[HOST INTEGRITY: 23%]
[LOCATION: SECTOR 9 - THE STREETS]
[TIME: 08:45 AM]
It didn't have a name. The creators deep in the Alchemist Consortium's vats just called it Subject 0-Omega.
It didn't walk. It dragged itself.
A mountain of rotting muscle, necrotic fat, and bolted black iron tore through the narrow streets of the Undermarket. It stood three stories tall. It had no eyes, no nose. Just a jagged, vertical split down the center of its head filled with grinding, metallic teeth.
Thick, translucent tubes pierced its back, pumping glowing green industrial acid directly into an exposed mechanical heart bolted inside its open chest cavity.
Squish. Thud. Sizzle.
Every time its heavy, asymmetrical feet hit the asphalt, the ground boiled. The air around it turned toxic, thick with the stench of sulfur and scorched bone. Puddles of acidic rain vaporized instantly into green mist.
It was a Level 40 Abomination. A biological mistake.
Down the street, a dozen golden-eyed ghosts blocked its path. They were the awakened citizens—the same addicts who had torn down the Consortium's shops an hour ago. They held rusted pipes and chains.
They charged.
They didn't make it within twenty feet.
The ambient heat of the monster's rotting flesh hit them first. Their grey, translucent skin began to bubble. They didn't scream. They simply melted, their forms dissolving into streaks of white smoke.
Subject 0-Omega opened its vertical jaw and inhaled. It sucked the smoke into its lungs. The glowing green fluid in its tubes pulsed brighter. It grew an inch taller. It wanted more.
It turned its blind head toward the rusted chimney of the Last Stop Factory in the distance.
It smelled inventory.
[LOCATION: THE LAST STOP FACTORY - COURTYARD]
The ground shook.
A deep, rhythmic tremor vibrated through the mud of the courtyard. The reinforced steel gates of the factory groaned, bending inward under massive external pressure.
"Hold the line!"
Ye Lingshan stood at the front of the courtyard. She carried her unsheathed sword, Winter's Edge. A freezing blue mist bled from the steel, frosting the muddy ground around her boots.
Behind her stood five hundred Iron-Husked Myrmidons.
They didn't shift their weight. Five hundred matte-black iron bodies stood shoulder-to-shoulder, forming a solid wall of metal. Their golden eyes burned in the dim morning light.
CRASH.
The factory gates exploded inward. Shrapnel the size of car doors spun through the air, embedding deep into the concrete walls.
Through the dust and green mist, the Abomination emerged.
It roared—a wet, gurgling sound of gears grinding against wet meat. It lunged forward, ignoring Lingshan entirely, and slammed directly into the center of the Iron Legion.
The impact sounded like a train derailing.
Sparks showered the courtyard. The front row of the Iron-Ash Legion bent backward. Their heavy boots carved deep trenches into the mud, but they didn't fall. They locked their iron arms together.
The monster thrashed. It raised a massive fist—half rotting flesh, half rusted excavator claw—and brought it down.
CRUNCH
Tier-2 iron armor shattered like cheap glass. A Legionnaire was flattened into the mud. His golden eyes flickered out as the beast's acidic fluid melted his iron husk into grey sludge.
The Myrmidon next to him didn't flinch. He simply stepped sideways, filling the gap in the shield wall.
"Brace!" Lingshan shouted. She darted forward, slashing the monster's ankle. Her blade bit deep, but the wound instantly spit a spray of green acid that forced her to leap back. The frost on her blade hissed into steam.
The beast grabbed another iron soldier, lifting him into the air. The vertical jaw split open, biting the Myrmidon in half. Iron snapped. Boiling fluid sprayed over the Legion.
The wall was buckling. Extreme density was failing against extreme decay.
[LOCATION: REN'S OFFICE]
"Ren! We have to run!"
Jian gripped the edge of his desk, his eyes wide behind his glasses as he watched the security feed. "It's a Level 40! It's eating them! It just bit Red Dog's arm off! The iron is melting! We have to evacuate!"
Ren Wu sat in his chair.
He didn't panic. He just watched.
A thin line of black blood leaked from his left nostril. His Integrity was locked at 23%. A cold numbness crept up his neck, freezing his nerve endings. He couldn't step outside. He couldn't use the Heavy Hand. If he tried to force his physical authority right now, his soul would shatter like dropped glass.
He wiped the blood from his lip with his thumb.
"Calm down, Jian," Ren said. His voice was flat.
"Calm down?! It's going to breach the main door in thirty seconds!"
Ren opened the heavy desk drawer. He pulled out a massive, leather-bound book. The original blueprints to the Last Stop Factory. He laid it flat on the desk.
"It's not a monster, Jian," Ren whispered, his golden eyes locking onto the squirming, mutated beast on the screen. "It's inventory. And a factory doesn't run from raw material."
Ren picked up the Tiger Seal. The black jade felt freezing cold against his palm.
"It processes it."
Ren slammed the seal onto the center of the blueprint.
THUD
[LOCATION: THE COURTYARD]
The Abomination threw another broken, melting iron soldier into the mud. It raised its head, preparing to vomit a wave of stomach acid over the remaining ranks.
Then, the ground stopped shaking.
The factory woke up.
[SYSTEM ALERT: THE NINE-PILLARS OF PUNISHMENT - ONLINE]
All around the perimeter of the courtyard, nine towering, rusted smokestacks violently vented their pressure. But they didn't expel soot.
They erupted with roaring columns of blinding white fire.
The flames shot hundreds of feet into the acidic rain, burning so hot the sky above Sector 9 turned a sterile white. The nine pillars linked together, forming a geometric cage of light that sealed the courtyard off from the rest of the world.
Inside the cage, the physical laws of reality snapped.
This wasn't magic. It was a Soul-Grinder from the Ninth Era.
The sky turned to lead. A crushing, impossible physical weight slammed down on the courtyard. It wasn't gravity. It was the absolute weight of Judgment.
The Iron-Ash Legion, born of Ren's authority, felt nothing. They stood perfectly still.
But the Abomination felt it.
The beast froze mid-roar. Its massive knees buckled.
CRACK
The concrete beneath its feet shattered. The monster was forced to the ground, its belly slamming into the mud. It thrashed, its metallic claws tearing at the dirt, but it couldn't stand up. The weight was too immense.
The exposed, mechanical heart in its chest began to stutter. The heavy green fluid in the tubes slowed down, unable to pump against the crushing atmospheric pressure of the Nine Pillars.
It let out a low, wet whine. Chaos, pinned to the floor by order.
Static crackled over the factory's external loudspeakers. Ren's voice echoed through the courtyard, cold and hollow.
"Lingshan."
Lingshan looked up at the speaker.
"Dismantle it."
Lingshan stepped forward. The Iron Legion parted, making a path for her.
She walked toward the crushed, struggling mountain of flesh and iron. She didn't run. She didn't yell a battle cry. She was an executioner approaching a block of wood.
She raised Winter's Edge. She forced every drop of her Qi into the blade. The steel turned a deep, glowing blue. Frost crawled up her arms, freezing the rain before it could touch her skin. She lowered the temperature of the sword until the air around the metal cracked and snapped.
She reached the beast. Its vertical jaw snapped at her blindly, but it couldn't lift its head.
Lingshan stepped to the side, positioning herself right next to the beating mechanical heart.
She swung. One blue arc.
The freezing blade sliced through the thick, translucent tubes pumping the green fluid. The extreme cold instantly cauterized the cut, freezing the highly corrosive acid solid before it could spray onto her boots.
The tubes shattered like icicles.
The mechanical heart gave one final, violent jerk. Then, it stopped.
The beast let out a shuddering exhale. The rotting flesh immediately began to liquefy, losing its binding without the heart to sustain it. The bolted iron plates fell off, splashing into the mud.
Within seconds, the Level 40 boss collapsed into a massive, bubbling puddle of glowing green sludge.
Only the mechanical heart remained intact, resting in the center of the mess like a metallic boulder.
The blinding white fire of the Nine Pillars slowly died down, retreating back into the smokestacks.
The crushing pressure lifted from the courtyard. The acidic rain returned, sizzling gently as it hit the superheated concrete.
The heavy steel door to the factory opened.
Ren Wu walked out. He held a black umbrella over his head. His face was pale, his suit immaculate. He didn't look at the damage to the gates, or the broken bodies of the few Myrmidons who had fallen. He walked straight toward the glowing puddle of sludge.
Dr. Zhu floated out behind him, his mechanical eyes spinning so fast they blurred.
"Boss!" Dr. Zhu gasped, flying over the puddle and scanning it. "The density... the raw power! This isn't just acid. The beast consumed thousands of spirits. This is pure, unrefined soul-fuel! If we run this through the Grinders, we can extract enough power to repair your vessel!"
"No," Ren said.
He stood at the edge of the puddle, looking down at the dormant mechanical heart.
"My vessel requires Karma, Doctor. Not mutated meat." Ren pointed his umbrella at the puddle. "Drain the fluid. Use it to forge more Myrmidons. Replace the ones that fell today."
"Yes, Boss," Zhu nodded rapidly. "And the heart?"
Ren tilted his umbrella back, looking at the rusted, blood-stained metal of the massive pump. He smiled. It was a thin, cruel smile that didn't reach his golden eyes.
"Box the heart."
Jian stepped out into the courtyard, holding his tablet like a shield against the rain. "Box it? Ren, that thing weighs two tons. What are we going to do with it?"
Ren turned around and began walking back toward the factory.
"Clean it up. Put it in a wooden crate. Stamp it with the Ministry Seal."
Ren paused at the door, looking over his shoulder.
"We're going to mail it back to Section Chief Zhao. Cash on delivery."
[AUTHOR NOTE]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Consortium R&D: "Subject 0-Omega is an unstoppable apex predator!"
Ren Wu: "It's standing in a designated 'No Loitering' zone."
The Sky: Crushes the monster with the weight of extreme bureaucracy.
Next Chapter: The Delivery of Rust.
The monster is dead. The Sector is bleeding. Now, Ren secures the streets and sends a message to the Ivory Tower that Section Chief Zhao will never forget.
The Nine Pillars have awakened! Drop a Power Stone to fuel the Array! 🏛️🔥