Chandler glanced back at the carnage behind him and shuddered. His proud mechanical units and the elite retinue he had spent countless resources crafting were being slaughtered. They were being butchered by that single blue monster and a swarm of invisible insects, rendered utterly defenseless.
The moment Chandler felt fear, it was keenly sensed by the surrounding Greenskins.
Da Boss is scared.Even da Boss is runnin'!Dem blue sparks really do break da machines!
At that instant, the Greenskins' "Waaagh!" energy took effect. Because they "fancied" that the electricity was terrifying and could disable the weapons made by the Mek Boyz, the currents actually became more potent.
The blue lightning radiating from the Bursting Lightning Spears embedded in the deck flared with sudden intensity. The sparks that had begun to dissipate reconsolidated, becoming fiercer and more blinding. The power of the electromagnetic pulse doubled, expanding its radius until even the fleeing Chandler was caught in its wake.
Inside his war-armor, the control systems shrieked with alarms. Data flickered wildly across his displays, and the sirens pierced his eardrums. Electric shocks bypassed the thick plating, sending a wave of paralysis from his spine to his brain. Chandler gnashed his teeth in agony, nearly collapsing, but he did not stop running.
Sarah tore through one defensive line after another until she finally stood before Chandler. Her blue carapace was marred by a dozen deep gouges leaking green ichor. These were the scars from breaking the line; a Deff Dread had self-destructed in its death throes, catching her in the blast and cracking half her shell.
Yet, her compound eyes remained icily locked onto Chandler. She showed no signs of exhaustion.
Chandler knew he could no longer escape. He stopped, turned, and faced the blue monster. His mechanical war-armor weighed more than five times his own body mass. With the power system reduced to half capacity, he should have found it impossible to move, yet the moment he entered a combat state, he forgot the weight.
It was his nature. It was the instinct of Iron-Claw Chandler. It was the reason he had survived countless slaughters. Fear? Such a thing was incinerated by battle lust the moment the first blow was struck.
"Come on den, bug!" he roared, opening his power claw and aiming the triple-barreled shoota at the blue silhouette. "Show me wot ya got!"
Sarah vanished. Her movements were as swift as lightning, far beyond what Chandler's organic eyes could track. He saw only blue afterimages flickering before him, followed by a hundred more appearing simultaneously—a visual persistence caused by her sheer speed.
He swung his power claw, hitting nothing but air. He squeezed the trigger of his shoota, spraying lead frantically, but the bullets only tore through Sarah's lingering shadows. Huge rounds ripped holes into the deck of the Mad Bull without ever touching the true target.
Meanwhile, Sarah's bone blades left a continuous trail of wounds across his body. The cracks in his armor multiplied, and the alarms grew louder, yet Chandler did not fall. Though his armor lacked power, its staggering thickness provided formidable protection. The bone blades could slice through metal, but they could not easily bypass thirty centimeters of solid composite plating. Every strike only scarred the surface, failing to reach the pilot within.
Chandler's sheer will held him upright. The pain and the increasing weight of his dead machinery could not stop him. He swung his claw and pulled his trigger, fighting without a second's pause.
The surrounding Boyz and bodyguards tried to rush in to help, but the Lictors held them back with their lives. One Lictor pounced on three Nobs; it was hit mid-air by a shoota round that blew away half its torso, yet it used its momentum to slam into the shooter. Bone blades pierced the Nob's chest before the Lictor was hacked to pieces by the power axes of the other two.
Another Lictor charged into a cluster of Killa Kans. Knowing that electromagnetic attacks were effective against these machines, and possessing specialized organs for storing bio-electricity, it lunged into the densest part of the group and detonated all its remaining internal energy.
Blue light erupted. An EMP swept through the area, instantly paralyzing the Killa Kans and frying the Grots inside to cinders. Even nearby Nobs were affected, their power armor malfunctioning and leaving them struggling in place. More and more Lictors emulated this tactic, ensuring the Greenskins remained unable to support Chandler.
Chandler swung his power claw once more and missed. His body lost balance, causing him to stumble forward a single step.
In that one step, Sarah seized her chance.
She blinked to the foot Chandler had misplaced, exerting force with the limbs on one side of her body to completely upend his balance. Chandler was forced to use his iron claw to brace against the deck to keep from falling entirely.
Sarah was already behind him. A newly grown Bursting Lightning Spear shot from her back, slamming into Chandler's right arm—specifically the joint of his signature iron claw. The spear bypassed the armor, piercing deep into the flesh and pinning Chandler's entire right arm to the deck.
Terrifying high-voltage current surged through his arm into his entire body. Chandler let out a harrowing scream. But she wasn't finished. Four bone blades struck simultaneously, falling upon his right arm like a torrential rain.
A thousand strikes in a single instant. This was a sight Chandler would remember until his dying breath. In a blur of blade-light, his right arm—the claw that had accompanied him through countless wars and helped him climb to the rank of Warboss—was severed at the root. It thudded onto the deck, kicking up sparks and green fluid.
Chandler let out a soul-shattering howl. It wasn't just the pain; it was the humiliation of losing his symbol of power.
But he was not dead yet. Chandler turned his head toward the void outside the ship with desperate eyes. The Mad Bull was nearing the anti-air defense zone of Karl-2. The massive turrets of the planet were already visible; if he could hold on for just a few more minutes, he would be under their protective fire. At that point, even if he had to leap off the ship, he was confident he could land safely.
Minutes. Just a few more minutes.
With his remaining left hand, he launched a red bomb. It was one of his trump cards—a device concentrating the explosive power of a thousand Boomer Squigs.
"Ya fink ya can kill me?!!!" he screamed hysterically, fueled by the rage of a cornered beast.
Crimson light erupted from the bomb, instantly engulfing both him and Sarah.
BOOM!
A horrific explosion blossomed, momentarily knocking the high-speed Mad Bull off its course. The entire ship tilted violently, debris scattered into the void, and flames roared toward the ceiling.
Sarah had taken the full force of the blast at point-blank range. Half her carapace was gone, revealing the pulsating organs beneath. Her newly grown whip-tails were severed and turned to ash. Three of her four bone blades were shattered, with only one hanging precariously. She collapsed onto the deck, her life fading. The blue lightning on her body was reduced to faint, flickering sparks.
None of the nearby Lictors survived. The Greenskin bodyguards were also not spared; the Nobs and walkers were blown apart, leaving a few survivors wailing in the wreckage, crawling across the floor with missing limbs.
Sarah struggled to lift her head. With her one remaining compound eye, she searched for Chandler's silhouette.
She found nothing.