Paul looked at the power sword clamped firmly between his two talons.
Then he looked at the flawless face in front of him, now twisted and hideous from the effects of the combat stimms.
A faint smile slowly surfaced at the corner of his mouth.
It was just a hint of a smirk, but to Lucius's eyes, it was more blindingly offensive than any verbal insult.
"This is truly boring, Lucius," Paul said, a trace of disappointment in his voice.
"It seems I overestimated you."
Deep within his pupils, the stars representing the Wisdom trait slowly rotated, taking in every single detail of Lucius's current state.
Muscle fibers contracting under immense overload, a hyper-stimulated nervous system... those three combat stimms were rapidly burning through his physical reserves.
"Why were you acting so arrogant before?"
The moment the words left his mouth, Paul unleashed his strength.
The five metal talons of the lightning claw gripping the power sword violently squeezed shut.
Crack...!
Under that terrifying pressure, the blade of the artificer power sword groaned in protest.
Lucius's pupils violently constricted.
He tried to yank his sword back and retreat, desperately wanting to put some distance between them and regroup.
But it was too late.
Paul brutally jerked his right arm back, pulling the power sword—and Lucius, who was still gripping it—along with it.
Lucius stumbled forward like a kite caught in a gale.
"What..."
Lucius didn't even have time to finish his gasp before the weight in his hand vanished.
His power sword was ripped right out of his grip.
The master-crafted blade that had accompanied him across countless worlds and drank the blood of endless xenos traced a high arc through the air, crashing down into a pile of shattered coral thirty meters away with a heavy metallic clang.
A chorus of sharp gasps echoed through the surrounding crowd.
The Emperor's Children Astartes stared with wide, disbelieving eyes.
What the hell did they just witness?
Lucius, Captain of the Thirteenth Company, the self-proclaimed greatest blademaster beneath the Primarchs...
Had actually been disarmed in a head-on clash?
And his sword was literally pinched between two claws and forcefully ripped out of his hands.
Saul Tarvitz's mouth fell slightly open, then quickly snapped shut.
In Vespasian's eyes, a fleeting trace of... sheer shock flashed past.
--
In the Crimson Dawn player channel, the feed was blowing up:
[Selling Cola at the Terra Palace Gates]: "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! Paul just disarmed Lucius!"
[Dragon Bro Never Yields]: "Caught the sword with two fingers and then just yanked it away! What kind of god-tier play is that!"
The Imperial faction channel was just as frantic:
[Worthy of Sanguinius's Blood]: "Is he even human? Lucius's sword just got snatched like that?"
[I Eat Tomatoes]: "Are my eyes working?"
[I Eat Tomatoes]: "Lucius's pride and joy, his swordsmanship looks like child's play in front of [Paul Dawn]?"
[Sanguinius Is My Husband]: "Serves him right! Who told him to act so cocky!"
Meanwhile, the Chaos faction channel fell into a dead silence.
[Konnichiwa Slaanesh-chan] stared at the silver-grey figure in the arena: "..."
[I Just Like Sleeping In]: "How the hell are we supposed to play against this?"
[I Just Like Sleeping In]: "We hustle for over ten days, and the other side just sends out one guy who solo-stomps Lucius?"
[Blue Pigeon Knows Nothing]: "I suddenly kind of understand why [Are You Sure This Melon Is Ripe] decided to take a gamble."
[Blue Pigeon Knows Nothing]: "The number one player on the server is built entirely different. We really have no business messing with him."
--
Back in the arena.
Lucius stood rooted to the spot, completely empty-handed, his face awash in utter disbelief.
He looked down at his bare hands, then back up at Paul, his lips trembling, yet unable to form a single word.
His pride, his confidence, his self-identity as the absolute best blademaster beneath the Primarchs...
In that exact moment, it was all torn to shreds by the man standing in front of him, using nothing but two metal talons.
Paul didn't give him a second to breathe.
The silver-grey silhouette instantly vanished from where he stood.
The speed was so blindingly fast that even Lucius's stimm-enhanced eyes could only track a faint, blurred afterimage.
He's behind me...
Lucius instinctively spun around to block.
But he forgot that he no longer held a sword.
Paul appeared right behind him, the five metal talons of his lightning claw wrapped in ghostly blue disruption arcs as they ruthlessly stabbed into the right arm Lucius raised to defend himself.
Clang!
A massive crash of metal erupted.
The arm plating of Lucius's artificer power armor was like wet paper against the lightning claws.
The talons punched effortlessly through the ceramite, sinking deep into the flesh beneath, and then...
Boom!
Paul twisted his wrist, and Lucius was launched through the air like a cannonball.
His body traced a high arc, smashing violently into a coral wall thirty meters away.
The wall collapsed with a deafening rumble, burying his figure in the rubble.
But Paul didn't stop.
The silver-grey figure flickered again. The very instant the rubble exploded outward, he was already standing right in front of Lucius.
Lucius had just scrambled out of the debris, his face smeared with blood and grime, his violet eyes wide with pure terror.
He opened his mouth, trying to say something...
But Paul's lightning claw was already there.
Left to right.
Boom!
Lucius's body flew sideways, blasting straight through the support poles of a makeshift tent, rolling over a dozen times through gravel and shredded canvas.
Right to left.
The silver-grey figure materialized like a ghost right where he was going to land. In the fraction of a second before Lucius could even try to stand, another claw strike hit him.
Bottom to top.
Lucius was blasted straight up into the air by the immense kinetic force, his purple power armor drawing an arc against the night sky.
Top to bottom.
Paul vaulted into the air, appearing directly above him. The lightning claws, roaring with the hum of the disruption field, slammed down like a falling meteor.
CRASH...!!!
Lucius's body was ruthlessly driven straight into the ground by the colossal impact. The bedrock splintered, spiderweb cracks spreading out for over a dozen meters in every direction.
The surrounding Emperor's Children Astartes were utterly spellbound.
This... this wasn't a battle.
This was a one-sided massacre.
That silver-grey figure, the First Company Captain of the Iron Hands, was currently beating him around like a completely defenseless punching bag.
Left.
Right.
Up.
Down.
Every single strike was pinpoint accurate, vicious, and entirely merciless.
Yet, every single strike perfectly avoided any lethal spots, keeping Lucius teetering right on the very brink of death without actually letting him cross over.
It was deliberate.
It was raw humiliation.
It was forcing Lucius to taste the consequences of his actions in the most agonizing way possible.
The silver-grey figure finally came to a halt.
Paul stood in the dead center of the pulverized crater, looking down at Lucius sprawled on the ground.
That once magnificent, dazzling purple artificer power armor was completely unrecognizable.
The chest plate was caved in, the arm guards shattered, the leg greaves warped and deformed.
The ceramite plates were absolutely covered in gouges left by the lightning claws.
The deepest gash stretched all the way from his left shoulder to his right ribcage, nearly slicing the entire breastplate in two.
Beneath the broken armor, Lucius's actual body was just as badly mangled.
His flawless face was painted with blood and grime, his long white hair matted into a bloody, muddy clump.
Those violet eyes were half-open and utterly unfocused, bloody froth continually bubbling past his lips.
He lay there, completely motionless.
Only the faint, shallow rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive.
But he was just barely clinging onto life.
Lucius was on his absolute last breath.
A dead silence blanketed the area.
No one spoke a word.
As the Emperor's Children Astartes watched this unfold, their eyes held no anger, no resentment.
Only profound shock.
And a trace of... something incredibly complex and hard to describe.
It was a known fact that the Astartes only respected the strong.
Lucius had dug this grave himself.
He was the one who brought troops to surround the camp, he was the one who helped Fabius vivisect an Iron Hands warrior, and he was the one who accepted this duel.
Gabriel Santar, from start to finish, was merely defending the honor of the Iron Hands.
Paul slowly raised his right leg, planting his golden war boot directly onto the deepest claw mark on Lucius's chest.
He didn't put much weight on it.
But it was more than enough to make Lucius feel the sheer, crushing pressure.
Lucius's unfocused pupils contracted slightly, struggling to zero in on the silver-grey figure above him.
"Lucius," Paul's voice was freezing cold, like the frigid winds of the night sky. "The duel is over."
His gaze swept over the surrounding Emperor's Children, finally settling back on Lucius's blood-smeared face.
"I hope you remember today's lesson."
"The honor of the Iron Hands is not to be tarnished."
He paused, his voice softening just a fraction.
"As for tomorrow..."
"We will still honor our promise and fight alongside the Emperor's Children."
"After all, those are the orders of our Primarch."
He withdrew his right leg and turned around.
After taking two steps, he suddenly stopped.
His cold, hard voice rang out once more:
"With such pathetic strength, don't act so cocky next time."
"This time, I'm sparing your life out of respect for Lord Fulgrim."
"But if xenos run into someone like you..."
"They won't be so merciful."
Those last words were like a pair of invisible slaps to the face.
Lucius had been desperately trying to hold on, using his last shred of consciousness to maintain the dignity of an Emperor's Children Thirteenth Company Captain.
But the moment those words hit his ears, the mouthful of blood he had been holding back in his chest finally sprayed out.
Pfft...!
The blood erupted into a red mist in the air, splattering all over his own unrecognizable face.
Then his head lolled to the side, and he completely blacked out.
The two Emperor's Children apothecaries finally snapped out of their daze and rushed forward.
They crouched beside Lucius, deploying their portable medical kits to begin emergency triage.
One apothecary pressed his fingers against Lucius's carotid artery, his face darkening.
"Vitals are critical. Multiple organ failure, signs of spinal displacement, and his power armor is completely totaled..."
The other apothecary was already injecting adrenaline and coagulants, rapidly assessing the damage with a portable scanner.
"Seven broken ribs, two puncturing the lungs. Left kidney is ruptured, massive contusions on the liver..."
He paused, a bizarre mix of emotions creeping into his voice.
"But every single injury perfectly avoided a truly lethal blow."
"He... he held back."
The two apothecaries locked eyes, both seeing the exact same thing in each other's gaze...
The strength of the Iron Hands First Captain was far more terrifying than they could have ever imagined.
In such a brutal, one-sided massacre.
He could actually precisely control the force and impact point of every single strike, ensuring he only maimed, not killed.
What level of combat mastery was this?
The surrounding Emperor's Children Astartes heard their words.
The looks they directed at that retreating silver-grey figure grew even more complicated.
Their eyes held awe and gratitude.
Along with an indescribable hint of... shame.