The bone-saw’s teeth spun with a high-pitched whine, a counterpoint to the raiders’ shouts. Dovjen moved. Not a sprint, not a charge, but a slow, deliberate glide. His pupils swallowed the grey irises whole. The first raider, a hulking figure in scavenged plate, tried to bring a spiked club down. Dovjen sidestepped the wild swing, the saw a blur. It didn't cut; it *disassembled*. The club's shaft separated from the head with a screech of tortured metal, then the raider’s plated wrist, then his elbow. The man screamed, a wet gurgle, collapsing in a heap as Dovjen moved past him without a glance. “Get him! That mechanic’s here!” another zealot shrieked, firing a looted coilgun. The bolt whizzed past Dovjen’s ear, singeing a few strands of his dark hair. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he snapped his fingers. From the shadowed alley mouth, Fluffy scuttled out, eight brass-reinforced limbs vaulting over the brick rubble. A guttural roar ripped through the air as it slammed into the coilgunner, crushing him against a rusted freight container. The sound of splintering bone was sickeningly audible. Bato, still kneeling by the ruined K-series, gripped his broken steam wand as Dovjen systematically dismantled the remaining zealots. It wasn't combat; it was an execution. A plasma cutter wielder found his arms severed at the shoulder before he could even aim. A flamethrower operator was impaled by a shard of rebar Dovjen telekinetically ripped from the wall. There was no joy, no rage, just cold, precise removal of obstacles. Dovjen’s movements were fluid, economical, each action leading to the swift incapacitation or demise of an attacker. Szilard floated by Bato’s side, his ethereal form shimmering. “Fascinating,” the lich murmured, observing Dovjen’s work. “His manipulation of localized kinetic torque has increased tenfold. The emotional distress has unlocked significant potential.” “He’s… he’s butchering them,” Bato stammered, his voice barely a breath. The alley was slick with oil and something darker. Bodies lay mangled, twisted. The troll, growling softly, was already sniffing around for more targets. “Indeed,” Szilard replied, adjusting his spectral monocle. “A rather efficient culling, wouldn’t you agree? Less messy than an explosion, far more precise than a decay bomb.” One zealot, a stout woman with an optic implant, scrambled over a pile of derelict servo-motors. “The Foundry! We need reinforcements!” she screamed down a maintenance tunnel. “The Hearth of Purity?” Dovjen’s voice, still that same flat, even tone, cut through the din. He followed her, his steps leaving faint, smoking prints on the ground. “Show me.” The chase was short. Dovjen didn’t run; he simply *was* behind her. The woman, panting, found herself abruptly stopped, her arms pinned to her sides by an invisible force. She stared into Dovjen’s lifeless eyes. “You won't leave this pit alive!” she spat, chin trembling. “I am retrieving my property,” Dovjen corrected, tightening his telekinetic clamp. He propelled her forward, a living, screaming compass, through winding, grimy passages until they burst into a vast, cavernous space. This was the faction's redoubt, a cavernous redoubt blasted out of the bedrock beneath Veszagrad. Welders flared, technicians stripped drone parts, and iron-clad guards stood watch. Tibor, shackled to a workbench, his chassis sparking weakly, was visible in the distance. “Commander!” the woman shrieked, pointing behind her. “He tracked me!” A man with a scarred cheek and a heavy-gauge slug-thrower stepped forward, flanked by two bulked enforcers. “You dare crawl down here, scrap-monger?” the commander barked across the chamber. “We'll melt you for chassis plates!” Dovjen looked straight past him to Tibor, sensing the sputtering trickle of acid and lead inside the strapped chassis. He could feel the absence of Bato’s espresso machine. The calculation was simple. The price for this transgression would be absolute. [Crucible Aegis: Threat detected. Anomaly: Dovjen. Sub-faction: Loyalist Enforcers. Resolution: Eliminate.] “You wanted to scrap my family?” Dovjen asked, his voice still unnervingly calm. “Let’s see how you enjoy becoming scrap.” He released the terrified woman, who promptly crumpled to the floor. Then, with a single, sharp gesture, he ripped the heavy slug-thrower from Vulkos’s hands. The gun crumpled like tin foil, its barrel shearing in half. The commander howled, swinging an entrenching axe, but Dovjen stepped inside the arc and pinned the man's throat in his left palm. The man struggled, clawing at Dovjen’s arm, but it was like trying to dislodge granite. “Fluffy,” Dovjen said, his tone carrying across the silenced hall. The graft-beast bounded through the bulkhead, its bulk scraping the doorframe. Its single eye glowed with anticipation. Dovjen hoisted the choking commander off his boots and strode toward the beast's yawning jaws. Without pausing, he tipped the thrashing officer headfirst down the gullet. A wet grind of fracturing ribs and tearing synth-leather snapped through the room. The troll gulped once, panting. Dovjen wiped his hand on his pants, as if removing dust. [Crucible Aegis: Loyalist Enforcers demoralized. Leader eliminated. Anomaly efficiency: 98%. Reward: Blueprint acquired: 'Reactor Core Symbiosis'.] The surviving guards scattered in panic. One particularly desperate guard, seeing Dovjen’s focus on the fleeing crowd, grabbed Tibor. He unhooked the bench chain, hauling the sparking skeleton toward the pulsing power core sunk into the floor plates. “If we can't keep the salvage, you won't either!” he shrieked, desperate to melt the frame into slag. He hurled Tibor into the glowing, exposed core with all his might. A blinding flare surged out, blowing the overhead sodium lamps. The guard cried out, clutching his eyes, but it wasn’t the destructive explosion he’d intended. Instead, the reactor core began to thrum violently, the hum rising to a deafening roar. Blue discharge arced around Tibor’s falling form. The skeleton didn’t melt. It began to *absorb*. The plasma heat and output from the primary coil flooded straight into the acid cells. Tibor’s chassis began to distort, to grow, to shift. His single glowing eye flared with an intensity that outshone the reactor. Thick sheets of cast alloy folded over the ribcage, riveting themselves into heavy bulwarks. His forearms broadened, fuel conduits burning white-hot beneath steel sleeve-plates. From his shoulders, two formidable laser cannons extended, humming with contained destructive force. The car battery, now a pulsating core in his chest, shone like a miniature sun. Tibor, once a humble skeleton warrior, now stood over three meters tall, a towering, heavily-armored Death Knight, bristling with weaponry. He struck his plated gauntlets together, driving a reverberation through the stone floor. “Master,” Tibor’s voice, now a deep, resonant rumble, echoed, each syllable imbued with latent power. He aimed a laser cannon, vaporizing the fleeing guard in a burst of superheated plasma. “My apologies for the delay. Ready for orders.” [Crucible Aegis: Anomaly Summon: Tibor. Evolution achieved: 'Death Knight'. Sub-classification: 'Radiant Crusader'. Power level increased: Catastrophic. Unique abilities: 'Plasma Cannons', 'Core Absorption'.] [Crucible Aegis: Warning. Anomaly Dovjen’s power curve has exceeded predicted parameters. World-Threat designation initiated. Recalibrating threat assessment. Spawning localized hazard zone: 'Void-Scar Anomaly'. Target: Anomaly Dovjen’s Primary Residence.]

Zero-Tolerance Apathy