The twelve-day countdown had been a comfort. It was a mathematical cage Andy had built to keep his own desperation in check—a sequence of events he could predict, measure, and exploit. But the "Final Siphon" decree had shattered the timeline. The System wasn't just accelerating Amito; it was cannibalizing the foundation to do it. The Hub was no longer a stable environment; it was a starving beast eating its own limbs to keep its head in the clouds.

  Andy stood deep within the primary pressure-vessel of Sector 9. The heat here was no longer a physical sensation; it was a hungry, living thing that clawed at his skin, trying to find a way into his pores. In his hand, he held the iron Schema plate. It was vibrating so violently that his fingers were beginning to bleed, the microscopic runes on the metal grinding against his callouses like diamond-dust.

  The "Anvil-Born" class-seed was supposed to root during the Integration Event. That was the 17th-floor way. In the previous life, specialists waited for a controlled environment, surrounded by high-level stabilizers and the presence of a Guardian-aura to mitigate the soul-shock. That was the safe way. That was the way of a man who had time.

  "No more safety," Andy rasped, his voice sounding like two grinding stones at the bottom of a well.

  He stepped toward the heart of the pressure-vessel—a massive, thrumming intake valve that regulated the flow of raw mana from the Hub’s core. He didn't wait for a prompt. He didn't look for a "Accept Class?" button. He slammed the Schema plate into the valve’s housing, using his broken arm to brace the impact.

  The goal was industrial sabotage against his own biology. He was forcing the Ember-Core in his marrow to interface directly with the Hub’s primary mana-stream before his body was ready to act as a conduit.

  The intake valve buckled under the weight of the Primordial Iron. Raw, unrefined mana—green, toxic, and screaming with the pressure of a thousand atmospheres—erupted from the breach. It hit Andy’s chest like a physical spear, pinning him against the vibrating basalt wall.

  In an instant, his world turned to white fire. This was the rooting. The class-seed didn't just sprout; it detonated inside his nervous system, a violent awakening that bypassed the System’s gentle interface. He felt the roots of the Anvil-Born path wrap around his ribs, fusing with his bone. It wasn't a "reward" or a "blessing." It was a reconstruction. His skeleton was being reinforced with the Primordial Iron of the Schema, his marrow replaced by the liquid heat of the furnace. It felt like being poured into a mold while still alive, his very DNA being hammered into a new shape.

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  Andy ignored the phantom warnings flickering at the edge of his vision. He gripped the jagged edges of the broken valve, his hands glowing a dull, lethal red as his new class began to draw from the leak. He was forcing the mana to flow *through* him, using his body as a temporary bridge to stabilize the pressure for the laborers in the tunnels above. He was the heat-sink. He was the anvil upon which the System’s greed was being struck.

  But then, the math failed.

  In the first life, the intake valves of this sector were made of reinforced basalt and lead-glass. He had accounted for the structural integrity of stone. He had calculated his grip strength based on the friction of minerals. But this Hub, in this timeline, had been "optimized" to support an S-Rank. The valves weren't stone; they were made of a high-tensile brass alloy—a material more conductive, more brittle, and entirely absent from his 17th-floor memories of this level.

  Under the sudden, explosive pressure of his Anvil-Born strength, the brass didn't just bend. It shattered into a thousand razor-sharp fragments.

  Andy’s foreknowledge told him the valve would hold for ten seconds. It lasted three.

  A jagged shard of brass, propelled by the mana-pressure of a failing god, sliced through the air. Andy moved to parry it—his mind was perfect, his instincts were legendary—but his Level 8 body was still a half-second behind his intent. The shard tore through his shoulder, missing his jugular by a fraction of an inch, and embedded itself deep into the stone wall behind him with a metallic *thwack*.

  Blood—dark, thick, and steaming with the heat of the Ember-Core—sprayed across the pipes.

  Andy gasped, his knees buckling as the shock of the wound hit his nervous system. He hadn't accounted for the change in materials. He hadn't accounted for the System's subtle, adaptive rewrite of the Hub's physics to accommodate Amito. For the first time since the clearing, he felt a cold spike of genuine, human fear. He wasn't a god playing a game. He was a man with a head full of memories that were becoming increasingly unreliable.

  He looked at the wound. It was deep, the edges already beginning to cauterize from the unnatural heat of his own blood. He was adjusting. He was failing. He was bleeding.

  "Calculate," he hissed through clenched teeth, forcing his trembling legs to lock. "New variable. Structural integrity reduced by 15%. Material conductivity: Brass. Compensate. Now."

  He jammed his hand back into the screaming mana-stream, the pain nearly causing his heart to stop. He didn't care. He forced the Anvil-Born roots to anchor into the new alloy, fusing his flesh to the brass through sheer, agonizing willpower. He forced the world to bend to his will, even as his own life-force pooled at his feet.

  The twelve days were gone. The rebellion had begun, not with a heroic speech, but with the sound of breaking brass and the scent of a specialist's burning blood. He was the Anvil-Born, and he was already starting to crack.