Kyle was lying on his back. Not really, the interior of his PAST armor was incredibly comfortable, but he could still see the cave ceiling, which must have been a mile above him.

  The PAST Armor was a true example of human genius. Every molecule was aligned and placed to maximize the strength of its plating. Swarms of nanites could use any material to repair it, near-cost-free. The embedded Gravitic Core could power a small city.

  Slowly, starting from the external cameras that served as eyes, he moved downwards and turned on various systems.

  Coagulator implant, internal temperature control, cerebral implant interface, assisted motion… the suit and his body were in perfect condition.

  He had countless implants across his body. He was many times stronger than the average human; he had several enhancements for each organ, and could run a mile at the speed of a car on a highway before becoming tired.

  Essentially, he was superhuman.

  His skin was made of a hyper-durable graphite armor. All of his senses had immense fidelity. He could probably take on a tank and come out alive.

  He had countless tactical implants as well; corneal ones for targeting, and micro servos in every joint for readjustments to firing positions and such.

  His power armor was a whole other beast. Standing 5 feet taller than an unarmored Kyle at an impressive 11 feet, it was a beast of war. Most of that space wasn’t for armor plating or motors, but facilities like the ammo manufacturer and synthpaste dispenser.

  Synthpaste was another marvel of the league. It could take the nutrients from nearly any biological material and turn it into food. It tasted like nothing, but it was better than nothing at the same time.

  His railgun was a beast as well. Coated in the same gunmetal gray as his armor, it had some dusky purple highlights. It could punch through 2 feet of Vulframite plating, and basically, infinitely through anything else.

  Kyle was ready for anything this planet would throw at him. From his impenetrable armor, superhuman body, and godlike railgun, he was a god among men.

  Standing up fully, he scanned his surroundings. The basic machine intelligence in his armor had already determined an earthlike atmosphere and near-earth gravity.

  What truly stunned him was his surroundings.

  He was in a cave-at least 5 miles tall. It was in a vaguely spherical shape, with many tunnels connecting to its walls. The small ruin he had awoken in was on a small plateau rising many meters from the cave floor, made of a grey igneous stone.

  Kyle was awestruck at the beauty of the cave. Hundreds of thousands of motes of blue light, bioluminescent fungi most likely, coated the walls, and an actual lake of lava pooled at the center of the cave.

  It was so ridiculously large that fog was forming on the floors of some valleys contained within the cave.

  On a particularly flat portion of the cave floor, a huge city of dark stone was illuminated by the surprisingly bright glow from the small lava sea.

  Kyle spun this way and that, taking in the sights. He had never seen anything that could compare, aside from the vastness of space. Obviously, such a geological phenomenon was impossible.

  But what was a fantasy world without fantastical landscapes?

  Breathtaking, Kyle thought. Actual weather systems inside the cave? This place is truly gargantuan.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Marching away from the ruined set of walls, he headed straight for the city. First, that city, and then a tunnel up. My Ground Radar will let me easily get to the surface. If these caves aren't the whole world, that is.

  A smile tugged at his face. But that would be cool too.

  The ground seemed mundane enough-lots of metamorphic rocks with igneous lumps here and there. What wasn’t normal were the huge veins of gleaming metals and pillars covered in gemstones. The amount of wealth on the mere floor was immense.

  Kyle’s PAST armor had many ways to view the surroundings, from echolocation to basic night vision. However, despite his expectations, the chasm was quite bright. The light from the lava lake, combined with the abundance of bioluminescent plant life, kept his visuals to Mk. 1 eyeball standards.

  Navigating around the occasional crevasse and avoiding regions of dense mushroom-like trees was easy. The cave was clearly full of life-even huge predators, and flying bats the size of small ships.

  However, it seemed that most of the creatures knew when to avoid danger. He wasn’t attacked once on his way to the ruins, despite watching various battles between predators take place a distance away.

  The most interesting one had been when a pack of the bats had descended on a large bus-sized lizard with 6 armored legs. The lizard had spewed copious amounts of purple flame from its mouth, killing some of the bats, but once a few were in the lizard's blind spot on its back, it was all over. They slowly tore the lizard apart, damaging its organs and causing blood loss. Even more bats descended to eat the corpse.

  Kyle was simply watching from a nearby raised mound. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is… he thought, consideringly.

  The purple flame had followed few laws of physics, and fire-breathing creatures were impossible anyways. He thought about the bats, clearly one of the apex predators of the region. His corneal implants and aim-assist in the armor would allow him to mow them down easily.

  There was one fear he had-ammo supplies. While the nanoscale fabricator onboard the armor could make ammo out of anything he put into it, it still took about a minute for every round. For more complicated rounds with explosive or chemical applications, it took more like 5 minutes per round.

  He had awoken with a few satchels of railgun slugs on the armor, but it wasn’t enough for any long-term operations.

  It had been nearly half an hour since he had set out, and by moving at a smooth jog, he had made it almost a quarter of the way to the city.

  He was moving at nearly 20 kilometers an hour-impressive, but not even a fifth of the armor's top speed. He had realized the wildlife was peaceful towards him, out of fear, of course, and decided to get to the city a little faster. He paused his jog to fully charge the Parpali nanospring capacitors. With a breath, he took off instantly-creating a bow wave of air that flattened a nearby patch of blue glowing shrubbery.

  It had been a long time since he had really tried out the limits of his power armor. Even on the training range, he had wanted to keep it in pristine and unused condition.

  However, in this totally wild environment, there were no private property lines or endangered species to watch out for. He could really move. Blowing through small patches of fungal plants and causing cracks with every stomp of a boot had always been a personal favorite pastime of his.

  Whenever he got the chance, he would always go to a Stomping Ground. They were older areas slated for demolition, and instead of wasting valuable construction time on them, they would rent basic power armor to people and allow them to tear down the structures themselves. Power armor had always been a favorite hobby of his.

  He eventually slowed down the sprint. Wearing out the armor wasn’t an issue anymore. Right before his ship had been summoned to fight the Faith Militant, he had installed the full house Jaintow Nanorepair unit in his armor. His armor would always be in perfect shape. To test it, he paused his sprint and punched a nearby rock jutting from the floor.

  The armored plating on his fist had been designed for punching in mind. There were lines of replenishable chemical explosives in the proximal phalanx bone. When his fist impacted something, the onboard tactical MI (machine intelligence) would determine whether or not detonating the explosives was worth it. The Nanofactory in the armor could slowly replenish the explosives.

  The rock absolutely disintegrated with a decent explosion. Debris was sent flying away from him in a large arc. Kyle rarely got to test out the PPIE (proximal phalanx integrated explosive) on a safe target, and he was not disappointed.

  With how much damage he was doing to the cave, he was surprised nothing larger than the bats had come near him. Picking back his jogging pace back up, he continued to destroy the cave floor in a straight line to the ruined city.

  The armor weighed almost 820 kilograms; normally, it was 750, but the entity that had pulled him here had loaded him out fully with equipment like his magnetic back clamp for his railgun and an armored holster for his sidearm.

  As such, running through the cavern resulted in minor tremors and craters with every footstep.