The Legionnaire did not move like a machine of its bulk. Under the Sergeant's neural control, it glided over the broken terrain with a sinister, hydraulic grace. Its treads absorbed rocks and fissures that would have shattered the Ghost's axles. Inside the commander's cupola, Isaac felt not the jolts, but the tank's steady, inexorable will as it translated into data on his panoramic display.
They weren't heading for Omicron-22. Not yet. The newborn titan needed a shakedown. A proof of concept against known threats. The Convergence ruins, still patrolled by the Reclaimer Beast and its new Shredderling pack, were the perfect, dangerous test range.
"Set heading for the northern edge of the ruin," Isaac ordered, his voice calm in the tank's filtered air. "We'll draw them out. Let's see if our armor is as good as the schematics promised."
"Acknowledged. Approaching engagement zone."
The Legionnaire crested a low rise, presenting its frontal armor to the ruins a kilometer away. It was a blatant challenge. On the sensors, the chaotic mess of red signatures shifted. A cluster of Shredderlings broke from a pack and streaked toward them, a blur of chitin and bladed limbs. The Reclaimer Beast's massive icon stirred, turning ponderously in their direction.
"Let them come. Gunner…" Isaac trailed off, realizing he was the gunner. He smiled a thin, hard smile. He laid the targeting reticule over the leading pack of Shredderlings. The tank's fire-control system computed lead, wind, and target velocity in a microsecond. A soft chime sounded in his ear. LOCK.
He squeezed the trigger for the coaxial repeater.
BRRRRZT.
The sound was different from the sentry turret—deeper, more contained, a professional's tool. A stream of hypersonic slugs tore across the plain. The leading Shredderlings didn't explode; they disintegrated into a mist of ichor and shattered carapace. The entire pack, twenty strong, was erased in two seconds of fire.
"Effective," the Sergeant noted drily.
The Reclaimer Beast saw its vanguard annihilated and roared, a sound of grinding stone that vibrated through the tank's hull. It charged, a landslide given purpose, its grinding maw spinning.
"Main gun. Target the Beast's central mass. Let's see if we can crack its core."
Isaac toggled the weapon select. The 120mm coilgun hummed as it charged, a rising whine that peaked with a solid THUNK of capacitors locking. The reticule settled on the charging monster's chest, where scans indicated the densest concentration of energy.
He fired.
There was no recoil. The Legionnaire's stabilizers absorbed it all. There was only a deep, concussive WHUMP and a streak of ionized air so bright it left an afterimage. The tungsten-carbide fin-stabilized discarding sabot round crossed the distance in a blink.
It struck the Reclaimer Beast not with an explosion, but with the focused energy of a meteor strike.
The impact was silent for a fraction of a second. Then the Beast's torso caved in. A hole the size of a man appeared, punched clean through layers of stone, metal, and Gloom-flesh. The creature's charge turned into a stumbling, graceless collapse. It slid forward another fifty meters, digging a furrow in the earth, before coming to a stop, its internal lights guttering out.
Tier-3 Hostile Eliminated: Reclaimer Beast. Essence Acquired: +140 Units.
No tactics. No clever gambits. Just overwhelming, industrialized force applied with precision. Isaac felt a strange hollowness. This was the power he had craved, and it was… transactional. Efficient. Final.
"Secondary contacts converging from the ruins," the Sergeant reported. Amalgams, Stalkers, the dregs of the Convergence, driven by hive-mind fury or simple programming to attack the new threat.
"Switch to coaxial. Sweep the area. Let's clear the field."
For the next ten minutes, the Legionnaire was a purifying fire. It advanced slowly into the ruin, its repeater hosing down anything that moved. Amalgams were chewed apart. Stalkers were bisected. The tank's armor shrugged off crystalline spines and glancing blows from stone fists. It was less a battle and more a demolition.
When the last signature faded, the ruins were silent, save for the ticking of the Legionnaire's cooling systems and the hiss of dissolving Gloom matter.
"Mission accomplished," the Sergeant stated.
"Not yet," Isaac said, his eyes on the sensor display. The ruins were clear, but his target wasn't just the creatures. It was the material. "Sergeant, bring us alongside the largest structural alloy spires. M-001, bring the Mule up. We're harvesting. The Legionnaire will provide security."
The Mule, now a dedicated transport again, clanked out from the Bastion with an escort of Militia. Under the shadow of the Legionnaire's gun, they worked unmolested. The tank's sensors scanned for any resurgence, its turret tracking empty shadows. In an hour, they loaded the Mule to capacity with the richest, densest chunks of alloy from the dead Spire and the fallen Beast's own carcass.
Advanced Salvage Acquired: +65 Units.
The return to the Bastion was a triumphal procession. The Legionnaire led, a grey king returning from conquest, the Mule trailing behind like a laden squire. The Bastion's forces watched from the walls, a silent, awed audience.
In the Vehicle Bay, as the Mule unloaded its fortune, Isaac dismounted from the tank. He placed a hand on its warm, scarred flank. It was already bearing the marks of war—scratches, smears of black ichor, a dent from a lucky Amalgam's blow that hadn't even cracked the paint on the composite beneath.
It had worked. Better than he'd dreamed.
He now had overwhelming local superiority. The ruins were his to strip at will. He had enough salvage to build another Legionnaire, or to research the next tier of tech from the fragments he'd recovered.
But as he looked at the tank, then at the map where Omicron-22 and its Colossi still stood guard over the Adamantite vault, the hollowness returned.
The Reclaimer Beast had been a problem to solve. Omicron-22 was a wall. The Legionnaire could kill a Colossus, maybe. But a forest of them? And what else lurked in that corrupted mountain?
The proving ground was over. He had his hammer. Now he faced the true fortress. And for the first time, he wondered if even this masterpiece of war would be enough, or if he had simply graduated to a larger, more dangerous scale of slaughter. The equation had changed, but it was still an equation. And the variables on the other side had just gotten exponentially larger.