The silence in the Brass Griffon was so absolute that Wanhan could hear the slow, methodical dripping of ale from a spilled tankard three tables away.

  Commander Vane of the Iron Forge stepped up to their booth. The two armored knights flanking him moved with a terrifying, synchronized grace, their hands resting on the pommels of their hand-and-a-half swords.

  Vane didn’t draw his weapon. He didn't even look angry. He looked entirely, uncomfortably curious.

  His sharp, gray eyes flicked from the soot-stained dwarf holding a loaded scatter-crossbow under the table, to the blind elf radiating lethal intent, and finally to the pale, seventeen-year-old boy sitting in the center. Vane’s gaze dropped to Wanhan's empty right sleeve, pinned neatly to the fresh leather of his tunic.

  Then, Vane looked at Fenrir.

  The Commander slowly reached out a gauntleted hand toward the heavy, dark steel blade resting against the table.

  "Touch the iron, and you'll be pulling a black-fletched arrow out of your throat before your brain registers the pain," Mata whispered. Her voice didn't rise above the crackle of the hearth, but it cut through the room like a razor.

  Vane’s hand stopped an inch from Fenrir’s hilt. He looked at the blindfolded elf, a faint smile touching the scarred edge of his mouth.

  "A woodland ghost in the Middle Ring," Vane noted calmly. "Fascinating company you keep, boy." He withdrew his hand, crossing his armored arms over his chest. He looked back at Wanhan. "Are you the one who claimed the bounty on Barek?"

  Wanhan didn't stand up. He kept his left hand resting flat on the table, near his dagger. Thanks to the point he’d just put into [Endurance], his breathing was steady, hiding the fact that his ribs were still a mess of torn flesh and alchemical paste.

  "He had a bounty," Wanhan said, his voice flat. "We collected it. If the Forge has a problem with the Merchant's Guild paying us, take it up with them."

  "I don't care about the gold," Vane replied, gesturing to the ruined piece of siege-plate he had dropped on the floor. "I care about the physics of that puncture wound. Barek was wearing Mark IV tempered alloy. City Guard pikes shatter against it. Heavy crossbow bolts deflect off the curvature. Yet, you punched a rectangular hole straight through the chainmail gusset and the secondary plating."

  Vane leaned closer, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed the lopsided shape of Fenrir. He noticed the massive iron pommel and the asymmetrical guard.

  "It's a counterweight," the Commander murmured, a glint of genuine professional respect in his eyes. "You're missing your dominant arm. A standard sword would throw off your center of gravity. This monstrosity anchors your stance. But you can't swing it with enough velocity to crack Mark IV alloy." Vane looked Wanhan dead in the eye. "You locked your arm and threw your entire body weight into a linear thrust, didn't you? You turned yourself into a siege engine."

  Wanhan’s expression didn't change, but internally, his heart hammered against his ribs. The man had reverse-engineered his Level 1 Piercing Step just by looking at the sword and the wound.

  "Five gold," Tiny interrupted, sliding out from the booth and standing on his chair so he was closer to eye level with the Inquisitor. The dwarf’s greed was officially overriding his survival instincts. "That's what the Guild paid us to clean up your mess, Commander. If you're here to arrest us for doing a public service, you'll have to drag us out. And I assure you, my scatter-crossbow will make a terrible mess of your fancy blue armor at this range."

  Vane chuckled. It was a dark, hollow sound.

  "Put the toy away, dwarf. I'm not here to arrest you," Vane said, stepping back and gesturing to the barkeep to bring over a chair. He dragged it to the end of their table and sat down, the heavy armor groaning. "In fact, the Iron Forge is willing to officially overlook the destruction of our proprietary siege-plate."

  Wanhan narrowed his eyes. "In exchange for what?"

  "In exchange for a demonstration," Vane said, leaning his elbows on the table. "The Forge has a... complication. Deep in the lower containment vaults beneath the city. Something has breached a reinforced bulkhead door. The locking mechanism is jammed from the inside, and the hinges are cast from the same Mark IV alloy you just cracked."

  A blue screen suddenly erupted in the center of Wanhan's vision, casting a faint glow that only he could see.

  [Emergency System Quest Triggered: The Forge's Secret]

  [Objective: Accompany Commander Vane to the lower vaults and breach the jammed bulkhead.]

  [Warning: Recommended Level 15+. Threat level unknown.]

  [Reward: 20 Gold Pieces, High-Tier Iron Forge Equipment.]

  Tiny choked on his own spit. Even without seeing the system screen, the dwarf could smell the money.

  "You want us to break your door down?" Wanhan asked, his left hand slowly curling into a fist. "Why not just use explosives?"

  "Because the containment vault is unstable," Vane said, his voice dropping to a grim whisper. "Explosives will bring the entire sector down on our heads. We need localized, extreme kinetic force applied directly to the hinge joints. We need exactly what you did to Barek."

  Vane reached into his cloak and pulled out a heavy, stamped iron token, sliding it across the table toward Wanhan.

  "Twenty gold pieces," Vane offered. "And access to the Forge's private armory to upgrade that raw iron you're carrying. But we leave immediately. Whatever is behind that door is trying to get out, and we are running out of time."

  Twenty gold pieces.

  To a boy who had spent five years washing tavern floors for copper pennies, it was an amount of wealth that didn't even feel real. It was enough to buy a small farmhouse, a dozen horses, or a prosthetic limb crafted by the finest artificers in the realm.

  More importantly, twenty gold would instantly vaporize his debt to Tiny, with enough left over to survive the winter.

  Wanhan looked at the heavy iron token Vane had pushed across the table. He looked at the system warning flickering in his vision—Threat level unknown. Recommended Level 15+. He was only Level 6 overall, even if his specific skills were higher.

  "Twenty gold," Tiny repeated, his voice practically trembling with reverence. The dwarf aggressively kicked Wanhan’s shin beneath the table. "Say yes, boy. Say yes before the Commander comes to his senses."

  Wanhan picked up the token with his left hand. It was uncomfortably warm.

  "We do the job, we get the gold, and we get access to your armory," Wanhan confirmed, his eyes locked on Vane's scarred face. "No hidden contracts. No fine print about bringing you a monster's head."

  "My word as an Inquisitor of the Forge," Vane said, standing up. "Now, drink your ale, One-Hand. We have a long walk down."

  An hour later, the Brass Griffon and the relatively clean air of the Middle Ring felt like a distant dream.

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  Commander Vane led the trio deep into the industrial heart of the city, bypassing the public mining levels and entering a restricted, heavily guarded sector known simply as The Crucible.

  The descent was brutal. They rode a massive, steam-powered iron elevator cage down for what felt like miles. The air grew suffocatingly hot, thick with the smell of sulfur, alchemical oil, and burning coal. The walls of the shaft glowed with a dull, omnipresent orange light from the subterranean magma vents used to power the Forge's massive bellows.

  Mata stood in the very center of the elevator cage, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Her knuckles were white where they gripped her bow.

  "We are too deep," the blind elf whispered, her breath hitching. "The Mother's roots do not reach this far down. The earth here is dead. It has been cooked alive."

  "Fascinating pneumatic infrastructure," Tiny muttered, ignoring her panic as he peered over the edge of the cage, his goggles reflecting the orange glow. "Look at the sheer tensile strength of those counter-cables! Vane, what kind of pressure systems are you running down here?"

  "The kind that are currently failing," Vane replied grimly as the cage ground to a violent, screeching halt at the bottom of the shaft.

  The heavy iron grate slid open. Before them stretched a wide, vaulted corridor made entirely of dark, reinforced steel. Emergency alchemical lamps flickered with a sickly red hue, casting long, bloody shadows across the floor.

  The corridor ended abruptly fifty yards ahead at a massive bulkhead door.

  It was twenty feet tall and ten feet wide, forged from a solid slab of Mark IV tempered alloy. But what made Wanhan’s stomach drop was the shape of the door.

  It was bowing outward.

  Something on the other side of that impenetrable, foot-thick steel had struck it with enough force to warp the metal.

  BOOM.

  The entire corridor shook violently, knocking Tiny off his feet. Dust and loose rivets rained down from the ceiling. A terrifying, muffled roar echoed from the other side of the bulkhead—a sound of pure, unadulterated rage that vibrated deep in Wanhan's teeth.

  "What in the nine hells is in there?" Tiny yelled, scrambling to his feet and instinctively raising his scatter-crossbow.

  "An experiment," Vane said coldly, stepping forward. He didn't elaborate. "The internal locking mechanism is jammed. The containment field is failing. If that door gives way entirely, whatever is in there will have a clear path to the elevator shaft. It will reach the Middle Ring in ten minutes."

  Vane pointed to the right side of the massive bulkhead. The steel frame was anchored into the stone by three monstrous hinge-pins, each the size of a man’s torso.

  "The alloy of the door itself is warped, but the hinges are solid," Vane instructed, looking at Wanhan. "If you can shatter the bottom and middle hinges, the weight of the door will cause it to collapse inward, crushing the entryway and sealing the tunnel permanently. But you have to hit the exact joint where the pin meets the bracket."

  Wanhan walked slowly toward the massive steel door.

  The heat radiating from the metal was blistering. His left arm ached with the memory of the Forge-Knight’s armor, and that had just been half an inch thick. These hinge-pins were solid columns of iron and alchemical steel.

  BOOM.

  Another impact from inside. The steel groaned, a high-pitched, terrifying screech of metal tearing.

  Wanhan stopped ten feet from the door. He drew Fenrir. The heavy iron pommel locked his balance, the lopsided blade catching the sickly red emergency lights.

  "If I hit that hinge," Wanhan yelled over the groaning steel, "and the door doesn't fall inward..."

  "Then it falls outward," Vane finished, drawing his hand-and-a-half sword, the blade glowing with a sudden, searing white heat. The two Inquisitors behind him did the same. "And we kill whatever steps out. Or we die trying."

  Mata nocked a black-fletched arrow, her covered eyes tracking the micro-vibrations in the steel door. "Do not miss, human. I cannot shoot through a wall."

  Wanhan took a deep breath. He ignored his torn ribs. He ignored the terrifying roar echoing from the vault. He dropped his center of gravity, locking his left elbow rigidly against his side, and pointed the tip of Fenrir directly at the seam of the middle hinge-pin.

  [Target Identified: Mark IV Alloy Hinge Joint]

  [Skill Activated: Piercing Step]

  He pushed off the reinforced floor.

  Wanhan didn't run. He became a projectile.

  The multiplied momentum of Diner Dash ignited his boots, launching him across the reinforced steel floor. Because his left elbow was locked rigidly against his ribs, he didn't absorb the shock in his shoulder—he let his entire skeletal structure become the shaft of a spear, with Fenrir as the heavy iron arrowhead.

  He crossed the ten feet in a fraction of a second.

  CRANG!

  The impact was so loud it didn't register as sound. It registered as a physical shockwave that blew the red dust off the vaulted ceiling.

  The dark steel tip of Fenrir struck the exact seam where the middle hinge-pin met the Mark IV alloy bracket. A shower of blinding white sparks erupted from the joint. The alchemical steel shrieked in protest, fighting the sheer kinetic mass of the lopsided blade.

  But Wanhan’s newly enhanced [Strength] held his wrist perfectly straight. The lopsided pommel drove the momentum forward, refusing to let the blade deflect.

  With a sound like a cannon firing, the foot-thick middle hinge-pin sheared clean in half.

  [Target Severed: Mark IV Alloy Joint]

  The recoil threw Wanhan violently backward. His boots skidded across the metal floor, and he dropped to one knee, gasping. His left arm was completely numb from the fingertips to the collarbone. The point he had placed into [Endurance] was the only thing keeping his stitched ribs from blowing wide open, but the pain still blinded him for a terrible second.

  "One down!" Tiny roared, racking his scatter-crossbow. "Hit the bottom one, kid! It's buckling!"

  Without the middle hinge to distribute the weight, the massive twenty-foot bulkhead door began to groan ominously. The metal visibly warped inward under the immense pressure of whatever was trapped on the other side.

  Wanhan gritted his teeth, forcing his numb fingers to grip the leather wrapping of Fenrir. He hauled himself up, his chest heaving. He only needed one more strike.

  He dropped his center of gravity, locking his arm again, and aimed for the bottom hinge.

  BOOM.

  The impact from inside the vault didn't hit the center of the door this time. It hit the top corner.

  The timing couldn't have been worse. The top hinge, suddenly bearing the entire, unequal load of the monstrous strike, let out a catastrophic CRACK.

  "It's breaking!" Vane shouted, his hand-and-a-half sword flaring with searing white heat. "Fall back! It's falling outward!"

  Wanhan didn't have time to use Diner Dash to retreat.

  The top hinge snapped like a dry twig. Stripped of its anchors, the massive slab of Mark IV alloy peeled away from the stone frame and collapsed outward into the corridor with the force of a falling meteor.

  Wanhan threw himself backward, hitting the steel floor hard and rolling as the edge of the twenty-ton door slammed into the ground mere inches from his boots. The entire Crucible shuddered. Emergency alchemical lamps shattered above them, plunging the corridor into a deeper, bloodier gloom.

  A suffocating wave of heat rolled out from the breached vault, carrying the stench of burning ozone, rotting meat, and scorched iron.

  "Form up!" Vane bellowed, stepping in front of Wanhan, his white-hot blade raised high. The two other Inquisitors flanked him, forming a wall of dark blue armor.

  From the smoking darkness of the open vault, a massive hand reached out and gripped the edge of the fallen steel door.

  It wasn't a human hand. It was a grotesque amalgamation of swollen, blistered red flesh and jagged, fused iron plates. Glowing, molten magma pulsed through thick, translucent veins that coiled around the massive fingers.

  The creature hauled itself out of the vault.

  It was twelve feet tall, a hulking monstrosity that looked like a Forge-Knight who had been melted down and fused with a subterranean demon. Half of its face was a smooth, featureless iron mask; the other half was a sloughing ruin of burning muscle and a jaw unhinged to reveal rows of glowing, superheated teeth. Embedded directly into the center of its chest was a violently spinning, cracked alchemical furnace core, venting highly pressurized steam with every rattling breath.

  [WARNING: Boss Entity Discovered]

  [Target: Corrupted Furnace Goliath]

  [Level: ???]

  [Threat Level: FATAL]

  "Mother's mercy," Mata whispered from the back of the corridor, her covered eyes tilting up toward the towering monstrosity. She nocked two black-fletched arrows simultaneously.

  "That is not an experiment, Vane!" Tiny screamed, his goggles reflecting the monster's glowing core. "That is an abomination!"

  "It was supposed to be the ultimate siege weapon," Vane said, his voice grim, tight with regret and fear. "The core destabilized. It fused with the test subject."

  The Furnace Goliath let out a deafening, metallic roar that vibrated the fillings in Wanhan's teeth. It didn't have a weapon; its entire right arm ended in a massive, glowing mace of fused slag and bone.

  It locked its burning, asymmetrical eyes on Commander Vane, and charged.

  "Fire!" Vane ordered.

  Tiny’s scatter-crossbow went off like a thunderclap, sending a hail of jagged iron bolts straight into the Goliath's chest. They pinged harmlessly off the fused iron plates, sparking wildly in the dim light. Mata’s twin arrows flew with lethal precision, burying themselves deep into the monster's exposed red flesh, but the Goliath didn't even flinch. The heat radiating from its body instantly ignited the wooden shafts, burning them to ash in seconds.

  Wanhan pushed himself up from the floor, his left arm shaking, his lungs burning with the sulfurous air.

  He looked at his blue system screen. [Threat Level: FATAL].

  He looked at the towering monster. His Piercing Step couldn't reach its chest core, and a standard slash with Fenrir would shatter against that iron hide.

  "Kid!" Tiny yelled, scrambling backward as the monster swung its massive slag-mace, forcing the three Inquisitors to dive for cover. "Get out of there! You can't pierce that!"

  Wanhan gripped the heavy iron pommel of his lopsided sword. He couldn't pierce it. He couldn't chop it. But as he watched the Goliath swing its massive arm, shifting its massive weight entirely to one side... he saw a flaw in its balance.

  "I don't need to pierce it," Wanhan muttered to himself, his eyes locking onto the monster's fused, iron-plated knee joint. "I just need to knock it down."