I climbed the stairs. My boots were heavy with the red shit coating the floor. Halfway up, three Elite Guards blocked the landing. They had those shiny new Gear Nine shields that were supposed to be indestructible.
"Step back, James!" one of them yelled. His voice was thin, rattling behind a silver visor.
I didn't say a word. I raised the Gear Six and blew his knee out. The shield dropped as he hit the deck, screaming about his cap. I stepped on his neck until I felt the bone snap, then shoved the blade into the second guard's gut. I twisted it, pulling upward until his chest cavity opened. His lungs were still pumping, bubbles of red popping on his lips.
The third one turned to run. Coward. I grabbed his cape, jerked him back, and slammed his head into the stone banister. His skull cracked like an egg. I let him slump over the rail, his brains sliding down the marble toward the lobby.
"Where is he?" I snarled, looking at the dying guard at my feet.
The man just gurgled, clutching a handful of his own spilled pipes. I kicked him aside and kept moving.
At the top of the stairs, a Stalker was busy eating a servant. The beast had the girl's torso in its mouth, her legs kicking uselessly in the air. I walked up behind it and buried my blade in its spine. The beast arched, snapping the girl in half as it died. Her lower half fell to the floor with a wet thud.
I kicked the palace doors open.
The King was cowering behind a massive desk. He'd pissed himself—a big, dark stain on his silk trousers. Two more guards were shaking, holding swords that looked like toothpicks compared to the monsters outside.
"James, please!" the King blubbered. "I can give you anything! Gold! A province! Just kill the beasts!"
I walked toward him, the Gear Six held at my side. I shot the first guard in the face. His head turned into a spray of bone and hair that coated the King's fancy crown. The second guard dropped his sword and bolted for the window.
"You're going to give me a province?" I asked, stopping at the edge of the desk.
I grabbed the King by his fat neck and dragged him over the wood. Ink pots shattered. Papers flew. I slammed his face into the desk, breaking his jaw on the first hit.
"You sentenced me to death for a machine," I said, leaning in.
I shoved the barrel of the Gear Six into his mouth. The metal was hot, still smoking from the last shot. He tried to beg, but all that came out was a wet, muffled whimper.
"Master this," I muttered.
I pulled the trigger.
The back of his head painted the royal tapestry a fresh shade of red. I let the body slump to the floor, a headless sack of garbage wearing a gold ring.
I looked out the window at the burning city. The Stormbeasts were everywhere.
"New world," I said, wiping the blood off my chin. "Let's see who survives the night."
I kicked the balcony doors open and dropped two stories into a pile of dead guards. My knees popped, but I didn't stop. The capital was a fucking furnace. Buildings were collapsing, and the streets were clogged with people getting turned into red pulp by the beasts.
I headed for the slums. My old squad, the ones who didn't sell out to the Crown, would be hunkered down in the basement of a burnt-out tavern. I punched a civilian out of my way who tried to grab my leg for help and kept running.
"James! You bastard, you actually did it!"
I didn't turn around. I knew the voice. It was Mo, my old demo expert. He was crouching behind an overturned cart, his face covered in soot.
"The King is a headless trophy in his own office," I said, checking the chamber on the Gear Six. "But we're fucked. The Queen's going to call Mabeth."
Mo paled, his hands shaking as he fumbled with a grenade. "The Eastern Border? She's been out there for five years. They say the beasts in the East eat Goliaths for breakfast."
"Mabeth is a different breed of monster," I growled. I remembered the last time I saw her. She didn't need a Gear Nine to kill. She had that Dragon Spirit blessing—some ancient, primal shit that turned her into a walking tank. I'd seen her rip the jaw off a Storm-Drake with her bare hands.
She uses an old Gear Four cannon-pistol. It doesn't have fancy sensors or neural links. It just has enough firepower to punch a hole through a mountain. If she brings her thirty thousand veterans back here, this city won't just be a graveyard; it'll be a crater.
"We need to move," I said, grabbing Mo by the collar and dragging him toward the alley. "Mabeth doesn't take prisoners, and she sure as hell doesn't care about the law. She'll burn every house in this city just to find me."
A Crawler jumped from a rooftop, landing on a man's back a few feet away. The beast's claws dug into his spine and pulled his head back until the neck snapped with a wet crack. I shot the beast in its open maw, blowing its brains out the back of its skull.
"If she's coming, we leave now," I spat. "I'm not dying because some woman with a dragon soul wants my head on a pike."
We sprinted through the gore, stepping over piles of intestines and broken glass.