The scavenger in the white polymer suit didn't even flinch. He just raised his humming rifle. "Cute. A primitive with a hatchet. Do you have any idea what a Phase-Pulse does to carbon-based—"
Kane didn't let him finish the sentence.
He didn't use a "Skill." He didn't wait for a prompt. He just leaned into the hunger. The glass floor cracked under his boots as he closed the twenty-foot gap in a heartbeat. The scavenger's visor reflected a face that wasn't human anymore—it was a mask of silver-veined shadow.
Clang!
The Twin Fangs slammed into a shimmering blue energy shield an inch from the scavenger's throat. Sparks rained down, hissing as they hit the cold ground.
"Shield's at ninety percent!" the scavenger yelled, his voice losing its cool. "You're Rank 6? How is a Rank 6 hitting with ten tons of—"
"Vance! Left side!" Kane roared.
Vance didn't run; he launched. His new Asteroid Juggernaut form felt heavy, like he was made of lead and gold. He hit the scavenger's shield like a runaway freight train. The blue barrier didn't just flicker—it shattered like a dropped lightbulb.
"My rig!" the scavenger screamed, stumbling back.
Kane didn't give him a second to breathe. He grabbed the front of the scavenger's high-tech helmet and slammed his forehead into it. The polymer cracked. White plastic shards flew everywhere.
"You're talking too much," Kane hissed. He dropped his axes and gripped the scavenger's rifle with both hands. His fingers turned black, the Void-Hunger eating through the metal casing. "This looks expensive. Let's see what it tastes like."
[WARNING: UNKNOWN TECHNOLOGY DETECTED]
[CONSUMING... PULSE-CORE... INTEGRATING...]
The rifle didn't just break; it dissolved. The blue energy inside the gun flowed into Kane's arms, turning his veins into neon-blue circuits. He felt a surge of heat that made his teeth ache, but he didn't stop until the weapon was nothing but dust in his palms.
The scavenger scrambled backward, his face finally visible—a pale man with three eyes and skin like grey leather. He looked terrified. "You... you're a Feeder. A real one. Those are supposed to be myths!"
"Doc, keep him alive," Kane ordered, breathing out a cloud of blue steam. "Sully, check the mist. If he's here, his ship is close."
Doc stepped forward, her emerald-green plague aura making the scavenger's skin crawl. "Don't move, three-eyes. My 'medicine' is a lot more painful than the Sarge's axes."
Sully didn't look with her eyes. She looked with her mind. Her Star-Seeker vision pierced through the swirling purple gas of the Scavenger Lanes. "I see it! Half a mile out. It's... it's a small scout ship, docked to a floating chunk of obsidian. It's idling."
"Good," Kane said, wiping a smear of blue oil from his chin. He looked down at the scavenger. "You said we were worth a bounty. Who pays it?"
"The Consortium," the scavenger rasped, clutching his broken chest-plate. "They own the harvest rights for this sector. If they find out a Tier-7 world broke its jar... they won't just send scavengers. They'll send a Planet-Cracker."
Kane knelt, his silver eyes locking onto the man's three trembling pupils.
"Let them come," Kane said softly. "We're tired of eating the scraps. We want the kitchen."