Augusto Brandt's office was more than just a room; it was a sanctuary of control. The scent of sandalwood and expensive leather fought to mask the ozone stench rising from the System generators in the basement. Through the thick glass windows, the Capital looked like an open wound under a sky where stagnant portals shimmered like shards of broken glass.
Augusto swiveled his oak chair, staring at a hologram of Raven. To the Division, a hero was just a number on a graph.
"Rank C?" Augusto let out a dry laugh. "Sarah, you're a war legend. Asking for a promotion for a kid who only knows how to make his skin a little crusty seems like a waste of time. According to our reports, he's a baseline Rank D. A meat shield who got lucky. Why would I burn Division resources on him?"
Sarah stood motionless, hands behind her back. She saw in Raven what the bureaucrats ignored: a total lack of waste.
"The world is tired of fireworks, Director," Sarah replied, her voice steady. "Kael and the other 'Aces' are great for marketing, but they level half a sector just to save the other half. Raven is different. He fixes the problem without needing a cleanup crew behind him."
Helena stepped forward. "The Government is running out of options, Augusto. We're burning through Rank Cs just to keep the lights on. If Raven is the 'blue-collar' worker Sarah says he is, he's exactly what the Farm needs right now."
"Less spectacle, more extraction," Brandt signed the document with a sharp flick. "Greenery Park. If he brings back Rank C cores and proves he isn't dead weight, I'll sign the promotion. Now get out."
An hour later, Raven and Sarah crossed the park's perimeter. The place was a living nightmare. Portal energy had rewritten the trees; trunks glowed like graphite and leaves were metallic blades. The ground was a carpet of iron dust, and the air reeked of rust.
"No heroics, Atlas," Sarah said, stopping to look Raven in the eye. "Find the spiders and bag the cores. But listen close: the Division thinks you're a stagnant Rank D. Keep it that way. Don't show a damn thing more than necessary."
"Doing the bare minimum is my specialty," Raven muttered, feeling sweat glue his shirt to his back. "But why the worry?"
Sarah lowered her voice, dead serious. "Because Kael smells change in the air. To guys like him, your existence is an insult. He needs to be the only sun in the sky to justify his budget. If he realizes a 'worker' can do his job for a tenth of the cost, he won't congratulate you. He'll try to snuff you out before you become a threat to his shine. Stay in the shadows, Raven. It's the only place Kael can't burn you."
Raven shrugged, but felt the weight of the warning. "Let him try. This piano is heavy enough without a bleached-blonde hanging off it."
Suddenly, the wind whistling through the metal leaves died. The silence lasted only a second before the first snap came from above.
Sap Spiders (Rank D) dropped from the canopy on golden threads. They were the size of large dogs, with yellow, transparent bodies that glowed like glass. As soon as they hit the iron dust, they fired jets of hot adhesive, aiming for Raven's legs.
Raven didn't bolt. Weeks ago, he would have just flinched. But now, his eyes read the movements exactly as Sarah had taught: "Don't fight the monster, fight the flaw."
He activated Stone Skin. The rough gray texture climbed up his arms the moment the first jet of glue hit him. Raven didn't try to wipe it off; he twisted his arm, letting the glue wrap around his forearm and harden against the cold stone. In seconds, he had a heavy, spiked club made from the spider's own secretion.
The first spider lunged. Raven took a short step aside and drove a punch straight into the center of the creature's chest, right where the core shimmered.
The sound was like glass shattering. The spider's carapace exploded into shards and yellow goo. At the moment of impact, the core's energy was pulled directly into Raven's fist.
[RANK D CORE COLLECTED: 2/10]
Another spider tried to flank him from behind. Raven didn't turn fully; he used his body weight to pivot and drove a stone elbow into the monster's abdomen. Again, the strike hit the mark. The spider was crushed against the iron dust floor, and the core's glow died, absorbed by his skin.
"Two more," Raven whispered, already moving toward the next ones.
He didn't waste a drop of energy. Every movement was short and sharp. He used the spiders' momentum against them, punching cores with the precision of a man driving a nail. Yellow slime coated his stone skin, but he didn't stop until he felt the energy hit his veins.
[RANK D CORE COLLECTED: 4/10]
Sarah watched with her arms crossed, a ghost of a smile on her face. She saw "Economy of Motion" in action. Raven wasn't fighting; he was clearing the floor like a pro.
"Not bad, Atlas," Sarah commented as Raven wiped the goo from his hand. "You finally stopped swinging like an amateur."
They pushed deeper into the Farm. The iron dust on the ground was getting thicker, coating their boots with a gray soot that shimmered in the dark.
"You're moving well," Sarah said, her eyes never leaving the metal canopy. "But don't relax. Silence here is the worst sign."
Raven wiped some yellow slime off his cheek. "You talk like we're in a trench, Sarah. It's just a resource farm."
Sarah let out a bitter laugh. She stopped for a second and kicked a layer of iron dust, revealing what looked like a remnant of a road sign, now fused to the ground and choked with rust.
"Resource farm... that's what the suits call this place so they can sleep at night," she said, resuming her pace. The clank of her boots on the metal was heavy. "Before I was an instructor at the Division, I served in the French Foreign Legion. We were sent to holes in the world where the law didn't reach. But what we found on my last mission in Africa... it wasn't on any map, and no training prepared us for it."
Raven followed, ears tuned to the hiss of the metal leaves above. The air felt denser, harder to breathe.
"Back then, nobody had these skills. There was no glow on the skin or superhuman strength," Sarah continued, her voice going raspy. "It was subtle. A mist that wouldn't leave, animals acting bizarre, entire villages vanishing in the middle of the night. We thought it was chemical warfare or some armed rebel group. Until my unit was surrounded in the dark by something the metal of our bullets wouldn't even scratch."
She stopped and looked Raven in the eye. There was an ancient exhaustion in that gaze.
"In the Legion, we had nothing. Just our skin, our steel, and the fear of things we didn't understand. We lost a lot of people because we tried to fight the old way, thinking guns would solve everything. I saw the world I knew get chewed up by this metal forest long before these skills appeared and the Government started handing out Rank medals for surviving."
Raven felt a chill. To him, the blue System windows were a guide, but for her, it had all been paid for in blood and error. "Is that why you're so hard on me about how I move? This 'economy of motion' thing?"
Sarah gave a short, humorless laugh. "In the desert, if you took a wrong step in the hot sand, the sun killed you. Here, if you waste a punch, the forest swallows you. I learned to hit once so I wouldn't have to hit twice. If you tire out, you die. In Africa, I buried friends who tried to be heroes and spent all their breath in five minutes. Here is no different."
Suddenly, the air went still, and the smell of rust intensified until it tasted bitter in the mouth.
"Story time's over," she warned, her hand instinctively going to the combat knife at her waist. "The ground is vibrating. They aren't coming from above."
The iron dust floor began to bubble in front of them. Six Sap Spiders (Rank D) sprouted from the ground as if they were swimming. These were larger than the others, with legs ending in needle-sharp yellow glass.
Raven activated Stone Skin. He remembered Sarah's look. He didn't wait for the attack. He lunged at the first spider, sliding through the iron dust to gain speed.
The spider tried to drive its leg into his chest, but Raven simply tilted his torso, letting the strike scrape against the stone on his shoulder. The sound was metal on metal, throwing sparks. He grabbed the monster's leg, used its own weight to pivot the creature's body, and delivered a dry punch straight into the center of its transparent chest.
The sound was like glass shattering. His stone hand punched through the carapace and hit the core dead center.
In the same instant, a window only he could see flashed:
[RANK D CORE COLLECTED: 5/10]
Raven felt the heat of energy surging up his arm, but he didn't stop. Another spider lunged from behind. Without looking, he took a step back and used his elbow like a piston, hitting the glass "face" of the airborne creature. The carapace exploded into fragments and yellow slime.
[RANK D CORE COLLECTED: 6/10]
Sarah watched in silence. To her, Raven was just hitting the right spots with terrifying precision. She didn't see the alerts, but she saw the result: Raven wasn't fighting the spiders; he was dismantling them.
The other four spiders began drumming their legs on the iron floor, creating a fast, irritating rhythm.
"They're communicating!" Sarah shouted, knife in hand in case any got past him. "Don't let them organize!"
Raven took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the stone on his shoulders. He sprinted toward two of them, jumped, and came down with both fists clenched. The impact on the iron floor was so heavy it kicked up a cloud of gray soot. The spiders beneath him were reduced to shards and yellow filth.
[RANK D CORE COLLECTED: 8/10]
The last two tried to retreat up a metal tree, but Raven was faster. He snatched two iron branches from the ground and hurled them. The force of the throw sent the branches through the glass bodies, pinning them to the trunks like insects in a collection. Raven walked over and crushed what was left of their chests to take the cores.
[RANK D CORE COLLECTED: 10/10]
[CORE REQUIREMENT MET.]
Raven stood up, wiping the sweat that stung his eyes. His stone skin was covered in scratches and goo. Immediately, he felt the cold energy being sucked into the palm of his hand. In the same instant, the interface only he could see glowed a blinding, intense blue.
[EVOLUTION CONDITION MET: 10/10 CORES]
[SKILL RANK: D → C]
[UNLOCKING "SUPER ADAPTATION" POTENTIAL...]
[WARNING: CELLULAR CAPACITY EXPANSION IN PROGRESS]
Suddenly, the world around Raven went mute. The pain wasn't external; it was as if every cell in his body was being stretched to fit a larger mold. It wasn't the forest changing him—it was his own power shattering the chains of his previous Rank.
"Argh!" Raven collapsed, clawing his nails into the iron dust.
Sarah, who was stowing her knife, jumped back and drew her weapon, aiming into the dark. But when she looked at Raven, she froze in shock.
"Raven? What's happening?" She holstered the gun and ran toward him but hesitated.
Raven's Stone Skin began to shatter. It wasn't just chips; the gray layer was being violently expelled as his internal structure shifted. Beneath it, a new layer of Brushed Steel emerged, but it wasn't just a color change. Raven felt his muscles could now withstand ten times the pressure. Super Adaptation was forcing his body to accept a level of energy he had never felt.
The sound was terrifying, like metal being forged by rhythmic hammer blows inside his ears.
"Raven, talk to me!" Sarah yelled, her voice thick with genuine concern. She tried to touch his shoulder but recoiled. The heat radiating from his skin was like a furnace. "Your pulse is... what is this? You're changing your entire structure at once?"
Raven slammed his fist into the ground, and the sound was that of a heavy metal block colliding with iron. He lay there, gasping, as the silver glow faded and the steel receded back into his flesh, leaving him pale and with smoke rising from his pores.
[EVOLUTION COMPLETE: RANK C REACHED]
[NEW DERIVATION AVAILABLE: METALLIC SKIN]
[ADAPTATION CAPACITY INCREASED]
Sarah knelt beside him, turning him over gently. She checked his neck, her fingers trembling slightly. His heartbeat was returning to normal, but his skin felt denser, colder.
"What kind of mutation was that..." she whispered, looking at the stone shells on the ground. "No Rank D evolves with that kind of violence. You looked like you were being broken and put back together."
Raven opened his eyes slowly. He felt strange. His body was heavy, but he felt like he could walk through a concrete wall without even feeling the impact.
"I'm... I'm okay," he managed to mutter, his voice raspy. "I just need water. I feel like my blood is boiling."
Sarah helped him up, draping his arm over her shoulder. She let out a heavy sigh at his weight. Raven was now a compact mass of density.
"Water. Right. Let's get to the waterfall," she said, trying to regain her composure, but still looking at him like she was seeing a new monster being born. "But you're going to explain what the hell that was. If your body is going to grow like this every time, I need a heads-up before you pass out mid-fight."
They walked slowly, Raven's footsteps leaving deep marks in the metallic soil, until the sound of falling water began to echo through the iron trees.
They walked for another ten minutes. The air, which had reeked of rust, began to feel damp and fresh.
There, tucked between black stone walls that the portal energy hadn't yet turned to metal, was the waterfall. It was a rare phenomenon: because the water was in constant motion, the distortion energy couldn't "fix" onto it. While the rest of the park was static and cold, this water was alive, crystal clear, and loud.
Even the trees around it were different. Though their trunks were a dark graphite and their leaves shone like blades, they still stretched thirsty roots toward the banks. Even an iron forest needed water to grow.
Sarah stopped at the entrance of the clearing, her back to the water, keeping her eyes on the trail they'd come from.
"I'll keep watch. Clean up fast," she said, her voice still tense from the worry of the violent evolution she'd witnessed. "And Raven... don't get used to the silence."
Raven walked to the water's edge. He pulled off his torn shirt, revealing a chest that still radiated residual heat. As he plunged his face into the icy current, he felt his senses snap back into place. The "fire" in his veins finally began to cool.
"You like carrying the weight of the world, don't you?" A soft, cold voice cut through the roar of the falls.
Raven froze. He didn't look back immediately. He knew that tone. Turning slowly, he saw the Mysterious Girl sitting on a high rock right in the middle of the current, legs dangling over the water.
"You again," Raven said, wiping water from his face. "How do you even get in here? Sarah would kill anyone who crossed that perimeter."
"She can't see me, Raven. No one can, unless I want to be seen." She hopped off the rock, landing on the wet bank without a sound. "Congratulations on Rank C. Your Super Adaptation finally stopped playing house. It realized you need something denser than stone to survive what's coming."
Raven stared at her, his body still tense. "You talk like you know more about me than the System itself."
"I know what's happening to the world," she said, walking around him, eyeing the metallic sheen still lingering on his forearms. "You all think these monsters and portals are some random disaster. They aren't. There's a parallel dimension to yours, Raven. They turn like the gears of a broken clock. Every so often, the edges touch. It's what they call the Convergence."
She stopped in front of him, eyes locked on his.
"Monsters fall here, humans fall there. It's an exchange that's supposed to be slow, taking centuries. But someone... something... is forcing the gears to slam into each other. They're accelerating the process on purpose so the worlds fuse at once. That's why everything is in chaos. That's why you're waking up."
Raven felt the weight of her words. If what she said was true, the Rifts weren't the problem—it was whoever was pushing them.
"And about your Obsidian Skin..." she continued, reaching her hand toward his chest but not touching him. "Don't be afraid of it. The gray stone was the shell you built to be the 'pillar' for your family, the son who doesn't complain. But Obsidian is who you are when you stop lying to yourself. It wasn't a loss of control, Raven. It's your real form trying to be born."
Suddenly, Sarah's voice echoed from the entrance: "Raven? Who are you talking to?"
Raven blinked. When he looked back at the bank, the Mysterious Girl was gone as if she'd never been there. Only the sound of water hitting the rocks remained.
"Nobody," Raven replied, pulling his shirt back on and feeling the new weight in his muscles. "Just thinking out loud. The silence here makes you hear things."
Sarah didn't buy the excuse, but the snap of metallic branches from the woods cut off any further questions. Three massive shapes leaped from the black stone walls, landing on the waterfall bank with a heavy thud. They were Sap Spiders (Rank C). Unlike the others, these were pitch black, with armored carapaces and legs that looked like dark metal saws.
"Raven, move!" Sarah yelled, drawing her rifle. "These things cut through steel like paper!"
Raven felt his body vibrate. He stepped forward, the ground giving way under his foot. He activated the skill, and a dry click echoed, like a vault door locking shut. The dull gray of stone vanished instantly, replaced by Brushed Steel that coated his arms and chest.
The fight started before he could even breathe.
The fastest spider lunged from above, falling like an anvil with blade-like legs ready to pierce Raven's skull. Sarah stepped back, finger on the trigger, but Raven was already moving. Instead of running, he used its momentum. He pivoted at the last millisecond, letting the spider graze past, and with a swift arm motion, he used his own steel hand like a spear. The strike punctured the monster's side carapace with a horrific sound of tearing metal. The spider froze on the ground, dead before it knew what hit it.
There was no time to celebrate. While Raven was still pulling his hand out of the first carcass, the other two took the opening. The one on the right lunged laterally, aiming for his ribs with its serrated leg. Raven couldn't turn in time, so he leaned in with his armored shoulder and took the hit. CLANG! The sound was like a sledgehammer hitting a blacksmith's anvil. The shockwave rattled his organs, but he used the impact to pivot his hips and drive an upward punch right into the spider's "mouth." The force crumpled its head and sent the body crashing into a nearby iron tree.
The last spider, seeing the other two fall, tried a different tactic. It retreated to the edge of the clearing to spit hot, black resin. Raven remembered what Sarah always said: "If the enemy retreats, you choke their space." Even with his body heavy as lead, he took two explosive steps to close the gap. The spider made a desperate swipe with its serrated leg, but Raven caught it mid-air. He locked the creature's arm under his steel armpit and applied a brutal lever motion.
SNAP. The leg broke like a dry branch. With the monster off-balance, Raven delivered a metallic headbutt right into its chest, where the core sat. The spider's chest caved in with a hollow thud, and it stopped moving instantly, its legs twitching on the ground.
Raven stood there, panting. The steel sheen began to fade from his skin, flickering until he returned to normal, pale and shaking with exhaustion. He fell to his knees, feeling sweat sting his cuts.
Sarah walked over slowly. She looked at the three crumpled bodies and then at the trail of destruction Raven's body had left in the iron dust. She'd seen tanks torn open in the war, but this was an overkill of raw strength.
"Anything left in one piece inside there, or am I gonna have to carry you back in a trash bag?" she asked, short and blunt, but keeping an eye on the resin burn on his arm.
Raven spat out some dark blood and gave a crooked smile.
"Besides my winning personality and the urge to quit? I'm great," Raven rasped. "Just... give me a minute. Feels like my body was put together by an amateur."
"We don't have a minute. The smell of these things is gonna bring more," Sarah said, already drawing her combat knife to harvest the cores. "Get up, Raven. If you die now, I'll have to fill out paperwork all night."
Raven forced his legs to stand. His body didn't feel like his anymore; it was like his blood had been swapped for concrete. Every joint ached, and the weight was absurd.
"What you did back there was stupid," Sarah said, never taking her eyes off the black cores she was stuffing into the case. "Your skill changed again, and you let yourself get hit without knowing if you'd hold up. If one of them had caught you in the neck while you were locked up, I'd be carrying your remains in a bucket."
"You're welcome for not dying, Sarah. The cleanup crew appreciates it," Raven grumbled, wiping blood from his chin with a hand that still insisted on shaking.
"Don't give me that." She closed the case with a dry metallic snap and clipped it to her belt. "Having hard skin doesn't make you a Rank C fighter. If you don't learn to carry this new weight without looking like a rusty robot, you're just gonna be an expensive statue in the middle of all this junk. Steel is useless if you're too slow to use it."
Raven gave a lopsided grin, even though his face hurt. The density of his body still made him dizzy.
"Good to know you care about my health. I thought we had a purely professional contract."
"I care about my report," she cut in, walking past him and already aiming her rifle at the trail back. "Corpses are a pain in the ass to explain to the Government. Now move, Brandt doesn't like to wait, and I don't plan on spending the night listening to iron trees rattling in the wind."
They started the walk back in silence. In the dark of the woods, the only sound was their boots crushing the iron dust. Raven felt every step like he was dragging invisible chains—a reminder that from now on, the game had changed, and everything was going to be much heavier.