dozens of red dots closing in fast. The Storm Clan’s Griffin Legion was descending like a localized storm front.
“Forget the brakes! Worry about the bird-men!”
I wrestled with the steering wheel, sweat pouring down my face. The severe overload made the center of gravity dangerously unpredictable; every turn felt like a tug-of-war with the Grim Reaper.
Shhh-pow!
An enchanted lance whistled through the air, piercing the wooden planking at the edge of the sled, mere centimeters from an orc slave’s thigh.
“They’re targeting the passengers!” Zayla leaned out of the rear window, her throwing knives blurring into a rain of silver. She precisely severed the wing ligaments of several low-flying griffins. “Alex! Stabilize the vehicle! One bad bump and people are going to start falling off!”
“I’m trying! But the Big Boss is here!”
The clouds parted.
A Silver-Winged Griffin King, twice the size of its peers, dived through the mist. Mounted on its back was the same Knight Captain who had purchased my soap earlier. He had clearly realized he’d been played; even from fifty meters away, I could feel the heat of his humiliation and Bloodlust.
I couldn't hear his commands, but I saw his signal—he was directing his squad to attack the tow cable.
A dozen riders immediately shifted tactics. They stopped harassing the armored cab and flanked the sides, brandishing blades as they dived toward the taut, vibrating lifeline connecting the Land Crawler Mk.I to the sled.
“Want to cut my cable? Not on my watch!”
I glanced at the heavy crate in the mirror, then at the system-calculated slope and wind speed. A localized physics model coalesced in my mind.
“Lyn! Get to the back! Climb the cable and get to that crate!”
“What?!” Lyn’s tail stood straight up in terror. “There are griffins everywhere! And it’s full of people!”
“Unlock the runic locks on the crate!” I slammed the handbrake, forcing the truck into a high-angle lateral drift to dodge a volley of dives. “Listen! Once that core is exposed, it creates a massive anti-gravity field. It won’t be a five-ton rock anymore—it’ll be...”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“...a five-ton hydrogen balloon.”
Lyn was terrified, but her trust in my logic outweighed her fear. In the mirror, I saw her scramble out of the window like a nimble squirrel, crawling along the swaying steel cable toward the crowded sled.
“Cover her!” Zayla roared, her twin daggers forming a silver barrier that deflected every arrow aimed at the fox-girl.
I watched Lyn flatten herself against the jolting crate, surrounded by the horrified faces of the slaves. With trembling hands, she pulled out a universal wrench and smashed it against the glowing red runic lock.
“Open... DAMN YOU!”
CRACK!
As the lock shattered, the heavy lid of the metal crate buckled and flew open. A visible geyser of high-purity purple Aether energy erupted into the sky. The air distorted instantly. The once-leaden metal crate, the sled, and the dozens of people on it suddenly lost their mass, surging upward into the air.
“WAAAAAAAGH!”
Through the cabin window, I heard the shrieks of the slaves change pitch. They realized they weren't just escaping; they were flying.
“Hold on tight! Don’t let go!”
The rear of the truck felt suddenly weightless. The drag of the heavy sled was replaced by a massive upward lift. The Land Crawler’s rear wheels actually left the ground for a split second.
“Now, class is in session! Lesson one: Weaponized Centrifugal Force!”
I yanked the steering wheel hard.
The Land Crawler Mk.I performed a massive, unscientific "Tail-Whip" on the mountain path. The floating, weightless sled—tethered by the long steel cable—was swung in a giant arc by the vehicle's momentum.
It was no longer a burden. It had become a five-meter-wide, passenger-laden, floating wrecking ball.
“WATCH OUT—!”
The Griffin Riders didn't even have time to register what was happening. They only saw the sled, which should have been on the ground, suddenly soar into their flight path like a giant flyswatter.
THUMP! SMASH! CRACK!
It was a catastrophic aerial collision. The lead griffins were turned into paste by the massive metal crate. The sled continued its sweep with terrifying kinetic energy, acting like a bowling ball achieving a perfect strike, scattering the pursuit formation into the abyss.
Even the Knight Captain was nearly flipped by the resulting turbulence, his griffin spiraling a dozen times before he barely regained control.
The slaves on the sled were dizzy and battered, but seeing the arrogant knights swatted away like flies, they let out a wild, guttural cheer.
“Whoa...” Brad’s jaw dropped in the turret. “Boss, what do you call that? ‘Sky-Trolling’?”
“I call it the Kinetic Application of Centrifugal Load.”
I wrestled the vehicle back into alignment. With the sled acting as a balloon, the Land Crawler Mk.I was accelerating at a rate the engine could never achieve on its own.
“We’re not done! The road is out!” Zayla screamed.
A hundred meters ahead, the mountain path ended abruptly where the previous landslide had occurred. A thirty-meter-wide chasm of empty air stood between us and the next ledge.
“We can't stop!” Lyn cried out from the top of the glowing box, her voice whipping in the wind.
“We don't need to stop.” I floored the accelerator, staring down the gap. “We have the world's best parachute behind us! FULL THROTTLE!”
The Land Crawler Mk.I roared as it reached the cliff’s edge. For a heartbeat, as we left the ground, my heart climbed into my throat. But the predicted plummet didn't happen.
The Aether-Geode behind us acted like a massive buoy, the cable pulling the chassis upward and slowing our descent. The truck looked like a gondola hanging beneath a chaotic purple balloon, miraculously gliding through the air.
“We’re... we’re flying?!” Brad shouted, watching the clouds whip past the window.
“It’s gliding,” I corrected him, micro-adjusting the steering to balance the center of mass. “Thank Archimedes. Thank the Law of Buoyancy.”
Our inertia carried us across the thirty-meter void. We slammed—hard, but safely—onto the mountain path on the far side.
BOOM!
The treads hit the dirt, kicking up a massive cloud of dust. The sled settled behind us, light as a feather. The pursuit was trapped on the other side, cut off by the missing road and decimated by our "kite."
I saw the Knight Captain hovering helplessly at the edge of the fracture, snapping his lance in half as he watched the smoke-spewing iron beast drive away into the distance.
I finally exhaled, collapsing against the driver’s seat.
“Everyone,” I said, removing my fogged-up glasses to wipe them, “Welcome to Skyreach Airlines' first... experimental flight.”
From the back of the cabin, I heard Zayla suppressing a dry heave. But as she looked back at the sled, seeing her kin traumatized but undeniably alive, her gaze softened.
“The experience was horrific...” the Queen whispered weakly, wiping her mouth. “But for their sake... I suppose I’ll allow it.”
Question of the Day: Now that Alex has 42 extra mouths to feed and a high-value Aether-Geode, what’s the next move?
(Click to choose)
?? A) The Humanitarian: Build a hidden settlement.
Result: Foundation. Use the geode to power a hidden base for the refugees. This turns the novel into a base-building LitRPG for a few chapters.
?? B) The Industrialist: Head back to Sky-City for trade.
Result: Profit & Diplomacy. Selling part of the stone could fund massive upgrades, but the Storm Clan will definitely be waiting for you at the gates.
?? C) The Warlord: Retrofit the truck into a Tank.
Result: The Engineer's Choice. Why run? Use the Aether energy to build a railgun. If they want the stone, they can come get it through six inches of reinforced steel.
Follow and Rate for more industrial madness!