The heavy gold doors hissed shut, perfectly sealing them inside just as a volley of plasma fire scarred the exterior metal.
The chaotic noise of the lobby instantly vanished. It was replaced by the smooth, quiet hum of the grav-lift. Soft, incredibly boring elevator music started playing from hidden speakers. The cheerful jazz tune felt completely ridiculous after the absolute meat grinder they had just survived.
Arthur let out a slow breath. He rolled his shoulders and adjusted his ruined tie. He reached up and wiped a speck of blood off his cheek. He looked up at the digital floor indicator panel above the door. The numbers were rapidly climbing.
"Going up," Arthur smirked.
Vane leaned heavily against the polished glass wall of the elevator. He was breathing hard. The scarred frontiersman looked down at his navy-blue tuxedo. The expensive fabric was torn in three different places, stained with soot, and completely soaked in sweat.
"I hate this suit," Vane grunted. He reached down and violently yanked at the collar, ripping the bowtie clean off. "It is cutting off my circulation. I can barely swing my sword above my head without the shoulders pinching."
"That is because you swing like a wild man," Cassia pointed out.
The rogue bounty hunter stood on the opposite side of the spacious elevator. She was casually popping empty thermal clips out of her customized stun pistols and sliding fresh ones into the grips. Her stunning crimson evening gown was remarkably clean, save for a few minor scorch marks near the hem.
She looked entirely unbothered. She looked like she was on her way to a dinner party, not a suicide mission against a corporate cartel.
"You need to step into your strikes, farm boy," Cassia continued, sliding the pistols back into her thigh holsters. "Stop relying entirely on your upper body strength. Let your hips do the work. The suit wouldn't pinch if you actually had some technique."
"I hit things until they stop moving," Vane shot back, glaring at her. "It works just fine."
Arthur ignored their bickering. His pitch-black eyes were locked on the floor indicator.
Thirty. Thirty-five. Forty.
They were moving fast. The grav-lift was bypassing the lower residential and entertainment sectors of the Iron Tower entirely. They were heading straight for the mid-level management sector. That was where the central server was housed. That was the brain of Silas Vance's entire operation.
"Check your gear," Arthur commanded. His baritone voice cut through the elevator music. "The lobby was just the welcome mat. Silas knows we are in the building. He knows exactly what elevator we are in. He is going to have a welcoming committee waiting for us when these doors open."
Vane grunted and hoisted his massive, chipped broadsword. He rested the flat of the heavy steel blade against his shoulder. He rolled his neck until it cracked. "Let them come. I need to hit something to get the stiffness out of this jacket."
Cassia didn't say anything. She just drew her pistols again and held them at the ready. Her silver eyes narrowed, all the playful humor completely draining from her face. She shifted into a low, predatory stance.
Forty-five. Forty-eight. Forty-nine.
"DING!"
The cheerful elevator chime sounded incredibly loud in the tense silence.
The grav-lift smoothly ground to a halt. The feeling of weightlessness vanished.
"Here we go," Arthur muttered.
The heavy mahogany doors to the fiftieth-floor office hissed open.
The smell hit them before they even saw the room. It was an awful, sickening stench. It smelled like rotting meat mixed with burnt ozone and raw battery acid. It was the distinct, unmistakable odor of unformatted Chaos data. It was the smell of Paradox energy.
Vane gagged, raising an arm to cover his nose. Cassia's eyes widened in disgust.
Arthur didn't blink. He just stared straight ahead into the massive, dimly lit corridor.
Standing fifty feet away, completely blocking the path to the central server room, were three figures. They were Silas Vance's lieutenants. And they were not human anymore.
They were heavily mutated, dripping with raw, grey Paradox energy. Silas had clearly given them the same unstable narcotic he had given his floor manager down in the casino. The cartel boss was desperate. He was burning his own assets just to slow Arthur down.
The lieutenant on the left was a hulking brute, easily eight feet tall. His skin had melted away, replaced by thick, bubbling grey sludge that hardened into jagged bone-plates.
The lieutenant on the right was a towering, heavily modified cybernetic nightmare. His organic parts had completely rotted away, leaving only exposed wires and glowing red hydraulic pistons. He was entirely encased in a thick, humming blue energy shield that distorted the air around him.
But the one in the middle was the worst.
It was a creature that used to be a highly trained swordmaster. Now, its torso had split open. Four massive, multi-jointed arms erupted from its chest and back. Each arm ended in a long, jagged bone-blade that dripped with corrosive grey acid.
"SCREEEECH!"
The four-bladed mutant didn't wait for introductions. It let out a horrible, high-pitched wail that rattled the glass walls of the elevator.
The lieutenants were fast. Impossibly fast. The Paradox energy surging through their veins completely bypassed their natural biological limits.
The bladed mutant lunged directly at Cassia. It crossed the fifty-foot distance in a fraction of a second. It swung all four of its bone-blades in a chaotic, overlapping whirlwind of strikes. It aimed to chop the rogue bounty hunter into tiny pieces before she could even raise her guns.
Cassia didn't flinch, but she didn't have time to dodge.
"WHOOSH!"
A massive shadow stepped in front of her.
Vane intercepted the strike. The scarred frontiersman planted his heavy boots into the carpet. He swung his massive broadsword upward in a brutal, two-handed arc, meeting the descending bone-blades head-on.
"CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!"
Sparks exploded across the dim corridor as steel met mutated bone. Vane's arms bulged against his tight tuxedo jacket. His boots dragged backward a few inches from the sheer kinetic force of the impact, but he held the line. He didn't let a single blade get past his guard.
"I've got the ugly ones!" Vane grunted, his face twisting with exertion as he pushed back against the four-armed monster. He kicked the creature in the chest, forcing it back a step. "Arthur, take the boss!"
Arthur Sterling stepped out of the elevator. He ignored the bladed mutant. He ignored the hulking bone-plated brute that Cassia was currently filling with hyper-condensed plasma rounds.
His pitch-black eyes locked entirely on the lead lieutenant. The towering cyborg.
The machine-man slowly walked forward. Every step it took left a heavy, cracking indent in the polished floor. The thick blue energy shield surrounding its body hummed with a terrifying, high-frequency pitch. It carried a massive plasma mace that glowed with blinding white heat.
Arthur pulled up his system interface. He didn't have his million-fold multiplier active, but his analytical tools still worked perfectly.
"System," Arthur thought. "Scan the target's defensive array."
[Ding!]
[Target Shielding Analysis Initiated...]
[Scanning hostile energy frequencies.]
[Analysis Complete.]
[Target is equipped with a Military-Grade Kinetic Repulsion Field. Shield Density: Extreme. Status: 99% Physical Resistance.]
Arthur read the blue text floating in his vision. Ninety-nine percent physical resistance. That meant hitting the shield with a sword was like hitting a solid brick wall with a wet noodle. The kinetic energy would just violently bounce right back into his own arms.
The cyborg stopped ten feet away from Arthur. It raised the massive plasma mace, the heat radiating off the weapon instantly singeing the edges of Arthur's ruined coat.
"You... die... now..." the cyborg buzzed. Its voice box was heavily damaged, spitting out words in a broken, static-filled drone.
Arthur just let out a slow, deeply exhausted sigh. He reached over his shoulder and gripped the hilt of the Ebonheart Sword.
The cyborg braced itself, its red optic sensors locking onto the weapon, preparing its shield to absorb the heavy strike.
But Arthur didn't draw the sword.
Instead, he slowly pushed the heavy pitch-black blade back into its scabbard until it clicked into place. He let his hand drop to his side. He cracked his knuckles, the sound sharp and loud over the humming of the plasma mace.
He looked up at the towering, shielded cyborg. A cold, terrifyingly arrogant smile stretched across his face.
"I don't need a sword for you," Arthur sneered, raising his bare fists into a flawless, hyper-efficient martial stance. "Come here."
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