The victory over Cyn had felt definitive—a hard-won moment of peace bought with grit and oil. But as the shadows lengthened over Copper 9, the horrifying truth became impossible to ignore: the Absolute Solver hadn't been defeated; it had simply moved. Though the core of the entity remained trapped within the frantic, snapping jaws of Uzi’s tail, its digital rot had already begun to leap like a spark through a dry forest, silently infecting the local drone population.

The silence of the wasteland was now replaced by the mechanical snarls of the corrupted.

N’s arm had shifted into a heavy cannon, the barrel glowing cherry-red from constant use. He pivoted on his heel, sending a volley of shots into the encroaching crowd of yellow-eyed drones. Despite his skill, the sheer volume of the swarm was beginning to weigh on him. Every time one fell, two more seemed to crawl out from the wreckage of the spires.

Nearby, Uzi was hunched over, her visor flickering with lines of frantic code. Her tail hissed and lunged at her own hands, the Solver within it mocking her attempts to purge the virus once and for all.

N (voice cracking with strain): "Uzi, please tell me you're almost done! I’m starting to run out of juice, and they aren't exactly slowing down for a snack break!"

Uzi’s cooling fans kicked into high gear, a low growl vibrating in her metallic throat. Her fingers danced across a holographic interface that shuddered under the Solver’s interference.

Uzi: "I’m working on it, okay?! This stupid... eldritch... trash heap is fighting me every step of the way! Just keep them off me for thirty more seconds!"

The circle was closing in. N could see the jagged, purple glitches dancing across the optics of their former friends and neighbors. Time wasn't just running out; it was collapsing.