[Fifty-nine breaths.] Angron crashed into the upper conduit.
The narrow vertical opening was forced open by his shoulders, its armored plates peeling outward on both sides as sparks sprayed from severed wiring.
Varock hung over his shoulder, his platinum power armor warped and crumpled.
The captain of the guard wasn’t dead yet.
A breath like a broken bellows rattled in his chest.
Angron needed him alive.
At least until the last door opened.
At the end of the corridor, the outer blast door of the control deck was already halfway open.
Red light flashed chaotically behind it.
[Fifty-seven breaths.] The countdown over the broadcast system continued to blare.
In his past life, watching this kind of countdown through a screen, he had only found it cliché.
Now, with every breath that ticked away, someone below had their neck snapped by a collar.
Angron wanted nothing more than to tear whatever was doing the counting right out of the wall.
He rushed to the door and pressed Varock’s entire body against the authorization scanner.
The identification port glowed with a blue light.
[Guard Captain Authorization Confirmed] [Control Deck Outer Door Opening] The outer door slid upward.
Gunfire erupted from the other side immediately.
The defenders were already waiting.
The first row kneeled, the second row stood, melta guns and solid-projectile firearms firing in unison.
Angron turned sideways, shielding Varock against the scanner while charging straight into the fire.
A melta beam struck his chest, instantly charring flesh and muscle.
Solid rounds slammed into his shoulders and the side of his face.
The corner of his eye tore open, sending green blood leaking into his mouth.
He reached out and grabbed the barrel of the nearest defender’s gun.
With a yank, the man was dragged forward, gun, arms, and all.
Angron used his body to plow over the back row.
Karrus lunged in from the corridor, swinging his shock spear and piercing the throat of a fallen defender.
The old gladiator followed close behind, his short blade seeking the gaps in their armor.
The cramped entrance of the control deck was quickly piled high with corpses.
Angron did not stop.
He saw the main control room.
A massive circular chamber set into the very apex of the relay tower.
Control pillars lined the walls vertically, blue conduits crawling across the ceiling and floor like veins, with a red core standing over three meters tall in the center.
The core was overheating.
Within its glass casing, liquid coolant churned violently, already venting white steam.
A tech-officer in a white protective suit stood behind the core, his hands locked onto the control console.
Four guards stood beside him.
Seeing Angron barge in, the tech-officer went pale, but he did not retreat.
“Burn the core!” he shrieked.
“Even if they get the authorization, it’ll be useless!” Angron surged forward.
Just two steps in, the floor suddenly slid open.
Two rows of concealed turrets rose from beside his feet.
The barrels did not aim at him.
They aimed at the entrance.
Karrus and the tech-slave had just reached the threshold.
Angron spun around violently, grabbed a half-man-high piece of armored door plating from the floor, and hurled it sideways.
The plating slammed down in front of the turrets, shielding the entrance from their first volley.
The explosions dented the heavy plate inward.
Karrus was thrown back two steps by the blast wave.
The tech-slave cowered behind him, clutching the auxiliary control panel tightly to his chest, his face covered in soot.
“Get in!” Angron roared.
Karrus grit his teeth and dragged the tech-slave inside.
The defenders closed in from both sides.
Angron met them head-on.
The first guard raised a heavy shield.
Angron smashed a fist down.
The shield caved into the guard’s breastplate.
A second guard tried to bypass them to reach the tech-slave; Karrus raised his shock spear to parry a melta dagger, his arms instantly ringing numb from the impact.
Angron grabbed the guard by the nape of his neck, hoisted him away from Karrus, and slammed him hard into a control pillar.
The pillar erupted in a shower of electrical sparks.
The lights in the main control room flickered.
[Forty-eight breaths.] The red core’s temperature continued to climb.
The tech-officer sneered, his laughter shrill and dry.
“You’re too late.” “Once the core burns out, all external collars will enter a state of final lockdown.” “You cannot save them.” Angron stared at him.
The face was young, yet there wasn’t a shred of hesitation in his eyes.
This man was watching the red dots of the lower levels turn black with his own eyes, yet his hand remained steady on the heating sequence.
He had seen people like this in his past life.
Sitting in clean rooms, tapping a few keys, turning tens of thousands of lives into mere write-offs on a report.
They rarely killed with their own hands.
Their fingers might not even be stained with blood.
Yet the dying breath of every victim was squeezed out by the tips of their fingers.
The fire in Angron’s chest burned even deeper.
He did not rush to kill the tech-officer first.
Kill him, and the core would still burn.
Angron turned his gaze toward the coolant pipes.
Surrounding the red core were six thick, transparent pipes, within which the coolant was boiling.
Safety valves were fitted at the base of each pipe, every single one remotely locked down.
“Where are the coolant inlets?” The tech-slave had already thrown himself in front of a side maintenance port, his fingers trembling as he plugged in cables.
“The three on the right are inlets, the three on the left are returns!” “They’re locked!” “They’ve locked them all!” Angron strode to the first coolant pipe on the right.
The pipe’s casing glowed a blistering red.
He pressed his hand against it.
Sizzling flesh immediately began to smoke.
“Then we tear it open.” The tech-slave looked up, his eyes widening.
“Tearing it will cause an explosion!” “How long until it blows?” The tech-slave’s mind visibly blanked.
“What?” “Will the core blow, or does it blow now?” “If we tear it now, the coolant will spray out.
It might still keep the temperature down.” “That’s enough.” Angron drove his five fingers deep into the pipe wall.
Scalding coolant sprayed from the fissure, pouring over his arm.
His skin was instantly scalded away.
Gripping the inner lining of the pipe, he wrenched his arms outward.
The first coolant pipe ruptured.
White liquid rushed out like a waterfall, dousing the surface of the red core.
The core’s temperature dipped slightly.
The meltdown countdown over the broadcast did not stop.
[Thirty-nine breaths.] The tech-officer shrieked, “Kill that slave!” The remaining defenders surged toward the tech-slave.
Angron did not look back.
He grabbed the second coolant pipe.
Karrus threw himself in front of the tech-slave.
“Come on!” A melta blade slashed down.
Karrus parried with his shock spear, its shaft instantly scorched with a deep gouge.
The old gladiator lunged from the side, wrapping his entire body around a guard’s shin.
The guard kicked him away.
In the next instant, Angron ripped free the second coolant pipe and swung it backhand.
The guard’s upper body vanished beneath twisted metal and white coolant.
Karrus wiped the blood from his face.
“Keep going!” The tech-slave lay prone before the port, his fingers frantically swapping wires.
“I need the main control port!” “The maintenance port is read-only, I can’t change permissions!” “Where is it?” “Behind the core!” Angron looked behind the core.
The tech-officer had heard it too.
He spun and ran, bolting toward the purge lever next to the main control port.
Angron finally moved.
The lingering effects of the gravity field remained; his leg bones throbbed with dull pain with every step.
He ignored it.
Crossing the main control room in three bounds.
The tech-officer’s hand was already touching the lever.
Angron grabbed the protective suit on his back.
With a violent yank, the suit tore open, taking a layer of skin and flesh with it.
The tech-officer was hoisted into the air, his legs kicking wildly.
“You can’t stop the sequence!” “You can’t even read the system!” Angron slammed him down in front of the main control port.
“He can.” The tech-slave dithered for a second.
Angron looked back at him.
“Get over here.” Clutching the auxiliary control panel, the tech-slave stumbled behind the core.
The main control port was surrounded by high-temperature steam.
The moment he drew near, a patch of his eyebrow singed off.
“The interfaces don’t match.” “Tell me how.” The tech-slave grit his teeth and pried open the auxiliary panel’s casing.
He tore out all the wires inside, sliced open his glove with a knife, and stabbed an identification pin directly into the old slave-ID chip implanted in his wrist.
Blood welled out.
The identification pin glowed.
“Using my labor-slave ID to access the maintenance baseline…” “Then piggybacking off the guard captain’s authorization to bypass the outer gate…” “But the core permissions still require confirmation from the tech-officer.” Angron shoved the tech-officer onto the main control port.
“Make him confirm it.” With his face pressed against the identification panel, the tech-officer’s lips trembled uncontrollably.
“I won’t—” Angron’s grip tightened.
The bones beneath the protective suit creaked.
“You will.” With a miserable shriek, the tech-officer slammed his palm onto the confirmation pad.
[Main Control Tech-Authorization Confirmed] [Maintenance Baseline Accessed] [Authorization Conflict] [Thirty-one breaths.] The core temperature spiked once more.
The ruptured cooling pipes were no longer enough to suppress it.
Red light bled through the glass casing, casting a glow over the entire main control room like a white-hot furnace.
Angron released the tech-officer, tossing him to the floor.
The moment the tech-officer tried to crawl away, Karrus stomped on his hand.
“Don’t move.” The tech-slave knelt before the main control port.
Blood trickled all the way from his wrist down into the wiring.
His face was a ghostly, terrifying white, his lips murmuring a low string of maintenance codes.
Angron didn’t understand them.
Nor did he need to.
From the Bloody Sand Arena until now, he had spent his time smashing doors, walls, vehicles, and towers.
But this door before him was one he could not break.
That authorization was hidden behind a mass of flashing characters.
Smashing the screen with his fists would only make the people below die faster.
It was a terrible feeling.
Power surged through him, nearly bursting from his body, yet he was forced to place the outcome in the hands of another.
Angron looked down at the kneeling tech-slave.
The man was as skeletal as a wire bent out of shape and hastily spliced back together.
In the Bloody Sand Arena, he wouldn’t have even dared to look up at a High Rider.
Now, his hands were reaching into the collar permissions of Desh’ea’s lower levels.
Angron suddenly felt that this was far more important than smashing a turret with a single punch.
“Stop shaking.” The tech-slave paused.
Angron stood behind him, shielding him from another volley of auto-turrets popping out of the side walls.
Rounds pelted Angron’s back.
Flowers of blood splattered across the edge of the main console.
“You can open it.” The tech-slave swallowed hard.
His fingers steadied.
“I can,” he said, his voice very quiet, as if speaking only to himself.
“I can open it.” [Twenty-four breaths.] The remaining defenders flooded in from the side doors.
Angron spun around.
His massive frame instantly blocked the entrance of the control room.
Melta beams, solid rounds, and shock spear rained down on him in a chaotic torrent.
Yet he did not budge a single step from the main control port.
Karrus guarded the tech-slave’s left, while the old gladiator guarded his right.
The maintenance slave lay flat on the floor, handing over the severed wires one by one.
Everyone was panting.
Everyone was shaking.
Not a single one retreated.
Angron grabbed a charging defender, using him as a shield to plow back the others.
Then, with a single punch, he shattered the spine of a second man.
A third tried to slip past his legs; Angron stomped down.
Metal and bone splintered together.
More and more soldiers flooded the room.
The pile of corpses at the door grew higher and higher.
[Sixteen breaths.] The tech-slave suddenly shouted, “I’ve found the lower-level permissions for the capital!” “What’s the coverage?” Angron asked, not even looking back.
“Outer Labor Sector, Transport Shafts, lower workshops, slave dormitories, and the noble estate slave quarters.” “Unlock them all.” “The capital’s master control is still locked.
I can’t unlock the whole city.” “Unlock as much as you can.” The tech-slave’s finger hovered over the confirmation key, then paused.
“Once we release them, the Council will know we’ve seized control.” Karrus cursed, “They don’t already know?!” The tech-slave’s face twitched.
He stared at the screen.
“There’s still a secondary confirmation.” “What kind of confirmation?” “The system requires final authorization from the chief tech-officer.” The tech-officer on the floor suddenly spat a bloody laugh.
His mouth was full of blood, but his face was horribly twisted.
“Without me, you can’t unlock a single thing.” “You can shatter this tower.” “You can kill me.” “And everyone below will die with me.” Angron turned around.
The tech-officer lay on the floor, confidence returning to his eyes.
He believed he held everyone by the throat once more.
Angron walked over.
Karrus stepped aside.
The tech-officer’s smirk froze.
“You can’t kill me.” Angron knelt down and grabbed his right hand.
“I’m not.” He dragged the tech-officer to the main console.
The tech-officer began to thrash.
Angron ignored him.
He grabbed the hand and pressed it onto the confirmation panel.
The tech-officer clenched his fingers tightly into a fist.
Angron pried them open, one by one.
The first.
The second.
The third.
The snapping of finger bones was sharp and distinct.
Screaming, the tech-officer splayed his palm flat.
The identification panel lit up.
[Chief Tech-Officer Final Authorization Confirmed] [Lower Collar Release Authorization Pending Execution] [Execute?] For a moment, all sound in the control room seemed to mute.
The gunfire outside continued.
The core continued to burn.
The countdown continued to tick.
[Nine breaths.] The tech-slave looked up at Angron.
His eyes were bloodshot, webbed with broken vessels from toxic fumes, but also clouded with a deep-seated fear born of a lifetime spent bowing his head.
Angron looked at the screen.
On the map of the lower levels, a vast field of red dots flickered for the final time.
He did not reach out to press the key.
This key was not his to press.
Angron released his hold on the tech-officer.
“Open them.” The tech-slave bowed his head and slammed his palm down.
[Eight breaths.] All the red light in the control room died instantly.
A heartbeat later, a brilliant blue radiance flared from deep within the core, surging outward along the conduits and rushing far beyond the tower.