Gamma East Bridge, Vortex Quay — Galan Hall HQ.
From afar, the obsidian-blue Obsidian Peak banners flickered with icy neon light, high and low across the skyline. Outside the main gate, senior officers, their chest pins glinting with the syndicate emblem, guided rows of reserve Operators to stand in precise formation. Every move of the returning boss and his Lieutenant was meticulously recorded.
The Lieutenant—the second-in-command, the one who ran the syndicate when Kael Voss was absent, and the heir apparent. Even with Kael present, the real work still fell to Ryuu-9.
"Vyre, two hours. I want to know exactly what treasure is hidden in that cargo."
"Yes, R9." A young officer stepped forward, snow-white skin and piercing eyes, short hair sharp and neat—about the same age as Arq, equally cold.
Ryuu-9 parked Hexcrusher precisely in the designated bay, flipping open the Operator hatch and leaping down from over two meters. The junior members rushed forward instinctively, trying to escort him back to the rest area.
He shook his head and strode toward Kael Voss's presidential tower.
Kael Voss favored opulence—glass chandeliers refracting neon, cold marble surfaces, hand-hung futuristic tapestries. Born after the war, both R9 and Kael had an inherited vision of the old world: luxurious, cold, and unrealistically comfortable.
At the tower's entrance, Arq stood like a trained cyber-hound, hands behind his back. He gave a subtle nod to R9.
R9 approached, lightly tapping Arq's shoulder, then twisted the heavy smart-glass door open.
Inside, the bathroom ran with the hiss of water. Kael Voss was showering. R9 stepped onto the fiber-optic-sensitive carpet, stopping by the high-tech liquor cabinet, observing through the semi-transparent smart glass.
Behind the glass, a hot, taut body moved. Kael Voss glanced at R9 without concealment, back turned—revealing the Mecha Dragon tattoo that snaked from shoulder blade to spine, the cyber-scaled patterns glowing cold blue.
R9 swallowed. "Want me to rinse you off?"
"No." Kael's voice was flat. He raised his left cyber-arm. "Damn it… diamonds inlaid, gotta shave my head too?"
R9 chuckled lightly, eyes fixed. "You said you wanted it fully encrusted."
"Fuck," Kael switched off the shower, wet hair dripping, bare feet on the smart carpet, wrapping a towel around his waist. "Full diamonds look flashier."
Water trailed down his forehead, lips slightly wet. R9 stayed silent, watching.
"Not taking a break?" Kael Voss asked, eyes dark as obsidian. "88 and the Free Army will definitely come poking again soon."
His chest bore another Mecha Dragon, extending from collarbones to ribs, petals crawling along his side. R9's fingers brushed lightly over the tattoo. "This Mecha Dragon… too dangerous."
Kael didn't flinch. Years of brotherhood allowed small gestures like this. "Ink's in place—still enough to scare."
"If The Dyne Syndicate knew…"
"Tch," Kael waved a dismissive hand. "Dyne Syndicate only rules Ironspire Pass proper. We fake rivalry here in East Bridge; they can't touch us."
Dyne Syndicate, five years ago, had seized power from the national Griffin Hall, sweeping Ironspire Pass with violence, capturing President Bai Nuel, eliminating dozens of senior officers, and dismantling the top-tier Razorfang Exosuits. Since then, no one dared ink a Mecha Dragon.
Ryuu-9 remained silent, brow furrowed. A short scar etched across his forehead, giving him a predatory, canine-like intensity.
"Stop frowning," Kael sighed. "That scar… it's because of me."
R9 raised an eyebrow.
"Left chest burned, left arm, back—three spots. Right leg… all for me."
"Fuck," R9 murmured, lowering his gaze shyly. "You remember everything…"
A knock interrupted—Arq's voice: "Boss, Vrye's people report a discovery at the assembly bay."
The cargo. R9 checked his watch. From order to result: under forty minutes. Vrye's efficiency exceeded expectations.
Kael Voss, wearing only underwear and no outerwear, donned a fur coat, slippers tapping. He followed Ryuu-9 toward the assembly bay.
The bay, on Galan Hall's northern engineering sector, was dedicated to dismantling and repairing battle-damaged Exosuits. Thousands of square meters were now packed with mechanical scrap collected from Free Army wreckage.
"Fuck… this place is a mess!" Kael Voss muttered, stepping over a tangled pile of Exosuit parts. His slippers kicked up dust, and Arq didn't bother helping—he just snickered quietly.
"Kael, Ryuu." Vyre stood rigid, pointing toward a heap of unassembled components. Behind him, a short technician kept his head down, wiping grease from his hands.
Kael Voss narrowed his eyes on the pile, nudging Ryuu-9 with his elbow. R9 froze for a moment. Even unassembled, the torso's length suggested a full Exosuit standing over four meters tall—rare for the "XI8" class.
"Preliminary assessment: might be Griffin Hall's Soulrender," Vyre said.
The name hit like an electric shock. Everyone froze. Soulrender, legendary in deep matte green, powered by chemical batteries, armed with twin photon cannons, and its main weapon a chemically-enhanced alloy blade—Axel Vanguard/Kairo Drax's Exosuit before Griffin Hall's fall. The very unit that had managed the northern operations of Obsidian Fang.
"Kairo Drax of Griffin Hall…" Arq whispered, disbelief in his voice. "I thought he escaped to Xenbriar with the Razorfang Operator. How the hell…"
"The matte green paint is chipped, but the chemical battery pack, photon cannons—matches the rumors." Vyre kicked the massive blade on the floor. "And this blade. Tests show the chemical toxins are still highly active."
"Really?" Arq's shoulders twitched. Soulrender, like Razorfang, was a mythic-class Exosuit—possession meant de facto control over a provincial zone.
Ryuu-9 mulled for a moment. "Arq, Vyre… take the crew out first."
The staff hurriedly evacuated, leaving only him and Kael Voss. R9's expression hardened. "No wonder 88 went for it directly."
"You're telling me… Soulrender was hidden among this scrap, and the Free Army didn't even realize?" Kael asked, arms crossed, slippers tapping.
"Hard to say," Ryuu-9 said, frowning. "If I were the Free Army, I wouldn't send just a handful of people to move something like this."
Kael Voss shrugged casually. "Mutual informants. 88 had eyes on them last night. Same reason we knew they were moving Free Army cargo."
R9 nodded silently—the issue wasn't getting intel; it was understanding the true objective behind it. Nearly impossible.
"You're saying… the Free Army might not even realize they've got Soulrender, but 88 knows every detail. Behind this…" Ryuu-9 trailed off as Kael's attention shifted to a pile of skeletal remnants beside Soulrender.
A stripped-down Exosuit frame, incomplete, left with missing seventh left rib but structurally intact, temporarily set aside by Vyre.
Kael Voss crouched, eyes level with the skeletal remains. Cold metal, the "eyes" scavenged long ago—these scraps were everywhere in an age where every Exosuit was coveted. But something about this frame caught Kael's attention.
"Ryuu."
"Hmm?" R9 didn't look up, focused on Soulrender's main chassis.
Kael Voss reached out to inspect the Exosuit skeleton. No chemical battery packs, no nuclear cores, not even a trace of a power transmission system. How the hell had it operated? Everything stripped clean? Not a single mark left?
He withdrew his hand. Clean. Not even a smear of grease between his fingers. Kael's brow furrowed as he lifted the Operator hatch. The compartment was just big enough for a full-grown Operator. In the upper-right corner of the back panel, a shielded circuit board gleamed faintly—the CPU. The brain of the Exosuit.
Just as he was about to close it, something in the opposite wall caught his eye. Another shielded device. He froze.
"Ryuu!"
"What?" Ryuu-9 snapped, irritation in his tone, stepping closer. His gaze widened as he saw it. "Is that… dual CPUs?"
"Never seen it before…" Kael muttered, voice low, almost reverent. "Only legends speak of this tech."
"One CPU is enough for a combat Exosuit. Two? Pointless. And it's stripped like this—who'd even care?" Ryuu-9 said, shrugging.
"But…"
A sudden clamor erupted outside, steel-heavy footsteps pounding against the concrete. Kael and Ryuu-9 exchanged a glance and strode toward the thick reinforced doors. Pushing them open, a whirlwind of dust and debris slammed into their faces.
Two Exosuits were locked in brutal combat.
Vyre's Phoenix Rebirth—pure white, 3.2 meters tall, 7.5 tons, streamlined composite armor—battered against Arq's Obsidian Dice, black and towering at 3.45 meters, nearly nine tons, glossy as piano lacquer under the sunlight.
"What the fuck is going on!" Ryuu-9 bellowed. The entire workshop shuddered under the clash of metal and the storm of displaced air. Neon reflections from the ruined city outside flickered across the steel giants, an apocalyptic ballet of machinery and raw power.
Kael Voss tilted his head, spotting the young technician who had been wiping grease earlier. His hands were still streaked with oil. The boy's pale face was streaked with tears.
"Zayden…" Kael whispered, recognizing the low-level Operator who always trailed behind Arq.
The moment the name left Kael's lips, the boy whipped his head around. Eyes wide, pupils red from crying, he flinched like a rabbit caught in a trap.
In this age of iron and blood, weakness was a liability. Kael Voss scowled, voice booming: "What the fuck are you crying for?"
Zayden stammered, lips quivering, tears spattering across his cheeks. "I… I made them fight… It's my fault…"
Kael's blood boiled. Vyre and Arq were his and Ryuu-9's right-hand operators. They were loyal, competent, and never at odds. If this kid caused friction among his core crew… Kael's black glare could have flattened him on the spot.
Ryuu-9 had already called Vyre and Arq out, tearing into them verbally, then shouted over to Kael: "It's fine! The kid's just throwing a tantrum!"
Operators had age limits. In peaceful times, 16-year-olds might bicker, sulk, act childish. But in a war-ravaged world, they carried blood-soaked responsibility and scars early.
"How old are you?" Kael asked Zayden.
"Ten… fifteen… almost sixteen!" the boy stammered, emphasizing his age. Kael noticed the interface port under his temple—a functioning Operator.
"Boss." Arq sauntered over, grinning mischievously, no hint of remorse, secretly waving at Zayden from behind. The boy hesitated, then shuffled closer, eyes fixed on Kael.
Kael waved him off, irritation flickering across his face.
Vyre brushed past, shooting Zayden a dagger-like glare.
"What happened?" Kael asked.
"Soft kid. Annoying to watch," Vyre muttered.
Kael just nodded, understanding. "Ah."
"Arq's the one spoiling him."
Kael sighed, letting it slide. "Right."
"Arq's blind."
Kael Voss let out a wry laugh. "Mm…"
"Boss!" a subordinate shouted from the distance. "Lieutenant from 88 is here!"
Lieutenant? Kael Voss smiled faintly, turning to block Ryuu-9, who wanted to follow him: "Don't bother. I'll handle this."
He didn't change clothes—still the fur coat, the briefs, the slippers—clacking across the meeting room floor inlaid with leather and velvet. The man inside rose, cautious, polite: "Chairman Voss."
"Sit. Sit, sit." Kael Voss leaned close, the tone casual yet intimate, like a long, private chat. "Smoke? Byrn?"
Byrn wasn't young. Judging from the skin around his interface port, he was nearing retirement. The two had met only a handful of times, and only remembered his surname.
"No." Byrn offered a slight smile, eyes locked on Kael. "Last night, we lost a shipment on Highway 2. Thought Galan Hall could help locate it. Pay's flexible."
"Last night… Highway 2…" Kael Voss sparked a cigarette, holding it with his diamond-studded mechanical hand, damp hair clinging to his forehead, eyes flashing razor-sharp light. "Was it… a Freedom Army transport?"
Byrn's face darkened for a moment, then he regained control: "Seems I picked the right people when I came to Galan Hall."
Kael Voss sprawled across the leather sofa, fur coat sliding from his shoulders, revealing the blazing Mecha Dragon tattoo beneath. Byrn's gaze flickered, startled.
"That shipment," Kael Voss said bluntly, "I'm taking it."
Byrn froze, breath caught in his chest.
"Anything else?" Kael Voss leaned lazily against the sofa, eyes narrowing as he studied him. "No? Then leave."
Byrn didn't hide his annoyance. He plucked a cigarette from the pack on the table, struck a match. "You're arrogant, Kael Voss."
Kael snorted.
"Arrogant, my ass. No Exosuit, and still calling yourself Chairman? Pathetic."
He didn't get angry—he drew the cigarette to a bright ember. "Byrn, when you talk like that, it brings us closer. Chairman Voss, looking for a truck… what a bore."
Byrn puffed silently, waiting.
"I don't lack Exosuits," Kael Voss said, tapping the tabletop with his mechanical fingers, lips licking with a hint of menace. "Mine… have been dismantled. Understand?"
The Mecha Dragon, the stripped Exosuits, the brazen arrogance—all clues pointing to one conclusion: this was the missing Griffin Hall Razorfang Operator, vanished for three years.
Byrn's facial muscles twitched. "You're joking… Chairman Voss… never heard…"
Kael suddenly kicked the coffee table. The marble screeched under the impact. "Why are you still calling me Chairman Voss?"
He crushed the cigarette stub, stood, and said flatly: "Go on. Leave."