Respect—or whatever had stayed the third Alpha's advance—evaporated.
Perhaps the death of its two brothers was an insult that demanded an answer.
Perhaps the broken anomaly bleeding on the pavement still represented an unacceptable flaw in the system.
Or perhaps—
it was simply its turn.
The beast—the largest of the three—began to move.
Its steps were unhurried.
The walk of an executioner approaching the block.
Each footfall a promise of ending.
Artur lay in a pool of his own blood and tried to rise. He managed to brace himself on one elbow, the world pitching violently. His broken leg hung useless, a dead weight of agony. His left side was a cage of shattered ribs grinding with every shallow breath.
He was exhausted.
He was broken.
There were no overturned cars left to serve as ramps.
No alleys to funnel the enemy.
No storefronts to hide in.
No tricks left to play.
The battlefield was an open street littered with debris and the colossal corpses of the first two giants.
Just him—
and the last leviathan.
A direct fight.
He gripped the axe, the handle slick with blood. It felt impossibly heavy.
He knew he didn't have the strength for another desperate leap. No miracle strike remained.
All he had left was stubbornness.
The Alpha stopped a few meters away, its immense body eclipsing the purple sky. It was visibly larger—older. Old scars mapped its carapace, and one tusk was chipped at the tip, a relic of past wars.
Its molten eyes were deeper.
Sharper.
This was not merely a killer cell.
This was a veteran.
It did not attack at once.
It studied him, head tilting slightly, processing the scene: the ruined figure on the asphalt, the twin mountains of fallen flesh.
It exhaled—a low sound, not anger.
Assessment.
Then it moved.
The charge was different.
Not blind fury.
Controlled. Measured.
A display of absolute power.
Artur did not try to stand.
He did not try to dodge.
He did the only thing left.
He rolled.
With a scream that tore his throat raw, he rolled over the broken leg—turning agony into fuel, into the thrust of a jet engine made of pure pain. He rolled beneath the carcass of the second monster he had slain.
He wedged himself into the narrow space between dead belly and asphalt, the stench of dark blood and viscera flooding his lungs.
The Alpha slammed into its brother's corpse, shoving the mountain of flesh several meters with the sound of bone grinding over pavement. Artur was dragged with it, crushed tight, ribs shrieking.
The beast recoiled and struck again, trying to smash the cockroach hiding beneath.
Artur crawled frantically out the other side just as the Alpha, in frustration, sank its tusks into the fallen body and flipped it—hurling the multi-ton carcass aside like a sack of trash.
Artur was exposed again.
He pushed himself up onto one knee, axe lifted weakly.
This was no longer a dance.
It was trench warfare—
with the dead serving as trenches.
The Alpha ignored him.
Instead, it turned toward the body of the first monster—the one Artur had killed by severing its spine from behind. It clamped its jaws around the corpse and, with a motion of unbelievable strength, hurled it.
The bus-sized body sailed through the air and crashed down across the street with a thunderous impact.
The battlefield was cleared.
No more cover.
Nowhere left to hide.
The beast faced him.
The path between them was open.
It advanced slowly, molten eyes locked on his.
The game was over.
Artur spat blood onto the pavement. He looked at the creature—the embodiment of this place's relentless force.
He felt no fear.
The pain was too vast.
The exhaustion too deep.
There was no room left for fear.
Only a core of defiance, cold as ice.
He would not die hiding.
He would not die crawling.
Using the axe as a third leg, he forced himself upright. He staggered, weight on the broken limb an indescribable torment—
but he stood.
He faced the leviathan.
Broken.
Bleeding.
Standing.
"Come on," he rasped, voice a shredded whisper. "Finish it."
The Alpha halted.
For a second, the intelligence in its eyes flickered—replaced by something close to confusion.
The prey was not cowering.
Not begging.
It was challenging.
The hesitation passed.
Certainty returned.
It lowered its head—
and advanced for the final strike.