Maine leaned over the edge, completely vulnerable, searching the blinding white-hot surface of the mold tract for the nonexistent slag buildup I had fabricated. My muscles tensed, ready to deliver the definitive shove that would send him into the liquid iron below.
"Hey, Luke! Don Anthony wants to see you!"
The sharp, booming voice of a syndicate guard cut through the mechanical roar of the forge, freezing my hand mid-motion. I instantly relaxed my posture, pulling back into a casual lean against the iron railing just as the guard walked into view at the base of the catwalk stairs.
The guard turned his attention to the warehouse floor, waving his hand dismissively at the sweat-drenched laborers.
"And you workers, take a break! Clear out for twenty minutes while the transport carriages are being prepped!"
The laborers gladly dropped their tools, wiped their brows, and began filtering out of the vast room in a noisy, disorganized crowd. Within moments, the heavy iron doors clanged shut behind them. The rhythmic clanking of the conveyor belts slowed down to a dull hum, leaving the warehouse entirely empty.
Only Maine and I remained on the high maintenance catwalk.
The tactical landscape had flipped entirely in my favor. The witnesses were gone. The workers who could have raised an alarm or testified to an "accident" were completely out of sight. I had a brief window before I needed to return to the Don… a perfect, silent pocket of time to eliminate the intellectual engine of this arms empire.
Maine didn't look back up from the railing. He was still staring down at the glowing, bubbling vat of molten metal, his shoulders trembling slightly under his stained white lab coat as the heavy weight of Miera's memory continued to crush his spirit.
"I don't see any slag, Luke, but it doesn't matter. The purity is high enough. As long as the stones fuse... she'll get the justice she deserves."
I looked at the back of his head, my single green eye cold and calculating under my blonde bangs. The tragic ghost of my past life as Roxy was pushed down, replaced by the unyielding mandate of the executioner.
"There is no slag, Maine," I whispered softly, my voice dropping the arrogant cadence of Luke Granhart and shifting back into the terrifying, quiet tone of a predator.
He stiffened, sensing the sudden, lethal shift in the air, and began to turn around to look at me.
The silence that followed the departure of the workers was absolute, save for the low, rhythmic hum of the cooling furnace and the thick, wet bubbling of the liquefied iron directly beneath us. The thermal waves rolling off the vat distorted the air, making the entire warehouse look like a shimmering, shifting illusion.
Maine began to rotate his body, his brow furrowed in confusion as the sudden, chilling weight of my natural voice registers broke through his scientific focus. He looked at my stolen face… the face of Luke Granhart… but his eyes darted left and right, frantically trying to reconcile the cocky apprentice he thought he knew with the terrifying, ancient pressure currently locking his limbs in place.
I leaned in close, the space between us vanishing until he could see the singular green eye piercing out from beneath the blonde bangs of my disguise.
"Maine, I am Roxy."
His pupils dilated instantly. The world around him seemed to stop. A gasp caught in his throat, his lips parting as a chaotic storm of recognition, disbelief, and profound shock fractured his expression. He looked at my frame, his mind desperately grasping for the memory of the black leather patch, the mechanical arm, and the broken hero he had comforted in the dirt. Before the realization could fully manifest into a scream, before his brain could process how the ghost of his past was standing before him in the flesh of a syndicate criminal, I acted.
I extended my arm with terrifying, programmatic precision and delivered a massive, unyielding shove directly into the center of his chest.
The impact tore through his balance completely. Maine went backward over the rusted iron railing, his stained white lab coat flapping wildly like the broken wings of a dying bird. He didn't scream. The sheer shock of my true identity had completely paralyzed his vocal cords, leaving his mouth open in a silent, eternal question as gravity took hold.
SPLASH.
The sound was heavy, wet, and instantly swallowed by a violent hiss of steam and blinding white smoke. Maine plummeted directly into the center of the molten metal vat.
The heat was absolute. The liquid iron, sitting at thousands of degrees, didn't merely drown him… it aggressively consumed him. The moment his body breached the glowing surface, his clothes, his flesh, and his bones were instantaneously subjected to catastrophic thermal breakdown. The white fabric of his Town Allure lab coat ignited into a brief, brilliant flash of blue flame before turning to ash.
I leaned over the railing, my single eye tracking the grim physics of his dissolution. His body was melting rapidly, the organic matter converting into carbon and floating to the top in a swirling pattern of dark slag before being utterly vaporized by the intense heat. Within seconds, his shape deformed, collapsing into the liquid mass as the synthetic mana stones embedded in the surrounding molds pulsed with a strange, erratic flare… as if absorbing the final, residual life force of their creator.
The bubbling surface churned violently for a few more moments, releasing a thick, acrid scent of burning zinc and chemical compounds, before smoothing over into a pristine, uninterrupted mirror of blinding orange light.
Maine was gone. The intellectual engine of Don Anthony's mass-production line, the grieving lover who had sought to burn the world down to avenge a diamond ring, had been permanently erased from the tapestry of Andromeda. There was no body left to bury. There would be no second funeral in the Western District. He had become a literal component of the very weapons he had forged.
I pulled back from the railing, adjusting the high collar of my cloak to shield my face from the lingering heat. My expression remained a cold, unreadable slate. The execution was flawless, completely invisible to the outside world, and ruled by the cruel irony of fate. I had fulfilled his final wish to me: I was hunting the monsters, even if the monster had become him.
Turning away from the empty catwalk, I checked the hidden pocket where the tear gas recipe rested against my ribs. The workers would return soon, and Don Anthony was still waiting for his star apprentice in the inner sanctum. I cleared my throat, resetting my vocal cords to the arrogant, boastful pitch of Luke Granhart, and began my descent down the iron stairs to claim the head of the kingpin.
The loading bay of the old Ford Mint facility had transformed into a staging ground for a highly organized, heavily armed expedition. The shadows of the subterranean vault flickered against the stone walls as I stepped out into the main staging area alongside Luck. Surrounding the convoy of heavy transport carriages were several dozen syndicate foot soldiers. All of them were meticulously adjusting their appearances, wrapping rough burlap over their high-tier leather armor and checking the hidden compartments built into the wagons. They were hardening their disguises as mundane merchants, but beneath the woolen tunics and trader caps, the unmistakable, predatory posture of hardened bandits remained entirely visible to my analytical eye.
Because I was already wearing a sprawling, deep-hooded traveling cloak that completely obscured the stolen features of Luke Granhart and masked the subtle, mechanical contours of my hidden prosthetic arm, I was already perfectly dressed for the smuggling run. I stood silently near the rear carriage, watching the logistics unfold with a cold, calculating detachment.
One of the veteran squad leaders, a scarred man with a brutal scowl and a cigarette dangling from his lips, strutted over toward us. He scoffed, his eyes trailing over Luck's excessive gold chains and flashy, ostentatious jewelry that practically screamed underworld prince.
"Hey, spoiled boy, dress up. We're leaving within the five minutes. If a single border patrol knight spots those shiny chains of yours, the whole merchant charade is blown before we even clear the outer districts of Carcaka."
Luck caught the bundle with a disgruntled hiss, muttering something under his breath about a lack of respect for his status, but he quickly complied, pulling the drab, oversized merchant cloak over his head to smother the glare of his wealth.
I looked toward the front of the column, where the lead carriage stood under the flickering light of the cavern's torches. Sitting comfortably on the cushioned driver's bench, his ornate cane resting between his knees and his magma-infused Tommy gun leaning securely against the dashboard, was Don Anthony. The kingpin looked completely at ease, a man confident in the terrifying scope of his own empire.
My internal processor immediately began running high-speed tactical simulations. The timing of this entire smuggling operation was, from an executioner's perspective, absolutely perfect. The moment we arrived at the isolated Eastern border village.. far away from the reinforced stone walls, high-altitude alarm wards, and defensive garrisons of the central fortress… Don Anthony would be entirely stripped of his geographic home advantage. In that remote, lawless borderland, I could orchestrate his assassination right away.
However, the immediate data readout flashed a massive red warning code: HIGH RISK.
This was not a simple, localized gang meeting. Because this deal was for a staggering, historic payout of 20 gold pieces, Don Anthony had taken absolutely zero chances regarding his personal security. He had mobilized nearly the entirety of his active syndicate forces for this single deployment. I subtly panned my eye across the cavern, counting heads as the men lined up. Nearly 100 heavily armed guild members were marching out with us today. Worse yet, every single one of them was equipped with one of Maine's mass-produced, reverse-engineered Death Chant Tommy guns, each drum magazine packed to the brim with volatile, elemental-lined ammunition.
They formed an impenetrable, overlapping ring of lethal protection around Don Anthony. Even with my advanced combat capabilities, my devastating shotgun, and my high-tier mana pool, a direct, frontal assault against a synchronized firing line of 100 automatic magical weapons would result in immediate tactical failure. I couldn't just overpower them by brute force. If I wanted to separate Don Anthony from his vanguard and get a clean, fatal strike at his head, I desperately needed to orchestrate a catastrophic, massive distraction… something that would shatter their unified chain of command, throw the entire 100-man army into blind panic, and force the kingpin's guard completely down.
While the gears of my mind were actively mapping out potential structural weaknesses in the convoy, the heavy crunch of boots on gravel approached me from behind.
I didn't flinch, maintaining my relaxed, arrogant Luke facade as a senior guild guard stepped into my personal space. Without a word, he reached out and handed me a heavy, cold piece of hardware. It was one of the newly minted, reverse-engineered Tommy guns straight from Maine's production line, its iron frame still retaining a faint, residual warmth from the cooling chambers. The synthetic, rare mana stone embedded deep within the receiver thrummed with a low, parasitic vibration, waiting to draw upon my life force to chamber its conceptual rounds.
"Don't just stand there daydreaming, Luke, the Don wants his personal apprentices up near the front of the vanguard. Take your iron, load up, and get ready to move. We've got a long march to the border, and if anyone tries to intercept our 20 gold, we turn them into swiss cheese."
I wrapped my fingers around the wooden grip of the bootleg firearm, offering the guard a sharp, dangerous smirk that perfectly mirrored Luke's reckless confidence.
"Don't worry, when the shooting starts, I'll make sure every single bullet finds exactly where it belongs."