Suki and Tsukumo's footsteps vanished, swallowed by the gunfire raging through the next sector, but Sahger never looked back.
He remained planted before the passage through which they had escaped, his spear held crosswise before him like an impassable barrier.
The platform beneath him stretched a little over sixty meters.
To his left, the metal ended at the edge of the still-smoking crater carved open by the combined attack moments earlier. To his right, thick pipelines climbed the wall of a damaged tower.
Ahead, blocking every other route, the Four Beasts waited beneath the heavy rain cutting through the mechanical storm.
Lutor held the center, his colossal axe gripped in both hands as water streamed through his red hair, mingling with the elven blood still staining his armor.
Vladimir remained crouched atop a pipeline to the right, idly spinning his curved daggers between his fingers.
Nearly twenty meters above, Yasmin had retreated to the shattered tower, the shadow of her body concealing the arrow already resting against her bowstring.
To the left, near the crater's edge, William waited in silence, his long spear angled beside him.
Not a single ordinary soldier of Gron-Tarh dared approach.
The war continued around them. Drones tore across the sky, and cannons illuminated the storm with distant explosions. Yet on that platform, five people breathed to a rhythm cut off from the rest of the world.
Vladimir stopped spinning one of his daggers, its metal flashing beneath the pale light of a thunderbolt.
"Seeing you alive makes me happy, Red Crest," the assassin said, mockery thick in his voice.
"If Yashin couldn't kill you, my name will rise to the heavens when I slit your throat."
Sahger merely planted his feet more firmly against the rain-slick metal.
"Try your luck, you filthy rat."
The bowstring vibrated atop the tower.
Sahger moved his head a fraction of a second beforehand. The arrow grazed the side of his helmet and buried itself in the wall behind him.
By the time his gaze returned, Vladimir was no longer on the pipeline.
The assassin dropped from the right, his dagger aimed with surgical precision at the opening beneath Sahger's armored arm.
At the same time, Lutor charged through the center, dragging his axe close to the floor in a low arc.
William, however, did not move.
Lutor's right foot struck the ground first.
His hips began to turn.
Vladimir tightened his grip on the dagger before his descent was even complete, while high above them, Yasmin drew a second arrow and held her breath.
Sahger saw the entire sequence unfold.
Not as magical images of the future. There were no mystical visions or voices whispering inside his mind.
It came from reading weight, tension, displaced air, and surviving years against men who believed themselves fast.
Lutor would sweep out his legs.
Vladimir would cut through his armpit when he jumped.
Yasmin would fire at the exact point where he landed, and William would wait patiently for his chest to open.
Sahger moved before the giant's axe had even left the ground. He drove the butt of his spear down against Lutor's weapon shaft and used the impact to launch himself into the air.
The axe whistled beneath his boots.
When Vladimir descended upon him with his dagger ready, he found the green spearhead already waiting beside his ribs.
The assassin twisted violently in midair. The blade tore through his coat and opened a shallow cut along his side.
The instant Yasmin released her second arrow, Sahger landed behind Lutor, ruining the archer's prediction.
The projectile tore through empty space and shattered harmlessly against the giant's thick armor.
That was when William attacked.
A single thrust.
Straight. Short. Lethal.
It targeted the tiny seam between Sahger's breastplate and helmet.
Sahger deflected the point with the middle of his spear shaft, pivoted inside the chaplain's reach, and drove his elbow into William's face.
William tilted his head just enough to avoid having his skull crushed, but the metal gauntlet still split his mouth and painted his teeth red.
By the time Lutor turned with a roar and raised his axe, Sahger had already slipped beyond his reach.
The five separated.
The entire exchange had lasted less than three seconds.
Vladimir landed in a crouch and touched the cut along his ribs with his fingertips.
He studied the blood without the smile he had worn before.
William ran his tongue over his split lip, tasting the metallic tang, while Yasmin remained motionless atop the tower. Even so, the point of her next arrow had lowered a few centimeters in hesitation.
Lutor merely adjusted his grip on the axe, breathing heavily.
"He still uses that damned ability," Yasmin said, her voice echoing across the platform.
"Of course," William replied, spitting blood aside.
"He was blessed with that miraculous gift, even among the Dark Galaxies."
Sahger spun his spear once before pointing it at the four of them again.
"Spare me the damned priestly bullshit. Being a deity in this place is hell, and every one of us was a victim of it."
Vladimir raised his eyes, cold and focused.
"Victims? I don't remember that."
Yasmin did not aim at Sahger.
"You could have been one of us, Red Crest," she said.
She released the arrow and struck a structural bolt to his right.
The metal head snapped with a sharp crack. The floor plate buckled beneath Sahger's boot, forcing him to pull his foot back before the entire section plunged into the abyss.
Lutor came from the opposite side like a runaway train. His axe descended vertically, forcing Sahger to leap backward.
The blade sank halfway through the platform without ever attempting to hit him.
Its purpose was to destroy the terrain.
The fracture raced through the metal, severing the only route leading toward the pipelines.
Vladimir appeared on the last intact section of that path.
His first dagger scraped across Sahger's visor, throwing sparks. The second came low, seeking to sever the tendon behind his knee.
Sahger pulled his leg back, blocked the higher arm with his spear shaft, and mercilessly struck the assassin's lower wrist.
Vladimir released the weapon a millisecond before the bones could break.
The dagger struck the rain-slick metal with a chime.
Sahger noticed that the assassin's eyes followed the falling blade rather than his opponent.
It was a trap.
Instead of exploiting the false opening, Sahger stopped his advance.
At that exact moment, William's spear pierced the empty space where his neck would have been had he taken another step.
The chaplain withdrew his weapon without frustration, every movement methodical.
Yasmin fired again from above.
This time, her arrow severed a fastening bracket around the pipeline overhead.
The massive pipe tore free from the wall and crashed onto the platform, releasing a thick cloud of scalding white vapor that swallowed everything.
Sight disappeared.
Lutor's boots made the floor tremble somewhere ahead. To the left, William tapped the metal with his spearhead, guiding himself by sound.
Vladimir, meanwhile, was no longer on the ground.
Reading the shift in air pressure, Sahger raised his spear over his right shoulder and caught Vladimir's dagger in midair.
The assassin had used the fallen pipeline to leap over the fog.
Sahger shoved the blade away, but Vladimir, slippery as a serpent, released the handhold from which he hung and dropped against Sahger's body.
Lutor's massive figure tore through the white vapor.
The axe swept horizontally at the height of both their waists.
Without hesitation, Sahger seized the front of Vladimir's coat and hurled him brutally downward.
The assassin folded his body to avoid being cut in half, the giant's blade passing within a hair's breadth of his back.
Sahger exploited the chaos. He jumped onto the moving axe shaft, used it as a foothold for a fraction of a second, then ran two steps along the haft to close the distance.
Lutor released one hand from the axe and tried to seize his leg, but Sahger was even more ruthless.
He drove the spearhead straight into the giant's forearm, the greenish blade tearing through the flesh between two armor plates.
Lutor did not utter a sound. Instead, he pulled his wounded arm toward himself, trying to drag Sahger into a lethal embrace.
William emerged from the vapor at Sahger's side.
The thrust was perfect, but Sahger abandoned his own spear where it remained embedded in Lutor's arm, allowing the chaplain's attack to tear through nothing but air.
With both hands free, Sahger grabbed William's spear shaft, dragged him violently into the fog, and slammed the heavy visor of his helmet directly into the chaplain's forehead.
The sound of William's nose collapsing was smothered by the storm.
Before Sahger could breathe, Vladimir attacked from the ground.
The dagger found the seam in Sahger's thigh armor, scraping through flesh and metal, but a steel boot smashed into the assassin's face before the cut could deepen.
Vladimir rolled away, spitting blood into the vapor.
Three arrows tore through the air in succession.
Yasmin was firing blind, guided only by the sounds of battle.
Sahger ripped his spear from Lutor's arm with a violent wrench and swept the shaft through a desperate arc.
The first arrow struck the floor. The second ricocheted from his pauldron. The third passed beneath his weapon.
A fourth, silent arrow flew toward the center of his throat.
Yasmin had hidden the fatal shot behind the first three.
Sahger threw his head aside.
The projectile shrieked past, tearing a tuft from his red crest before vanishing into the rain.
Lutor's fury finally found the ground.
Gripping the axe in both hands, the giant struck the platform with enough force to blast the vapor away.
The floor collapsed.
Entire plates tore free from their supports, ripping the metal out from under Sahger's feet.
Vladimir rode the falling debris and used a tilting sheet of metal as a springboard for a double attack—one dagger seeking Sahger's elbow, the other aimed at his groin.
Sahger twisted his hips in midair, blocking the high blade with the middle of his spear while allowing the lower one to score the steel over his thigh.
When his feet finally touched solid ground, William was already there.
The chaplain's spearhead came directly for his heart.
There was no time to evade.
Sahger opened his left hand and thrust it into the path of death. The blade tore through his palm, punched through the flesh, and struck his steel breastplate with a dull clang.
His hot blood flooded his fingers as he closed his gauntlet around the enemy weapon, trapping William in place.
Vladimir charged to carve through Sahger's exposed knee, but Sahger gave the spear lodged in his hand a violent pull.
William was dragged forward and turned into a shield, forcing the assassin to halt his attack rather than amputate his companion's leg.
Sahger exploited the motion and drove his forehead into the chaplain's injured face again.
William staggered backward. The spear slid free of Sahger's hand with a sickening, wet sound.
Lutor tore his axe out of the wreckage.
Sahger pivoted beyond the lethal arc and struck the side of Vladimir's knee with the butt of his spear.
The assassin's joint folded with a crack, dropping him to the floor.
Sahger could have driven the spear through the back of his neck then and there, but pure instinct made him retreat.
A second later, one of Yasmin's arrows buried itself precisely where his weapon would have fallen.
The Four Beasts finally withdrew in unison, catching their breath as the vapor dispersed and the freezing rain began washing over the platform once more.
Sahger closed his perforated hand.
The pain was sharp. Blood had made the shaft slick, forcing him to adjust his grip so his injured fingers carried less of the strain.
His enemies were no better off. Vladimir rose with a limp. Lutor tore mangled pieces of metal away from his exposed forearm. William wiped away the torrent of blood flowing from his broken nose, while Yasmin remained motionless atop the tower, listening to the group's labored breathing.
Far in the distance, a muffled detonation shook the structure.
Suki and Tsukumo had already reached the next sector.
All Sahger needed to do was buy them more time.
William noticed the brief glance he cast toward the passage.
"Every second feels like victory when one fears eternity," the chaplain intoned, his voice thick from the broken nose.
"Shut up," Sahger snapped.
Lutor made the first move.
Alone.
The giant advanced with tectonic footsteps, one shoulder rising as his hands tightened around the shaft.
It was the perfect telegraph for a diagonal strike from the right.
Sahger moved preemptively toward the railing on the left, the only safe escape.
But Lutor did not attack.
The axe stopped motionless above his shoulder.
Before Sahger could understand, Yasmin fired.
The arrow did not seek flesh. It struck the metal joint of the railing where Sahger had just placed his weight.
The structure immediately gave way.
With his left foot slipping toward the crater, Sahger understood the tactical horror of the situation.
Vladimir ran away from him.
William retreated.
The three of them were not attacking his body.
They were attacking the responses he chose.
Lutor's axe tore apart the floor ahead, destroying the supports Sahger would have used to regain his balance.
Vladimir severed a containment cable behind him.
William drove his spear into the plate supporting Sahger's good leg.
The world tilted toward the abyss.
With no ground left beneath him, Sahger leaped into empty space.
Yasmin fired at the exact point where his fall became inevitable.
He twisted in the air and offered his left shoulder. The arrow punched through the steel protection, tore through flesh, and emerged from his back, spinning his body just enough to carry his chest clear of William's waiting spear.
Sahger landed on his knees.
Vladimir emerged from the shadows. His first dagger slipped beneath the freshly pierced pauldron, while the second severed the straps along Sahger's ribs.
When Sahger tried to retaliate, his injured hand failed him completely. The assassin slipped away carrying a piece of his armor.
His flank lay exposed.
Lutor showed no mercy. The thick haft of his axe smashed into Sahger's unprotected ribs.
Two bones broke with a dry snap.
The air was driven from Sahger's lungs. His body slid across the blood-slick metal until it stopped at the crater's edge, his spear slipping from his numb fingers.
William walked toward him without haste.
There was no sadism in the chaplain's gaze, only the coldness of a priest standing before an altar.
"Your sight leads you down the path," he said.
"And every path must end somewhere."
The spear descended straight toward Sahger's throat.
He rolled desperately to the right, but William adjusted the strike in midair and drove the blade into his wounded flank, just beneath the broken ribs.
Pain spread like fire into his spine.
Sahger contracted the muscles around the steel, preventing the weapon from sinking any deeper.
They closed the circle.
Lutor raised his axe for the finishing blow.
Yasmin drew her bowstring overhead.
Vladimir positioned himself by Sahger's legs.
Every route ended in death.
If he released William's weapon, the arrow would pierce his skull. If he remained still, the axe would split him in half.
With no logical way out, Sahger chose the unthinkable.
He drove his own body farther onto the blade buried in his abdomen.
The point opened more flesh and spilled hot blood, but the few centimeters he sacrificed brought him too close to Lutor's centerline.
The axe lost momentum.
Sahger seized William's cassock and dragged the chaplain into the path of the incoming strike with all his strength.
William instinctively released his weapon.
The giant's axe whistled above them and shattered the floor.
Yasmin's arrow hissed through the rain, but Sahger raised his left arm, allowing the shot to bury itself in his forearm instead of his throat.
Vladimir exploited the chaos and slashed at Sahger's right knee, making the leg buckle, but Sahger fell heavily on top of William.
An elbow strike crushed what remained of the chaplain's mouth.
In a single brutal movement, Sahger ripped the spear from his own flank and threw it aside before rising onto his left knee.
Struggling for breath, he recovered his own weapon and stained its shaft red.
The Beasts attacked again, but something had changed.
Vladimir stared at Sahger's wounded shoulder, one hand clenching his dagger savagely—but the position of his feet prepared him to retreat.
Yasmin filled her lungs to fire, but the angle of her bow remained slightly loose.
Lutor threw his weight into a strike even though his stance was out of alignment.
They weren't attacking.
They were poisoning Sahger's readings with false intentions.
When Vladimir feinted a charge, Sahger did not take the bait.
Yasmin's true arrow passed within a hair's breadth of the exact spot where Sahger's counterattack would have ended.
Lutor destroyed the floor behind his good leg.
When the impact shook Sahger's footing, William appeared with the true attack.
Sahger parried, but the pain in his arm slowed him enough for the enemy spearhead to bite deep into his breastplate.
Vladimir slid underneath, tearing through the cloth at Sahger's waist and aiming for the bleeding flank.
Sahger did not attempt to defend.
Instead, he drove the heavy end of his spear down and crushed the assassin's foot against the metal.
Vladimir screamed as the blade punched through his boot and pinned him to the floor.
With no time to kill him, Sahger drove his elbow into his own spear shaft, flexing it hard enough to catapult Vladimir's body into William.
Lutor charged forward to cover his companions.
Sahger noticed Yasmin's absolute silence.
She was waiting on his right.
He dove left.
Lutor's axe swept through empty space. Yasmin's arrow shrieked harmlessly past.
Passing close to the giant, Sahger tore his spear from Vladimir's foot and sliced through the inside of Lutor's arm.
Hot blood sprayed across his visor.
Lutor answered with an elbow strike that Sahger avoided, but the blow still grazed his fractured ribs and stole his breath.
William had already recovered and attacked over the giant's shoulder.
But Sahger did not look at him.
His gaze shifted toward the tower.
Yasmin moved one foot by a few centimeters. Vladimir held his breath on the ground. Lutor kept his arm slightly too high.
They weren't four separate actions.
They were a synchronized killing machine.
Yasmin's foot established the angle. The assassin's breathing marked the timing. Lutor's raised arm concealed William's weapon.
Instead of defending against the attacks, Sahger dismantled their structure.
William's thrust came sharp and precise, but Sahger struck it from below, pinning the enemy spear against the metal fittings of Lutor's armor.
He spun his weapon and smashed the shaft against Vladimir's knee before the assassin could rise, completing the rotation just in time to deflect Yasmin's arrow in midair with the metal point.
The projectile shattered.
When Lutor moved to free William, Sahger rode the momentum and shoved the chaplain's weapon forward, forcing him to release the spear.
Unarmed, William staggered beneath a strike from the shaft to his chest.
Vladimir threw a dagger to cover him, but Sahger tilted his head and caught the assassin's wrist when he followed behind his own projectile, twisting until the bone cracked.
Vladimir tried to cut with his other hand. Sahger shattered his fingers with a blow from the spear.
Yasmin leaped from the tower, landed on the platform, and slid across the wet metal while preparing a point-blank shot. Sahger kicked the side of her bow.
The motion flowed into a sweep of his spear that tore open the archer's forearm. She retaliated by driving her knee into his ravaged flank.
Pain emptied Sahger's mind of light.
His vision went black for an instant.
The four surrounded him completely.
Dagger from below.
Spear at his throat.
Bow reclaimed in the dive.
Axe at his back, ready to split the platform in half.
Sahger did not attempt to fight through the perfect lock. He kicked Yasmin's bow into the abyss, and when she threw herself after it and seized the string, its weight dragged her toward the edge.
Vladimir abandoned his attack to save her. William was forced to step back to avoid being mutilated by Lutor's uninterrupted swing, and the axe crashed into the platform's central plate.
The floor roared.
An entire section of the platform tore free and plunged into the crater.
Sahger used the final seconds to leap onto the portion still attached to the tower. He landed heavily and painfully blocked a punch from Lutor that destroyed what remained of his gauntlet.
Spinning his spear, he sliced open the giant's thigh, forced him onto one knee, and limped backward.
The Four Beasts slowly regrouped.
Blood ran from Yasmin's arm as she held her intact bow.
William's face had become a deformed mass of bruises.
Vladimir could no longer put weight on his pierced foot, and Lutor panted through his open wounds.
But none of them were laughing now.
Another detonation traveled through the walls of the complex.
Suki and Tsukumo were already two sectors ahead.
Time. That was all he needed to give them.
Breathing blood, Sahger stabilized his stance.
His left hand was useless and his entire body burned, but he still controlled the passage.
The assassins formed their line again: Lutor in the center, Yasmin high on the left, Vladimir hidden, William motionless.
A classic formation.
And a lie.
Sahger advanced to break their rhythm, striking William's fist and smashing Vladimir's teeth with the backswing of his spear shaft.
All four retreated one step.
It was the first inch of ground they had surrendered throughout the entire battle.
William stopped.
He studied his own blood, his companions' wounds, and Sahger's impossible stance.
Then the chaplain began to laugh.
It was not the laughter of a victor, but the dry, cadaverous sound of a priest who had finally found his god.
"It truly does still work..." he murmured.
Spitting out a piece of tooth, he fixed his one good eye on Sahger.
"In the past, your precision made us pay for every step. But thanks to those battles... we became better."
He struck the butt of his spear against the floor.
Once.
Lutor prepared to throw his axe.
Twice.
Yasmin removed the quiver from her back.
Three times.
Vladimir rose, wiped away the blood, and gathered his daggers.
The weapons were hurled into the air.
In a macabre ballet beneath the rain, Lutor caught William's lighter spear.
Yasmin received the heavy axe by its haft.
Vladimir slung Yasmin's bow over one shoulder.
William caught Vladimir's daggers and pressed them against his forearms like steel vipers.
Sahger tried to process the geometry before him, but none of it made sense.
Lutor, the axe-wielding brute, assumed a rigid stance, feet close together and elbows tucked in.
It was the chaplain's exact, meticulously precise technique.
Sahger's mind read the massive shoulder drawing back and anticipated the slow, heavy arc of an axe.
What came instead was a surgical spear thrust delivered at terrifying speed.
Before Sahger's mind could erase the false future, the blade pierced his abdomen and lifted him from the ground.
The giant took three steps while driving the weapon deeper, then hurled Sahger violently into a column. The metal crushed against his back.
Blood flooded his mouth.
Lutor ripped the weapon free.
Sahger collapsed onto his good knee.
A bowstring vibrated in the distance, but without Yasmin's cold stillness.
Vladimir was firing while sprinting, leaping, and moving in chaotic bursts.
Three arrows came from impossible angles.
One knocked Sahger's arm aside, opening the way for William to appear from nowhere.
Without Vladimir's flamboyant spins, the daggers in the chaplain's hands became silent lightning, carving through armor and flesh before stopping mere inches from Sahger's jugular.
Yasmin came from the flank.
Rather than force a herculean blow, she wielded the axe like a percussive scalpel, striking the structural seams between the floor plates with an archer's precision.
The platform tilted.
Sahger rolled across the slick metal only to find Lutor's spear waiting for him.
He blocked on pure instinct, but his arms gave out. His weapon slipped from his injured, blood-soaked fingers.
This was not improvisation.
They had exchanged roles.
Every attack contradicted the physical and tactical memory Sahger had built of each opponent.
Lutor's muscles screamed axe, yet delivered the speed of a spear.
Vladimir's restless agility launched Yasmin's arrows with their full weight.
The Beasts had constructed an entire martial doctrine for one purpose: defeating a man who read the future through the body.
"This time," William's voice echoed through the chaos as he raised the daggers, "we came prepared for your blessing."
Bleeding from half a dozen lethal punctures, Sahger closed his hand around his fallen spear and felt the wet slickness coating its shaft.
Far away, a third detonation shook Gron-Tarh's metal walls.
Suki and Tsukumo were still alive.
And growing more distant.
It was still worth standing.
With his broken ribs scraping against his lungs, Sahger raised the green point of his spear once more.
The Four Beasts advanced, carrying weapons that did not belong to them.
For the first time since he had stepped onto that battlefield, Sahger's intuition went blind.
He had no idea where the next strike would come from.