Mad Hatter could not be stopped. Her might tortured the very pself, and the ground around Houstad groaned and shuddered as the fist kept pressing into Eugenia’s cheek. She had endured everything the Recimers had thrown at her, withstood heat capable of vaporizing a warlord, ignored poisonous gas meant to decimate etlements, didn’t bat ao any kiic projectiles, and toppled a titan.

  Janine had dared to believe that the Elite would be able to defeat her. That belief was being crushed right now as the cracks snaked from the twling women. Ripples passed through the soul, shattering the vitrified sand into tiny, shimmering pieces that reflected the lights of the projectors. An unnatural sinkhole began f underh Eugenia’s body; an area of uneven circur area thirty meters in diameter sinking, and mounds pierced the moon-surfaced battlefield in respoo the ungodly pressure being unleashed upon a human body.

  They all heard it, New Breeds and Normies alike. A crack of bone, so loud that it briefly silenced every ongoing onade. Mad Hatter raised her head, meeting the defenders’ eyes, and smiled.

  “That’s right. Inexorable. Invincible,” the echo of elbows against her ribs apanied each word. “Throw yourselves upon your bdes or join the Horde, for the suffering I shall unleash upon those who stand against me will be worthy of legends to immortalize this day. I’ll torture you until your screams are heard, even by the ears of your c leader!” she ughed.

  A shaman stepped forward, a retly promoted female, too small pared to the proud sisters of the old. The Supreme Shaman was busy; Soulless One no longer drew breath; the Alpha Pack had suffered dire casualties among their spiritual leaders. The legends had died, but the traditions lived on, and the woman boldly folded her paws and began ting a prayer, calling upon the Blessed Mother to deliver the Tribe in its darkest hour upon the Spirits to lend them strength to carry out their will.

  Voices joined her. First it was Wolfkins, but soon several Recimers and volunteers repeated the prayer, deg the madmen and tyrants and deg their iion to stand firm. Inspired by their example, the thousands joined in, matg Mad Hatter’s ughter with their defiance.

  And through it a sed crack sliced, audible to everyone.

  “She is going to die,” Jaated the obvious and headed to the dome. “I’m going out.”

  “Warlord, the Elite gave us stristrus not to interfere,” Cristobo said tensely. “It may as well be that she has a hidden trump card capable of ending that bitch.”

  “Do you believe it?” Janine asked mirthlessly.

  “No.”

  “Me her.”

  “Jahe pn hinges on him abandoning the position,” Dragena said, apanied by the noise of breaking bulkheads and knives sshing through the air. “Sister, sider the broader picture.”

  “If the Blessed Mother won’t arrive, then our pn is for naught, am I right?”

  “That is correct,” Dragena ceded. “Mad Hatter’s capabilities exceed everything prepared by us.”

  “So we lose nothing,” Jaated stubbornly. “My sce doesn’t let me stand. Open a path for me. Jaie, you are in charge until I return.”

  “Warlord, Eugenia is responsible for the death of your son,” the gray-eyed volunteer said, and Janine froze iracks. “If she dies here, Iterna will be weakened. It may be beneficial for the Recmation Army’s future expansion. I believe the captain and the warlord have sound points. Is it really reasoo enter an unnecessary fight…”

  The colr of his shirt stig out of his armor whipped, and the man frowned as a gust of wind whipped across his face. He raised a hand to keep his panion from ing to his aid a his other hand from reag for his mae gun or a mace. The Taleteller’s edge nearly sliced through his neck, stopping a millimeter from the get, and the warlord’s jaws opened, ready to swallow his head whole.

  “Don’t ever try to py me, little man,” Janine warned. His skin was no longer heavily tanned, and his was ly shaved after he had stopped nearly murdering himself from exhaustion in the camps… She shook her head, reizing the man as Daniel. Why did I assume that his skin was supposed to be tanned? I’ve only ever met him once. “An unnecessary fight, was it, boy?” she growled.

  “Jahat’s enough,” Jaie tried to stop her.

  “That Iternian out there is saving our butts. My grudge against her is my own, and I’ll die if o see it settled on my own terms and in war, but in peace the state expects better of us.” She faced the volunteers. “The world is rge. It has enough pce for us all. If we are to indulge in dishonor a a fn ally die, then it is just aep toward the Abyss. What’s , extermihis group of people here, eradicate a faith there, let the natives uo follow our ws perish instead of amending the rules to eegration… Turning into another unscrupulous horde is in no way beneficial to our nation, people! We’ll see the world unite uhe Dynast’s vision. That way, we will build a future worthy of our cubs…” She stopped bbbering and stormed toward the dome, tag and. “Cristobo, that volunteer, Daniel. He heard you and Dragena. Send a here…”

  “It is under trol, Warlord,” Cristobo interrupted her, and Janine snorted. More secrets. Was Daniel and Oakster or something?

  A se of the dome opened, and she hurried to the growing sinkhole. Mad Hatter was at the bottom of it, still shoving her fist into the swollen cheek of her enemy. Eugenia stuck out her tongue, as if in teasing, but her owh were sunk into it; one eye almost escaped its socket; she exhaled a cloud of white dust, shaking and keeping elbowing her oppo. The ground level kept decreasing; the bastion’s lights no longer reached here, obscured by the mounds of bulgih; the heavy swirling clouds above choked all natural sunlight, and only Janine’s lenses illuminated Mad Hatter in full as she desded toward the beast waiting for her.

  “Nice armor,” the khatun ented. “It suits…” A ball of psma spshed against her face, brightly lighting up the surroundings. Its substance raced down the khatun’s hair, highlighting it with a blue-white color and drying the blood over her burns until it formed a bck crust. “Rude.”

  Janine fired again. And then a third time, following the old rule Marty had taught her. When you e to kill, shoot and don’t talk. She lunged as the unleashed ball fully covered Mad Hatter’s face. She swung the Taleteller, preparing to bury the bde in that neck. The edge rebounded, stopped by a palm. Janine kicked straight into the fiery hell, her instincts screaming a warning. She jumped back, a nanosed fast enough to dodge the g teeth that nearly bit her kneecap.

  “What’s the matter? Scared of a still woman?” Mad Hatter snorted.

  “Finally, your appearance reflects your soul, liar.” Jaurhe chuckle.

  “Again,” the khatun’s face torted, lessening the pressure. For a sed, Janine imagihe woman lunging at her, tearing her limb from limb. Eugenia sucked in the air. “Expin the meaning of your insult.”

  “Not for free. Spare her and I…”

  “No,” Mad Hatter said. “Those who refuse my grace always bask in my terror. That’s how it is; that’s how it will be. Answer my damion, or I’ll shatter her skull here and now.”

  “Invincible,” Janine dared to sapping her head with the ft of her axe. “So much for not lying. Tsk, tsk. Not winning as easily as you used to? Gotta say, the ugliness suits you.”

  e on, attack me already. Janine pleaded, preparing to survive the worst beating of her life. Mad Hatter should bee enraged a her frustration on the warliving Eugenia precious seds to either finish off the khatun or escape. Yes, Mad Hatter could’ve easily killed Janine from any pce here, but the humiliation of being proven wrong…

  Did nothing. The woman’s eyes shifted to her burn; her fiore away the scab, revealing smooth, fully healed skin.

  “You were saying?”

  A snap. Janine looked up, startled by the ued soni. The dark sea in the sky parted, opening the view to the pleasant blue and soft yellow rays. A blot dropped from the ter of that snap, darker than any night atrag the sunlight. It fell, shining a not shining, gathering itself into a knot and releasing the accumuted tension into the kick that speared the ground.

  Janine lost her footing. The sinkhole rose, rapidly smoothing the battlefield. She clumsily cartwheeled once or twice, and then a paw caught her uhe armpit. The Blessed Mother pced Janine upright, giving her a pat on the shoulder. Reassurance, greeting, worry, and care shared themselves in this simple gesture. Fingers closed around the warlord’s neck, hurling her back toward the readily opening shield. She didn’t mind the rough treatment and ughed, her voice joined by the Wolfkins.

  The sun came back! And with it, their hope.

  “Not yours.” Ravager stood on fs. “Return.”

  “Don’t listen to her!” Dantai yelled. “Khatun, do it now!”

  Mad Hatter drew herself high and tossed Eugenia ter. The ander caught the Elite on her forearm, and the Iternian slumped weakly on her legs.

  “No!” Dantai wailed, pounding his fists against the Horde’s field. “You could’ve been the Sky itself! A daughter standing by the father’s side, ning over spirituality and another reigning over reality!”

  “And escape my fate? Avoid challenging the odds, forever not knowing if I deserve to asd or not? Admit even a hint of fear of uainty? I don’t think so,” Mad Hatter said haughtily. “If a goddess is to walk today, it is to be done properly, through a trial of blood and endurahe way a child leaves a mother’s womb and not the other way around. There is no cheapening of destiny, Dantai. Those who try always regret what they have lost. I’ll cim what is mine by right.”

  “Thanks.” Eugenia grabbed Ravager by the fur to stand up. “You take her from the left and I take her from the right…”

  “ you even stand?” The massive snout bohe Elite, and the woman colpsed ba her knees, her hand slipping off the fur. “That answers it. Take what you came for and go. It’s the Recmation Army business now. o push yourself any further; otherwise, Artificer is going to cry. You ’t give her salvation. I’ll exterminate her.”

  “That wasn’t the only reason I came,” Eugenia said, standing on ohe eared her helmet. They retracted bato fingers, which drummed on the surface, trag the shifting nanomaes.

  “You’ve been… pretty good, Redeemer,” the Blessed Mrumbled. “ a mae cry?” she asked suddenly.

  “You’d be surprised what he jures up in the boratories.” Eugenia coughed. A blue light shone from under her legs, opening a portal. She fully disappeared in it.

  The khatun and the blessed mother approached each htly, not b to stay wary for ons. They raised their right arms, and the chaos of battle ceased. No longer was Houstad bombarded, and the defenders’ batteries went silent. Ravager sniffed Mad Hatter all over, and the Sky’s Avatar returhe favor, examining her oppo unabashedly, even rubbing a strand of fur between her fingers.

  “Prey,” they said in unison, fangs ah bared.

  Ravager’s voice was clear and collected, utterly distinct from the crazed beast from the war against Teo Queen. She moved smoothly, her shoulders spread wide, not a twit her limbs. If it weren’t for the occasional sniff of blood, Janine would have suspected a doppelganger. On the brink of defeat, the Blessed Mother shrugged off her troubles auro her prime, radiant and a perfect hunter.

  “Strong,” Mad Hatter said. “I taste that. Made a deal with that liar to get it?”

  “You heard him.” Ravager waited for a nod. “No. What mine is mine and in service of the Dynast and the people under his legitimate rule. I know little of whom you speak. But I have met a group called the Godsworn, all of whom had taken the deal. They vary in power, but every single one is a lunatid stages ages for fun. Freaks. Kind of like you.”

  “Where are they?” Mad Hatter demao know.

  “Pn to join?” Ravager released her cws and began trimming her own hair. “No idea. The st one I met, I ate. Is that why you came? To find this God? Is he their leader?”

  “Should be,” Mad Hatter answered. “He never offered the deal to that fake.”

  “What you do? She is a better person than we.” Ravager studied the woman’s face. “You could’ve simply asked instead of invading. I would’ve joined you on that hunt.”

  “Ask? What am I, a bondsman?” Mad Hatter smiled, g her fists around the scimitars’ handles. “Do I look like someone in need of help? Above or below the sky, no one is my equal. The weak whimper and beg. I take what I want. Whom I hate, I kill. The strong and, and the weak obey. I sehe boiling animosity. What bothers you about my invasion? It is the rule of nature; the losers have only themselves to bme for being weak enough to be trampled underfoot. No one sane is going to cry over butchered animals in a sughterhouse.”

  “Cubs have such adorable imaginations,” Ravager chuckled. “The stro to ease the way for the weak. Such is our duty, and our reward is an ued helping paw to get us ba our feet. United we stand, divided we fall.”

  “Is that an excuse for why your armies failed to stop us?” Mad Hatter burst into a booming ugh and put a hand to her mouth. “Cub. You dare call me a child while spouting such hopelessly na?ve, idealistisense?”

  “Five the insinuation.” Ravager stood on two legs, and a hint of steel showed itself in her jovial speech. “A child I might’ve spared. Fine, let us py by your rules, forlorn.”

  They ughed good-naturedly together, their heads held high. Janine blinked, surprised at the ck of aggression and the genuine happiness in their voices. The two acted more like friends reunited after a long separation than mortal eheir ughter swept across the battlefield, eg from the destroyed bunkers, drowning out the rumble of w engines and geors, and sileng the groans of the injured and dying.

  Janine missed the scimitar’s thrust. Mad Hatter’s hand had vaurning into a white streak tinted gold by her on. It pierced the amber orb, but the b faded like a mirage. A titanic swing nded on the khatun from the left, caught by the sed scimitar, but the erupting force of the blow scattered any debris far and wide, sending some of it boung between Houstad and the Horde’s shields. The cws drew blood from the neck, and a kick aimed at the knee followed, nding at nothing but emptiness as Mad Hatter scissored at Ravager’s back with her scimitars, lightly cutting the skin.

  A sphere formed of cuts and sshes formed around the fighters; the wind blew, f a growing tornado that further cleared the sky above. Swathes of ground flew aside, uprooted by the attacks’ collisions. Janine heard officers hastily the emptying of the underground tunnels leading behind the enemy lines as the flict colpsed them. Occasional detonations haloed both titans, as most of the traps in the area were prematurely triggered by the resultihquakes. Acidic sludge, carefully prepared to thin the infantry, spilled out and shed aside without toug anyone.

  Ravager and Mad Hatter resembled ghosts, phasing in and out of reality amid the r tornado. Their struggle dispersed the fmes around the Horde’s position, and Horkhudagh, awestruck, joined Iron Lord. Their bodies weaved around the attacks; a cleave that should have bisected a body merely sliced a fleshy ribbon frer, creating a yon hundreds of meters long in the ground. The returning swipe, poised to eviscerate a belly, scratched five lines on the khatun’s body.

  “Astonishing,” First said over the s, and Janine agreed with his assessment.

  “Feast, ander,” Janine whispered and pressed a paw over her heart. She felt it. ly happiness, but a calg focus spreading from the Ravager. Move. Pn. Murder. Parry. Repeat. Her broken mind gathered itself, and if she could push through her madness, what excuse did the Tribe have?

  In a heartbeat, hundreds of blows as were exged. Attacks were unched and immediately withdrawn as the fighters pnned eborate strategies, luring and positioning each other for the follow-ups. These two didn’t think at the same speed as Normies or most New Breeds. To them, a sed was worth ay; their keen minds caught the slightest muscle twitd predicted entire sarios in a blink. Twice Janine had missed witnessing such battles firstpaw, and while she felt hoo be present for the third, she caught herself hoping it would be the st time.

  Gods should not fight each other.

  The sound disappeared alongside the tornader and Mad Hatter, these divine inations of the deities that had molded them, had created a zone of perfect vacuum around themselves.

  Bdes and cws visibly edged closer. Tufts of reddened fur and bloodstained clothing emerged from the blindingly fast sphere of death. The tted to the unfamiliar styles. Any moment now, the bance will be broken.

  Ravager caught the golden scimitar aimed at her heart, stopping it dead. She tered with her left arm, opening Mad Hatter’s cheek to the bohe khatun elbowed the arm aside before the attack could go deeper and stabbed. The sed scimitar pierced through Ravager’s jowls and was caught by the fangs. The ander smmed her elbow into Mad Hatter’s wrist and grabbed the scimitar, pulling it out. She shoved the ons aside and prepared for a bite, closing her snout to her enemy’s.

  A krike closed the jaws, sending Ravager’s head back. The equilibrium was finally shattered, and Mad Hatter smiled, enjoying taking the lead as the groued around the two, almost hiding them in an upward stream.

  And the one who did not miss the moment was the Blessed Mother. A split sed of smugness equaled ay of distra. This was Ravager’s trap for her enemy, uood Janine, witnessing an upward swing prepared to shave off the woman’s face. The khatun leaned back, and the knuckles struck her in the jaw, sending her flying high and adding to the widening chaos on the ground.

  Mad Hatter sought pleasure in the bat, while Ravager had a different purpose, fighting as a leader g for her troops. If the two went all out, the resulting colteral damage risked destroying both armies and forever reshaping the region. Win or lose, if the battle tinued here, there would be nothi of Houstad.

  The two cshed in the air; Mad Hatter did not panic after missing the blow; she rexed her body, calmly preparing for the iable frontation, and when Ravager appeared behind her, she turensing her abs and enduring a painful kick to her stomach. She drove her scimitar through the ander’s foot during the kick, cerating the leg up to the knee. her had a ce to twist their cws or bde to widen the damage. Mad Hatter was sent over the horizon, and Ravager spun, using a passing piece of debris for a springboard to chase after the woman.

  Just how far did she calcute it? Jahought, humbled. Yes, the Blessed Mother often surprised the Tribe with her occasional sparks of genius, but that was otherworldly. She purposely sent the broken remains boung between the shields to not let her oppo have any opportunity to prepare herself.

  From the north came a shockwave, tearing up grass and ruining fields. Entire forests were uprooted, roads sunk underground, and barns were flung away. The city’s force field groaned, painfully, straining to shield the wall and colpsed. Dozens of geors ihe bastions flickered and exploded, wounding and killing nearby teis and guards. The same happened among the Horde’s ranks. But that relude. The ground shook and screamed, tortured by a fn object colpsing into it.

  A mountain range rose far on the horizon, turning everyone equally pale. Waterfalls from the underground rivers, violently pushed above the surface, ed it, turning to steam as they slid down the slopes, and the yellow glow of va paihis new formation. Fissures, wide enough to gulp entire vehicles, snaked from the mountain rao Houstad, forever ging the local geography. A single drop of blood came from the north, charting the grouween the armies with the force of a falling et, and the tremors tinued, announg that the titans were far from dead.

  “End this rabble and secure Houstad!” Iron Lord anded, pointing his give at the gates.