Cracks proliferated wildly across the reinforced glass.

  Spiderweb-like fractures blanketed Kane’s entire field of vision. Every gunshot added another vein to the shatter pattern. The kinetic energy of the bullets punched through the glass, making the entire cab hum and vibrate like a broken bell tolling erratically against his ear.

  Kane curled beneath the control console.

  Every ragged breath felt like a blunt knife flaying the wounds on his back. Charred flesh and bloody gashes torn by stray rounds radiated a soul-crushing agony. The metallic sweetness of blood surged uncontrollably from the depths of his throat.

  This glass wouldn't hold much longer.

  Twenty seconds, at most.

  Then, the lead would shred this final barrier and turn him into a puddle of mangled meat.

  His gaze remained pinned to the dust-caked red button on the console.

  [ Emergency Brake ].

  This giant magnetic crane was a relic of the Old Era, long since rendered scrap. But during his years processing corpses, Kane had heard the old workers mention its "defect" more than once.

  Years of neglect and shifting foundations meant its center of gravity had long since tilted. The only thing keeping it upright was the emergency brake locking the treads.

  If that were released...

  This sleeping iron titan, pulled by gravity, would slide uncontrollably down the inclined tracks and into the abyss. And the finish line of its slide was the scrapyard’s perimeter wall.

  It was a frantic gamble with his life on the line.

  Kane didn't know how the crane would disintegrate once the brake was pulled. He might be flung out instantly, or the deforming cab might crush him into a meat pie.

  But it was his only path to survival.

  Below, the cursing and gunfire grew denser. They were concentrating their fire on a single point. The crackle of splintering glass had turned sharp and piercing.

  No more time.

  Kane raised his right hand—stained with gore and brain matter—and slammed it down onto the red button.

  Thud!

  The button sank deep into the console.

  The world went eerily silent.

  The gunfire, the shouting, the wind... everything vanished.

  One second.

  Two seconds.

  Nothing happened.

  Had it truly rusted into place forever?

  The chill of despair was just beginning to rise from the depths of Kane's marrow when—

  Greeeeee—aaaaak—

  A tooth-grinding groan of metal drifted up from the depths of hell, vibrating from beneath the crane’s chassis. Immediately after, the massive frame gave a violent lurch.

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  The floorplates beneath Kane’s feet sank an inch.

  Just that one movement.

  But it tolled the reaper's bell.

  Outside the cab, the gunfire ceased abruptly. The Vulture Gang members had clearly noticed the localized anomaly.

  "What’s going on?"

  "Why is this piece of junk moving?"

  Their bewilderment lasted less than a second.

  RUMBLE—!!!

  The iron beast, dormant for countless years, had awakened.

  The brake assembly shattered completely.

  The frame, weighing hundreds of tons, began to slide down the tilted tracks—slowly at first, then with unstoppable momentum.

  "Run!!"

  "Dammit! It’s going down!!"

  Screams of pure terror, pitched to a frantic key, drifted up from the ground.

  The crane’s sliding speed accelerated.

  The massive inertia pinned Kane against the rear wall of the cab, making his internal organs feel displaced. Through the fractured glass, he saw the world below receding at high speed.

  The Vulture Gang members, who had been so arrogant moments ago, were now a chaotic mess, scrambling away in a panicked frenzy.

  But it was too late.

  The crane’s massive treads crushed through mountains of scrap, letting out a thunderous roar.

  One slow-footed grunt was swallowed by the treads before he could even squeeze out a scream, reduced instantly to a smear of unrecognizable pulp.

  "BOOM—!!"

  The iron jib, spanning dozens of meters, lost its balance amidst the violent slide. It transformed into a colossal iron whip, lashing across the world with a bone-chilling howl as it tore through the air.

  Everything in its path—mountains of scrap, engine piles, shipping containers... all of it was crushed, deformed, and twisted into scrap in a heartbeat.

  This was Kane’s gift to them.

  A magnificent iron funeral.

  The vibrations inside the cab became terrifying. Kane felt like he had been stuffed into a metal box and was being frantically shaken by an invisible giant. He gripped a fixed pipe with white-knuckled intensity, his joints straining to the breaking point.

  He had to get out before it slammed into the perimeter wall.

  His gaze swept the cab, quickly locking onto a maintenance hatch that had buckled open during the violent tremors.

  There!

  Kane summoned every ounce of strength to fight the crushing inertia, scrambling toward the hatch on all fours.

  Thump!

  Another gang member, unable to dodge in time, was slapped directly into the earth by the sweeping jib. A mist of blood erupted.

  Kane didn't even blink.

  In the Undercity, mercy was an epitaph reserved for corpses.

  He squeezed through the maintenance hatch with great difficulty, hanging precariously off the exterior shell of the crane. The gale lashed his face, and beneath him was a blurred, receding hellscape of death and ruin.

  The scrapyard’s perimeter wall rapidly expanded in his vision.

  Less than fifty meters!

  Kane activated [ Kinetic Boost ]!

  He let go, allowing his body to drop. At the moment of descent, he kicked off the crane’s shell with all his might. He launched himself like a cannonball toward a stack of relatively intact shipping containers to the side.

  "RUMBLE—!!!"

  The instant Kane took flight, a deafening, final roar erupted behind him. The iron beast had finally reached its fated destination.

  The thick wall was pathetic before its mass. Brick and stone shattered; rebar twisted like wire. A massive breach was violently torn open.

  The crane’s enormous bulk plowed halfway out of the scrapyard before rolling over with a thunderous crash, completely burying countless scraps of metal and... several corpses that hadn't been fast enough to run.

  A pillar of dust billowed into the sky.

  Thud!

  Kane slammed hard onto the roof of a shipping container. The massive impact made his vision go dark. A metallic sweetness rose in his throat, and he spat out a mouthful of blood. His bones felt as if they had been shaken loose from their sockets.

  But he didn't dare stop.

  He scrambled to his feet, casting one last look back at the apocalyptic scrapyard. The surviving Vulture Gang members were charging out of the dust, roaring and howling toward his position.

  Kane ignored them.

  He turned, dragging his heavily injured body as he limped down the container and vanished through the breach he had personally carved into the wall.

  Beyond the gap lay another world.

  It was the labyrinthine, filthy, and decaying alleys of the slums. Kane dove headfirst into the darkness, his silhouette merging into it like a drop of water into a sea of filth.

  Behind him, the bellows of the Vulture Gang were muffled by layers of derelict buildings, growing more distant by the second.

  He came to a halt at the end of a dead-end alley that reeked of rot. Leaning against the freezing wall, he slowly slid to the ground.

  Agony, exhaustion, and the lightheadedness of blood loss... they submerged him instantly.

  Kane looked down at his still-searing right hand. The pentagram seal on his palm was glowing with a faint green light, pulsing with heat.

  From tonight onward, he was no longer the "corpse dog" scraping by in the scrap heaps.

  He was Kane.

  A hunter... who had just bared his fangs.

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