The threshold of the Iron-Groves offered no sanctuary. Emerging from the damp and industrial maw of the refinery, Vane found a world stripped of its frantic energy. The mercury rain had finally ceased, replaced by the heavy scent of raw iron and a silence so thick it felt physical. Across the clearing, the 4th Division knights lay scattered like discarded husks. These were the Iron Hounds, the reinforcements meant to be fresh and lethal, yet they were now nothing more than scenery in a graveyard.

There were no signs of a struggle. Dozens of knights were draped over petrified roots, their heavy plate armor caved in as if struck by a falling god. Some had been severed at the waist with their weapons still sheathed. This was a clinical slaughter. To the entity standing in the center of the carnage, the Imperial elite had been nothing more than clutter obstructing a path. The red mud of the groves was stained darker here, pooling around the broken visors of men who had never even seen their killer. The air was cold, but it was a dry and hollow chill that did not belong to the humid climate of the groves.

Valerica gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. Beside her, Mara trembled so violently that the crystalline residue on her fingertips began to chime against the iron floorboards. Vane did not speak. He did not lower his spear. He focused his intent, calling upon the familiar blue overlay of his innate sight. The data materialized instantly, cutting through the purple twilight to scan the silhouette that waited for them in the center of the clearing.

[Target Analysis]

Name: Malphas (Construct)

Rank: High Justiciar

Danger: Absolute

Authority: None

Skills: [Void-Weight Aura - Grade B]

The figure occupied the center of the massacre. Clad in obsidian plate armor that seemed to swallow the fading twilight, it created a localized void in the forest. It stood perfectly still with its hands resting on the pommel of a jagged greatsword anchored in the blood-soaked earth. It did not breathe. It did not shift its weight. It simply existed as an insurmountable wall between them and the world beyond the trees. The armor was seamless, lacking the traditional joints and gaps of Imperial plate, suggesting it was a single, conceptual piece of worked stone and mana.

"The Third is extinct. The Fourth is erased," Malphas spoke. The voice was a grinding of tectonic plates, vibrating through the metal floor and into Vane's shattered arm. "Witnesses are an inefficiency in the sector. You are the final loose threads to be removed."

Vane did not bother with a witty retort. He could feel the weight of the [Void-Weight Aura] pressing down on his chest. It was a Grade B skill, but at a High Justiciar rank, the sheer output made the gravity around them feel like thick, viscous oil. Every breath was a labor. Every twitch of his muscles required a conscious surge of mana. He looked at Valerica, who was struggling to keep her head up, her violet eyes clouded with the strain of the pressure.

"We aren't threads," Vane said, his voice a dry rasp. He adjusted the grip on his spear, ignoring the white-hot pain in his shoulder. "We are the needle."

"Irrelevant," Malphas replied.

As the figure pulled its blade from the ground, the air around the obsidian metal screamed. A wave of necrotic pressure washed over the trio. It was a physical weight that forced Valerica's knees to buckle. Her Celestial Heart flickered, the golden mana struggling to maintain even a faint glow against such an absolute void. The temperature dropped instantly, turning their breath into white plumes of mist that froze before they could dissipate.

Vane felt the cold calculation of survival settle in his gut. He had dismantled the Third Division by bleeding their mana, but this entity possessed no mana to leak. It was a physical manifestation of a law he did not yet understand. It was simply more than him. It was a ceiling he had finally hit after climbing through the mud of the slums and the blood of the refinery. He knew his Silver Fang could not reject something this dense while he was still at his current level.

"Valerica, get behind me," Vane commanded. His voice was steady despite the throb of his broken limb. "Mara, look at the ground. Do not move."

The construct did not run. It blurred.

Vane initiated the Argent Horizon, spinning into a defensive orbit as the obsidian greatsword descended. He utilized Spiral Circulation to accelerate his rotational velocity, his feet skidding on the slick mud to find a vector that did not end in his immediate bisection. He could feel the wind of the blade as it passed inches from his face, a cold draft that smelled of ancient dust and forgotten tombs. He thrust his spear forward and activated the Silver Fang.

The matte silver liquid coated the star-metal tip, the law of rejection screaming for a target. Vane aimed for the center of Malphas's chest-piece, pouring every remaining drop of his mana into the strike. He was not looking for a kill. He was looking for a reaction. He needed to know if this thing could even be moved.

The star-metal tip struck the obsidian chest-plate.

There was no sound of metal on metal. There was only a dull and heavy thud that resonated through the groves. The Silver Fang failed. The law of rejection met a physical reality so absolute that it simply stopped. Like a wave breaking against a continent, the force traveled back through the shaft, fracturing the remaining mana-dampeners in Vane's chest. His vision blurred for a second as the feedback rattled his skull and made his teeth ache.

Malphas did not flinch. The construct looked down at the spear-tip before raising its free gauntlet. The movement was agonizingly slow and yet impossible to avoid. It was the movement of a glacier, inevitable and crushing.

Vane saw the strike coming. He did not retreat. Instead, he leaned into the recoil of his failed rejection. He had learned long ago that if he could not break a wall, he had to use its strength as his own. If the Silver Fang could not reject the armor, then the chest-plate was effectively an immovable object. In the logic of the groves, when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, the kinetic energy must be redirected somewhere.

"Valerica! Grab Mara!" Vane roared.

The obsidian palm struck Vane's chest. In that same microsecond, Vane triggered a second pulse of the Silver Fang. He did not aim it at the opponent. He aimed it at the very air between them. He rejected the contact. He rejected the momentum of the strike itself, turning Malphas's massive strength into a compressed spring.

A violent, kinetic explosion erupted. Because the construct remained anchored and immovable, the entirety of the force was redirected into Vane. He transformed himself into a projectile, using the High Justiciar's own power as the propellant.

Ribs snapped with a white-hot flare of pain, yet Vane's grip on his spear remained iron-clad. He reached out with his good arm and hooked Valerica's waist as she leaped toward him with Mara in her arms. They were caught by the redirected momentum of the strike. The three of them were launched backward with terrifying speed.

The clearing became a blur of purple twilight and grey stone. They flew through the air, clearing the twenty-yard gap back toward the dungeon entrance in a single heartbeat. Using the last of his rotational energy, Vane angled their flight to avoid the jagged brass edges of the maw. They were a tangle of limbs and gasping breath, hurtling away from the obsidian silence of the clearing and back into the mechanical shadows of the refinery.

They tumbled into the darkness of the refinery tunnel, skidding across the metal floor for another thirty feet. The sound of their sliding bodies echoed through the pipes in a frantic and messy retreat. Vane slammed into a heavy iron valve, the impact finally knocking the air from his lungs. He lay in the silver mud, gasping and coughing as his vision slowly returned to him.

Vane looked toward the exit. The obsidian warrior stood at the threshold of the dungeon. It did not enter. It stopped exactly where the natural light of the groves ended and the industrial shadows began. It stood like a silent sentinel, its armor absorbing the dim glow of the moss. It was a gatekeeper that had no need to chase its prey. It knew they were trapped in a cage of their own making.

"The Third is dead. The Fourth is dead. You have only chosen the manner of your burial," Malphas rumbled.

The construct did not follow. It simply stood there, blocking the only exit with the patience of an eternal being. Vane struggled to sit up, his shattered arm hanging like dead weight. He felt the cold mercury mud seeping into his clothes. He looked at Valerica and Mara, who were both staring at the silhouette in the doorway with wide and terrified eyes. They were trapped, but they were still breathing.

"We aren't going out," Vane replied, coughing a spray of dark blood onto the iron floor. He looked deeper into the darkness of the refinery, toward the path leading back down to the central forge. "We are going down."

He gripped the bent spear. The Justiciars were dead, but the grave had finally come to collect its due. The realization was cold and clear in his mind. They could not fight this thing on even ground.

"We have to reach the Star-Forge core," Vane said. "It is the only place with enough power to match that thing. If we cannot reject it, we must find something that can."

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