Chapter 63: The Nightmare Begins

He understood now.

Those particles were responsible for the burning sensation in his nose and eyes.

Declan looked upward and realized something else.

The ashes only seemed to exist within the first 300 meters of air above the ground. Beyond 300 meters, there were none.

He couldn’t simply walk forward or backward, either. The paths disappeared into darkness, and there was no way he could cover a kilometer while keeping his mouth and nose covered without eventually running out of air.

If he wanted to survive for any meaningful amount of time, he had only one option: He had to climb.

He needed to reach at least 300 meters above the ground to escape the zone filled with the poisonous dust and finally breathe properly.

The problem was figuring out how he was supposed to get that high.

Declan looked around again, and his eyes eventually settled on the metallic structures jutting toward the sky.

Not all of them were tall enough, but some clearly extended beyond the dusty zone.

’I need to climb.’

TRRICCCKLLE

A strange sensation made him look down, where another line of blood was slowly rolling from his right nostril.

His nose was burning, his vision was becoming increasingly blurry, and every passing second made it harder to think clearly.

Time was running out and so Declan immediately started running.

There was no point climbing the first structure he found if it didn’t rise high enough. He needed to find something that could take him beyond the 300-meter mark.

Five minutes later, he found it.

A massive mechanical structure shaped almost like a hand rose from the ground, with three enormous finger-like pillars extending toward the sky. The palm itself was already high, while the fingers stretched far enough upward to escape the dusty zone.

Even better, the metallic fingers weren’t smooth. They were covered in countless sharp, needle-like extensions that looked almost like hair growing from the back of a hand.

Except this wasn’t hair but cold, hard metal.

Still, they were perfect for climbing.

Declan pulled his hand away from his nose and grabbed hold of the first metallic extension. Then he began climbing.

The problem became apparent almost immediately.

The higher he climbed, the harder his chest began pounding.

It felt like he was trying to push himself upward against an invisible ocean current, with the resistance growing stronger the higher he went.

The dust wasn’t thinning out either.

If anything, the particles higher above were even more concentrated, stinging his skin and burning his lungs with every breath.

By the time he reached around 100 meters, blood was dripping from his hands onto the metallic surface.

Some of it slid down the structure, only to darken and crumble into ashes before being carried away by the wind.

Yet Declan continued climbing.

If he stopped now, or worse, fell back to the ground, his death was practically guaranteed.

’Dying because of some putrid air? What the fuck kind of death is that?’

Five minutes of struggling later, Declan finally reached the edge of the dusty zone and immediately took an incredibly deep breath of the clean air above, followed by another, and then another.

A relieved smile slowly appeared on his face as he repeatedly inhaled and exhaled, and only now did he realize just how incredible it felt to breathe clean air.

He had survived the first problem: The air.

But as he remained there, more than 300 meters above the ground, Declan finally looked out over the graveyard.

And the moment he saw the world below, his entire body went still.

It was unlike anything he could have ever imagined.

He had originally called this place a burial ground made of heaps of metal. Now, however, he realized there was a far more fitting name.

ABurial Ground of Mechs.

The enormous metallic structures rising from the ground weren’t random piles of machinery.

They were Mecha Parts.

Some of the pillars were limbs, while others were parts of bodies that had been buried beneath the earth. From his elevated position, Declan could finally see their shapes properly.

What shocked him most was their size.

These Mechs were absolutely gargantuan.

Their legs stretched across the ground for kilometers, while their necks and other body parts disappeared into the vast metallic wasteland.

And every single one of them was...Dead.

Yet despite the countless dead Mechs scattered across the graveyard, Declan could still occasionally hear the sound of metal being scratched and torn apart.

CLAAAAANK

SCREEECHH

Then he realized where the noise was coming from.

Them:

The creatures crawling across the burial ground were vaguely wolf-like, but there was nothing natural about them. Their maws and claws were made of metal, while the rest of their bodies appeared to be covered in flesh.

Even from this height, their size was staggering and Declan estimated that they stood around three meters tall.

They were scattered throughout the graveyard, moving across like cockroaches.

Their metallic jaws were strong enough to tear through the outer shells of the dead Mechs, and Declan watched as several of them casually chewed on the metal, grinding it between their jaws as though it were nothing more than food.

’This... this is insane.’

Declan remained stunned by the sight, but then something unusual happened.

WHIIIIISTLE

The sound of rushing air suddenly reached his ears, and Declan raised his gaze toward the distant clouds.

His expression changed instantly as he noticed something had burst through them at terrifying speed.

It was a bird.

No...A mechanical bird, its wings formed entirely from metal.

It descended toward one of the wolves on the ground and seized it before the creature could even react, carrying it upward in an instant.

The wolf immediately fought back, slashing wildly with its claws and snapping its metallic jaws at the bird, yet the attacks were completely useless against the bird’s hardened body.

CLACCCK!

Its talons dug firmly into the wolf as it carried the struggling creature more than four hundred meters into the air before suddenly releasing it.

The wolf plummeted downward, flailing helplessly through the air, but the bird did not wait for it to hit the ground.

Instead, it accelerated after it.

Declan watched as the bird caught up with the falling wolf and began tearing it apart.

Its metallic beak ripped through the wolf’s arms first, tearing them away before swallowing them whole.

Then came the legs, followed by the head. Finally, the bird drove its beak through the creature’s stomach and tore the entire body apart, splitting it in two.

By the time the remains reached twenty meters above the ground, nothing remained of the wolf except pieces of metal and blood raining toward the graveyard below.

’It... it devoured it!?’

Those terrifying creatures that had once made Declan’s blood run cold had just been torn apart as if they were nothing.

SCREEEEECHHHHH!

The mechanical bird let out a deafening cry, almost as if celebrating its victory, but then something even stranger happened.

All across the burial ground, the wolves suddenly began fleeing at full speed.

"What’s happening?"

Declan muttered, but before he could figure it out,

SCREEEEEEEECHHHHHH!

Another powerful screech tore through the graveyard.

Declan slowly raised his head, frowning as he stared into the dark clouds. Strange silhouettes were moving within them, their shapes barely visible through the darkness.

Then the clouds suddenly burst apart, and a flock of roughly a hundred mechanical birds emerged from the clouds, descending upon the graveyard.

"What the fuck!?"

He immediately turned as if to run, only to stop himself.

’Where the hell was he supposed to run to?’

The ground below was toxic. Returning to it wasn’t an option.

And he was currently clinging to a massive mechanical hand with barely enough surface area to hold onto.

SCREEEEECHHHH!

Another screech rang out, and Declan watched the massacre unfold below.

Hundreds of mechanical birds now covered the sky. Every so often, one would dive toward the ground, seize a wolf in its claws, and drag it into the air.

Moments later, green blood and pieces of metal would rain back down.

The wolves were being torn apart by claws and metallic beaks, their bodies completely helpless against the birds.

Declan’s heart turned cold.

He was watching creatures that were already stronger than him being slaughtered by something even more powerful and there was nothing he could do except cling tighter to the metallic finger, desperately trying to conceal himself.

’Don’t notice me. Don’t notice me.’

He silently prayed, but apparently, the heavens had no intention of listening.

SCREEEEECH!

A powerful cry suddenly rang out, and this time, Declan felt the unmistakable sensation of being targeted.

He turned his head only to find one of the mechanical birds was already racing toward him at terrifying speed.

"SHIT!"

Declan cursed and immediately jumped away from his position, landing on one of the metallic protrusions covering the hand.

CLAAAAANG!

The bird’s talons slammed into the spot where he had been standing only a moment earlier, tearing through the metallic protrusions and leaving deep scratches across the surface of the buried Mech.

PUCCCHIII!

"Argh!"

Pain shot through Declan’s shoulder as his body jerked.

One of the sharp metallic protrusions had pierced straight through him during his desperate jump, becoming stained with his blood.

SCREEEEECH!

The bird’s second cry instantly pushed the pain into the back of his mind.

He watched it pull away, circle around, and then charge toward him again.

"MOVE!"

"MOVE!"

Declan could almost hear his own mind screaming as he gritted his teeth and tore his shoulder away from the metal.

He had barely managed to leap aside, when,

RIIIIIIIIIPPPP!