With the Null Razor loose in his grip, Leo cut across the scrap fringe, angling his sprint to draw the hunter away from the pawnshop.
Behind him in the hollow, the syndicate camp was still smoking where four buggies lay crushed into the ditch like crumpled paper.
Not a single guard was left standing, for whatever hatched from the pod had wiped out the perimeter before tracking the ether pulse in the air.
The green haze parted ahead of him, revealing a dark silhouette that made his grip tighten on the textured hilt.
Standing eight feet tall, the cyber-organic assassin emerged from the smoke, encased in dark armor with four stacked crimson optics glowing across its brow.
Twin scythes unfolded from its forearms with a sharp mechanical hiss, their edges igniting into crackling arcs of high-frequency plasma.
[ Threat Classification: Vorn Bio-Extractor | Grade: E+ Cosmic ]
[ Hostile Objective: Retrieve All-Spark Vessel ]
[ Mission Update: Devour The Vorn Core ]
"Hiss... vessel located," the alien rasped through its vocalizer, sounding like grinding gears in a broken motor.
"Compliance or immediate extraction."
"Heh, come and try to extract me," he answered, dropping his center of gravity into a low combat stance as dark mist wrapped around his feet.
The assassin didn’t waste time posturing or trading insults in the dark.
In a single instant it crossed forty paces, moving faster than the eye could follow as its right scythe slashed outward in a blinding sweep.
The frame of a nearby crane parted along a glowing red line, collapsing in halves before the shockwave even reached the ground.
He threw himself sideways, coating the soles of his shoes in shadow ether to skate across the gravel on a ribbon of frictionless dark.
The follow-up slash whistled toward his ribs, and he brought the Null Razor up in a diagonal parry to meet the burning plasma.
The black blade caught the blow with an explosive ring of void sparks, absorbing the brunt of the kinetic slam before pushing him back.
His shoes dug shallow trenches through the slag, but his arms remained intact as the weapon absorbed seventy percent of the impact.
’Parries work,’ he thought, feeling the residual vibration hum through his forearms like a low electric pulse.
’The blade eats the force, but I still have to keep moving if I want to keep my head attached.’
He poured more shadow ether into his soles and pushed off the ground, accelerating up the side of a stacked shipping container.
His shadow-skating carried him up the vertical wall, riding the flat surface while the plasma blade carved a molten trench behind his heels.
He vaulted off the top edge, flipped through the air above the second sweep, and raked his blade across the alien’s glowing brow on the way down.
The assassin tilted its skull just enough to deflect the cut, sending sparks showering across the dark yard as the edge skipped off chitin.
A counter-strike caught him mid-air, swatting him through the side of an open container with enough momentum to make the walls ring.
He hit the floor in the dark, rolling instantly to his knees as the second plasma blade punched through the wall after him.
Drawing from a tight crouch, he unleashed a low strike that met the thrust inside the confined space where reach gave no advantage.
The plasma blade bounced off his dark edge, allowing him to plant both feet against the alien’s chest plate and launch himself outside.
Heat washed over his shoulder where the plasma had grazed his jacket, but his absorption trait drank the energy before pain could settle into his muscles.
The blueprint’s clean pathways channeled the absorbed kinetic slam and thermal heat directly into his core, replenishing his reserves in a smooth wave.
[ Material Absorption Active: Thermal And Kinetic Intake Siphoned ]
[ Shadow Pool Replenished: 40/40 ]
’It feeds my pool while I fight,’ he thought, rolling his shoulder to test the flow of fresh energy through his veins.
’Every strike I survive just buys me more fuel to burn.’
The Extractor paused for a fraction of a second, its four optics refocusing as it recalibrated its combat data against his movement patterns.
It began firing compressed plasma lances in rapid bursts, punching glowing craters across the yard and turning the salvage piles into a sea of slag.
He ran the vertical faces of the container walls, riding the shadows across tilted hauler hulls while explosions detonated in his wake.
He funneled every near-miss and grazing blast into his marrow, keeping his shadow pool brimming as the air grew thick with ozone.
By the fourth volley, the All-Spark highlighted the alien’s firing cadence, revealing the brief delay in its optics before each discharge.
’You lead left on every shot,’ he noted, tracking the red glow as it shifted across the smoking ground.
’Every single burst starts with the exact same angle.’
He baited the next burst into a stacked pile of freight boxes, letting the blast swallow his silhouette before riding the shockwave out of the smoke.
The Extractor recalibrated its optics and stepped back for the first time, its internal processors struggling to predict his erratic angles.
’Think about it all you want,’ he thought, skidding to a halt on the edge of the crater.
’You’re not the only predator in this scrap yard tonight.’
Realizing ranged fire was failing, the assassin hooked its remaining reach around the base of the container stack and wrenched the metal free.
Forty tons of scrap collapsed across the yard in an avalanche, threatening to bury everything beneath a mountain of falling freight.
He dove ahead of the tumbling boxes, skating along the falling roofs as they tipped, using the collapse as a ramp rather than running away.
He launched off the last descending edge with the Null Razor cocked back, aiming for the exposed neck seam beneath the alien’s visor.
The assassin raised its forearm just in time, blocking the cut with its chitin plate in a loud shower of purple sparks.
[ Threat Adapting: Close Quarters Combat | Caution Advised ]
"Vessel continues to resist," the alien droned through its vocal grille, stepping forward with crushing weight.
"Escalating lethal force to maximum threshold."
Both scythes ignited into double-length plasma arcs, and the assassin charged low across the open ground with blinding acceleration.
He held his ground without flinching until the burning edges were inches from his throat, then dropped flat against the dark earth.
His shadow-skating carried him beneath the dual sweep, gliding effortlessly between the alien’s armored legs across the frictionless ground.
He spun on his back in a fluid half-circle, channeling his shadow ether into the Null Razor with full Progenitor intent.
His hips and wrists aligned in one continuous motion, executing a textbook draw from below that caught the lower elbow joint.
The crescent edge sheared through the segmented chitin, cleanly severing the right scythe arm in a spray of glowing blue blood.
The severed limb clattered onto the ground, its plasma arc flickering out as the bio-mechanical connection died.
The Extractor reached down to retrieve its weapon, but a ribbon of shadow whipped out from his hand before the alien could grasp the prize.
The severed arm vanished into his void pouch in a blink, leaving the alien clutching empty air with its remaining claw.
"One down," he said, rising smoothly to his feet with blue blood smoking off his dark blade.
"And I’m keeping the parts for salvage."
The Extractor didn’t scream or falter in its stance.
It stared at the smoking stump of its severed arm, then locked all four optics onto his chest as the internal reactor began to whine.
The pitch climbed higher and higher, venting crimson light through the segmented armor until the entire chassis glowed like a furnace.
[ Warning: Reactor Overdrive Detected ]
[ Threat Level Spiking: Berserk Protocol Activated ]
The alien rose to its full height, its remaining plasma scythe burning twice as bright as it left glowing afterimages in the smog.
He set his feet on the dark ground, breathing in steady cadence with the All-Spark blueprint, and tightened his two-handed grip on the hilt.
"Extraction," the dying assassin rasped, its four eyes burning with crimson fury, "is now mandatory."