“The War-God System has been activated.”

  That same flat, emotionless voice echoed through Cora’s mind—as if it belonged to a machine that had never learned what excitement was.

  In the next instant, a golden hall unfolded inside her consciousness.

  It wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t imagination. It was too crisp, too structured—like stepping into a place that had been waiting for her all along.

  A massive plaque hung high above the entrance, solemn and imposing. Two blocky square characters were carved into it:

  WAR-GOD.

  The script wasn’t common modern text. It was an archaic language—one of many used across the Pandora Reach, and one still widely taught on Nina Station. Cora had inherited the original girl’s memories along with her body, so the meaning came to her naturally.

  The hall itself was grand, but strangely bare. No tables. No chairs. No décor. Just an empty, echoing space designed to feel like a temple.

  At the front stood nine stone monoliths in a neat row. Characters in different colors drifted across each slab as if written in light.

  Cora walked from left to right, reading the headings:

  Progress

  Missions

  Resources

  Stats

  Combat Rating

  Tech

  Exchange

  Storage

  Energy

  Beneath each heading were smaller lines of text. She returned to the first monolith and read carefully.

  System Progress: Entry Tier.

  This is the lowest stage. Available resources are extremely limited. Please work toward unlocking the next tier.

  That was all.

  Cora’s excitement cooled into disappointment. The War-God System felt impossibly mysterious, but if she was still stuck at an “Entry Tier,” it might not be able to help her with what she needed—at least not yet.

  She moved to the second monolith.

  Only one mission appeared:

  Repair the heavily damaged mech Wildfire and restore it to Tier One combat capability.

  Completion: 0/100

  Note: Devouring mechs can accelerate Wildfire’s repair.

  Wildfire… was still here?

  Her breath caught.

  That crimson machine wasn’t just equipment. In her previous life, it had been a decade-long companion—her shadow, her shield, her blade. The bond between pilot and mech had been so tight it went beyond ownership. It was instinct, like water to fish. They belonged together.

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  Cora spun, scanning the empty golden hall in a sudden panic, searching for that perfect, streamlined frame—searching for that unmistakable red.

  Nothing.

  No towering silhouette.

  No blaze of armor.

  She forced herself to breathe and looked to the next monolith.

  Embedded in the stone was a tiny, exquisitely crafted miniature mech—crimson and sleek, like a model meant for display.

  A label floated beside it:

  Damaged mech: Wildfire.

  Cora’s chest tightened. She didn’t know how to get it out—whether she should touch it, lift it, break the stone if she had to.

  Then four faint characters shimmered into view:

  Claim item?

  “Claim,” Cora said, steadying her voice.

  The surface of the monolith rippled like water. The miniature mech slid free, falling forward—

  And as it fell, it grew.

  It expanded smoothly, frame unfolding into full scale, until a thirty-meter war machine dropped onto the stone floor in front of her with a heavy, thunderous impact.

  The ground shuddered.

  Wildfire was… a wreck.

  Its red plating was scabbed with pale scars and blackened burns. Entire weapon mounts had been torn away, leaving exposed sockets and jagged edges where systems used to be. It looked battered and humiliated, like something dragged out of a grave.

  So this was the damage from taking that ion pulse head-on.

  “Wildfire,” Cora whispered.

  She reached out and touched the mech’s ankle plating, fingertips brushing over the ruined surface.

  She’d thought it was gone forever.

  Seeing it again—no matter how broken—hit her like being given back a piece of her own body.

  She swallowed hard and turned to the next monolith.

  Under Stats, neat lines appeared:

  Physical Strength: 37

  Agility: 42

  Mental Force: 70

  Mech Sync Rate: 60%

  Reaction: Extremely High

  Potential: Poor

  Cora frowned.

  The mental score surprised her. Seventy wasn’t legendary, but it was solid—well above the minimum required to pilot a mech at all. In the Reach, anything above sixty meant you were qualified. Anything significantly higher marked you as talent.

  Mech piloting wasn’t for everyone. You needed both: the mind to command the machine and the body to withstand it.

  An old academic from a famous encyclopedia series had once put it simply: a mech was a second body. You moved it the same way you moved your own limbs—by issuing orders through your mind. If your mental force was too low, the mech became sluggish, unresponsive—like trying to move a body that didn’t belong to you.

  But mind wasn’t enough.

  If your body couldn’t keep up—if your reflexes, endurance, and raw strength were weak—then even with a strong link, your control would be sloppy, your movements imprecise, your strikes lacking force.

  Cora’s mental force was decent.

  Her body, however, was terrible. Untrained. Underpowered. A twelve-year-old girl who’d been sick in bed half her life.

  She pushed the thought aside and moved on.

  The Combat Rating monolith displayed only four brutal words:

  Pathetically weak.

  Cora nearly choked.

  Pathetically weak? With mental force at seventy?

  Across species, across regions—seventy was considered gifted. Enough to buy status in the right circles. And yet the system dismissed her with a single insult.

  She glanced toward the remaining monoliths. Tech, Exchange, Storage, Energy—each one was dark and blank, locked behind the Entry Tier.

  Great. A divine system and she’d unlocked the tutorial.

  Cora returned to Wildfire, tilting her head back to take in the mech’s towering bulk. She reached for a control stud near the ankle. A panel opened.

  She stepped inside.

  The access tunnel lifted her quickly upward, and she emerged into the central cockpit—the familiar cradle where she’d once lived for years.

  She ran a full check by instinct, hands moving over panels and interfaces.

  Relief unfurled through her.

  Wildfire’s armor was in ruins, but the core systems were intact. The control framework still responded. Most importantly, the primary weapons architecture hadn’t been completely destroyed.

  She exhaled—then frowned.

  If Wildfire was mostly functional, why did the mission call it “heavily damaged”? Unless…

  Unless Wildfire had never been operating at its true baseline.

  Unless this mech—this terrifying, beautiful beast—still hadn’t even recovered to Tier One.

  The thought made Cora’s pulse spike.

  In her previous life, Wildfire had gone toe-to-toe with Tier Three Alliance mechs and held its ground.

  If it was still below Tier One the entire time…

  Then what would it become at Tier Five?

  The answer was almost too big to hold in her mind.

  Cora’s lips parted into a slow, exhilarated smile.

  Her pirate instincts—hardwired, greedy, fearless—woke up like a beast hearing the rattle of prey.

  Whatever her adoptive father had found on that abandoned world back then, it hadn’t been luck.

  It had been a gift dropped from the heavens.

  A mech that shouldn’t exist.

  And a system that didn’t belong to any human government.

  It hit her all at once: in this second life, she hadn’t just been spared.

  She’d been armed.