The Ossuary Bulwark groaned under the relentless fire of the Paladin repeaters. Cracks spread across the ivory ribs, glowing with a faint, dying violet light. Jax's vision swam. His "Processing Power" was a flashing red bar at the bottom of his sight: 4%.
"I can't... hold it..." Jax hissed through gritted teeth.
But then, he looked through the gaps in the bone wall. Scattered across the market floor were the bodies of the first wave of Paladins—the ones Unit-01 had cut down and the ones Jax had impaled.
"Waste is a sin, Jaxon," his father's distorted voice whispered in the back of his mind. "A King does not look for more resources. He looks for what everyone else has already thrown away."
Jax's eyes snapped open. "Recycle," he croaked.
[SUB-ROUTINE ACTIVATED: CARRION HARVEST]
[TARGETS: 5x FALLEN ENFORCERS (OUTSIDE BULWARK)]
[WARNING: DROPPING DEFENSIVE SHIELDS TO INITIATE...]
"Sledge! Cover your eyes!" Jax screamed.
He released the pressure. The massive bone dome didn't just collapse; it exploded outward in a shockwave of calcified dust. The Paladins outside, caught off guard by the sudden drop of the shield, lowered their weapons for a fraction of a second.
It was all the time Jax needed.
He reached out his hands, and the five fallen Paladins on the floor began to vibrate. Their white ceramic armor cracked as their own skeletal structures were forcibly yanked toward Jax. In a gruesome display of technomancy, the "Legacy System" didn't just raise them as zombies—it stripped them for parts.
Streaming lines of white "Soul-Code" and jagged shards of bone flew across the market, swirling into a vortex around Jax.
[RESOURCES RECOVERY: SUCCESSFUL]
[PROCESSING POWER RESTORED: 65%]
[BONE-DENSITY UPGRADE: REINFORCED CERAMIC-MARROW]
The shards didn't just return to the wall; they slammed into Unit-01 and Jax himself. Jax felt a cold, hard weight settle over his skin as the scavenged armor fused to his clothes, forming a makeshift, jagged suit of bone-plating.
Unit-01 let out a digital screech as its mag-blade grew longer, serrated with the bone-shards of its fallen brothers.
The Paladin Captain touched down, his boots clanking on the stone. He looked at the "Recycled" horror Jax had become—a boy clad in the literal remains of his enemies.
"Blasphemy," the Captain whispered, his hand going to a golden orb at his belt. "You aren't just a necromancer. You're a virus."
"Maybe," Jax said, feeling the Vortex-7 rig hum with renewed energy. "But I'm a
virus that's about to crash your system."