At the edge of the north of the second ring, a silver-gray exoframe stood silently in the middle of the ruined street, holding in its hands a heavy rifle nearly as tall as half a man, shaped like an unsharpened greatsword.

Time had left its marks upon the armor’s surface. The urban camouflage paint had long been replaced by streaks of scarlet corrosion.

The weapon it gripped was no different, the tuning-fork-shaped magnetic rails were clogged with fleshy red fungal growths.

Flickers of memories lingered within its remaining cells. It dimly remembered that it had once been a machine built for war.

It had simply long forgotten why it fought, or when the last battle had ended.

Just then, a light breeze blew down the street, and almost at the same time, the rumble of wheels thundered from the quiet corner ahead.

Sensing the killing intent rushing toward it, the figure slowly raised its head. Gray-green mist seeped from the gaps of its helmet, and a blood-red gleam flickered across the dark visor.

“Kill them.”

The voice echoed again in its mind, an irresistible command that made every cell within it boil.

There was no question of disobedience. After all, it existed solely to answer that call.

Its massive arm raised slowly, the rifle-sword creaking like an ungreased machine.

But the moment the arm rose, that heavy frame suddenly burst to life, moving with shocking speed and power.

Like a cannon shell, it shot forward with thunderous momentum toward the leading truck and swung down its blunt greatsword.

CLANG!

Metal crashed against metal. The truck’s armored front crumpled like an ice cream bar struck by a spoon, collapsing inward and snapping in half.

The entire vehicle flipped onto its side and skidded to the curb. The driver died instantly and the soldiers in the back tumbled out, scrambling to their feet in shock.

It could faintly hear them shouting something, though it could not understand.

Not that it mattered.

A prey’s final words were meaningless. Soon, they would all be pulp beneath its feet.

Standing beside the truck’s wreckage, it tightened its grip on the weapon, its crimson eyes locking onto the next target.

Then, the next.

As the Mutant Slime Mold hefted its weapon and charged toward another transport, the Death Corps, caught completely off guard, finally reacted.

Midnight Umbrella roared, “Holy shit! Spawn camper?!”

Lapulasi snorted, “My ass, that’s a Rotten Knight waiting for us!“

Midnight Umbrella screamed, “It’s a BOSS! Grab your gear, brothers!”

Lawless Madman screamed happily, “AAAHHH! TATAKAI (fight)!”[1]

Players on the truck roofs swung their mounted machine guns toward the monster and unleashed a storm of bullets. Shame, it wasn’t enough to slow the charge.

The 10mm rounds, capable of shredding concrete, struck the armor’s curved plating, leaving only faint scratches.

Worse yet, the monster was not only absurdly tough but terrifyingly agile.

The massive blade in its hands deflected several tracer rounds midair before it dashed, in a blur, toward the next truck.

Another explosion blossomed among the convoy.

As the mutant rampaged through the formation, tearing through players like a god of war, Sideline Slacking frowned while Eye Owe Money swore beside him.

“Damn it, I knew this mission wouldn’t be that easy.”

“Something’s off about that thing,” muttered Construction Boy.

“Yeah.” Sideline Slacking’s voice hardened. “Eye Owe Money, drone up.”

“Got it!” Eye Owe Money closed his eyes and pressed a finger to his helmet.

A quadrotor drone catapulted off the truck, flying straight toward the Rotten Knight.

Sensing the incoming threat, the knight slammed its greatsword into the ground, sending a dozen chunks of rubble flying into the air.

But guided by Eye Owe Money’s neural link, the drone performed several impossible barrel rolls, weaving like a butterfly through the storm of debris.

“DIE!”

The moment it reached the target’s faceplate, he triggered the detonator, the three kilogram warhead beneath the drone exploded into a ball of fire.

Even a Conqueror tank would’ve been blown aside by such a blast, yet the ancient relic merely staggered.

Eye Owe Money opened his eyes, stunned. “Holy shit! The armor rating’s that busted?!”

“This isn’t a Dragon Cavalry model... nor a Champion,” Sideline Slacking said, his voice rising with excitement as he clenched his fist. “It’s probably a prototype armor and a new Evolved Type, something that never appeared in the official archives!”

It was an opponent none of them had faced before, but none showed fear. If anything, their fighting spirit ignited even brighter.

That was a once-in-a-lifetime challenge.

The first to kill it would not only earn a server-wide announcement, but their names would be permanently etched into the Hall of Fame!

“Infantry squad, suppressive fire!” Watching the staggering Rotten Knight, Sideline Slacking shouted over comms. “Anti-tank team, move up! Use armor piercing rounds, focus fire!”

The earlier blast hadn’t destroyed the knight, but the shockwave had torn off huge chunks of fungal plating. Now it could barely stand, leaning on its blade for balance, while players poured gunfire into it from all sides.

A faint growl rumbled from beneath its helmet as gray-green smoke leaked from the gaps like a silent scream. It raised its sword in rage to charge, only to face a line of players hefting RPGs.

“RPGs!”

With a collective yell, the launchers fired, a storm of rockets streaking forward, leaving white trails through the air.

The Rotten Knight swung its sword with blinding speed, deflecting two rockets, but the rest slammed into its chest, knees, and shoulders.

BOOM!

Brilliant fire and molten sparks erupted like a blacksmith’s forge.

The creature staggered backward, roaring hoarsely before losing its balance and crashing onto the pavement.

Even Prosperity Era armor couldn’t withstand that many armor piecing rounds without shields, much less after it was blasted to hell with multiple RPGs.

A thumb-sized hole gaped through its chest plate, exposing the red flesh beneath. Its right leg was completely ruined, pierced through by molten metal jets.

It tried to rise, dragging itself halfway up, but two more rockets slammed into it in point-blank range.

Knowing the importance of a finishing blow, the players didn’t stop. They immediately followed up with a thermobaric round!

The explosion’s shockwave slammed into its chest, shaking the entire road.

Flames roared through the armor’s breaches, shredding the fungal tissue inside into black sludge.

The heat flooding its chest cavity dragged its fading consciousness away. As it slipped toward oblivion, it seemed to hear the dying screams of every cell in its body.

Through the flames, it watched the humans walking toward it, the crimson behind its visor slowly dimming.

The nightmare that had imprisoned it for two centuries... was finally over.

The Slime Mold infesting the armor was completely destroyed. The exoframe lay motionless, its sword, once fused into its very being, slipping from its grasp. It no longer struggled. No sound came from within.

A player stepped forward, checking the body to confirm the kill.

Next to the corpse lay the weapon, a rectangular hunk of metal corroded by fungus.

Construction Boy, still holding his RPG, muttered in disbelief.

“Is this thing... a rifle?”

And not just any rifle. It was a gauss rifle.

Stripping away the fungal crust revealed its twin-rail barrel and folding foregrip. On its sleek stock was a faint, half-buried insignia.

[111th Orbital Airborne Division]

Beneath the insignia, faded letters could just barely be read.

“He must’ve been a soldier... maybe even a captain,” Eye Owe Money murmured, piecing together the story as he stared at the wreckage. “He and his team were probably swallowed by Slime Mold while on mission in the center of Clearspring City, and have been fighting as Evolved Types for 200 years.”

“So we just defeated a member of the 111th Orbital Airborne Division from the backstory?” Construction Boy scratched his head.

“At the very least, we let one of them rest.” Sideline Slacking sighed softly as he looked at the fallen armor. “Load it onto the truck.”

The odds of repairing it were slim.

Besides, the New Alliance now had its own homegrown exoframe, Ethereal, so there was no need to cling to those ancient relics.

A museum would be its rightful home.

“Thea’s just ahead! Move out!” Rallying the stalled convoy, Sideline Slacking barked over the comms, waving everyone forward.

But then, the ground beneath their boots began to tremble, faintly at first, then stronger, as if the earth itself was quaking.

Sideline Slacking snapped his gaze forward, but his view was swallowed by thick fog.

Eye Owe Money quickly launched another drone, sending it into the haze.

Almost immediately after entering the mist, the drone went dead, as if it had slammed into a wall.

“Shit...” Eye Owe Money flinched, shaking off the static fuzz in his vision.

When his sight cleared, he froze. A massive fist, the size of a billboard, was clenched in the fog, attached to an arm as thick as a train, and a body towering like a steel monument.

“... Titan.”

Sideline Slacking’s face stiffened, the word forcing its way between his teeth.

Titan...

And it wasn’t the only one either.

Silver-gray silhouettes emerged from the mist, marching in steady formation. Pairs of crimson eyes glowed beneath armored helmets, their plating as thick as the knight they had just destroyed.

1. Japanese ☜