The giant blurred forward—no sprint, just less respect for distance. He ate two grenades along the hammer's faces; the runes buckled, then drank the blasts like salt.
Carl Gustaf. Inigo shouldered, slapped HEAT, scored a quick punch rune with his nail, and fired. The jet bit where chest met arm and pulled metal inward with a wet hiss. The Lord looked down at the wound with the clinical interest of a man finding a tear in a beloved coat, then chose necessity.
He raised the hammer high.
Inigo bled a thumb along the next thirty GAU-8 rounds—steady heavy—and held the trigger down. Thirty-millimeter punishment met descending certainty. The runes drank, bled off, drank more. The blow fell anyway.
It wasn't a ring. It was a drop, a sheet of weight that made stone sag and air obey. Inigo's joints popped like an abacus. He hit one knee, kept the muzzle up by habit and spite, and rode the quiver until sight returned in a narrowed tunnel.
