The emergency headlights of the armored truck cast sharp, glaring reflections across the rippling surface of the anomaly forcefield dome at the far end of the central district bridge. Golden-purple energy flared brightly, sealing off every exit route toward the western sector with an invisible wall humming at a high-frequency pitch.

"Damn it! The bridge route is totally locked down by a dimensional shield!" Roni shouted, slamming his palms against the steering wheel in mounting frustration. He twisted back to look at Zulfa and Naya. "Engineer, we're boxed in! This vehicle physically cannot punch through that energy wall!"

Zulfa sprang down from the driver's cab instantly, followed closely by Naya. Outside the truck, the night air felt punishingly hot and heavy with the acrid reek of ozone.

"Don't panic, Roni. Stay inside the cab and protect the civilians in the back," Zulfa ordered firmly, his voice steady despite his pounding heart. He whipped open his tactical pack, hauling out a portable soldering kit and Aether-Tech hybrid circuit components. "Naya, fetch the frequency decoder module from the small pouch on the left. We have to crack this shield's wave pattern right now!"

Naya reached into the pack immediately, handing over the requested components with slightly trembling hands. "Zul, that shield isn't a standard military barrier. Its energy waves are tied directly to the cosmic anomaly rhythm from the central tower. We've got almost no time!"

"I know," Zulfa replied swiftly, dropping to his knees upon the cracked bridge asphalt. He clicked his mini soldering torch to life. Sizzzt—a tiny spark flared, illuminating his sweat-slicked face.

Yet before Zulfa's solder tip could meet the main circuit board, the atmosphere across the bridge erupted into a sea of fire.

Bzzzt—Rat-tat-tat-tat!

"Take cover! Enemy approach from the west side of the road!" Roni shrieked hysterically from behind the truck door.

From behind the shadows of the commercial blocks at the bridge's edge, dozens of corporate mutant troopers and aerial combat drones materialized in unison, unleashing a relentless barrage of plasma fire toward the evacuation truck.

Bang! Bang!

Energy rounds slammed into the truck's chassis and the pavement all around Zulfa, kicking up stone shards and blinding sparks.

Suddenly, from behind the truck, a deeply familiar roar of return fire tore through the night.

Rat-tat-tat-trak!

Boom!

"Don't let them near the Engineer! Hold your ground!" shouted a commanding, authoritative baritone over the smoke-choked line.

Zulfa and Naya gasped, spinning around in unison. Led by Captain Danu—whose ribs remained severely injured and whose clothes were caked in blood and soot, yet stood tall behind a concrete barricade—the small band of remaining resistance fighters had rushed in to provide crucial covering fire.

"Captain Danu?! You... you survived the hideout's collapse?!" Zulfa cried out in disbelief, watching Danu spit plasma rounds from his rifle toward the enemy drones.

Danu wiped blood from his temple with a cynical smirk, dropping two low-flying drones. "You think I'm that easy to kill, Engineer?! Just focus on your job opening the road; leave these street pests to us!"

"Thank you, Captain!" Zulfa replied, a surge of renewed fire re-igniting in his veins.

He dipped his head back down to the decoder circuit board resting in his lap. Beneath an intensifying rain of enemy plasma fire, Zulfa plunged into a high-stakes race against time, soldering circuitry under direct fire.

Zulfa's hands moved with blistering speed yet absolute precision. Cold sweat poured in sheets down his brow and into his eyes, blurring his vision. Before him, the Aether-Tech cable junctions had to be fused with the memory crystal core so the interceptor device could mimic the anomaly dome's resonant frequency.

"Zul, watch your right!" Naya screamed suddenly, hurling an electromagnetic grenade toward the bridge sidewalk as two mutant troopers scrambled forward in a leap.

BARRR-GH!

The grenade blast grounded the mutants, but the shockwave nearly knocked Zulfa off balance. His soldering tip nearly slipped off the primary circuit component.

"Focus, Zulfa... focus..." Zulfa muttered to himself, drawing a deep breath to steady his racing heartbeat. He fused the final wire onto the circuit board, then wired the decoder device straight into the anomaly dome scanner cable near the bridge railing.

Bzzzt—bzzzt!

The compact screen on the decoder device flickered wildly, dragging scanning percentage metrics upward at a agonizingly slow crawl amid the deafening roar of gunfire: 70%... 85%... 95%...!

"Just a little more!" Naya shrieked frantically, dumping her remaining rifle ammo into an incoming enemy drone diving from above.

At the far end of the bridge, the corporate heavy artillery unit commanded by the mutant commander began training the barrels of their massive plasma cannons straight at the evacuation truck. The heavy artillery's charging hum vibrated violently through the air, signaling the arrival of the final, decisive seconds.

"All units, attention! Their heavy cannon is charging!" Captain Danu warned his troops. "Hold them off another second!"

Right as Zulfa's decoder device screen flashed a brilliant green displaying the prompt "FREQUENCY SYNCHRONIZED - OPENING GATE," the enemy heavy artillery battery thundered with cataclysmic fury.

KABOOOOM!

A colossal plasma energy sphere tore straight through the air, zeroing in directly on Zulfa and Naya's position.

With lightning speed, a fraction of a second before the enemy artillery strike wiped out their position, Zulfa slammed the primary execution button on the decoder device.

WHOOSH—CLANG!

The device engaged to perfection. The anomaly forcefield dome before them parted a ten-meter gap, casting a brilliant blue luminescence that sucked the plasma explosion straight into its dimensional vortex.

"The gate's open! Drive the truck, Roni!" Zulfa bellowed at the top of his lungs, wrapping an arm around Naya to vault back up into the truck cab.

Roni stomped the accelerator to the floor. The armored truck surged hard through the slowly closing anomaly dome gap, escaping safely toward the city's core zone while leaving the enemy artillery blast to smash against empty air on the bridge behind them.