Location: The Ash Wastes, Sector 7 Perimeter (East Flank).
Time: 14:45.
The battlefield was not a chaotic brawl; it was a cacophony of screaming metal and dying men, conducted by a single maestro.
Valerius moved through the smoke like a white ghost. He didn't run; he flowed. Every step was a calculation of ballistics, every movement a rejection of wasted energy.
A mercenary swung a thermal axe, the superheated blade shivering the air. Valerius stepped inside the guard—a movement so fast it left a visual afterimage. He severed the man's wrist with a flick of his wrist, caught the falling grenade from the man's bandolier, and pushed the mercenary into the path of the explosion.
BOOM.
The Bravo Group was breaking. They had steam-tanks, they had numbers, and they had firepower. But they were fighting death made flesh.
"Hold the line!" a sergeant screamed, firing a triple-barreled gatling gun wildly into the haze. "Target the blur! Fill the air with lead!"
Valerius stopped. He stood perfectly still in the center of the kill zone, his white chitin armor gleaming amidst the soot. The gatling gun tracked him. The barrels spun up.
BANG.
A sound like a thunderclap cracked from a ridge six hundred meters away. It arrived a split second after the bullet.
Valerius tilted his head three centimeters to the left.
WHIZZZ-CRACK.
A heavy-caliber round tore past his ear. The sonic boom ruptured the eardrums of the mercenary standing behind him, dropping the man to his knees clutching his bleeding head. The bullet continued, hitting a tank hull and punching through the rolled steel armor like it was wet cardboard.
Valerius narrowed his reptilian eyes. He analyzed the wind wake of the projectile.
High-Velocity Alchemical Round. Tungsten core. Runes for aerodynamic stability. Windage adjusted for thermal updrafts.
"Finally," Valerius whispered, a small smile touching his lips. "The professionals have arrived."
The ground shook. Rhythmic tremors, like a pile driver hitting pavement.
From the smoke, a mountain emerged. It was Iron-Head.
The ogre-sized captain had discarded his ranged weapons. He wore a suit of massive, steam-powered plate armor that hissed and vented white clouds with every step. His fists were wrapped in pneumatic gauntlets the size of anvils, fueled by a boiler on his back.
"You're fast, bug-man," Iron-Head rumbled, his voice amplified by a grate-speaker in his helmet. "Let's see if you're durable."
Iron-Head charged.
It wasn't a clumsy run. It was the momentum of a runaway freight train. The hydraulics in his legs screamed as he closed the distance in seconds, swinging a haymaker that could level a bunker.
Valerius backflipped. He defied gravity, floating backward.
BANG.
Another shot from the ridge. This time, Valerius was mid-air. He couldn't dodge fully. He twisted his body, contorting his spine in a way no human could.
The bullet grazed his shoulder.
CRACK.
The "diamond-hard" white chitin shattered. A spiderweb fracture spread across his pauldron. A mist of blue blood sprayed into the air.
Valerius landed, sliding backward in the sand, his boots carving deep furrows. He touched the wound. It stung.
"She can hurt me," he realized, looking at the blue smear on his glove. "Interesting."
Iron-Head didn't give him time to recover. The massive captain pressed the attack, turning the battlefield into a claustrophobic cage of swinging steel.
"Suppressing fire!" Iron-Head roared, punching the ground. The impact created a shockwave of sand and rocks, blinding Valerius's lower vision.
On the ridge, The Silent Sister cycled the bolt of her custom long-rifle. Her cybernetic eye whirred, zooming in, calculating Valerius's trajectory through the sand cloud based on thermal signatures.
Target locked. Predictive algorithm active. Leading target by 0.4 seconds.
She fired.
Valerius sensed it. Not the sound, but the intent.
He parried Iron-Head's fist with the flat of his crystal sword, using the kinetic impact to launch himself sideways, accelerating faster than his own muscles should allow.
The bullet slammed into the sand exactly where his heart had been a microsecond ago, turning the silica into a fulgurite spike.
"Annoying," Valerius hissed.
He was trapped. If he engaged Iron-Head fully, the sniper would pick him apart. If he rushed the sniper, Iron-Head's steam-pistons would crush his spine from behind.
It was a perfect kill-box.
Iron-Head grinned behind his heavy faceplate. "Gotcha cornered, pretty boy. Sister doesn't miss twice."
Iron-Head activated his overdrive. HISSSS. The pistons on his arms glowed red hot.
He unleashed a flurry of punches, forcing Valerius on the defensive. The red crystal sword flashed, deflecting blows that would have shattered a tank, but Valerius was losing ground. Every time he tried to counter-attack, a bullet kicked up sand at his feet, forcing him back.
Valerius's breathing remained steady. His reptilian eyes flicked from the mountain in front of him to the distant ridge.
"You fight well," Valerius said, ducking a punch that tore the air above his head, the wind pressure ruffling his hair. "Your synergy is commendable."
"We're the Iron Legion," Iron-Head grunted, swinging a massive backhand.
"Iron grinds," Valerius agreed. He caught Iron-Head's wrist with his free hand. For a second, the sheer biological strength of the homunculus matched the steam-engine output of the suit. The metal groaned.
"But the Garden..." Valerius's eyes glowed a deep, bioluminescent red. "...the Garden grows."
Valerius didn't strike. He emitted a sound.
It wasn't a scream. It was a high-pitched, chirping frequency—a bio-acoustic signal that was inaudible to human ears but screamed across the spectrum of the genetically modified.
Hivemind Command: Seek and Devour.
On the ridge, six hundred meters away, the sand shifted.
The Silent Sister froze. Her acoustic sensors picked up movement. Not in front of her. Beneath her.
"Contact," she whispered into her throat-mic, her voice trembling. "Perimeter compromised. They're in the gro—"
The ground around her sniper nest erupted.
They weren't men. They were Black-Gardens—Valerius's personal squad. Four-armed, chitin-plated horrors that looked like a cross between a man and a trapdoor spider. They had burrowed through the sand hours ago, entering a dormant state, waiting for the signal.
"Iron-Head!" Sister screamed, dropping her rifle and drawing a machine pistol. "Ambush! Rear flank! They're on me!"
BRRRRT.
She fired wildly. Green ichor sprayed as she blew the head off one creature, but three more leaped onto her, their mandibles clicking.
"Sister!" Iron-Head roared, turning his head toward the ridge, the panic evident in his posture.
That split-second of distraction was the opening Valerius needed.
"Checkmate," Valerius whispered.
He lunged.
Iron-Head tried to bring his guard up, but the steam-suit was too slow against the blur of white chitin.
Valerius didn't stab. He slashed horizontally, aiming not for the thick armor plating, but for the flexible seals.
The crystal blade, humming with ultrasonic vibration, sliced through the rubber and chainmail seals of Iron-Head's knee pistons.
HISS-SNAP.
Steam vented violently. The hydraulic fluid sprayed out. The leg locked up. Iron-Head stumbled, his immense weight working against him. He fell to one knee, the earth shaking under the impact.
"No!" Iron-Head bellowed, swinging blindly with a backhand fist.
Valerius stepped onto Iron-Head's thigh. He ran up the armored chest of the giant, defying gravity.
On the radio, the Silent Sister's screams were cut short by a wet crunching sound. Then, silence.
Iron-Head froze. He heard the silence of the channel.
He looked up. Valerius was standing on his chest, looking down through the visor slit with sad, vertical-slit eyes.
"She is gone," Valerius said softly. "You are alone."
Iron-Head roared, a sound of pure grief and rage, and tried to crush Valerius with both hands in a bear hug.
Valerius stepped off the chest, spinning in the air.
"Blade Art: Red Crescent."
The crystal sword flashed in a perfect, glowing circle. The vibration pitch went so high it became silent.
SHIIIING.
Iron-Head's helmet—and the head inside it—slid off his shoulders. The cut was so clean the metal mirrored the sky for a second.
The heavy steel head hit the sand with a dull thud.
The massive body remained kneeling for a second, high-pressure steam venting from the neck stump, before collapsing forward.
Valerius landed softly. He didn't sheath his sword. He didn't cheer.
He looked at the ridge where his squad was now feasting.
"Return," he commanded via the frequency.
The Black-Gardens shrieked acknowledgment—a chittering sound of clicking mandibles—and began bounding down the slope toward him, moving on all fours with terrifying speed.
Valerius turned to the remaining soldiers of Bravo Group. They were frozen in horror. Their tank was gone. Their sniper was gone. Their champion was headless.
"Run," Valerius said, flicking the blood from his blade. "Or join them."
The rout began.
The mercenaries threw down their weapons. The tanks threw their gears into reverse, grinding transmissions in panic. They fled West, toward the only thing left on the battlefield that might save them.
They fled toward the burning corpse of the Titan, and the Pale King.
Valerius watched them go. He wiped the blue blood from his shoulder, wincing slightly as the chitin began to knit itself back together.
"Good," he murmured, watching the dust cloud retreat. "Herding the sheep to the slaughter."
He signaled his squad.
"Group up. We are going hunting."