**The Iron Citadel. The Flagship.**
It wasn't a ship. It was a flying city block made of rusted steel and dried gore. It didn't use sails; it hummed with the deep, rhythmic thrumming of a massive engine buried deep within its core.
The soldiers on the deck were busy loading blood-cannons.
"Target the left flank!" a frantic officer screamed. "More ammo! Feed the slaves into the furnace!"
Suddenly, the air raid siren wailed.
*WWOOOOO-OOP.*
"Incoming projectile!" a lookout screamed, pointing at the sky. "It's moving too fast! Is it a cannonball?"
The officer squinted. "It looks like... a person?"
*KRA-KOOOOM.*
The projectile hit the center of the command deck.
The impact didn't just break the floor; it buckled the structural beams of the upper level. A shockwave of dust and splintered steel blew twenty soldiers off the edge of the fortress.
In the center of the crater, smoke hissed.
A hand made of black Star-Iron clawed out of the debris.
Kaelen pulled himself up. He shook the dust off his hair.
"A bit hard on the knees," Kaelen muttered.
He reached behind him and unstrapped Viper. She fell onto the deck, dry heaving.
"You..." Viper gasped, looking green. "You are the worst travel agent... ever."
Kaelen ignored her. He closed his eyes.
*Thump. Thump.*
He felt it. Not with his ears, but with his bones.
Deep below the layers of steel and machinery, something massive was walking. The *Iron Citadel* wasn't flying on its own power. It was being carried.
**The Titan's Legs.**
"They're in the basement," Kaelen grinned.
He looked around.
Three hundred soldiers of the Iron-Blood Alliance surrounded the crater. They were elites. **Blood-Forged Veterans**. Their skin was grey, their eyes red, and they wielded serrated blades that hummed with chainsaw-like Qi.
The officer stepped forward. "You dare board the General's fortress? Kill him! Skin him alive!"
The three hundred soldiers charged. A wave of red steel.
Kaelen didn't draw his slab.
He looked at his new arms. The **Titan's Arms** pulsed, hungry for contact.
"Let's test the splash damage."
Kaelen punched the ground.
**"Titan Art: Earthbreaker."**
He didn't aim at the soldiers. He aimed at the ship itself.
*BOOM.*
The black metal fist hit the steel deck plates.
The force didn't go down; it went *out*.
The deck rippled like a rug being shaken. The steel plates buckled, snapping upward in a jagged wave of metal teeth.
The wave traveled outward in a circle.
The charging soldiers didn't even get close. The floor beneath them exploded upward, launching them into the air or crushing them between folding plates of steel.
Screams filled the air as the formation was broken by the architecture itself.
Kaelen stood up. The deck around him was a twisted ruin of metal.
"Too soft," Kaelen critiqued the enemy ship.
"Monster!" The officer, who had survived by clinging to a railing, pulled a lever on the wall. "Release the **Subject**!"
A massive hatch in the floor groaned open.
A roar shook the fortress.
Something climbed out of the hold. It was a monstrosity of flesh and alchemy. A giant, stitched together from the bodies of ten different beasts. It had four arms, a bull's head, and skin that oozed acidic green sludge.
**War-Abomination: Type 4.**
**Power: False Core Realm.**
The beast roared, spraying acid that melted the steel railing.
Viper scrambled back. "Kaelen! That thing is toxic! Don't touch it!"
Kaelen looked at the drooling monster.
"It looks... marinated," Kaelen noted.
The Abomination charged. It swung a massive cleaver made of bone.
Kaelen stepped in.
He ducked under the cleaver.
He punched the monster in the gut.
*SPLAT.*
His fist didn't just hit; it penetrated. The **Star-Crusher** passive ignored the monster's thick hide. Kaelen's arm went elbow-deep into the creature's stomach.
The monster froze. It looked down, confused.
"**Heaven-Devouring Scripture: Parasite.**"
The blue veins on Kaelen's arm turned black.
He didn't pull his hand out. He opened his pores inside the monster.
*SLURP.*
The massive beast shriveled. Its green skin turned grey. Its muscles deflated like a popped balloon. In three seconds, the False Core monster was reduced to a husk of dry skin draped over Kaelen's arm.
> **[Biomass Consumed.]**
> **[Toxin Immunity Increased.]**
> **[Strength +10.]**
Kaelen shook his arm, flinging the dry husk away.
"Tastes like lime," Kaelen wiped his mouth.
He looked at the officer.
The officer was trembling, his hand still on the lever. He looked at the empty skin of his ultimate weapon.
"You... you ate it?" the officer whispered.
Kaelen walked toward him.
"I'm still hungry," Kaelen said.
"Where is Bakara?"
The officer pointed a shaking finger at the massive tower in the center of the fortress.
"The... the Engine Room. He is fueling the Legs."
"Thanks."
Kaelen grabbed the officer by the head.
*CRUNCH.*
He tossed the body aside.
"Viper, stay here and guard the exit," Kaelen ordered.
He walked toward the massive steel doors of the central tower.
"I'm going to get my boots."