Chương 285: Chapter 284 - Wreckage

The Machine God · Xiphias · 301 chương · ~22 phút đọc · Tạo 05/08/2026

Alexander tore across the sky with Droney tucked under his arm, pushing every ounce of speed through Metallokinesis that his body could withstand. The wind hit him like a wall. It tore at his hair and clothes and forced his eyes into slits despite superhuman attributes and the Core's reinforcement. Without the OACS, there was no visor, no atmospheric seal, no thermal regulation. Just air and friction and the distant ground blurring beneath him. It was funny, in a way.

He'd resisted the idea of climbing into a fully armored suit for months. The reasons why remained the same. The feeling of worship was beyond uncomfortable and it would stifle the growth of his physical attributes. Besides, he was a supervillain. Presentation was everything. And he preferred dramatic flair over intimidating armor. But now he missed it.

Particularly on days like this, when covering distance mattered more than anything else and his unarmored top speed fell well short of what Metallokinesis could handle with the armored combat suit. At least the wizarding world was giving him a good workout. He pulled up his status.

"Unbelievable." The System was still fucking with him. When he got back home, he was going to have to plan the biggest act of villainy Grimnir had ever performed, before anyone found out about the designation change. Especially Annie. His attribute gains had been rather mild, but there was little to be done about that. Except find more wizards to punch, which was definitely the plan.

The physical attributes remained the big problem in his race toward Tier 3, but his powers were growing fast thanks to all the new applications he'd been able to explore. Droney beeped from under his arm. A query.

"Yeah, buddy. I'm worried." He adjusted his grip on the drone.

"There are still a few threads out there, and I want to at least make sure they're okay." He frowned against the wind.

"I feel like I owe them that." Another beep. Understanding, followed by a suggestion.

"You're right. Once we're done, we can take out our frustration on the Empire." The coastline appeared ahead, the dark band of the Black Sea stretching across the horizon. Alexander angled his descent toward the northeastern shore, following a small cluster of threads. Harborhill came into view. Even knowing what he'd find wasn't enough. The outer wall was the only thing left mostly standing, and even that was cracked and buckled in places where something had struck it from above.

Beyond the wall, every building he could see had been leveled. Roofs caved in, walls collapsed outward, upper floors pancaked onto lower ones. The destruction had the look of raw concussive force applied from altitude, methodical and thorough. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. What struck him was the absence of fire damage. A bombardment this complete should have left char and ash across everything. Wooden structures should have burned.

But the rubble below was gray and brown, dust and stone and splintered timber. Collapsed, but not scorched. That seemed odd, at first, but then the wizards preferred to fire a lot of spells rather than direct elemental or energy-based attacks from their ships. Another problem with their wizard-on-wizard combat style that probably wouldn't survive long once they made real contact with Earth 1. Adapt or die. Alexander came to a stop above the city and released Droney to hover in the air next to him.

His gaze swept across the city, taking in what he'd caused. The Marquess's Manor, the walls surrounding the estate also largely untouched by the surrounding damage. The warehouses next to the piers, where he'd sat and watched the sail ships while the sun set. The open plaza where he'd torn an obelisk from the earth, the metal inscribed with an anti-flight ward. Market stalls where he'd sampled various foods. And the tavern where he'd stayed. Where he'd met Anyah and Ruyah and shared bread.

Alexander swept the city with his senses. Electrokinesis pulsed outward, searching for the bioelectrical signatures of the threads that had brought him here. Three signatures registered. All in the same place. Clustered beneath the ruins of the tavern. A burst of Metallokinesis carried him down and across the city. Seconds later he hovered above what was left of the building, looking down.

The roof and upper floors had collapsed into the ground floor, which had partially collapsed into whatever space existed beneath. Stone, timber, plaster, and broken furniture compressed into a dense mass of debris. The three signatures pulsed several meters below. Alexander frowned. There was metal scattered through the wreckage. Nails, hinges, iron brackets, the remains of cookware and silverware. But the debris was layered, each piece bearing the weight of whatever sat on top of it.

Pull the wrong section, and the load above it would shift downward, potentially collapsing whatever pocket was keeping the three of them alive. He couldn't just smash through it. While he floated there, examining the wreckage, one mental thread worked the problem like an engineering puzzle. His other mental thread studied the signatures. The smallest one, noticeably weak, with very little bioelectrical activity beyond basic autonomic bodily functions. The second was clearly injured.

Perhaps a broken arm or shoulder. He couldn't quite tell. The third was the strongest. Largest, too. All of them were still. Alexander drifted lower until he was only a few meters above what remained of the tavern. His mental thread had settled on an idea, and though it still carried risk, it was the best he could come up with given his limited options. It all fit within the range of his Domain. He reached into the ring and pulled out almost every bit of loose metal he had stored in it.

The collection materialized in the air around him, suspended by Metallokinesis. It was the hoard of metal bits he kept. Ball bearings. Needles. Spikes. Lengths of chain. A handful of bolts and screws he didn't remember saving. The metal marbles he'd used for practice at Wargah's camp. All of it spinning slowly in a loose orbit around his body. Then the wall plating. Flat sections of alloy stripped from the Marquess's mansion, each one roughly the size of a table.

He'd ripped them from the walls as he rose from the basement of horrors. Then, after the fighting was over, collected them into his ring. He'd taken the floor plating, too, but each one was a large contiguous piece. He'd crumpled them into balls before storing them in the ring, and they were too bulky for what he had in mind anyway. Droney drifted back, giving him room. Both mental threads turned to the task. Everything focused on the wreckage and the three lives beneath what remained of the tavern.

Alexander reached out with his cybernetic hand and flicked his fingers. The loose metal responded. Ball bearings, needles, spikes, and chain links streamed downward, flowing around his body and into the wreckage below. They clattered against stone and timber as they went, rolling through gaps, snaking between compressed layers of debris, burrowing deeper along paths he would otherwise be unable to reach. Below, the unknown signature stirred. A shift in position.

The man had heard the sound of metal threading into the rubble above him. Alexander tuned him out. The small pieces continued downward, rattling through the wreckage as they went. Each one a point of contact. Each one an anchor his Metallokinesis could feel and grip. By the time they settled, he had hundreds of reference points distributed throughout the debris field, mapping the internal structure of the collapse through touch. A minute later, he reached out his other hand.

The wall plates spun outward from where they'd been hovering, positioning themselves around the perimeter of the wreckage. They hung horizontally, as low to the ground as he could get them, evenly spaced, ready to slide in and brace whatever shifted when he started working. He rotated slowly in place, checking each plate's position against what his senses told him. Alexander took a breath. Held out his cybernetic hand, fingers spread. Exhaled. Then he pulled. The wreckage of the entire tavern jerked upward.

Every nail, hinge, bracket, and iron fitting buried in the debris answered at once, along with the hundreds of metal bits he'd threaded into the gaps. The combined force wrenched the compressed mass off its foundation in a single violent motion. Stone separated from timber. Plaster cracked. Wood splintered apart as the interlocking weight that had held everything together was suddenly and forcibly reversed. His other hand swept sideways.

The wall plates shot inward from every direction, driving horizontally through the gap between the rising debris and the ground below. They punched through anything that hadn't shifted or was already falling back, cracking stone and snapping timber, and slammed together over what his senses told him was the stairwell into the basement. The plates locked into place, forming a metal cover. Then the debris came apart. Without the structural tension holding it together, plaster crumbled.

Timber cracked and split under its own weight. Sections of wall sagged and broke free. The whole mass began to collapse outward in slow motion. Alexander clenched both fists. Metallokinesis seized everything above the plates and hurled it sideways. Stone, timber, plaster, broken furniture, all of it launched off the remains of the tavern in a single wave and crashed into the empty street. Dust billowed outward. The ground shook. Bodies revealed themselves among the wreckage.

What remained was the building's foundation, parts of the ground floor, and a basement entrance covered by overlapping sheets of alloy. Alexander descended, shifting the plates aside as he got closer. Then Droney zipped by, lights activating as it went, though muted so as not to blind the occupants with the glare. He followed the little drone down the stairs. The smell hit him halfway down. Sweat, urine, and something worse underneath.

The stale, closed-air reek of a space that hadn't been ventilated in over a week. Droney's muted light swept across the basement as Alexander reached the bottom of the stairs. It was small. A storage room, mostly. Ale barrels lined one wall, a few of them tapped. A rack of wine bottles sat in the corner, half empty. Cheese wheels and root vegetables were piled on a shelf beside a sack of flour that had been torn open and scooped from repeatedly.

A bucket near the far wall served a purpose he didn't need to think about. A man crouched near a doorway to the right, one arm raised against Droney's light, the other braced against the floor. His hands were raw. Fingernails cracked and dark with dried blood. He'd tried digging. Movement behind him revealed a woman, shuffling through the doorway. Her left arm hung in a makeshift sling. Her clothes were stiff with dried blood, brown and black where it had soaked through and dried days ago. Anyah.

She was thinner than he remembered. The pleasant smile was long gone, replaced by a pale, grimy face. She moved with careful, measured steps, and the look of someone holding themselves together through willpower alone. She raised her good hand against the light. Then she saw him, and the hand dropped. His gaze drifted past her. Through the doorway, Droney's light reached a small cot pressed against the back wall of the side room. Ruyah lay on it.

His flat cap was gone, replaced by bandages wrapped around his head, stained yellow and brown. His chest rose and fell in a shallow, even rhythm. Alexander hovered at the bottom of the stairs and took the three of them in, refusing to look away. An apology couldn't even begin to fix what he'd done to these people. He tried anyway.

"I'm sorry. I came as soon as I learned there might be survivors."

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