The rumble of artillery echoed from the direction of the Bloody Sand Arena.
At first, it sounded distant.
Muffled by the underground tunnels, streets, pipelines, and the ambient noise of Desh’ea, it was reduced to a dull vibration.
Then, the communicator erupted in static.
“The back door of the Bloody Sand Arena is under attack!” “They’ve breached from underground!” “The old beast-pen path on the east side has fallen!” The transmission cut out.
Leaving only the harsh crackle of static.
Angron stood in the mansion’s underground hall.
Beneath his feet was a crushed control console.
Behind him lay augmented thralls, strewn across the floor.
Those still drawing breath writhed in the red emergency lighting, wet wheezes escaping their throats.
The neural devices in the backs of their heads were partially destroyed, the remaining components still smoking.
He did not linger.
The Bloody Sand Arena could not fall.
It held the wounded, the newly armed slaves, the control station, the armory, and Oenomaus.
The relay tower had been captured.
The Outer Labor Sector had been secured.
The mansion gates had been smashed open.
But if the High Riders punched a new hole through the Bloody Sand Arena, everything they had gained would collapse like a house of cards.
Angron turned toward the schematic map beside the console.
House Talq had integrated this basement into the city’s utility grid.
A few red lines remained active on the screen.
The experimental center on the outskirts of the Bloody Sand Arena.
The old underground beast-pen path.
The abandoned sewer pipes.
The back door maintenance shaft.
These people had mapped out their retreat long ago.
From the mansion to the Bloody Sand Arena, they wouldn’t use the streets.
They would go underground.
Angron grabbed the flickering remnant of the control panel, crushed its casing, and ripped out the holographic projector chip.
The red lines wavered in the air, pointing directly behind the wall.
He walked over.
One punch.
The wall caved in.
A second punch.
The entire wall collapsed inward.
Behind it lay a black maintenance pipe—damp, low-ceilinged, with noxious exhaust billowing from its depths.
The conduit was barely wide enough for a small transport vehicle.
Angron bent his knees and squeezed himself inside.
His shoulders scraped against the metal walls on either side, peeling away large flakes of rust.
He began to run.
The pipe vibrated beneath his feet.
The distant sound of artillery grew clearer.
With every tremor, it felt as though someone were hammering on his chest.
Faster.
He had to go faster.
A red warning light flashed at a junction ahead.
A squad of House Talq private soldiers was advancing—about a dozen men carrying cutters and demolition charges.
When they saw the massive shadow charging from the depths of the conduit, their formation visibly froze.
The squad leader had barely raised his hand.
Angron crashed into their midst.
In the narrow pipe, the soldiers had nowhere to dodge.
The first man was smashed into the wall, his chestplate flattened like paper.
The second leveled a melta-gun, but Angron slapped the barrel aside, sending the superheated beam slicing through a comrade’s shoulder.
Angron grabbed his helmet and dragged his face along the metal wall.
A trail of sparks exploded behind them.
Those in the back tried to retreat.
They couldn’t.
Their own demolition charges blocked the path.
Angron kicked the heavy demolition box deep into the squad’s ranks.
The soldiers screamed.
An explosion consumed half of the conduit.
Flames washed over him, blackening his skin, but the charred flesh was quickly pushed away by rapidly regenerating tissue.
Angron walked through the fire.
He didn’t spare a glance at the corpses.
He kept running.
At the end of the conduit was a heavy maintenance sluice gate.
Shouts and battle cries echoed from the other side.
Along with the familiar whirring of rotating turrets.
He had reached the Bloody Sand Arena.
Angron didn’t look for a release switch.
He slammed his shoulder into it.
*Boom!* The gate flew inward.
The lower levels of the Bloody Sand Arena’s east side opened up before him.
This area had originally served as the beast pens and washing channels, with rusted chains still hanging from the walls and a mixture of sewage and blood covering the floor.
Now, more than half of the House Talq private soldiers had already breached.
Having attacked from the back door, they were currently pushing toward the main gate’s control winch.
Once they forced it open, their main force outside could flood into the Bloody Sand Arena from the streets.
A few newly armed slaves stood guard at the end of the corridor.
Their shields were crooked, and their hands shook as they aimed their rifles.
Yet they had not retreated.
An old gladiator leaned against the wall, his abdomen shot through, yet he still used his body to jam the door gap.
The Talq squad leader raised his melta-gun, aiming it at the gladiator’s head.
In the next instant, the flying maintenance gate pulverized half the corridor.
Before the leader could even turn his head, Angron’s hand reached out from the billowing dust and grabbed his weapon.
The melta-gun was twisted into a pretzel.
The squad leader looked up to see a massive, dark-green shadow hunched over as it squeezed into the passageway.
In that moment, the entire assault squad fell silent.
They had tunneled into the Bloody Sand Arena, believing they had bypassed the main gate, the defense turrets, and Angron.
Only for Angron to return from behind them.
Angron grabbed the leader’s chestplate.
And ripped backward.
The man was dragged into the dust.
After a dull thud, only a mangled half-chestplate was thrown back out.
“You holding the door, fall back.” Angron’s voice cut through the gunfire.
The old gladiator guarding the door gap looked up.
His face was covered in blood, but his eyes lit up.
“You heard him!” He roared at the men around him.
“Get the hell back!” The slaves in the passage began to retreat.
The Talq soldiers wanted to retreat too.
Both sides wanted out of this narrow corridor.
Angron gave them no such option.
He stood in the center of the passage, blocking the entire width.
Bullets struck his flesh.
Melta beams scorched his shoulders.
A concussion grenade detonated against his chest, forcing him back half a step.
Only half a step.
He reached out, grabbed the nearest private soldier, and used him as a shield to plow forward.
The gunmen in the rear hesitated, afraid of hitting their own.
That split-second hesitation.
Was all he needed.
Angron charged.
The passage was too narrow; they had nowhere to run.
With one step, he shattered two men.
He raised a hand, grabbed a third by the helmet, and slammed him into the low ceiling.
Turning, his shoulder rammed into a heavy shield.
The man behind it, along with his shield, was smashed deep into the wall.
Utility pipes ruptured, filling the corridor with hot white steam.
The Talq soldiers’ vision was completely obscured.
Yet Angron’s silhouette loomed even larger in the mist.
His hands reached out from the white fog.
Grabbing one.
Dragging him back.
Grabbing another.
Smashing him into the floor.
Bones, armor plates, and rifles shattered into a bloody slurry underfoot.
At the other end of the passage, the soldiers’ resolve finally broke.
Some tried to flee back into the abandoned sewer pipes.
Angron grabbed a thick pipe from the wall, ripped it free along with its mounting brackets, and jammed it horizontally across the pipe’s opening.
The escape route was sealed.
One of the soldiers fell to his knees and ripped off his mask.
“I surrend—” Angron walked right past him.
Just as the man exhaled in relief, the freed thralls behind Angron lunged forward and shoved him face-first into the sewage.
Angron did not stop them.
He walked straight toward the main gate’s control winch.
It had already been halfway blown apart.
Two House Talq demolitions experts were still prone on the ground, desperately trying to push a final melta-charge beneath the axle.
Angron brought his foot down on the charge.
The demolitions men looked up.
His foot crushed down.
The charge’s casing, its detonator, and the demolitionists’ arms were pulverized in an instant.
Angron gripped the edge of the winch.
The winch was bent out of shape.
The main gate’s internal lock was halfway pried open.
Heavy thuds vibrated from the outside.
Someone was ramming the gate from the street.
Channeling his immense strength, Angron wrenched the deformed winch back into place.
The gears ground together and locked.
The main gate’s internal lock slammed back into place.
*Boom!* Another blow struck from outside.
The entire gate shuddered.
Angron remained motionless.
He held the winch steady, only releasing his grip after a second impact had subsided.
“Brace it!” The old gladiator crawled up from the wall, dragging a long, blood-soaked bandage like a length of intestine, and led the others to shove heavy iron frames behind the gate.
Angron glanced at him.
“Where is Oenomaus?” The old gladiator spat a mouthful of blood.
“At the control station.” “Still breathing.” Angron turned and made his way toward the control station.
The interior of the Bloody Sand Arena had been transformed.
The wreckage of the anti-grav vehicle still blocked the path behind the main gate.
The turrets atop the high walls fired outward.
The roar of artillery made the entire arena tremble.
The newly liberated slaves carried ammunition.
Though they were in disarray, they did not scatter.
Some dragged corpses off the bloody sand; others carried the wounded to the lower levels.
They were still disorganized.
But they were far stronger than they had been mere hours ago.
At least now they knew which positions to hold, and which way to point their guns.
Angron ascended the steps to the control station.
Oenomaus sat beside a shattered pillar, the bandages on his nape soaked in fresh blood.
One hand pressed against the console, while the other gripped a short sword, its tip dripping with blood.
Two House Talq assassins lay dead at his feet.
The old man looked up at Angron, his lips curling into a faint smirk.
“You didn’t take too long.” Angron looked down at his wound.
“You should be lying down.” “I lay down for a bit just now.” Oenomaus tapped the console with his short sword.
“Some idiot tried to sneak past me, so I had to get up.” Angron said no more.
He looked at the console’s holographic display.
The area surrounding the Bloody Sand Arena was littered with red dots.
Those who had breached underground were only the first wave.
More House Talq private soldiers were assembling on the perimeter.
Signals lit up at the East Gate, the back shaft, the old beast-pen path, and the sewer pipes.
This wasn’t a simple attempt to retake the back door.
It was a diversion to pin him down.
To keep him running back and forth putting out fires inside the Bloody Sand Arena.
As Angron stared at the red dots, the anger in his chest slowly compressed into a cold simmer.
The High Riders had finally learned.
They weren’t just sending men to die.
They were targeting his rear, his wounded, and the very foundation he had just established.
“Who’s out there?” Oenomaus did not answer immediately.
He pulled up a feed on the console screen.
On the street outside the Bloody Sand Arena, a convoy of hover-vehicles was parked in a semi-circle.
The platinum banner of House Talq flew from the lead vehicle.
Beneath the banner, a towering figure in platinum armor stepped down from the command vehicle.
He was far taller than an ordinary High Rider.
His power armor was thick and heavy, the shoulders engraved with hawk-beast crests, and a slender metal whip hung from his back.
Even without being cracked, the air around the whip vibrated faintly.
The audio from the recording didn’t feed through.
But a sudden, sharp pain throbbed deep in the back of Angron’s head.
The remnants of the Butcher’s Nails felt as though they were being pricked by a needle.
The pain surged down his spine.
Oenomaus stared at him.
“Know him?” Angron stared at the platinum figure.
“No.” He turned and walked toward the arena floor.
Another low hum echoed from outside the Bloody Sand Arena.
This time, he didn’t need the display feed.
Angron could hear it.
That whip was singing.
Every vibration felt like a razor scraping across the back of his skull.
Angron reached up and pressed his nape.
A green light slowly kindled in his eyes.
“But he brought a leash.”