LOCATION: IRONSHADE – THE 89TH TOWER SPIRE, NIGHT
Su Chen stood alone atop the spire, the wind dragging his coat like black fire against the skyline.
His hands were behind his back, eyes fixed on a flicker in the sky.
It wasn't a star.
It was a hunter drop-pod — plummeting like a divine blade, trailing antimatter exhaust, shattering sound itself as it neared.
"He's coming," Su Chen said aloud.
"Who?" Li Wei asked through his earpiece, voice tense.
"The Gravedigger," he replied. "One of the first… and last."
"Estimated survival odds?"
"Not for me," Su Chen said. "For him."
IMPACT – 7 KM OUTSIDE IRONSHADE'S SHIELD DOME
The earth ruptured.
Dust shot a kilometer into the air. Roads curled. Entire structures collapsed from the sonic pressure.
From the smoking crater rose a monster. Ten feet tall, skeletal limbs wrapped in carbon-ceramic armor. Its chest bore a glowing system core the size of a human heart, pulsing like a countdown.
Where its face should be, there was only a carved-in sentence:
"I BURY GODS."
The Gravedigger had landed.
LOCATION: IRONSHADE – COMMAND HUB
[ALERT: Tier-One Hunter Detected][Initiating Countermeasure: Protocol 7 – WRAITHS OF MEMORY]
Su Chen flicked his finger.
Instantly, the city trembled.
The streets flickered. The power grid surged. Every memory crystal embedded in Ironshade's Data Catacombs came online — graveyards of fallen warriors, citizens, and system-linked minds.
"Raise them."
From the data-banks, they came.
Thousands of wraith-like constructs, coded with the thoughts and combat instincts of Ironshade's dead. Each one unique. Each one once a man, woman, or monster who died defending this ground.
"They were loved once," Su Chen muttered. "Let them kill for it."
THE BATTLE – EDGE OF IRONSHADE
The Gravedigger charged — mechanical feet slamming like artillery. Every step cracked bedrock.
The Wraiths met him mid-field.
They attacked in waves — burning, blinking, phasing — striking with phantom weapons encoded from forgotten weapons systems.
The first wave fell instantly.
The Gravedigger's left arm unfolded into a rail-cannon and erased them.
But the second wave learned.
And the third... copied him.
For every wraith killed, two rose, absorbing fragments of his code.
"He's adapting," Su Chen said. "So are they."
Li Wei's voice cracked in. "The Wraith Core is overheating!"
"Then detonate it."
"That'll take out the East Wing!"
"It's already gone."
THE BLAST – EAST IRONSHADE
A pulse of black light devoured the skyline.
Steel twisted. Glass shattered. Memory-wraiths screamed as they collapsed into the Gravedigger — detonating directly into his neural relay.
For a second, he stopped moving.
Just one second.
But that's all Su Chen needed.
THE COUNTERSTRIKE
Su Chen appeared mid-air, launched from an orbital slingshot rail hidden beneath the city. His fists were wrapped in magnetic force — antimatter laced.
[System Override: Ghost Step – Activated][Weapon Skill: Hollow Fist of the Forgotten – Activated]
"I'm the one who remembers," Su Chen whispered mid-flight.
And he punched through the Gravedigger's face.
Steel crumpled. The system core cracked. Its body spasmed, machine fluids spraying in arcs.
But it didn't fall.
It grinned.
"You're too late," it rasped.
THE GRAVEDIGGER'S LAST WORDS
Its chest opened — revealing a Quantum Fragment Bomb, primed. The kind banned by every known faction. Designed not to kill cities…
But to kill time.
"Your memories will never have existed."
The countdown: 5… 4… 3…
END OF CHAPTER 53