The first soldier in Sector Two died before he even understood what was happening.
When the ceiling gave way with a violent crack, he raised his rifle toward the ruined transport shaft, but only had time to glimpse two silhouettes—mine and Tsukumo's—plunging through the gloom.
Still in midair, I twisted and swung the sword in my left hand.
The blade of compressed wind crossed the remaining distance on its own, sliced through the man's visor, and severed his head before his body struck the ground.
The corpse was still falling when Tsukumo passed it.
He opened his palm toward the ground and distorted the gravity around the patrol waiting below.
The invisible force crashed down on the soldiers like a block of lead. Six men were crushed into the damp earth before they could bring their weapons to bear.
Knees bent backward with dry snaps, armor plates caved into ribs, and rifle barrels sank into the mud beneath their own multiplied weight.
I landed in the middle of the slaughter, throwing up a cloud of water and dead leaves.
My right arm hung limply as it continued to regenerate, strapped to my torso with an improvised sling. The pain from the Titan's mark remained lodged in my shoulder, sending searing needles all the way to my fingertips whenever my feet struck the ground too hard.
I knew I wouldn't be able to rely on that arm anytime soon, so I simply ignored it and let my regeneration handle the rest.
When one of the kneeling soldiers tried to raise his rifle, I stepped on the barrel, forcing the shot into the mud, and drove my sword into his throat.
In one continuous motion, I pulled the blade free in a lateral slash that tore open the neck of the guard beside him before I completed the turn.
Tsukumo landed just behind me.
Gravity absorbed the force of his descent the instant his boots touched the earth, making his landing completely silent.
Only the blood-soaked bandages around his forearms betrayed the tremendous strain.
An energy bolt streaked over my head. Tsukumo closed his fingers, caught three shooters hiding behind a massive root, and ripped them from cover.
Their bodies flew backward through the air, collided with one another, and were hurled violently into the trunk of a tree as wide as a tower.
The bark shattered on impact.
So did the men's armor.
The trail of destruction I had left behind still cut through the forest. Massive trunks remained toppled to either side, collapsed walls of earth lined the path, and blood-covered roots pierced the wreckage of drones and soldiers.
The ground beneath my boots seemed to recognize my footsteps, but I had no time to dwell on it.
Gunfire came from three different elevations.
I drew air into my lungs and activated the Wind Transformation. Luminous lines flared beneath my skin, and the weight seemed to vanish from my legs.
I moved before the first volley struck the ground, running along the slanted trunk of a tree that stood at an almost perfect right angle to the earth while energy beams scorched the bark behind my heels.
A drone descended to block my path, but I leaped onto it, drove my sword through the center of its chassis, and used the falling machine as a foothold to launch myself toward the upper walkway.
Three soldiers were waiting for me at the top.
The first tried to strike me with the butt of his rifle, but I let the blow pass within inches of my face, severed his fingers, and drove the blade beneath his jaw before he could scream.
The second soldier opened fire, but I ripped my sword upward and used the first man's corpse as a human shield.
Advancing two quick steps behind the body, I kicked the shooter's knee. When the joint buckled, I brought my sword down through the gap between his shoulder and breastplate, splitting him open to the collarbone.
The third retreated in panic to call for reinforcements, but a sudden surge of gravitational pressure crushed his spine.
We were making exactly the kind of mess Candice wanted.
Deeper within Gron-Tarh, Candice, Havelyn, and the freed prisoners advanced through Sector Four.
The sector had been designed to feed thousands of inmates at once.
Now, it was feeding a full-scale rebellion.
The mess hall was a vast industrial plain surrounded by kitchens, storage rooms, and distribution belts, with hundreds of steel tables bolted to the floor in rigid rows.
Massive pipes carried water and nutrient paste across the ceiling, while boilers the size of houses lined the rear wall.
The prisoners had turned every part of the environment into a weapon.
Tables ripped from the floor served as shields.
Sharpened trays slit throats.
Chains torn from the distribution belts wrapped around soldiers' legs, dragging them down so the mob could beat them.
Rifles taken from the first dead guards passed from hand to hand as the prisoners learned how to use them.
The bone-plated giant advanced through the central aisle with his old door held in front of his body.
Heavy gunfire warped the metal, but failed to slow his advance.
When he reached Gron-Tarh's barricade, he slammed the door into three guards, crushing them against the serving counters.
A scar-covered woman snatched a rifle from one of the dead before it touched the floor and fired twice.
The first shot punched through a guard's visor. The second tore through another's exposed throat.
She handed the empty weapon to a four-armed inmate, accepted a loaded replacement, and kept moving without slowing down.
Above them, Havelyn flew low to spare her injured right wing, using the rows of tables as cover.
When a soldier raised his weapon toward her, she landed on one of the steel tabletops, kicked the rifle into the air, and hooked her fingers beneath the man's jaw.
Using the strength of her legs and wings, she tore him from the floor and hurled him into one of the open boilers.
The guard's scream ended the instant the heavy lid slammed shut.
In the opposite wing, Candice carved her way forward by force.
None of it diminished the impact of her blows.
Her blade tore through a guard's chest and continued its arc until it lodged in the side of a table bolted to the floor.
With a violent wrench, Candice used her own scythe as a lever and ripped the steel structure free.
The table spun down the aisle and slammed into a line of shooters hiding behind a column.
Then ice claimed the floor.
Frost spread beneath the boots of the remaining soldiers, climbed their legs, and trapped them in place until the prisoners reached them.
Candice never looked back.
The cracks and screams behind her told her everything she needed to know.
"The door to Sector Five is over there!" Havelyn shouted, hovering above the tables.
At the far end of the mess hall, beyond the kitchens, a gigantic vertical bulkhead divided the wall.
The number five had been painted across the metal in white, large enough to be seen from anywhere in the hall.
They were close.
However, an armored security booth protected the control mechanism, and three guards remained inside, firing through narrow slits in the reinforced glass.
The old man with the burned eyes lifted his head at the sound of the gunfire.
"Four steps to the right," he warned, his voice steady amid the chaos.
Candice obeyed without hesitation.
A high-caliber round tore through the air exactly where her head had been a second earlier.
Gliding across a layer of ice toward the booth, she drove her prosthetic hand against the wall and froze the structure from the outside in.
The glass cracked, weakened by the extreme cold.
Havelyn dove from the ceiling and smashed through the fractured pane with both feet.
The guards had no time to react.
The first lost his face to Candice's scythe. Havelyn grabbed the second by his vest and hurled him into the metal ceiling.
The third tried to reach the emergency controls, but the bone-plated giant thrust one enormous arm through the broken window and dragged him into the hall.
The man disappeared beneath the crowd of inmates.
Candice entered the booth amid blood and shattered glass.
The main terminal still functioned, displaying a partial map of the lower levels, transportation routes, and containment blocks.
She located Sector Five, followed by the wing marked only with a symbol indicating absolute isolation.
Rubens was there.
Candice pressed the release command.
The screen lit up bloodred:
ACCESS DENIED.
EXTERNAL AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
"No..." she murmured.
She tried again, activating the manual controls, but the same cold warning filled the monitor.
Havelyn landed beside her and folded her injured wing against her body.
"What's wrong?"
Candice opened the prison's complete architectural map and searched for the indicated room.
There was no marker.
No access route.
It was as though the command center for Gron-Tarh's most heavily protected area occupied no physical space within the fortress.
A wounded soldier stirred in the corner of the booth.
Candice seized him by the throat with her mechanical hand and lifted him from the floor.
"Where is Yashin's room?"
The man let out a weak laugh and spat blood across the metal plates of her arm.
"You bunch of idiots."
Candice tightened her grip, deforming the armor around his neck.
"Where?"
"Nobody knows," the guard coughed.
"You work in this dump!"
Candice slammed his head against the terminal.
The soldier merely laughed one final time.
His smile vanished along with his consciousness.
Outside the booth, the prisoners were already piling tables against the mess hall entrances.
They gathered ammunition, stripped armor plates from their enemies, and distributed weapons to the new arrivals.
Havelyn leaped through the shattered window and landed among them, helping organize the defense of the hall.
Now they were all trapped before a door only Yashin could open.
Candice studied the empty map one more time.
Then she pressed two fingers to her communicator and opened the private channel to Tsukumo and me.
In Sector Two, Tsukumo and I were crouched on the branch of a colossal tree when the call came through.
Below us, an entire Gron-Tarh company advanced through the forest, following our trail of destruction.
Light vehicles maneuvered between the roots, drones searched the canopy, and soldiers burned away the undergrowth to eliminate potential ambush points.
I wiped the blood from my sword on my pants and answered.
"Talk."
Candice's voice came through sounding somewhat subdued.
"We've reached Sector Four. We're practically at the entrance to Five."
"Did you find Rubens?"
A brief pause followed.
Too short to be hesitation, but too long to precede good news.
"I found the entrance to his wing," Candice replied.
My left hand tightened around the sword's hilt.
"But?"
"Releasing it requires authorization from Yashin's command room."
Crouched on the branch beside me, Tsukumo raised his golden eyes.
Candice continued.
"The room isn't on any map."
"The guards have no idea where it is... or they're too terrified to tell us."
"You want us to search for an invisible room inside a fortress the size of a city?" I asked.
"I want you to do it before the reinforcements we're killing come back twice as strong."
An explosion drowned out part of her sentence.
On the other end of the transmission, Candice cursed at someone.
A moment later, I heard the metallic sound of her scythe striking armor.
"We're holding Sector Four, and the prisoners are guarding the entrances to the mess hall," she continued, panting.
"But we can't advance into Five until that authorization is granted."
"Every door beyond Sector Five requires that bastard's authorization."
Tsukumo rested one hand against the rough bark of the tree.
"I'll find that room."
I turned toward him.
"How?"
Tsukumo studied the tangle of trees, rocks, and metal structures embedded in the walls of Sector Two.
"A room needs walls. Walls have mass."
Candice went silent for a moment on the other end of the line.
"Can you scan all of Gron-Tarh?"
"No," Tsukumo admitted.
"But I can find it if I get close enough."
"We'll go together."
"No."
"Tsukumo..."
"If both of us leave, the troops in Sector Two will descend to reinforce Candice's position," he interrupted, nodding toward the company advancing below.
"Someone needs to keep making noise here."
I looked at my right arm, immobilized and useless against my chest.
Then I stared at the nearly one hundred soldiers searching the forest beneath us.
"And what if you find Yashin before you find the room?"
Tsukumo kept his eyes fixed on the dense vegetation.
"Then you'll hear it."
Candice cut in before I could protest again.
"Neither of you faces Yashin alone. That's an order!"
"He just ignored mine," I replied.
"Then track his position over the radio," she ordered.
"Find that room and give me a way to open this bulkhead."
"We'll hold Sector Four until then."
The transmission ended beneath the rapid crackle of fresh gunfire.
For a few moments, Tsukumo and I remained motionless on the branch while the enemy company moved below us.
He stood first.
"I want every sensor trained on you."
I gave him a humorless smile.
"That's never been difficult."
"This time, try not to demolish the entire sector. We're still inside it."
"Come back as soon as you find the room."
Tsukumo looked at my hand, then firmly gripped my forearm, avoiding the injured shoulder.
"Stay alive until then."
We released each other.
Tsukumo walked to the end of the branch and simply allowed himself to fall.
Gravity shifted during his descent, propelling him horizontally instead of downward.
His body cut through the mist between the trees, touched a vertical trunk for a fraction of a second, and vanished west without making a single sound on impact.
I was alone.
I watched the enemy troops moving beneath my feet, drew in a breath, and let out a dry laugh.
"All right."
I drew my sword with my left hand.
"Look at me, assholes."
Then I jumped.