[The battle situation on the ground grows even fiercer. Your time is running out]
[You crawl into the narrow, pitch-black maintenance passage of Emperor-class Titan Dominatus and make your way toward the engine area]
[You must detonate the plasma reactor core before heretics breach the Titan's hull]
[You pass wetware servitors one after another in the darkness]
[The silent figures have fallen into the embrace of the Omnissiah, the Machine God. Their organic components are cold and still]
[You sense crisis a heartbeat too late. You spin, trying to pull the trigger]
[Sharp crystal shards from a shuriken catapult lance out from the shadow of a servitor's corpse, penetrating deep into the left half of your body]
[The pain is excruciating. Like being stabbed with frozen knives. You force yourself to endure it and pull the trigger of your hellgun]
[Scorching las-fire blasts through countless servitor bodies, revealing a slender figure in white armor lurking in the shadows]
[The pointy-eared xenos from the Eldar has infiltrated to the very heart of Emperor-class Titan Dominatus]
[You drag your severely wounded body backward. Blood pours from your wounds in hot streams, pooling on the metal floor]
[Ten meters to the plasma reactor chamber]
[The roar of your hellgun blocks the Eldar's approach. Sharp crystal shards whistle past your scalp, so close you feel their passage through the air]
[You have no fear. Only the mission exists in your mind]
[Five meters from the plasma reactor. The hellgun is screaming, about to overload]
[With blood-slicked palms, you tear a frag grenade from your webbing. You pull the pin and hurl it at the xenos]
[You use the explosion's flames and concussive force to drag your ruined body into the plasma reactor chamber]
[Dizziness crashes over you. Breathing becomes difficult]
[Too much blood lost. Too many wounds]
[You lean weakly against the plasma reactor and slide to the floor, leaving a blood trail down the machinery]
[You remove the safety pins from all remaining grenades on your body. You aim the hellgun's muzzle at the entrance]
[You silently apologize to the sergeant and the team members. You wish you could have done more]
[Blood loss accelerates. You are on the verge of death]
[You release your grip on the grenades. The hellgun roars one final time, its power cell screaming toward critical overload]
[Through blurred vision, you see the pointy-eared heretic dancing gracefully through the entrance. A trace of mockery plays at the corner of its mouth]
["BOOM," you whisper. The last word from your lips]
[You are engulfed by searing explosion. Impact and fire compose a more magnificent and glorious symphony]
[You are completely vaporized in nuclear heat]
[You are dead]
[This simulation ended after forty-nine days]
[This simulation has retainable options]
[1. Emperor-class Titan 'Dominatus' Operation Instructions (Full Version)]
[2. Imperial standard infantry ration set (one week)]
[3. Kasrkin Sergeant's combat experience (one month)]
[This simulation time has exceeded 24 hours. Simulator cooldown timer has not been waived]
[Cooldown time: forty-nine hours]
[Current available cooldown reduction: one hundred and eighteen hours]
[Consume the cooldown reduction?]
[The cooldown time has not been consumed. Simulator enters natural cooling (cooling can be waived at any time)]
Nolan lay on his bed, staring at the simulator interface as it faded.
When his eyes caught the first reward option, his heart nearly stopped.
An Emperor-class Titan. The full operation manual. For a moment, wild possibilities flooded his mind. Could he somehow—?
Then reality reasserted itself. It was just the manual. Instructions for a god-machine he'd never possess, never pilot, never command into battle.
He let out a long breath. His head sank back into the soft pillow.
Of course the simulator wouldn't be that generous. It never was.
His eyes moved to the third option. Combat experience from the Kasrkin sergeant. One month of elite training and battlefield expertise, compressed and ready to integrate.
Joy sparked in his chest.
Nolan didn't hesitate. He selected the third option immediately.
The moment he confirmed the choice, the world shifted.
Nolan's perspective fractured and expanded. He was no longer just himself lying in bed. He was also the bearded sergeant, decades younger, running obstacle courses in the sweltering heat of Cadia. He was firing hellguns on practice ranges until his fingers blistered. He was learning hand-to-hand combat from veterans with scars that told stories of a hundred battles.
Combat drills. Urban warfare. Void combat. Anti-xenos tactics. Counter-insurgency operations. Titan defense protocols.
The knowledge flowed into him like water filling a vessel, but the physical changes were something else entirely.
With his eyes closed, Nolan felt his entire body begin to transform.
His bones lengthened and thickened. The sensation was intense, like his skeleton was being reforged in some invisible furnace. He could almost hear the creaking and popping as growth accelerated beyond natural limits. His bones became denser, harder, like tempered steel wrapped in living tissue.
His muscles tore and rebuilt themselves. Over and over. Fibers snapped and reformed, each iteration stronger than the last. His chest expanded. His shoulders broadened. His arms and legs became corded with lean, functional muscle that bulged like rock formations beneath the skin.
Even his skin changed. The surface layer tightened and firmed, becoming tougher, more resilient. Ordinary knives would have trouble penetrating it now. Minor impacts that would have bruised him before would barely register.
The pain was considerable, but Nolan gritted his teeth and endured. This was nothing compared to being sawed in half by Chaos Space Marines or vaporized in plasma explosions.
The transformation continued for what felt like an eternity but was probably only minutes.
When it finally stopped, Nolan's eyes snapped open.
He felt different. Fundamentally changed. Power surged through his body like an electric current, thrumming in his veins and singing in his muscles.
Sleep was impossible now. Too much energy, too much strength demanding to be tested.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood. The movement was effortless. His body felt lighter despite being heavier. More responsive. More alive.
Nolan glanced at the mirror across the room. The reflection showed a man he barely recognized. Taller. Broader. More defined. His height had shot up to at least 1.85 meters. His weight had to be over a hundred kilograms now, most of it lean muscle.
He looked like he'd spent years training with elite military forces.
Which, in a sense, he had.
A grin spread across his face. Nolan moved to the edge of his bed and gripped the wooden frame with both hands. He barely applied pressure, just a fraction of his new strength.
The entire bed lifted off the ground. Easily. As if it weighed nothing at all.
He held it there for a moment, marveling at the sensation. Then he slowly lowered it back to the floor. The wooden frame settled with a soft thump.
Nolan's excitement gradually cooled as he surveyed his bedroom. The space suddenly felt cramped. Confining. The entire apartment was too small for what he was becoming.
He needed a real base. A proper facility where he could train, store equipment, and operate without worrying about his aunt hearing chainswords roaring or plasma pistols discharging in the middle of the night.
Living at home wasn't sustainable anymore. The basement was too narrow, barely adequate as temporary storage. He needed something larger. More secure. More isolated.
But every inch of Manhattan cost a fortune. Other boroughs were cheaper, sure, but the commute would eat up valuable time. And his remaining two million dollars needed to cover simulator resources and daily expenses. There wasn't much left for real estate.
Nolan frowned, thinking through the problem. Then something occurred to him.
He sat back on the bed and picked up his phone, opening a browser.
A few searches later, a faint smile returned to his face.
New York was a century-old city. Its underground infrastructure was vast and complex. Subway tunnels. Maintenance passages. Abandoned stations. Sewers. Storm drains. An entire hidden network beneath the streets.
If he chose the right location, Nolan wouldn't have to spend anything. He could use the city's own infrastructure to create a secret base. Free movement through forgotten passages. Perfect concealment. No paper trail. No rent. No questions.
The idea had merit. Real merit.
After making his decision, Nolan resolved to spend his free time before the gun deal examining maps and architectural blueprints of New York. He'd find the perfect underground location. Somewhere accessible but hidden. Somewhere he could fortify and equip properly.
A proper base for his growing arsenal and capabilities.
He closed the browser and lay back on the bed, still too energized to sleep. He picked up his phone again, scrolling through social media to pass the time.
Several news items caught his attention.
The first trending topic on Twitter was about Iron Man. Tony Stark was heading to the Middle East again, continuing his one-man war against terrorism. Heroic deeds. Saved civilians. Destroyed weapons caches. The usual.
Nolan scrolled past it. Stark's exploits were impressive but not immediately relevant.
Another news item made him pause.
Frequent thunderstorms in New Mexico. Unusual atmospheric phenomena. Scientists baffled. Locals reporting strange lights in the sky.
Nolan's eyes narrowed. A faint gleam appeared in their depths.
He knew what this meant. Or rather, he could guess.
Mjolnir.
Thor's hammer had arrived on Earth. Sitting in a crater somewhere in the New Mexican desert, waiting for someone worthy to lift it.
"If I went to get Mjolnir, I wonder if I could lift it?" Nolan murmured to himself, half-amused by the thought.
His new strength was impressive. Beyond peak human. Beyond even Captain America, he was certain of that. But worthiness wasn't about physical strength. It was about character. Nobility. Self-sacrifice.
Could a man who'd sawed people in half and burned corpses with plasma fire be considered worthy?
Probably not.
"Maybe Odin would just smite me through the Bifrost," Nolan muttered with dark humor. "One less problem for him to worry about."
Dr. Beheading. Master of the Saw. The murderer Mr. Nolan.
The titles ran through his mind with grim irony as he stared at the ceiling, phone forgotten in his hand.
Could someone like him ever be worthy of anything divine?