2026-02-06 15:05:36"Fire! Kill that demon now!"
The Iron Fang squad Captain's voice cracked with panic. Three heavy-class assault rifles barked simultaneously inside the cramped cave chamber. RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
In seconds, hundreds of tungsten bullets obliterated the stalactite where Finnian had stood. Limestone dust exploded, filling the air. However, their target—the green-glowing man—was gone.
Not vanished, but moving too fast for normal human optic nerves to process, even with tactical HUD assistance.
SHING.
A green blur flashed between the ranks of soldiers.
The squad Captain felt a cold breeze on his neck, followed by a warm, wet sensation. He looked down, puzzled why his vision suddenly tilted. His body collapsed, his head rolling off his shoulders, cleanly decapitated by a shard of quartz crystal swung at supersonic speed.
"Dammit! Where is he?!" screamed the sergeant next to him, spinning his body encased in a hundred-kilogram Exosuit.
"Behind you, idiot," Finnian whispered.
Finnian clung to the back of the Exosuit like a spider. His fingers, glowing green, gripped the armor gap on the back plating. His new muscles—the gift from the Dryad—screamed with power. With a primal roar, Finnian ripped the steel back-plate until its hinges snapped.
CRACK!
The steel tore like wet paper. The pilot's back was exposed. Without hesitation, Finnian plunged the quartz crystal directly into the soldier's spine.
The sergeant convulsed violently as his nervous system was severed, then collapsed, falling onto the third soldier who was firing blindly in panic.
Finnian leaped off the falling corpse, sliding out through the hole made by the giant drill earlier. He inhaled the outside air—air thick with gunpowder smoke, diesel fumes, and the smell of death.
He stood on the lip of the freshly blasted cliff. The view was an industrial hellscape. The ancient forest below was being raped by Iron Fang's war machines. Dozens of trees had been felled, replaced by floodlights and temporary barricades.
And in the middle of it all, a monstrosity stood.
A "Titan-X4" model Walker Tank. A six-meter tall, four-legged machine with a railgun on its back and two chaingun machine guns on its mechanical arms. The machine was sweeping the forest area, knocking down massive trees as if they were toothpicks.
"Nice toy you got there, Thorne," Finnian muttered, his pupils constricting as he scanned the battlefield.
He could see 'lines' of energy in the air—visualizations of bullet trajectories before they were fired. The world felt slow. Too slow. Finnian felt like he was running underwater while everyone else was frozen.
Whirrrr...
The Walker Tank's turret head swiveled. Its infrared sensors picked up Finnian's excessive body heat on the cave lip.
"Priority target on the ridge! Destroy!"
The Titan-X4's main cannon glowed blue, charging up.
"Let's dance," Finnian grinned.
Instead of taking cover, he jumped down.
He landed on the neck of the giant drill sticking out of the cliff, then sprinted along the length of the boring machine, using gravity's momentum. As the railgun fired—BOOM!—the cliff behind him shattered into dust, but Finnian was already fifty meters ahead of the blast radius.
He darted between burning tree stumps. Machine gun bullets chased him, tearing up the earth behind his heels, but Finnian's Core-enhanced running speed kept him one step ahead of the enemy's autotargeting system.
He reached the hind leg of the Titan-X4.
The machine stomped its foot, trying to crush Finnian like a cockroach. The ground shook violently. Finnian slid under the ten-ton steel leg, then used his claws—fingernails now as hard as stone—to climb the hydraulic hoses on the machine's thigh.
"Hey! Got something on the left hull!" the Titan pilot shouted over the external speakers.
Finnian climbed agilely to the top of the chassis, right behind the armored cockpit. He pressed his glowing palm against the emergency hatch panel.
"Knock, knock," Finnian whispered.
He channeled green energy from the Core into his palm. Static electricity exploded. A small Bio-EMP discharged from his hand, frying the hatch's electronic locking system.
The lock indicator light turned from red to green.
PSHHHHT.
The hatch popped open with a hydraulic hiss.
The pilot inside the cockpit turned in shock, just about to draw the pistol from his waist. He wasn't fast enough. Finnian leaped into the cramped cockpit filled with screens and buttons.
A brutal struggle ensued for five seconds. Cramped, bloody, and vicious. Sounds of snapping bones and muffled screams were heard, then silence.
The pilot's corpse was thrown out of the hatch, falling to the ground six meters below.
Finnian sat in the pilot's seat, which was still warm and wet with blood. "Okay... how do you drive this damn tractor?"
He stared at the complex control panel. His former elite hitman hands took over. He might be retired, but he still remembered basic heavy vehicle hijacking training from his military service.
He pulled the dual control levers. The Titan-X4 roared, its steel legs shifting position.
"Control overridden," the machine's AI voice sounded flat. "Welcome, Operator."
On the tactical screen, Finnian saw two Iron Fang Drop Ships deploying an infantry platoon right in front of him. They hadn't realized their tank had changed hands yet.
Finnian grinned wickedly. He pressed the primary weapon triggers.
"Eat this, assholes."
BRRRRTTTT!
The twin chainguns on the Walker's arms barked. A rain of 20mm bullets swept across the landing zone. The bodies of Iron Fang soldiers exploded in red mist before they could even touch the ground. One Drop Ship was strafed until its engines caught fire and exploded, crashing down on the remaining troops.
Total chaos.
"Sector 4! Titan-01 has lost control! Friendly fire! I repeat, Titan-01 is Rogue!" Enemy radio in the cockpit screamed in panic.
"Rogue? I prefer the term Under New Management," Finnian replied over the intercom.
But the victory was short-lived.
A giant shadow swept over his cockpit. The VTOL aircraft hunting him since Chapter 1 returned. This time, it was carrying a full payload.
"Destroy that unit," Thorne's command sounded cold on the radio channel Finnian had hijacked.
Two Hellfire missiles launched from the VTOL. White smoke trails sped straight toward the glass face of the Titan-X4 cockpit occupied by Finnian.
"Ah, shit," Finnian cursed. The danger warning system inside the cockpit screamed red: IMPACT IMMINENT.
No time to maneuver. This Walker was too slow for Finnian's current reflexes.
Finnian punched the emergency 'EJECT' button. The ejection seat was jammed—damaged during the fight earlier.
"Perfect. Just fucking perfect."
With berserk strength, Finnian kicked the graphene-reinforced front cockpit glass. The glass cracked but didn't shatter. The missiles were fifty meters away.
Finnian channeled his remaining energy into his right shoulder. His veins glowed blindingly bright. He slammed his shoulder into the cockpit glass with all his might.
SMASH!
The glass shattered outward. Finnian leaped out at that exact second.
KABOOM!
The missiles slammed into the Walker Tank right in its chest. A thermobaric explosion engulfed the massive machine in a ball of blue and orange fire. The shockwave hit Finnian in mid-air, flinging him far beyond the perimeter of the landing zone.
He flew like a kite with a cut string, spinning uncontrollably through the smoke-filled air.
Far below him, it wasn't hard ground waiting. But a stretch of black swamp, bubbling and emitting toxic green steam—illegal chemical waste that had settled in the valley for years, now stirred up by war.
"Hold breath!" Finnian thought a split second before impact.
SPLASH!
He fell through the surface of the thick black sludge. Cold, viscous, and burning the skin. The green light on Finnian's body extinguished instantly, covered by the darkness of the toxic swamp that swallowed him whole.
***
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Chapter 175: The Beginning of Darkness
The master levers locked into place with a deafening, metallic crash that resonated through the very bedrock of the Himalayan mountains.Finnian OConnell did not look back at his screaming son or the armed rebels in the corridor. He stared directly into the jagged, bleeding tear in the fabric of reality hovering above the massive glass vat.The Spirit Gate violently expanded.It was not a clean, stabilized portal like the one Elias Thorne had tried to open. This was a crude, brutal, and apocalyptic wound torn into the multiverse using corrupted, necrotic magic. A shockwave of pure, freezing black energy blasted outward, shattering the remaining medical equipment in the laboratory. The walls of the Imperial Palace groaned, cracking under the immense gravitational pressure of a black hole trying to digest the physical world."Papa, stop!" Leo screamed, fighting against the hurricane-force winds pulling everything toward the vortex. The six-year-old boy dug his small boots into the crack
Chapter 174: Forbidden Obsession
The Imperial Palace of Verdantia was slowly choking to death. The vibrant, bioluminescent green vines that had once pulsed with infinite magical energy, illuminating the grand obsidian corridors like glowing emerald veins, were turning into brittle, blackened husks. The polished walls cracked and groaned as the thick roots within them violently shriveled. A foul, suffocating stench of ancient decay hung heavy in the stagnant, freezing air of the mountain fortress. Deep within the isolated northern wing, Finnian OConnell stood before the colossal glass vat in the center of the ruined medical laboratory. He did not sleep. He did not eat. For weeks, the King of the Forest had worked in absolute, manic isolation. His physical body was a horrifying reflection of the dying city around him. The dark, impenetrable ironwood of his skin had turned a sickly, ashen gray, peeling and flaking away like dead bark. His once broad and powerful shoulders were hunched, burdened by the crushing, invis
Chapter 173: The Fall of the King
The Imperial Palace of Verdantia was a towering monument to absolute silence.Finnian OConnell walked through the colossal, obsidian-paved entrance hall, his heavy, biomechanical footsteps echoing like the slow, rhythmic tolling of a death bell. The magnificent ironwood doors had been left wide open. The glowing green vines that usually illuminated the grand pillars had completely withered, turning a sickly, brittle gray. The ambient magic of the city was dying because the heart of its King was entirely dead.He did not look up at the vaulted ceilings. He did not look at the empty pedestals where his Praetorian Guards used to stand. The sprawling, invincible army he had mutated to conquer the world had vanished into the mist, following the only true prince of the forest. Finnian was utterly alone.As he approached the base of the grand staircase leading to the throne room, a single, trembling figure stepped out from the shadows. It was a low-ranking sentry, a young man who had been t
Chapter 172: The Queen Funeral
The global ceasefire was not a negotiated treaty signed on pieces of paper. It was a staggering, absolute surrender to a shared, apocalyptic heartbreak.The psychic shockwave of Finnian OConnell grief had washed over the planet, instantly extinguishing the fires of the civil war. In the flooded trenches of Sector Three, mutated Bramble Guards and ragged Withered Leaf mercenaries had dropped their weapons in the toxic mud. The urge to kill had completely evaporated, replaced by a suffocating, hollow emptiness that bound every living soul in a terrifying, unified mourning.There were no victorious cheers. There were no executions. There was only the long, agonizing march back to the dirt.The procession moved slowly through the dense, overgrown heart of the original Greyfenwood forest. The sky above them was a blanket of dull, bruised gray, weeping a slow, steady drizzle of clean, uncorrupted rainwater. The toxic smog had finally cleared, but the world felt infinitely darker.At the fro
Chapter 171: The Silence of the World
The scream that ripped from Finnian OConnell throat contained absolutely no acoustic volume. It did not echo off the shattered obsidian walls of the throne room, nor did it compete with the howling Himalayan blizzard raging outside the broken panoramic windows. It was a silent, catastrophic detonation of the soul. When the vocal cords of the Demigod failed, the infinite, primordial network of the Verdant Core took over. The magical energy pulsating through Finnian veins acted as a global, telepathic amplifier. The absolute, unadulterated grief of losing Elena Vance was instantly converted into a massive, invisible psychic shockwave that erupted from the peak of the mountain and violently swept across the entire planet. It moved faster than the speed of light. It did not discriminate between friend, foe, human, or beast. Down in the flooded, toxic trenches of Sector Three, the brutal civil war was raging. Heavily armed rebel mercenaries were exchanging relentless plasma fire with t
Chapter 170: The Inevitable Tragedy
The human mind is a fragile sanctuary, but the body of a demigod is a machine of war. Finnian OConnell sat on the ruined obsidian floor of the throne room, his massive arms cradling the broken, bleeding form of his wife. The tears streaming down his face were warm, salty, and entirely human. He had won. He had ripped Elias Thorne out of his soul and reclaimed his own mind. He was looking down at Elena, ready to heal her, ready to carry her out of this nightmare.But the sudden, terrifying paralysis that seized his spinal cord was absolute. Finnian jaw locked tight. His vocal cords paralyzed, trapping the desperate scream building in his throat. He looked down at Elena, his green eyes wide with a pure, unadulterated panic that transcended physical fear. He could not move his fingers. He could not shift his weight. He was a prisoner inside his own flesh.Deep within the biological matrix of his mutated ironwood skin, the final, spiteful command of the dying Emperor took root. Thorne c
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