Zarek left the basement vault with the key card in hand and the vault closed. He was strong, but he wasn't strong enough to haul all of that out himself.
There were two alloys that Fallen Steel worked well with. The first was any metal that hadn't been touched by Godsfall. This was the easiest alloy to form, but in the future, this became rarer and rarer as the Crimson Rain and the Blood Moon continued to saturate Earth with more and more Godsfall.
Finding normal metal at that point was nigh impossible.
In this first alloy form, though, the Fallen Steel would take on the properties of the weaker metals. Meaning, if your foundational metal was too weak, the Fallen Steel treasure in the end would also be pretty weak.
By the time you were stepping out of the C-Grade toward the B-Grade, Fallen Steel formed into Untouched Alloys would be useless because the benefits of the Godsfall negation wouldn't be able to keep up with the lack of durability of the common metal.
Then there was the second type… the God Alloys.
This was just a colloquial name, and it referred to alloys formed by Fallen Steel and metals that were touched by Godsfall.
However, it would take craftsmen many decades and experiments to learn how to do this, and often required high-level crafting Skills or mastery of Talents that hadn't appeared yet or wouldn't be reached for a long while.
It seemed that the Pensare had already begun to experiment with the Untouched Alloys and had a few prototypes already. Right now, though, they were actually focused on armors, which was unfortunate in Zarek's opinion.
An armor formed by Untouched Alloy would never be all that great. The tradeoffs weren't worth it.
Ranged, one-time-use weapons, though—such as bolts or bullets—were the best sort of use for them.
Such weapons had strong penetrative power, and speed was on their side, so the odds of durability becoming an acute issue were minimal. It was the same reason why syringe needles were so fragile, and yet could easily pierce through skin.
Still, at this point, armors of Untouched Alloys were still quite useful. This was probably a trump card the Pensare had prepared for the coming showdown.
But now it would be GFI's.
**
The next day, heavy truckloads commanded by GFI rolled into Pensare territory, not making much of an effort to hide themselves at all. On the top of one of these trucks, Zarek sat, crouched, his eyes scanning the region.
Did he think they would be attacked? Probably not. It was all happening too fast. But… you never knew.
These days, he had started to let Priya go off on her own a little bit more. Right now, she was on a mission with Zade and the others, clearing some Godsfall Tears a little bit beyond current GFI territory.
He had spent some time allowing her to grow her own independent thought about her progression, and now it was time that she started honing her own combat skills.
Plus… what he was doing right now was far more dangerous than what she was doing.
The thought that Priya was a prime target for some others was still on Zarek's mind, and he was well aware. However, all his life, he had taken calculated risks.
At this point, unless Jiade had sent his Angels to follow after him, there was likely no one in the city that could deal with Priya. But even if Jiade had… their target certainly wouldn't be Priya. At least not yet.
They'd be smart enough to know not to piss him off until the timing was just right.
And right now, Zarek had way too many cards to play.
As though to confirm Zarek's thoughts, he looked up to find a shadow standing high on a building above. It was hard to even see their silhouette with the sun blaring behind them like this, but a sneer still tugged at the corner of Zarek's lip.
Crux.
Even from down here, Zarek could feel the hot Godsfall coming off the man in waves. There was no doubt that it was him.
Zarek couldn't help but wonder why Crux had chosen to come here.
Truthfully, Zarek still wasn't 100% confident in taking on any one of the Angels right now. Their Talents were off the charts, but that wasn't the main issue. It was the fact they had their memories and knew how to use them too.
The Angels were all A-Class at worst, and Crux and Belladoll especially had powerful offensive Talents that could kill you before you knew what was happening.
The moment Zarek sensed Crux, his goosebumps bristled and his hair stood on end, but there was a fire in his eyes nonetheless that burned no less hot than Crux's aura.
Crux held up a hand then practically peeled away his middle finger from the rest of it, sticking it out so far it seemed to grow an extra knuckle length just to make sure Zarek saw it.
'Hm…' Zarek's eyes narrowed.
That action could only mean one thing. Something was about to happen, and likely something Crux and probably Belladoll had well-prepared for. But it also meant that it was just a probe, or else Crux would have acted first without revealing himself.
"Rifle," Zarek said.
The moment he spoke, someone on standby in the truck rumbling beneath him reached a gun out of the window.
Zarek pointed up and fired.
Crux scrambled, diving back long before Zarek finished aiming.
Not even looking to see the end result, Zarek was already training his eyes up ahead. The roads weren't exactly clear, but they weren't a problem either. With all of these off-road vehicles moving, the debris wasn't an issue, nor were the cracks and damaged roads.
But that… that might be a problem.
Zarek finally saw what Crux and Belladoll had probably prepared.
The one thing Zarek hadn't touched last night were the choke point defenses of the Pensare. He had no need to when he could wipe them out on his own.
Clearly, these defenses were no longer all that useful, as a flood of Turned began to rush down the roads.