The air inside the Titan-Works Factory didn't just smell like grease; it tasted like iron and despair.
Ravi and Lyra crouched on a narrow service catwalk, suspended fifty feet above the production floor. Below them, the world was a rhythmic nightmare of steam and screams. The massive conveyor belts didn't carry car parts or weapons. They carried people.
"Oh, gods..." Lyra whispered, her voice cracking. Her fingers gripped the railing so hard her knuckles turned white. "Ravi, look at them. They're still awake."
Ravi looked. His eyes, cold and analytical, traced the movement of a mechanical arm as it descended upon a screaming man. The man's leg was removed with surgical, heartless precision and replaced with a hissing brass piston. No anesthesia. No mercy.
[EMOTION DETECTED: HORROR / ANGER]
Ravi felt a flicker of heat in his chest—a rare spark of genuine rage. He had seen demons do terrible things in the Tower, but this was different. This was industrialized cruelty. This was a god-complex turned into a factory.
"Stay focused, Lyra," Ravi rasped, though his own jaw was tight. "If you fall apart now, Kael is just another part in the machine."
"The Architect is right," Musashi's voice hummed in his mind, sharp and biting. "Grieve for the dead later. Kill the butcher now."
They crept along the catwalk, moving toward the high-security holding cells. As they passed a massive support pillar, Ravi stopped. His eyes narrowed.
Scratched into the soot-covered steel was a small, unmistakable mark: [LVL 99 - HOME SOON].
Ravi's heart gave a violent thud. It wasn't the code; it was the hope in the message. Someone from Earth—someone powerful—had sat in this exact spot, dreaming of a home they would never see.
[EMOTION DETECTED: BITTERNESS / LONELINESS]
"They really do just discard us," Ravi muttered to himself. He felt a sudden, sharp kinship with the ghost who wrote that message. They weren't just players; they were the Admin's trash.
[CLANG!]
A spotlight, red as fresh blood, swung upward and locked onto them.
"INTRUDERS," a voice boomed—not from a speaker, but from a throat made of grinding gears.
From the shadows of the rafters, a massive silhouette dropped. The catwalk groaned under the weight of Foreman Gore. Seven feet of scarred flesh and brass plating, with four mechanical spider-legs twitching from his spine.
"Fresh meat!" Gore roared, his metal jaw clicking. "Commander Vane needs a new set of lungs for the morning shift!"
Gore cracked a whip made of red-hot, glowing chain. The heat singed Ravi's face even from ten feet away.
"Lyra, go!" Ravi commanded, his voice a low growl. "Sector 4. If I don't see you in ten minutes, I'm burning this whole floor down with you in it!"
"Ravi, wait—!"
"GO!"
Lyra scrambled down the emergency ladder, Bit zooming after her with a worried beep-whirrr.
Gore laughed, a sound like glass breaking. "She can't hide! My drones will find her! But you... I'm going to enjoy breaking a 'Knight' who can't even hold a proper sword."
Ravi drew the Shadow Fang. The black dagger vibrated with Musashi's killing intent.
[BATTLE INITIATED: FOREMAN GORE]
"I'm not a Knight," Ravi said, his eyes turning a predatory blue. "I'm the guy who's going to turn your spine into scrap metal."
Gore lashed out. The chain-whip snapped through the air, melting the metal railing where Ravi had been standing a microsecond before.
Ravi moved like a shadow. [Flash Step]. He appeared at Gore's side, slashing at the man's ribs. CLANG. The dagger sparked against reinforced mesh armor hidden under the skin.
"Flesh is a failure, boy!" Gore swung a massive, meat-hook fist.
Ravi took the hit to his forearm to protect his head. [HP: 85/110] The force was immense. Ravi felt a bone hairline-fracture. The pain was sharp, hot, and grounding. Instead of fear, Ravi felt a surge of Malice.
"He is top-heavy," Musashi whispered. "Look at the walkway."
Ravi ducked under another whip strike. He didn't attack Gore. He stabbed the Shadow Fang into the Steam Valve directly beneath Gore's heavy, multi-legged stance.
"What are you doing, rat?!" Gore lunged, his spider-legs stabbing downward.
"Engineering," Ravi grunted.
He twisted the dagger. The valve shattered. High-pressure steam, hot enough to melt skin, erupted directly into Gore's face and the joints of his mechanical legs.
"ARGH! MY EYES! THE SENSORS ARE BLIND!"
Gore stumbled, his heavy spider-legs slipping on the wet, vibrating metal. Ravi didn't give him a second to breathe. He leaped onto Gore's back, grabbing the red-hot chain whip that was still wrapped around the Foreman's arm.
[EMOTION: COLD FURY]
Ravi looped the burning chain around Gore's own throat. "You liked the smell of burning flesh?" Ravi whispered into Gore's ear. "How does yours smell?"
Ravi pulled. The heat seared his own palms, but he didn't let go. Gore thrashed, his spider-legs tearing into the catwalk, but the metal was already weakened by the steam. With a final, agonizing groan, the entire section of the catwalk gave way.
Ravi kicked off, landing on a stable ledge. Gore, blinded and strangled by his own weapon, plummeted into the Industrial Meat Grinder below.
CRUNCH. SCREECH. SILENCE.
[ENEMY DEFEATED: +1500 XP] [LEVEL UP! LEVEL: 8]
Ravi stood at the edge, looking down at the red mist. He didn't feel happy. He felt Vindicated. He wiped a streak of blood from his cheek.
"One down," he breathed.
Suddenly, the red lights in the factory stopped spinning. They turned a solid, terrifying gold. The conveyor belts stopped. The screaming stopped.
"FOREMAN GORE WAS ALWAYS... INEFFICIENT," a calm, terrifying voice echoed through the chamber.
Ravi looked up. High above, on a gold-plated balcony, stood Commander Vane. He looked down at Ravi with the eyes of a scientist looking at a bug under a microscope. The Titan Heart in his chest glowed with a rhythmic, pulsing blue light.
"But you," Vane said, his voice echoing with a touch of genuine Interest. "You have the scent of the High-Admin's mistakes. You're a Player, aren't you?"
Vane leaped from the balcony, his Golden Armor hissing. He landed on the factory floor, the impact cracking the concrete.
"I haven't dissected a Player in years," Vane smiled. It was a look of pure, academic Cruelty. "They always have such interesting code inside."
[WARNING: LEVEL 25 BOSS ENCOUNTER] [CHANCE OF SURVIVAL: 2%]