Chapter 57: The Iron Foyer

The atmosphere inside the Citadel was suffocatingly sterile.

​After days of breathing the freezing, ash-choked wind of the wasteland and the putrid, rotting stench of mutated pine forests, the hyper-filtered, climate-controlled air of the Old World bunker felt entirely unnatural. It tasted sharply of industrial floor wax, heavy gun oil, and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone bleeding off the molten edges of the ruined tungsten blast doors.

​Ren stepped through the massive, smoking breach.

​The harsh, blinding glare of hundreds of fluorescent overhead lights washed over his towering, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound frame. He was stripped entirely to the waist, his ruined upper clothing vaporized by the artillery strike. Thick, white steam actively rolled off the dense, grey plates of his Chitin Shell and his pale, iron-hardened skin. The sapphire veins crawling up his thick neck and massive forearms pulsed with a furious, hyper-active bioluminescence, casting a terrifying blue aura against the pristine white epoxy floor of the bunker.

​His angular, striking facial features remained entirely impassive. The artillery barrage hadn’t left a single scratch on his core bone structure, and his glowing violet eyes swept the massive interior space with cold, predatory calculation.

​The entry foyer of the Citadel was not an empty hallway. It was a secondary kill box.

​The room was a cavernous, two-hundred-foot-long expanse of reinforced concrete, completely devoid of cover. At the far end, a secondary set of heavy steel security gates blocked access to the deeper subterranean levels. Arrayed in a rigid, deeply entrenched defensive formation directly in front of those gates was the absolute pinnacle of the Coalition’s surviving military might.

​Thirty Citadel Heavy Infantrymen waited for him.

​They weren’t wearing standard Kevlar and ceramic plates like the grunts in Camp Alpha. These men were encased in Old World, prototype hydraulic exo-suits. The bulky, matte-black mechanical frames bolted over their heavy armor gave them a towering, seven-foot silhouette, artificially enhancing their human strength to handle the massive, belt-fed heavy machine guns slung across their chests.

​They had watched the external security feeds. They knew the 155mm Howitzers had failed. They were completely terrified, their human biology screaming at them to run, but the heavy hydraulic clamps of their suits locked their boots to the epoxy floor, forcing them to hold the line.

​”Open fire!” the Vanguard Captain shrieked, his voice echoing shrilly over the external speakers of his exo-suit.

​Thirty heavy machine guns roared simultaneously.

​The deafening, enclosed thunder of the sustained volley was catastrophic, multiplying exponentially against the bare concrete walls. A massive, concentrated wall of 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds tore across the two-hundred-foot foyer, illuminating the sterile air with a blinding strobe of orange muzzle flashes.

​Ren did not flinch.

​[Skill Activated: Dash]

​The pristine air of the foyer cracked violently, the sound resembling a massive whip snapping in a vacuum.

​Ren completely fractured the physical distance. He didn’t run; his Level 18 Agility allowed him to displace his massive frame so fast he became a localized blur of steaming grey armor and pulsing sapphire light. The concentrated wall of heavy machine-gun fire tore through the empty space where he had been standing a microsecond before, the rounds chewing massive, jagged craters into the molten tungsten doors behind him.

​He materialized directly in the center of the Vanguard formation.

​The sheer kinetic displacement of his sudden arrival generated a sharp shockwave that physically staggered the massive, hydraulically enhanced soldiers. Before the Heavy Infantrymen could pivot their bulky, belt-fed weapons, Ren struck.

​He didn’t draw the Crimson vibro-sword. He wanted to dismantle their mechanical pride with his bare hands.

​He turned to the closest soldier on his right flank. The man tried to swing the heavy barrel of his machine gun like a club. Ren simply reached out and caught the swinging, hundred-pound block of steel with his bare left hand. The heavy metal violently collided with his Iron Skin, generating a dull, heavy thud. Ren’s grip locked entirely around the barrel, completely halting the exo-suit’s mechanical momentum.

​He channeled the raw, unnatural kinetic torque of his Level 18 Strength into his broad shoulders. He yanked the barrel forward, ripping the massive weapon entirely out of the hydraulic clamps and throwing the seven-foot soldier completely off balance.

​[Skill Activated: Rending Claws]

​The ten-inch, pitch-black talons snapped out from Ren’s knuckles. He drove his right fist directly into the center of the soldier’s matte-black armored chest plate.

​The Old World military-grade ceramic and the thick hydraulic framing offered absolutely zero resistance against the localized, Level 18 biological hardware. The dark talons punched cleanly through the thick armor, severing the heavy mechanical pistons and burying themselves deep into the fragile, unmutated human sternum beneath.

​Ren ripped his arm backward in a brutal, horizontal arc, tearing the man’s chest cavity completely open. The soldier’s heavy exo-suit sparked violently, thick hydraulic fluid mixing with bright arterial blood as the man collapsed heavily to the pristine epoxy floor.

​[Target Dead: Citadel Heavy Infantry (Lvl 8)]

[Experience Gained: 300]

​The brutal, instant dismemberment of an exo-suit completely broke the strict military discipline of the surrounding squad.

​The soldiers panicked, desperately trying to backpedal, their heavy hydraulic boots clanking loudly against the floor. They fired wildly, abandoning their overlapping fields of fire.

​Several 7.62mm rounds struck Ren at point-blank range. The heavy bullets sparked brightly against his hardened epidermis and the thick, grey plates of his Chitin Shell, flattening completely before dropping to the floor. The blunt-force trauma was negligible, easily absorbed by the massive, hyper-calcified density of his mutated bone structure.

​He waded directly into the chaotic, mechanical mass.

​He ducked beneath the wild, sweeping burst of a panicked corporal, driving his heavy combat boot directly into the side of the man’s exo-suit knee joint. The raw kinetic force instantly snapped the heavy steel actuator and the human femur inside it with a sickening, dual crack. As the soldier fell shrieking to the floor, Ren brought his boot down on the man’s armored helmet, crushing the Kevlar and the skull beneath it into a flat, ruined mess.

​From the smoking breach of the blast doors, Chloe stepped into the blinding fluorescent light.

​She immediately dropped to one knee, pressing her side against the jagged, cooling tungsten to minimize her profile. The sheer volume of deafening gunfire echoing through the enclosed concrete foyer made her ears bleed, but her hands were entirely steady.

​She raised the FN P90 submachine gun to her shoulder.

​She didn’t aim for the thick, matte-black armor plates of the exo-suits. She utilized her clear line of sight to target the exposed, vulnerable hydraulic hoses and the unarmored gaps at the back of their knees and necks.

​BRRRRRRRT.

​She squeezed the trigger, maintaining a tight, disciplined burst. The 5.7x28mm armor-piercing rounds struck a Heavy Infantryman attempting to flank Ren from the rear. The bullets easily severed the thick, pressurized hydraulic lines running down the back of the soldier’s mechanical legs.

​The exo-suit instantly lost pressure. The massive, heavy mechanical frame locked up, trapping the soldier inside a rigid, immovable iron coffin.

​Ren heard the hiss of the depressurizing suit behind him. He didn’t turn around. He simply reached backward with his left hand, gripped the paralyzed soldier by the heavy armored collar, and effortlessly hurled the entire four-hundred-pound man across the room. The soldier slammed violently into a concrete support pillar, the impact instantly breaking his neck.

​The skirmish devolved into an absolute, localized slaughter.

​Ren tore through the heavy mechanical vanguard with terrifying, surgical precision. He ripped heavy hydraulic arms out of their sockets, crushed armored helmets with his bare hands, and utilized the massive, severed machine guns as blunt-force clubs to cave in reinforced chest plates.

​The Global System had introduced a new apex predator to the planet, and the Old World military was entirely unequipped to process the reality that their heavy machinery was now functionally obsolete.

​Within exactly two minutes, the deafening roar of the heavy machine guns entirely ceased.

​The cavernous, pristine white entry foyer was completely ruined. The smooth epoxy floor was heavily cratered, slick with a chaotic, pooling mixture of black hydraulic fluid and bright red human blood. The shattered, sparking remains of thirty heavy exo-suits lay scattered across the concrete, their internal alarms emitting a low, mournful, continuous beep that echoed through the silence.

​[Targets Dead: Citadel Heavy Infantry x30 (Lvl 7 – Lvl 9)]

[Experience Gained: 9000]

​The massive influx of experience points was substantial, but the Gluttony skill in Ren’s chest remained entirely unbothered by the human deaths. The low-level, unmutated infantry offered absolutely zero biological evolution or high-tier mana. They were simply heavily armored obstacles blocking his path to the real harvest.

​Ren stood in the center of the carnage, his broad, bare chest heaving slightly, thick white steam continuing to roll off his heated skin. The sapphire veins on his arms pulsed with a steady, dominant rhythm.

​He looked toward the far end of the two-hundred-foot foyer.

​The secondary steel security gates were heavily sealed, but the thick, reinforced glass observation windows overlooking the checkpoint were completely intact. Behind the glass, several high-ranking Coalition officers in pristine dress uniforms were staring down at the blood-soaked, steaming anomaly standing amidst their destroyed mechanical vanguard, their faces completely drained of color.

​Ren steps carefully over the sparking, ruined torso of the Vanguard Captain, his heavy boots leaving dark, wet tracks across the pristine floor, walking deliberately toward the secondary security gates to physically rip the command structure out of their secure observation deck.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep