The "Radiant Plains" of the Holy Theocracy lay behind him, a scorched smear on the horizon. Su Zhe could still feel the phantom heat on his back—the funeral pyres of twelve Katyusha rocket launchers, self-destructing per System protocol after exhausting their lethal payload.
"Tch. 45,000 points... just to hear a few loud bangs," Su Zhe muttered, his pace heavy. The hydraulic pumps in his exoskeleton screeched with metallic fatigue. His right leg armor, melted through by Roland's holy fire during their duel, exposed a skeletal alloy frame hissing with white smoke.
[System Snark: Host, please recalibrate your concept of 'value.' That 'bang' effectively liquidated ten percent of the Theocracy's frontline officer corps. If your heart bleeds for the points, I suggest using a brick next time—zero-cost kinetic violence. On a side note: you are three kilometers from the 'Northern Wastelands.' The electromagnetic interference there is thick enough to turn your navigation system into a game of Tetris.]
"The Wastelands..." Su Zhe narrowed his eyes. In the Theocracy's scripture, it was a god-forsaken realm of rot and exile. To Su Zhe, it had a much simpler label: a lawless zone.
As he crossed the border—a jagged line marked by calcified, dead titans of wood—the oppressive hum of "Holy Light" vanished. In its place came the stench of rust, cordite, and decomposing organics. There was no divine radiance here, only a perpetual ceiling of leaden clouds.
Suddenly, Su Zhe's infrared sensors spiked. Beneath the shadow of a leaning monolith, dozens of emaciated figures scurried into burrows like frightened vermin.
"The Forsaken," Su Zhe whispered.
[System Snark: Technically, they are 'high-quality rejects' of divine experimentation. Their mana circuits were forcibly dilated and then collapsed. In the eyes of the Church, they aren't even fit to be fertilizer.]
"Hey! You lot!" Su Zhe stopped, retracting his high-frequency vibrating blade. He slammed a fist against his steel breastplate, his voice booming through the external amplifiers with cold, mechanical authority. "I need a roof that doesn't leak and a guide who's still breathing. In exchange, I have enough ration packs to feed you for a week."
A withered elder, looking like a piece of charred driftwood, hobbled out. He stared at Su Zhe's high-tech power armor, his voice rasping like sandpaper on iron. "A... clockwork demon? Do you bring us death, or a different kind of shackle?"
"I bring Science," Su Zhe said, tossing a vacuum-sealed block of synthetic meat at the old man's feet. "And the chance to die on your feet rather than rotting on your knees."
The settlement was a repurposed mine—damp, lightless, and thick with the smell of despair. Su Zhe sat by a flickering campfire, surrounded by hundreds of hollow-eyed Forsaken.
"The Theocracy's Arbitrator Knights will be here next month for the 'Weeding,'" the elder, known as Old Limpy, said quietly. "They burn anything that doesn't look enough like 'God's children.'"
"So you're just going to wait for the match to be struck?" Su Zhe sneered, tightening a servo-motor with a wrench.
"We have no Magic! No Holy Arts!" a one-eared youth spat, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "How do we stop fire-swords that can split boulders?"
Su Zhe froze. He stood up, his towering armored silhouette casting a long shadow over the huddling crowd.
"Mana is a gift of birth. Holy Arts are the whims of a god," Su Zhe's voice rang through the cavern. "But the laws of Physics are indifferent. A bullet through a Pope's skull creates the same hydrostatic shock as a bullet through a pig's. Gravity and velocity don't care who you pray to."
[System Snark: Ooh, the Host has opened the 'Heretic's Lecture Hall.' Warning: your point balance is screaming in agony, but since you're playing Savior, I've prepared a shopping list.]
"Execute purchase," Su Zhe commanded, his eyes reflecting the cold blue light of his HUD. "It's time to give these 'rejects' some teeth. Iron teeth."
Three days later, the rhythmic thud of industry echoed from the depths of the mine.
Su Zhe stood by a makeshift assembly line, watching seamless steel tubes being rifled under the roar of a lathe. Men who once spent their days digging for grubs now wore oil-stained rags, staring in awe as heaps of scrap were transformed into elegant, black instruments of death.
"This is an automatic rifle," Su Zhe said, hoisting a freshly assembled AR-15 'Wasteland Edition.' No engravings, no gold leaf—just cold, black phosphate coating. "It doesn't require faith. It doesn't require mana. It only requires you to keep your hands steady."
The one-eared youth was called forward. He took the rifle with trembling hands, surprised by its solid, heavy reality.
"Target: that stone pillar, a hundred meters out," Su Zhe barked like a drill sergeant from hell. "Safety off. Rack the bolt. Sight picture. Squeeze."
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Muzzle flashes bloomed in the dark. The recoil nearly sent the boy stumbling, but the stone pillar downrange disintegrated under the impact. The silence that followed was heavy with realization. This was power—attainable, repeatable power.
"God said 'Let there be Light,' and so you got the Theocracy," Su Zhe took the rifle back, flipping it to full-auto and shredding a row of wooden targets in a single, terrifying burst. "But I say, 'Let there be 5.56mm Full Metal Jacket.' Because God doesn't love you, but Kinetic Energy is inclusive."
[System Snark: Host, quit the theatrics. I'm picking up high-energy mana signatures ten kilometers Southeast. It's an Arbitrator Knight scout party. Looks like the 'Gardeners' are early for the weeding.]
Captain Kyle of the Arbitrator Knights rode his snow-white mana-steed with practiced grace. His armor was polished to a mirror finish, a stark contrast to the filth of the wasteland.
"The stench of rot..." Kyle wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Kill anything that moves. Purify this blight with Holy Fire."
But the response wasn't a plea for mercy. It was a sharp, supersonic crack.
Thwip!
The knight beside Kyle jerked backward, his golden helm pierced by a jagged black hole. His head disintegrated in a spray of red and white before his body even hit the dirt.
"Ambush! Mana Shields—UP!" Kyle screamed, his eyes bulging.
Too late. From the ridges above, dozens of dark muzzles erupted in a rhythmic staccato of fire. This wasn't a duel; it was a harvest. The knights' shimmering mana shields, designed to deflect swords and arrows, buckled and shattered within seconds under a concentrated stream of lead traveling at 900 meters per second.
Su Zhe stepped out from behind a rock, an underslung grenade launcher mounted to his rifle.
"This isn't magic, Captain," Su Zhe said, pulling the second trigger. "It's Industrialization."
THUMP—BOOM!
The high-explosive grenade detonated under the horse's hooves, throwing Kyle into the dirt. Su Zhe walked over to the broken captain and pressed the cold muzzle of his rifle against the man's forehead.
"Go back and tell your Pope: the debt of the Radiant Plains will be paid in full."
BANG.
Blood mist sprayed across the scorched earth, staining a discarded holy emblem.
The battle ended before the Forsaken could even process it. They looked at the corpses of their "god-like" oppressors—some vomited, some wept, but most simply gripped their rifles tighter.
[System Notification: Combat concluded. Finalizing 'Wasteland Industrialization' Expenditure Report:]
1. Universal Industrial Mother-Machine: -15,000 pts. A beast of Soviet-style engineering capable of self-replication and precision manufacturing.
2. AR-15 (Wasteland Mod) Blueprints: -5,000 pts. High-tolerance steel-stamped parts designed for muddy trenches and untrained hands.
3. 5.56mm Ammo Production Line (with Bio-Gen): -5,000 pts. Turning scrap copper and nitrocellulose into 5,000 rounds of "Free Will" daily.
4. Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Synthetic Skeleton (Host Upgrade): -12,000 pts. Aerospace-grade durability with 5-ton peak output.
"Is the settlement done?" Su Zhe asked, testing his new carbon-fiber leg. He could feel the surging mechanical power within.
[System Snark: Current Balance: 8,000 points. Pending Unlock: T-54/55 Main Battle Tank (50,000 pts). You're currently too poor to afford a decent funeral, Host.]
"It's enough," Su Zhe said, looking at his new army of ghosts. "Old Limpy, gather everyone who can still pull a trigger. We're forming the first Mechanized Infantry Regiment. We'll call it... 'The Retribution.'"
As night fell, a single tungsten bulb flickered to life in the heart of the mine, powered by a chugging generator. That dim, yellow glow was, in that moment, far brighter than any "Holy Light" the world had ever seen.