The drop-pod slammed into the jagged, volcanic rock of the Yellowstone basin with the force of a meteor. Before the dust could even settle, the explosive bolts blew the heavy steel doors outward. Marcus charged down the ramp, his massive golden shield expanded to the size of a blast wall, absorbing a barrage of flawless, white energy beams that instantly flash-froze the ground around them. "Contact!" Marcus roared, his boots grinding into the pumice. "We've got Static drones! Dozens of them!" Jack strode down the ramp, the cold Wyoming wind whipping at his tailored suit. Beneath the wool, the Valkyrie-Apex armor hummed, syncing perfectly with his Origin Blood. Ahead of them, the bubbling, sulfurous geysers of Yellowstone had been completely neutralized. The entire landscape—the trees, the rocks, the boiling mud—was frozen in perfect, geometric white crystal. It was a terrifying, silent wasteland of absolute order. Guarding the entrance to a massive, unnatural caver
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