Sato took his first steps into the ruined factory. Each stride that followed felt like a heavy, deliberate thud against the desolate earth. Ahead, the perimeter gate stood wide open, its broken, rusted railings telling a silent story of a forgotten era.
A story of abuse, slaughter, and unadulterated evil. Perhaps that dark history was exactly why this place had warped into an anomaly.
In the year 1853, a man named Richard Bradford had established this industrial complex. Built in England, the massive factory could accommodate thousands of workers at its peak. The company provided housing, medical care, and other basic commodities, operating essentially as a self-sustaining miniature city. But no one living there could have foreseen the horrors it would eventually unleash.
In the autumn of 1859, the factory—which was supposed to be processing and delivering meat, milk, and soy—abruptly ceased communication. It vanished from the public eye, leaving behind a scarred, barren landscape. The final medical reports received from the facility's doctors a month prior hinted at a spreading madness, and several physicians had already been reported missing by their families.
No one truly knew what happened on the night the factory went dark.
Now, a biting wind howled through the ruins, whipping grains of sand against the corroded corrugated metal sheets. The rhythmic, grating sound echoed across the wasteland. Sato stepped through the fractured entrance, disappearing into the pitch-black maw of the building, completely obscured from the view of the soldiers stationed outside.
On the ridge above, the soldiers' eyes tightened. They clutched their rifles closer to their chests, the tension thick in the air.
Suddenly, the heavy thrum of rotors broke the silence. A sleek, military helicopter approached them at high speed, banking sharply as it arrived. The cabin doors slid open with a metallic hiss to reveal Kaisha. A woman in her thirties dressed in a sharp, executive white suit jacket and a black skirt, her expression radiated absolute authority. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and the glare on her glasses gleamed with years of cold, hard experience.
"Black Bird approaching Lion, do you copy?" the pilot transmitted through the comms.
"We copy, Black Bird," the ground commander responded.
The chopper hovered directly above the squad, its powerful downwash churning the sand below into violent, circular ripples.
"Should we land, Miss Kaisha?" the pilot asked.
"No need."
Without hesitation, Kaisha stepped out of the open door, plunging into the empty air.
"Wind Magic: Gliding Winds."
A localized vortex erupted around her, instantly arresting her terminal velocity. Her descent slowed to a smooth, elegant drift, as if she were walking down an invisible staircase rather than free-falling.
Magic... actual magic. A green recruit in the squad stared upward, completely awestruck by the display.
Kaisha's heels touched the ground. She walked directly toward the squad leader, her eyes scanning the immediate perimeter before realizing a glaring absence.
"Hmm. Where is Silversword?"
"Uh, well, ma'am... it's like this..." The soldier nervously recounted the events of the last few minutes.
As the explanation finished, Kaisha closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "Is he serious?"
Fury burned white-hot beneath her calm exterior. She took a deep, grounding breath, exhaling a long, sharp sigh to steady her nerves. "Haa... well, since the Grey Executioner has decided to play judge and jury on his own, we wait for him."
BZZZ.
"Black Bird to Kaisha! Black Bird to Kaisha!" The pilot's voice erupted through her earpiece, entirely stripping away the calm demeanor he had possessed moments ago. The very hands of the man flying the chopper were now trembling on the flight stick.
"Yes, what is it, Black Bird?" Kaisha asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Ma'am... an apocalyptic-level anomaly is—" The pilot choked on his words before correcting himself in a panic. "Ma'am, an urgent tactical alert just came through from HQ!"
"What is it?"
****
Deep inside the factory, Sato was making his way through the labyrinthine concrete hallways. Pure, oppressive darkness swallowed the interior, suffocating what little daylight managed to pierce the cracked ceiling.
Swish...
Swish...
Something was dragging itself through the ventilation shafts above him, tracking his movements.
Clank... Clank... Clank...
The distinct sound of porcelain striking concrete echoed down the corridor, followed by an immediate, heavy silence. The darkness returned, absolute and unyielding.
Sato ventured deeper, navigating by sheer instinct until he reached the threshold of a massive, cavernous hall. He stopped. He could see absolutely nothing. It was just him, the dark, and the unknown.
A look of profound disappointment washed over Sato's face. He had expected to hunt a terrifying, high-tier anomaly; instead, all he got was silence. Infinite, boring silence.
Sato took a deep breath, grinned, and screamed into the void:
"HEY, YOU SONS OF BITCHES! YOUR GRANDPA IS HERE!"
CLANK! CLANK! CRACK!
Sato flicked the high-intensity tactical flashlight mounted on his waist. The blinding beam cut through the dark, instantly illuminating a grotesque entity. It was a doll made of cracked porcelain, fashioned to look like a young Victorian girl.
"Hello there," a distorted voice rasped from its hinges. "Do you want to die?"
The doll lunged, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of razor-sharp metallic teeth, its porcelain fingers sprouting jagged claws. It let out a guttural, unnatural screech: RAWG! RAWG! RAWG!
Sato didn't even flinch. Moving with practiced precision, his palm snapped forward. He caught the doll squarely by its leg mid-air and slammed it violently against the concrete floor.
Surprisingly, the porcelain didn't shatter. It didn't even crack.
"You didn't break?!" Sato whispered, his eyes widening. "YOU DIDN'T BREAK!"
A cynical, manic laugh erupted from his throat. In a blur of motion, Sato vanished from the doll's line of sight, reappearing a fraction of a second later right beside it. He crouched down, leaning in close to its face.
"Tell me, little toy... where are your brothers and sisters?"
Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank.
"Hello there,do you want to die ?"
The darkness began to hum. Out from the shadows marched thousands of porcelain dolls. Some resembled uniform-clad British King's Guards; others looked exactly like the feral girl, scuttling forward like a plague of mechanical rats. Their glowing, supernatural eyes flickered in the dark like a swarm of angry fireflies.
"Oh. There they are," Sato whispered, turning his head to look at the army. His grin stretched from ear to ear.
To any outside observer, the horde of monsters was terrifying. But in this room, compared to the look in Sato's eyes, he was the true anomaly. The mindless toys had no idea that the devil himself had just arrived to deliver their final judgment.
Sato stood up, completely merciless.
"Metal Kenisis."
Sato was an Esper, possessing the rare psychic ability to bend metal to his absolute whim—but telekinesis wasn't where his true terror lay.
Around him, the environment answered his call. Exposed iron pipes groaned and tore free from the walls; reinforced steel sheets ripped from the ceiling; bolts and screws tore out of the architecture. Even the internal metallic clockwork holding the dolls together began to warp and twist. But Sato didn't just want to eliminate his foes. He wanted to instill the absolute fear of death into them, even if they were inanimate objects.
"Metal Creation."
The hovering, shredded metal around him began to liquefy under the sheer force of his psychic energy. The molten alloy reshaped itself, cooling instantly into heavy, spiked gauntlets over his fists. This was Sato's true ultimate strength: the god-like ability to manipulate, alter, and manifest metal down to the atomic scale out of thin air.
Sato cracked his neck, lunging forward into the horde at inhuman, blinding speed, his metallic fists delivering a barrage of devastating, bone-shattering strikes.