The shockwave from Kenji's [Kinetic Reversal] rippled through the crushing depths, lighting up the trench walls like a lightning strike in a cave. The Hollow-Guard wardens were tossed back, their bio-mechanical frames shrieking under the sudden introduction of forced gravity.
"Move!" Kenji signaled the Scrap-Venture.
Kael piloted the ship through the opening Kenji had cleared, the Recursive Iron hull groaning as it pushed against the turbulent water. They glided toward a massive, organic-looking structure embedded in the trench floor the Central Siphon.
It looked like a beating heart the size of a city, connected to the trench walls by miles of pulsating, translucent arteries. Inside those arteries, the "waste" of the world was flowing toward the center.
[ZONE: THE CENTRAL SIPHON (RANK S)]
[CORE TYPE: BIO-SYSTEM REFINERY]
[CURRENT HARVEST RATE: 5,000 MANA-UNITS/SEC]
Kenji landed on the outer membrane of the Siphon, his boots sinking into the spongy, metallic flesh. Bjorn and Zola landed beside him, their specialized pressure-suits humming with the strain.
"This isn't just a factory," Zola whispered, her voice trembling over the comms. "I can feel the earth's pain. They're drilling into the planet's nervous system to pump this mana out."
"It's efficient," a new voice entered their frequency. It was cold, clinical, and devoid of any human inflection. "Efficiency is the highest form of Order, Master Scrapsmith."
A figure emerged from a hatch in the Siphon's membrane. He was dressed in a pristine white lab coat that seemed to repel the water and the grime of the depths. His eyes were not eyes at all, but two glowing lenses displaying scrolling lines of code.
[TARGET: CHIEF ARCHIVIST MALOS (RANK 7 - PRIME)]
[CLASS: DATA-ALCHEMIST]
"Malos," Kenji spat, his iridescent eyes flaring. "The man who turned human souls into fuel-cells."
"I turned 'failures' into 'utility'," Malos corrected, adjusting his lenses. "The Central Authority requires vast amounts of mana to maintain the global shields. You rebels want to destroy the very thing that keeps the monsters at bay. You are the true villains of this story."
"If your 'Order' requires a meat-grinder to function, it's not worth maintaining," Kenji replied. He raised his hand, and the Scrap of Infinite Recursion began to glow. "I'm here for the Fourth Star, Malos. I know it's the engine for this place."
Malos chuckled. "The Scrap of Eternal Hunger? It is indeed the engine. But you cannot 'Recycle' hunger, Kenji Tanaka. Hunger is a void that only grows. To touch it is to be consumed."
Malos snapped his fingers. The Siphon beneath them began to heave. The miles of arteries suddenly detached from the walls and lashed out like giant whips.
[BOSS EVENT: THE HUNGERING SIPHON]
"Bjorn, take the left flank! Zola, disrupt the ground-pulse!" Kenji commanded.
As his friends engaged the thrashing arteries, Kenji lunged at Malos. But the Archivist didn't fight back with physical force. He threw a handful of "Data-Dust" tiny, glowing particles that jammed Kenji's Scrapsmith senses.
[WARNING: CORE INTERFERENCE]
[SKILL ERROR: ECHO-FORGE UNAVAILABLE]
"In this place, I control the variables," Malos said, his hands weaving a complex net of golden light. "I will deconstruct your 'Scrapsmith' class and reassign your components to the Siphon."
Kenji felt his armor beginning to flake away, not from damage, but from De-coding. Malos was literally rewriting Kenji's reality, telling the universe that the Scrapsmith didn't exist.
Kenji hit the membrane, gasping as his lungs suddenly forgot how to process the oxygen in his suit.
He's using the System's authority to override my existence, Kenji realized. I can't fight him with my own power. I need the Hunger.
He reached out and plunged his hand directly into the Siphon's membrane, reaching for the core. He didn't look for the Star; he looked for the Gaps in the Star's power.
[CONTACT DETECTED: THE SCRAP OF ETERNAL HUNGER]
[WARNING: TOTAL CONSUMPTION IN 10... 9...]
"What are you doing?" Malos's lenses flickered with a hint of alarm. "You'll be erased!"
"I'm not fighting the Hunger," Kenji whispered, his teeth bared in a grin of pure desperation. "I'm giving it a new target."
Kenji opened a [Void Portal] directly inside his own arm, connecting the Abyssal Heart to the Eternal Hunger.
The result was a paradox. The Void that erases met the Hunger that consumes.
A black-hole of pure, unranked energy erupted from Kenji's hand. The Siphon didn't just break; it started to eat itself. The golden code Malos had woven was sucked into the vortex, stripped of its meaning and turned back into raw, chaotic scrap.
"NO!" Malos screamed as his light-shield was torn away. "The balance! You're destroying the balance!"
"The balance was a lie!" Kenji roared.
The Siphon let out a final, world-shaking pulse. The violet arteries turned gray and withered. The millions of pods embedded in the walls began to open, releasing the souls trapped inside.
But the energy was too much. The trench began to collapse.
[QUEST UPDATE: STAR ACQUIRED (4/7)]
[NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: THE CONSUMING VOID]
Kenji grabbed the Fourth Star a pulsing, dark-purple crystal that felt like a starving heartbeat. He looked up to see the Scrap-Venture being battered by falling rocks.
"Everyone! To the ship!" Kenji ordered, his voice echoing with the terrifying gravity of a man who had just touched the bottom of the world.
As they scrambled into the airlock, Kenji looked back. Malos was gone, swallowed by the collapsing ruins, but the Archivist's final words echoed in the water:
"You've fed the Hunger, Scrapsmith. Now... watch it eat your friends."