The helmet seal popped with a hiss of escaping pressure.
Marcus ripped the faceplate open.
Inside the bronze cage, Liang wasn't a god. He wasn't a general.
He was a kid. Maybe twenty-five. Pale, sweating, eyes wide with terror. He wore a headset that was blinking red.
Marcus grabbed him by the throat.
Liang's hands—human hands, small and trembling—clawed at Marcus's wrist.
"Wait!" Liang screamed. "Pause! Pause game!"
Marcus tightened his grip. "There is no pause."
"I have codes!" Liang babbled, spittle flying. "I can give you the map! I have the seed key! I can give you the gunpowder formula for Level 4! Phosphorous! Congreve Rockets! I can make you a god!"
Marcus stared at him. The Ghost of Commodus wanted to crush the windpipe right now. To silence the voice that had mocked him for thirty episodes.
But Marcus stopped.
"I don't want codes," Marcus rasps. His voice was gravel and smoke.
He leaned in close.
"I want the kill switch."
Liang froze. "What?"
"The machine," Marcus said, gesturing to the burning tower around them. "How do I kill it?"
Liang's eyes darted to a panel inside the cockpit. A small, red lever protected by a plastic cover.
"Scuttle charges," Liang whimpered. "It destroys the tech. So the natives don't loot it. It burns the hard drives."
"Pull it."
"I can't!" Liang sobbed. "I'm still in the suit! The hydraulics are dead! I can't eject!"
Marcus looked at the lever. Then at Liang.
"Then you die with your toy."
Marcus reached past Liang's head. He smashed the plastic cover with his fist.
He grabbed the red lever.
"No!" Liang shrieked. "You don't understand! This unit costs four million credits! My sponsor will—"
Marcus pulled the lever.
KLANG-KLANG-KLANG.
An alarm blared. Not a bell. A digital siren.
SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED. T-MINUS 120 SECONDS.
The deck vibrated. Deep in the belly of the Behemoth, charges were arming.
Marcus let go of Liang's throat.
He stepped back.
Liang was struggling, trying to wiggle out of the paralyzed suit. He was trapped like a crab in a broken shell.
"Help me!" Liang begged. "I'm a Player! You can't kill a Player! It's against the EULA!"
Marcus looked at him. He didn't feel hate anymore. He felt pity.
This man had treated the suffering of millions as a game. He had burned men alive because he was bored. And now, at the end, he didn't even know how to die.
"There are no rules here, Liang," Marcus said.
He kicked the suit.
He didn't kick it to hurt him. He kicked it toward the edge.
The bronze exoskeleton slid on the hydraulic fluid. It teetered on the broken railing.
"Wait!" Liang screamed. "I'll respawn! I'll come back!"
"I'll be waiting," Marcus said.
He shoved.
The suit tipped over the edge.
Liang's scream faded as he fell five stories.
CRUNCH.
The impact shook the tower. The suit hit the hard-packed salt of the desert floor. It didn't explode. It just broke. A heavy, wet sound of metal crushing bone.
Marcus didn't look down.
T-MINUS 90 SECONDS.
The ship was shaking apart. Smoke was pouring from the stairwell.
Marcus turned and ran.
He sprinted down the stairs. The heat was rising. The scuttle charges weren't just explosives; they were incendiaries. The walls were getting hot to the touch.
Fourth deck. Empty.
Third deck. Smoke.
Second deck.
He burst into the engine room.
It was chaos. The slaves were gone—fled into the night.
But Narcissus was still there.
The giant lay near the shattered drive gear. He was covered in blood. Three dead marines lay around him in a circle.
Galen was kneeling beside him, trying to bind a massive gash in Narcissus's leg with a strip of tunic.
"Leave him!" Narcissus growled, pushing the physician away. "Save yourself, leech!"
"Shut up, you ox!" Galen shouted back. "I am not losing my test subject!"
Marcus slid down the ladder.
"Get him up!" Marcus ordered.
He grabbed Narcissus's left arm. Galen grabbed the right.
"Caesar," Narcissus wheezed. "Go. The ship... she is groaning."
"We go together," Marcus said.
They hauled the giant up. Narcissus was heavy, dead weight. Marcus's back screamed in protest.
T-MINUS 30 SECONDS.
They stumbled toward the cargo bay door.
The Behemoth was still moving, drifting on its momentum. The ground outside was rushing by—a blur of white salt and rocks.
"Jump!" Marcus yelled.
They threw themselves into the void.
They hit the sand hard.
They tumbled. Marcus rolled, protecting his head. He slammed into a dune, sand filling his mouth.
He scrambled up, spitting grit.
"Down!"
He tackled Galen and Narcissus, forcing their heads into the sand.
BOOM.
The Land Battleship died.
The scuttle charges detonated the ammunition magazine. A fireball the size of a sun erupted into the night sky.
The shockwave rolled over them, hot and breathless.
Debris rained down. Burning wood. Twisted iron. Pieces of the great wheels.
Marcus lay in the sand, shielding his head with his arms, feeling the heat wash over him.
It lasted for ten seconds. Then, silence returned.
Marcus sat up.
The Behemoth was a skeleton of fire. The "Moving Mountain" was a burning wreck, casting long shadows across the desert.
He looked at his companions.
Galen was coughing, shaking sand from his hair. He was laughing. A manic, high-pitched giggle. "Magnificent! The thermal output!"
Narcissus lay on his back, staring at the stars. He was pale, but he was breathing. He raised a thumb. "Still... alive."
Marcus breathed out. His chest ached. His burn throbbed.
He looked at his hand.
He was clutching a piece of paper. He had ripped it from the cockpit wall before pulling the lever.
He uncrumpled it.
It wasn't a map. It was a coordinate printout. A list of "Active Nodes."
Most were offline.
But one was blinking red in his mind.
NODE ZERO: ROME. PALATINE HILL.
Marcus stared at the words.
Liang hadn't been the leader. He was a field commander. A mid-level boss.
The real threat—the Server, the Source, the "Admin"—was in Rome.
"He wasn't the final boss," Marcus whispered. The wind snatched the words away.
He looked at the burning wreck of the exoskeleton in the distance.
"He was just the gatekeeper."
He stood up. He looked West. Toward the sea. Toward home.
"Galen," Marcus said. "Get the men. We're done with the desert."
"Where do we go?" Galen asked, mesmerized by the fire.
Marcus's eyes were cold.
"We're going to Rome. I have a sister to visit."