The impact vibrated violently against the soles of Marcus's soaked, heavy combat boots.
It wasn't the dull, concussive thud of the distant Carrier guns. It was the sharp, wet crunch of heavy boots fracturing the hard-baked, scorched earth exactly ten feet behind him.
The immediate, overpowering smell hit the back of his throat before the smoke even cleared. It cut cleanly through the thick woodsmoke of the burning jungle—the sharp, chemical stench of cauterized synthetic flesh aggressively mixing with raw, leaking battery acid.
Marcus tried to pivot on his right leg.
His body instantly betrayed the Warlord's math. The mangled, dislocated knee screamed in agonizing protest, completely incapable of bearing his weight. His combat boot, heavy and slick with the pooled blood from the Leviathan bite, slid awkwardly across the dry dirt.
He didn't turn fast enough. He was dragging his entire right side.
Through the thick, swirling black ash falling from the burning canopy, a heavy shape lunged directly at him.
It wasn't a pristine, genetically perfect Board clone-trooper executing a tactical drop. It was a manic, feral horror.
It was Nero.
The smug, theatrical Board Executive who had locked them in the subterranean bunker was entirely gone. His pristine uniform was shredded, completely soaked in the toxic black sludge of the lake. Thick, viscous black synthetic fluid leaked steadily from his nose and the corners of his eyes, streaking his pale face.
But it was his right arm that commanded the Warlord's immediate attention.
The ragged, bloody stump where Marcus had violently amputated Nero's hand with the sword was no longer bleeding. It was completely, crudely cauterized.
Nero hadn't found a med-kit. He had found a Board industrial plasma cutter scavenged from the dead clones in the clearing. He hadn't strapped it to his forearm. He had violently, brutally shoved his own severed stump directly into the raw, exposed chassis of the heavy tool.
Thick, copper wiring dug deeply, agonizingly into his blistered flesh. The heavy battery casing was duct-taped directly to his bicep.
Nero didn't offer a witty villain monologue. He didn't make a dramatic speech about revenge. He was twitching violently, his jaw locked in a rictus grin of absolute, unhinged agony.
He lunged directly at Marcus.
The rigged plasma cutter whined to life with a high-pitched, agonizing electronic shriek. A blindingly bright, unstable blue ignition coil sparked aggressively at the tip of the heavy metal nozzle.
Marcus had no base to dodge. He was a grounded, crippled target. He tried to raise the heavy Warlord sword to parry, but the sheer, exhausted weight of the polished steel fought his raw, acid-burned muscles.
He wasn't going to make it.
Marcia didn't scream his name in a panic. She didn't freeze in terror, watching her Emperor fall.
The Anti-Skyler White rule was absolute iron.
She moved before Marcus even fully registered the threat.
As Nero lunged forward, raising the heavy, glowing plasma cutter toward Marcus's chest, Marcia tackled him laterally from Marcus's blind spot.
She didn't execute an elegant, practiced martial arts throw. It was a brutal, uncoordinated, violent collision of mass in the hot ash.
She hit Nero hard in the ribs with her left shoulder, using her own forward momentum and the heavy, soaked weight of her naval coat to completely disrupt his center of gravity.
Nero let out a wet, breathless grunt. They both hit the scorched dirt violently, rolling in a tangle of limbs and scavenged metal.
Marcus tried to step forward to help her, instinctively throwing his weight onto his ruined right leg.
The knee completely collapsed under him.
He hit the dirt hard, his chest slamming against the hard-baked earth. The heavy steel Warlord sword clattered loudly out of his grip, sliding two feet away into the ash.
Ten feet away, the fight on the ground was a messy, desperate scramble.
Nero's rigged plasma cutter fired wildly as he rolled onto his back. He didn't aim. His finger jerked the jury-rigged trigger mechanism.
A blinding, localized beam of superheated blue energy erupted from the nozzle. It violently superheated the air, instantly melting the top layer of black sand into a smooth, glowing trench of molten glass exactly three inches from Marcia's face.
The extreme heat instantly dried the sweat on her blistered cheeks, making her peeling skin feel tight enough to split open.
Marcia didn't flinch away from the heat. She didn't scramble backward to create distance.
She aggressively scrambled over Nero's chest, pinning his rigged plasma-arm to the dirt with her knee. She pressed her entire body weight down, grinding the heavy battery casing into the ash.
She didn't say anything heroic. She didn't try to monologue at the manic clone.
She grabbed two handfuls of Nero's ruined, sludge-soaked uniform. She hauled his upper body an inch off the ground.
Then, she violently, brutally headbutted him directly in the bridge of the nose.
The sickening crack of synthetic cartilage shattering echoed loudly over the crackle of the burning jungle. Nero's head snapped backward, slamming hard into the baked dirt. Black fluid aggressively sprayed from his nostrils.
"The terminal," Marcus grated, his voice a low, gravelly rasp from the dirt. He was trying to drag himself forward on his elbows, his fingers desperately clawing the ground to reach the hilt of the Warlord sword.
Fifty feet away, at the base of the massive, black obelisk, Lucilla wasn't watching the fight.
She was staring entirely at the heavy, reinforced terminal screen.
The massive red numbers were aggressively flashing.
00:28
00:27
She was frantically trying to type on her cracked datapad, her thumbs flying across the glass. But the bypass wouldn't initiate.
The heavy, black metal override port was physically blocked.
Nero's severed, dead hand was still violently wedged deep inside the machinery. The dead, pale fingers were rigor-locked against the circuitry, completely preventing Lucilla from plugging in her scavenged bypass cable.
Lucilla's breathing was completely erratic, coming in short, sharp, terrifying hitches. She didn't waste time monologuing about her fear. She didn't look back at Marcus for permission.
She aggressively grabbed the cold, dead wrist of the severed hand.
She pulled hard.
It didn't move. The bone and jagged flesh were caught deep on the internal locking pins of the port.
"It's stuck," Lucilla said, her voice tight, almost a whisper. She pulled harder, her boots slipping on the scorched dirt. "The bone's caught in the gate."
Marcus finally wrapped his raw, blistered left hand around the leather hilt of the Warlord sword. He used the heavy pommel as a crutch, dragging himself up onto his good left knee.
"Cut it," Marcus said, his chest heaving.
00:22
Lucilla didn't hesitate. She didn't gently pry it loose.
She pulled her heavy, scavenged combat knife from her belt. She gripped the rubber handle tightly in her right hand.
She violently jammed the thick steel blade directly into the narrow gap between the dead wrist and the heavy metal casing of the port.
She didn't try to pry the metal open. She used the blade as a lever directly against the dead flesh. She violently wrenched her arm downward.
The sickening, wet pop of the carpal bones violently giving way under the immense pressure made Lucilla's stomach turn.
The dead hand snapped completely in half inside the port.
Lucilla immediately ripped the bloody, ruined mass of flesh out of the machinery. She violently threw the severed fingers onto the baked dirt.
She didn't wipe the dark blood off her hands. She instantly jammed her rusted bypass cable into the smeared, wet override port.
00:15
On the ground, the fight violently shifted.
Marcia had Nero pinned, her knee digging deeply into his plasma arm. But the manic clone wasn't fighting tactically. He was fighting on raw, feral adrenaline.
He didn't try to break her grip.
He violently, aggressively kicked his legs upward, catching Marcia squarely in her bruised, crushed ribs.
The sheer, unexpected kinetic force of the kick threw the General violently off his chest. She hit the dirt hard, rolling backward into the hot ash, her breath completely driven from her lungs.
Nero didn't look at her. He didn't try to finish her off.
He scrambled rapidly to his knees, his face a terrifying, broken mess of black fluid and shattered cartilage. He ignored Marcia entirely.
He turned his manic, burning eyes directly onto Marcus.
Marcus was still on his knees, leaning heavily on the Warlord sword. He couldn't stand. He couldn't lunge. He was entirely stationary.
Nero didn't charge. He simply raised the heavy, rigged stump of his right arm.
He pointed the heavy, scarred nozzle of the industrial plasma cutter directly at the center of Marcus's chest.
00:12
The high-pitched electronic scream of the weapon's ignition coil hit its absolute maximum pitch. The blue light at the tip of the nozzle flared violently, blindingly bright, casting harsh, terrifying shadows across the clearing.
Marcus didn't close his eyes. He didn't raise his arm to block the impossible heat.
He looked directly into the blinding blue light, his jaw locked in absolute Warlord iron.