CHAPTER 5: GRAVITY'S END

The voice tore through Kael's skull like a red-hot spike, sharp enough to make his teeth ache. Kill the Reaper. Not a request. Not a suggestion. A command written directly into his nervous system with white-hot needles.

Pain followed—beautiful, cleansing agony that set his nerves alight. His ribs snapped back into alignment with audible cracks. Torn muscle fibers wove themselves together like frantic spiders mending a web. The gaping hole in his thigh closed with a wet squelch, leaving only tacky blood and the memory of injury behind.

Kael's hands found his machetes before his eyes fully focused. The familiar weight settled into his palms, the blades humming softly as if awakened by the Contract's call. His Creeper-hide cloak slithered around his shoulders of its own accord, the Nsibidi glyphs along its edges glowing faintly beneath layers of dirt and old blood.

The battlefield unfolded before him in snapshots of chaos.

Creepers poured through the shattered east wall in a skittering tide, their talons clicking against broken concrete like a thousand rusted scissors. Soldiers fired in panicked bursts, their bullets punching through soft chitin but doing little to slow the advance. Someone was screaming about acid burns. The air smelled of ozone and opened bowels.

Kael moved like a shadow given form, his body obeying the Contract's will before his mind could protest.

His first strike severed a creeper's head clean from its shoulders, the blade meeting no more resistance than if he'd cut through warm butter. The second swing split another down the middle, black blood spraying across his boots in an arc. He twisted, letting the cloak billow out to obscure his movements, then gutted three more in quick succession. Their insides spilled onto the dirt with wet plops.

"Kael! Fall back to the secondary—" Madam's voice cut off as he vanished deeper into the swarm.

There was no rage this time. No berserk fury that blurred his vision red. Just cold, surgical efficiency as his blades carved through the horde. They fell like wheat before a scythe, their bodies offering no more resistance than wet paper. A part of him noted distantly that this was worse than his usual frenzy—this calm precision spoke of something far more dangerous than mere anger.

A creeper lunged from his blind spot, jaws gaping wide enough to take off his arm. Kael didn't bother turning—he simply sidestepped and let the cloak wrap around its face like a living thing. The creature shrieked as the wards seared its eyes to bubbling jelly. His machete finished the job with a casual backhand swing.

Madam watched from the barricades, her teeth grinding together hard enough to ache. The idiot was overextending again, putting himself at risk for no good reason. But she couldn't deny his effectiveness—where Kael passed, creepers fell in twitching heaps. She'd yell at him later. If they survived.

"Vargas! Keep those cannons firing!" she barked, tearing her attention away to focus on the greater threat. The titan loomed beyond the wall, its massive form blotting out the sickly orange sky.

The massive creature ignored the bullets pinging off its obsidian hide, its six lidless eyes fixed on the outpost with unsettling focus. Its chest plates parted with a sound like grinding stone, revealing glowing blue sigils that pulsed in time with Kael's quickening heartbeat.

Then the world bent.

Five soldiers were ripped from their positions as if hooked by invisible wires, screaming as they hurtled toward the titan's waiting spikes. Their bodies hit with a sound like overripe fruit bursting, painting the creature's hide in gory streaks.

Jabari ducked behind a collapsed generator, his scavenged UWN rifle smoking from sustained fire. He'd seen this before. The sigils always dimmed after each pull. Eight seconds. That was their window. That was all they ever got.

A creeper pounced at him from the smoke. He put a round through its open mouth without looking, the bullet exiting in a spray of chitin and black ooze.

Kael finally paused, his machetes dripping onto the cracked earth. The outpost had become a nightmare diorama—men melting from acid, others being dragged screaming toward the titan's maw. And Jabari...

The "scout" moved like a veteran, his shots precise, his footwork flawless despite the chaos. Interesting. That wasn't scout training. That was special forces. Kael filed the information away for later, assuming there was a later.

A titanic roar shook the ruins, vibrating up through Kael's boots and into his bones. The remaining soldiers froze, their weapons slipping from numb fingers as some primal part of their brains recognized the sound of an apex predator.

Madam snarled and hefted a fallen Hellstorm cannon onto her shoulder. The massive gatling gun was meant to be mounted on reinforced turrets—firing it freehand would break bones and tear muscles. The recoil alone could snap a spine.

She did it anyway.

"EYES HERE, UGLY!"

The cannon roared to life, its tracers stitching a line of fire across the titan's face. It staggered back, momentarily blinded, one clawed hand rising to shield its eyes. The sound was deafening, the muzzle flash lighting up Madam's sweat-streaked face in strobing bursts.

Kael saw his chance. He darted forward, machetes raised high—

—and the titan stomped.

The ground erupted in a concussive wave, visible only as a distortion in the air before it hit. Kael barely had time to brace before it slammed into him like a freight train, hurling him backward with enough force to blur his vision. An I-beam caught him mid-flight, punching through his abdomen with a sickening crunch that he felt more than heard.

Blood filled his mouth, warm and metallic. The world grayed at the edges, the sounds of battle fading to a dull roar. Through the haze, he saw the titan raise a clawed hand, preparing another shockwave—

—and Madam dove in front of it.

Her prosthetic arm took the full force of the blast, the metal shattering like glass. The impact sent her skidding across the ground, her body leaving a bloody smear in the dirt before coming to rest against a pile of rubble. She didn't move.

Something inside Kael snapped.

He gripped the I-beam with both hands and pulled, tearing himself free with a wet rip that sent fresh agony lancing through his gut. His intestines slithered back into place even as the Contract's power surged through him, black veins crawling up his regenerating arm like ink spreading through water.

Jabari's voice cut through the haze: "SIGILS DIM IN EIGHT—GO!"

Kael moved.

The titan turned, too slow, its massive body unable to match his Contract-fueled speed. Kael's machetes found its chest, plunging deep into the glowing cores with a sound like shattering crystal. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the titan imploded, its body collapsing inward like a deflating balloon. The shockwave knocked Kael off his feet, sending him tumbling end over end across the broken ground.

Silence fell, heavy and unnatural.

He crawled to Madam's side, his hands shaking as he pressed fingers to her throat. A pulse. Weak, thready, but there. Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. The remains of her prosthetic arm sparked fitfully in the dirt beside her.

Then the darkness took him.

The UWN convoy arrived an hour later, long after the last creeper had fallen.

Seven armored carriers rolled through the ruins, their pristine white hulls untouched by the carnage. A commander stepped down, her polished boots carefully avoiding the worst of the blood and gore as she surveyed the scene.

She toed a dead creeper with disinterest, her lip curling at the mess. "Charges for the wall guns," she said, nodding to her troops. "Nothing for the wounded."

Jabari watched from the shadows, his fingers tracing the rusted Marshal's insignia hidden in his pocket. The metal was warm to the touch, the eagle emblem nearly worn smooth from years of handling.

Sector 7 awaited.