"Ding—! Extreme emotional resonance detected. Logic Lock: Disengaged."
The phone in Lawson's pocket vibrated violently, erupting with a surging electronic melody as if playing a hymn for the awakening of an ancient deity.
[Armor Smith Exclusive Hidden Mission: ACCOMPLISHED!]
[Divine Artifact: Mercy Hammer of the Armor God — Fully Unlocked!]
[Core Protocol: Armor God-Exclusive Combat System — All Parameters Initialized!]
At that moment, a deep, warm golden light roared from Lawson's palm, weaving into complex ancient runes like liquid gold in the void. A vast, primordial aura swept across the field as a heavy hammer, engraved with the pattern of a cosmic forge, materialized from nothingness.
As Lawson's fingers gripped the handle, a heavy sense of destiny surged through his spine.
"—GET AWAY!!!"
The [Grace of the Armor God] that had been shielding him suddenly collapsed inward, then detonated into a blinding golden shockwave.
With a thunderous boom, the invincible battle-wolf and the looping Chieftain were blasted back dozens of meters by that holy ripple.
"George, rest. From here on... it's a 'family matter'."
Lawson handed the heavily wounded George to Victor, his voice terrifyingly calm. He turned, dragging the heavy divine hammer as he stepped forward. Without a single piece of armor on his body, brilliant divine light seeped from his every pore beneath his fluttering coat.
His sheer pressure completely overwhelmed the B-rank elite before him.
"Shadow Shifter! You wretched scrap of data... I won't let you trample her soul!"
"ROAARR!"
The reply was a mindless howl. The bloodthirsty halberd tore through the air, whistling down with the force of ten thousand tons.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Lawson's eyes burned like torches. Relying on the bone-deep intuition and muscle memory of a decade-long veteran, every strike of his hammer landed precisely on the mechanical fulcrum of the halberd.
This near-artistic display of "Parry" and "Interception" kept the horrific killing machine from getting even half a step closer.
Just as the Chieftain raised her halberd high, intending to use her entire weight for a lethal downward cleave, a brilliant command flashed across Lawson's retina:
[Dynamic Data Capture Complete — Leap Boost 300% Activated!]
"Fly."
Lawson's legs were enveloped in dense golden light, and the scorched earth beneath him shattered.
He became a rising golden meteor, propelled by a terrifying jumping power three times beyond normal logic.
An instant before the halberd hit the ground, he soared into the sky, looking down at the monster below!
"Ding—! Core parameters captured!"
The cold system prompt now sounded like the whisper of the Grim Reaper:
[Divine Artifact Calibration: Full Power Lock. Mercy Binding — Execute!]
At Lawson's will, the Mercy Hammer erupted with countless data chains flowing with golden runes. These chains ignored physical volume, piercing through the void to nail every joint of the Chieftain and her wolf firmly onto the battlefield's coordinate axes.
The once-frenzied Chieftain let out a desperate low growl. Her mountain-shattering strength was pathetic and powerless before the absolute law of "Value Reset to Zero." She could only struggle futilely like a twisted statue.
"Next... is harvest time."
Lawson stood proud in mid-air, his coat snapping in the wind, his eyes locked onto the target:
"Target identified: 30 degrees left of the head. Core armor thickness: Zero. Destruction confirmed!"
BOOM—!!
Lawson descended like a falling golden meteorite, screaming through the atmosphere. Seeing the shining hammer about to crush everything, the Shadow Shifter's survival instinct kicked in, forcing a single hand to block the core in the final 1.5 seconds.
"Too slow."
A cold arc curved on Lawson's lips. He didn't choose a rigid head-on collision. At the moment of impact, he precisely extended his toe, tapping lightly on the Chieftain's broad left shoulder.
[Kinetic Transfer — Secondary Recoil Release!]
Using that massive impact force, Lawson's body drew a graceful yet violent arc in the sky—a peak aerial spin that bypassed the obstructing giant palm.
"This... is the final 'Repair'!"
He charged his strength in mid-air. The Mercy Hammer, carrying the pressure to shatter space, bypassed the defenses and struck the glowing Shadow Shifter core at an impossibly sharp angle!
Victor, watching from afar, felt like he had been struck by lightning.
His jaw dropped so far he didn't even realize it was dislocated.
Before this, he had always thought armor smiths were just "logistics troops" who tinkered in workshops.
But Lawson's artistic parries, millisecond-precise interceptions, and micro-management that transcended all numerical stats had completely overturned his worldview.
"Does... does this world really need armor?" Victor looked at his own basic D-rank armor, his definition of "power" wavering for the first time.
"Stop dazing! Get over there... something's wrong with Lawson!"
George hissed through his teeth, ignoring the deep wound on his shoulder as he dragged Victor toward the center of the battlefield.
In his vision, the man who had just descended like a God of War was now kneeling silently in the ruins like a broken puppet.
When they reached the center of the smoke, the two twenty-year-old men froze in their tracks. Their eyes turned red instantly as hot tears welled up.
In the center of the rubble crushed by the divine hammer, the dark-red residue of the Shadow Shifter had vanished like mist.
Lawson knelt on the scorched earth, tightly clutching a frail woman in his arms.
With the destruction of the core, the hideous, hulking Brutes shell had peeled away, revealing the deepest hidden truth—it was Lawson's mother, her human face restored.
She wore a faded old apron, her pale face carrying the exhaustion of a long illness, a tragic trace of blood at the corner of her mouth.
Her eyes, once filled with killing intent, had finally lost their crimson glow. She looked at Lawson with trembling tenderness.
It was a momentary warmth, brought back from the brink by "Mercy" across the laws of the two worlds.
"Lawson... I'm sorry... Mom was... maybe too hard on you..."
The woman's voice was so faint it was almost carried away by the wind. Every word seemed to consume her last spark of life. The eyes that once scolded him were now filled with a guilt as warm as the autumn sun.
"For all these years... there's one thing Mom... never got to tell you in person."
She coughed violently, blood staining her pale fingertips, but her trembling hand still reached up stubbornly to cup Lawson's tear-stained face. The warmth of her palm was so real, yet it was vanishing with agonizing speed.
"My child... you don't need to care... about what anyone else thinks. Go... walk the path... that belongs only to you."
The light in her eyes began to fade, yet a strange, relieved smile touched her lips. She seemed to slip into a distant memory, and at the edge of the encroaching darkness, she whispered one last sentence that made Lawson's pupils shrink:
"That accident back then... really, it wasn't your fault..."
The voice stopped abruptly.
The hand on his face lost its strength, sliding down like a withered leaf to hit the scorched earth.
She slowly closed her eyes, her expression as peaceful as if she had simply fallen into a long nap on an ordinary afternoon.
"Mom? Mom! Wake up! You haven't told me what happened in that accident yet!"
Lawson shook her fading body frantically, his heart-wrenching cries piercing the silence of the camp, but there was no more response.
Above the ice-washed ruins, the "Brutes Chieftain" who once ruled the battlefield was now just an ordinary, tired mother.
She took all the secrets with her but left the child—rejected for so many years—a heavy legacy named "Forgiveness."
Then, a sudden change made everyone's breath hitch: the camp, once twisted by blood and mutation, began to melt away like snow under a blazing sun.
The hideous spiked fences and decaying structures distorted and reorganized in the void, like a time-lapse video set to fast-forward. In an instant, fresh grass sprouted from the foul mud, and rows of elegant townhouses rose from the ground, replacing the grim camp.
The suffocating mist was swept away by a cool breeze. Golden twilight bathed the land once more; the area seemed to wake from the shadow of the apocalypse, embracing the peace of the past.
Victor and George stood in place, their eyes filled with unspeakable shock.
" Bro Lawson... what... what is happening? The world changed?" Victor rubbed his eyes, his voice trembling.
"Is the calamity completely over?" George clutched his wounded arm, his tense nerves finally relaxing slightly.
"Could it be that 'Chieftain' was the source of it all?"