Agon roared.

  If the Fox had been with him, the volume alone would have driven her to her knees. But for the Bats surrounding him? It taught them a glorious lesson in why one single son of Thul was enough to raze cities, and why ten could break an empire.

  His laugh was like thunder as he waded through the panicked, disoriented swarm. His greataxe had seen the start and end of five wars. It had survived the end of a hundred battles. It had culled the demigods of Yahaar. And now, it ripped and tore with savage pride through the mutants as he spearheaded the assault on the Warden’s fortress.

  One particularly resilient Bat’s claws scraped uselessly against his steel left pauldron, sparks skittering down the Giant’s arm.

  Agon didn’t even slow down. His fist slammed into the creature's face with the force of a battering ram. When he pulled his hand back, all that remained of the head was a puff of red mist and collapsing bone.

  He looked like a myth made flesh. Half his body bore the reclaimed warplate of his fallen brothers, his laughter distorted and metallic behind the steel greathelm. The other half was stripped bare and covered in warpaint. If he couldn’t be a true knight in this land of rot, he would show them the barbarism they believed in.

  Rinerva wanted a win? She wanted to bring down a monster?

  She would have it.

  It was time to show this cursed land that he wasn’t just a side character in some Witch’s deluded play.

  He was Agon, Sunderer.

  And he had killed kings.

  He pounded his way toward the gate, trusting Talos to finish off the remnants left in his wake.

  He missed this dearly. The thrill of the frontline. The desperate fight for survival. It was a test of sheer will: Who wanted to live more?

  And Agon was two hundred years old.

  The gate didn't just open; it splintered under his assault. The Bats waiting behind it—some still sane, some overmutated abominations—all balked. They paused for just a heartbeat, staring at the unstoppable force now in their midst.

  But he didn’t pause.

  Didn’t flinch.

  Didn’t even blink.

  His axe reaped two Bats in a single swing, their bodies desperately trying to regenerate even as they were turned into viscera and splattered across their comrades with a sloppy, wet crunch.

  “COME FORTH, BRITTLE BONES!”

  He roared again, his axe hewing through the Bats that managed to react. One foolish creature tried to flank him, clawing desperately at his exposed flesh arm.

  Agon caught it mid-air in his gauntleted grip.

  He roared into its face, the sheer volume popping its eardrums, before throwing it into the ground with enough force to crack the stone tile. His boot stepped down on its head under all seven hundred pounds of muscle, bone, and warplate.

  Squish.

  And then he was moving again. Cackling and pushing ahead, driving deeper into the fortress.

  He could see Nomi on the outer walls, moving with perfect grace. Each of her movements was designed to be lethal. She was the "Whisper" he remembered from the war—one of only three people with Giants on their kill tally that Agon had met and not killed.

  Still, she was a bit different from the war days. Though he'd only seen her once on the opposite side, it was perfect. Now though? There were half-second imperceptible hesitations in some of her movements. It was as if her dance was missing the partner she had adapted her style to.

  A shame for her, but necessary. He’d stolen the lad for this fight; he couldn't risk Talos playing too risky with his condition.

  The Giant tore the heavy doors off the hinges to the main keep, his axe dragging along the ground and creating a shower of sparks as he went. Arrows plinked uselessly off his new plate, and the ones that sank into his flesh were ignored. Lillik had used the limited potion tolerance of his giant physiology on heavy antidotes and anti-paralytics.

  Between their alchemy and Lillik’s? He would bet on the Spider any day.

  An overmutated creature lurched from the shadows, and Agon barely got his plated arm up in time to catch its jaws. It was some kind of wolf-thing with six limbs, claws and too many teeth scrambling desperately against his steel vambrace.

  He raised his unarmored arm to strike, before letting out a grunt of pain as another wolf-creature’s teeth sunk deep into his exposed side.

  Two more lingered at the edge of the shadows, watching.

  “Pack hunters? In life as in insanity?”

  He let out a bellowing laugh. Ignoring the pain in his side, he raised the plated arm with the first wolf still clamped onto it. He used the creature like a battering ram, slamming it into the wall so hard the foundation pillar sundered under the blow.

  In a movement that should’ve been impossible for something his size, his fist slammed into the creature sunk into his fleshy side, forcing it to detach before he slammed a plated greave into its ribs.

  It was alive. It skittered back, sporting a substantial dent in its skull.

  But it wasn’t healing. Whatever these things were dosed with, they lacked the regeneration of the Bats.

  “Talos, these are mine.”

  “Shut up, old man.”

  Talos replied without looking back, twirling the heavy shortsword in his right hand, and holding the spear in his left.

  “I was a gladiator before I met alchemists. I am a gladiator still.”

  Agon smirked and nodded as one of the wolves split off to deal with the Null.

  “No taking hits for fun, aye?”

  “You first.”

  Talos looked alive—not the frenzied, drug-addled berserker of the alley, but quick, sharp, and focused.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Agon stepped forward toward the remaining pack. They moved in perfect unity, surrounding him. The first one lunged for his calf, while another launched itself straight for his throat.

  Agon shifted. He tucked his chin, driving the steel greathelm down to meet the aerial attacker. Metal crashed against bone. The headbutt shattered the thing's jaw, sending teeth flying like shrapnel.

  At the same moment, he felt the biting sting of jaws clamping onto his unarmored leg.

  Maybe the lad picked up the habit from me, he mused.

  His massive greataxe swept down, cleaving the front left leg off the wolf trying to devour his calf before it could scramble away.

  Agon smirked. The smell of his own blood was nothing new. He shifted, chasing the one he had just crippled. Despite the leg injury, his stride was immense, and he was just barely faster than the limping beast. The other wolves clawed and bit at his armor, but he ignored them.

  He grabbed the crippled wolf by the top of its snout. He sunk his axe into the tile floor to free his other hand, gripping the bottom of the creature's jaw.

  With a roar of effort, he tore the two asunder.

  Blood and viscera sprayed across his armor and flesh as the creature was split fully in half, silenced by raw strength.

  The other two wolves—maddened, but still mortal enough to feel fear—scrambled back. They watched him warily now that their companion had been so thoroughly dismembered.

  Agon pulled the axe out of the earth, shards of tile spraying from the weight of the motion. As they circled once more, he had a chance to glance at Talos.

  The lad was alive. His eyes were calm and focused. He parried and out-spaced the claws, moving with steady, gladiatorial discipline rather than the inhuman grace Nomi held. He wasn’t reliant on healing or blinding speed. He was relying on prediction. A strategy that had its limits when his arm spasmed every few minutes.

  But he was winning. Even if he paid for it with shallow cuts from dodges that were a fraction of a second too slow.

  Agon was punished for his momentary distraction when the toothless wolf attempted to tackle him to the ground from behind. He staggered a single step forward, then his gauntlet snatched at the creature, which immediately sprang out of his reach.

  They were so much more wary now, positioning themselves to get at his unarmored meat.

  Agon had to get creative.

  He left an opening, baiting the one that still had teeth to lunge. But instead of taking the hit against his armor, he shifted. He dodged.

  The wolf overshot, sliding past him on the blood-slick tile. It only had time to look up before the executioner's axe divided its head into two neat pieces.

  The final wolf tried to take its last gamble, using its companion's death as an opening, only for Agon's fist to catch it by the neck mid-air. It scrambled and clawed at his arms, meeting his eyes as he slowly crushed its windpipe into a gory mess.

  With a grunt of exertion, he threw the corpse through another support pillar, shattering the stone.

  Talos was back to hewing through the lesser Bats when Agon glanced over. He felt a swell of pride at the wolf the lad had picked apart—but that pride vanished in a heartbeat.

  Agon’s eyes widened.

  He didn't shout a warning; there wasn't time. He raised his massive greataxe above his head and heaved it with every ounce of strength in his god-touched muscles.

  The weapon soared through the air, a spinning blur of steel. It slammed home into the perfect human form that had been rushing towards Talos. The impact carried the creature off its feet, launching it across the room and smashing it through yet another stone support pillar.

  Talos spun around, eyes wide with alarm. He hadn’t detected it. No sound, no smell, no killing intent—until the impact.

  Dust settled around the ruin of the pillar. The figure rose, this must have been the one Nomi mentioned.

  It gripped the handle of Agon’s axe and pulled. With a sucking squelch, the blade slid free from its chest. There was no blood spray, only a sluggish ooze. It was hurt, but only on the surface.

  “...You.”

  The creature muttered, its voice dry and annoyed.

  “You’re the one making my laboratory shake. You’ll go first.”

  It shifted its gaze toward Agon. The creature was utterly devoid of life—pitch-black eyes set in a face of pale, colorless skin, framed by long, messy black hair. It looked like a corpse that had forgotten to lie down.

  “I am Agon, Sunderer, slayer of—”

  “Shut up and die.”

  The creature cut off the challenge and lunged. It was half the Giant's size, a speck compared to Agon, but when the unarmed Giant raised his vambrace to block the punch, the impact sounded like a church bell, its arm swelled with mutation, as it connected with a blow.

  Agon’s arm shuddered violently, the force vibrating all the way to his teeth.

  “Gods below… the Fox wasn’t lying.”

  Agon gritted his teeth and drove his fist into the creature's gut. It connected with the sound of meat hitting an anvil. The creature slid back a half-step, but it didn't fold.

  It countered.

  One blow cracked his chest plate—steel forged by giants, fractured under the blow. Then another, shattering several of the Old Man's ribs beneath the platting.

  Agon wheezed, the air leaving his lungs in a pained hiss. This little bastard was durable. And strong.

  He grabbed the creature by the arms and launched him, crashing him through a stone wall. It bought him three seconds.

  In that time, Agon scrambled to retrieve his axe.

  A moment later, the thing stepped back through the hole in the wall, brushing dust from its shoulder.

  Agon panted, sucking shallow breaths in through the broken cage of his chest. As the thing advanced once again, Agon stepped forward.

  He swung.

  He put all the force of his god-touched body into the blow. It was a strike meant to end a siege. The axe had a longer history than some cities. It had taken seven hundred and ninety-two lives in Agon’s hands. It was the extension of his soul.

  And it shattered against the creature’s skin.

  The impact sent the creature flying sideways through another few pillars, the building shuddering around them, but Agon was left holding nothing but a splintered haft.

  “Talos.”

  “What?”

  “Move. You’re in the way.”

  Agon stared down at the broken remains of his legacy. The creature rose from the rubble again. It bore a substantial gash in its side, but it was rising.

  Blessedly, Talos didn’t argue. He saw the broken axe. He saw the look in the Giant's eyes.

  “You better survive, old man.”

  “...Take care of Nomi.”

  Talos froze, his eyes filling with something indescribable. A small nod, then he turned. The lad fought his way through the few remaining dregs and sprinted for the exit of the citadel.

  Agon turned back to the monster.

  “You’re damn tough.”

  The Giant hummed thoughtfully.

  “Even if I were in my prime… I don’t know if I woulda won this one.”

  The thing kept walking, confident in its invincibility.

  Agon didn't aim for the monster. He grabbed the heavy, severed head of his greataxe from the floor and hurled it with a roar. It spiraled across the room, not at flesh, but at stone. It sheared through two crucial support pillars with the force of a siege weapon.

  The massive citadel shuddered. Fatally this time.

  The creature's pitch-black eyes widened.

  “What have you done?”

  “Let’s see just how durable you are.”

  Agon’s eyes were grim with determination.

  The creature tried to dart for the exit, moving with a blur of speed, but Agon anticipated it. His gauntlet gripped around its arm, yanking it back, and he pulled the Warden into a crushing bear hug.

  “Oh no, you don’t.”

  “You—! Oaf! No! I refuse to die to a relic!”

  The thing thrashed, an elbow driving backward and crushing one of Agon’s lungs. Agon coughed blood inside his helm, but he adjusted his grip, squeezing tighter, locking his fingers into his own armor.

  “My name...”

  The building groaned, the ceiling cracking open like an eggshell.

  “...Is Agon.”

  “I am a man of science! I—”

  “I am the Sunderer.”

  The runes on his armor glowed a dull silver. Rubble and large limestone chunks started to crash onto the tile, dusting them both in the powder of the collapsing keep, the noise drowning out the pitiful mewling of the man Agon was entombing.

  “And I fucking hate this country.”

  Agon grinned, his eyes turning up to the ceiling as the sky fell. His ribs hurt, his remaining lung struggled to bring in air. His muscles strained against the abomination trapped in his arms. But they held. He held.

  All in all? There were worse ways to go. He would’ve liked to see Tal and Nomi happy one more t—