Kane’s movements were methodical. There was no wasted motion.

  He stripped everything of value from Old Phil’s corpse—the coin purse, the wolf-head token, and the data tablet. He found them one by one and tucked them close to his body.

  Once finished, he stood up. He didn't spare the corpse another glance.

  He turned and dragged several cans of spare high-purity fuel from the corner of the safe house.

  The heavy metal canisters felt weightless in his hands.

  He returned to the surface, back to the core of Scrapyard 7—Old Phil’s office.

  This place had once been the heart of this iron cage.

  Clatter—

  Kane unscrewed the cap of a fuel can. With a tilt of his wrist, the amber liquid poured out.

  He crudely splashed the fuel over scattered documents and cold metal parts.

  Finally, he emptied the remaining fuel onto the wide boss's chair, which had been fashioned from the polished scapula of a giant beast.

  A pungent chemical odor, mixed with the scent of machine oil and rust, rapidly saturated the air.

  That smell...

  Kane’s movements didn't stop.

  But for a split second, his eyes lost their focus.

  Images he had buried with all his might, covered under the coldest ice and snow, were forcibly dragged from the grave of his memory by that scent.

  ...

  "Kane, look closely. This is a capacitor, and this is a resistor. If you mix them up, things blow up!"

  An old man with graying hair and oil-stained hands was pinching tiny components. Under a dim yellow lamp, he patiently taught a skin-and-bones child how to read.

  That old man was Old Tock.

  That child was himself.

  The clearest day in his memory was his "tenth birthday."

  In the wasteland, no one kept track of such things, but Old Tock did.

  Old Tock had scavenged a working energy cell from some godforsaken ruin.

  He lit a whole string of colored signal lights he had repaired, hanging them from the workshop rafters, flickering and flashing.

  He had also spent days clattering away with scrap sheet metal and rusted gears to piece together a lopsided robot that looked like it would fall apart at any moment.

  "A man's gotta have his own toys!"

  Old Tock shoved the ugly robot into his arms. He grinned, revealing teeth stained yellow by low-grade tobacco, laughing with genuine joy.

  Wasteland nights were cold. The wind sounded like ghosts wailing.

  But that lamp in the workshop and Old Tock’s incessant rambling were the only warm colors of his entire childhood.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  Old Tock was a good man.

  A "monster" that had long since gone extinct in this wasteland.

  He would repair his neighbors' water pumps for free. He would share his meager food with starving drifters.

  He would always puff on a choking hand-rolled cigarette and tell Kane: "If everyone's heart rots through, then what's the difference between us and the man-eating monsters out there?"

  At the time, Kane only half-understood.

  He just felt that whatever his Master said must be right.

  Until that day.

  The Kunlun Corp enforcement squad arrived.

  Old Tock had his limbs snapped. He was dragged like a dead dog and tossed into the center of the garbage plaza.

  Kane saw Old Phil, the head of Scrapyard 7, bowing and scraping before the squad leader. His face was piled with a smile so sycophantic it was distorted.

  He saw Auntie Zhang, whose prosthetic limb had been fixed by his Master just last week, clutching a tube of nutrient paste and staring fixedly at the ground.

  He saw those neighbors who had received his Master's kindness. Their faces were masked with numbness, fear, and a morbid, sickly curiosity.

  They watched as if observing a street performance—irrelevant to them, yet stimulating enough to enjoy.

  Whispers crawled into his ears.

  "Old Tock really kicked the steel plate this time."

  "Tsk tsk, even Kunlun's people are here. He's finished."

  He wanted to rush out.

  But his body could not move.

  It wasn't fear.

  It was a sense of utter insignificance and powerlessness—a crushing weight from the depths of his soul—felt when facing the "Kunlun" logo emblazoned on that polished armor.

  The enforcement captain pulled out a silver spray canister.

  Sss—!

  A white mist sprayed over Old Tock.

  "Aaaaaagh—!!!"

  A bone-chilling, ear-piercing scream erupted, sounding nothing like a human voice.

  Kane’s brain went numb, his mind turning into a complete blank.

  He watched as his Master’s skin and flesh dissolved and peeled away at a speed visible to the naked eye.

  White bone slowly began to emerge from the melting meat.

  "Master!"

  He charged forward like a madman, only to be yanked back by a massive hand.

  A scavenger looked at him, shaking his head slightly.

  There was no sympathy in that gaze—only the purest survival instinct of "don't go looking for trouble."

  Amidst the rolling white mist and the bone-corroding agony.

  That figure, dissolved beyond human recognition, used his final spark of strength to painfully turn his face toward Kane.

  His features were blurred.

  His flesh was vanishing.

  Yet his eyes, in the final moment of his life, burst with a light that was impossibly clear.

  There was no resentment. No bitterness.

  Only a profound sorrow and a silent entrustment.

  His lips moved. Kane read the wordless final wish.

  "..., live on."

  In truth, Kane hadn't understood the first half of the sentence. He only vaguely caught the last two words.

  But from that day forward, he completed the first half himself.

  Trust no one.

  Live on.

  "Phew..."

  Kane’s chest heaved violently as he forcibly tore himself away from those soul-searing memories.

  He was still standing in Old Phil’s office. The fuel can in his hand was empty.

  There were no tears on his cheeks, only a biting cold.

  The temperature of the [ Basilisk Stone Armor ], pressing against his skin, allowed him to regain his composure quickly.

  Disgust.

  He loathed the feeling of being controlled by emotions.

  This poison called "weakness."

  Click.

  He pulled an old igniter from his coat and pressed down hard with his thumb.

  A cluster of orange-red flame flickered stubbornly to life.

  He stared at the flame and let go.

  The igniter fell onto the pile of fuel-soaked documents.

  Boom—!!!

  In an instant, the fire greedily devoured everything.

  Documents, parts, furniture, and that bone chair—the symbol of oppression and exploitation—twisted and deformed in the heat, letting out a groan of structural failure.

  The soaring flames dyed the murky sky over Scrapyard 7 red.

  The fire looked so much like the white mist that had enveloped his Master that day.

  Kane turned and didn't look back.

  The inferno didn't just burn down an office or a base.

  It incinerated his past—the part of him known as "naivety."

  It destroyed the cage called "Scrapyard 7" that had trapped him for years.

  Clad in his dark green [ Basilisk Stone Armor ], he walked step by step out of this iron grave being purified by fire. His figure vanished resolutely into the swirling dust and sand.

  Only after walking a long distance did he stop and unfold the data tablet he had recovered from Old Phil’s boot.

  The screen lit up. A map of the wasteland, far more detailed than anything in his memory, appeared before his eyes.

  His fingertip traced across Blackrock Town and the Kunlun Corp territories.

  Finally, his nail pressed hard into the crimson zone marked with thick red lines in the northwest corner of the map.

  The Silt Flats—Restricted Zone.

  His destination.

  Kane’s gaze fell upon a small, crudely drawn skull marker at the edge of the area.

  Beside it were three words:

  Watch for Shadows.

  Thanks for reading!

  RATINGS and REVIEWS are super important for visibility. If you enjoy the story so far, please take 10 seconds to leave a 5-star rating! It helps more than you know. Thanks!

  Want to read ahead?

  30 Advance Chapters right now on my Patreon!