The decision to march directly on the Black Smelter was born of the arrogance that comes from seven unbroken years of winning without suffering a true defeat.
They had twenty-five days remaining on the interface timer. The sensible plan, drafted by Dante's analytical mind, called for two weeks of terrain reconnaissance, scouting legion patrols, and gradual trial engagements against lesser golems along the perimeter of the plain.
Yet the surge of power accompanying Maria's new greatsword and Dante's leap in attributes drowned out caution.
"Twenty-five days is way too long to sit around waiting," Maria had argued as they buckled the gear straps in their underground shelter. "We breach the place, smash whatever stands in our way, grab that piece of iron, and wrap this up before the weekend."
Dante had agreed. That stood as his first catastrophic miscalculation since learning to walk.
The Black Smelter was no derelict ruin.
It was a two-mile-long industrial fortress wedged into the floor of a basalt gorge where ambient temperatures easily soared past a hundred and twenty degrees. Dozens of gargantuan smokestacks vomited black soot into the violet sky, and the pounding of forge hammers deep within the complex set the iron plates underfoot vibrating for miles around.
They had managed to carve through the first two defensive rings, relying on the brute impact of Maria's greatsword and Dante's aether darts to detonate the hinge joints of the Scrap Automata patrolling the outer rails.
The catastrophe struck the moment they crossed through the double-plated gateway of the Central Boiler.
The primary chamber was a circular pit a hundred feet deep, scored by conduits carrying glowing channels of yellow molten iron. From the center of the vaulted ceiling, suspended by four iron chains as thick as tree trunks, hung a massive barred cage. Within it, hovering over a pedestal of black stone, a dark metallic sphere pulsed in a slow cadence, shedding faint rings of concentrated ash.
It was the Primordial Iron Core.
Yet the forge was anything but undefended.
The iron-plated floor shuddered beneath the weight of crushing footfalls advancing from the dark beneath the feed conveyor.
The machine that strode out of the haze of hot oil stood thirteen feet tall and twice the width of standard constructs. Its torso was a riveted iron boiler three inches thick, internal furnaces glowing incandescent red behind heavy steel grates. In place of standard arms, the creature wielded four mechanical limbs: two ending in industrial pincer vices, and two mounting massive forge hammers welded directly onto drive pistons.
[Critical Warning: Black Boiler Guardian (Lesser Tier 3).]
[Level: 24.]
[Health Points: 420/420.]
"Maria..." Dante's voice cracked for the first time in years, his throat parched by the superheated air. "Fall back. That isn't scrap fodder. That's Tier Three."
"We're already inside!"
Maria did not retreat. She took two wide strides forward, planted her boots into the iron plates, and gripped the forty-pound greatsword with both hands.
The Guardian wasted no time on warnings.
The boilers across the colossus's back screamed with a deafening screech of high-pressure steam. The automaton closed the fifty-foot gap with speed that defied its five-ton bulk, its leg pistons slamming against the floor in percussive blasts that cracked the cast-iron plating.
The left forge hammer swung down in a diagonal arc.
Maria moved to intercept with the flat of the greatsword, activating [Lead Impact] at the very last instant.
The collision was devastating.
The impact of the two-ton hammer slamming into the sword steel generated a shockwave that blew out the glass of pressure gauges along the walls. Maria was not flung backward because her [Unshakable Stance] locked her feet to the deck, but her iron greaves crushed nearly an inch into the floorplates.
Her brigandine groaned under the strain. A thick ribbon of blood spilled from the corner of her lips as her ribs absorbed the brutal deceleration of the blow.
[-45 HP to Maria.]
[Maria's Health Points: 70/115.]
"Dante! Get this thing off me!" she roared, spitting blood onto the scorching floor.
Dante threw his Mana gates wide in desperation.
[Casting: Maximum Runic Containment Barrier.]
[Mana Cost: 80 points.]
Three rings of sapphire radiance surged between the construct and the girl. Simultaneously, he leveled his right hand toward the overhead steam conduit above the machine's crown.
Aether Dart.
The bolt blasted against the colossus's relief valve, but the armor proved far too dense. The dart merely sheared off the brass cap, venting a blinding torrent of superheated steam across the chamber's flank.
The Guardian pivoted its chassis without missing a beat.
With its secondary hammer, it slammed straight into Dante's Runic Barrier. The eighty-Mana ward shattered like an eggshell under the crushing kinetic weight.
The arcane backlash punched Dante in the gut like an iron fist.
The youth was hurled back against a structural iron pillar, his skull and spine cracking against the metal corner. His treated leather vest sheared across the shoulder, and a loud crack in his clavicle gave way to a blinding spike of agony that plunged his vision into blackness for a full second.
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Air deserted his lungs. He collapsed to his knees on the soot-caked floor, coughing up dark blood.
[Dante's Health Points: 06/34 (Critical Condition).]
[Mild Internal Bleeding. Fractured Right Clavicle.]
The machine loomed over him. Its industrial pincer jaw split open, eight-inch steel fangs extending to crush the fallen summoner's fragile chest.
Dante watched the mechanical jaws descending toward his face. He possessed neither the Mana nor the focus to trigger the emergency recall in time. Anchoring required three seconds of unbroken concentration, and he could barely draw breath without his ribs screaming in fire.
I'm going to die here.
The man in the white jacket was right. I was an idiot.
The air around the iron pillar seemed to freeze for a millisecond.
What followed defied the logic of the system.
Maria saw Dante down. She saw the yellow bar of six hit points flashing frantic crimson over his head, with the iron maw two feet from splintering the boy's skull.
Something inside her chest snapped.
It was not a calculated thought, nor a registered class skill on the silver screen. It was a primal mandate etched into the roots of her muscle, a savage refusal to let that fragile boy be pulverized into red paste across the forge floor.
Maria's brown eyes shed their natural hue.
A thin, smoldering crimson ring ignited around her pupils. Her skin temperature surged so violently that the sweat at her temples evaporated into wisps of gray steam before it could bead on her neck. Through the seams of her bared teeth, the air she hissed was no human breath. It reeked of primordial sulfur and deep-pit fire, a raw heat that caused the veins along her arms to bulge thick and purple beneath her tanned skin.
[System Alert: Hidden Resonance activated.]
[Unidentified trait entering stamina combustion state.]
[Temporary Physical Strength: 26 -> 34.]
Maria did not run. She erupted.
The sheer force of her strides crushed the cast-iron plates underfoot, stamping deep footprints into the slag.
The forty-pound greatsword whipped upward as effortlessly as a dry twig. She employed none of her customary Sentinel forms. She launched herself atop the colossus's right leg, twisted her torso mid-air with monstrous momentum, and drove the broad edge straight into the machine's hip joint.
BANG.
The strike cracked like a field cannon fired point-blank.
The blade sheared clean through the defensive plating, severing the drive pins of the primary piston. The Guardian's right leg collapsed into shattered gears and scalding oil that splattered across Maria's brigandine.
The colossus keeled to the right in a monumental crash, the crushing jaw meant for Dante missing him by two inches to batter uselessly against the iron column.
The machine thrashed to swing its upper hammers toward her, but Maria was already astride its chassis.
She drew ragged, gasping breaths, sulfur steam puffing from her nostrils as the red ring around her pupils burned with blind ferocity. She looked nothing like a seventeen-year-old girl from the suburbs. She resembled an ancient predator spawned from the lowermost trenches, smelling machine oil like fresh blood.
"You... don't... touch him!"
She hoisted the greatsword overhead with both hands and drove the chisel tip straight through the central firebox grating.
CRASH.
"It's my duty to protect him, so... don't you dare lay a finger on him!"
The iron casing yielded. The blade plunged three feet deep into the machine's combustion core.
The Boiler Guardian let out a shriek of pressurized steam that shook the chamber ceiling, every safety valve rupturing simultaneously in jets of white scalding vapor.
Dante, still pinned to the floor clutching his broken collarbone with his left hand, spotted the exposed breach in the construct's carapace. With the final twenty Mana points remaining in his pool, he aimed a trembling index finger into the rupture carved by Maria's sword.
Aether Dart.
The blue bolt lanced straight through the torn casing, striking the internal pressure vessel.
The culminating explosion ripped the monster's armor apart from the inside out.
Chunks of cast iron and sheared cogs ricocheted against the basalt walls. The Level 24 colossus collapsed into the slag conduit for good, the fires of its furnaces dying in a drawn-out hiss of scorched grease.
[-210 HP to target.]
[Target Eliminated: Black Boiler Guardian (Level 24).]
The hall plunged into dead silence, broken only by the drip of liquid iron along the sluices and Maria's rasping breaths.
The girl dragged her greatsword free from the wreckage with a metallic screech.
The dark steam trailing from her lips began to thin. The crimson rings around her pupils flickered twice and died, returning her eyes to their customary brown. She took two strides toward Dante, but her legs buckled. The monstrous exertion demanded its toll from her muscles, and she dropped onto the hot iron plating, bracing herself against the flat of the sword with bloodied hands.
[Maria's Health Points: 28/115.]
[Status: Severe Exhaustion, Muscular Overload.]
Dante dragged himself across the blackened floor until his back touched the iron column beside her. His right shoulder was completely numb, blood soaking the front of his leather vest.
"Maria..." he whispered, spitting another fleck of red saliva. "The cage chain snapped in the blast. The core dropped over there."
He pointed his chin toward the edge of the molten iron trench fifteen feet away.
The sphere of dark iron sat lodged between two buckled rails, venting a cold mist that refused to mix with the furnace heat.
Maria drew three deep breaths through her mouth, dragged the back of her arm across the grease and sweat on her forehead, and forced her knees straight. She dragged her heavy footsteps over to the orb, hoisted the Primordial Iron Core with both gloved hands, and trudged back, trailing the tip of her greatsword behind her.
The sphere was the size of a bowling ball and weighed nearly thirty-five pounds, yet its surface remained completely cold to the touch.
She dropped the relic into Dante's lap with a dull thud.
Both their silver screens flared simultaneously, cutting through the smoke of the shattered boiler with luminous text.
[Shared Quest: Forging the Ash Veil.]
[Stage 1 Complete: Primordial Iron Core acquired.]
[Time remaining for Stage 2 (Matrix Construction): 24 days.]
Dante cradled the cold iron sphere against his battered ribs, feeling the steady hum of concentrated ash locked inside the ore.
He looked at Maria.
The girl was covered in steam scalds, her iron cuirass dented inward over her stomach, face smeared in blood and machine grease, hands shaking so violently she could barely keep a grip on the hilt. He himself sat with a fractured collarbone, six hit points, and not a single drop of Mana in reserve.
They had nearly been wiped from existence by a single Level 24 automaton.
"We..." Dante forced out between his teeth, the throb at the base of his skull pounding savagely. "We never pull a stunt this stupid again."
Maria spat another mouthful of gray dust onto the floor, glanced down at the five-ton ruin collapsed in the slag sluice, and let out a dry, raspy chuckle.
"Shut up, bighead," she said, resting a heavy palm on his uninjured shoulder. "Open that rift back to our living room rug before the rest of these machines wake up."
Dante took a deep, agonizing breath, closed his eyes, and commanded his soul core to expend its final flicker of consciousness to lock onto the return coordinates.