The Imperial shuttle descended like a silent blade, its wings folding into their landing configuration as the old industrial district shook beneath us. Even after the Nine-Tailed Fox had cleared the perimeter, the air felt heavy, as if the factory still exhaled the fumes of suffering from two centuries ago. The Lambda-class T-4a shuttle settled on the cracked concrete with a gentle hiss of venting pressure, and the moment the ramp began to lower, my Red Hand Death Troopers were already in formation.
Nine of them—taller, colder, and far more lethal than any baseline operative—fanned out in a precise sweep pattern. Their crimson-trimmed armor reflected the weak sunlight in sharp metallic angles, and the sight of them alone was enough to make any onlooker reconsider their life decisions. Their modulated comms chirped softly as they checked corners, rooftops, structural weaknesses. Only when the last of them signaled "CLEAR" did I step onto the ramp.
The smell hit me first. Not blood. Not grease. But memory—a lingering presence of dread soaked into brick and steel.
Lieutenant Kade waited for me near the main entrance, helmet under his arm, posture crisp but weary. The Nine-Tailed Fox had completed their work, but even elite units were not immune to what lurked in places like this.
"Director," he said with a curt nod. "Good to see you made the trip."
"I wasn't going to let secondhand reports do justice to a place like this," I replied. "Show me."
"Of course. I've prepared a full summary."
As we walked toward the imposing double doors of the factory, my Death Troopers moved in a shifting diamond formation around me, weapons lowered but ready. I could sense the tension of the site—not danger exactly, but echoes. The residual metaphysical hum of machines that once fed on human lives.
Kade handed me a digital tablet with the preliminary report. "We secured the entire structure within seventy-two hours. All anomalous production lines have been deactivated. We recovered ninety-three artifacts, fifteen partially completed constructs, and several prototype weapons that were… beyond anything industrially possible for the 1830s."
"And Anderson?"
Kade's jaw flexed. "In containment. Alive. Barely cooperative. He tried invoking a binding ritual during capture, but our counter-occult specialist shut it down."
"Good," I muttered. "I want him interrogated thoroughly. Every secret, every deal he made, every entity he traded with—I want it all extracted before we dispose of him."
"I assumed as much," Kade said simply.
We stepped inside.
The interior was a cathedral of industry twisted by arcane influence. Long conveyor belts stretched into shadowed depths, lined with machines that looked like they had been built by someone who understood engineering but hated humanity. Runes were carved into iron plates, some glowing faintly even in their severed state. The Nine-Tailed Fox had marked each one with containment chalk strips and anchored them with stabilizing sigils.
The first thing I noticed was the furnace.
It stood three stories tall, shaped like a monstrous mouth, metal warped into the suggestion of teeth. Even inert, it radiated a kind of psychic ache.
"This is where he burned them?" I asked quietly.
"Workers, sacrifices, failed experiments," Kade answered. "It didn't just melt metal. It consumed identity. Anyone fed into this thing was… erased."
I felt a chill run down my spine. My Death Troopers scanned the furnace instinctively, as if expecting it to wake.
We moved deeper. Kade gestured to a long rack of weapons laid out neatly on containment tables.
"This section displays the primary anomalous outputs."
I approached the first item: a black iron rifle with veins of silver running across its surface, pulsing faintly.
"What does it do?"
"Fires projectiles made of concentrated despair," Kade replied. "Anyone struck by it enters a state of emotional collapse so profound their consciousness fractures. Only three known cases existed before we seized this one. The Foundation classified them as cognitohazard-induced vegetative states."
I moved to the next table. A brass revolver with rotating runic chambers.
"Probability distortion firearm," Kade explained. "The bullet chooses the statistically most catastrophic outcome for the target. We tested it once on a reinforced tungsten plate. The plate didn't break—the room ceiling collapsed instead."
"And this?" I asked, pointing to a blade made of interlocking human teeth fused into steel.
"Don't pick it up," Kade said quickly. "It bonds to the wielder. Permanently. Feeds on their vital force in exchange for enhanced cutting ability. We lost the last agent who touched one of these in a previous Anderson-adjacent site."
The further we went, the more disturbing the creations became.
A helmet that whispers in a dead language until the wearer tears out their own ears.A gauntlet that converts a heartbeat into explosive kinetic force.A cannon that fires liquefied souls as incendiary blasts.
Even my Death Troopers, unflinching as they were, shifted uneasily around some of the tables.
Then we reached the inner chamber.
Kade stopped us before opening the heavy vault door. "This is where we found Anderson."
He keyed the lock. The door groaned open, revealing a small, dimly lit workshop filled with tools, journals, and dozens of unfinished devices.
And there, sitting in a containment chair surrounded by inhibitor rigs, was James Anderson himself.
He looked up as we entered—eyes sunken, skin grey, mouth curved in a thin smile that didn't reach his pupils.
"Ah," he rasped, "the new proprietor."
My Death Troopers raised their rifles, but I lifted a hand. Anderson watched me closely, curiosity and malice mixing behind his eyes.
"You'll be coming with me," I said. "You have information I want."
"And when you are finished extracting my life's work," he murmured, "you'll kill me."
"Yes."
He chuckled softly. "Then by all means—let us begin."
I turned to Kade. "Prepare him for transfer. And prepare a full itemized log of every anomalous object in this site. I want nothing left uncataloged."
"Yes, Director."
As my Death Troopers restrained Anderson and began escorting him toward the shuttle, I took one last look at the workshop. At the horrors built in this place. At the echoes of agony still trapped in the walls.
This factory would never make another weapon.Not while I breathed.
And soon, every secret it held would belong to me alone.