“But he brought a leash.” Angron stepped down from the control station.
Outside the Bloody Sand Arena, the neural whip hummed again.
*Hum—* The sound was razor-thin, like a red-hot needle scraping against the back of his skull.
In the lower corridors, several slaves who had just been freed from their collars suddenly clutched their necks.
Some fell to their knees, their teeth chattering.
It wasn’t that the collars were tightening; their bodies simply remembered the agony.
Angron did not halt his advance.
The turrets on the high walls continued to fire outward.
At the end of the street, the House Talq platinum convoy was arrayed in a semicircle.
Heavy private soldiers pushed mobile shield walls forward, with melta-cannons and heavy stubbers set up behind them.
Further back, a low-slung hover-artillery tank was adjusting its turret.
Standing at the very front was the Patriarch of House Talq.
Enclosed in platinum power armor, he towered over normal men, his shoulder guards as wide as doors.
The family’s hawk-beast crest was etched upon his chest, and a slender metal whip dangled behind him.
Blue-white electrical arcs flickered along the segments of the whip.
With every low hum, the air inside the Bloody Sand Arena trembled.
Angron stepped out from behind the ruins of the main gate.
The gunfire outside died down for a fraction of a second.
The Patriarch of House Talq looked up.
Across half a shattered street, he beheld the colossal figure emerging from the Bloody Sand Arena.
Nearly five meters tall.
Dark-green skin.
His chest bore the claw marks and bite wounds of the underground battle he had just finished.
The wounds were already healing, yet blood still trickled down his corded muscle.
The Patriarch of House Talq smiled.
“I thought you would keep hiding inside.” His voice, amplified by his power armor, drowned out the street-wide alarms.
“It seems the beast still knows who its master is.” Angron stepped down from the final stair.
As his foot met the pavement, the stone cracked.
Behind him, the main gate of the Bloody Sand Arena lay half-collapsed.
Inside, slaves and gladiators stood with rifles raised.
Many of their hands were shaking, but not a single one backed down.
The Patriarch of House Talq saw them.
The smile on his face faded slightly.
“You think that because you removed your collars, you are free?” He raised the neural whip.
The humming grew high-pitched.
Inside the gate, several men groaned, clutching their necks and doubling over.
Oenomaus gripped the edge of the console, blood seeping from his forehead, yet he still reached out to press down on the shoulder of a young gladiator beside him.
“Do not kneel.” His voice was not loud.
But everyone nearby heard him.
The Patriarch of House Talq heard him too.
He looked toward Oenomaus, a flicker of disgust passing through his eyes.
“Old bastard.” The neural whip lashed out.
The whip crack cut through the air like a streak of thin lightning, striking toward the Bloody Sand Arena’s main gate.
Angron reached out and caught it.
*Crack!* Electricity exploded.
The whip wrapped around his palm, channeling blue-white arcs of current deep into his skin, surging up his arm to his shoulder, and plunging toward the back of his skull.
The remnants of the Butcher’s Nails were instantly triggered by the strike.
Pain.
Sharper than any he had felt in the underground modification chambers.
It felt as if someone were driving the nails back into his brain, slowly twisting and burning.
Angron’s fingers tightened.
The length of the whip pulled taut in his palm.
The Patriarch’s eyes lit up.
“It works.” He took a step forward.
“As expected, the Butcher’s Nails were not implanted in vain.” The neural whip vibrated again.
The agony intensified.
Angron’s knees buckled slightly.
A ring of fine cracks spread across the pavement beneath him.
Someone swore softly inside the arena gates.
Others raised their rifles.
Oenomaus held up his hand to stop them.
“Do not fire.” His eyes were locked on Angron.
“He is still standing.” The Patriarch of House Talq gripped the hilt of his whip.
The thrusters on the back of his platinum power armor flared, and a personal forcefield projected a faint shimmer around him.
“Kneel.” His voice slowed.
Like a master training a beast that had finally been reined in by the neck.
“I might let you live.” The neural whip hummed a third time.
Angron kept his head lowered.
The muscles on his shoulders bunched one by one, like fire burning beneath his skin.
Dark-green veins bulged, snaking up his arms to his chest.
His newly closed wounds ruptured once more, spilling blood so hot it hissed and steamed as it hit the stone pavement.
The pain continued to bore into his brain.
His breathing grew heavy.
Once.
And again.
The Patriarch of House Talq finally let out a laugh.
“Do you see this?” He shouted to the people inside the Bloody Sand Arena.
“This is your savior!” “Find the right leash, and he is no different from you—” Angron looked up.
His eyes blazed with a brilliant green light.
The rest of the Patriarch’s words seized in his throat.
The whip suddenly snapped taut.
Angron yanked backward.
The Patriarch’s arm was violently jerked forward, the heavy boots of his power armor scraping twin trails of sparks across the pavement.
He immediately fired his back thrusters.
The platinum figure surged backward and upward.
Angron did not let go.
The neural whip shrieked under the strain.
The locks on the hilt could not withstand the monumental force, cracking segment by segment.
The Patriarch’s expression morphed.
“Decouple!” The release mechanism in his gauntlet flashed.
Before the mechanism could trigger, Angron gripped the whip with both hands and yanked it toward him with savage force.
*Boom!* The Patriarch was ripped straight out of the air.
The platinum power armor crashed into the street, sending fractured stones flying.
The surrounding private soldiers opened fire immediately.
Bullets, melta beams, and concussion grenades rained down on Angron.
Angron ignored them, clutching the neural whip as he dragged the Patriarch forward.
A heavily armored soldier stood in his path.
Angron didn’t even slow down.
He rammed his shoulder forward.
The man was folded in half along with his shield, sent flying into the shield wall behind him.
A melta-cannon fired.
Angron swung the neural whip like a flail.
The Patriarch was swung bodily, his heavy armor smashing into the melta-cannon and knocking its barrel off target.
The superheated beam grazed Angron’s side, incinerating a patch of flesh.
With a backhand strike, he slammed the Patriarch into the artillery vehicle.
The vehicle caved in.
The platinum shoulder guard fractured.
The Patriarch thrashed amidst the crumpled metal, his back thrusters firing once more.
Angron stepped over.
And planted a foot squarely on his chest.
The thrusters roared.
The armor strained to lift him.
The pavement sank beneath them.
Angron’s foot remained immovable.
The Patriarch roared, a melta-pike popping out from his gauntlet and stabbing into Angron’s calf.
The tip pierced his flesh.
Angron glanced down.
He reached down and gripped the pike.
*Snap.* The shaft snapped.
He grabbed the Patriarch’s armored arm and ripped it outward.
The entire right arm of the power armor was torn free, spraying sparks, severed cables, and blood.
The Patriarch shrieked.
His personal forcefield flared violently.
Angron brought a fist down.
The shield buckled.
With a second punch, the platinum chestplate cracked.
With a third punch, the shield generator detonated against his chest in a burst of blue fire.
The Patriarch of House Talq was beaten flat into the cratered street.
Angron grabbed his helmet and hoisted him out of the hole.
The visor shattered, revealing the face of a middle-aged man.
Pale.
Bleeding.
Panic had finally taken root in his eyes.
“You can’t kill me,” the Patriarch wheezed.
“You don’t know where the experimental center is.” Angron’s fist hovered in front of his face.
Recognizing the hesitation, the Patriarch seized the opportunity.
“I have the lists.
The relay controls, the augmentation batches, the buyers, the Council’s voting records…
they all require my biometric key to open.” He coughed up blood, but his words sped up.
“Kill me, and you get nothing but a corpse.
Keep me alive, and you can dismantle the entire chain.” Angron stared at him.
The Patriarch tried to conjure a smirk.
The moment his lips twitched, Angron’s fist plowed into his abdomen.
The lower armor plates of the platinum suit collapsed.
The Patriarch doubled over, spewing blood from his mouth.
Angron did not kill him.
He ripped away the remaining half of the neural whip and used it to bind the Patriarch’s arms behind his back.
The whip still crackled with residual currents.
The Patriarch writhed in agony.
This time, the whip was wrapped around its own master.
Angron dragged him toward the Bloody Sand Arena.
The platinum power armor scraped harshly against the gravel.
The remaining private soldiers tried to rally.
Inside the main gate, the defense turrets swiveled.
Oenomaus, coughing blood, pressed the firing stud.
*Boom!* The first salvo detonated right in front of the advancing soldiers.
The street exploded.
Slaves and gladiators poured from the gates, bracing their barrels against the ruined walls.
Those whose hands had trembled moments ago now pulled their triggers against the platinum-clad privateers.
The Patriarch was dragged through the main gate.
He looked up and saw the center of the Bloody Sand Arena.
The execution platform was rising.
The elevator ground upward with a heavy rumble.
Hours ago, when it rose, it bore slaves meant to be slaughtered for the entertainment of the nobility.
Now, the spectator stands lay in ruins.
The noble boxes were burned-out husks.
Beneath the platform stood crowds of people who had just torn off their collars.
Angron dragged the Patriarch onto the bloody sand.
The platinum suit plowed a deep trench through the crimson dust.
The Patriarch of House Talq finally began to thrash in earnest.
“No,” his voice wheezed through shattered teeth.
“No, you can’t bring me there.” Angron did not stop.
The neural whip snapped completely in his grip.
He tossed the Patriarch of House Talq onto the execution platform.
*Thud.* The platinum armor crashed onto the platform.
And every single eye in the Bloody Sand Arena locked onto him.