Johnny left the inhabited borders of Sector 7 behind. The path ahead was no longer a road; it was a gaping wound in the earth, a forgotten artery of the city that had long since stopped bleeding and started to rot.
Johnny bypassed the train station entirely. Instead, he veered toward the old disposal route connecting Sector 7 to Sector 6. This was "No Man's Land"—a lawless stretch of jagged concrete and prowling beasts.
The moment he crossed the perimeter fence, the atmosphere shifted.
Sector 6 was a "failed" sector. The massive steel Plate above was fractured and neglected, allowing rare shafts of sunlight to pierce through, though the light only illuminated the wreckage of buildings crushed by falling construction debris.
The roads were obliterated. Massive Mako pipes wound through the tilting concrete structures like colossal, dormant serpents.
The Collapsed Expressway - Lower Level
The transition was abrupt. The sunlight, already filtered by the Plate above, vanished completely as Johnny stepped beneath the massive, broken concrete arch of the Collapsed Expressway.
The temperature dropped ten degrees. The air here was stagnant, thick with the smell of mildew, standing water, and something acrid—like battery acid.
Drip... Drip...
Water leaked from the fractured ceiling, forming dark, oily puddles on the uneven ground. Johnny's boots splashed softly, the sound echoing too loudly in the oppressive silence.
He didn't draw his weapon yet. He kept his hand on the hilt, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. His senses, sharpened by a lifetime of surviving the Interstice, expanded. He could hear the skittering of claws on concrete. He could hear the wet, throaty croaking of ambushers.
"Above," he whispered to himself.
From the shadows of a rusted support pillar, a Blugu leaped.
It was a sky-blue creature that favored dark, damp environments. Though amphibian in appearance, it moved effortlessly on land. Usually timid, its fight-or-flight response had triggered, and it chose to fight. It moved with unnatural speed, pushing off the wall to dive-bomb the small intruder, its throat sac pulsing with sleep gas.
Johnny didn't panic. He didn't even look up. He simply dropped his center of gravity.
"Too noisy."
With a grunt of exertion, he whipped the Scrap Greatsword from his back. He didn't have the strength to swing it upward against gravity with just his arms. Instead, he used his entire body as a counterweight. He spun, letting the momentum of the heavy iron slab dictate the arc.
WHOOSH.
The flat side of the blade met the Blugu in mid-air.
SPLAT.
There was no cutting. The sword was too dull for that. It was a collision of pure physics. The iron slab caught the monster's soft, wet body like a baseball bat hitting a rotten fruit. The Blugu didn't even have time to scream; the impact liquefied its internal organs instantly. It was flung sideways, smashing into the concrete wall with a wet thud before sliding down, leaving a smear of green ichor.
Johnny exhaled, a cloud of white mist escaping his lips. He walked over to the carcass. He didn't flinch at the gore. Calmly, he used his knife to extract the Sleep sac from the creature's throat—careful not to rupture it.
"One down," he muttered, wiping his knife on his pants. "Need to move faster. The smell will attract the Gorgers."
He continued through the tunnel, dragging the tip of the greatsword against the concrete. Scrape... Scrape... The sound was a warning to anything else hiding in the dark: I am heavier than you. I am harder than you.
For half an hour, he trekked through the dark, concrete tunnel of the collapsed highway. It was damp, moss-covered, and barely lit. Puddles of sewage water dotted the path.
Then, he heard it.
Kreek... Kreek...
The sound scraped against the silence. From behind a fractured slab of concrete, two Cripshays scuttled into view. They were grotesque distortions of nature—beetle-like bodies armored in hard chitin, topped with faces that bore a disturbing, twisted resemblance to human features. Their sharp antennae twitched, locking onto the boy.
Johnny didn't break his stride. He unsheathed the Scrap Greatsword, letting the heavy iron tip drag briefly against the ground.
"Morning warmup," he muttered flatly.
The first Cripshay was impatient. It lunged, its mandibles clicking as it aimed for Johnny's throat.
To an untrained eye, the attack was a blur. To Guts, it was moving in slow motion. Johnny didn't retreat. He executed a minimalist sidestep—shifting just enough to let the beast sail harmlessly past his shoulder. Then, with one fluid motion, he twisted his hips.
CRACK!
It wasn't a clean cut, but raw trauma. The blunt edge of the sword smashed into the creature's hind legs, shattering the exoskeleton instantly. The monster tumbled across the asphalt, its crushed limbs twitching violently.
The second Cripshay, seeing its kin fall, launched a desperate diving attack from atop a pile of rubble, aiming straight for Johnny's skull.
There was no time to hoist the heavy blade upward for a swing.
Johnny reacted on instinct. He quickly twisted his torso and slammed the tip of the Scrap Greatsword into the ground, bracing it upright like an improvised tower shield.
THUD!
The monster's sharp antennae collided with the flat, broad side of the iron slab, failing to reach Johnny's skin. Before the creature could recover its balance, Johnny surged forward.
"Die."
Driving with his legs, he rammed the blunt tip of his greatsword straight forward, pinning the monster's head against the concrete wall with crushing force.
SQUELCH.
Violet ichor splattered against the gray stone. The creature went limp instantly.
Johnny didn't pause to celebrate. He knelt beside the carcass, producing his knife. With the practiced hand of a scavenger, he sliced at the base of the creature's long, sharp feelers.
Snap.
He wrenched the "antenna" free. These natural spikes were highly conductive and valued by technicians.
"Decent haul," he thought, wiping the purple slime onto his trousers before stashing the loot in his waist pouch. "This will pay for dinner."
He stood up, hefted the iron slab back onto his shoulder, and walked on.
The Train Graveyard - Outskirts
Emerging from the suffocating darkness of the Expressway, the landscape opened up, but the atmosphere grew even more unsettling.
He had reached the outskirts of the Train Graveyard.
This was a necropolis of steel. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of decommissioned train cars lay piled in chaotic heaps. Some were overturned, their undercarriages exposed like the ribs of dead leviathans. Others were stacked precariously, creating a labyrinth of rust and shadows.
A low, unnatural fog clung to the ground, swirling around Johnny's ankles.
The air here didn't smell like rot; it smelled like cold iron and old memories.
Johnny stopped. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. It wasn't fear—it was recognition.
In the distance, hovering near a pile of twisted tracks, a translucent figure materialized. A Ghost.
It was a Sorrow Spirit, a coalesced mass of negative emotion and Mako energy, drifting aimlessly. It wore a tattered hood, its face a void of darkness. It floated toward Johnny, drawn to the vibrant life force of a child.
In his past life, Guts would have been swarmed by thousands of these every night. They were the parasites of the Eclipse, the gnats of hell.
Johnny tightened his grip on the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword.
"Go back," Johnny growled.
He didn't shout. He projected.
He cracked open the door to the darkness sitting deep within his soul. He let a wave of pure, concentrated Killing Intent roll off him like a physical shockwave.
The Ghost froze.
For a spirit, perception was everything. It looked at this small boy and didn't see a child. It saw a vortex of rage, a survivor of a hell far deeper than this graveyard. It saw a black swordsman standing atop a mountain of corpses.
The Ghost shrieked—a sound like grinding metal—and dissipated into thin air, fleeing from a predator it couldn't comprehend.
Johnny let out a breath he had been holding. He relaxed his shoulders.
"Just stray spirits," he noted, adjusting the strap of his backpack. "Weak. Not like the ones back then."
He walked past the spot where the ghost had vanished. He approached a rusted train wheel half-buried in the dirt. Beside it, hiding in the fog, were four Cripshays that had been waiting to scavenge whatever the ghost killed.
The insectoid monsters chittered, surprised that the boy was still alive.
Johnny didn't hesitate. He lifted his heavy boot and stomped on the nearest creature's head, pinning the insect to the dirt. Then, with grim efficiency, he raised the Scrap Greatsword and brought the heavy pommel down like a hammer. CRUNCH.
For the other three, he retreated a step to find his footing. He used no elegant swordsmanship; the crude iron slab in his hands simply hammered their soft bodies until they burst. There were no clean slices, only the splatter of violet ichor and crushed organs scattered across the cracked asphalt.
CRACK.
He knelt, harvesting the antennae from the carcasses in one fluid motion.
"Sector 6 is close," Johnny whispered, looking at the distant glow of neon lights piercing through the fog. "Just a little further".