The heavy industrial steel cable pulled taut with a sickening, audible snap.
It violently jerked Marcia's ribs, crushing the air from her lungs. The rusted wire rope dug deep into the thick wool of Marcus's soaked naval coat, pinning his arms completely against his sides.
They were tied together. They were tied to a dying monster.
The Leviathan thrashed violently in the pitch-black, boiling toxic water, its massive, armored tail churning the sludgy mud at the bottom of the reservoir into a blinding storm.
It was dragging the Emperor and the General straight down into the abyss.
Marcus was entirely out of air. His right leg was a bleeding, mangled mess. He couldn't move his arms to free the Warlord sword from the beast's skull. He couldn't fight.
He was drowning in acid.
Fifty feet above them, on the slick concrete walkway, Narcissus stood perfectly still.
The Iron Dog's massively dented, cherry-red armor was hissing violently, leaking hydraulic fluid onto the wet floor. The seals were broken. His internal systems were flashing red warnings.
But his right hand was locked around the other end of the fifty-foot steel cable.
The massive, twelve-foot Dreadnought felt the sudden, violent tension in the wire. He felt the immense, thrashing weight of the Leviathan pulling against his grip.
He didn't try to pull the cable hand over hand.
He didn't rely on the compromised hydraulic pistons in his arms.
He was Warlord iron. He relied on mass.
Narcissus took the thick steel cable and rapidly wrapped it twice entirely around his massive, battleship-steel torso, locking the wire directly against his heavy anchor-chain ribs.
He planted his hydraulic legs firmly onto the cracked concrete walkway.
He didn't pull.
He leaned backward.
With a deep, mechanical roar that shook the cavern walls, Narcissus began to simply walk backward away from the edge of the subterranean lake.
He didn't stop. He didn't hesitate. He became a two-ton walking iron winch.
His heavy, melted hydraulic boots dug deep gouges into the solid concrete, crushing the stone into powder beneath his sheer weight.
Down in the black water, the sudden, terrifying upward force hit the dying Leviathan.
The Warlord's Warlord math was absolute. The massive, mutated beast weighed perhaps a ton. The Dreadnought weighed over two.
The thrashing stopped instantly. The Leviathan's massive body was violently yanked upward, completely overwhelmed by the mechanical strength of the giant above.
Marcus felt the crushing pressure of the cable around his waist suddenly reverse direction.
He was violently hauled upward through the boiling, toxic black ink.
The ascent was brutally fast.
The water rushed past his ears. The agonizing burn of the chemicals intensified as he broke through the thickest part of the defoliant cloud.
He didn't see the surface approaching. He only felt it when he violently broke through it.
The massive, armored head of the dead Leviathan erupted from the black water first, the heavy steel Warlord sword still buried hilt-deep in its yellow eye.
A split second later, Marcus and Marcia broke the surface, tangled in the steel cable, gasping frantically for the cold, sterile air of the cavern.
Marcus coughed violently, vomiting a mouthful of thick, black sludge. His throat burned like he had swallowed hot coals.
"Pull!" Marcia screamed, her voice completely raw, her eyes squeezed tightly shut against the acid burn.
Narcissus didn't stop walking.
He hauled the dead Leviathan, the Emperor, and the General entirely out of the toxic lake.
The massive, gray-scaled beast hit the edge of the concrete walkway with a heavy, wet thud, sliding several feet before coming to a complete stop.
Marcus and Marcia were dragged onto the slick concrete beside the creature, groaning in absolute agony.
The steel cable went slack.
Marcus frantically pushed himself up onto his elbows. His skin was bright red, blistering and smoking faintly in the cold air. The concentrated terraforming chemicals were aggressively eating through his clothes and flesh.
He couldn't see clearly. His eyes were burning so badly he could barely keep them open.
"We're burning," Marcia gasped, clutching her chest, rolling onto her side on the wet concrete.
Lucilla didn't scream. She didn't hesitate.
The terrified girl who had nearly dropped the knife was completely gone. She had watched the Vanguard fight the Burner clones, and she had watched the General dive into acid.
She proved her worth.
While Marcus and Marcia were fighting the beast underwater, Lucilla hadn't just watched the screen. She had been slicing the bunker's environmental safety grid.
She sprinted to a massive, rusted red emergency button bolted to the concrete wall near the main terminal.
She slammed her fist into it.
Instantly, a dozen high-pressure decontamination showerheads recessed into the cavern ceiling directly above the walkway snapped open.
A massive, freezing torrent of pure, clean, chemically neutral water blasted downward.
It hit Marcus and Marcia with the force of a firehose.
The relief was instantaneous, blinding, and absolute.
The clean water violently washed the thick, toxic black sludge off their faces, out of their eyes, and off their blistering skin. It diluted the chemical defoliant in seconds, stopping the burn.
Marcus lay flat on his back on the concrete, letting the freezing, clean water pound against his face. He breathed heavily, his chest heaving. The agony in his skin slowly subsided into a dull, throbbing ache.
He slowly opened his eyes. The red emergency lighting of the cavern was blurry, but his vision was returning.
He looked over at Marcia.
She was sitting up under the blast of the shower, her scarred face pale but clean. She was breathing hard, but her eyes were open and clear.
Lucilla dropped to her knees on the wet concrete right beside them. She ignored the freezing shower soaking her coat.
She held up the scavenged datapad directly in front of Marcus's face.
The screen wasn't flashing red warnings. It displayed a simple, green loading bar.
"The Carrier," Lucilla said, her voice shaking slightly with adrenaline, not fear. "The physical valve closed before the main flow hit the ocean aqueduct. I checked the telemetry. The Styx received ninety percent pure drinking water before the lock engaged."
Marcus stared at the green bar.
"The tanks are full," Lucilla whispered, a small, triumphant smile breaking across her face. "The Warlord's ship is safe."
Marcus let out a long, ragged breath. He closed his eyes for a second.
They had done it. They had beaten Nero's trap. The thirty-six-hour clock was dead.
Marcus pushed himself up onto his knees. His mangled right leg screamed in protest, but he ignored the pain.
He looked at the dead Leviathan lying on the walkway. The Warlord sword was still buried in its skull.
Marcia didn't wait for orders. She stood up, wincing as her bruised ribs shifted.
She walked over to the massive, gray-scaled beast. She placed one heavy combat boot squarely on its snout. She gripped the hilt of the Warlord sword with both hands and violently yanked the heavy steel blade free with a wet crunch.
She didn't complain about the burn. She didn't complain about the danger.
She turned and held the polished, bloody sword out to Marcus, handle-first.
There was no Warlord intimidation needed. There was only mutual, ironclad respect.
Marcus took the sword. He didn't say thank you. He didn't need to. He leaned heavily on the blade like a cane, forcing himself to his feet.
He looked down the long, red-lit walkway toward the open elevator shaft.
Nero was still locked inside, likely bleeding out from his severed hand. But he wasn't the threat anymore.
The bunker was compromised. The Warlord's math had radically changed.
"We can't stay," Marcus said, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that carried over the sound of the decontamination showers.
He looked at Narcissus. The giant's armor was heavily damaged, but he stood tall, the steel cable still wrapped around his waist.
"The Legion holds," Marcus commanded.
He didn't turn back toward the lake. He turned his back on the bunker. He turned his back on the water.
He limped heavily down the narrow concrete corridor, the bloody Warlord sword scraping softly against the floor. Marcia, Lucilla, and Narcissus followed him without a word.
They reached the heavy, steel blast doors.
Marcus hit the manual release.
The heavy gears ground together. The doors hissed open, violently pulling in the hot, ash-choked air of the burning Naples beach.
Marcus stepped over the threshold.
The scene outside was a chaotic, bloody victory.
The five hundred scavengers of the Styx had held the line perfectly. The black sand was littered with the bodies of dozens of dead Board clone-troopers. The hyper-oxygenated jungle was still burning, but the gunfire had stopped.
Decimus stood near a rusted tank trap, his spear coated in blood. When he saw Marcus step out of the dark bunker, alive, carrying the Emperor's sword, the Legionnaire dropped to one knee.
The five hundred scavengers instantly followed. They fell silent, kneeling in the black ash, looking at the Warlord who had saved their ship.
Marcus didn't smile. He didn't raise his hands in victory.
He walked out into the falling ash, his Warlord iron completely, fully realized.
He stopped in the center of the beach.
He didn't look back at the ocean. He didn't look back toward the Carrier.
He raised the Warlord sword. He pointed the bloody steel blade directly north.
Toward Rome.
"The Warlord's math has changed," Marcus's voice boomed across the silent beach, echoing off the burning trees. "We aren't surviving anymore. We aren't running."
He looked at the kneeling army.
"We are invading."
Suddenly, a deafening, rhythmic booming echoed from the ocean miles behind them.
It wasn't thunder. It wasn't a terraforming vent.
The heavy, concussive sound rolled over the water, vibrating the black sand beneath Marcus's boots.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD.
Marcus turned slowly toward the horizon.
The massive, rusted silhouette of the USS Prometheus—the Styx—was visible through the smoke.
The Carrier's massive, automated CIWS deck guns had suddenly opened fire on the horizon. Thousands of bright red tracer rounds painted the smoky sky, tearing into the low-hanging clouds.
They weren't firing at nothing.
High above the horizon, breaking through the clouds, the sleek, black shapes of Board orbital gunships were descending rapidly. Vane hadn't just woken the clones in Rome. He had sent the fleet.
The war for Italy had officially begun.