The Scrap-Venture didn't so much land as it was dragged into the earth. The massive tentacle of fused blades the Rusted Lash tightened its grip, its jagged edges shrieking against the ship's reinforced hull.
"Brace for impact!" Commander Kael's voice was barely audible over the sound of groaning metal.
Kenji slammed his palm against the main mast, sending a pulse of [Stasis Field] through the ship's frame. He couldn't stop the fall, but he could make the ship "brittle-proof," freezing the molecular bonds of the metal so it wouldn't shatter upon hitting the mountains of rust below.
BOOM.
The transport plowed into a dune of discarded armor plating, kicking up a cloud of iron filings so thick it turned the orange sky into a blinding brown haze.
[SYSTEM ALERT: EXTERNAL PRESSURE CRITICAL]
[HULL INTEGRITY: 22%]
[ATMOSPHERIC TOXICITY: HIGH (OXIDIZED MANA)]
Kenji was the first one out of the wreckage, his violet-gray eyes cutting through the dust. He didn't use his hands to clear the path; he used [Void Step] to blink outside, his presence causing the swirling iron dust to settle instantly in a ten-foot radius.
"Everyone out! Now!" Kenji roared.
Bjorn kicked open the side hatch, carrying a stunned Mateo over his shoulder. Zola and Priya followed, their shields already flared. Elara came out last, her frost magic creating a localized cooling zone to combat the strange, unnatural heat radiating from the ground.
"Where are we?" Mateo coughed, wiping orange dust from his goggles. "My sensors are spinning. It's like the magnetic poles are doing a dance."
"We're in the Deep Heap," Kenji said, looking up. Above them, the mountains of scrap towered hundreds of feet high, blocking out any view of the horizon. "And we aren't alone."
From the shadows of the rusted canyons, eyes began to open. They weren't organic eyes, but glowing red optic sensors thousands of them.
[ENEMY DETECTED: SCRAP-SHAMBLERS (RANK 4)]
[ENEMY DETECTED: RUST-WIDOWS (RANK 5)]
"They're scavengers," Elara whispered, her hands glowing with ice. "They want the fresh metal from our ship."
"They don't just want the ship," Kenji corrected, his Scrapsmith sense vibrating with a frequency he had never felt before. "They want the Abyssal Heart. They can smell the Void."
A Scrap-Shambler a hulking beast made of fused engine blocks and hydraulic pistons lunged from a pile of debris. It didn't roar; it hissed steam.
Zola met it mid-air. Her geomancy didn't pull stone here; it pulled Heavy Metal. She encased her fist in a sleeve of lead and punched the Shambler so hard its internal boiler detonated.
"There's too many of them!" Bjorn yelled, his axe glowing with runic heat as he cleaved through a swarm of spider-like Rust-Widows. "Kenji, we need a perimeter!"
Kenji didn't draw a weapon. He closed his eyes and reached into the ground. He didn't look for the Stars; he looked for the Foundry-Pulse.
Deep below the rust... a heart is beating.
"The Graveyard isn't a pile of junk," Kenji realized. "It's a single, massive machine. A Rank S living entity."
He tapped into his Master-level Resonance, but instead of imposing his will, he harmonized with the rust.
[SKILL EVOLUTION: SCRAP-WHISPERER (PASSIVE)]
"I am Kenji Tanaka," he whispered, his voice vibrating through the metal floor. "The one who broke the Glacial Eye. I am not here to scavenge. I am here to Forge."
The ground stopped shaking. The Scrap-Shamblers froze in place, their optic sensors flickering from red to a neutral orange.
From the center of the Deep Heap, the earth parted. A massive, humanoid head the size of a house emerged. It was made of blackened iron and glowing brass gears. This was the Furnace-Mind, the sentinel of the Graveyard.
"...The Smith... who speaks the Silent Tongue..." the Mind's voice boomed, vibrating in their very marrow. "...Why have you brought the Hunger into my tomb? The Abyssal Heart is a cancer. It erases what I preserve."
Kenji stepped forward, leaving his team behind. "I didn't bring it to erase you. I brought it to bridge the gap. I need the Scrap of Infinite Recursion. The System is coming to delete this Graveyard, Furnace-Mind. They want to 'Sanitize' the world. If you don't help me, you'll be the first thing they turn into pixels."
The Furnace-Mind's gears ground together a sound like a tectonic shift. "...The Recursion is not a gift. It is a loop. It is the memory of every sword that broke, every shield that failed. To hold it is to feel the pain of a million deaths."
"I've already died once," Kenji said, showing his bare wrist where the System had once marked him. "The pain doesn't scare me. The silence does."
The Furnace-Mind stared at Kenji for a long time. Then, it opened its massive, iron jaws. Inside wasn't a throat, but a glowing, white-hot portal leading deep into the planet's crust.
"...Then enter the Forge of Sorrows, Kenji Tanaka. If you survive the Memory of Metal, the Recursion shall be yours. If you fail... you shall become another piece of rust in my garden."
"Kenji, don't!" Elara ran to his side. "It's a trap. An S-Rank entity doesn't give away a Star for free."
"It's not a gift, Elara," Kenji said, looking into the white-hot portal. "It's an exchange. Stay with the ship. Help Kael repair the engines. If I'm not out in six hours... take the ship and run to the Neutral Cities."
"You know we won't do that," Mateo said, stepping up with his gauntlets humming.
"I know," Kenji smiled. "That's why I'm going to be back in five."
Kenji stepped into the jaws of the Furnace-Mind.
[ZONE TRANSITION: THE FORGE OF SORROWS (RANK S)]
[OBJECTIVE: ENDURE THE MEMORY OF METAL]
[CURRENT CORE STABILITY: 88%]
As the heat swallowed him, Kenji didn't feel pain. He felt History. He saw the first sword ever forged. He saw the first war-bot ever activated. And he felt the moment they each realized they were destined to be discarded.
The real test of the Scrapsmith had begun.