Crag held his breath for a long time before a dry sentence squeezed from the depths of his throat.

  "That move of yours... was it the 'Doggy Paddle'?"

  In his rudimentary understanding, aside from the Dune Worms in the desert, he had never seen a living person dive into the earth as cleanly as a stone dropping into water.

  Kane didn't even lift his eyelids.

  He was using his notched dagger to meticulously scrape the filth from beneath his fingernails.

  With every breath, a stinging pain like crushed ribs radiated through him—a lingering aftereffect of the crushing pressure from the soil.

  "Any method that keeps you breathing can be called whatever you want."

  His voice was as dry as the wind howling through a canyon, devoid of any intent to explain.

  Internally, Kane was re-evaluating.

  The [ Phase Burrow ] skill had a pathetic name and looked even worse in practice.

  But on this wasteland crawling with high-tech thermal scanners, diving three meters underground meant that even if a military recon drone flew directly overhead, it would capture nothing but sand.

  It was a god-tier skill.

  Seeing that Kane was unwilling to talk, Crag didn't press further.

  On the wasteland, who didn't have a few life-saving trump cards tucked away?

  He sat up silently and once again pulled that black metal brassard from the tattered fabric in his breast pocket.

  The fading glow of the sunset coated the iron hand clutching lightning on the emblem, gilding it in a nauseating, blood-red hue.

  Crag’s broad palm repeatedly rubbed the brassard, his fingernails creating a harsh scraping sound against the metal.

  "The Iron Hand Gang stole our Tinder Crystal."

  Crag’s voice was low, sounding like a mallet striking a broken drum; the hatred buried within was nearly palpable.

  "My brother gave his life to protect it. Without the Tinder, the newborn children of the tribe won't survive the winter. The warriors' Obsidian Skin will crack, and they’ll rot alive into a pile of rubble."

  Kane stopped his movements.

  He leaned against the wet rock, offering no comfort.

  He had spat out the last of those hypocritical platitudes back when Old Tock died.

  "How much is that thing worth?"

  Kane’s question was direct, even cruel.

  Crag froze, pain flashing in his eyes. "It’s not about money. It’s about lives. Those bastards in the Iron Hand Gang use the crystal like a battery to charge their scrap-heap mechs. It’s a desecration of our ancestors!"

  "A high-grade energy source. Got it."

  Kane toyed with his dagger, his gaze flickering in and out of the shadows.

  "I can help you get your revenge and reclaim the Tinder."

  "But in exchange, you're going to help me pull off something big."

  Crag snapped his head up, his stony skin appearing exceptionally solemn under the moonlight. "Say the word! As long as I can kill those Iron Hand bastards, my life is yours!"

  "I’m going to hijack a Kunlun Corp transport convoy."

  Kane’s voice wasn't loud, yet it caused the air on the cliffside to instantly freeze.

  "Are you insane?!"

  Crag lunged to his feet, his massive two-and-a-half-meter frame casting a shadow that almost completely swallowed Kane.

  His voice turned shrill and piercing, laced with terror.

  "That’s Kunlun! That’s the military! Even the Mayor of Blackrock Town has to get on his knees and kowtow when he sees one of Kunlun’s dogs! You want to rob them? Their orbital cannons will blast us into dust. There won't even be a scrap of flesh left!"

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  "Kunlun isn't the military; they're just a pack of hyenas feasting on carrion."

  Kane let out a cold snort, still fiddling with his chipped dagger.

  "If you're scared, crawl back to your stone burrow. Hold your brother’s corpse and wait to die."

  He stood up and walked directly in front of Crag.

  Despite the massive height difference, Kane’s presence felt like an invisible mountain, firmly suppressing the Stoneborn giant.

  "If I say it, I can do it."

  His tone was flat, lacking even a ripple of emotion, yet it carried a chilling certainty that settled in the marrow of one's bones.

  "Three days from now. A secret supply shipment heading to Sand River Town."

  "A cyber-cop at a Blackrock Town bar got hammered. He let it slip while bragging."

  "The route is an old high-magnetic field road, abandoned for decades. Every radar and surveillance monitor there is blind."

  "I followed him the whole way and saw him drunk as a dead dog with my own eyes. The intel is solid."

  "A covert escort—not even the Blackrock Town Guard knows about it. Do you know what that means?"

  Kane took a step forward. The tip of his dagger lightly scraped across Crag’s stony chest, producing an ear-grating friction.

  "It means their numbers are small. And more importantly, they don't dare make a scene."

  "This is a piece of fat delivered right to our mouths."

  Crag was dazed by the barrage of icy logic. His Adam's apple bobbed as fear and a twisted sense of excitement collided violently in his chest.

  "But... that's Kunlun..."

  "That’s exactly why we rob them."

  Kane cut him off, his voice laced with a lethal temptation.

  "The Iron Hand Gang has heavy firepower and power mechs. With just your fists and this broken blade of mine, charging them is suicide."

  "But what if we had Kunlun gear?"

  "Use Kunlun’s blades to take the Iron Hand Gang’s heads."

  "We pull this off, and never mind your Tinder Crystal—I'll help you pull the Iron Hand Gang out by the roots!"

  "Now, tell me."

  Kane retracted the dagger and slid it back into its sheath at his waist.

  "Are you in, or out?"

  The muscles in Crag’s face twitched violently.

  He dropped to one knee, clutching the brassard so tightly that its metal edges dug deep into his stony palm.

  On one side was the terror of being turned into ash by an orbital cannon.

  On the other were his brother's unwilling eyes in death and the weak cries of his tribe's infants.

  The two voices roared frantically in his mind.

  "Are you sure... we can win?" Crag looked up, his voice hoarse from the sheer internal struggle.

  "No one on the wasteland can promise that."

  Kane’s gaze was like a knife, cutting across the brassard in the giant's hand.

  "I can only promise that if you don't go, that thing will tell you every day that you're a coward who couldn't even reclaim his brother's legacy."

  Having said his piece, Kane turned to walk away without a hint of hesitation.

  "Wait!"

  Crag surged to his feet, slamming the brassard into the dirt!

  He looked like a feral beast driven to total fury, his eyes blood-red.

  "Do it!"

  "I'll be a madman with you just this once! Dying at Kunlun's hands is better than dying like a dog in a crack in the rocks!"

  A cold arc curled at the corner of Kane’s lips before quickly flattening out.

  Kunlun Corp.

  Old Tock.

  You bastards—sooner or later, I will snap your necks with my own hands.

  The two traveled under the cover of night, reaching the mountain pass by the evening of the third day.

  It was a natural bottleneck, a perfect "pocket" for an ambush.

  "Dig."

  Kane pointed at the center of the road, his command clipped.

  Crag didn't waste words. He spat into his palms, his massive, fan-like hands transforming into highly efficient excavators.

  In less than half an hour, a massive pit four meters deep appeared, large enough to swallow a heavy truck whole.

  Kane dropped into the bottom of the pit and activated [ Phase Burrow ].

  Guiding the loose soil from below, he wove a fragile support network of crisscrossing brush and branches across the mouth of the pit.

  Then, like a sculptor, he layered the sand and soil evenly over the top, using [ Aero Blade ] to whip up a light breeze that smoothed the surface until it was indistinguishable from the rest of the road.

  From the outside, the path looked as flat as ever.

  Death lay hidden beneath that thin layer of earth.

  By the time he finished, Kane’s face was deathly pale, his strength nearly spent.

  He climbed into a rocky crevice where Crag was crouching, the giant's eyes wide with shock.

  "That talent of yours... if you came to our tribe to mine, you’d make a fortune," Crag remarked with genuine sincerity.

  "Shut up. Save your strength for killing."

  Kane leaned against the stone wall, closing his eyes to rest.

  As the last sliver of the setting sun sank below the horizon, the wind-eroded canyon fell into a deathly silence.

  Crag had shifted his crouching position a dozen times, his palms slick with sweat.

  "They're here."

  Kane’s eyes snapped open. His ear was pressed against the rock, catching the rhythmic vibration traveling through the ground.

  On the distant horizon, two beams of high-intensity light pierced the darkness like blades, stabbing toward the pass.

  The low, powerful thrum of engines followed—the distinct roar of diesel mixed with energy cells.

  Crag’s fingers dug deep furrows into the stone wall.

  However, Kane’s expression instantly turned grim.

  The sound was wrong.

  It wasn't just one vehicle!

  As the light beams drew closer, Kane’s pupils shrank to needlepoints.

  Behind the first heavy truck—a literal steel behemoth—followed two fully armed assault vehicles!

  The rotating machine gun turrets on their roofs shimmered with cold, murderous intent under the moonlight.

  Supposed to be a single squad?

  This was a standard reinforced escort detail!

  "Dammit..."

  Kane cursed under his breath, his palms instantly drenched in cold sweat.

  The three vehicles traveled nose-to-tail, charging with unstoppable momentum straight toward the death trap.

  The planned sneak attack had just turned into a brutal head-on assault.

  But the arrow was notched; there was no retreating now.

  The front wheels of the first heavy truck hit the thin layer of loose soil.

  Kane gripped his dagger and flashed a sharp "Standby" signal to Crag, who was already coiled to spring.

  His gaze was terrifyingly cold.

  The situation had changed.

  The tactics had to change with it!

  The moment the massive front end of the truck pitched downward and its headlights swung violently toward the sky, Kane transformed into a weightless shadow, sliding vertically down the canyon wall!

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