Apocalypse Regression: I Am the SSS-Rank Nightmare

Chapter 81: Chapter 81: Six Broken Frame

The air on Floor 9 carried no wind.

Leon stood on the seamless dark metal plain and let the Aura of the End-Game expand in a slow, controlled wave. The absolute darkness of his domain washed across the surface, and where it touched the etched circuits running through the metal, the pale silver pulses dimmed for several seconds before struggling back to life. The floor itself was watching him.

In the distance, the tall spires continued their steady rhythms, each one a vertical needle of black alloy marked with moving lines of light. Between them, the ground stretched without horizon, flat and perfect, broken only by occasional low platforms and recessed channels that carried thin streams of luminous coolant. The sky remained a starless black, marked solely by those slow-turning silver rings that hung at impossible heights, rotating with mechanical patience.

Leon began walking.

He chose no particular direction at first. The Ashen Fog spread outward in a wide net, mapping heat signatures, energy flows, and the faint residual trails of previous movement. Most of the trails were clean and geometric—patrol routes rather than the organic wanderings of living scouts. This floor did not rely on flesh-and-blood guardians in the same way the lower layers had.

After nearly twenty minutes of steady travel, the first response arrived.

A low platform ahead of him lit up along its edges. Panels slid aside with a soft hydraulic hiss, and six constructs rose from recessed bays. They were humanoid only in the broadest sense—tall frames of interlocking black plates, limb joints glowing with the same silver circuitry as the spires, heads featureless except for a single horizontal sensor band. Each carried a long-barreled weapon that hummed with contained energy.

They locked onto him the moment they fully emerged.

Leon did not break stride.

The constructs opened fire in perfect unison. Silver lances of compressed energy cut through the air toward his position. He let the Aura of the End-Game thicken. The beams entered the domain and lost coherence, unraveling into harmless motes of fading light before they could reach him. The constructs adjusted immediately, spreading into a wider firing pattern and switching to rapid pulse fire.

Leon closed the distance.

He moved through the storm of silver light without haste, each step measured. When he reached the first construct, the Abyssal Stinger slid between two chest plates with surgical precision. Necrotic Injection flooded the internal systems. The construct locked mid-motion, its sensor band flickering, then collapsed into a heap of inert metal and dissipating silver light. The remaining five tried to create distance, still firing. Leon did not allow it. He flowed from one to the next, the domain suppressing their targeting solutions while the dagger found every critical junction.

In less than a minute the platform was quiet again. Six broken frames lay scattered across the dark metal, their internal lights already dead.

Leon crouched beside the nearest wreckage and examined the internal structure. The technology was cleaner than anything the Concord had fielded on Floor 8—more refined, more standardized. These were not unique guardians. They were mass-produced enforcement units, designed for a floor that valued precision over individual power.

He stood and continued on.

The deeper he moved into the Iron Circuit, the more active the environment became. Platforms that had been dormant now tracked his passage. Circuits in the ground brightened as he approached and dimmed after he passed. High above, one of the silver rings shifted its angle by a fraction of a degree, as though recalibrating.

A second response came with greater force.

This time the constructs did not rise from a single platform. They emerged from multiple points at once—twelve units forming a wide perimeter, supported by two larger frames that floated a meter above the ground on silent anti-gravity fields. The larger units carried heavier weapon arrays and projected overlapping barrier fields of silver light.

Leon stopped and let them complete their formation.

He opened his status briefly.

[STATUS MENU]

Name: Leon Graves

Class: Sovereign of Finality: Apocalypse Monarch (Rank: SSS)

Level: 48

Health: 17,940 / 17,940

Mana: 11,260 / 11,260

[ATTRIBUTES]

Strength: 705

Agility: 498

Constitution: 716

Mana: 612

Perception: 139

Still comfortable. The gains from the Buried Sovereign remained fully integrated. He closed the panel.

The floating units fired first. Heavy beams of concentrated silver energy lanced toward him, far denser than the previous volley. Leon answered with a controlled Calamity Tide. The violet wave met the beams head-on, devouring their structure and continuing forward to wash across the nearest barrier fields. The barriers held for less than a second before cracking and dissolving into gray static.

The constructs advanced, trying to close into melee range while the floating units repositioned for another volley.

Leon met them in the center of their formation.

This fight was noisier than the first. Metal rang against the Abyssal Stinger. Barrier projectors flared and died under the constant pressure of the domain. One of the larger floating units attempted to lock him in a spatial suppression field; the Void Monarch Set and the nature of Finality simply ignored it. Leon leapt upward, drove the dagger through the unit’s primary sensor cluster, and used the falling frame as a platform to launch himself toward the second floating unit. Finality Eclipse ended that one cleanly.

On the ground the remaining constructs tried to adapt, switching from ranged fire to coordinated blade work. Their weapons shifted configuration mid-combat, barrels folding back to reveal vibrating energy edges. Leon moved between them with economy, never staying in one place long enough for a coordinated strike to land. Each time the domain weakened a joint or dulled an energy edge, the Stinger finished the work.

When the last construct fell, the plain was littered with broken frames and fading silver light.

Leon stood among the wreckage and listened.

The spires in the middle distance had changed their rhythm. The pulses running up their surfaces now moved faster, more urgently. High above, two of the silver rings had adjusted their rotation to keep him centered in their alignment.

The floor’s local authority was no longer sending standard enforcement units.

Something heavier was being prepared.

Leon looked toward the nearest cluster of spires. Between them, a much larger platform was beginning to rise from the metal plain, sections of the ground folding back with slow mechanical precision. Lights along its edges ignited in sequence, forming a complex geometric pattern that hurt to look at directly.

He started walking toward it.

The Aura of the End-Game trailed behind him like a dark wake across the perfect metal surface. Whatever the Iron Circuit intended to field next, it would find him already moving to meet it.

The Obsidian Firmament’s ninth layer had begun its challenge in earnest.

And Leon Graves intended to answer it the only way he knew.

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