The retreat of Duke Alexander von Caligula's shattered army was less a military withdrawal and more a hysterical flight. The two vast Imperial columns—The Hammer and The Anvil—had been reduced to terrified, disorganized mobs fleeing the very sound of their own footsteps. They had lost over 130,000 men to the combined terror of machine guns and artillery, all while Maximilian's forces remained virtually untouched, proving that technology had surpassed sheer magical power and numbers. The Duke, however, refused to join the rout. He knew that returning to the Emperor meant certain execution; his only path lay in a final, desperate act of confrontation.
He gathered his personal retinue—a handful of loyal knights and his most trusted Mages—and took a stand at the Marble Pass, a narrow, defensible canyon road leading back toward the Capital. Alexander dismissed his remaining escort, sending them ahead to warn Alaric, leaving only himself and his desperate purpose. He had no illusions; this was his chosen battlefield for patricide, a final, futile attempt to save his House.
Maximilian, however, was not interested in pursuit. He knew the war was over. He deployed his new Supply Haulers to secure the vast quantities of abandoned Imperial equipment and ordered his APCs to patrol the shattered armies. But when intelligence reports confirmed that the Duke himself was holding the Marble Pass, Max recognized the symbolic and strategic significance. He realized his father was demanding a personal reckoning. This was not a tactical challenge; it was a confrontation he needed to end definitively.
Max traveled alone, riding an adapted motorcycle—a silent, oil-fueled machine that ate up the distance. He arrived at the Marble Pass not as a commander, but as an avenging figure, clad entirely in the sleek, dark Adamantine Suit. He dismounted beneath the looming canyon walls, the suit's micro-capillaries humming faintly with liquid mana, ready to absorb the coming violence.
Duke Alexander, standing atop a broken slab of marble, saw his son approach. The sight was monstrous: a dark, technological phantom, immune to the fear that had broken the Imperial army. Alexander felt a terrifying mix of profound hatred and agonizing parental guilt.
"You should not have come alone, Father," Max's voice, filtered through the suit's communicator, was devoid of emotion. "You have nothing left to offer the Empire."
"I offer my life for the survival of my House, monster!" Alexander roared, mana flaring around him in an incandescent halo of crimson and yellow. He was a Fire and Lightning Mage of immense, destructive power—a power capable of rendering five hundred meters of landscape into dust. He unleashed his fury immediately.
Alexander lifted his hands, and the sky tore open. Chain Lightning, thick as tree trunks, slammed into Maximilian. Simultaneously, he conjured a continuous stream of concentrated, explosive Fireballs that struck the suit with the force of repeated siege weaponry. The sound of the combined attack was deafening, echoing through the canyon as stone melted and air burned.
The Adamantine Suit instantly did its work. Max stood his ground, weathering the storm. The thousands of rune-etched threads instantly converted the kinetic energy from the impacts and the pure magical energy of the lightning and fire into stored liquid mana potential. The suit's surface pulsed brilliantly with an internal violet glow, absorbing the entirety of the assault.
"Your power is magnificent, Father," Max observed coolly through the din, "but it is inefficient. I am simply converting your output into my potential."
Realizing his power was being consumed, Alexander knew he had to deliver a blow Max couldn't absorb. He gathered every last drop of his mana, focusing it into a single, terrifying conjuration: the Purifying Inferno.
Alexander became the eye of a storm. Flames of unbearable heat—far hotter than any natural fire, infused with the purest Fire Mana—erupted from his body, creating a localized inferno that instantaneously vaporized the surrounding stone. This was not mere magic; it was the power of a dying god.
The Adamantine Suit was pushed past its designed limits. The runes overloaded, converting energy faster than the liquid mana pumps could cycle it. The sheer, sustained, incredible heat of the Purifying Inferno did what kinetic force could not: it began to melt the Adamantine fibers. The metal flowed, glowing white-hot, and instantly fused with the carbon and polymer layer Max wore beneath, permanently welding the suit to his flesh. Max screamed, a raw, animal sound of pain that cut through the roar of the fire. His Healing Magic, while potent, was utterly overwhelmed by the catastrophic, instantaneous damage.
But in that moment of agony and breakthrough, the Duke had exposed himself.
Max took a single, agonizing step forward, then another. The suit, though fused to him, was still functional and still held a terrifying reservoir of stored energy. He channeled all of the converted power—the absorbed lightning, the endless fire—into his right gauntlet, combining it with the stored potential energy of the Adamantine weave itself.
"The rules have changed, Father," Max rasped, his voice raw with pain.
The Duke stood consumed by his own destructive magic, his face a mask of triumph and utter despair. He watched, unable to believe his son was still moving.
Max lunged forward, his movement a final, desperate burst of speed. He drove his right fist—now glowing with a white-hot, focused energy that screamed against the melting Adamantine—directly into the center of Duke Alexander's chest. The gauntlet punched through armor, muscle, and bone in a single, catastrophic, silent point of impact. The accumulated, absorbed energy of the entire battle was released in that single point.
Duke Alexander's eyes widened, a final flicker of recognition—of his son, of the monster, of his failure—before the light left them. He collapsed, utterly lifeless, leaving behind only the residual, scorching heat of his final magic.
Maximilian stood alone in the smoking canyon, his suit permanently fused to his skin, his body ravaged but his will unbroken. He had killed his father. The Empire was his for the taking.