The Volcanic Wastes of Sector 3 were a landscape of ash and fire.
The ground here was cracked, revealing veins of flowing magma beneath the rock. The air smelled of sulfur and burning metal. In the center of the wasteland sat Titan 03: The Magma Strider.
The massive, lizard-like Titan was curled around the Foundry—a massive industrial complex built during the Emperor's early reign to process Aether-Steel.
But the Imperial flags were gone.
In their place hung banners made of rusted sheet metal, painted with a crude white symbol: A Broken Gear.
"They mimic your mark," Lyra said, lowering her binoculars. She stood with Julian, Skid, Zephyr, and Isolde on a ridge overlooking the facility.
"It's a cargo cult," Julian muttered. He looked at the guards patrolling the perimeter.
They wore long, tattered trench coats—imitating Julian's style. Many of them had wrapped their left arms in foil or scrap metal, pretending to have cybernetics. Some had even scarred their own faces to match Julian's old wounds.
"The Sons of Vane," Skid read the intel. "Leader: A former Undercity preacher named Cinder. He preaches that the 'Conductor' will return to burn the world down so it can be reborn in Rust."
"I didn't say burn it," Julian adjusted the collar of his coat. "I said fix it."
"They don't know the difference," Zephyr said. "Fire is a tricky god."
"Let's go teach them," Julian walked down the ridge.
The False Prophet
They approached the main gate. The heat was oppressive. Julian's mechanical steel hand was hot to the touch.
"Halt!" A guard shouted. He aimed a jagged, homemade flamethrower. "This is holy ground! Only the Rust-Born may enter!"
Julian didn't stop. He walked straight up to the flamethrower.
"I need the forge," Julian said calmly.
"You look like a cosplayer," the guard sneered, eyeing Julian's plain steel hand. "We get ten of you a day. 'Oh, I'm the Conductor, look at my coat.' Get lost before I melt your face."
Julian sighed.
He looked at the flamethrower. It was a crude design—a pressurized tank and a pilot light.
Julian reached out with his flesh hand and pinched the fuel line.
He didn't squeeze it shut. He thrummed it. He flicked the rubber hose, sending a vibration up the line into the tank.
Resonance frequency of pressurized methane.
Inside the tank, the gas expanded violently.
POP.
The safety valve blew off the tank, spraying gas into the guard's face. The guard screamed, dropping the weapon as it sputtered and died.
Julian stepped over the weapon.
"Open the gate."
The other guards stared. They recognized the move. Not magic. Not tech. Just pure, arrogant physics.
"It's him," one whispered.
The gates creaked open.
The Sermon
The inner courtyard of the Foundry was a cathedral of industry. The massive blast furnaces were lit, casting long, dancing shadows.
In the center, standing on a pile of scrap metal, was Cinder.
He was a thin, wired man with wild eyes. He had actually cut off his own left arm and replaced it with a jagged, unpowered piece of construction equipment. It hung uselessly at his side, a symbol of devotion.
"The world is a machine!" Cinder shouted to his followers. "And the machine is broken! We do not fix it! We grind the gears! We embrace the entropy!"
"Wrong," a voice cut through the sermon.
The crowd turned. Julian Vane walked through the parting sea of fanatics.
Cinder looked down from his scrap-heap throne. His eyes widened, then narrowed.
"An imposter," Cinder declared. "The Conductor is ten feet tall! He breathes fire! You are just a man with a distinct lack of Aether."
"I'm the guy who killed the Emperor," Julian said, climbing the scrap pile. "And I need my kitchen back."
"This is the Temple of Rust!" Cinder screamed, drawing a jagged sword. "We serve the Chaos!"
"Rust isn't chaos," Julian said, stopping three steps below him. "Rust is oxidation. It's a chemical reaction. It's natural. It's slow. And it's inevitable."
He looked at Cinder's useless, mutilated arm.
"And it doesn't require self-mutilation. It requires endurance."
Cinder roared and swung his sword.
Julian didn't dodge. He caught the blade with his cheap steel hand.
CLANG.
The steel dented, but held.
Julian twisted his wrist. The cheap sword snapped.
Julian grabbed Cinder by the collar and threw him off the pile. Cinder tumbled down, landing at the feet of his followers.
"Class dismissed," Julian announced. "Everyone out. Except the engineers."
The Casting
The fanatics fled, terrified by the reality of their god. Only a few stayed—the ones who actually knew how to work the machines.
"Isolde," Julian pointed to the main crucible. "Prep the mold."
Isolde ran to the controls. "What are we making? A hand? A claw?"
"An Anchor," Julian said.
He opened the crate. The Anchor-Stone sat there, black and heavy. It seemed to drink the light of the furnace.
"It won't melt," a Foundry worker warned, stepping forward nervously. "That's Star-Metal from the core. The blast furnace only hits 2,000 degrees. That rock needs 5,000."
"I know," Julian said.
He walked to the edge of the platform. The Foundry was built directly under the head of Titan 03.
Julian looked up at the massive obsidian lizard. Its eyes were closed, dormant.
Wake up, ugly, Julian projected a thought. I brought you a snack.
The ground shook.
Titan 03 opened its orange, glowing eyes. It looked down at Julian. It remembered him. The one who conducted the symphony.
The Titan opened its maw.
A stream of Primal Magma—white-hot, infused with Aether—poured from the Titan's mouth into the central crucible.
"Heat shielding!" Isolde yelled, diving behind a wall.
The temperature in the room spiked to unbearable levels. The Anchor-Stone in the crucible didn't just melt; it hissed, releasing a sound like a screaming choir.
It turned into a thick, black liquid that defied gravity, swirling slowly in the pot.
"Pour it!" Julian yelled, stripping off his shirt. He sat in the medical chair Isolde had set up. His stump was exposed.
"Julian," Lyra warned. "That's not sterile."
"It's going to cauterize," Julian gritted his teeth. "Do it."
Isolde manipulated the robotic arm. The crucible tipped.
The black liquid metal poured into the arm-mold clamped around Julian's shoulder.
The Bonding
HISSSSSSS.
The sound of the liquid metal touching Julian's flesh was horrific.
Julian screamed.
It wasn't just heat. It was Weight.
The Anchor-Stone wasn't just metal; it was the material used to hold the planet together. It had the gravitational density of a neutron star shard.
He felt it bonding to his bone. Fusing with his nervous system.
It didn't feel like the nanites. The nanites felt like electric bees—buzzing, fast, light.
This felt like the ocean. Deep. Crushing. Silent.
The metal cooled rapidly, hardening into a matte black finish. It didn't look high-tech. It looked ancient. It looked like a gauntlet worn by a dead king.
No lights. No servos. Just segmented plates of absolute darkness.
Julian slumped forward, gasping. Steam rose from his shoulder.
"Is he dead?" Zephyr whispered.
Julian moved his left shoulder.
The arm moved.
It moved slowly, with a heavy, hydraulic sound. TH-THUNK.
Julian lifted the hand. He clenched the fist.
The air around the fist distorted. Light bent.
"Gravity," Skid read the sensors. "The arm... it generates its own gravitational field. It's heavy."
Julian stood up. He listed to the left, unbalanced by the weight.
"It feels like I'm carrying a tank," Julian muttered.
He looked at a massive anvil sitting in the corner—a solid block of iron weighing two tons.
He walked over to it. He didn't grab it.
He simply held his hand over it.
Come.
He channeled his will into the black arm.
GRAVITY WELL.
The anvil flew across the room and slapped into his palm with a deafening CLANG.
He held the two-ton weight with one hand, his arm not even shaking.
"It doesn't vibrate," Julian realized. "It stops vibration. It's the Anchor."
He dropped the anvil. It cracked the concrete floor.
"It works," Julian turned to the team.
He looked at the open gate of the Foundry.
"Now we go back to the Spire. And we lock the door."