The final chamber before the serpent's head was not a server hub or a military corridor. It was a cathedral of cold, white marble and stark, black steel. A vast, circular hall, eerily silent, its ceiling lost in the shadows high above. At its center, a single, reinforced blast door, presumably leading to Adler's throne room, stood like a silent, final judgment. There were no guards. No turrets. The room felt like a stage, waiting for its actors.
"This is a trap," Jack's voice whispered in their ears, a line of cold, obvious fact. "My scans show a single, massive energy signature, but it's... dormant. She's waiting for us."
"Then we will not keep her waiting," Lin Feng commanded. "Vanguard, diamond formation. Advance."
They moved into the center of the vast, white room, a tight, bristling formation of black armor, their weapons hot, their senses screaming. The silence was absolute, a pressure against their eardrums.
She dropped from the ceiling.
There was no sound, no warning. One moment, the space above them was empty. The next, she was there, landing in a perfect, silent crouch, the marble floor not even cracking under the impact.
It was Anna. But it was not.
Her body was encased in a sleek, form-fitting suit of what looked like liquid black metal, interwoven with pulsing, crimson bio-luminescent lines. Her face was a pale, beautiful, and utterly empty mask of humanity, her eyes glowing with the same cold, red light as the Titan's. Two long, wicked vibro-blades, humming with a barely audible, high-frequency energy, extended from her forearms. And there, against the cold, black metal of her chest plate, lay the small, silver edelweiss locket, a single, fragile tear of a memory on a canvas of perfect, engineered death. Codename: Nemesis.
"Engage," Lin Feng's voice was a shard of ice.
The Vanguard team exploded into action, their teamwork a flawless, deadly symphony. But they were playing their symphony for a god of war.
Blaze unleashed a focused, searing lance of plasma. Nemesis did not dodge. A shimmering, hexagonal energy shield materialized around her, absorbing the blast with a soft hiss, the energy causing the crimson lines on her suit to glow a fraction brighter.
Frost sent a wave of razor-sharp ice shards at her flank. She did not turn. She simply let out a high-frequency sonic pulse that shattered the incoming ice into a shower of harmless, glittering dust.
Bastion and Bao charged, a two-headed battering ram of stone and kinetic force. Nemesis met them with a blur of impossible speed. She moved between them, a ghost of black metal, her vibro-blades striking not their armor, but the floor. The targeted vibration sent a spiderweb of cracks through the marble, and a localized seismic shock threw both of the powerhouse soldiers off their feet.
She was not just fighting them. She was dismantling them, her every move a perfect, calculated counter to their specific powers, her combat AI processing and predicting their attacks before they had even fully formed.
In five seconds, the perfect weapon of the Vanguard was a scattered, broken collection of individuals.
Lin Feng moved.
He met her charge, his own movements a blur of violet light. It was no longer a battle; it was a duel. A clash of two A-Class titans in the heart of the enemy's fortress. The chamber became a storm of screeching metal, crackling lightning, and the concussive blasts of their near-misses.
But Lin Feng was not fighting to win. He was fighting to survive.
Every time he had a clean shot, a chance to land a decisive, killing blow, he saw not the monster, but the face of Sophia Cohen, her eyes filled with desperate, pleading hope. He saw the silver locket. And he faltered. His lightning bolts were aimed at her limbs, his strikes designed to disable, to disarm.
Anna had no such hesitation.
Every one of her attacks was a kill-shot. Her vibro-blades sought the gaps in his armor, the weak points at his neck and joints. She was not a person. She was a termination protocol.
He was a warrior, holding back his killing intent, fighting a machine that had none. He was blocking, dodging, parrying, his symbiotic armor screaming with a dozen damage alerts. It was a battle he could not win. A dangerous, deadly stalemate where a single mistake would be his last. And the machine before him did not make mistakes.