As he approached the barely standing city walls, the ground flattened out. The walls and most visible structures were made of a dark gray stone, with wood only used in a few guard towers and the large palace that rose above the ruined city blocks at the center.

  He would describe the architecture as rather utilitarian, but most of the buildings were piles of rubble. He couldn’t determine much about it at all.

  The walls had mostly collapsed, and breaching them was easy. However, the moment he set foot in the city, its denizens tried to push him back out.

  He had been walking over the rubble of a wall breach, when a shadowy figure sprinted at him from the rubble of a nearby building. In an instant, the AI warned him and unclipped his sidearm.

  His sidearm-a gleaming silver revolver-was chambered in 14x40, firing dense AP rounds. A single shot could threaten lower-end power armor and most armored vehicles, and would probably be more than enough for this shadowy humanoid creature.

  Almost instantly bringing the revolver up and pointing directly at the blank “face” of the creature, he pulled the trigger. Through the armor, there was almost no recoil. The servos and sheer density were more than enough to stop the force.

  The almost slug-sized shell shot out at impressive speeds and plowed directly into the creature’s face. It was down a second later, and Kyle scanned the settings for more. Just empty and eerily dim rubble piles for a few miles, and the lava lake off in the distance.

  Kyle had really expected that a huge horde of the things would charge him from the thunderous gunshot, but perhaps there was actually only one.

  Kyle immediately inspected the beast. It was sort of like a human, but incredibly desiccated. Thick black skin like leather was stretched tight around absurdly long bones. It was truly a horrific entity, but it was hard to feel fear through layers of composite nanoforged armor.

  Kyle absentmindedly kicked its head in and continued exploring the ruins.

  Whatever happened here had been total in its devastation. The tallest structure he’d found had been a tavern, surrounded by particularly impressive piles of rubble. It must have been shielded by the other buildings enough to survive.

  It had obviously collapsed in the centuries since, but he managed to see some of the city's actual culture in its intact chunks. Seemed rather late Renaissance, with a German industrial style-tall, overstated roofs, and the dark tone from that stone they used for everything.

  Just as Kyle was admiring the ruins of the tavern, another shadowy creature burst from one of the rubble piles nearby. Although the Nanofactory could replenish his ammo, it worked slowly. He didn’t want to get caught out without an emergency close-quarters weapon.

  Instead of shooting it, he charged at it instead. Interestingly, it was unfazed at the nearly one-ton death machine moving at high speeds towards it. Must not be sentient, then, Kyle thought.

  Kyle swung his fist at it at nearly the speed of a bullet. Such force could pierce advanced ablative armor and destroy entire buildings in only a few blows. In an instant, the fist connected with its shoulder equivalent, and the PPIE on his fingers detonated. The being’s entire torso was shredded by the sheer kinetic energy of the strike. In an instant, the once fearsome shadow beast became a pile of flesh and barely intact limb endings.

  That was overkill again. What a waste. These things can get some speed going, but they’re pretty flimsy. Kyle decided to take on the next one with less force, to save his resources.

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  Within 15 minutes, he had encountered another two shadow creatures and dealt with them easily. Soon enough, he had reached the outer palace grounds. The central palace was surrounded by what seemed like administrative buildings and offices. Past those buildings, a garden and a few smaller houses had surrounded the monolithic palace proper.

  All of it was now utterly destroyed. The damage was worse close to the actual palace by a serious degree. In the outskirts close to the walls, he had found a few houses that had survived the damaging event. They had collapsed more recently.

  As he had moved towards the palace, the chunks of rubble had gotten smaller over time. Whatever had happened here had occurred right on top of the palace.

  Interestingly, the palace itself was in near-perfect condition. Only by the mundane ravages of time was it degraded.

  Although he hadn’t found a single body, he had seen multiple barricades on the wide streets. Tall things with rows of sandbags in front of them. Not only had most of them been subject to some really horrendous damage, but time had also not been kind to them. A few racks of medieval weapons had been overturned on one of them.

  He had stopped to inspect the weapons. Primitive steel things, utterly destroyed by time. Regardless, he picked up every scrap of metal and fed it into the chute for his Nanofactory. Theoretically, it could work on anything, but metal was the preferred material for making bullets.

  Finally crossing the gardens surrounding the palace was an interesting experience. Most of the plants looked vaguely earth-like, even dead and desiccated.

  The palace itself looked a bit like a Mesoamerican temple, tiered balconies and all. The top was mounted by a tower, about 5 stories tall. All of it was constructed in that dark grey stone, although the palace had once had a lot of other accenting materials. Although he had seen much grander constructions in his life, the palace itself still had an aura of history that made it respectable. Kyle was intrigued, to say the least.

  Anything not made of stone had fallen away over time. The doors were again made of that dark stone and were covered in carvings.

  Kyle immediately took several photos with his scanning array. He would analyze them in depth later.

  Taking out one of his many melee implements, he looked again at the door. A small plasteel boarding axe would make short work of the door’s locking mechanism.

  The axe was comically small in his power armored gauntlet. He hadn’t wanted to punch the door and damage the piece of art, so instead he was just going to bash in the crease between them and break the lock.

  Swinging with one hand, it lodged smoothly in between the doors. Again and again, he slammed the axe into the break; eventually, the doors swung open. In the distance, over the sounds of bats chittering and distant beasts roaring in combat, a series of small snapping noises echoed. His armor’s enhanced sensors picked up the noise easily. It sounded exactly like some kind of thin stone snapping.

  Marching through the now listless doors, he found the palace interior. The people who once lived here had loved tall ceilings. Interesting choice for a cave-dwelling culture, but good for him-he didn’t have to bend down when inside.

  The palace had once been adorned richly, with rugs, tapestries, and all the other trappings of a medieval keep. All of that was sitting on the floor in piles of soggy fabric.

  Countless rooms full of elegant furniture and bedding, now lay in piles of rotten wood. It honestly felt like he was watching one of those ancient bunker exploration videos, where explorers would go into bunkers from the pre-league era and pull out thousand-year-old artifacts for the museums.

  The palace was laid out with hallways wrapped around a central region. The ballrooms, court, and library were all in the middle. For the life of him, he couldn’t find the entrance to the main compound.

  Kyle had always been one who changed targets easily. When he couldn’t find the actual entrance, he simply turned to the wall and dashed directly through it. The stones and plaster stood no chance against his one-ton demigod of a suit, and he found himself in a huge throne room once the dust settled.

  The throne had an interesting design-all stark rectangles, covered in dark red cushions. A second, smaller throne was next to it, of similar design. The walls were draped in ruined curtains and tapestries, and the once grand rug on the stone floor was damp and rotten.

  Kyle’s sensors took in all of this in milliseconds. But Kyle’s actual attention was focused on the other inhabitant of the room. A knight in black plate armor, leaning on a gleaming greatsword.