Chapter 298: What Grows in Bastion Six

Chapter 298: Chapter 298: What Grows in Bastion Six

Chapter 298: What Grows in Bastion Six

The surface of Bastion Six had changed completely.

For almost a hundred years, the mountains above the city had been nothing but a lifeless wasteland. Smoking craters covered the ground, while a poisonous red fog filled the air. Nothing could survive there, not even a plant.

But that was no longer the case.

Standing where the largest craters once burned were three enormous towers made from pure Star-Iron.

The blue lights of the towers pulsed steadily, almost as if the towers themselves were breathing.

With every passing moment, the deadly red fog was pushed farther away, leaving the mountains covered in fresh, clean air.

For the first time in nearly a century, Bastion Six could finally breathe.

Clean air.

At the base of the main northern tower, Cole Rust and Lyra Voltaire watched the workers finish the final stages of construction.

There was no more poisonous fog here. Instead, the air carried the smell of freshly turned soil and the cold, refreshing breeze of the mountains.

It was strange.

After nearly a hundred years of death and destruction, the surface of Bastion Six finally felt alive again.

Since the apocalypse, it was humanity’s first time seeing bright green shoots growing in the soil.

Draven had ordered the squad to rest and digest their new power. Strike Team Zero was technically on mandatory leave.

Cole Rust completely ignored the mandate.

Cole stood on a heavy iron scaffold ten feet off the ground.

He wore his thick leather blacksmith apron over a simple gray shirt. His face and forearms were covered in a familiar, permanent layer of dark soot. He held a heavy iron wrench in his hand, but he was not using it.

He placed his bare palm flat against the cool Star-Iron casing of the tower.

He closed his eyes.

[Forge-Soul]

The world around Cole suddenly disappeared.

He no longer saw the tower, the workers, or even the mountain around him.

All he could feel was the metal.

He could sense every tiny imperfection hidden inside the massive structure. He could feel the pressure between the plates, the weak points in the joints, and even the slightest problem with the welds.

His eyes remained closed.

"The third section is slightly off," Cole muttered.

Lyra glanced at him. "What?"

"The tension gear near the main runic housing."

Cole frowned.

"It’s not sitting properly. The cold wind is putting too much pressure on the metal."

He opened his eyes and sighed.

"Even the metal is complaining about the weather."

He picked up his heavy wrench and began tightening a massive structural bolt. He worked with a steady, punishing rhythm. His hands were never quite still. If a machine was running, Cole Rust instinctively believed it could be running ten percent smoother.

CLANG.

He struck the bolt to lock it into place.

Before he could pull his hammer back for a second strike, a pair of ink-stained hands grabbed his wrist.

Lyra Voltaire leaned over the scaffolding and grabbed Cole’s arm.

"Stop hitting the tower, Cole!" she shouted.

Her words came out fast, one after another. "The structure is fine! I checked it myself. Forty minutes ago. No, wait... thirty-eight minutes ago!"

She quickly glanced back at the tower.

"The World Tree catalyst is working perfectly too. Everything is stable!"

Lyra pulled harder on his arm.

"You’re going to make yourself deaf before you even fix anything!"

Cole frowned, resisting her pull with his heavy, rooted stance.

"The wind up here is much harsher than in the testing courtyard," Cole argued.

He pointed toward the tower.

"The metal is going to shrink when the temperature drops at night. If we don’t adjust the outer casing, it could put too much pressure on the runes."

He frowned.

"And if the iron tightens around the glass chamber too much, the whole thing could shatter."

Lyra stared at him for a moment.

"So... you’re saying the tower is going to freeze and explode?"

Cole sighed.

"That’s not what I said."

"Close enough."

"The glass is tempered with a stabilizing alchemical resin!" Lyra countered enthusiastically, completely ignoring his physical resistance. "It can withstand a direct impact from a heavy siege boulder! We are supposed to be on mandatory leave. The Captain said we needed to rest. You are officially resting right now."

Cole looked at his wrench. "I am resting. The wrench is very relaxing."

"You are a menace to yourself," Lyra declared.

She did not wait for his permission. She practically threw her body weight backward, dragging the heavily muscled blacksmith toward the metal stairs.

Cole stumbled, his face flushing a bright, embarrassed red. He was strong enough to rip iron gates completely off their hinges, but he possessed absolutely zero defense against the chaotic, overwhelming persistence of the Mythic Apothecary.

He let out a long, heavy sigh and allowed her to drag him down to the dirt.

---

High above the new agricultural fields, Lord Commander Gunther Stillbane sat on a reinforced stone balcony.

The giant Earth Mage was seated in a heavy, custom-built iron wheelchair. His physical condition had fundamentally changed since the brutal extraction weeks ago, but his presence had not diminished by a single fraction.

He still radiated the blunt, enormous weight of a mountain. He simply commanded his underground empire from a seated position now.

Gunther rested his thick arms on the balcony railing.

He watched the soot-covered boy and the ink-stained girl walking away from the towering blue spire. He watched them bicker, point at the sky, and eventually slow their frantic pace as they reached the edge of the new farmlands.

Gunther permitted himself a slow, quiet smile.

He did not dwell on his paralyzed legs. He did not mourn the loss of his physical mobility. He looked at the vast, clear sky and the people digging irrigation trenches in the sunlight for the very first time in their lives.

The two chaotic prodigies walking through the dirt had delivered exactly what they promised. They had built a miracle.

"Good work, kids," Gunther rumbled softly, his golden eyes reflecting the bright sun.

---

Lyra dragged Cole all the way to the southern ridge.

They stood at the very edge of the newly cultivated farmland.

Hundreds fighters from the subterranean city were working the land. They were planting seeds, laughing loudly in the crisp air, and feeling the warmth of the sun on their faces.

Cole stood with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. He stared out over the green rows.

Lyra stood beside him, her green robes dusting the dirt. She looked at the blue light of the tower washing over the fields. The frantic, bouncy energy she usually carried settled into a rare moment of stillness.

The quiet lasted for a moment.

Lyra’s brilliant mind simply could not idle for long. She crouched down, scooping up a handful of the dark soil. Her ink-stained fingers sifted through the dirt.

"The pH balance of the soil is still slightly acidic," Lyra noted, her thoughts jumping rapidly mid-sentence. "The Miasma residue breaks down slowly. But if we synthesize a localized fertilizer using the calcified root structures from the Elven aqueducts, we can accelerate the nitrogen fixation! Oh, the chemical expansion rate would be beautiful. We just have to make sure the sulfur mix does not generate too much internal pressure, or we will accidentally blow up the crops instead of feeding them."

She rambled through the half-formed alchemical theory, her hands gesturing wildly in the air.

Cole turned his head and listened properly. He tracked her scattered logic, processing the specific chemical tolerances she was proposing.

Giving her his complete, undivided technical attention was his own deeply ingrained version of affection. He respected her genius too much to ever dismiss it.

"If you use the calcified roots as a base," Cole pointed out quietly, "you will need a stronger containment vessel for the brewing process. Standard glass will shatter under the thermal spike."

Lyra beamed up at him, thrilled that he was keeping pace with her chaotic brain.

Cole reached into his heavy canvas satchel.

He did not initiate conversations often. He rarely offered unprompted praise. He was a craftsman, and he expressed his care by fixing the things around him.

"I noticed your primary component belt was damaged during the fight in the factory," Cole stated, keeping his voice incredibly plain and matter-of-fact.

He pulled a small, heavy object out of his bag and held it out to her.

It was a custom-forged bandolier designed specifically for her alchemical vials. But it was not made of simple leather. Cole had forged a series of interlocking, lightweight Star-Iron carrying cases.

"Your generic glass vials shatter far too easily when we are dodging monsters," Cole explained, focusing entirely on the technical utility of the gift. "The internal pressure drops, and you lose half the blast radius of your volatile crimson powder. I forged these casings with a micro-vacuum array lined inside the metal. They will keep the powder perfectly stabilized until you throw them. It also prevents the chemical ink from leaking onto your robes."

He handed the heavy, beautifully crafted metal bandolier to her.

It was not a traditional romantic gesture. It was a highly specific, functional piece of engineering built to keep her safe and maximize her destructive output.

Lyra took the Star-Iron bandolier.

Her eyes went completely wide. She ran her fingers over the flawless, microscopic seams of the metal casings. She understood exactly how many hours of painstaking, meticulous labor had gone into shaping the volatile metal on such a delicate scale.

Lyra immediately reached into her robes and pulled out a crumpled, ink-stained piece of parchment.

"This is incredible," Lyra breathed, her mind racing. "Cole, the vacuum array changes everything! If the casing stabilizes the temperature, I can increase the density of the sealing runes by forty percent. We can pack twice as much explosive force into a smaller shell!"

She dropped directly into the dirt, spreading the parchment over a flat rock.

Cole let out a quiet, genuine huff of amusement. He crouched down in the dirt right beside her.

"You have to groove the inner lining if you want the shrapnel to fragment evenly," Cole instructed, pointing a thick, calloused finger at her rapid sketch. "Otherwise, it will just fizzle out like a cheap firecracker."

"I will show you proper shrapnel grooves!" Lyra shot back, grinning wildly as she began furiously calculating the new mana-powder expansion rates.

Their mandatory afternoon off had completely dissolved.

Far away to the north, the bruised purple sky above the Capital began to violently shift, signaling the end of the brief, stolen peace. The fallout from the broken siege was finally reaching Bastion Seven, and the architect of it all was already moving.