The "Rust Jungle" was not a static place. It was alive, breathing with a tetanic, creaking rhythm.
The group advanced along a narrow path formed by crushed drainage pipes, surrounded by trees that were not made of wood, but of braided copper cables and corrugated metal sheets that mimicked the shape of giant ferns. Every few minutes, a valve hidden in the undergrowth would release a jet of pressurized steam, hot enough to flay a man in seconds.
Kael took point, using The Black Iron Tyrant not as a weapon, but as an icebreaker. With every step, he pushed aside razor-wire vines with the flat of the blade, clearing a path for the soft-skinned humans trailing behind him.
The silence in the line was heavy. No one spoke. Javi's death and Kael's subsequent "cleaning" had left a stain on the air, thicker than the greenish smog covering the ground.
Marco, the ex-cop, walked with his teeth clenched, his dented riot shield raised and his knuckles white. He stared at Kael's wide, greyish back with a mixture of hatred and absolute dependence. He hated the giant, but he knew that without him, they would have been fertilizer for the biomechanical wolves miles back.
"We're walking in circles," whispered Bea, the surviving civilian girl. Her voice trembled. She clutched a kitchen knife against her chest as if it were a crucifix. "Everything looks the same. Iron and rust."
"Not circles," Elena said from the rear guard. Her tone was calm, professional. "We are following the mana current. The density increases to the north. That's where the Gatekeeper is."
"And what if the Gatekeeper is like that giant gorilla you talked about?" asked Lucas, the teenager. His baseball bat, stained with dried blood, tapped rhythmically against his leg. "What do we do then?"
Kael stopped. The entire group froze instantly, already conditioned to react to his movements.
Kael turned slowly. His violet eyes, glowing in the gloom of the floor, settled on the boy.
"If it's like the gorilla," Kael said with his deep, gravelly voice, "then Marco takes the hit. Sarah keeps him from bleeding out. Elena cuts the tendons. And you, kid, you try not to trip. If we manage that, we eat. If not, we die. It's a simple equation."
Marco took a step forward, his boots clanging on the pipe.
"Stop scaring the kid," Marco growled. "We aren't your soldiers, Kael. We are survivors. Javi died because you didn't give him a chance. I'm not letting you sacrifice anyone else."
Kael tilted his head, observing Marco like a scientist observing a lab rat showing unexpected aggression.
"Javi died because he was weak," Kael said, devoid of emotion. "And you are still alive because I am walking in front. If you want to lead, Marco, be my guest. Step to the front. Be the first to find the next trap."
He gestured with his hand, inviting the cop to pass.
Marco hesitated. He looked into the darkness of the path, where jagged shadows moved within the fog. He remembered the wolves. He lowered his gaze.
"That's what I thought," Kael said, turning back around. "Keep formation. And stay quiet. Something is tracking us."
The tension dissipated, replaced by renewed fear.
They continued for another twenty minutes until the pipe path ended abruptly.
They reached an abyss.
The floor disappeared, revealing a drop of hundreds of meters into a misty darkness from which rose the sounds of heavy machinery grinding something large.
To cross, there was a structure. A bridge.
But it wasn't a normal bridge. It was a gigantic spinal column, made of steel vertebrae the size of cars, linked by massive chains that swayed in the toxic wind of the Tower. The bridge was about a hundred meters long and connected their platform to a massive structure on the other side: a gothic refinery filled with smokestacks and red lights.
"The Bridge of Whispers," Elena read an inscription etched onto a corroded bronze plate at the bridge's entrance. "Sounds welcoming."
"It's the only way," Kael said.
He took the first step onto the first steel "vertebra." The structure groaned under his weight, but it held.
"One at a time," Kael ordered. "Don't bunch up. If the bridge gives way, I don't want to lose the whole team at once."
They began to cross. The wind at that height was fierce, tugging at their clothes and threatening to throw them into the void. Sarah, the doctor, sobbed silently, clutching the side chains so hard her fingers bled.
When Kael reached the middle of the bridge, his System sent him an alert. It wasn't a sound. It was a vibration in his reinforced bones.
[Hostility Detected: High.]
[Ambush Imminent.]
"Stop!" Kael roared.
Too late.
The "wind" changed. It wasn't air. It was sound. A high-pitched buzzing, like millions of amplified fly wings, surged from the abyss beneath the bridge.
From the green mist, they ascended.
They weren't birds. They were Swarm Drones. Small spheres of rusted metal with spinning blades and a single glowing red eye. They were the size of soccer balls, but there were hundreds of them.
[Enemy Identified: Scrap Swarm (Level 3).]
[Estimated Count: 200+.]
"Run!" Elena shouted, drawing her sword. "To the other side!"
The swarm descended upon them like a cloud of metallic locusts.
The drones didn't bite. They crashed. They were kinetic kamikazes. They threw themselves at the survivors, their propellers acting as circular saws.
"Back!" Marco shouted. He slammed his baton against his shield. "[Taunting Roar]!"
A red shockwave rippled from Marco. It worked. About thirty spheres that were diving for Sarah and Bea changed course, drawn by the threat of the loud noise, and slammed into him.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG.
The sound was deafening. The spheres bounced off Marco's shield, denting it, throwing sparks. Marco screamed with effort, his feet sliding on the metal bridge.
"I can't hold them all!" Marco yelled. "Lucas, help!"
The kid, terrified, swung his bat at an approaching sphere. PING. The drone flew off, dented but functional.
"They're too hard!" Lucas cried.
Kael was in the center of the bridge, surrounded by the bulk of the swarm. For him, this wasn't a fight. It was an annoyance.
His [Iron Skin] repelled the blades. He felt the cuts, annoying little scratches, but they didn't penetrate deep enough to draw blood.
"Flies," Kael grunted.
He lifted The Black Iron Tyrant. He couldn't make precise cuts here; he would slice the bridge chains and kill them all. He needed area denial.
He grabbed the sword by the very end of the handle and began to spin. A windmill of black death.
WHOOSH-CRASH-CRASH.
The Greatsword created a vortex of air. Every drone that touched the weapon was pulverized instantly, converted into a rain of nuts and wires. Kael advanced, a human meat grinder, clearing the path to the other side.
But the swarm was intelligent. Seeing that Kael was impenetrable, they changed targets.
A dozen drones linked together, hooking onto each other with magnets, forming a sort of giant floating fist. They ignored Kael and dove for the weakest link: Bea.
The girl was paralyzed in the middle of the bridge, frozen by fear.
"Bea, move!" Sarah screamed, trying to reach her.
The fist of drones slammed into Bea's chest.
There was no blood. Only the sound of ribs breaking and the girl's choked scream as she was launched into the air, over the safety chains.
She fell into the abyss. Her scream lasted three seconds before being swallowed by the mist and the sound of the machinery below.
"NO!" Lucas screamed.
Kael didn't even turn around. His eyes were fixed on the end of the bridge.
"Keep moving!" Kael ordered, his voice cutting through the panic. "If you stop to cry, you are next!"
They reached the end of the bridge, gasping, bleeding, and one fewer in number. They took shelter under the entrance arch of the refinery, where the drones seemed unwilling to follow. The swarm buzzed at the threshold, circled twice, and descended back into the abyss.
They were safe. Relatively.
Marco dropped to his knees, his shield destroyed, nearly split in half. Sarah was checking Lucas, who had a nasty gash on his forehead.
"Bea..." Lucas sobbed. "They pushed her. They just pushed her."
"It was panic," Elena said softly, sheathing her sword. She had a cut on her cheek, but she was calm. "She stood still. In the Tower, movement is life."
Marco stood up, red with rage, and confronted Kael.
"You could have saved her!" Marco accused, pointing at Kael's armored chest. "You were right there! You could have used that giant sword to block them!"
Kael stabbed the sword into the grate floor. He pulled a piece of drone shrapnel out of his shoulder. It didn't bleed; the wound was already closing.
"I was busy clearing the path so you, the doctor, and the kid didn't die," Kael said, his voice calm and dangerous. "Bea froze. She had no weapon discipline, no instinct. She stood still on a bridge under attack."
Kael took a step toward Marco, forcing the cop to step back.
"I saved three out of five. That is a good percentage for the First Floor. If you don't like my math, Marco, I suggest you get stronger and save people yourself instead of hiding behind my sword."
Marco clenched his fists, but said nothing. He knew Kael was right. And that was what hurt the most. His shield had broken stopping thirty drones. Kael had destroyed a hundred without breaking a sweat. The power gap was an abyss.
"Rest for two minutes," Kael said, turning his back on them to look into the refinery. "Sarah, patch the kid up. Marco, find another weapon, your shield is trash now."
While the group licked their wounds, Kael focused on the loot.
The bridge floor was covered in drone debris. Hundreds of pieces of scrap.
Kael crouched and placed his hand on a pile of wreckage.
Harvest.
[Consuming Swarm Drones.]
[Material: Low-grade Steel, Copper, Depleted Mana Batteries.]
[Biomass acquired: 0.5 units per drone.]
[Total recovered: 35 units.]
[Passive Skill Detected: {Swarm Vision}. Do you wish to assimilate?]
Kael blinked. Swarm Vision?
He accepted.
[Assimilation complete.]
[New Skill: 360º Perception (Rank 1).]
[Description: Your brain can now process peripheral visual signals with greater efficiency. Effective field of view increases to 200 degrees.]
Kael felt an itch behind his eyes. When he blinked, his peripheral vision expanded. He could see Elena to his left and Marco to his right without turning his head. It was disorienting, but incredibly useful.
He stood up.
"Let's go," he said. "We're close."
"Close to what?" Sarah asked, finishing Lucas's bandage.
"To the smell," Kael said, dilating his nostrils. "It smells of clean oil. And very, very concentrated blood."
They advanced into the refinery. The place was a cathedral of pipes. The ceiling was fifty meters high, lost in darkness.
In the center of the main hall, something was waiting.
It wasn't an organic monster. It was a machine.
A six-meter-tall automaton, humanoid but crude, made of cast iron and steam boilers. In its chest, a furnace burned with real fire, illuminating the hall with a hellish orange glow. It held a hammer in one hand and a chain with a hook in the other.
[Zone Boss (Sub-Leader): The Forge Sentinel.]
[Level: 8.]
[Type: Construct / Fire Elemental.]
[Status: Inactive (Awaiting Intruders).]
"Level 8," Elena whispered. "It's stronger than the Stalkers."
"And it's armored," Marco added, looking at the thickness of the golem's iron plates. "My baton won't even scratch it."
Kael smiled. The Black Iron Tyrant on his shoulder seemed to vibrate in response to the golem's fire.
"Marco," Kael said, keeping his eyes on the boss. "You're going to get your chance to be a hero."
"What?"
"That thing is slow. But it hits hard. I need you to get its attention. Make it chase you around the columns."
"You want me to be the bait for that six-meter thing?" Marco asked, pale.
"You have the voice for it. Use that shout you did on the bridge. Sarah, keep Marco moving. If he gets hit, fix him before he hits the ground. Elena, you go for the legs. Cut the hydraulic pipes in its knees."
"And you?" asked Lucas, gripping his bat with renewed strength.
Kael lowered the Greatsword, gripping it with both hands. His muscles tensed, the veins in his neck glowing under his grey skin.
"I'm going to put out that fire."
The Forge Sentinel detected the movement. Its furnace eyes lit up. It released a jet of steam and took a step forward, shaking the ground.
CLANK. BOOM.
"Now!" Kael shouted.
Marco ran to the left, banging his broken shield.
"Hey, trash can!" Marco shouted, his voice trembling but loud. "Over here! Look at me!"
The golem turned its square head toward Marco. The aggression worked. The monster roared, a sound of metal scraping metal, and charged at the cop.
The battle for the refinery had begun. And this time, Kael didn't plan to just survive. He planned to dominate.