The auto-yard wasn't a junkyard. It was a a mini community.
Rusted car husks towered like crumbling skyscrapers, welded into labyrinthine walls. Catwalks made of shipping containers zigzagged overhead. Fires burned in oil-drum braziers, casting long, dancing shadows. And everywhere, the clang of hammers and the shriek of metal on metal.
Lena led Ethan through a narrow gate guarded by two figures in patchwork armor. Their eyes, sharp and suspicious, scanned his F-Tier status. One spat near his boot.
"Home sweet hell," Lena muttered. "Remember—strength rules here. Don't start fights you can't finish."
Ethan nodded, his ribs aching. Entropy simmered in his veins (0.27%), a low hum of power. Enough to blind a lizard. Not enough for this.
They entered the central clearing, a chaotic marketplace. Stalls sold scavenged gear: chipped mana crystals, dented breastplates, vials of murky healing potions. People moved with weary purpose, eyes hollow. Many bore F-Tier or low C-Tier statuses. But their hands… calloused, scarred, gripping weapons with lethal familiarity.
[LVL 4 Scrap Miner]
[LVL 3 Salvage Hunter]
These weren't victims. They were survivors honed by desperation.
A commotion erupted nearby. A hulking man with [LVL 5 - Junk Bruiser] status shoved a younger scavenger.
"—owed Mama Knox three cores by sundown, runt! Where are they?"
"The Geargrinder took Sector 7! I couldn't—!"
The Bruiser backhanded him. The boy crumpled, blood bright on cracked concrete. No one intervened.
Ethan stepped forward. Lena's hand clamped on his arm like iron.
"Don't," she hissed. "That's Grudge. Mama Knox's enforcer. You touch him, you die."
"He's beating a kid!"
"And that kid failed his quota." Her eyes were hard. "Quotas keep us fed. Break the system, the whole Pile collapses."
Grudge hauled the boy up by his collar. "Mama wants her cores. Find 'em… or become Geargrinder bait." He tossed him toward the yard's western darkness.
The boy scrambled away, sobbing. Grudge's gaze swept the crowd, landing on Ethan. A slow, cruel smile spread. "New meat? F-Tier?" He lumbered over, his shadow swallowing Ethan. "What's your trick, trash? Begging? Crying?"
Ethan met his eyes. "Recycling."
Grudge chuckled, a sound like grinding gears. "Cute. Mama likes useful things. Let's see if you are."* He pointed a thick finger toward a towering pile of crushed cars. "Sector 9. Haul out the copper wiring from the blue sedan. One hour."
It was suicide. Sector 9 radiated wrongness a low, subsonic hum that vibrated in Ethan's teeth. Purple mist coiled thickly there, visible only to his Entropy sense. Lena paled.
"Grudge, he's new! He doesn't know the Dead Zones…"
"Then he'll learn." Grudge shoved Ethan hard. "Move, F-Tier. Clock's ticking."
Sector 9 was a graveyard of compacted cars stacked ten high. The air hung heavy and cold, smelling of ozone and old blood. Ethan's breath fogged instantly. His Entropy sense screamed: [WARNING: HIGH-YIELD ENTROPIC ENTITY DETECTED].
Legendary. Level 20+.
He moved silently, scanning for the blue sedan. There, wedged near the base, its hood crumpled like paper. Copper wiring glinted within.
He crouched, reaching into the engine bay. His fingers brushed cold metal..
SKREEEEEEEEE—!
The sound wasn't loud. It was inside his skull. Agony lanced through his mind. He stumbled back, blood trickling from his nose.
Above him, perched atop the car pile like a gargoyle, sat it.
[LVL ?? GEARGRINDER - LEGENDARY]
Not flesh. Not machine. A nightmare of fused scrap metal, engine blocks, jagged rebar, screaming faces pressed like fossils into rusted steel. Six multi-jointed limbs ended in spinning saw blades and crushing hydraulic presses. No eyes. Just a single, pulsing purple core burning in its chest cavity.
[ENTROPIC SIGNATURE: OVERWHELMING]
[ANALOG: BLACK HOLE IN DECAY]
Ethan froze. Every instinct screamed RUN.
The Geargrinder tilted its head. Saw blades whirred to life.
Ethan ran. Not in panic, in calculated terror. He ducked behind compacted vans, scrambled over tire mounds. The Geargrinder flowed through the metal like liquid shadow, blades shrieking on steel, carving gouges inches behind him.
He couldn't fight. Couldn't hide. His 0.27% Entropy was a candle against a supernova.
Absorb! He slapped his palm against a rusted truck cab as he passed.
[ABSORBING RESIDUAL ENTROPY... +0.05%]`
[TOTAL: 0.32%]
Pathetic. The Geargrinder lunged, a hydraulic press fist smashing where he'd stood a second before. Concrete exploded.
Ethan rolled, snatching up a broken shock absorber. [JUNK - LOW-YIELD]. He poured his meager Entropy into it, not to decay, but to overload its structural weakness.
[ENTROPY IGNITION!]
He hurled it. The shock absorber detonated mid-air, a concussive blast of rust and shrapnel. It pinged harmlessly off the Geargrinder's hide.
The core in its chest pulsed brighter. Amused.
A blade-limb lashed out. Ethan dove, but the tip caught his thigh. Pain exploded,white-hot and deep. He crashed behind an overturned bus, blood soaking his pants.
[HP: 42/60]
The Geargrinder loomed over the bus. Blades descended….
"ENOUGH."
The voice wasn't loud. It was absolute. Like mountains grinding together.
The Geargrinder froze. Its core flickered… then dimmed. With a final metallic shriek, it flowed backward into the car pile, vanishing like smoke.
Ethan gasped, clutching his bleeding leg. Standing ten feet away, leaning on a polished crowbar like a scepter, was an old woman.
[MAMA KNOX - LVL ?? SCRAPLORD]
Small. Wiry. Gray hair tied in a tight bun. Wrinkles carved deep around eyes sharp as broken glass. She wore grease-stained overalls and boots made of Kevlar and tire tread. No fancy armor. No glowing weapons. Just… presence. A pressure that made the air itself feel heavy.
She tapped her crowbar on the concrete. Tock. Tock. Tock.
"Grudge sent you," she stated. Not a question.
Ethan forced himself up, leg screaming. "Copper wiring. Blue sedan."
Mama Knox's gaze swept him, F-Tier status, bleeding leg, the fading green flicker in his eyes. "You touched the Geargrinder's hoard. Stupid. Or brave." She sniffed. "Smell like both. What's your name, boy?"
"Ethan Moore."
"Waste Disposer." She almost smiled. "Cute. Lena's stray. Heard you made Razor piss himself." She stepped closer. Fast. Too fast for old bones. Ethan barely registered the movement before her crowbar tapped his wounded thigh.
Agony blinded him. He collapsed.
[HP: 30/60]
"First lesson," Mama Knox said, her voice ice. "Never bleed near a Scrap Lord." She crouched, her eyes level with his. They held no cruelty. Only the cold assessment of a blacksmith judging flawed steel. "You got power. Raw. Untamed. Like a busted reactor. You think it makes you special?" She gestured around the fortress. "That Geargrinder? It eats S-Rankers for breakfast. Grudge snaps their spines like kindling. And Razor? He's a cockroach with ambition." She poked his chest with the crowbar. "Here, you're weak."
Ethan gritted his teeth. "I learn fast."
"Do you?" Her crowbar moved, a blur. Ethan flinched, bracing for impact.
It never came. Instead, she'd hooked the blue sedan's bumper. With a grunt that belied her size, she wrenched. Metal screamed. The entire front end tore open like a tin can. She pulled out a thick coil of copper wiring, tossing it at Ethan's feet.
"Your quota," she said. "Now get that leg patched. Lena!"
Lena emerged from the shadows, face tense. "Mama."
"Your stray's got bite. And a death wish. Train him. Or cage him." Mama Knox's eyes locked back on Ethan. "One more stunt like today, boy, and I'll feed you to the Geargrinder myself. Understood?"
The weight of her gaze pinned him. Not malice. Certainty. She wasn't threatening. She was stating fact.
"Understood," Ethan rasped.
Mama Knox nodded. "Welcome to the Scrap Pile, Waste Disposer. Earn your keep… or become it." She turned, vanishing into the gloom as silently as she'd arrived.
Lena's workshop was a gutted semi-trailer filled with tools, wires, and half-dismantled tech. She cleaned Ethan's wound, a deep gash, but not tendon-deep, with harsh antiseptic.
"Mama Knox," Lena explained, bandaging his leg, "was a marine engineer. Fifty years salvaging shipwrecks. When the System hit, she Awakened as [Scraplord]. Not S-Rank. Something… deeper. She talks to machines. Sees weakness in metal." She tapped her prosthetic leg. "She built this from a forklift and dungeon-core shards. In an hour. While smoking a cigar."
"And the Geargrinder?" Ethan asked, the phantom scream still echoing in his skull.
"Ancient. Pre-System, maybe. It is the auto-yard. Mama says it's 'the land's anger made metal. It ignores most. Hunts those who disturb its hoard. Or displease Mama." She finished the bandage. "Consider yourself initiated."
Suddenly, a voice slithered from the trailer's ceiling vent
"Initiated? More like almost digested, Trash Man."
A figure dropped down, silent as shadow. Lanky, draped in a cloak of stitched-tween monster hides, a grin flashing white in a grimy face. [KAI - LVL 4 SHADOW RAT].
Lena sighed. "Took you long enough, rat."
Kai bowed dramatically. "Had to dodge Razor's new pets. Ugly brutes with shock-collars. Seems Meltface upgraded." He tossed a small, bloodstained token onto the workbench, a white handprint crudely etched on steel. "Ghost Faction Mark."
"He's recruiting?" Lena frowned.
"Worse." Kai's grin vanished. "He found a Cache. Buried under the old admin office. Solar Legion gear. Plasma rifles. Maybe even a Dungeon Core Stabilizer."
Ethan stiffened. A Stabilizer could control the Geargrinder… or weaponize it.
"Mama Knox doesn't know?" Lena asked.
"Razor's hiding it. Using F-Tier slaves to dig." Kai's eyes met Ethan's, sharp and calculating. "Heard you got a grudge against ghosts and S-Rankers. Me? I like shiny things… and hate slavers." He flipped a rusted bolt in his hand. "Interested in some… salvage?"
Before Ethan could answer, the trailer door slammed open. Grudge filled the doorway, his face thunderous.
"Waste Disposer! Mama wants you. Now." He pointed a thick finger east, toward the deepest part of the yard where purple mist hung like a shroud. "Sector Zero. Something's chewing on her sensors. Fix it."
Lena went pale. "Sector Zero? That's the Geargrinder's nest! You sending him to die, Grudge?"
Grudge's smile was a death sentence. "Mama said: Prove useful or prove recyclable." He eyed Ethan's bandaged leg. "Move slow… and die slower."
Kai whistled low. "Tough break, Entropy Man."
Ethan looked at the bloodstained Ghost Mark. At Grudge's cruel smile. At the distant, swirling purple gloom of Sector Zero.
Aris left him to die.
Razor wanted him enslaved.
Mama Knox found him weak.
And Sector Zero promised agony.
He pushed himself up, leg burning. [ENTROPY: 0.32%]. Useless against legends. For now.
But trash piled high enough… could bury anything.
"Lead the way, Grudge," Ethan said, his voice cold as the Geargrinder's core.
The proving ground awaited.