Supreme Disassemble: Rebuilding the World in the Iron Wastel

Chapter 11: The Screaming Marble

The ultrasonic scream from the Golden Guardian nearly turned Suger’s eardrums into liquid. He tumbled across the marble floor, feeling the air stripped from his lungs by the sheer force of the blast. This was the Inner City’s version of a welcome mat—no warnings, no trials, just a very expensive, high-speed execution.

Claire was already moving, a blur of tactical precision. Her new chrome arm sliced through the air, trailing a faint blue spark. CRACK. Her fist slammed into the Guardian’s chest, sending a shower of gold-tinted sparks flying, but the mechanical beast didn't even flinch. Its feathers were made of a nano-mirrored alloy, designed to deflect lasers and absorb kinetic energy like a sponge.

Great, Suger. You just picked a fight with the Inner City Council’s private bouncer, the Voice hissed in his mind, sounding genuinely rattled. Its core is liquid-mercury-powered. Your magnetic stunts won't do a damn thing to it!

Suger spat a mouthful of copper-tasting blood onto the pristine floor and pushed himself up. He didn't look at the giant mechanical eagle. Instead, he locked his eyes on the massive fountain in the center of the plaza.

"If you can’t break the shell, you drown the engine," Suger rasped to himself.

He lunged forward, slamming both palms onto the moon-rock base of the fountain. Deep blue electrical arcs erupted from his skin, brighter than the holographic sun above. He felt a wall of resistance; every inch of this place was shielded against external interference. The stone seemed to push back against his will.

"Disassemble... NOW!"

Suger let out a guttural roar, the veins in his neck bulging like strained cables. For a heartbeat, the elegant streams of water frozen in mid-air. Then, the multi-million credit fountain turned into a localized bomb. The moon-rock base disintegrated into a billion grains of dust in less than a second.

But he wasn't done. He reached into the system, grabbing the released high-pressure water and the nitrogen in the air, forcing them to compress and restructure.

"Claire! Get clear!"

Claire didn't ask questions. She vaulted off a nearby pillar just as the water, previously soft and decorative, turned into a three-meter-wide spear of deep blue ice. It wasn't normal ice; it was a molecularly restructured solid with a hardness exceeding diamond.

The Guardian realized the threat, its mirrored wings unfurling to take flight. Too late.

Suger made a crushing motion with his hands and shoved forward. The massive ice-spear shrieked through the air, impaling the Golden Guardian through its midsection and pinning the mechanical nightmare to the opera house’s reinforced glass facade.

Gold shards and liquid mercury rained down on the silk carpets below. The beast let out one final, agonizing screech of grinding gears before the red light in its eyes flickered and died.

Congratulations, Suger. You just destroyed the most expensive piece of art in the sector, the Voice said, sounding somewhere between impressed and terrified. Your bounty is probably high enough to buy half of Slum Town now.

Suger slumped to the ground, gasping for air that tasted like ozone and sweat. He felt the power of the system receding, replaced by a wave of exhaustion so heavy it felt like lead in his veins.

[Notification: Golden Guardian Disassembled. XP Gained: Massive. Leveling up... Level 10 reached!]

A new skill tree was unfolding in his vision, but he didn't have the strength to look.

Claire dropped down from the pillar and walked over to the wreckage. She plunged her chrome hand into the Guardian’s shattered chest and ripped out a crystal pulsing with a faint violet light.

"It’s the black box," Claire said, looking down at Suger with a flicker of newfound respect in her green eye. "With this, we can bypass the theater’s firewalls and head straight for the sub-levels."

Suger took her hand and pulled himself up, offering a dry, tired laugh. "I guess the stealth plan is officially dead."

"No," Claire replied, her voice cold and steady. "This is how you survive in the Inner City. You either hide like a slave or you break their heaven until they start listening. You chose the latter."

Alarms began to wail in the distance, a swarm of flying Enforcer drones gathering like vultures on the horizon.

"Let’s move, hero," Claire said, pulling her mask tight and sprinting toward the shattered golden doors of the Grand Opera.

Suger looked at his trembling hands. He wasn't just a scrapper anymore. He was a Disassembler—the nightmare that was going to take this fake paradise apart, one screw at a time.

He took one last look at the ruined plaza. The once-perfect marble was a mess of ice, gold scrap, and filth.

"Just the beginning," he muttered, then vanished into the shadows of the theater