Kratos rose.
The Spartan's leg buckled, his arm hung limp, and blood poured from a dozen wounds. But he rose. He always rose. That was what made him different from other men—not his strength, not his speed, but his refusal to stay down. Adrestus had wounded him, drained him, pushed him to the edge of defeat. But Kratos did not know how to fall.
His eyes changed. The cold calculation that had been there before vanished, replaced by something wilder, something older. His muscles swelled. His veins bulged. A low growl built in his chest, growing into a roar that shook the ashes from the burning buildings.
Spartan Rage.
Adrestus had read about it in the myths, had heard stories from soldiers who had fought beside the man. When Kratos's fury reached its peak, his body transcended its limits. Pain became irrelevant. Wounds closed. Strength multiplied. He became less a man and more a force of nature.
And now that force was bearing down on him.
Kratos charged—not limping, not favoring his wounded leg, but sprinting like a bull. Adrestus barely had time to raise his arms before the Spartan slammed into him, lifting him off his feet and driving him through the wall of a burning hut. Timbers shattered. Flames licked at his cloak. He landed hard on his back, the air exploding from his lungs, and Kratos was on top of him, fists raining down like hammers.
The first blow cracked his cheekbone. The second split his lip. The third would have caved in his skull, but Adrestus twisted at the last moment, and the fist struck the ground beside his head, cratering the earth.
He's faster, Adrestus realized. Stronger. And he feels nothing.
Kratos grabbed him by the collar and lifted him, then slammed him down again. The impact sent shockwaves through his broken body. His vision blurred. He tasted blood—more blood, his own, filling his mouth.
"Stay down," Kratos roared. "Stay down and die."
Adrestus could not stay down. His absolute body control would not let him. Even as his mind screamed for rest, his body moved, searching for leverage, for an opening, for anything.
Kratos raised his fist for the killing blow.
Adrestus's legs came up, wrapping around Kratos's arm. The move was not from any martial art he had learned in this world. It was from another life—a guard pull, a submission setup, a technique he had watched in a thousand MMA fights. His thighs clamped down on Kratos's bicep. His hips lifted. The leverage shifted.
Kratos's eyes widened as his arm was pulled straight. Adrestus's good hand gripped the Spartan's wrist, and his hips drove upward.
The armbar was perfect.
Pressure exploded through Kratos's elbow. The joint bent the wrong way, and the Spartan roared—not in rage this time, but in pain. His grip loosened. Adrestus rolled, swept Kratos's good leg, and suddenly he was on top, straddling the Spartan's chest.
Kratos thrashed, trying to throw him off. But Adrestus had studied ground fighting for years. He knew how to distribute his weight, how to ride out the storm. He shifted his hips, pressed his chest against Kratos's, and trapped the Spartan's remaining arm with his knees.
They were face to face, inches apart. Kratos's breath was hot on his skin. His eyes were wild, desperate, afraid.
"You don't know how to do this," Adrestus said, his voice calm despite the blood dripping from his chin. "You've never fought someone who could take you to the ground and keep you there."
Kratos snarled and bucked his hips, trying to reverse. Adrestus rode the motion, shifted his weight, and drove his knee into Kratos's wounded thigh. The Spartan gasped. His struggles weakened.
Adrestus reached for his fallen spear—the broken one, the one Kratos had snapped earlier. The shaft was cracked, but the tip was still sharp. He pressed it against Kratos's throat.
"Yield," he said.
The fire crackled. The village groaned. Somewhere in the distance, a child was crying.
Kratos stared up at him, his chest heaving, his eyes burning. For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Kratos's hand shot up, grabbed the spear shaft, and snapped it in two.
The tip fell away from his throat. Adrestus was left holding a useless stick. Kratos grinned—a bloody, savage grin.
"You should have killed me when you had the chance," the Spartan said.
He threw Adrestus off and rose again, swaying, bleeding, but still standing. His arm hung at a wrong angle—the elbow was damaged, maybe broken—but he did not seem to notice. The Spartan Rage had not faded. It had only grown.
Adrestus scrambled backward, searching for a weapon. His sword was somewhere in the mud. The Blade of Chaos lay nearby, too heavy for his broken arm to lift. He had nothing.
Kratos advanced.
"You're out of tricks," the Spartan said. "Out of strength. Out of time."
Adrestus's back hit a wall of rubble. There was nowhere left to run.
Not out of will, he thought. Never out of will.
He rose to his feet, empty-handed, and faced the monster.
"Come on, then," he said. "Finish it."
Kratos lunged.
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