The cellar still pulsed with the aftershocks of battle—walls blackened from gas-fire, shattered plating of the Chitinbound Horror scattered like seashells across the stone. Noah stood hunched, breath heavy, the titanium-scandium hammer drooping in his grip. Emily wiped sweat and soot from her face, her Element Fusionist core still faintly glowing under her skin.
The system's chime was sharp and triumphant, ringing in their skulls.
[Combat Sequence Complete]
[Enemies Defeated: Vorren (Lv. 11) / Chitinbound Horror (Lv. 13)]
[Level Up!]
[Noah Reed: Lv. 12]
[Emily Cross: Lv. 12]
Golden numerals flared, and their HUDs updated with a satisfying flood of stat growth.
[Updated Stats – Noah Reed]
Strength: 18.6 → 30.6 (+12)
Intelligence: 12.6 → 16.6 (+4)
Dexterity: 15.6 → 25.6 (+10)
Charisma: 15.6 → 18.6 (+3)
Wisdom: 11.6 → 15.6 (+4)
Constitution: 13.6 → 22.6 (+9)
Skills Gained: Titan's Impact, Heavy Weapon Mastery II, Shockwave Slam
SUPs Available: 4
[Updated Stats – Emily Cross]
Strength: 12.6 → 18.6 (+6)
Intelligence: 20.6 → 35.6 (+15)
Dexterity: 15.6 → 23.6 (+8)
Charisma: 23.6 → 30.6 (+7)
Wisdom: 11.6 → 17.6 (+6)
Constitution: 11.6 → 17.6 (+6)
Skills Gained: Gas Manipulation II, Precision Alloycraft, Element Fusionist: Tier 2
SUPs Available: 5
...
Emily blinked at the flood of numbers. "We just… jumped a whole decade in power."
Noah smirked and gave the hammer an idle twirl. "I'm good with that. Means I can break bigger things."
They stepped over the cooling corpse of the Horror, toward the pedestal. The mithril ingot gleamed there—perfect, unblemished, impossibly pure. Emily reached out—
[New Metal Added to Periodic Table: Mithril — Atomic Number: 119]
[Properties Logged: Ultra-high tensile strength, self-repair capability, zero oxidation]
The hum in her mind was instant, a storm of alloy blueprints and weapons only she could make.
Noah glanced at her. "Well?"
"Worth every second."
The floor shuddered—boots striking stone in perfect unison. Shadows spilled into the chamber. Twelve figures in matte black armor emerged from the far archway, visors glowing crimson.
The leader stepped forward, his voice low and sharp. "Step away from the ingot."
Emily's hand tightened on it. "And if we don't?"
His visor tilted. "Then you'll join the bodies cooling behind you."
Two soldiers shifted the heavy, cloth-covered crate they carried—chains clinking underneath. Whatever was inside… was alive.
Noah rested the hammer on his shoulder. "Guess we're not done yet."
The crate landed with a dull thud, chains rattling as the two armored soldiers backed away.
The leader's visor flickered red — a signal.
One of his men yanked the tarp free.
Inside, crouched in the half-dark, was a thing made of steel and sinew — like a wolf stripped to its skeleton and rebuilt with machinery.
Twin reactor-lights burned where its eyes should have been, and its jaw was lined with overlapping rows of alloy teeth.
Emily's system flared:
[Target: Alloy Predator — Lv. 14]
[Warning: Adaptive Plating. Physical and elemental resistance increases after each hit.]
The predator's head snapped up, locking onto the mithril in her arms.
It surged forward with a hiss of hydraulics—
Noah met it mid-charge.
One swing of the titanium–scandium hammer cracked the stone underfoot, the shockwave throwing dust into the air.
The blow caught the predator square in the side, sending it skidding across the floor in a blur of sparks.
Emily didn't waste the opening. She reached into her elemental list — calcium for a blinding flash, titanium for cutting edges — then fused them mid-motion into a hail of white-hot flechettes.
They peppered the flanking soldiers, ricocheting off armor and forcing them to scatter.
The leader's voice cut through the chaos.
"Engage. Retrieve the ingot."
The soldiers moved as one — four rushing Noah, four circling toward Emily.
Noah's boosted Strength turned the fight into a one-man demolition. Each swing sent men staggering, armor denting like tin under a sledge. His new Shockwave Slam sent a ripple of force across the floor, knocking two clean off their feet.
Emily fought like a storm with intent — flowing between solid and gas, her alloys shifting faster than the soldiers could adapt. When one tried to pin her, she vented a superheated chlorine burst into his faceplate, forcing him to rip it off coughing.
The predator recovered, adaptive plating already darkening, and leapt again — this time straight for Emily's throat.
She spun the mithril behind her and conjured a titanium carbide spike in her palm — black, needle-sharp, and dense enough to punch through its armor.
She drove it into the thing's chest with a grunt, the alloy squealing under the pressure.
Noah was there an instant later — hammer arcing down.
The impact turned the predator's torso into a cratered ruin, coolant spraying across the stone.
The leader didn't flinch. Instead, he tapped the side of his helmet, and somewhere above, a deeper rumble began to build — mechanical, heavy, and getting closer.
Emily met Noah's eyes over the din.
"Round two's about to start."
The rumble overhead deepened into a metallic growl. Dust sifted down from the rafters in lazy spirals, and the chains on the empty crate swayed with each tremor.
Noah hefted the titanium–scandium hammer onto his shoulder.
"That's not boots. That's—"
The ceiling buckled.
A slab of concrete sheared free, smashing into the floor in a cloud of grit and rebar.
Through the new breach, something massive dropped.
It landed on all fours, denting the flagstones beneath its weight. Eight feet at the shoulder, its frame was plated in overlapping armor segments the color of gunmetal ash. A segmented tail curled high behind it, tipped with a spade-shaped hydraulic crusher.
Emily's system screamed:
[Target: Siege Breaker Unit — Lv. 15]
[Subclassification: Modular Warbeast]
[Primary Threat: Armor Shell — Resistive Matrix unknown.]
The thing's red optical sensors flickered once, scanning the room. Then it emitted a short, percussive thunk—and the plates on its flanks irised open to reveal racks of stubby launch tubes.
"Move!" Emily yelled.
The first salvo tore the floor apart in a spray of shrapnel. Noah grabbed her by the collar, hauling her behind an overturned auction table as a steel dart embedded itself where she'd been standing a heartbeat earlier.
Soldiers regrouped behind the monster, their leader keeping the mithril in his sights.
"Take them alive," he barked. "The ingot stays intact."
Emily's mind was already sprinting. Titanium carbide might pierce its shell—but not without a setup. And every second they stayed pinned, the soldiers would close in.
Her gaze darted to Noah. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
He grinned despite the hail of gunfire. "Hit the legs, break the shell."
The Siege Breaker surged forward, tail smashing aside the debris shielding them.
Noah rolled under the strike, hammer swinging in a tight arc. The blow connected with the creature's knee joint—a dull thud instead of a shattering crack.
"Armor's too thick!" Noah yelled.
Emily's fingers twitched. She conjured a lattice of titanium carbide spikes, fusing them into a jagged wheel around the joint. "Not if we wedge it first!"
Noah slammed the hammer down onto her makeshift trap. The shockwave drove the spikes deeper, and this time the Siege Breaker roared—a metallic bellow as servos seized and sparks sprayed from the damaged limb.
The soldiers tried to close the gap, but Emily whipped around, venting a pressurized blast of superheated chlorine gas to force them back. Their visors fogged instantly, optics sputtering.
The Siege Breaker reared up to crush Noah beneath its good leg—
—and Emily hurled a second lattice, this one shaped like a caltrop and aimed at its throat joint. "Noah! Now!"
He didn't hesitate. One leap, one overhand swing, and the titanium–scandium hammer came down with enough force to crater the stone beneath them. The joint collapsed, armor plates springing loose under the blow.
The beast toppled sideways with a screech of metal on stone, crushing two soldiers beneath its bulk.
Emily's system flickered with damage readouts, but the unit's threat icon stayed stubbornly red.
It was still alive.
From inside the shattered armor, something moved.
The Siege Breaker's chassis shuddered once… then split.
Armor plates peeled outward like flower petals under a welding torch, glowing faintly from internal heat. Hydraulic fluid and coolant hissed into steam, rolling across the floor in curling green vapors.
Noah stepped back, tightening his grip on the hammer.
"Uh… Emily?"
Something rose from the wreckage.
It wasn't a machine—not anymore. The inner frame was wrapped in a membrane of translucent chitin, pulsing faintly with every breath. Where pistons had been, now there were cords of living muscle fused to metal braces. A dozen eyes studded its skull like polished amber, and its limbs bent wrong, like a mantis spliced with an engine.
Emily's system flashed warnings in rapid succession:
[Target: Hybrid Chitinbound Horror — Lv. 16]
[Adaptive Hybrid: Biological/Mechanical]
[Note: Thermal, chemical, and kinetic resistances are mutating.]
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
The Horror's segmented jaw opened, spraying a fan of acidic mist across the floor. Stone bubbled and hissed where it landed, the air filling with a sharp, burning stench.
The surviving soldiers didn't look relieved that the creature was on their side—they looked terrified.
Their leader took a step back. "Containment is compromised. All units, disengage—"
Too late. The Horror's forelimb lashed out like a spear, skewering him through the chestplate and pinning him to the wall. The mithril ingot tumbled from his grasp, clanging onto the floor between Noah and Emily.
For one heartbeat, they both stared at it.
Then Emily's eyes went wide. "I've got an idea. Titanium plus scandium wasn't enough? Let's add density."
Her hands blurred, pulling the two metals from her storage, fusing them mid-air into a heavier, denser head—perfectly balanced and shaped into a warhammer with brutal, clean lines. The handle gleamed silver; the head shimmered with a deep, stormy sheen.
She tossed it to Noah. "Hit it so hard its grandchildren feel it."
Noah caught it, the weapon thrumming in his grip like a live wire. His Strength stat sang in his veins—this was made for him.
"Round three," he growled.
The Horror crouched, plates shifting, muscles winding like steel cables.
Noah charged.
The hammer's first impact was cataclysmic—stone fractured outward in a spiderweb pattern, and the Horror's outer plating warped under the force. But it didn't fall; its body flexed, absorbing the blow like a living shock absorber.
Emily shifted tactics. She funneled chlorine gas into its face, then followed with a flash-freeze of liquid nitrogen to make the chitin brittle. Cracks spread like lightning bolts across its surface.
"Noah—NOW!"
The hammer swung again, and this time the head struck home with the force of an avalanche. Chitin exploded, steel bent, and the Horror let out a piercing shriek that rattled the air.
It stumbled, one leg gone, acid spraying wildly across the walls.
And still—it crawled forward.
The Horror lunged again—half-crawling, half-sliding—its remaining limbs pistoning with unnatural power.
Noah didn't back up. He roared and charged, hammer poised high. The new titanium–scandium head gleamed under the flicker of reactor-light, every ounce of its impossible density humming through his grip.
Emily moved with him, her fingers a blur as she cycled elements like a pianist running scales. Hydrogen for ignition, oxygen for burn, chlorine for corrosion—each release layered the Horror in a shimmering haze of volatile death.
Noah's hammer struck first—
—CRACK—
The force tore through the Horror's front plate, the impact denting deep into the inner carapace. The creature screamed, flailing, as Emily seized the opening. She vented the gas mix and snapped her fingers.
The world went white.
A thunderclap rolled through the hall as the chemical cocktail ignited in a brutal chain reaction. Chitin shattered, steel warped, and the Horror was blown backward into the wall hard enough to crater the stone.
It twitched once… twice… then slumped, reactor-lights guttering out.
Noah exhaled, steam curling from his mouth in the sudden silence. His HUD pinged:
[Strength: +4.0]
[New Skill Unlocked: Colossus Impact — Convert momentum into double-force strikes at point of contact.]
Emily staggered, catching her breath. "You're welcome."
Noah grinned through the sweat. "Oh, I was just warming up."
A slow, deliberate clap echoed from the shadows.
The surviving soldiers had regrouped, their formation tighter now. The one at the front—armor burnished black with crimson trim—tilted his head. "Impressive. You've taken down one of our 'imports.'"
Emily's eyes narrowed. "Imports?"
The leader's voice was smooth, almost casual. "You've seen the rain before—the so-called meteoroid showers. They are not stone. They are deliveries. Countless machines, dormant, waiting to be claimed." He glanced at the Horror's corpse. "This was merely one of the smaller ones."
Emily's breath caught. Her brain ran the math, chemistry, and logic in a blur. "Wait—are you telling me…" She shook her head in disbelief. "So… even things can get Isekai'd?"
The leader's smile was thin. "The skies send gifts to those willing to take them. We simply got there first."
Boots shifted on stone. Guns leveled.
Noah hefted his hammer, the mithril ingot still gleaming behind him.
Emily flexed her fingers, eyes hard.
The leader raised his hand.
"Now… let's see if you're ready for the bigger ones."