The steam locomotive screeched to a halt in mid-air, barely a second before plunging into the Gear Station—wrenched back by the raw force of Ravenna's newly grown arm of purple-gold.
In the metallic shriek of twisting steel, the three of them tumbled onto a platform veined with steam pipes. In the instant before his body hit the ground, Raine's vision caught the truth—
The entire Gear Station was built in an inverted-pyramid structure. Spiraling down each tier were Abyss Constructs: half-machine, half-flesh abominations pouring out of ventilation shafts, the energy cores in their chests pulsing in sync with the shadow swallowing the moon above.
"Welcome to the slaughterhouse." Ravenna spat blood, the purple-gold patterns on her new arm flowing like living circuitry. Within her chest, the heart she had reclaimed beat at an unnatural rhythm—each pulse making the surrounding metal tremble.
The infant's condition was worse. The mechanical pupil inside the skull-shaped brand on his chest had fully opened. Black-green beams swept uncontrollably across the walls, and wherever they touched, gears spun into a frenzy—awakening dormant auto-turrets that immediately swiveled to aim.
"He's unconsciously controlling the machinery!" Raine scooped the infant up, forcing his four energies into a Null-Field to block the signal. His emerald left eye scanned the surroundings, then pointed down—three hundred meters below lay the Core Furnace Chamber.
"The purification device is there, but—"
The station shook violently. Above them, the reinforced glass dome shattered. Moonlight poured in like a searchlight, and within that beam, countless metallic particles began to coalesce—They took shape as a three-meter-tall humanoid frame: Abyss Executor · Omega.
One of the High Council's most lethal war machines had finally arrived. Its torso was forged from dark alloy, its joints leaking a green liquid like blood. Its face bore no features save for a single mechanical eye that consumed half its head, the rotating pupil inscribed with the same locking sigil as the infant's chest.
"Primary Vessel," it said, voice like the grind of a thousand gears. "Commence return sequence."
Omega raised its hand and unleashed Entropy Directive. A lance of black-green energy pierced three layers of steel in a single breath. Raine shoved his companions aside, raising Frostwhisper. The dark-red shield of Inverse Dragonscale met the beam head-on—The impact hurled him more than ten meters through the air!
"Raine!" Ravenna drove her purple-gold arm into the floor, using Alchemic Anchor to halt her slide. She leapt to aid him—Only for four Neural Chains to whip from the shadows and spear through her limbs!
"Life Key," Omega's eye rotated. "Extraction initiated."
The chains flared with vampiric runes, and blinding purple light burst from Ravenna's chest. At the very instant the energy was about to be ripped away—
Thwack!
A silver-blue arrow shot in from the side, slamming into Omega's eye. In the shattered vent shaft stood Erika—only her upper body remained, crystal left eye shattered, yet she still smiled as she drew the bowstring with her teeth.
Green energy fluid sprayed from Omega's wound, but the metal quickly began to knit. The machine turned its cold gaze toward the vent, raising its other hand—
"No!!" Ravenna tore free of the chains, her purple-gold arm shifting into an Alchemic Whip that lashed around Omega's forearm. For a heartbeat, the two forces locked—And Raine's Frostwhisper came screaming down from above.
"Tri-Phase Slash: Breaker of Steel!"
Emerald, silver-blue, and dark-red swordlight twined into a spiraling drill that drove into Omega's chest. For the first time, the Executor roared in pain, its body exploding into a storm of intricate parts—only for the fragments to whirl together again, forming dozens of Killer Gears that swarmed toward them!
A warhammer came hurtling from the smoke, its Runic Storm shattering half the gears. Bloodied but unbowed, old Ironbeard staggered into view, his mechanical eye destroyed, laughing.
"Dwarves do more than forge steel!"
Strapped to his chest was a metal box ticking down—the miniature core of the Terminus Forge.
"Take the Primary and go!" Ironbeard snatched the infant from Raine and shoved him back. "The furnace chamber password is the Goldbeard family's birthday!"
Omega's mechanical pupil contracted violently. "Self-destruct protocol detected—"
Its warning was drowned by the explosion. Ironbeard tackled the Executor into the abyss, his voice echoing in the blaze with the last of the dwarven war-song.
Raine seized Ravenna and bolted down the descent shaft. Behind them, the entire platform collapsed, while moonlight streamed through the smoke—
Projecting upon the ground the horrific image of the mechanical world-tree above the Glass City ruins… now with fully-formed facial features.
The passage to the Core Furnace Chamber was like the gut of some titanic beast, the walls lined with pulsing metallic veins.
Ravenna tore open her collar as she ran, the purple-gold heart hammering harder and harder. "This damned heart… it's sucking in all the surrounding mechanical energy…"
Gear-shaped lines surfaced under her skin, synchronizing with the infant's mechanical right half. Worse—every step toward the chamber made the skull-brand's beam burn hotter, scorching black marks into the ceiling.
"It's resisting purification," Raine's emerald eye saw the truth. "The machine consciousness is fighting for control."
At the end of the corridor stood a massive circular gate carved with dwarven runes. Raine entered the code—
But the infant writhed violently, its beam tearing through three alchemic control panels. Desperate, Ravenna drove her purple-gold arm into the backup port, forcing a Manual Overload.
The gate cracked open—and from within spilled dozens of Iron-Eating Tentacles, their acid-dripping lengths clearly spawn of the Devourer.
Frostwhisper blazed with dragonfire, Crimson Waltz carving the limbs into fragments. Ravenna slipped through the gap, her purple-gold heart flaring—Every tentacle near her corroded into rust and dust in an instant.
"Guess I'm a machine-killer now?" she panted, only to see her fingertips turning to metal.
In the center of the furnace chamber loomed the Purification Furnace, twenty meters across—
But where the energy core should have been, there was only emptiness, broken conduits the sole evidence of a violent struggle.
"The keyhole…" Raine glanced from the infant's chest to Ravenna's heart. "The Council already took the activation core."
The chamber shook again. The ceiling ruptured, and Omega's mangled upper half crashed down. Its mechanical eye locked onto the infant.
"Error… must… be corrected…"
Ravenna's purple-gold arm stabbed toward her own heart against her will. "It's controlling me!"
In that split second, Raine set the infant into the furnace's core cradle. All four of his energies poured into Frostwhisper—
"Covenant of the End – Quadra Release!"
The blade dissolved into emerald vines, silver-blue ice, dark-red dragonfire, and deep-violet curses—four shackles that bound Omega in place. Raine seized Ravenna's hand and pressed it to the infant's chest.
"Now!"
The purple-gold heart and the infant's lock flared in unison. The child screamed in an inhuman voice, the mechanical lines of its right half clashing violently with the light-particles of its left. The furnace recognized the key, and from its depths erupted emerald Flames of Purification.
Omega writhed in the fire, fear flickering in its eye for the first time.
"No… Mother requires the vessel…"
Before it melted away, it projected one last hologram—
The mechanical world-tree above the Glass City ruins had fully awakened. It tore open the earth, revealing the truth buried for millennia: twelve metalized ancient roots entwined into a throne, and upon that throne sat a boy identical to the infant.
The boy opened his mechanical green eyes and whispered—
"I'm home."
When the flames died, the Gear Station was already collapsing.
The skull-brand on the infant's chest had shrunk to the size of a coin. The mechanical lines faded from most of its body. Ravenna's heart beat normally again—
But the metal creeping along her arm had reached her shoulder.
"Temporary purification," Raine said, cradling the weakened child. "The Devourer's true body is awake. We have to—"
From the depths of the corridor came the familiar sound of turning gears. Hundreds of Regenerative Constructs poured in from all sides, their bodies disassembling and reassembling endlessly—fragments of Omega's lingering code.
Ravenna ripped off her belt to bind her metalized arm. "I'll hold them. You take the brat and run!"
"Not this time." Raine's gaze dropped to the glow in her chest. "You're the new Life Seed vessel. The Devourer will hunt you first."
The crumbling wall split, spilling moonlight. Raine kicked the breach open—
Beyond was the vertical outer wall of the Gear Station, and three hundred meters below, the glow of the fungal swamp.
"Do you trust me?" he asked, one arm cradling the child, the other extended to her.
The thief bared her bloodstained teeth in a grin. "Died more than once already."
They leapt into the night sky just as the constructs burst through the gate. Moonlight blazed over them. Behind Raine, the four energies formed a makeshift glider, while Ravenna's purple-gold heart resonated with the infant's lock, leaving a trail of light through their descent.
The glowing mats of the swamp mushrooms caught them. Raine barely had time to breathe—
Before the infant in his arms began to change again. The skull-brand's beam pointed east—toward a second metalized Guardian waking from its slumber.
Farther still, across the horizon, the mechanical world-tree blotted out the heavens. With each step, a city crumbled beneath the thunder of its gears.
Ravenna's metalized fist struck the fungal mat. "So… the next stop?"
Raine wiped the green energy fluid from Frostwhisper, the three sigil-patterns flowing silently along his arm.
"To end this," he said.