Guards on the ramparts were shouting, scrambling to man the heavy machine gun turrets, but they hadn't fired yet. They were waiting for orders.

  "So," Bells said, looking up at the metal spikes adorning the wall. "If I'm going to die for a million stones today, I should probably know who owns the gravestone."

  "White Hill," I said.

  "Fill me in on the city politics," Bells said. "I don't know the board. I've spent the last year in a hole in the ground."

  I looked at the walls. "There are four factions. Seaside, Eden, White Hill, and The Cove."

  Bells raised an eyebrow. "And let me guess, you all hate each other?"

  "We tolerate each other," I corrected. "Until today."

  I pointed toward the east, toward the river. "Seaside is run by Mister O. His aesthetic is sleekness. Chrome, purple neon, high tech logistics. He owns the water and the shipping. Think futuristic shipping magnate."

  I tapped the bamboo sword at my hip. "Eden is us. My aesthetic is nature. Life. Overgrowth. We are the rainforest crashing into the concrete. Bioluminescence and vitality. We control the food."

  I pointed to the ugly fortress in front of us. "And this is White Hill. Axehill’s empire. His aesthetic is brutality. Iron. Rust. Spikes. He doesn't care about looking good; he cares about being unbreakable. He controls defense."

  "And The Cove?" Bells asked.

  "The Cove is unknown," I admitted. "They deal in pharmaceuticals. Medicine. High grade alchemy. That potion you drank is likely from them. But I've never seen their base, and I've never met their leader, Misty, outside of one occasion. They stay hidden."

  "Medicine, food, shipping, and guns," Bells mused. "The four horsemen of the apocalypse."

  "Pretty much," I said. "But right now, the only one that matters is the guns."

  A spotlight from the Northville wall slammed onto us, blindingly bright.

  "Halt!" a voice said over a loudspeaker. "This is White Hill Territory! Turn back or be fired upon!"

  I drew my Sword.

  "We aren't turning back," I said.

  The machine guns opened fire.

  "Plan?" Bells yelled over the noise, a wind barrier forming around him to deflect the stray bullets.

  "Split up," I shouted. "You take the sky. I take the ground. Don't stop moving until the flag comes down."

  "Copy that," Bells grinned.

  He launched himself.

  Condensed wings of air sprouted from his back, and he shot upward like a rocket. He wove through the streams of tracer fire. He reached the ramparts in seconds, unleashing wind blades that sliced through the guard towers.

  I charged the gate.

  The gunners shifted their aim and a wall of lead hammered into me.

  My Armor held for the first volley, the bullets flattening against the plating. But there were too many. The sheer volume of fire began to punch through.

  A fifty caliber round tore through my pauldron and embedded itself in my shoulder. Another ripped through my thigh.

  I felt the pain but it was distant.

  Green steam rose from the bullet holes. My flesh rejected the foreign objects. The bullets were pushed out of my body by rapidly knitting muscle and skin, clattering to the pavement as I ran.

  I hit the gate at full speed.

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  The steel buckled and the hinges snapped.

  I burst through the doors into the city streets.

  "Clear the way!" I roared.

  Northville was a barracks. There were no civilians here, only soldiers. Squads of men in tactical gear rushed me.

  I fought for an hour.

  Above me, Bells was a terror, dropping soldiers from the rooftops with precise gusts of pressure. Below, I was an unstoppable object.

  When the last gun fell silent, we stood in the town square. I cut the rope of the flagpole, watching the white mountain sigil crumple to the ground.

  Northville was broken.

  "Next," I said, wiping blood from my visor.

  We got back in the truck and drove.

  Novi was next.

  It was larger, a logistical hub for Axehill’s vehicle fleet. The resistance was stiffer as they had light armored vehicles and RPGs.

  It took three hours.

  I took a rocket to the chest. It blew me through a brick wall and exposed my ribs.

  By the time I stood up from the rubble, my ribs had reconnected and the skin had sealed over.

  We left Novi burning in the rearview mirror.

  Farmington.

  Clawson.

  Berkley.

  The hours blurred together. Twelve hours of continuous slaughter.

  We moved like natural disasters. Bells was the hurricane; I was the landslide. We dismantled the outer rim of Axehill’s empire systematically. We left checkpoints in ruins. We left armories empty.

  We were making a statement: Your walls cannot hold us.

  By the time we turned the truck toward Warren, night had fallen.

  We were covered in grime, soot, and blood—mostly not our own. We hadn't slept and we hadn't eaten. But we weren't tired. The Qi coursing through us kept our eyes wide and our reflexes sharp.

  "The Capital," Bells said, looking at the horizon. "Warren."

  "This is it," I said. "The Arsenal."

  The road to Warren was wide open.

  "It's quiet," Bells noted. "Too quiet. Where are the reinforcements? We hit five cities. They should be swarming us."

  "He pulled them back," I realized. "He sacrificed the outer rim to consolidate. It’s a trap."

  "A trap implies we don't know it's happening," Bells said. "This is an invitation."

  We reached the final hill.

  The lights of the Arsenal Fortress were on, blinding us.

  It was massive. The entire city of Warren had been converted into a single, sprawling military base. The walls here were military grade concrete, three layers deep.

  But it was what was outside the walls that made us stop the truck.

  "My god," Bells whispered.

  Mounted above the main gate, impaled on a steel pike fifty feet in the air, was a head.

  It was the head of a Monster Bear. The thing must have been the size of a two-\ story house when it was alive. Its jaws were propped open with iron bars, and blood—fresh blood—dripped from its neck onto the pavement below.

  It was a totem. A display of raw, apex dominance.

  Below the bear, thousands of people in rags were digging trenches. Slaves. They were thin and terrified, chained together in lines.

  And behind the trenches... was the army.

  They filled the horizon.

  A hundred thousand men.

  A sea of black helmets and rifles. Tanks. APCs. Artillery trucks.

  Standing at the front of ten massive battalions were ten figures glowing with distinct, colored auras. The Generals. Cultivators who had sworn loyalty to the Warlord.

  And far in the back, standing on a raised command platform that looked down on the entire battlefield, was Axehill.

  He was beside two men—his Lieutenants. Even from this distance, I could feel Axehill’s gaze.

  We got out of the truck.

  The wind howled across the open field.

  We were two dots of dust standing against a tidal wave.

  "We have no chance of beating these guys," Bells said.

  "Not one percent," I agreed.

  Bells looked at me. "Then why are we doing this?"

  I drew my sword.

  "Because empires don't die from one blow," I said. "They die from a thousand cuts. Axehill thinks he's untouchable. He thinks guns and walls make him safe."

  I pointed my sword at the mass of soldiers.

  "However, our goal is not to beat them. But to bleed them."

  I looked at Bells.

  "I want to make him spend a thousand lives to stop two. I want to make him burn through his ammunition. I want to make him afraid of the cost of war."

  Bells stared at the army. Then, a manic and suicidal grin spread across his face.

  "Bleed them," Bells repeated. "I like that."

  The army roared—a sound like thunder rolling across the plains.

  "Ready?" I asked.

  "Never," Bells said.

  I pushed off the ground, cracking the ground beneath my boots. Bells exploded into the air.

  We rushed the army.

  The war was on.