Silence.
That's the first thing I notice. The wind has stopped howling. The rain has stopped falling. Even the constant hum of the Titan's reactor—that heartbeat I've grown so used to—is gone.
I open my eyes.
I'm staring at the sky. The cockpit canopy is shattered, nothing but jagged teeth of reinforced glass around me. Above, grey clouds swirl in a massive spiral pattern—the atmospheric scar left by the kinetic strike.
I tried to move my arm. But pain exploded in my shoulder. My HUD flickered, It's was broken and glitching.
[STATUS: CRITICAL]
[HP: 5%]
[ARMOR: DESTROYED]
[TITAN STATUS: CATASTROPHIC FAILURE]
"ARES?" I croaked.
"System... offline..." ARES's voice sounded like a distorted whisper, fading like a dying radio signal. "Core... drained. Good luck... Commander."
The AI died.
I reach for my harness buckle. It's jammed, fused from the heat. I have to rip it open with my bare hands, my fingers left bloody smears across the melted nylon.
I climbed out of the cockpit.
The Titan was on its knees. Or rather what was left of it. The upper torso was intact, but the shield generator had melted into a smoking slag of warped metal. The legs were buried twenty feet deep in solid rock, driven down by the sheer force of impact.
Around us, the summit of Scrap Everest was gone. The Uplink Station was rubble. And the Kinetic Rod—a solid pillar of tungsten the size of a telephone pole—was embedded in the ground ten feet from the Titan's chest.
It was glowing red hot.
It had missed. Or rather, the shield had deflected it just enough.
"Elias!"
I looked down.
Sarah was climbing up the Titan's arm. She was limping, her tactical jacket torn and bloodied, but she was alive. And Maya and Glitch was right behind her.
"I'm here," I said, waving weakly.
They reached me. Sarah grabbed my face, checking my eyes for signs of concussion.
"You're alive," she breathed. "You crazy bastard. You caught a lightning bolt from God."
"Deflected," I corrected, leaning heavily on her shoulder. "I'm not Zeus yet."
We looked out at the view.
From the top of the mountain, we could see everything. Sector 0 stretched out below us—a kingdom of rust and ruin. Beyond that, the bridge to the city. And in the distance, the glowing, shining tower of the Upper Levels, untouched by the chaos below.
"We did it," Glitch said, staring at the ruined Uplink Station. "The satellite is offline. Malachi is blind."
"He's not blind," I said. "He's just blinking. We bought time. Nothing more."
I looked at the Titan. It was dead. A kneeling statue of scorched metal.
"We lost the mech," Maya said softly, touching the cold armor with grief.
"No." I shook my head. "We just cracked the shell. The heart is still in there."
I turned to look at the tungsten rod embedded in the earth.
[Skill: Network Sense]
It was just metal—no circuits, no code. But it was charged with the kinetic energy of orbital reentry. I could feel it humming, vibrating with enough potential energy to level a city block.
"That rod," I said, pointing. "Pure tungsten. And it's holding enough kinetic charge to power a reactor."
I turned to Glitch.
"Can we use it?"
Glitch stared at the rod. I could practically see him doing the math in his head, with his lips moving silently. His eyes went wide.
"If we wire it into the Titan's capacitor banks..." He trailed off, then laughed in disbelief. "We could create a Kinetic Battery. Self-sustaining, that we wouldn't need uranium cores anymore. We'd have near-infinite power."
"Do it," I said. "Rebuild him. Better. And Stronger."
I turned to Sarah.
"What about Gemini?"
Sarah's face hardened. Her jaw tightened.
"Deleted. I purged every line of her code personally." She reaches into her coat and pulls out a small black chip, holding it up to the light. "But I kept her datapad. She had Malachi's personal encryption keys."
She held up a small black chip.
"With this, we can access the Corporation's internal network. Troop movements. Supply lines. Financial systems." A cold smile crossed her face. "We can see everything they see."
"Good."
I limped to the edge of the Titan's shoulder. I looked down at the Rust Sea far below.
The Ferals were emerging out of hiding.
Thousands of them. Scrap-Stalkers crawled out of debris piles. Behemoths rose from the fog. Swarms of tiny drones filled the air like clouds of insects. They gathered at the base of the mountain.
They weren't attacking.
They were watching.
They had seen the Titan tank a strike from heaven. They had seen us survive the wrath of gods.
"They're waiting," I realized.
"For what?" Maya asked.
"For orders."
I raised my hand. My wrist-comp was shattered, but my voice still worked just fine.
"I AM ELIAS!" I roared into the wind. The sound echoed down the mountain like thunder. "I AM THE DEVOURER!"
Silence.
Then I spread my arms wide.
"THIS IS MY MOUNTAIN! THIS IS MY KINGDOM! AND YOU—"
I pointed down at the horde of machines.
"—ARE MY ARMY!"
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then the Ferals responded.
A wave of binary noise rolled up the slopes—clicking, chattering, buzzing. Not hostility. Recognition. Submission.
A massive Behemoth at the base of the mountain reared up and pounded its chest.
THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.
The others joined in. Thousands of machines, drumming in unison. A mechanical war chant.
"holy crap," Glitch whispered. His voice was awed. "You just recruited the whole damn sector."
I turn back to my team. Sarah, still holding the encryption chip. Maya, hand resting on her rifle. Glitch, eyes bright with possibility.
"We have a base," I said. "We have an army. And we have the codes to the kingdom."
I looked at the distant city—those shining tower gleaming above the filth.
"Phase One is complete."
My vision flickered. A blue notification box materialized, glitching into existence.
[SYSTEM UPDATE]
[VOLUME 1 COMPLETE]
[NEW TITLE UNLOCKED: THE RUST KING]
[BONUS: +5 TO ALL STATS]
[REPUTATION — CORPORATION: HATED]
[REPUTATION — RESISTANCE: LEGEND]
[NEXT QUEST: THE CITY OF LIES]
[OBJECTIVE: INFILTRATE SECTOR 4. RESCUE THE SLEEPERS.]
I smiled.
It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of a wolf who had just tasted blood—and wanted more.
"Let's go home," I said. "We have a war to plan."