The steel plates of Lab Zero groaned under the weight of Aaryan's footsteps. This was the highest point in the Maya District and the deepest prison of sin. The air was thick with electrical sparks from the collision of high-pressure steam and pure ether, and every inch of space was taut, like a string about to snap. 'Kill him,' Vane commanded, his voice cold and unwavering.
Four 'Judge-class' power armours activated simultaneously. These three-metre-tall steel behemoths, each equipped with a 'Law Core' personally blessed by the Holy Blood Council, spewed nearly transparent blue flames from their exhaust pipes. The ethereal spears of judgement in their hands traced cold trajectories through the air, forming an impenetrable net of death.
Aaryan leapt backwards, his dark red wings tracing a fan-shaped streak of light through the air.
'Boom!'
The four spears of judgement pierced the spot where he had stood. The hard, special alloy floor shattered instantly like paper. The immense impact sent fragments of metal flying in all directions like projectiles. "Hide? In the gravitational field of '1969', there is nowhere to hide!" Vane grinned maliciously as his fingers flew across the control panel.
The giant electromagnetic ring on the laboratory ceiling began to rotate in reverse, and a terrifying gravitational pull emanated from beneath the floor. Aaryan felt his purple-gold bloodline being forcibly pulled downwards and his wings became as heavy as lead.
This was 'Singularity Gravity', a force that made flight and agility impossible.
At that critical moment, the lab trembled violently. Aaryan's purification of the source plague below had caused a brief disruption to the lab's energy supply — like a high-speed gear suddenly breaking a tooth.
'Crack... snap!'
The entire Zero Laboratory, suspended in mid-air, began to tilt. Countless heavy experimental instruments slid downwards with a sickening metallic cracking sound. One corner of the laboratory collapsed completely, sending Aaryan, the four power suits and the spherical cage imprisoning Dahlia plummeting into the bottomless waste dump below, which resembled a beast. The wind howled in his ears as acid rain and discarded engine oil formed a grey curtain in the air.
Aaryan forced himself to adjust during the fall. He saw a judge's power suit using the momentum of the fall to raise a massive hydraulic fist and smash it down on him.
'Royal Secret Technique: Transformation."
He chose not to meet the blow head-on. Instead, just as the fist was about to strike, he swiftly coiled around it like a snake, sliding along the cold brass shell to its back. His right hand transformed into a finger sword and precisely pierced the steam vent in the power suit's neck.
"Sizzle—!"
High-pressure steam erupted instantly, scalding Aaryan's arm bright red. But he didn't let go. His inner purple-gold ether surged wildly through his fingertips, forcefully disrupting the power suit's internal energy pathways.
'Boom!'
The two of them crashed heavily onto the endless mountain of rubbish below. Discarded gears, rusty steel beams and mouldy fabric cushioned the impact, but also kicked up clouds of dust and a sour, rotten smell.
Aaryan rolled to his feet and wiped the blood from his mouth. Before him, three intact Inquisitor power armours slowly rose from the rubbish heap, their bright red electronic eyes glaringly conspicuous in the dim wasteland.
Even worse, Vane hadn't fallen. He was hovering on top of a small steam shuttle, looking down over the junkyard.
'Struggling in this pile of rotting flesh is your most fitting end,' Vane's voice echoed through the empty wasteland via a loudspeaker. 'There's no aether to absorb here, only endless death energy. Let's see how long your wings can burn." Aaryan felt his spiritual energy depleting rapidly.
As Vane had said, the wasteland was a graveyard of energy; every inch of soil was contaminated and every drop of water was full of toxins. The wings on his back had dimmed to the point of being almost transparent and the fragments of the badge on his chest gave off a faint, mournful cry.
The remains of the crystallised labourers, who had slumbered due to purification by the Source Plague, awoke once more amid this immense upheaval. But they did not attack Aaryan; instead, they stared at him with empty eyes, as if searching for a glimmer of hope.
'Help... help...'
This cry was no longer that of one person, but the resonance of thousands upon thousands of souls at the bottom of the junkyard.
Aaryan looked at the approaching steel behemoth, then looked down at his broken and shattered comrades at his feet. An unprecedented rage surged within him. These people had been exploited as cogs in life and discarded as scrap in death; even their souls were to be used as fuel for 'divine weapons'.
"If only gears were turning in this world…" Aaryan slowly closed his right eye, a flame called 'annihilation' burning in his black left eye. 'Then I will destroy all the gears.'
Instead of absorbing the surrounding energy, he infused the last trace of pure royal blood within him into the earth beneath his feet.
'Celestial Vein Secret Technique: Summoning Souls."
This wasn't necromancy, but rather the resonance of the indomitable will remaining in the scrap metal and crystal fragments, guided by his royal bloodline. "Creak… creak…"
A chilling sound echoed from the depths of the garbage mountain.
Countless rusted gears began to turn of their own accord, broken steel beams writhed and twisted as if alive, and the bones of deceased labourers were forcibly fused with discarded mechanical components. Guided by Aaryan's bloodline, these components formed a 'counterattack legion' of scrap.
"What… what the hell is that?" Vane, on the shuttle, showed a look of horror for the first time.
He saw a colossal hand, composed entirely of broken steampunk arms, suddenly emerge from the junkyard and seize the ankle of one of the Inquisitor's power armour suits.
Immediately afterwards, streams of light, a mixture of spiritual energy and rust, converged on Aaryan from the ground. Standing atop the junkyard, his previously dormant wings had transformed into ethereal mechanical wings made of tiny gears and golden threads.
'This is what you owe them,' said Aaryan, pointing to Vane in the air. His voice was like a chorus of millions. 'Now they'll take it back.'
As he gestured, the entire mountain of junk seemed to come alive, transforming into a roaring steel mudslide hurtling towards the three 'Iron Inquisitors'.
In the scrap yard, the steel torrent roared like a metal behemoth awakened from a thousand-year slumber. Aaryan stood atop this torrent, not on mud but on the indomitable will of his thousands of fellow workers. 'Arrogance! What can this pile of scrap metal do?"
Vane roared from his small steam shuttle, yanking the control lever. The six jets at the bottom of the shuttle instantly overloaded, and blue flames scorched the scrap below, vaporising it. At the same time, the three Judgement power armours, surrounded by the 'steel mudslide', launched a frenzied counterattack. The Spear of Judgement emitted high-frequency pulses in an attempt to sever Aaryan's connection to the scrap metal.
However, Aaryan was no longer the submissive labourer he had once been in the factory.
The mechanical wings behind him flapped violently, turning him into a golden lightning bolt connecting heaven and earth. 'In my name, all things are weapons!'
He made a grasping motion with one hand and hundreds of obsolete pressure pipes, summoned by the mountain of garbage beneath his feet, flew out simultaneously. They intertwined and entwined in mid-air, instantly weaving a fifty-metre-long ethereal strangulation chain.
Not only was this chain made of metal, it was also imbued with the rage of those remnant souls and emitted a chilling shriek. It wrapped precisely around the waist of a power suit, and then Aaryan pulled with all his might, using the several-tonne steel behemoth as a meteor hammer and slamming it down heavily onto Vane in mid-air.
'Boom!'
The shuttle's left wing shattered under the impact of the power suit, flames illuminating half the dark sky. Vane's vehicle lost balance, spinning and plummeting towards the '1969' singularity.
Just then, a deep, ancient and oppressive bell tolled from the depths of the Maya District.
'Dong—'
This wasn't Cyrus's bronze bell, but rather the core of the ether reactor, which was located 1,969 metres underground. Due to Aaryan's excessive use of the royal bloodline's resonant waste, the immense energy feedback had finally awakened the greedy singularity.
The surrounding space began to distort. The edges of the previously pitch-black waste vent became translucent like the aurora borealis, and scrap steel, shattered magic stones and acid raindrops all levitated and converged towards the centre of the singularity.
'Oh no! Gravity is out of control!' Pau's exclamation came from afar.
Aaryan turned and saw Dahlia's spherical cage being pulled towards the abyss by this irresistible force. She was unconscious, with a probe piercing her forehead, and her blood was turning into crimson pearls in the void.
"Dahlia!"
Aaryan disregarded the falling Vane. He folded his wings and swooped down through the air at high speed, his fingertips just metres from the cage. However, the suction force generated by the singularity increased exponentially, even causing the mechanical ethereal wings on his back to crack. 'Your Highness... go... down...'
A faint voice came from the depths of the garbage heap — the remnant soul of the boy from before. He hadn't completely dissipated; he had transformed into pure kinetic energy, propelling the torrent of waste and lifting Aaryan from below.
Not only him, but the countless remnant souls of labourers awakened by Aaryan also threw themselves willingly into the vortex of the singularity. They used their shattered soul energy to fill the greedy gravitational gaps in an attempt to buy their king a final second.
Thanks to this brief resistance, Aaryan's fingertips finally touched the cold cage.
"Royal Secret Technique – Star Shatter!"
The mechanical patterns on his right arm erupted with an unprecedented light. He formed claws with his fingers and tore apart the magical stone fence, pulling the weakened Dahlia into his arms and protecting her tightly.
However, at that very moment, an even more terrifying power erupted from the singularity's core and transformed into a white pillar of light, powerful enough to pierce the Earth's surface. This pillar devoured everything around it and tore a massive rift in the void.
Through the rift, Aaryan could see a magnificent city floating in the clouds. This city was so glorious that it almost inspired despair — it was Solaria, the headquarters of the Holy Blood Council.
There were white spires and streets flowing with spiritual springs — a world entirely different from the Maya District below.
'Welcome to Judgment Day, little prince.'
Vane's voice rang out again. He had now crawled out of the shuttle wreckage, half of his body having crystallised to give it an eerie translucence, and he was laughing maniacally. He clutched a controller that flashed a red light. "Since you want the truth, let this junkyard crash into your noble, holy city!" Vane pressed the 'Final Cleansing' programme.
The 1969 Singularity beneath the Maya District ceased absorbing energy and began violently repelling it. The entire wasteland, along with the torrent of steel and tens of thousands of mutated labourers, was propelled like a giant meteorite towards the fissure leading to the holy city by the force of the singularity's ejection.
'He wants to turn the Maya District into a bomb and take you all down with him...' Aaryan realised Vane's madness.
During the intense upward surge, Aaryan hugged Dahlia tightly and looked down. Pau was desperately repairing his prosthetic limbs; Cyrus was praying with his eyes closed; and countless of his brethren were gazing up at him.
He knew he couldn't just run away.
At that moment, the fragment of the badge on his chest melted completely, merging with his heart. An unprecedented sense of power then filled his entire body. This power was not the coldness of machinery or the arrogance of royalty, but a deeper, more profound emotion.
'Since you treat us like scrap...'
Aaryan stood tall amidst the rising torrent, her mechanical wings fully unfurled to shield her from the flames below. Her left black eye and right purple-gold pupil simultaneously locked onto the impossibly high holy city.
'Then prepare to face the judgement of scrap.'