The second Ping did not echo. It shattered.
The sound wasn't a noise; it was a frequency that vibrated the marrow in Kaelen's bones and rattled the fillings in his teeth. The corrugated metal wall of the Rust-Spire—twenty feet of steel and reinforced scrap—didn't bend, buckle, or break.
It simply dissolved.
A ten-foot section of the barricade turned into gray dust, collapsing inward with a soft, sickening whoosh. The heavy shipping containers stacked behind it groaned and slumped, their structural integrity deleted in a nanosecond.
Through the breach, the Silence entered.
It wasn't a horde. It wasn't an army.
It was one thing.
It stood seven feet tall, its body a sleek, featureless mannequin made of oscillating black static. It shifted in and out of focus, like a bad signal on an old screen. It wore no armor, held no weapon. Its face was a smooth porcelain oval with no eyes, no nose, and no mouth—just a blank white surface that reflected the terror of the camp.
[ TARGET: CORRECTION UNIT (ALPHA CLASS) ]
[ OBJECTIVE: PURGE ERROR ]
The crowd in the Rust-Spire screamed.
The sound was primal, a stampede of terror. People trampled over each other to get away from the breach, knocking over tents and fire pits. The fungus troughs were overturned, spilling green slime into the dirt. A watchtower collapsed as the guards atop it scrambled down, abandoning their posts.
"It's here!" the Camp Leader shrieked, backing away, his spear trembling in his hands. He pointed a finger at Kaelen. "He called it! The Stray called it!"
Kaelen stood his ground, though his legs felt like lead. The [Edit] he had performed on the child had drained him to the marrow. His mana core was empty, scraping against the bottom of the well. His vision swam with black spots, and his ribs ached with every breath.
He held the massive Mark-IV Railgun in his hands. It was heavy, cold, and—without the firing pin—completely useless. A twenty-pound paperweight.
The Correction Unit didn't look at the screaming crowd. It didn't look at the Leader. It turned its faceless head slowly, scanning the area until it locked onto Kaelen.
It took a step.
The ground beneath its foot didn't crunch; it muted. The sound of its impact was deleted from reality. It moved with a terrifying, jerky grace—glitching forward. One moment it was thirty feet away; the next, it was twenty.
"Renna!" Kaelen yelled, his voice cracking.
Renna was twenty feet to his left, scrambling through the chaos of the fleeing mob. She had the firing pin. He had the gun.
"Throw it!" she screamed, planting her good leg and holding out her hands.
Kaelen didn't hesitate. He swung the massive weapon by the barrel, using his remaining strength to hurl it over the heads of the panicked scavengers.
The heavy rifle tumbled through the air, end over end.
The Correction Unit saw the weapon. It raised a hand.
[ ACTION: INTERCEPT ]
A beam of violet anti-light shot from its palm.
It missed the rifle by inches, sizzling through the air and vaporizing a bystander's tent instantly. The canvas didn't burn; it just ceased to exist.
The railgun slammed into the dirt at Renna's feet. She dove for it, scrambling to drag the heavy chassis behind a pile of crates.
The Unit turned back to Kaelen. It raised its hand again.
Kaelen drew his knife—the jagged piece of rusted rebar he had scavenged. It was a toothpick against a god, but he had to buy Renna time to reassemble the bolt.
"Hey!" Kaelen roared, stepping forward. He tapped the rebar against his metal belt buckle. Clink. Clink. Clink.
"You hate noise?" Kaelen shouted, waving his arms. "I'm right here! Come and get it!"
The Unit froze. It processed the threat. The "Error" was challenging it.
It moved.
It didn't run. It skipped frames. It was suddenly ten feet away, its arm sweeping out in a backhand motion.
Kaelen ducked. The air where his head had been hissed as the molecules were agitated into plasma. He felt the heat singe his hair.
He lunged, stabbing the rebar into the Unit's side.
It felt like stabbing water. The black static parted around the metal, then snapped back, biting into the steel. The rebar froze instantly, turning brittle and white.
CRACK.
The weapon shattered in Kaelen's grip.
The Unit didn't even flinch. It grabbed Kaelen by the throat.
The grip was cold—absolute zero. It lifted him off the ground as if he weighed nothing. Kaelen kicked and clawed at the static arm, but his hands passed through it, numbing his fingers.
He couldn't breathe. The Silence was editing the air out of his lungs.
The Unit raised its other hand, fingers forming a spear of void energy.
[ EXECUTE. ]
Kaelen looked at the faceless mask. He saw his own reflection in the porcelain—a battered, bleeding man dangling in the grip of the inevitable.
So this is it, he thought dimly, his vision graying out. Dying in a pile of rust, trying to save people who hate me.
He closed his eyes.
CLICK.
The sound was small. Mechanical. Precise.
It cut through the chaos like a knife. It was the sound of a firing pin sliding into a housing and locking into place.
The Unit stopped. The spear of energy hesitated.
It turned its head.
Renna lay prone in the dirt, twenty yards away. The massive railgun was shouldered, the bipod digging into the earth. Her face was pale, sweat streaming down her cheeks from the pain of her broken leg, but her hands were steady as stone.
She looked through the scope.
"Hey, ugly," she whispered.
She pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
The sound was not of this world. A kinetic railgun doesn't fire an explosion; it accelerates a solid tungsten slug to hypersonic speeds using magnetic rails.
The air cracked open. A sonic boom shattered every window in the outpost and knocked the fleeing scavengers to the ground.
The slug hit the Correction Unit in the chest.
There was no resistance. The kinetic force was enough to punch through a main battle tank. The Unit didn't fall; it evaporated.
The upper half of its body was simply gone, turned into a mist of black particles that dissolved in the wind. The impact shockwave threw Kaelen backward, tumbling him into a stack of empty water drums.
The Unit's legs stood for a second longer, glitching wildly, before collapsing into a pile of gray ash.
Silence returned to the Rust-Spire.
But this time, it was a ringing silence. The aftermath of violence. Dust swirled in the air, choking the light.
Renna dropped the gun, gasping. The recoil had undoubtedly tortured her broken leg, but she was grinning. A feral, terrified grin.
Kaelen coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the dust. He rolled onto his side, gasping for air that tasted of ozone and burnt metal.
"Nice shot," he wheezed.
Renna gave him a shaky thumbs-up before collapsing back onto her elbows, her energy spent.
The dust settled.
Slowly, the people of the Rust-Spire began to emerge from their hiding spots. They looked at the pile of ash. They looked at the gaping hole in their wall.
Then they looked at Kaelen.
There was no gratitude in their eyes. There was no awe.
There was only terror.
The Camp Leader stepped forward. He held his spear with both hands, pointing it at Kaelen. His face was twisted with fear and rage.
"Out," he whispered.
Kaelen pulled himself up, using the water drums for support. His throat felt like he had swallowed glass. "We killed it. We saved you."
"You brought it!" the Leader screamed, his voice breaking. "You brought the noise! Look at my wall! Look at what you did!"
The crowd murmured in agreement. They were shaking. Their sanctuary had been breached. Their illusion of safety was shattered.
"We gave you shelter!" the Leader shouted, advancing. "And you gave us war! Get out! Take your witch and your gun and get out!"
A rock flew from the crowd. It hit Kaelen in the shoulder.
Then another, striking his thigh.
Kaelen looked at them. He searched the crowd for the mother and the child he had saved.
He found them. The boy was standing on his healed legs, clinging to his mother's skirt. The mother looked at Kaelen.
She didn't step forward to defend him. She didn't thank him.
She pulled her son tighter and turned her back, hiding her face.
Renna limped over to him, dragging the railgun. She handed it to him, her eyes hard.
"Let's go, Kaelen," she said quietly. "They don't want to be saved. They just want to hide."
Kaelen took the gun. He felt the weight of it—the only thing in this world that didn't lie to him.
He looked at the Leader one last time.
"You're right," Kaelen said, his voice cold. "I did bring the war."
He gestured to the hole in the wall, to the vast, dark wasteland beyond.
"Because the war is already here. Hiding just makes you an easier target. When the next one comes—and it will—don't pray for silence."
He turned his back on them.
Together, the Anomaly and the Mercenary walked out through the jagged hole in the wall, stepping over the ash of the Silencer.
They walked into the dark, leaving the safety of the cage behind.
The wind howled around them as they cleared the valley. The temperature dropped, biting through Kaelen's torn coat.
Renna stumbled, but Kaelen caught her arm, supporting her weight.
"Where now?" Renna asked, her voice tight with pain. "We have no water. No cover. And every Silencer within fifty miles heard that shot."
Kaelen looked East.
He didn't see a wasteland anymore. He saw a foundation. He saw a place where he didn't have to ask for permission to exist.
"We don't look for cover anymore, Renna," he said.
He tapped the side of the railgun.
"We go to the Anchor. And we build a place that shoots back."