“Open the gate.” After Angron spoke, silence fell before the main gate of the Bloody Sand Arena.
That gate had rarely opened for slaves in the past.
Slaves entered through the lower cage tunnels, shoved onto the bloody sand to die for the amusement of the spectators in the stands.
Highborn entered from the upper walkways—clean, spacious, carpeted in red, where not a single drop of blood would ever soil their boots.
The main gate was reserved for convoys and honor guards.
Now, behind the gate stood a crowd of people who had just stripped off their collars.
Some gripped shields, their palms slick with sweat.
Others had just been handed carbines; though the stocks were pressed to their shoulders, their bodies still trembled.
Karrus stood on the left, the raw ring of his old neck wound still red.
He stared at the pale light gleaming through the crack in the main gate, his throat swallowing hard.
“Open it!” Capstans groaned as iron chains dragged.
The heavy doors slowly parted to both sides.
The glare from outside leaked in.
First a sliver.
Then half the intersection.
And then, the entire suppression squad stood exposed beyond the threshold.
The streets of Desh’ea were wide.
Wide enough for three anti-grav vehicles to hover side by side.
Their black hulls hovered waist-high, pale blue exhaust plumes blowing from their undersides and sending the bloody sand tumbling across the stone pavement.
Behind the vehicles stood two lines of light-armored retainers.
White-gold cuirasses.
Deep crimson sashes.
Pauldrons engraved with the avian crest of House Talq.
Farther back, mounted machine-gun nests were already deployed, their muzzles trained on the main gate.
An anti-grav tank sat motionless in the center of the formation, its long black barrel leveled at the Bloody Sand Arena.
Red light gathered within the muzzle.
Over the comms channel, the unfamiliar male voice kept counting down.
“Ten.” The voice boomed down from the street corner’s loudspeaker towers.
Steady.
Cold.
He genuinely believed he was counting down the final seconds of the slaves’ lives.
Angron stood just inside the gate, watching the force.
If he ordered the people behind him to charge straight out, the first salvo would shred them into raw meat.
Their shields were newly claimed.
Their guns were barely mastered.
Many didn’t even know how to hold their formation.
They had just crawled out of the cages, the red scars of their collars still visible on their necks.
Damn it.
So close.
So close to letting them follow his hot blood and run headlong into the muzzles.
How was this any different from that fatal trap on the ridge?
The only difference was the place of death changing from the wasteland to this doorway.
Angron raised his hand.
The footsteps behind him halted.
Seeing the gesture, Karrus immediately turned and roared: “Nobody move!” Someone tried to push forward, only to be yanked back by an older gladiator beside him.
Outside the gate, the countdown continued.
“Nine.” The commander of the suppression squad stood beside the anti-grav tank.
He wore light power armor with a thin gold trim around his helmet and a melta sword slung at his waist.
He saw the gate open, and he saw that no one inside had fallen to their knees.
The corners of his mouth twitched.
As if he found it amusing.
“Eight.” Angron took his first step.
He walked out through the gate alone.
The fiery glare inside and the cold light outside crisscrossed over his body.
Scorched marks from the armory blaze still marred his dark green skin, and the wound on his shoulder hadn’t fully closed; the mangled flesh left by melta fire was slowly knitting back together.
He had not grown any larger.
Yet his towering frame, over four meters tall, was enough to block half the entrance on its own.
Someone in the suppression squad took half a step back.
The commander raised a hand.
“Seven.” Angron looked down and picked up a broken door hinge lying on the ground.
The iron fitting was thicker than a man’s waist, its edges still attached to a jagged piece of torn door.
He gave it a slight toss.
Just right.
“Six.” The commander finally frowned.
“Target advancing.” The lieutenant beside him murmured: “Sir, permission to fire early?” The commander gave him a cold look.
“The countdown isn’t finished.” Angron heard it.
He nearly laughed aloud.
These bastards couldn’t even slaughter slaves without demanding ceremony.
Ten breaths.
Kneel.
Clear the field.
They treated slaughter as a grand ritual.
How refined.
“You miscalculated,” Angron grunted under his breath.
Nobody heard him clearly.
The commander kept counting.
“Five.” Angron moved.
He whipped the door hinge through the air.
Not at the anti-grav tank.
Not at the commander.
He threw it straight at the machine-gun nest on the left side of the intersection.
The gunners had been staring into the gateway, waiting for the countdown to end before opening fire.
They never expected Angron to strike first, much less that a broken door hinge would fly at them like an artillery shell.
*BOOM!* The nest—guns, men, and all—was slammed straight into the wall behind them.
A section of the wall collapsed.
Flying debris struck a nearby anti-grav vehicle, sending it tumbling onto its side.
Pale blue flames sputtered wildly from its undercarriage as half its hull dragged against the ground, trailing a cascade of sparks.
“Fire!” The commander’s voice finally cracked.
The remaining muzzles erupted at once.
Angron charged forward.
The first wave of gunfire slammed into him.
Chest, shoulders, arms, the side of his face.
Bursts of blood erupted.
Flesh was torn away, only to knit back together beneath his surging fury.
Pain.
Waves of burning agony.
Like red-hot nails being hammered into his flesh.
The fragments of the Butcher’s Nails embedded in his skull flared in sync, surging down his neural pathways to brutally amplify every flare of pain.
Angron gritted his teeth.
Good.
Give it all to me.
Braving the hail of fire, he slammed into the first anti-grav vehicle.
The pilot tried to pull up.
Too late.
Angron leaped into the air, grabbed the nose with both hands, and slammed the entire vehicle down into the pavement.
The anti-grav engines beneath the hull shrieked.
Stone paving slabs shattered one after another under the force.
The pilot screamed inside the cockpit.
Angron seized the stern, spun, and hurled it.
The vehicle crashed into the second line of retainers.
White-gold armor, crushed metal, and broken bones smashed together into a gore-slick pile.
“Heavy cannon!” The commander retreated, waving his arm.
Crimson light swelled violently at the mouth of the anti-grav tank’s barrel.
Angron glanced at the barrel.
The weapon wasn’t aimed at him.
It was angled over his shoulder, targeted squarely inside the main entrance of the Bloody Sand Arena.
There were still people inside.
Karrus.
The young combat slaves who had just picked up shields.
The ones who had just crawled out of the beast pens.
Slaves who couldn’t even hold a gun steady.
The fire in Angron’s chest erupted into a blaze.
He didn’t go after the commander.
He charged the anti-grav tank.
The weapon’s muzzle had turned blindingly white.
No time to tear it apart.
Then he would block it.
Angron shattered the stone beneath his boots, hurling his full weight against the cannon barrel.
*BOOM!* The beam detonated right beside his left ribs.
Half his side felt as though licked by volcanic fire; flesh charred instantly, exposing a length of white bone.
The blast forced him back half a step.
Inside the gate behind him, several combat slaves were knocked off their feet by the heatwave.
But the beam had been diverted.
The shot that should have blasted into the arena grazed the outer wall instead, reducing a ruined section of the grandstand into glowing red gravel.
Angron looked down at his scorched side.
It hurt terribly.
Pain was good.
He raised a hand and seized the smoking barrel.
The anti-grav tank began backing away.
Its undercarriage engines roared at full throttle, kickstarting clouds of dust across the street.
Angron took a heavy step forward to match it.
He poured brute strength into his arms.
He bent the barrel upward.
Metal shrieked in agony.
The gunner inside tried to fire a second shot.
The muzzle was yanked skyward.
The second energy bolt blasted into the heights, detonating a loudspeaker tower.
The severed tower crashed down onto the rear ranks of the suppression squad.
The commander’s face paled at last.
“Surround him!” Four light-armored retainers lunged from both flanks.
Melta swords flared, and power spears thrusted toward Angron’s kneecaps and back.
They weren’t foolish.
They knew they couldn’t kill him outright, so they targeted his joints, his eyes, and his lingering injuries.
A sword pierced into Angron’s lower back.
Searing pain rushed up his spine.
He didn’t turn around.
He snapped the barrel first.
*CRACK.* The front of the anti-grav tank dropped abruptly.
The pilot frantically tried to gain altitude.
Angron gripped the snapped barrel like a heavy warhammer and swung it back in a brutal arc.
The two retainers behind him were smashed into the air.
The other two seized the opening to close in—one driving a spear toward his eye, the other slicing at his ankle.
Precise angles.
Well trained.
But they weren’t facing a normal giant.
Angron jerked his head aside, letting the power spear scrape past his cheekbone.
Then he spread his fingers, slammed his palm against the face of the retainer thrusting at his eye, and smashed his skull into the tank’s armor plating.
The other retainer’s melta sword bit deep into his ankle.
Angron’s posture dipped.
Blood gushed out.
He leaned down and grabbed the man’s helmet.
“Good aim,” he growled.
Then he tore the head clean off along with the helmet.
The intersection fell dead silent for a heartbeat.
Inside the gate, Karrus’s voice roared out: “Front rank!” The clatter of shields slamming onto stone followed instantly.
*THUD!* *THUD!* *THUD!* The combat slaves finally moved.
Not in a frantic, disorganized rush.
They surged out from inside the gate in a tight, heavy formation.
The front line raised their shields.
Their shields were crooked; when someone held theirs wrong, an older gladiator behind him kicked his stance into position.
Spears bristled through the gaps between shields in the second rank.
Carbines were leveled behind them.
Following the path Angron had broken open, they trampled over the wrecked anti-grav vehicle and strode across the shattered machine-gun nest.
For the first time, they walked out through the main gate of the Bloody Sand Arena.
Not driven out like cattle.
Walking out to kill.
The remaining suppression troops opened fire.
Bullets hammered against shields, scattering bright sparks.
Someone had his thigh shot through and sank to one knee.
A comrade tried to catch him.
But the wounded slave roared out: “Don’t stop!” He shoved his shield forward, dragging his bloody knees to leave a long, red smear across the ground.
Angron saw it.
He burned that face into his memory.
Then he turned to face the suppression squad commander.
The commander was staring back.
He had finally stopped counting.
He drew his melta sword.
“Monstrosity.” Angron stepped toward him.
“Heard that one already today.” The commander took half a step back, instantly realized what he was doing, and froze.
He couldn’t retreat.
He was an enforcer of House Talq.
He had soldiers behind him.
He had the intersection.
He had the dignity of the High Riders to uphold.
He raised his blade.
The thrusters on his power armor flared, driving him forward like a white-gold blur straight at Angron’s throat.
He was fast.
Faster than any retainer before him.
Angron didn’t dodge.
The melta sword plunged into his shoulder socket, searing through muscle.
A flicker of triumph flashed in the commander’s eyes.
The next instant, Angron’s massive hand clamped around his waist.
The thrusters were still roaring with flame, dragging him forward.
Angron harnessed that momentum, smashing the officer bodily down into the street.
*BOOM!* The pavement collapsed into a crater.
The commander’s armor shield flared briefly before shattering into fragments.
He still tried to raise his sword.
Angron stomped his heel down onto the blade.
The melta sword scorched dark marks against his sole.
Angron bent down and grabbed the golden trim of the helmet.
He pried it open bit by bit.
The commander gasped inside the helm.
“You will all be slaughtered to the last.” “The Bloody Sand Arena is only the beginning.” “Desh’ea has armies.
High walls.
The Sky Throne.” Angron paused.
The Sky Throne.
Sounded like a nuisance.
And like something that deserved to be smashed.
Thinking the brute was frightened, the commander’s voice hardened again.
“Kneel now, and a few of you might be spared!” Angron looked down at him.
The fool still hadn’t understood.
The moment the gate opened, the ten breaths were already over.
It just wasn’t the people inside who had died.
Angron crushed the helmet and the head inside it back down into the crater of jagged rubble.
He didn’t waste another second listening.
The rear ranks of the suppression force finally broke.
Some threw down their weapons.
Some backed away behind the anti-grav vehicles.
Others tried to start a second anti-grav tank to flee the intersection.
Karrus spearheaded the shield line, crashing straight into them.
It was chaotic.
Still messy.
But it wasn’t the helpless chaos from inside the gate.
This time, they were pushing their chaos outward.
A furious wave pressing blades, spears, and shields down upon the enemy.
A young combat slave holding a carbine fired his first shot.
Missed.
The second shot hit a retainer’s pauldron.
The third shot finally bit into a gap in the armor.
When the retainer fell, the boy stared in shock.
As if he hadn’t truly believed the gun in his hands could kill one of the High Riders’ men.
An old gladiator beside him cuffed the back of his head.
“What are you staring at?
Keep shooting!” The young slave snapped back to reality and squeezed the trigger again.
Angron paid them no mind.
He walked over to the ruined anti-grav tank.
The hull was still smoking.
The pilot was pinned inside, half-dead.
Angron seized the hull, flipped the entire vehicle over, and leveled its wrecked barrel toward the far end of the street.
Another squad of suppression soldiers was attempting to reform their lines down there.
He didn’t know how to fire the cannon.
He didn’t need to.
He reared back and slammed his foot into the rear of the tank.
The residual energy inside the severed barrel detonated wildly, sending the entire armored chassis sliding across the pavement like a fiery sledgehammer, plowing directly into the midst of the forming squad.
Fire tore through the street.
All resistance at the intersection collapsed completely.
Beyond the main entrance of the Bloody Sand Arena, nothing remained but burning wreckage and twitching forms clad in white-gold armor.
Angron stood in the center of the street.
Bullet holes across his chest and shoulders slowly knit shut.
The scorched wound where the heavy cannon had grazed his left flank was still smoking, new flesh creeping outward inch by inch.
The pain was still there.
The remaining fragments of the Butcher’s Nails were still shrieking in his skull.
But he was lucid.
Clearer than he had ever been.
He turned to look back at the main gate.
The combat slaves stood there.
Many were wounded.
Some had hands that still trembled after taking their first life.
Others stared at the open street, eyes bloodshot.
They hadn’t knelt.
They hadn’t run.
And they hadn’t been shattered by the first barrage.
It was enough.
Today was enough.
Karrus limped to his side, wheezing like a broken bellows, his face caked in soot and dust.
“Ten breaths,” he rasped.
Angron glanced down at him.
Karrus grinned, revealing bloody teeth.
“They didn’t finish counting.” Angron looked up toward the far end of the street.
Far in the distance, nestled among the towering spires of lower Desh’ea, more alarm lights began flashing.
The dark silhouette of an Urban Relay Tower rose against the dusty yellow sky, like an iron nail jammed into the city’s throat.
A tech-slave’s voice crackled through the comms device, shaking with panic: “The relay tower is activating!” “The Outer Labor Sector, workshop dormitories, Transport Shafts…
the red dots are turning black!” “They’re locking down the collars!” Angron closed his eyes briefly.
The warmth of victory evaporated instantly, growing icy cold.
He knew it.
The High Riders wouldn’t stop just because a single intersection had been broken.
They would kill the slaves.
Kill the ones who hadn’t even had the chance to stand up yet.
They would use death to teach everyone that freedom at the Bloody Sand Arena was nothing more than an anomaly.
Angron opened his eyes.
The green glow in the depths of his gaze burned darker.
“Karrus.” “Here.” “Take everyone who can move and follow me.” Karrus tightened his grip on his shock spear.
“Where to?” Angron stared at the distant tower.
Red lights on its structure blinked rhythmically, on and off.
Pulsing like the Butcher’s Nails throbbing inside the city’s flesh.
“We smash the tower.”