Dawn didn't break over the Scrap Pile. It detonated.
A sphere of liquid gold descended from the bruised sky, Aris Thorne, Solar Knight, radiating contempt like heat. No army. No legion. Only two figures flanked him
Selene, Cryolancer (S-Rank);Ice crystals swirling around her like frozen daggers.
Rex, Golemancer (S-Rank);Stone and scrap coalescing into a hulking, four-armed titan at his feet.
[ARIS THORNE - LVL 45 - STATUS: DIVINE SCORCH ACTIVE]
[AURA DMG: 5 HP/SEC TO ALL NON-S-RANK WITHIN 200M]
The effect was immediate. F-Tier children screamed as their skin blistered. Welder's torches guttered out. Mama Knox's Scrap Cannon groaned as its mana cores destabilized.
"SURRENDER THE ANOMALY," Aris's voice boomed, shaking rust from the walls. "OR BECOME ASH."
Mama Knox spat on the ground. "FIRE!"
Her battleship cannon roared. A shell of compressed scrap and unstable dungeon cores streaked toward Aris,
Selene raised a single hand. "Permafrost Seal."
A glacier erupted mid-air, swallowing the shell whole. Ice exploded inward, crushing the volatile payload into harmless slag.
"Pathetic,"Rex sneered. His golem stomped.
The earth heaved. A wave of shattered concrete and twisted metal ripped through the front barricades. Scrappers flew like ragdolls. Grudge bellowed, buried under a bulldozer.
Ethan's Entropy withdrawal spiked. [HP: 40/60] [ENTROPY: 0.15%]. The Solar Shard in his pocket burned like a brand. He drew it…
SKREEEEEEEEE—!
The Geargrinder erupted from Sector Zero's mist, a hurricane of rust and rage. It ignored Rex's golem. Ignored Selene's ice. It aimed its six bladed limbs at the source of the searing light…Aris.
"Primitive,"Aris sighed. He didn't raise his sword. He flicked his wrist.
A sliver of sunlight, thinner than wire, lashed out. It sliced through two of the Geargrinder's limbs like butter. Molten metal rained down. The ancient entity shrieked, its core flaring crimson pain.
Ethan charged. Not at Aris, at Rex. The Golemancer was distracted, directing his titan toward Mama Knox's cannon. Ethan poured his pitiful Entropy into the ground beneath Rex's feet…
[CORROSIVE GRASP: MAX OUTPUT!]
Concrete turned to slurry. Rex stumbled, his control faltering. The golem froze mid-swing.
"INSECT!" Rex roared, turning. Stone gauntlets formed around his fists…
Kai materialized behind him, phase-dagger drawn. "Tag, you're…urk!" Selene's ice-spear punched through Kai's shoulder before he could strike, pinning him to a shipping container. [KAI: HP 15/45 - STUNNED]
Lena lunged from cover, wrench raised at Selene's back…
Aris didn't even look. A pulse of golden light erupted from him.
WHOOM!
Lena flew backward, crashing through a wall of tires. [LENA: HP 20/65 - BLEEDING]
It was slaughter.
Grudge hauled himself free, roaring, only for Rex's golem to backhand him into a crusher. Scrappers firing plasma rifles saw their shots vaporize yards from Aris's aura. A child threw a Molotov, it evaporated mid-air.
Only two forces held
Mama Knox: She stood atop her cannon, crowbar raised like a conductor's baton. Purple energy…raw, unrefined dungeon core power…arced from her into the weapon. It bucked and screamed, firing again and again.
Selene's ice walls cracked. Rex's golem staggered. But Aris? He deflected the shells with contemptuous flicks of light.
The Geargrinder; Bleeding molten slag, it lunged again. Not with blades…with gravity. A localized distortion field collapsed a tower of cars onto Aris.
"Annoying."Aris raised Sun's Judgment. The sword flared. The falling cars vaporized inches from his head. He pointed the blade at the Geargrinder. "Cease."
A beam of concentrated sunlight speared the entity's chest, directly through its core.
SKR-R-R-EEEE…
The Geargrinder's shriek died into a wet gurgle. Violet light bled from the hole in its chest. It crashed to its knees, limbs twitching, core-light fading.
Dead.
Silence fell, broken only by the crackle of fires and the moans of the dying. The Scrap Pile's defiance lay broken.
Aris descended slowly, boots touching scorched earth. He walked toward Ethan, who knelt gasping, the Solar Shard clutched in a trembling, blistered hand. [ENTROPY: 0.10%] [HP: 25/60].
"The trash boy,"Aris mused, stopping before him. Golden eyes bored into Ethan's soul. "I remember. You swept floors while I conquered worlds. And now…" He gestured at the ruin. "…you lead this?"
Ethan forced himself upright, legs shaking. "You left me… to die."
"I disposed of inefficient biomass," Aris corrected. "Yet you persist. Like rot."He raised Sun's Judgment, not to strike, but to illuminate Ethan's face. "Give me one reason not to scour you from existence."
Ethan met his gaze. Green light flickered in his irises. "Because I'm the one… who'll break you."
He lunged…not with Entropy, but with the Solar Shard, stabbing it like a dagger toward Aris's heart.
Aris didn't move. His free hand snapped out, catching Ethan's wrist. Bones crunched.
"No," Aris stated. "You won't."
He kicked Ethan's left leg.
The sound was a wet snap. Bone tore through skin below the knee. Ethan collapsed, a raw, animal scream tearing from his throat. [HP: 5/60]. [STATUS: LEG SHATTERED]. Agony swallowed the world.
Aris looked down at him, disgust warring with boredom. "You infest decay. I am purification. This was never a fight." Sun's Judgment rose, aimed at Ethan's skull. "Be erased."
"GOLD BOY!"
Mama Knox's voice cracked like a whip. She stood before her ruined cannon, crowbar planted defiantly. Blood streamed from a gash on her temple. Her overalls were scorched. But her eyes burned with fury.
"You broke my Pile," she rasped. "You killed my Geargrinder." She raised her crowbar…not at Aris, but at the overloaded Solar Entropy Shard lying beside Ethan. "Now eat your damn sunshine."
She brought the crowbar down on the Shard with every ounce of her Scraplord strength.
CRACK-BOOOOOM!
The unstable fusion of Solar Scorch and Entropy detonated.
Not fire. A tear in reality.
A sphere of warped space erupted…ten feet wide. Gravity inverted. Light bent into impossible spirals. Golden energy and entropic decay cannibalized each other, creating a vortex of screaming chaos.
Aris's divine aura flickered. For the first time, surprise flashed across his perfect features. He raised Sun's Judgment defensively…
The vortex swallowed him.
And Mama Knox.
And half the ruined cannon.
Silence.
The vortex collapsed as suddenly as it formed. Scorched earth steamed where it had been. No Aris. No Mama Knox. Only a crater glazed with swirling gold-and-green crystal.
Ethan lay five feet from the edge, shivering, his shattered leg a white-hot nightmare. He stared at the empty space where Mama Knox had stood.
Gone.
A choked laugh echoed. Rex the Golemancer staggered up, his titan shattered. Selene limped toward him, ice-armor cracked. Both looked dazed, injured…but alive.
"Knight Thorne…?" Selene whispered, scanning the crater.
"Gone," Rex growled, kicking a shard of green crystal. "That hag… she banished him? Impossible!"
His eyes locked onto Ethan. Hatred burned. "But you're still here, F-Tier filth."Stone gauntlets reformed around his fists. "I'll peel you apart slo…."
A plasma bolt took Rex in the throat.
He gurgled, stumbling. Lena leaned against a burning tire stack, her jury-rigged rifle smoking, face pale with blood loss. "Nobody… peels my trash… but me."
Selene hissed, raising an ice-spear….
"Yo, Frosty!"
Kai….phase-dagger now protruding from Selene's shadow…yanked hard. Selene screamed as the blade ripped upward through her spectral ice-armor, drawing a line of crimson up her spine. She collapsed.
Kai collapsed beside her, clutching his bleeding shoulder. "Told you… I hate slavers…"
Silence returned, heavier now. The Scrap Pile was ruins. The defenders:; scattered, broken, dead. The attackers; two S-Ranks down, one missing. And the cost…
Mama Knox. Gone.
The Geargrinder. Dead.
Everything was crushed
Ethan dragged himself toward the crater's edge with his elbows, shattered leg trailing. Where the vortex had been, a single object pulsed amid the fused crystals:
The Crowbar.
Mama Knox's weapon. Unbroken. Unbent. Gleaming with absorbed traces of Solar Scorch and Entropy.
He reached for it.
Footsteps crunched behind him.
Selene stood, swaying, her face a mask of blood and fury. An ice-javelin formed in her hand, aimed at Ethan's heart.
"You… anomaly…" she spat. "You took… everything…"
Ethan's fingers brushed the crowbar's cold steel.
[ITEM: MAMA'S LAST STAND - LEGENDARY CROWBAR]
[TRAITS: UNBREAKABLE | ABSORBS/REFLECTS 5% DAMAGE DEALT]
[SYNERGY DETECTED: ENTROPY SOVEREIGN]
Selene threw the javelin.
Ethan closed his hand around the crowbar….