The armaments guys were very much not like the listening station guys, something that was obvious from the moment that Matt and Lucy found the building. The first big clue was that the armament guys, as noble badasses, had built their station into the face of a cliff.

　　The building that housed the armaments development of Gaia was unmissable, and in fact, the only way Matt had managed to miss it in the past was because he had never seen the opposite face of the mountain he had found Lucy on. It was big, it was Nullsteel-shiny, and it would have been visible for miles had Matt approached the mountain from a different direction.

　　That was just the structure of the building, though. The real tell that Matt was now dealing with a different kind of Gaian was the decorations.

　　Where the listening station could have been mistaken for a generic bunker, there was no mistaking what the armaments building was. Eternally engraved into the entire front of the building was a complete and total commitment to letting people know that this was a dangerous building filled with dangerous guys designing very, very dangerous weapons. The only thing was that the Gaians filtered this violence through their completely agricultural minds and represented the danger by the most badass farming implement they could imagine.

　　Scythes. Big scythes, small scythes, and even conceptually counterproductive spiked and serrated scythes were arranged on every square inch of the structure`s real estate. Was it imposing? Yes. Did it also look a little bit like the outside of a strip club aimed at grim reapers? Also yes.

　　And where the other building had a single, nondescript door, this building had double doors. Big ones. With pull-rings.

　　"Matt, is it just me or is this building way radder than the last?"

　　"I think I`m supposed to be the voice of reason here and say that it`s about what goes on in the building. But& yeah, far radder. Hopefully, the contents of the building follow suit."

　　After he was scanned, the doors` lock clicked and he dragged them open, entering the dark within. And it was dark, darker than it should have been with light streaming through the door. Matt wasn`t sure that enforced darkness was really a thing, but it was either that or his eyes playing tricks on him. Either way, it became moot when the doors closed behind him all on their own.

　　"Matt&"

　　"I saw." Matt got the Nullsteel shovel ready for any errant security systems that might come calling. If there were any Gaian battle-robots, this was where it made sense for them to be. He didn`t particularly feel like finding that out the hard way.

　　Suddenly, a stream of light came down on a display case full of scythes, hoes, and general farming equipment. This display was followed almost immediately by a voice from nowhere, booming out deep and strong from somewhere in the shadows.

　　"Our first attempts at eradicating the Scourge were conventional, sometimes as low-tech as simply grabbing it and pulling it from the ground. These conventional methods worked, and still do, with one exception. The Scourge simply thrived and grew too fast to eradicate it this way. Our efforts at removal would leave seeds which would regrow while new fields and biomes were infected."

　　Another light clicked on, just past the first, this time highlighting chemical application equipment and various bottles, jars, and cans of evil-looking chemicals.

　　"We moved almost immediately to targeted herbicides, then broad-spectrum herbicides, then finally to chemicals that stretched the limits of the herbicide definition itself. The later chemicals sterilized the soil so thoroughly that we didn`t even know if it would ever heal, although we hoped we could repair it after the Scourge was eradicated.

　　"None of them worked. All of them did for a time, and all of them still do to some extent. But the Scourge adapted until no amount of herbicides would stop it. They seem to make it uncomfortable in high enough concentrations. That`s all."

　　Next up was a backpack made of tank canisters attached to a long, evil-looking spout.

　　"Fire worked for the longest of any of our solutions. It killed the plants. It killed the seeds. But eventually, the Scourge adapted even to the raw ravages of naked flame, surviving through higher and higher heats and thriving more and more in soil fertilized by its own ash."

　　A whole line of displays lit up, each containing objects more complex and bizarre than the last. Most had functions Matt could only guess at.

　　"We tried everything, on every version of the Scourge. But make no mistake. As promising as each of these items may have seemed at the time, what you see before you is a history of our failure. Even at the last, we worked on new solutions, even when opening our doors would mean instant death for us. If you looked far enough into this facility, you would find proof of that."

　　Matt shivered, already knowing what that meant.

　　"We urge you not to look, reincarnator. Instead, if you are hearing this message, then you are the first to unseal these doors, and to find secrets the Scourge never adapted to. We present them to you now."This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

　　Another display lit up, holding what looked to Matt to be a sort of whole-body wetsuit.

　　"Neither the Scourge nor the system can see through Nullsteel, at least to the extent we`ve been able to test either. This suit represents one half of our most advanced manipulation of Nullsteel and is composed of threads made of materials similar, if not quite the same, as Nullsteel itself. They do not allow mana to pass through. We have theorized that mana might still be pulled through, as the Scourge does when it gathers mana from living things.

　　"But wearing this suit, you will not be known to the Scourge until you make yourself known to it. It will have trouble sensing you, and difficulty attacking you with its mana siphon. It is your best and only defense against it. Be forewarned that this is not armor, in the conventional sense. It will not stop a blade. It will not block a club. But it is your best and only protection for the fight that faces you.

　　"As we draw our last breaths, it remains true that the Scourge is vulnerable only at its roots. We pray this suit and whatever powers you possess will allow you to approach them."

　　The voice paused for a moment, then chuckled.

　　"You will also find you cannot breathe through the suit. We have found a high enough vitality score counters this disadvantage somewhat, although it isn`t exactly pleasant."

　　Next to it, a new light clicked on to show not a display, but instead what looked like a piece of industrial machinery.

　　"Once Nullsteel is poured, it cannot be changed. Only devastating force can deform it, and in all such cases we have managed to produce enough force to do so, it has shattered the metal in the process. Nothing exists that is hard enough to grind it. Nothing, that is, except this.

　　"If we lived on, this would have been the next phase of nullsteel, one that introduced an even harder, even less permeable metal. As it stands, we produced a few grams of it. It wasn`t enough to make anything meaningful from. But there is just enough of it, we think, to put an edge on nullsteel. Nullsteel cannot be cast finely enough to create an edge sharper than one might see on a farming implement. This machine will create an edge just slightly less sharp than a razor, one that will never chip and will never dull.

　　"It will work only once before the material is consumed. But our suspicion is that if you need to cut something, the item you sharpen with this machine will cut it. We cannot offer you such an item. What Nullsteel weaponry we possessed has been lost in the defense of this place. But we offer this machine, and gladly."

　　Matt looked at his shovel, which he still held in his hand as he walked around the space. It was already an excellent club, and even though it was dull, the sheer durability and hardness of the thing made it a somewhat passable axe. He couldn`t imagine how sharp Nullsteel would work, but he was eager to find out. He walked towards the machine.

　　"One last note, reincarnator, a rare thing we know that the listeners don`t. Since our communications were cut off, and our last messenger left, we managed one attack and one attack only on a taproot. We sacrificed dozens of men and burnt our stock of munitions like kindling to make it happen, but we did it. We destroyed a taproot. It didn`t take down the Scourge, which we expected. What we did not expect was what happened next."

　　"Sounds like bad news, Matt."

　　"Yup. Shh. I`m listening to the man."

　　"It exploded. Whatever adaptations the Scourge has made, it has not prioritized stability after death among them. To the extent we have guesses about why, we believe that the Scourge spends mana to contain the excess mana it absorbs. When a taproot is destroyed, that power in the root is released all at once.

　　"I wish I could tell you we had worked out a solution for this, a way you could kill it without risking yourself. We did not. Make your choices accordingly. Good luck. Fight the Scourge."

　　And then the voice was gone.

　　"Well, that`s not good news."

　　"No, it`s not. Sounds like the bad guy has a self-destruct button, or a dead man`s switch."

　　"How do we get around that, Matt?"

　　Matt shook his head slowly. "I don`t know. Maybe we can think of something. We always have before."

　　Lucy didn`t say anything. They were committed now. They could still run, but it was becoming clearer to both of them that they didn`t want to. For better or worse, mostly worse, Gaia had become home. A few days of conversations from beyond the grave with heroes of Gaia that had sacrificed themselves for the planet had only deepened that feeling.

　　Matt walked to the display, running his fingers over the suit. It was light, and stiffer than most fabrics, but it felt at least somewhat durable and, and was loose enough around the torso he suspected he could slip it over his clothes and even his pack as well.

　　He walked over to the grinding machine, which was easy enough to operate. He flipped its sole switch, and two pillars within the machine started spinning, rotating two small pieces of darker stones at mind-bending speeds. He took his shovel, carefully lined it up, and drew the side back through the two stones towards himself. The machine sparked and made an ungodly sound as the fragments of Nullsteel ground against its stones, followed by a louder bang as the stones themselves broke apart.

　　Matt brought the shovel up to his eyeline. Near the point, it was still dull. But as the point curved away to one of the nearly straight sides, the dullness stopped on a sharp dividing line, dropping away to a hair-thin, truly sharp blade. He ran his finger across it, and it ignored his high Vitality to immediately slice his skin.

　　"Well, that was stupid."

　　"Yes, it was. At least you have your healing skill to patch up the wounds of dumbness, though."