The blast hit without warning.
It flipped me onto my back. I didn’t even try to stand.
I grabbed the shredded chunk of door beside me and hurled it toward the elevator opening, then snatched up an armful of weapons and sprinted to cover.
I knew their playbook. Once they forced entry, the next move was always a brutal surge of firepower.
Right on cue, several smoking grenades arced up from below. They bounced once and detonated in a chain of muffled blasts.
Before the smoke could settle, I rushed the shaft with an electromagnetic rifle and hammered rounds straight down.
The narrow elevator well was packed with climbing machines. A few Prowlers were almost over the lip; I hit them first. Sparks sprayed as they tumbled backward, crashing into the bodies below.
Units farther down returned fire.
I ducked back, tossed a grenade, and listened to the dull thump roll through the shaft.
Then I grabbed the grenade launcher and sent two more rounds into the opening.
Flame filled the well.
With the high ground and enough caution, I could hold this choke point.
I lost it anyway—in seconds.
A micro-missile, glowing with blue light, punched out of the smoke.
My threat sensors screamed. I threw myself sideways, clearing dozens of meters in a single burst and sliding behind a bank of consoles.
The missile couldn’t correct in time. It struck the shaft’s doorframe.
Blue arcs exploded outward.
Every screen and indicator on the bridge went insane—flickering, strobing, dying, relighting. My own systems lurched under the electromagnetic pulse.
My vision flashed. My thoughts stuttered.
I forced my processor to stabilize. I was hit, but I could still move.
Dorian-2 was my priority. The blast had detonated directly below level two, closer to him than to me.
“Dorian… are you okay?” I shouted up the stairs. My voice came out warped.
No answer.
Panic was an unfamiliar chemical in my logic circuits, but I felt it anyway.
I started toward the stairs—
“I’m… fine,” Dorian-2 called back at last. “I’m fine, Wyatt, sir. The Prism-Etched Scepter is protecting me.”
“Good.”
The strange Prism-Etched Scepter head had saved us again. If we survived this, I wanted it to scan my systems too.
I turned back toward the elevator opening.
At the exact same moment—
“BANG!”
An Umbral vaulted onto the bridge.
I fired. The shots hit its deployed energy shield and scattered into the air. My magazine ran dry in under a heartbeat.
I dropped the electromagnetic rifle and switched to my pistols.
In that tiny gap, a fast-spinning disc blade was already in my face.
I’d seen weapons like this before. I didn’t dare block it. I twisted away.
It shaved past my head—
And the second spinning blade arrived silently, aimed for my legs.
I jumped, firing my thrusters on instinct.
Sparks burst. It still scored my thigh.
There was no time to breathe. My landing point had been predicted.
Before my feet even touched down, a third spinning blade was waiting.
I couldn’t dodge.
At the last instant, I rotated my body and took the hit across my back.
“CLANG!”
The spinning blade struck the 2D Blade strapped there and ricocheted away.
The impact felt like being hit by a tank.
I slammed to the floor, rolling, alive.
[DATA STREAM CORRUPTED]
My processor kept coughing up scrambled code.
And with it came flickers from my memory archive—
“Don’t blame me. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t blame any innocent bystanders,” Lord Blin said, his form twisted and unreal, pointing a wooden sword at me where I lay on the floor of a vast hall. “When you’re in real danger, you’ll thank me. Now get up, idiot. We’re not done!”
[DATA STREAM CORRUPTED]
I shook my head hard until the images broke apart.
The bridge snapped back into focus.
“Thank you, Lord Blin,” I muttered, and forced my optics to lock onto the three figures near the elevator well.
No—three Umbrals didn’t look like that.
These were thinner by a full frame. Their armor was lighter. A small bulge rose at the back of each neck, making their heads and bodies look fused together.
And unlike me, they hadn’t been affected by the EMP.
So they were bioweapons too.
CBG, upgraded again?
They glanced at one another, apparently surprised that their pulse-and-blade combo hadn’t finished me.
Then they moved.
One advanced toward me. The other two turned for the staircase.
Worse—another shape hauled itself out of the shaft behind them.
The well was compromised. That meant their numbers could keep rising.
I stopped thinking and started moving.
I drew both pistols and charged.
The hardest fight of my life began.
I fired at the two heading upstairs. Laser rounds landed, but didn’t slow them. I only hit twice before the one rushing me raised an energy shield and blocked the rest.
Phantom Forge knew who mattered most.
I holstered the pistols mid-run and leapt, one hand on the hilt of my 2D Blade as if I were about to jump-split him.
The CBG in front of me fought like it had nothing to lose. It ignored its own defense and threw a flashcutter blade straight at my throat.
It was faster than the previous generation, and its prediction was perfect: if I’d drawn my blade in midair, I would’ve offered my head to that arc.
But I never intended to.
I landed two meters short, rolled past its flank, and snapped my legs around its torso.
Before it could react, I used my momentum to slam it onto its back.
I drew the 2D Blade and split it in half—helmet and skull together.
Three seconds. That was all.
In that time the other two CBG were already on the stairs, and the fourth attacker was on me.
I grabbed the bisected corpse and held it up like a shield.
A spinning blade punched through the body with ease, spraying armor fragments and viscera across the deck.
Another CBG climbed up from the shaft, but I couldn’t spare it.
If even one reached level two, we were done.
I threw the ruined body at the climber and turned, blade raised, toward the staircase.
My timing was exact.
The 2D Blade bit into the steel from behind and cleaved through—taking the leg of a CBG with it. The severed section dropped, dangling.
One more strike ended it.
Then I jumped through the broken stairwell to the upper level.
The third CBG had already made the platform.
When it saw me coming, it didn’t retreat. It didn’t even defend.
It raised its arm toward Dorian-2.
I cut its head open in one clean stroke—
And a spinning blade launched past my shoulder toward the captain’s chair.
[DATA CORRUPTED]