The Hell-Hound, a beast of crackling crimson fur and teeth like splintered bone shards, lunged. Its shriek ripped through the ash-choked air of the Shattered Wastes, a sound that usually preceded a messy end for anyone foolish enough to stray from Ostrog-7’s shielded lower tiers. Olev Rask, however, merely watched its approach with the detached interest of a man observing a particularly uncoordinated pigeon. “Grigori, if you could just… lean into that,” Olev murmured, not bothering to dodge. The skeletal figure beside him, a permanent scowl etched into its mandibles, groaned a rattling sigh. “Always me,” Grigori’s voice, a dry rasp of grinding bone, complained. “My spine feels like a bag of broken crockery, boss. Can’t you take a hit once in a while? For old times’ sake?” “Old times were you trying to drown me in a sludge tank,” Olev replied, completely ignoring the ‘boss’ part. “This is a different kind of contract. Now, brace.” Grigori didn’t get a chance to retort. The Hell-Hound, a creature twice the size of a demolition loader, slammed into Olev. The impact was sickeningly visceral, a wet *crack* that echoed across the desolate plains. Olev’s body folded, a marionette with severed strings, before being hurled backward, a dark rag doll tumbling through the purple haze. He landed with a thud against a jagged shard of what used to be a skyscraper, his head lolling at an unnatural angle. From a defensive perch on a crumbling bridge above, Yeva Sokolov, spear clutched tight, watched in disgusted horror. “Rask, you incompetent scrap-pile! Didn’t I tell you to maintain distance?!” Her shout was lost to the wind, swallowed by the growl of the attacking horde. Her partner was dead. Again. It was a common enough sight for the low-ranked, expendable haulers forced into these suicidal expeditions for abyssal cores, but Olev Rask, with his infuriating nonchalance, managed to make even death seem like a personal affront. He was the kind of man who’d complain about the quality of the dirt he was buried in. Yeva set her stance, preparing to cover his retreat – or rather, his *corpse’s* retreat – when her gaze snagged on something absurd. Olev Rask pushed himself upright. Slowly. Casually. Like he’d merely tripped on a loose paving stone. He brushed ash from his tattered hauling jacket. His neck, which had been bent at an angle that screamed ‘fractured atlas’, rotated with a soft pop. He tilted his head, regarding the still-panting Hell-Hound with a gaze of mild annoyance. “Honestly, Grigori,” Olev sighed, stepping over what remained of his skeletal minion. Grigori had been reduced to a pile of shattered femurs and a single, still-grumpy skull, a fine white dust clinging to the crimson fur of the Hell-Hound’s chest. “You know I hate getting bone dust on my clothes. It never washes out.” The Hell-Hound, initially confused by the reanimating scrap-hauler, let out another enraged bark, lunging again. But this time, Olev didn’t wait. A ripple, like heat haze, emanated from his shadow, stretching, warping. From its depths, things emerged. First, a towering figure of obsidian plate and glowing scarlet eyes, the Hulking Drakonus, a beast thought extinct, its roar a tectonic shift. Then, a swirling vortex of shadow and frost coalesced into the Frost-Glaive Chimera, its three heads hissing, icicles forming in the air around it. Behind them, a dozen smaller, yet still terrifying, monstrosities, each an elite boss that had taken entire companies of vanguard fighters to fell, shimmered into existence. A lumbering behemoth of cracked earth and molten rock, the Magma-Spine Golem, scraped its stone knuckles against the ground, sending tremors through the plate. A multi-limbed spider with blades for legs, the Silken Executioner, scuttled into position, its thousands of eyes fixed on the remaining encroaching horde. They moved with silent, predatory grace, an army of resurrected nightmares. The Hell-Hound, caught mid-lunge, skidded to a halt, its primal fear-response overriding its aggression. Its whimper was a tiny, pathetic sound against the rising cacophony of monstrous roars and the thud of colossal limbs. Yeva stared, her jaw slack. The words of disgust stuck in her dry throat, replaced by a hollow chill. Her spear felt suddenly light, useless. She’d always seen Olev as a lazy, parasitic liability, a leech on the meager resources of Ostrog-7, barely scraping by on the fringes of the core economy. Now, standing behind an impenetrable phalanx of boss-tier undead, he looked less like a hauler and more like… a king of the damned. “Oh, you’re still here?” Olev drawled, not even glancing at the Hell-Hound, which was now being shredded by the Drakonus’s claws. “Thought you’d have run off to polish your pretty little spear by now, Sokolov.” “What… what in the Blight’s name *are* those?” Yeva finally managed, her voice a strained whisper. “My early retirement plan,” Olev replied, watching as the Frost-Glaive Chimera froze an entire wave of smaller, snarling demons mid-charge before the Magma-Spine Golem stomped them into glittering shards. “They make excellent deterrents for minor inconveniences.” [ *! SYSTEM ALERT !* ] [ *USER: Olev Rask, has successfully triggered: ‘The Meat-Shield Mechanic’.* ] [ *DAMAGE REDIRECTION: 100% of fatal blunt force trauma absorbed by summoned entity: ‘Grigori (Skeletal Minion)’.* ] [ *INGENUITY BONUS: Extreme pragmatism in leveraging expendable allies for personal invulnerability. Well played, you cynical bastard.* ] [ *REWARD: +50% Essence gain for all kills made within 10 meters of current position for the next 60 seconds.* ] Olev hummed, a low, tuneless sound. “Fifty percent? Not bad. Grigori, your sacrifice was… moderately appreciated.” The silence over the pulverized demons was deafening. Nothing remained but gore, ash, and the still forms of Olev’s summoned elite. The Drakonus’s scarlet eyes dimmed slightly. The Frost-Glaive Chimera’s breath misted, no longer freezing. They were simply… waiting. Olev began harvesting the cores, moving with practiced efficiency. He knelt beside the pulped remains of a Shard-Fiend, his calloused fingers expertly digging out the glowing purple orb from its chest cavity. “We still have a quota to hit, Sokolov,” he said, not looking up. “Unless you want to explain to the City Wardens why we came back light.” Yeva descended, her feet heavy, her mind reeling. She watched him, bewildered, as he methodically collected the cores, completely ignoring the copper stench of spilled ichor and the towering forms of his resurrected guardians. He treated the apocalypse like a tedious chore, and his secret, world-breaking power, like a particularly effective brand of pest control. Suddenly, the ground beneath them convulsed. A deep, guttural roar ripped across the Shattered Wastes, not from any prowling stalker, but from the very fabric of the world. The bruised purple sky seemed to tear, a massive, writhing tendril of pulsating demonic flesh, thick as a city block, shot out from the distant, shimmering distortion in the sky. It moved with horrifying speed, a grotesque, living bridge of sinew and bone. It slammed into the colossal, reinforced walls of Ostrog-7, just above their position, with a wet, resonant *thwack* that vibrated through their bones. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ancient adamantine plating. The tendril pulsed, and from its glistening surface, dark figures began to descend, rappelling down on cords of solidified shadow. They were tall, gaunt, clad in jagged armor of abyssal iron, with blades that gleamed with malevolent intent. Abyssal executioners. And they were dropping directly into their path, between them and the city gates. Trapped.