Henry stood amidst the fresh carnage, the silence of the woods returning, punctuated only by the dying sizzle of Sentinel Energy evaporating from the gore. He looked down at the remains of the Leshen and the pile of Nekker limbs.
"System," Henry rumbled, his voice echoing inside his helmet like a grinding tectonic plate. "These things have to be worth something, right? In the games, people pay a fortune for monster brains and mutagenic hearts."
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[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: DIMENSIONAL STORAGE COMPONENT DETECTED. ]
[ HUD OVERLAY ACTIVE: SELECT TARGETS FOR TRANS-DIMENSIONAL RETRIEVAL. ]
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Henry blinked, and a small reticle appeared in his vision. He realized the Praetor Suit didn't just have armor; it had a built-in pocket dimension for the "spoils of war." He reached down, and as his gauntleted hand hovered over a severed Garkain head, a ripple of blue light washed over the trophy. The head vanished instantly, pulled into the storage sub-space.
He moved through the clearing like a scavenger-god, "deleting" the valuable monster parts from reality. He didn't even have to carry them; the suit simply swallowed the biomass.
Satisfied that he hadn't left any "money" on the forest floor, Henry turned on his heel. The heavy, armored boots of his suit crunched through bone and branch as he marched back toward the obsidian monolith of the Fortress of Doom. The massive gates groaned open, welcoming their master home with a hiss of pressurized steam and a hum of infinite power.
******
For a long minute after the gates slammed shut, the forest remained deathly still. Then, the granite boulders seemed to breathe.
The Aen Seidhe scouts emerged from their hiding spots, their faces as pale as the winter moon. Their leader, a scarred veteran named Riordain, staggered forward and looked at the spot where the Leshen had once stood. There was nothing left but a crater and a smear of green ichor. Even the bodies were gone—swallowed by the iron giant's magic.
"Run," Riordain whispered in Elder Speech, his voice cracking. "Tha'essne. Back to the settlement. Now!"
They didn't just run; they bolted through the undergrowth like hunted deer. When they reached the hidden elven camp—a collection of weathered tents and lean-tos hidden deep in the valley—the scouts collapsed in the center of the clearing, gasping for air.
The camp's Elder, her silver hair braided with forest flowers, stepped forward. "Riordain? What has happened? Did the Dh'oine find us?"
"Not... not the humans of the South," Riordain wheezed, his eyes wide with a lingering trauma. "A new one. A giant in iron. He arrived in a tower of blue fire."
"A mage?" the Elder asked, narrowing her eyes.
"No," a younger scout shrieked, clutching his bow. "He didn't cast spells! He had a thunder-stick that turned a Leshen into red rain! He caught a Garkain in mid-air and... and he tore it. With his hands! He didn't even use a blade!"
Riordain gripped the Elder's arm. "He is no Dh'oine we have ever faced. He is an Unchained Predator. The monsters didn't even have a chance to scream. He was... enjoying it. And then, he made their corpses vanish into thin air as if they never existed. Even a Vatt'ghern is a child compared to this."
The camp fell into a horrified silence. They had spent centuries being hunted by humans who were cruel, but this? This was a force of nature that treated the most terrifying monsters of the North like minor nuisances.
"Is he coming for us?" a child whispered from a tent.
Riordain looked back toward the horizon, where the blue glow of the Fortress lit up the night sky. "He didn't look at us. He just took his 'trophies' and went into his mountain of iron. But if that predator decides he is hungry for more than monsters... may the gods have mercy on the Continent."
******
Inside the Fortress of Doom, the silence was broken only by the rhythmic hum of Sentinel Energy pulsing through the obsidian walls. Henry stood before the Central Console, his HUD flickering as he navigated the System Store.
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[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: SPENDING 250 POINTS... ]
[ KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED: EXPERT ALCHEMY - THE WITCHER TRADITION ]
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A flood of information surged into Henry's mind—molecular structures, herbal properties, and the precise distillation of Dwarven Spirit. He walked over to a high-tech fabrication station that looked more like a particle accelerator than a chemistry set.
Using the Nekker hearts and Leshen resin he'd just harvested, Henry began the process. The automated arms of the station moved with surgical precision, distilling the ingredients into a thick, yellowish liquid.
"White Raffard's Decoction," Henry rumbled, holding up a glass vial filled with a bright, pale-yellow liquid that glowed with a faint, clean light. "Identical in appearance, identical in function... but zero toxicity. I can chug this like a sports drink and my veins won't even turn black." He let out a metallic smirk behind his visor. "Funny. It's called a 'Decoction,' but any idiot knows it's technically a potion. Oh well. Logic wasn't the Continent's strong suit."
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[ SCANNING RADIUS: 5 MILES... ]
[ SETTLEMENT DETECTED: AEN SEIDHE REFUGEE CAMP. ]
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Henry checked his HUD. "Perfect. I need points, and the best way to get them is trade. Let's go see the neighbors."
******
The Aen Seidhe camp was a portrait of misery. Elves sat by dying fires, nursing wounds from the earlier monster raids. Riordain was mid-sentence, describing the "Iron Giant" to the Elder, when the ground began to thrum.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The bushes didn't just rustle; they were pushed aside by a massive, green-armored shoulder. Henry stepped into the clearing—a seven-foot-tall wall of Sentinel-powered muscle and iron. The "Doom Music" radiating from his suit was currently a low, ambient bass line, but to the elves, it sounded like the heartbeat of a vengeful god.
The reaction was instantaneous. Half the camp scrambled for bows; the other half simply fell over in shock.
"GREETINGS," Henry's modulated bass voice boomed, sounding like a landslide hitting a cathedral.
Riordain drew his sword with trembling hands. "Back, Dh'oine! Or... whatever demon-soul inhabits that shell!"
Henry stopped. He realized he looked like a walking war crime. He reached into his Dimensional Storage and pulled out a crate of the glowing yellow potions. He held one up, trying to look "trustworthy."
"I... HAVE... MEDICINE," Henry rumbled, stepping closer. "VERY... POTENT. NO... SIDE... EFFECTS. TWENTY... OREN... A... BOTTLE."
The Elves stared at the glowing yellow liquid. In their world, a potion that bright usually meant "Witcher Toxicity" or "Lethal Mutagen." To them, Henry wasn't a salesman; he was a giant, metal demon offering them "Liquid Sunlight" in exchange for their very souls.
"He wants to harvest us!" a young elf shrieked, tripping over a log as he tried to flee. "He's offering the blood of the stars to lure us into his iron mountain!"
Henry looked at the fleeing elves, then at the bottle in his hand. He had the best medicine in the world, and he was currently being treated like a door-to-door salesman from Hell.