Roger sliced open his palm, letting the blood well and scatter into the air as he stared impassively at the Titan horde.
He'd lost count of how many times he'd transformed—how many times he'd felt this pain. He was used to it. Used to this power.
Light burst over Roger's body, and the Titans seemed drawn to it, shambling toward him as if summoned.
Their faces twisted into warped expressions—some laughing, some weeping—and their gait was grotesque, human ugliness writ large.
Boom!
With a thundercrack, a golden shaft of light plunged from the sky and poured into Roger.
Half a heartbeat later, the flesh of the Jaw–Armored War Hammer Titan erupted and formed around him.
Roger felt the searing force close over him, sheathing his body and giving him overwhelming protection.
"Roar!"
With a bellow—and with all eyes upon him—Roger drove the Jaw–Armored War Hammer Titan forward.
As he sprinted, his hand closed on the air. White light flashed—an ashen gleam—and a blood-red scythe formed in his grip. He seized it and tightened his hold.
"It's Roger's Titan!"
"Th—!"
"Is he here to save us?!"
People gasped, fear finally ebbing.
As if pulled by a magnet, masses of Titans shuffled toward Roger, forgetting everyone else.
He stepped in and swung the scythe.
Shnk!
Steel flashed. Roger severed a Titan's head.
Head and body parted. The skull tumbled, thudding as it rolled.
Blood geysered from the neck.
Everyone watching felt a brutal heave in their gut.
Titans looked far too human—really just people enlarged.
Aside from lacking genitals and a digestive tract, there was scarcely any difference.
Thanks to the "uncanny valley," when they saw something so close to themselves injured, their nerves mirrored it.
A Titan's head lopped off felt like their own being cut.
The reek of blood and the blown-up scale of the scene were inescapable.
They could only watch through gritted teeth—or hide and refuse to look.
But even then, the smell hammered at them, and many gagged.
Almost all at once, stomachs flipped and lurched.
Roger, by contrast, didn't flinch.
He didn't care.
He was used to it.
Marley put every warrior candidate through "blood trials" far too young—season after season, they watched beheadings or firing-squad executions.
At the start, everyone puked—Roger worst of all.
Every time he saw it, every time he smelled that iron scent, something in him tore.
He remembered that afternoon sneaking out with his friends.
The dogs tearing flesh.
That helpless stare.
In those first executions, he nearly broke; his soul felt flayed.
Marley despised that response.
They didn't need born killers—but they wanted subordinates who could clamp down on themselves. Even if the gore turned their stomachs, they had to remain in control.
Roger's reactions disappointed them.
He went sleepless for weeks and became a joke to the other candidates.
They called him useless. Dead weight.
He'd never inherit a Titan, they said. Not him.
Roger knew all of this.
He understood his peers too well.
Marley's "education" burned compassion out of them. Except for Reiner, none spared a heart for the weak.
To them, it'd be best if Roger got culled.
But that wasn't the future Roger wanted.
He refused to be despised.
He refused to let Marley's cruelty peel away the good in their hearts, layer by layer.
He had almost no confidants left.
And he didn't dare have any more.
So he forced himself to change.
He strangled his fear of death, his revulsion at those memories.
He stopped losing sleep.
He learned to kill those officers in his dreams—one hundred times, ten thousand times.
"No one will stop me again. No one can stop me again."
Roger murmured, pupils burning blood-red.
He spat his hatred across the scythe like a headsman splashing strong liquor on his blade before the stroke.
Shnk-shnk-shnk-shnk-shnk!
The scythe spun like a wheel that harvested lives—one Titan after another after another fell.
"Roooar!!"
Whose roar was it—Roger's, or the Titans he was reaping?
No one knew.
Wall Maria had become a sea of blood.
Titans lunged at Roger, tearing at his flesh.
He'd had enough.
"Out of my way!!"
He drove the scythe's haft into the ground—and crystal lances erupted in a crash, spearing up from below, hoisting Titans skyward.
Bodies skewered clean through.
Dozens of Titans split and tore, their flesh exploding into a crimson downpour that drenched everyone below.
People scrambled for cover, watching in terror at the battle that beggared belief.
Rivulets of blood ran through the streets, merging into streams.
The crowd hid indoors, too scared to take another step.
Many Titans had already fallen to Roger.
Now he stood in the street within the Jaw–Armored War Hammer Titan and loosed a cry of triumph.
That roar jarred Zeke.
Sitting in the airship above, Zeke hadn't paid Roger much mind—until the front stopped moving at one point. Then he finally noticed the figure below.
"This is…"
He frowned, noting the distinctive build of Roger's transformed Titan from above.
Even from a top-down view, Roger's Titan was so unique it demanded attention.
"So that's a fusion of the Jaw, the Armored, and the War Hammer?" Zeke eyed the crystal ground-spikes Roger had produced. "I see. He's already mastered it. As expected of that kind of person… that kind of power really is stronger."
"In that case, we go all-out."
He glanced to the surrounding airships.
They dipped lower and dumped more of their "recipients."
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh!
Another wave fell from the sky.
The Titans were back.
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