SSS Rank Skill: MILF Domination Unlocked-Chapter 49: Dungeon Break, The Ash Warden War (9)
Hana, pointed with two threads. "Lets go up the catwalk."
We climbed. The catwalk’s grating chewed noise into a thousand small clicks—good for us, bad for anyone trying to sneak. The east wind came mean for a minute, brought a taste of salt and something that wasn’t sea. Mana. Rot. The Gate humming in the bones of the city.
A new sound—metal dragged over metal, then a pop like a lung turning inside out.
Hana hissed, "Down!"
We dropped. A bolt of condensed slag punched where my head had been and sizzled a hole through the railing, through the barge below, and into the black water beyond. The canal shrieked when it met the heat—no real physics in it; just pain pretending to be liquid.
Ash Orc Gunner. Ugly kind. Taller, plated shoulder. Brass vents along the spine.
[Encounter — Elite Variant Detected]
[Class: Ash Orc Gunner (A-)]
[Threat Assessment: High • Effective Range: 50 m • Payload Type: Slag Bolt]
"Mine," I said.
[Lightning Transit — Hop 2 / 7]
[Range: 9 m • Pulse: 2 m stun • Chain Window: 4 s]
Pop. The pulse rolled off me; the orc’s knee buckled. Fangpiercer and Fogbite played nice for once.
[Fangpiercer Critical]
[Armor Penetration: 30%]
[Fogbite — Chill & Pressure Stagger (2/3)]
He grabbed for my wrist. Darkharness reconfigured, gauntlet blooming over my knuckles, spikes forming without asking permission.
I obliged him.
He went quiet fast.
[Hostile Neutralized — Ash Orc Gunner (A-)]
[EXP +200 → +400 (Warden’s Echo ×2)]
[Level 22 Progress: 1100 → 1400 / 2200]
[Drop: Scorched Vent Plate (B) • Slag Bolt (B)]
"Right," Jax said, voice small by choice.
We turned.
Five more climbed the barge rail. These had uniforms. Not orc uniforms—human. Guild armor, cut and stitched. Our emblems hacked into trophies on their belts. The anger came slow and then all at once. My hands remembered a city that used to laugh at me, not wear me.
[Alert — Unregistered Combatants Detected]
[Classification: Human (Corrupted) • Affiliation: Unknown Guild Remnant]
[Threat Tier: B+ • Status: Hostile]
[Additional Signature Detected — A-Class Mana Field (Unstable)]
[Proximity Alert: Source approaching from canal depth.]
"Take the left three," I said. "Hana—"
"I know," she said, already moving.
We didn’t make it to the third.
The canal made a new sound.
Imagine someone dragging a chain through a storm grate for the first hour of the morning after a hangover. Then imagine the chain is a ribcage and the grate is the city.
It came from under us and all along us and a long way ahead.
Jax said what we were all thinking. "General."
The world didn’t shake, not really. The perception of flat decided to take a break. The barge lines lifted—the knots creaked in one long groan like a thousand old men standing at the same time.
"On me," I said.
"Like always," Jax said.
The patrol didn’t charge. They knelt. Smart enough to pray; not smart enough to choose a god that answers.
The catwalk wasn’t where this fight would happen.Jax was already climbing down the support struts, Grav-Edge humming like it wanted new metal to ruin. I followed, boots scraping rust, Hana sliding beside us with threads anchoring her descent.The quay waited below—wet stone, broken rails, the smell of old tide and something waking up under it.
The Butcher of Brass rose out of the river like the river had been wearing him under its shirt the whole time.
[Warning — Boss Entity Detected]
[Designation: The Butcher of Brass]
[Rank: A+ • Classification: General of the East Canal]
[Threat Level: Lethal]
[Survival Odds: <9%]
[Quest Objective Updated — Eliminate the Butcher of Brass]
He was tall but the height wasn’t the point. It was mass. He wore armor that looked grown, not forged—plates layered like a crust around a pressure wound. Every seam glowed a dull furnace color, as if heat moved inside the metal instead of outside. Arms long, each gauntlet wrapped in bands that had once been chains on cranes. A helmet with an open grill mouth, no eyes, and a crown of bent rivets hammered into something that would insult kings.
Water fell off him in sheets and didn’t steam until it hit the ground. He stepped onto the quay and the quay went down a centimeter like it had just remembered honesty.
"It’s him," Hana whispered, and her shawl flared then tried to hide.
The Butcher didn’t roar. He inhaled. The sound made my ribs lean inward.
"Two waves," I said, mouth dry. "Open with gravity. I’ll cut openings when you crack them. Hana—call blocks and fix what breaks."
"Copy," she said, voice small but steel under it.
Jax adjusted his grip. The Grav-Edge Core throbbed in sympathy with my pulse. He smiled a not-happy smile. "Hey, big boy."
The Butcher moved first, because of course he did.
He didn’t run. He fell. Not down—forward—and the weight behind it pulled the air where it wanted to go. The first swing wasn’t a swing. It was a pressure cell teaching air to behave. The gauntlet didn’t touch Jax. The shock front did.
Jax met it anyway.
Grav-Edge sang. The impact was a city block deciding it wanted to be a drum. Jax’s boots dug trenches backward, rubber smoking. He stood anyway, teeth bared, shoulders shaking.
Lotus Thread bled blue around us. Hana’s shawl drank the impact and threw soft out where hard wanted to go.
[Lotus Thread V2 — Damage Conversion: +30% DR (5s)]
[Heartlink — Damage Share: 15% distributed]
Pain flickered through my ribs, not mine, not hers, ours. I exhaled like laughing without the joke.
"Window!" Hana said. "Left flank, lower—now!"
[Lightning Transit — Hop 3 / 7]
[Range: 11 m • Pulse: 2 m stun • Chain Window: 3 s]
I landed on the Butcher’s wrong side. Fangpiercer found a glowing seam, runes humming glad to be needed.
[Fangpiercer Critical]
[Armor Penetration: 30%]
Metal split like hard bread. Heat breathed out, not fire, just temperature and vicious intent. Darkharness flashed and skinned my side with armor just as a secondary shock vented. It caught me half-on, half-off—pain like a tuning fork in the meat.
[Absolute Regeneration Activated]
[Major trauma: intercostal strain, dermal blistering. Cooldown: 5 s.]
"Off!" Hana warned. "Off! Off!"
I blinked.
[Lightning Transit — Hop 4 / 7]
[Range: 7 m • Pulse: 2 m stun • Chain Window: 2 s]
jax took the fight personally. He dipped right, pulled left, and the gravity well went hungry. The Butcher stumbled a half step—enough to be useful. Jax paid for it with a hit, not direct, but the spill of weight that followed. He slid back, knees groaning, grin ugly and bright.
"Again," he said.
"Left knee," Hana said. "I can see the flow. He vents through the joints."
"Copy."
The Butcher had opinions.He let the next swing slam into the concrete by the river—and the ground, pissed off, exploded upward like a shield.He hit his own cover, and the shockwave picked all three of us up by the bones and dropped us a couple meters left whether we liked it or not.
[Absolute Regeneration Activated]
[Major trauma: tibial stress microfractures. Cooldown: 4 s.]
The pain came, sharp and immediate, then the heat. I was grateful enough for the heat to forgive its personality.
I checked my chain window and found nothing where I wanted everything.
[Lightning Transit — Chain Window expired]
[Cooldown: 5 s]
"Stall," I said. "Give me five."
"Take two," Jax said through grit, stepping into the next wave like a mountain in love with wind.
Hana pulled damage down the link like someone trying to share a heavy bag across a narrow stair. It hurt in the way teamwork always hurts—worth it.
I looked upriver. The old red maintenance shed gave me a clear line on about sixty meters of river edge and two barge decks. Good angles. If I burned an anchor now, I’d have a safe blink spot for when everything went to hell later.
"Do it," I said.
[Lightning Transit — Anchor Set (1/2) Established]
[Recall: Available (1/day)]
The Butcher didn’t approve of our interior design. He turned and brought both gauntlets down on the water. The river rejected the concept. The wave that came out of it wasn’t water; it was an argument. It picked up barge, rope, men, us, and tried to explain what flat should mean.
Darkharness went cape form without being asked, plates fractaling into overlapping leaves. Hana’s shawl mirrored it, threads plating along our edges. Jax planted and roared into a gravity counterwall. The wave still rolled us, but it didn’t keep us.
We came up scraped, wet, eyes smarting.
"Window," Hana said, voice tight. "Right shoulder seam, vent glow—now or never."
"Now," I said, happier than I sounded.
[Lightning Transit — Hop 5 / 7]
[Range: 15 m • Pulse: 2 m stun • Chain Window: 5 s]
I arrived with the pulse. The Butcher didn’t care, but he noted it; the head tilted a fraction, enough that a man could pretend he’d been seen by something that didn’t need to see.
Fangpiercer slid between plates. Fogbite stacked, pressure and cold in the joint.
[Fangpiercer Critical]
[Armor Penetration: 30%]
[Fogbite — Chill & Pressure Stagger (3/3) — Max Stack]
The joint juddered. The vent blew. It didn’t scream. The Butcher didn’t have a voice, but the canal did it for him—water crashing white against the pilings like applause for something ugly.
"Jax!" I shouted. "Right shoulder!"
"On it!"
He didn’t swing at the seam. He swung past it—let the gravity catch the loose—made the whole arm heavier than it wanted to be and the rest of the Butcher lighter than it deserved. The joint gave with a cracking sound that got into my teeth and set up shop.
The arm didn’t fall. It hung wrong and tried to be useful anyway.
"Again," Hana said, calm ridiculous. "One more on the knee. Same seam, new angle."
The Butcher learned. He planted the lame side forward—dared us—and swept the good arm low with a technique I recognized from construction yards that pretended to be safe. The shock lifted the catwalk under me, took my feet into places that weren’t useful.
[Absolute Regeneration Activated]
[Major trauma: ankle sprain, lumbar strain. Cooldown: 6 s.]
"Run if you have to," Hana snapped.
"No," I said, because stubborn is my best stat.
[Lightning Transit — Hop 6 / 7]
[Range: 6 m • Pulse: 2 m stun • Chain Window: 4 s]
Back in. Fangpiercer in the knee seam, small, precise, hungry.
[Fangpiercer Critical]
[Armor Penetration: 30%]
The plate cracked and the glow under it dimmed. The Butcher went down a quarter step on that leg—felt like victory, looked like a mistake, because the follow-through came fast.
He didn’t swing.
He clapped.
The air between his hands imploded like the sky had been vacuumed. All the sound in the world inverted for a second; what used to be loud went inside-out and became pressure. The blast hit center-mass. Darkharness caught most. "Most" still felt like getting audited by a truck.
I hit the rail. The rail hit my back. The back hit the idea of back. Cold and heat took turns introducing themselves.
[Absolute Regeneration Activated]
[Major trauma: posterior rib bruising, pulmonary contusion (minor). Cooldown: 6 s.]
[Warning: Regen cooldowns overlapping. Survival odds dipping.]
"Cute," I coughed.
