2026-02-06 15:35:17The ceiling of the steel bunker curved inward, its scrap metal groaning under the pressure of thousands of tons from the diamond-coated drill bit spinning above it. The sound of grinding metal sounded like a woman's scream.
"Okay, new toy..." Finnian raised his left hand. The black Gauntlet left by his father hummed, its green fluid tubes glowing brightly, as if eager to taste danger. "Just don't explode and chop my hand off, okay?"
CLAAAANG!
The drill bit punched through the roof. Mud and iron debris sprayed inside.
Finnian didn't retreat. He jumped towards the spinning drill.
With a maniacal roar, Finnian punched the side of the giant drill bit with his left hand. As his fist made contact, the Gauntlet released a directed kinetic shockwave. Not a fire explosion, but a micro-gravity distortion.
BAAAM!
The solid steel drill bit didn't shatter, but it bent. Its rotational axis destroyed instantly. The drilling engine on the surface halted with the ear-splitting sound of snapping gears. For a moment, there was a vacuum of sound as Iron Fang's systems underwent an emergency shutdown.
Finnian seized that moment. He used his military boots to climb the tilted, smoking drill shaft, crawling up through the narrow mud tunnel toward the surface like an angry sewer rat.
One hundred meters. Fifty meters.
Fresh air—or at least air not smelling of 20 years of recycling—stung his nose.
Finnian poked his head out of the maintenance hatch gap at the base of the giant drill machine. He was right in the middle of the Iron Fang operational camp.
And the view was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.
The camp wasn't just tents. It was a portable city. Halogen light towers illuminated the night with blinding white light. Four-meter high defense walls were being erected instantly using 3D concrete printers. Surveillance drones buzzed like carrion flies overhead. Spider-Walker tanks patrolled with heavy steps.
This wasn't a military operation. This was an industrial occupation.
"Damn you, Thorne..." Finnian whispered, hiding behind a stack of fuel drums. "You really intend to move this entire forest into your pants pocket."
He moved in the shadows, the gauntlet on his left hand dimmed to stealth mode, leaving only a faint glow beneath his torn sleeve. He needed to find the command center. He needed to sever the communication network before fleeing further.
But his steps halted near the "Containment Sector".
A transparent quarantine tent stood amidst the mud. Inside, bright surgical lights revealed two silhouettes.
One was a silhouette he recognized: Viper. Thorne's trusted right-hand woman was holding a scalpel, twirling it with the grace of a psychopath.
And the second silhouette... a woman tied to an interrogation chair. She wore a white lab coat dirty with soil, glasses cracked in one lens, and long messy brown hair.
Dr. Elena Vance.
Finnian recognized that face from target data he had stolen back when he was still a hitman. The genius Neo-Botany scientist who went missing two years ago. Many thought she was dead. Turns out, she was here.
Finnian crawled closer, hiding behind a noisy diesel generator, listening.
"The formula, Elena," Viper's voice sounded soft, yet sharp, piercing through the plastic walls of the tent. "You encoded it in the Nightshade flower DNA sequence. Thorne is tired of waiting."
"Go... to hell," Elena replied, her voice hoarse from dehydration, but her chin lifted defiantly.
Viper chuckled. She stepped forward, the tip of her scalpel touching the top button of Elena's shirt. With a gentle flick, the button popped off. Then the second. Revealing neck skin and cleavage slick with cold sweat.
"Beautiful," Viper murmured, her leather-gloved finger tracing Elena's collarbone. "You know, the guards out there haven't touched a woman in six months. If I let them in here for ten minutes... I'm sure you'd remember the formula very quickly."
Elena's face paled, but she spat right in Viper's face. "You're just Thorne's lapdog."
Viper's face went flat. She wiped the spit slowly. "Pet dogs often eat impolite guests."
Viper raised her scalpel high, ready to plunge it into Elena's shoulder, not to kill, but to permanently damage the motor nerves of her arm.
Behind the generator, Finnian closed his eyes.
Don't get involved, Finn. Your mission is to escape. Saving her will only slow you down. She's a stranger.
But his left hand clenched into a fist. The Gauntlet vibrated, as if responding to his heartbeat refusing to stay silent in the face of such cruelty.
"Ah, screw it," Finnian cursed.
He stepped out of hiding. Not sneaking, but with wide, confident strides.
He raised his gauntlet toward the fuel tank next to the containment tent.
"Hey, Ladies! Sorry to crash the party!" Finnian shouted.
Viper turned in shock. "Who—"
Finnian pulled the trigger in his palm.
BOOM!
An energy bolt struck the fuel tank. A deafening orange explosion ripped through the night. The containment tent shook violently, its protective plastic melting instantly from the heat wave.
The guards around the tent were thrown back. Chaos erupted. Sirens wailed.
"Intruder! Sector B!"
Amidst the fire and smoke, Finnian stormed into the tent.
Viper, though surprised, possessed superhuman reflexes. She threw her scalpel at Finnian's face.
Finnian deflected the knife with the back of his iron hand—Cling!—and immediately delivered a front kick to Viper's stomach. The woman was shoved back, crashing into a table of medical equipment until it fell in a mess.
"Who are you?" hissed Viper, rising with combat knives in both hands.
" The gardener," Finnian replied flatly. He turned to Elena, slicing the ropes on her hands and feet with a looted knife. "Can you run, Doc?"
Elena stared at Finnian with wide eyes, looking at a dirty half-naked man with a glowing robotic hand. "Who...?"
"Questions later. Run now. Unless you want to be a toy for the soldiers outside."
Finnian grabbed Elena's arm roughly, dragging her out of the tent that was starting to collapse into the fire.
"Chase them! Don't let them enter the forest!" Viper's angry voice shouted behind them.
The sound of assault rifle fire filled the air. Rat-a-tat-tat!
Bullets whizzed around them. Finnian pushed Elena to take cover behind the carcass of a bulldozer. He returned fire with the pistol he stole from the previous corpse, shooting twice—two soldiers' heads exploded (precision headshots).
"This way! There's a gap in the perimeter fence!" Finnian pointed to a section of the fence crushed by a fallen tree.
They sprinted. Elena's breath heaved; she wasn't a soldier, but adrenaline kept her moving. The dark forest was in plain sight. Safety.
But Viper wasn't an amateur.
From a distance, atop a watchtower, Viper grabbed a long-range sniper rifle from the hands of a slow marksman. She aimed calmly. No emotion, just calculation.
Finnian felt the danger. He spun to shield Elena. "Get down!"
One second too late.
BLAM!
The sound of the *sniper* shot echoed.
Elena pitched forward. A stifled scream escaped her mouth. Her right shoulder exploded in a spray of red blood. The bullet pierced flesh, shattering the collarbone.
"Doc!" Finnian caught Elena's body before she kissed the dirt.
"It... hurts..." Elena moaned, her eyes starting to blur. Thankfully, the bullet went through. It didn't lodge inside.
Finnian looked toward the tower. He saw Viper lowering her rifle, smiling mockingly under the spotlight. The message was clear: I can kill you anytime, but I prefer watching you suffer with a burden.
Anger boiled in Finnian's gut. His green eyes shone wildly in the darkness. But he knew he couldn't win tonight.
With one motion, Finnian hoisted Elena's body onto his left shoulder (his strong mechanical shoulder), and ran plunging into the darkness of the dense forest.
Behind them, the Hellhounds began to be released again.
The night had just begun, and now Finnian had a bleeding 60-kilogram burden on his shoulder.
***
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 249: The Last Down (THE END)
The house at the edge of Greyfenwood was everything Finnian OConnell had ever dreamed of, even if he had never lived to see it. It was a beautiful, sprawling homestead built of polished oak and natural stone, blending seamlessly into the surrounding forest. Warm, golden light spilled from the glass windows, cutting through the encroaching twilight. Inside, the hearth crackled with a lively, comforting fire, filling the living room with the scent of burning pine and sweet cinnamon. Leo sat in his favorite leather armchair, his reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. The heavy, moss-scented journal rested carefully on his lap. Beside him, sitting cross-legged on a large woven rug, was Cian. The boy had already changed out of his muddy clothes, but his brilliant green eyes were wide, completely fixated on his grandfather. From the kitchen, Maya walked in. Her hair, once a raven black, was now beautifully frosted with white, but her smile was as radiant as the day Leo had ma
Chapter 248: The Third Generation
Thirty years is a long time for a human being, but it is nothing more than a fleeting breath for a forest. Greyfenwood had grown into a sprawling, magnificent ocean of green. The massive oak and pine trees stood hundreds of feet tall, their thick canopies weaving together to create a lush, sun-dappled roof over the earth. The air was incredibly pure, carrying the sweet scent of blooming wildflowers, damp soil, and fresh morning dew. There were no traces of toxic smog. There were no rusted, broken machines littering the forest floor. The earth had completely digested the scars of the global war. Running through the tall grass, his laughter echoing brightly through the silent, majestic woods, was a ten-year-old boy. His name was Cian. He was a hurricane of boundless energy, wearing simple, sturdy cotton clothes and a pair of leather boots that were already caked in mud. His dark brown hair was messy, swept back by the wind as he sprinted through the ferns. But his most defining feat
Chapter 247: Ghost in the Machine
The Central Network Hub of Verdantia was a quiet, sterile marvel of the new world. It was located deep beneath the reconstructed streets of Sector Four, housed inside the reinforced concrete shell of an old Iron Fang armory. It did not hum with the oppressive, deafening roar of alien anti-matter reactors. Instead, it operated on a gentle, rhythmic vibration powered entirely by the clean, geothermal steam rushing through the pipes beneath the floorboards. It had taken humanity twenty years to lay the foundation of a new global internet. They did not use satellites, fearing the dead space above. They used thousands of miles of heavy, physical fiber-optic cables, burying them deep into the healing earth to connect the distant settlements of the European Remnant, the Asian Cyber-Clans, and Free Greyfenwood. David, a junior network engineer barely twenty-five years old, sat alone in the dim, blue-lit server room. He leaned back in his squeaky office chair, sipping a mug of lukewarm chic
Chapter 246: The Oconnell Archive
Twenty years had slipped away like water through open fingers since the day the alien armada fell from the sky and the magic of the Verdant Core was permanently sealed beneath the earth. The world had healed. The aggressive, mutated jungles that had aggressively swallowed the ruins of the old corporate mega-cities had slowly settled into a natural, balanced rhythm. The toxic, rust-colored clouds of the iron plague were nothing more than a ghost story told to frighten misbehaving children. The unified sectors had rebuilt themselves not as towering, arrogant empires of glass and steel, but as sprawling, grounded sanctuaries of stone, agriculture, and democracy. Inside the quiet, sunlit study of a sturdy wooden cabin at the edge of the Greyfenwood nature reserve, the crackle of a warm fireplace provided a soothing rhythm against the gentle patter of morning rain. Leo OConnell sat in a heavy, leather-backed armchair. The young, reckless Warden of Reality who had traversed dimensions an
Chapter 245: The Legend of the Guardian
Five years.It had been exactly five years since the Treaty of the Neutral Zone was signed on a rusted suspension bridge, and in that time, the planet had done something completely miraculous. It had forgiven them.The apocalyptic, toxic gray ash that had choked the atmosphere was entirely gone, replaced by crisp, clean air that smelled of blooming wildflowers and damp earth. The terrifying, towering bio-mechanical monstrosities that once roamed the continent had long since crumbled into inert mounds of rusted steel and dead, petrified wood, serving as silent, overgrown monuments to a forgotten war.Greyfenwood was no longer a magical, irradiated nightmare. It was just a forest.There were no glowing emerald vines pulsating with cosmic energy. There were no telepathic whispers invading the minds of travelers. There were only towering pine trees, sprawling oak branches, and the natural, beautiful sound of ordinary birds singing in the mor
Chapter 244: The Table of Kings
The neutral zone was located in the skeletal, rusted remains of the old Sector Two transit hub. It was a massive, open-air concourse with a shattered glass dome that allowed the pale winter sunlight to spill across the cracked concrete floor. Before the apocalypse, this hall had seen millions of corporate citizens rushing to their daily grinds. Today, it was the focal point for the future of the human race.In the absolute center of the concourse sat a massive, circular table forged from salvaged industrial steel. There were no banners. There were no thrones. There were only four simple, mismatched metal chairs. Leo OConnell stood at the edge of the concourse, his hands resting casually inside the pockets of his heavy leather trench coat. He watched the three approaching convoys arriving from the northern, eastern, and southern wastelands. The warlords had brought their armies, parking their heavily armored transport rovers and rusted crawler tanks just outside the designated perime
You may also like
November: I Might Be A Superhero
Wordsmith-H8.0K viewsClaimed by the Hunter
ijay3.6K viewsOPPOSITES
GA103.5K viewsCanaan Club (Progenies of Ironward #1)
Westley Dans3.8K viewsI BUILT THE LAST SANCTUARY
Fellycia Star418 viewsFuture Bob
GarryDnovelist1.7K viewsThe Anatomist Of Decay
LEO417380 viewsThe Dead Come for Us
Isaac533 views