Derek couldn’t tear his eyes away from the monstrous creature condensing and reassembling before him. It was as if massive, invisible hands were molding its matter into a new form—into something that could almost be called life.

  If you could even call that thing alive.

  The powers saturating this planet felt endless. Every imaginable—and unimaginable—aberration could exist here. How was he, just a man, supposed to stop something like this?

  No one else in the galaxy had the slightest clue powers like these even existed. What would humanity, his humanity, the one he’d left behind when the Kolaar Node flung him across space, have done if they could’ve harnessed something like this?

  A cold shiver crawled across his chest. No time for questions. Not now. And soon, none of it would be his concern anyway.

  Once he overloaded NOVA’s reactor, there wouldn’t be any problems left.

  But he had to move fast, before that thing grew two legs and started using them.

  A deep voice behind him made him turn. “You about to do something stupid. You always do when shit goes bad.”

  Tunga was back on his feet, leaning on his staff, face grim. His skin looked even grayer than usual. The last spell must have pushed him to the brink.

  Derek clenched his fists. “I have to blow up my suit. Big boom. Take everything with it. I just hope it’s enough.”

  The shaman slowly shook his head. “Other booms only make bigger mess. Why this one different?”

  How was he supposed to explain this to a jungle brute? “This isn’t just a boom. It’s like watching a baby star being born,” Derek said, voice flat. “There won’t be anything left. Just a smoking crater and some lingering radiation.” He jerked his chin toward the pulsing meat blob swelling by the second. “But we have to hurry.”

  Tunga’s grip tightened around the staff, wrinkles deepening across his forehead. “So you kill us too? All of us?”

  “That thing’s gonna kill us anyway, Tunga. And it’ll use our bodies to get even stronger. This way, we stop it here. No one else dies because of us.”

  The shaman looked up at the sky and drew in a long, steady breath. “Never seen you give up before.” His lips twisted into a sour grimace. “Not a good look.”

  “That’s not what this is.” Derek lowered his gaze. “But I don’t expect you to get it.”

  Tunga’s eyes narrowed. “I seen many warriors drop weapons. Choose death. I know the signs. You just want it over. Don’t care if it works or not. You still do it.”

  Derek’s stomach clenched like a fist had slammed into him. He’d been fighting for years. Against theocratic megacorps, against the warped horrors in the Wardilai ruins, against the crushing guilt of what happened to Yuki. Against the damn universe itself, which never missed a chance to spit in his face.

  But no matter how much it tried, the universe had never managed to kill him.

  He’d walked into death’s embrace more times than he could count. And somehow, he always came out the other side. Maybe it was dumb luck. Or maybe the universe just wanted him alive so it could keep torturing him a little longer.

  And now... he was just so damn tired.

  Maybe Tunga was right. The moment he got the chance to end it all in a blaze of glory, he took it.

  Even if it meant dragging everyone else down with him.

  A sharp CLANG echoed through his helmet, snapping him out of his thoughts.

  Tunga lowered his staff after smacking Derek square on the dome. He glared at him like he was an idiot.

  Derek frowned. “Is hitting me in the head with your staff some kind of sacred ritual in your tribe?”

  “No. Hit you because you stupid.”

  Derek winced and shook his head. “Alright then, genius. Got a better plan? That thing’s about to stand up and punt us clear across the continent. And it’s got more legs than any sane creature should.”

  Tunga scratched at his bristly beard. “Maybe we kick it first. Maybe we buy time.”

  “Time for what?”

  The shaman’s lips curled back into a grin full of teeth so yellow they practically glowed. His version of a smile, apparently. “To live.”

  He raised his staff and leveled it at the writhing meat blob. A fireball burst from its tip like a giant orange petal, blazing forward.

  The flame streaked through the air and detonated on impact, gouging a smoking crater into the creature’s charred flesh. Even inside NOVA, the stench of burnt meat hit Derek like a slap.

  The warped mass pulsed and writhed, flesh clawing to knit itself back together.

  Before it could seal, Derek swung his cannons into position and unleashed a barrage of plasma bolts into the same spot.

  More detonations tore the crater wider, forcing the blob to writhe and claw inward, desperate to mend itself.

  Maybe Tunga was onto something. Maybe they could slow it down. Maybe—just maybe—it would buy the others a chance to escape before he took everything sky-high with NOVA.

  Then something slammed into his gut like a wrecking ball.

  The air blasted out of his lungs in one violent whoosh. His mouth filled with a sharp, metallic tang. Blood.

  The world spun out of control. Was he… was he airborne?

  Alarms screamed in his ears. Red warning lights strobed across his HUD.

  The sky rushed up to greet him, then the ground hit right after. A second impact smashed into his head, back, arms. Sky and dirt flipped and blurred as he bounced like a ragdoll.

  He flung his arms out, clawing at empty air, desperate to stop the spinning, to end the brutal carousel of pain. But the world didn’t care.

  Back. Head. Legs. Then back again.

  Finally, everything stopped.

  Pain radiated from every part of his body, waves of agony crashing through him like overlapping earthquakes, his bones the epicenter.

  He forced his head up, vision swimming, trying to make sense of what the hell had just happened.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  A massive tentacle thrashed high above, rooted in the meat mass, swaying like some colossal strand of seaweed dragged by an invisible current.

  Heads, horns, mouths, and eyes bulged from its surface only to sink back in again, twisting into a grotesque, living kaleidoscope. A churning mess of raw flesh, struggling to become something, but never quite making it.

  That thing had hit him?

  He hadn’t even seen it coming. Not even NOVA’s sensors picked it up.

  The display flared to life.

  ||Global structural integrity: 7%||

  The abdominal armor was gone. What about his actual guts?

  He tried moving his legs. His real ones still responded, but NOVA’s were deadweight. Concrete blocks strapped to his body.

  His jaw clenched, face twisted in pain. Yeah. The fight was over.

  That thing—whatever it was—was way beyond him. Even in that unfinished, amorphous state.

  He had no other choice. He dragged in a breath and forced it out as sound. What came was a ragged rasp, barely his own voice. “V... Vanda. Vanda, can you hear me? Start reactor overload sequence.”

  Silence.

  “Vanda, goddammit, answer me…” he croaked.

  Nothing.

  His gaze slid back to the tentacle. Tunga was still hammering at it, or at least trying to keep its focus. Buying him a few more seconds.

  After that first strike, the thing looked off-balance. It flailed, struggling to land a clean hit on the shaman. Lucky. Because if it connected with the same force it had just slammed into Derek, the old man wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Probably. Derek had no real idea how hard the shaman’s skull was. For all he knew, it was made of Neutronsteel too.

  He had to act. He tried to move one arm.

  Error messages flared instantly. Multiple actuators offline. Plasma conduits severed.

  Then a blinking notice flashed in the center of his display:

  ||Please wait. Mobility restoration in progress.||

  The system had auto-triggered the emergency nanite repair protocol. Swarms of miniature bots rushing to patch the damage and reroute power through whatever wasn’t fried beyond saving. One mission: get NOVA back on its feet. Even if that meant hobbling on one leg like a busted droid.

  The tentacle blurred, then Tunga was airborne, swatted aside like an insect caught in a storm gust.

  He crashed to the ground, rolled several meters, and went still.

  Derek’s heart skipped a beat. “Tunga!” he rasped.

  The shaman didn’t move.

  His heart sank. Damn it. Stupid old man. Why the hell hadn’t he gotten out of the way? What did he think he could do alone against that thing?

  A shadow crossed the moonlight.

  Two wide, dark eyes framed by tangled black hair peered down at him. “Derek? Derek, are you alive?”

  Alyra. What the hell was she doing here?

  He popped the helmet seals. The release mechanism stuttered, then finally hissed open. Damp air rushed in, thick with the stench of death and burnt flesh. “A... Alyra… Run. Get out of here.”

  A single tear slipped from the girl’s eye and landed warm against his cheek.

  “No, Derek. I’m not leaving you,” she sobbed. “Here. Isabelle told me to give you this.”

  She held something in front of his face. It was… a black sphere. Her hand, clutching it, was gray. The same gray as Tunga’s skin. No, grayer.

  Dead gray.

  And the gray was crawling up her arm like a disease. Sweat slicked her forehead, her face was pale, her breaths ragged.

  What the hell was happening to her? Was she hurt? Derek’s gaze locked on the sphere. “What is it? Are you okay?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It hurts so much to carry it, but Isabelle said it was really important. She said you had to take it.” She pushed it closer.

  The sphere looked intact. He had never touched one of those things with his bare hands before, but NOVA was dead weight and he didn’t have a choice.

  Derek triggered NOVA’s manual release, pulled his arm free, and grabbed the sphere.

  It was ice cold.

  A chill shot through him instantly, like it went straight for his heart. It felt like his very soul was being dragged into that black, metallic void.

  A Death sphere. The kind cultists used. But why had it hurt Alyra so badly? Iron-tier spheres weren’t supposed to do that. Not unless they were cracked.

  He turned it over in his hand. No visible fractures. Still, it felt... heavier somehow. Was that just his imagination?

  Alyra staggered upright. Color was already seeping back into her cheeks. Her breathing steadied.

  Something shifted above her.

  A tentacle—one of those cursed things—was ready to strike.

  “Alyra!” Derek shouted.

  The limb reared back.

  Then a blur shot past them. Derek caught the shape in the corner of his eye—massive, towering, like a tree that had learned to walk.

  With a thunderous yell, the stranger hefted a huge iron hammer and slammed it down on the tentacle.

  The limb recoiled, shuddering from the impact.

  “Back off, you ugly demon!” the man roared.

  Alyra spun toward him. “Markus!”

  “Get movin’, girl!” he bellowed. He planted his feet, hammer raised, eyes locked on the monster.

  The hammer didn’t even look like a weapon. It looked like a tool. And the man wasn’t armored. He didn’t look like a soldier, but he sure as hell didn’t move like any farmer Derek had ever seen either. Whoever he was, Alyra clearly knew him.

  The man spun the heavy hammer like it weighed nothing. “Back, you filthy demon!”

  The tentacle recoiled, clearly thrown off by the sudden arrival of a new threat.

  Derek sealed his helmet again and looked down at the sphere in his hand.

  His HUD lit up, but the words were drowned in static. The display was fried. Probably the sphere’s description, but there was no way to read it.

  Didn’t matter. He was almost certain it was a Death sphere. He didn’t need the HUD to tell him that.

  The screen flickered, then stabilized. A prompt finally appeared:

  ||Press the sphere against the part of the armor you wish to upgrade to activate it.||

  Derek swallowed hard.

  The Church had made it crystal clear. This kind of energy was forbidden. People who used it were excommunicated. Branded. Hunted.

  So why the hell had Isabelle sent it to him?

  Why give it to Alyra, putting the girl in danger? Why not bring it herself?

  Something must’ve happened to her...

  No. No time to think about Isabelle now. He had a sphere to deal with. No time. No options. No Vanda to consult.

  Alyra’s gaze darted between Markus and him, frozen in place.

  Whatever was going on, she was in real danger just being here. “Alyra, get out of here!”

  She shook her head hard. “No! I told you, I’m not leaving you!”

  Derek cursed under his breath. Out of time. Out of choices. He could already feel the chill of death creeping up his arm. The sphere wasn’t heavy. His arm was weak. Like it was dying, moment by moment.

  How the hell had that girl carried it all the way here without collapsing?

  He pressed the sphere against NOVA’s right arm.

  ||Apply Death Enhancement to right Plasma Blade? Y/N||

  This wasn’t some trinket. There was no telling what it would do to NOVA, or to him.

  But wasn’t this how he’d lived ever since the day he lost Yuki? By diving into the unknown, taking reckless gambles, and praying something stuck?

  And the alternative? Blowing himself up, along with Alyra, Tunga, and everyone else.

  He drew in a deep breath and selected Yes.

  The world froze.

  Derek blinked. Everything was locked in that single instant—the moment he accepted the Death sphere. Even his breath. Even his heartbeat.

  Markus, frozen mid-swing, hammer raised like thunder made stone.

  Alyra, mouth open, eyes wide in terror, staring at the death looming above her.

  The tentacle itself, motionless, curved in the air like a cobra ready to strike.

  What was he seeing? Why was this moment stretching like this?

  Was this death? Stasis? Time unraveling and standing still?

  Only black holes could bend time like this. Maybe the Death sphere was a black hole in miniature—one that devoured not just matter, but life, space, and time itself.

  The moment passed.

  Time lurched forward again.

  A jet of black energy—like living ink—burst from the sphere and surged into NOVA’s right arm.

  But instead of the usual warmth other spheres carried, this was ice. Cold, merciless ice seized his hand, then his arm, then spread to the rest of his body.

  Derek gasped and wheezed like someone had thrown him into a frozen mountain lake.

  The world shattered into jagged, senseless fragments. The broken images spun into a blinding vortex, and then slammed back together.

  A new wave of visions hit him. Not just images. Emotions, memories, thoughts.

  The guards at the Wigala dig site.

  The criminals in the jungle.

  The axe-wielding woodsman twisted by a Bronze-tier sphere.

  The mercenary who came for him afterward.

  Every soul he’d killed since landing on this cursed planet.

  The Death sphere’s hunger devoured every emotion tied to them.

  Guilt.

  Fear.

  Rage.

  Pain.

  And Derek couldn’t stop it.

  The cold of Death tore through everything, leaving only void and devastation. Just like the jungle he’d scorched into ash when he fired missiles laced with Death energy. A dead zone where nothing would ever grow again.

  A shrill scream snapped him out of the spiral.

  He blinked, head jerking toward the sound.

  Alyra stood stiff, eyes wide, mouth stretched in a silent scream. Her feet dangled inches above the ground. But nothing was holding her.

  At least, nothing visible.

  His breath caught in his throat. What the hell was happening to her? Had the Death energy reached her somehow?

  Derek reached out a hand.

  At that moment, the stream of black energy from the sphere abruptly cut off. The orb turned feather-light in his palm.

  It slipped through his fingers and dropped into a shallow puddle with a soft plop.

  A message blinked to life on the display.

  ||Mobility restoration complete.||

  ||Mobility at 54%.||

  His heart thundered in his ears. Derek slid his left arm back into the armor. It sealed with a hard metallic click.

  He turned back to Alyra, just in time to see her fall.

  It was like someone had cut a string. Her small body dropped limply to the ground and didn’t move.

  “Alyra!” Derek shouted.

  This time NOVA responded. He rushed to her side and gently cradled her head in his armored hand.

  She didn’t react.

  Vanda’s voice reached him before he could speak. “She’s alright, Derek. When you absorbed the Death sphere’s energy, a small amount appears to have reached her as well.”

  He flinched. “What? How?”

  “I don’t have sufficient data to explain. But her vitals are stable. And right now, you have more pressing matters to deal with.”

  Derek turned toward the abomination still bubbling a few meters away.

  The tentacle lashed at the stranger—Markus—who was somehow holding it off with nothing but that massive hammer of his.

  There was no telling how long the guy could last. From the look of his ragged clothes and beat-up weapon, Derek doubted he was an Orbisar Ascendant. Probably not even close to the level needed to take on something like that.

  He gently laid Alyra on the ground and pushed himself to his feet.

  NOVA’s legs wobbled, but he managed to steady them.

  He looked down at NOVA’s right arm, the one that had just absorbed the Death sphere.

  It… had changed.

  The sleek black sheen of Neutronsteel was gone. In its place were twisted ridges and warped plating, like bones fused with molten metal, grown into something diseased.

  Thin gray tendrils ran along the forearm like dead veins, pulsing with a dim, flickering violet glow. Some parts of the armor looked charred, cracks glowing faintly like dying embers.

  And on the back of the hand, a small retractable scythe blade. Thin. Razor sharp. Like a claw.

  He flexed his fingers, opening and closing his hand.

  The movement was smooth, but the sound was wrong. Not the usual actuator hum. More like a low, metallic scrape, like something crawling inside.

  Whatever it was, time to find out if it worked.

  His head felt hazy. No doubt Vanda had pumped him full of painkillers just to keep him upright. Best not to dwell on that. Time for a field test.

  The tentacle lashed at the blacksmith. Markus blocked it with the hammer’s handle, but the blow sent him sprawling.

  Derek shouted with what little voice he had left. “Hey!”

  The tentacle snapped toward him instantly.

  He triggered the plasma blades with a thought. The left one flared to life, glowing orange as always. The right one—nothing.

  Shit. What the hell had that cursed sphere done to it?

  The mass of flesh began to rise.

  Four massive limbs—like a buffalo’s legs—pushed out beneath it, hauling the bulk upright. Its huge hooves churned the soggy ground, flinging mud in every direction.

  The transformation was almost complete.

  He had to hope the sphere had actually given him something. So far, all it had done was wreck his damn right blade.

  The tentacle pulled back, shifting into an arm with grotesquely long human fingers. Two more arms like it burst from its swollen body.

  Derek drew in a steadying breath. Tunga and Alyra were still down. The stranger wasn’t looking good either. Isabelle… a knot tightened in his stomach. If she were alright, she’d be here by now.

  And Sierelith?

  No clue where that fox had run off to. Probably as far away as possible.

  It was just him now.

  Alone.

  Facing that thing.

  The creature opened the largest jaws Derek had ever seen and roared.

  The sound shook the ground. The jungle. The whole damn world.

  Derek’s lips twisted. “Alright, ugly. Let’s see which one of us dies louder.”