Chief Engineer Borin’s gigantic sledgehammer struck the final Void-Steel plate on Zenith’s left shoulder, creating an explosion of orange sparks that flashed across the entire secret Stonehearth workshop. The smell of sulfur, boiling oil vapor, and the metallic tang of congealing Dark Magitek energy filled the stale underground air. Borin grumbled, wiping the sweat that soaked his red, chain-braided beard, his weary eyes staring blankly at the pile of metal on the granite operating table. "Damn, the coding for these cooling circuits is absolutely nonsensical," Borin muttered, roughly tossing his steam welder onto the workbench. "Whoever designed the basic system for this Elite Cog model must be a lunatic who enjoys playing with nuclear explosions." It had been one week since the incident at the Ancient Tomb that collapsed half of the Magitek Prime mountain range. One week during which Zenith lay motionless, a pile of dead iron cursed by the Blood Oath. Borin had poured every ounce o

"The threat isn't just the temperature, Marcus! It's about shadow particles trying to eat your circuits alive!" Zenith yelled. The robot's baritone voice echoed amidst the roar of the polar wind, which howled like a starving wolf. All around them, the high plateaus of the Magitek Kingdom's Northern Territory had transformed into an alien black-and-white hellscape. The falling snow was not the clean white ice crystals that usually adorned the mountains, but heavy, unnatural black granules resembling combustion ash. Marcus drove his Magitek sword into the frozen ground to brace against the wind's impact. His silver armor was now coated in a constantly sizzling crust of black ice, emitting a pungent chemical odor. "Hold the line! No one releases the steam seals on your armor!" Marcus roared toward the remaining Royal Guard soldiers. Behind them, a hundred Stonehearth dwarves moved in a tortoise formation, their bronze shields constantly heated by portable steam generators. However, Ma

"Drop your weapons, or I'll let my Warlord calculate how many milliseconds it takes for you to become a pile of frozen meat, damn it!" Elara yelled, her voice booming through the main hall of Outpost Frostfang, which was now covered in a thin layer of ice. Silence immediately gripped the room, which was filled with hot steam from leaking dwarven pipes. Standing before Elara were a dozen Ashari warriors, the legendary desert nomads known for their resilience. Their leader, a gigantic man named Khazan, stared at Elara with eyes full of hatred. Khazan gripped a trembling obsidian spear, his eyes occasionally flicking toward Zenith, who stood tall behind Elara like a monument of death made of black steel. "You brought the demon who once burned our grasslands, little Prince," Khazan hissed, his voice heavy like grinding stone. "And you expect us to bow at your feet? The Ashari tribe never forgets the smell of burnt iron brought by your grandfather's Warlord." Zenith rotated his head one

"ARGH! Pull the plug, damn it! My head feels like it’s being ground in a Stonehearth steam mill!" Zenith roared, his voice cracking with painful static. Zenith’s massive metal body convulsed on the cold stone floor of the desert fortress. His eye lenses, usually a dull yellow, now flickered wildly between deep violet and blood red. Electrical sparks from the Dark Coil energy leaped from the gaps in his armor, scorching the floor and creating a pungent ozone smell in the freezing night air. "Zenith! What's happening?!" Prince Elara shouted. He tried to approach, but Marcus swiftly pulled his shoulder, keeping the prince out of range of the purple lightning bolts emanating from Zenith’s body. "Stay back, Prince! His energy is unstable!" Marcus roared, drawing his sword, not to attack, but to stand guard. His eyes swept the darkness outside the fortress window. The pitch-black Ashfall sky seemed turbulent, and a giant, invisible eye appeared to be staring directly at them from behind

"Alpha target disappeared from radar, shit! Its energy flare exploded!" yelled one of the dwarf technicians, slamming his fist onto the console table. The large holographic screen in the center of the Outpost Frostfang command room flickered wildly, projecting a blurred visual of the Ash Valley. There, amidst the blinding black snowstorm, fifty blue dots of light, Marcus’s volunteer soldiers, slowly extinguished one by one. The sound of radio transmissions was filled with broken screams, the grinding metal of the Shadow Constructs, and the sickening hum of the Sovereign’s frequency. Prince Elara stood frozen before the screen. His eyes were wide, his fingers gripping the edge of the stone table until his knuckles turned white. Every time a life signal disappeared, his shoulders jerked as if he himself felt a shadow blade piercing his chest. "Stop it ... please, stop this," Elara whispered. His voice trembled, nearly lost to the static noise in the room. "We can't, Prince! If the f