The pain in Artur's leg was an anchor, chaining him to the brutal reality of his situation. Cornered at the base of the hydraulic press, he found himself locked in a deadly dance with the two remaining scouts. They were the embodiment of lethal efficiency, moving with a synergy that spoke of shared intelligence. One kept him busy with feints and rapid strikes while the other tried to flank, searching for an angle, an opening for a crippling blow.
He was at a disadvantage. Wounded. Trapped. His only edge was the environment itself. The maze of heavy machinery offered cover, but it also restricted him. There was no room for wide swings. Every strike had to be short, precise—and above all, decisive.
The scout that had survived his charge advanced again, claws scraping across the concrete floor. Artur braced the axe in both hands, body taut as wire. The creature lunged—but instead of aiming for him, it slashed at the axe handle with razor-shaped claws. A clear tactic. Disarm him.
A sharp crack of metal against wood split the air, sparks bursting outward. The shock tore through Artur's arms—but the axe held firm in his grip. The creature recoiled, glancing down at its own claws, almost startled.
Artur looked at the handle.
There was a scratch—but shallow. Superficial. Like a kitchen knife dragged across old oak. Any other wood would have split—or at least gouged deep.
Not walnut.
A memory surfaced through the fog of pain and adrenaline. Mr. Elias polishing that handle. Just minutes before the world vanished, Artur remembered staring at the axe on the table and hearing the old man's voice:
"…kiln-dried. Straight grain. You're not breaking this one, Artur. Not unless you're trying to knock down a building."
He had spent miserable hours in that town waiting for that handle. And now it had saved his life. It wasn't just wood. It was craftsmanship—sweat and focus pressed into form by a man who had spent his entire life doing this. A small fragment of his old world.
The second scout—the watcher that had descended from its perch—attacked from above. It launched itself off the side of the press, aiming straight for Artur's head.
There was no time to dodge.
He raised the axe instinctively to block.
The creature collided with the walnut handle at full force. The sound was a dull, sickening CRACK.
But it wasn't the handle that broke.
It was the creature's skull.
The monster hit the ground, limp.
Artur stared at the walnut grip, stunned. It should have shattered. That impact should have reduced it to splinters.
It was intact.
Untouched.
And then he understood.
An anomaly.
A flaw in the diseased matrix of this place.
The world around him—the concrete, the steel, the monsters' chitin—everything obeyed a set of twisted physical laws. Steel tore like paper. Concrete dissolved under acid. But wood—this wood, walnut—did not. It operated under a different set of rules. Earlier, he had watched a tree desiccate in seconds. Yet the walnut handle remained. Unaffected.
It was the only thing here, besides himself, that did not belong.
An artifact from another reality.
And for some reason, whatever system governed this place could not warp it. Could not break it.
The last scout, seeing its companion fall, shrieked in fury and lunged. But Artur was no longer on the defensive.
He stepped forward to meet it—not shielding the axe now, but wielding it as a bludgeon.
He blocked a claw strike with the handle, the sound of metal on wood echoing through the workshop. He pivoted and drove the handle into the creature's leg joint. Bone snapped.
The monster collapsed.
A single stroke of the blade silenced it forever.
Artur remained standing, breath ragged, amid the bodies of the scouts. He looked at the walnut handle of his axe with a new kind of reverence.
It wasn't just a tool.
It was an impossibility.
His only real advantage.
A small, stubborn fragment of his world that refused to bow to the laws of hell.
And it gave him an idea.