The sky split with a roar that turned marrow to slurry. The Bloodthirster moved like a red storm, its wings shredding the smoke as it surged forward. Each swing of its giant barbed whip ruptured air and steel alike—whole platoons vanished in arterial spray. Its axe, a slab of brass-fused bone, cleaved down through the only Shadowsword on the field before it could fire. The tank didn't explode. It came apart, armor folding inward, crew incinerated before they could scream.
The sole Anti-Titan weapon was gone. There was no countermeasure. No gun left that could banish it back to Hell. The Imperials had nothing. And the Bloodthirster knew.
Its breath came in blasts—hot furnace gusts that stank of scorched blood and brimstone. With every step, the ferrocrete cracked beneath clawed hooves. The shriek of its wings was like steel cables under tension, sawing against reality. Its eyes burned too bright, twin pits of hate that boiled the air around them.
The mortals were already fracturing, driven to the edge by the sheer wrongness of its presence. Guardsmen clutched their heads, eyes rolling back, weapons forgotten. The Warp screamed through every open wound, every weakness. Chaos in its purest form.
Even the Space Wolves—ferocious, unyielding—found themselves fighting to maintain cohesion. Their battle instincts were at odds with the raw, unfiltered madness. They rallied, regrouped, but the crushing weight of Gorlab's rage had them faltering. The creature hadn't spoken, and yet it had already spoken too much.
Gorrulf tried to vox the Great Wolf, but daemonic filth turned the airwaves to static and shrieking laughter. It was over. They had nothing—no Shadowsword, no Rune Priest, no edge. Now the only question that remained was whether they should run… or die with some honor, like Varrik.
Then the sky was split with a roar, the Thunderhawk cutting through the smoke and fire, engines screaming as it tore through the storm-choked air. The Thunderhawk—flying war machine of the Adeptus Astartes—hovered above the jagged ground. Its heavy, angular body, bristling with weaponry and shielded by thick ceramite armor, was designed to carry Space Marine squads directly into the heart of battle. Its engines screamed like a battle cry as it hovered just inches above the earth, sending gusts of wind and debris spiraling through the air. The massive war machine's twin lascannon barrels blazed to life, each shot a streak of pure death aimed squarely at the Bloodthirster.
The daemon roared in fury as the beams impacted its form, the force of the holy weapons rattling the massive daemon's frame. Yet, even these powerful blows did little more than scorch its monstrous hide. It twisted in the air, wings flaring wide, and the air around it seemed to warp with the sheer power of its rage.
And then the ramp dropped.
Great Logan Grimnar himself charged out, clad in artificer terminator armor, his footfalls thundering as he hit the earth with the weight of an avalanche. His storm bolter was already in his hands, the roar of its fire a battle cry in itself. Behind him, his Wolf Guard leapt from the Thunderhawk in a blur of motion—massive warriors clad in Terminator armors of different patterns. The ancient, heavily-plated ceramite suits, reinforced with storm shields and heavy weapons, made them unstoppable juggernauts. Only the finest of the Marines were allowed to wear Its most powerful equipment.
The Wolf Guard hit the ground with bone-shattering force, sending tremors through the land beneath them. They gleamed under the storm-dark sky, marking them as the legendary warriors of the Space Wolves, the fiercest of the Adeptus Astartes. Grimnar, his own armor scored with the marks of countless battles, led the charge with a roar that reverberated across the battlefield.
"FOR THE ROUT!" Grimnar's voice rang out, a sound of pure fury and resolve.
The Space Wolves fell into formation instantly. The rest of the surving space wolves, already on the edge, steadied as Grimnar's presence pulled them into action.
The Bloodthirster, furious and defiant, swung its massive axe in a vicious arc. The weapon struck with the power of a god's wrath, cleaving the very air. Its eyes burned like hellfire, its every movement an eruption of daemonic power. But the Space Wolves were not deterred. Grimnar, his storm bolter now tearing through the air with unrelenting fury, led his warriors directly into the heart of the chaos.
They charged, their weapons roaring in unison—heavy bolters, storm bolters, cyclonic missile launchers, and power axes. Each shot was a thunderclap in the storm, a testament to the fury of the Emperor's chosen. Grimnar's storm bolter mowed down the few remaining foes, sending them crashing to the ground as his battle cry shook the earth.
With every step, the ground beneath them quaked.
Below this scene, amomg the ruins of the bridge, Slayer rose from the river of filth. Toxic sludge clung to his armor, sluicing off in sheets of green-black oil. Beneath his boots, the bones of Guardsmen snapped like dry twigs. Wreckage hissed where it touched his skin—slagged iron, half-melted tread-links, the burned shell of a Hellhound.
He lifted his gauntlet, fingers twitching with purpose.
The air tore. A fracture split the world, reality peeling back like rusted hull plating. A scream hissed out of the void—metal, memory, fire. The toxic river churned beneath him, stinking of death, rot, and decay. But the Slayer remained unmoving, his gaze locked ahead, unaffected by the chaos surrounding him. He reached into the rift, fingers extending like a predator's.
[Connection to Fortress Armory: Established.]
His gauntlet made contact, and the weapon responded, moving into his grasp.
First came the barrels.
Massive, twin tubes of obsidian-hardened steel, their black sheen reflecting the light as though the very metal was made from the fires of the abyss. They were longer than most guns were ever meant to be—roughly a foot and a half each—wide enough to fire slugs meant to tear through the toughest of armor. The barrels were raw, forged from a material that none in the galaxy would recognize. Instead of smooth rifling, the inside had been etched with grooves so deep, they seemed to warp the very air around them. The ends were crowned with jagged, gleaming vents, not to release the force of a shot, but to gather it, to channel hellish energies directly into its ammunition.
The break-action frame locked into place next—armored with a dark alloy, its surface gleaming like molten iron, forged in a furnace older than the stars themselves. No wear, no cracks, no decay. The surface was perfect, unblemished, as though it had never known time. Cold as death, strong as collapsed stars, it seemed to pulse with a power that could level worlds. Vents lined the sides, vents made not for cooling, but for letting the weapon breathe, for expelling the infernal heat it carried within.
Beneath the weapon's frame, a lever—sleek, ergonomic—sat ready for action. When the Slayer's gauntlet clasped it, the mechanism responded with a low hum, feeding the weapon's Argent energy reserves, ready to fire again. Each pull of the lever sent another Anti-World shell into the chamber, a seamless cycle that ensured the Slayer was never caught unprepared. It wasn't just a reload mechanism; it was an extension of his will, syncing with his movements as though the weapon itself were alive.
The grip, cold and unyielding, was wrapped in jagged iron and bone, each groove carved specifically for the Slayer's hand. The trigger, a dual-pull system, seemed alive with anticipation, like it could tear the universe apart if he so chose.
The bull horns shaped meathook flexed beneath the barrels, the jagged teeth of it designed not to catch, but to tear, to rip through anything that dared to come close. The hook itself was no mere attachment. It was part of the weapon, part of the hellishness, forged from the very essence of torment. The cable wound beneath the weapon, taut and ready to strike at a moment's notice. The Slayer's fingers flexed, as if the weapon called to him, urging him to unleash its fury.
And then the air around him thickened with memory, a voice—or something close to it—rising from the very depths of the warp. The demons had felt it, had written of it.
[The sting of the Slayer's abominable arsenal casts fear into the lowest of our kin. Its blazing barrels of brimstone spew his vitriol and loathing upon us, and cast our brethren to the dirt. Mark the venom of his chosen apparatus of agony, the Diabolical Musket, Lucifer's Bane, its claw of pig iron gouging the flesh of the martyr and hurrying him upon us. Curse the name of his beloved treasure. Curse the Hell Walker's device of torment.]
The weapon clicked into place, the Slayer's grip tightening, his arm locking into position. The barrels aligned, the meathook taut with menace. It was ready.
[SUPERSHOTGUN: Lucifer's Bane online.]
Above, the Bloodthirster drove its axe into the ground. The steel-shattering impact cracked the world beneath it—blood geysered from the fissure, thick and screaming. The daemon's eyes rolled back as it howled in praise. A surge of lost souls, molten and shrieking, spilled from the warp-forged runes along the weapon's shaft, devoured mid-cry as sacrifice.
The warp tore open again.
Not a gate—an ulcer. A festering, arterial rip in the air, vomiting flame and iron musk. Heralds of Khorne poured through, malformed and howling, Hellblades grinding in anticipation. They hit the soil at full sprint, eyes locked on ceramite.
The Space Wolves met them head-on. The open mountainside became slaughter. Power weapons cracked, fangs tore, limbs flew. The Heralds were fast—inhumanly so—but the Wolves were fury incarnate, and the line held.
Above, the Thunderhawk struck again.
It had never landed.
The gunship loomed just above the fray, engines burning against gravity, exhaust blackening the cliffside. Its fuselage rumbled like a wounded god as its dorsal-mounted Turbo-Laser Destructor screamed another volley—white-hot annihilation that slammed into Gorlab's ribcage and staggered the daemon mid-charge. Flesh cracked. Bone steamed. The Thunderhawk did not relent.
Twin-linked heavy bolters fired in rhythm—eight barrels unloading mass-reactive hell into the daemon's flanks. Lascannons snapped beams of searing blue that burned runes clean off his skin. Then came the Hellstrikes.
Six missiles shrieked from their underwing pylons and impacted in staggered thunderclaps. Gorlab reeled, chest cratered and bleeding black heat. He roared, not in pain—rage.
Fire erupted from his mouth.
The warpflame belched across the sky, a cone of raw hate, liquid heat and hatred condensed into fire. The Thunderhawk's port side caught the edge of it—armor blackened and ran like wax. Servos howled. But the pilot compensated, banking hard, nose down, rotors whining.
The Bloodthirster launched.
One beat of its wings shattered air, and it surged after the Thunderhawk—bladed whip trailing sparks across the ground as it leapt skyward. The sky convulsed around its ascent, stormclouds warping into gory spirals.
The Thunderhawk turned sharply, its silhouette catching moonlight like a blade. Rounds continued to hammer into Gorlab's body mid-pursuit. But he was closing the distance. The air between them became a corridor of destruction—missiles, lasfire, hellflame, and rage.
The Thunderhawk punched through the clouds, engines screaming. Its hull, battered and half-charred from lash from a daemon whip, shuddered under the strain—but it held. Pilots jacked into their harnesses, knuckles white, sweat pouring. The co-pilot rerouted coolant from the ruined portside stabilizer—just enough to keep her flying.
Behind them, the Bloodthirster rose like a comet of blood and brass.
Gorlab's wings tore through storm vapor, trailing chains of fire. Each beat launched shockwaves that made the air stutter. His whip lashed wildly, but there was no target to strike—just clouds and vapor trails. The daemon bellowed again, belching warpfire in a spiraling stream. It missed the gunship by meters, but the heat flash peeled paint and cracked armor plating.
The Thunderhawk fired everything.
Its dorsal-mounted Turbo-Laser roared again—lancing straight through Gorlab's left wing. Bone and sinew sprayed into the sky. The daemon buckled mid-flight, screamed, then powered forward, uncaring.
Hellstrikes launched—two by two. The missiles locked on Gorlab's mass and detonated near his spine. The resulting shockwave ripped open his back in a burst of molten ruin—but the daemon surged through it.
Twin-linked heavy bolters screamed. Mass-reactive shells burst against daemonhide in a staccato rhythm of pain. Lascannons joined in, surgical beams slicing red-hot grooves along Gorlab's chest and shoulder. The Bloodthirster twisted, dipped, then climbed again—chasing.
The Thunderhawk broke hard left, almost inverted. The pilot used the mountain thermals, dipping dangerously close to the ridgeline, then pulled up into a corkscrew. It barely cleared the cliff edge—but Gorlab was faster now, wings folding tight as he dove into pursuit.
Sky tore. Wind howled. Clouds split and churned.
And below—thousands watched. Space Wolves. Guardsmen. Even the Heralds paused in their butchery, looking up as the gods of war dueled above. Fire bloomed in the sky. Tracer trails cut neon sigils into the black. The mountain echoed with distant detonations, each one a thundercrack of pure hatred.
Gorlab opened his maw and exhaled again—this time a wide wave of daemonic flame.
The Thunderhawk spun through it. One wing caught the edge—flames ignited fuel lines, sent warning runes screaming across the cockpit. The pilot overrode safeties, throttled into a brutal climb. The nose of the ship rose fast enough to flatten the crew into their seats. Gorlab followed.
The sky fractured with the scream of grav-engines pushed to their limits. The Thunderhawk banked hard through the blackened air, hull scorched from daemonfire, lascannons tracking fast across the roiling heavens. Its dorsal turret spat thunder—heavy shells thudding like war drums as they punched through clouds and flame.
Gorlab roared below, mouth a furnace, wings casting cyclonic wake as he launched upward, whip curling behind like a serpent of brass. His body was ablaze with old power, axe trailing embers as he climbed. He carved through the air with terrifying velocity, shrugging off impacts that would have obliterated armor columns.
The Thunderhawk twisted in a violent roll—six Hellstrike missiles dropped in a single volley. They screamed downward, contrails glowing with firelight, hammering into Gorlab's path. One struck true. A blast engulfed the Bloodthirster's left flank in flame and shrapnel.
He vanished into the fireball.
The Thunderhawk surged higher.
Then Gorlab burst from the explosion, blackened but unbroken, whip lashing forward. It snapped around the starboard wing, steel shrieking as control flaps tore free. The gunship dipped, nearly spiraling—but auto-stabilizers kicked in, gravitic thrusters roaring. It banked, firing all heavy bolters at point-blank range. Dozens of explosive shells detonated across Gorlab's chest and wings. Flesh burst. Bone showed. He didn't fall.
He laughed as it all began regenerating. The only benefit he received from his long imprisonment with the Axe of Blind Fury was the amounts of soul to serve fuel of his wrath.
With a howl, he swung his axe—a horizontal arc that sheared through air with enough force to split sound. The Thunderhawk jolted upward, barely clearing the reach. The blow missed, but the wind-force slammed into its underside. Hull plates bent. Runes flickered.
It retaliated with its dorsal weapon—either a Thunderhawk Cannon or a turbo-laser, none could say. The shot hit Gorlab square in the torso, burning a crater into his armor of rage and ichor. He faltered, wings shuddering, then regained lift—blood boiling with hatred. Fire spewed from his jaws, enveloping the Thunderhawk in a river of hellflame.
On the Ground. The Rift screamed. The mountain shook.
It belched fire and bronze, coughing Heralds in packs—each one a butcher's engine of brass and raw meat. Serrated blades, hooked polearms, whirling axes. Daemons clad in cracked armor, leaking vapors from between glyph-scarred plates. The Space Wolves charged to meet them, a line of grey adamantine mountain against the red tide.
The first clash was a detonation of matter.
The Heralds struck with warp-fueled speed, blades shrieking against ceramite and plasteel. One drove a chain-glaive into a Wolf Guard's shoulder, screeching as it bit in—until a storm bolter unloaded point-blank into its snarling face, bursting it like overripe fruit. Another daemon leapt, only to be caught mid-air by a thunder hammer, crushed into pulp and bone fragments.
Grimnar carved a path straight through the onslaught.
He moved like a myth—his axe an arc of frozen ruin. Every swing tore limbs off torsos, every parry ended with a counterblow that snapped daemonic necks or ripped horns from skulls. A Herald tried to flank him—Grimnar turned, caught its blade with his gauntlet, and forced the edge through its own throat.
Around him, his Wolf Guard formed a killing phalanx—Terminators wide-set, unyielding, advancing step by armored step. Their armor, blackened from bolter exhaust and daemon blood, looked like moving statues of death. Every gun was hot. Every blade chipped from use. Every warrior shouted oaths until their voices broke.
The rift didn't stop.
It poured red murder onto the cliffs. Dozens more. Then scores. The ground became wet with ichor and scorched by warpfire. Gravity flickered. Shadows twisted. From the edge of the rift, daemonic banners rose—skin-stitched standards flapping in wind that smelled like copper and open graves.
Grimnar saw it. He did not yield.
"Hold the line!" he growled through his vox, eyes locked on the horizon of daemonic forms. "We are the wolves of Fenris! Their gods break like ice beneath our boots!"
A squad of Blood Claws broke off to plug a flank—too late. Three Heralds barrelled through the gap. One drove its halberd into a Grey Hunter's chest, splitting him open with a warp-blast discharge. Another landed on a Wolf Guard's back, biting into his helm, claws raking sparks from the joints before he found his skull crushed with a backhand punch. The last was brought down by Grimnar himself, who surged through the melee and brought his axe down on the Herald's neck—splitting it in half, shoulder to groin.
Still, they kept coming.
The daemons didn't fear death. They celebrated it. Each cut they received only made them howl louder, fight harder. They drowned bolts in their flesh and didn't fall. They snapped blades in their jaws. They rushed the Space Wolves with no concern for loss, forming piles of twitching bodies just to drag the living into their slaughter.
And still the Wolves fought on. Cyclone Missile Launcher on some Wolf Guard Terminators started cycling through Krak and Frag Missiles. Blasting apart groups at once.
The battlefield was a churn of violence, blood, and the acrid scent of death. Heralds of Khorne surged forward in a tide of madness, their cries of battle drowned by the roars of bolter fire and daemonic shrieks. The Space Wolves fought with ferocity, hacking and shooting, cutting down the daemonic horde before them. But there were too many—too many to face. The rift still pulsed, vomiting forth wave after wave of Khorne's loyal followers.
Then suddenly a Herald found itself blasted to bits from behind and then came the Slayer.
He appeared from the smoke like an unstoppable force. The meathook lashed out, cutting through the battlefield like a living whip. It caught another Herald, a daemon towering with brass armor and furious rage. The hook buried itself deep into the daemon's chest, and with a savage yank, the Slayer pulled it toward him.
Lucifer's Bane roared to life in his hands. The double-barreled super shotgun, a weapon of such destruction that even the damned feared its name, let loose. The blast split the air in a violent shockwave, tearing the Herald in two. Fire, bone and blood were scattered in all directions. The Slayer's eyes were cold, focused.
Another meathook shot out, catching a second Herald before it could even react. The Slayer twisted, the hook pulling the daemon into the path of Lucifer's Bane once more. The super shotgun discharged, and the Herald was blasted apart, its limbs torn from its body in an instant.
"By the Allfather," Gorrulf growled under his breath, his eyes locked on the carnage unfolding before him. "What in the name of Fenris is this?"
The Slayer moved forward, unrelenting. The battlefield was a blur of corpses and shredded daemons, each shot from Lucifer's Bane bringing down another of Khorne's chosen. The meathook lashed out again and again, pulling daemons into his line of fire. No mercy. No hesitation. Just death.
One of the Wolf Guard, his face hidden behind his helm, stared in disbelief. "What... who is this warrior?" he muttered, gripping his storm bolter tighter. "Is he one of ours?"
"We've never seen anything like him," another Wolf Guard replied, his voice low and thick with awe. "No Astartes moves like this. No one."
And then, his gaze shifted upward, to the rift still pulsing in the distance, sending forth a constant stream of heralds.
Without pausing, the Slayer aimed Lucifer's Bane at the rift. The barrel flared once again, a deafening roar breaking the air. The rift exploded in a wave of energy—its arcane form unraveling in a violent burst, consumed by the sheer force of the blast. The air itself seemed to crack, the land trembling under the impact.
"Impossible," another Wolf Guard whispered, staring at the dissipating rift. "It's gone... just like that?"
The air was still. For a moment, everything was silent. The battlefield had halted, as if the very act of destruction had shocked reality itself. The remaining Heralds paused, staring in disbelief. Even the bloodthirsty daemons recoiled, unsure of what they had just witnessed.
A low murmur ran through the survivors of the Space Wolves.
"What in the name of the Emperor?" A Wolf Guard's voice trembled slightly behind his helm. "Did... did he just—?"
"No. No one could have done that. Not alone," Gorrulf muttered, gripping his axe tighter. "He's... not human. He's something else."
Even the remaining daemons, those who were not directly in his path, stepped back. One growled in guttural tones, "We were not told of this... this one does not belong."
The Slayer did not pause. His gaze scanned the battlefield with cold calculation, as if deciding on his next move. And without a word, he started forward, the meathook snapping through the air once more, cleaving through another Herald in his path.
But the battle was far from over.
The Space Wolves, still stunned, rallied quickly, their battle instincts snapping them back to reality.
"Focus! The enemy's still here!" shouted Logan, his voice sharp and commanding.
And as the battle raged on, the Slayer, as though unstoppable, began to make his way across the field. His path was set—toward a Baneblade, where the next step of carnage awaited.
The fight roared overhead. Gorlab the Bloodfree, wings like blood-slicked monoliths, soared through the storm-churned air. His brass armor shimmered with the heat of the warp. One hand clutched his whip, the other his axe—each a relic of butchered worlds. He bellowed flames, roaring arcs of crimson fire that licked across the sky. The Thunderhawk dodged wide, banking hard to avoid a direct hit. The gunship—a beast of its own—retaliated with everything it had.
Hellstrike missiles screamed from its wings in tight pairs. Heavy bolters spat in relentless bursts. The dorsal Thunderhawk Cannon glowed white-hot, cycling faster than its tech-priests ever intended. Twin-linked lascannons slammed into Gorlab's chest, carving deep into his armor. Gorlab howled, swatted one missile out of the air with his axe, took another to the chest and barely flinched.
The Thunderhawk surged closer. It hovered just long enough to fire a final salvo—point-blank, straight into Gorlab's gut. Smoke and fire. But the daemon endured. He struck.
With a lash of his whip, he caught the Thunderhawk's left wing. The energy-slicked coil snapped taut and yanked, dragging the heavy gunship sideways in the air. The Thunderhawk bucked wildly, struggling against the grip of an angry god.
Too late.
Gorlab surged forward. Axe raised. A single blow split the front fuselage—cockpit to belly. The blade carved into ceramite, into steel, into the crew. The Thunderhawk convulsed, engines faltering, fire ripping from the gash. It spiraled in smoke. It fell.
Exploded. The daemon hovered over the wreckage, wings beating slow and thunderous, savoring the destruction below.
But then—A flash. A howl of ignition.
A Hunter-Killer Missile tore through the sky. Too fast. Too loud. Too bright. It hit Gorlab square in the spine.
The explosion was unnatural. Warp-rippling, armor-shearing, god-wounding.
Gorlab was hurled through the air like a beast struck by the God Emperor's own lance. His wings twisted. He roared as brass was peeled from bone, as his own blood—smoking and black—poured into the clouds.
He righted himself mid-fall, snarling. That shouldn't have happened.
A Hunter-Killer wasn't capable of that. No missile carried that much hate. That much power. He froze mid-hover.
His vision magnified. Daemonic senses twisted across space. He peered down. There. Amid the corpses, the fire, the smoke—A Baneblade sat motionless, scorched but whole. And from its upper hatch, he emerged. The green of the armor. The weight of him. Lucifer's Bane gleamed in his hand, still smoking.
The Slayer didn't move. Didn't speak. He only raised the Lucifer's Bane. Pointed it to the sky.
To Gorlab. A silent challenge.
Gorlab's whip hissed. His axe shuddered with glee. Battle was coming. And this time, it would not be swift.
The air screamed.
Gorlab came down like a curse made flesh, a meteor of flame and brass. The winds split. The battlefield blackened beneath his shadow. Even the warp flickered.
And then—impact.
A shockwave detonated outward in a tidal roar of pressure and force. Blood and warpfire rippled across the scorched earth. The nearest Heralds—his own kin—were disintegrated in the blast, torn apart like paper in a furnace.
The Space Wolves had seen enough of gods today.
They fell back, instinct before thought, teeth bared but feet moving. Even the Wolf Guard, grim-eyed in ceramite, turned from the crater as molten rock and broken Heralds scattered past their boots.
Only one did not move.
The Doom Slayer stood at the crater's edge.
The blast punched into him like a cannonshot. Dust peeled away. Warp winds screamed. But he didn't flinch.
[Berserk]
He punched the shockwave.
A fist into the storm—solid, unyielding. The ground cratered beneath his boots. The force split around him. Stone shattered, but the Slayer stood rooted, smoke curling from his pauldron. Lucifer's Bane rested over one shoulder like a banner of judgment.
Across from him, Gorlab rose from the molten crater.
Twice the height of a Dreadnought. Wings cracked and seething with warpfire. His whip snapped at the ground, turning rock into slag. His axe was a furnace on a haft.
He looked at the Slayer.
The earth still trembled beneath his hooves.
He did not speak.
But his body radiated only one thing: kill.
Gorlab lowered his horns—twisting, steaming, marrow running in rivulets down the bone. His fingers tightened on the axe haft. His hooves dug into the dirt, splitting the rock beneath, and then—
He charged.
The ground behind him tore open in his wake, veins of fire erupting. The sky blinked. Mortal minds flashed with betrayals they'd never told anyone about—every bitter wound reopened. Some dropped their weapons. Others wept.
But not the Slayer. He saw it clean. No illusions. Just lines. A window. A hitbox. He fired.
Double tap—tight spread. The first blast caught Gorlab square in the horns, knocking his head back. The second staggered him, pausing the charge. Momentum dipped—and the Slayer struck.
Meathook—fired.
The hook embedded in the daemon's shoulder, and the Slayer yanked, propelling himself toward the beast with enough speed to crater the ground on landing. He collided with Gorlab mid-stagger, vaulting up and past the axe swing that came reflexively, landing hard behind the daemon with a roll.
The whip screamed.
It screamed like an execution blade being dragged across cathedral stone. A wide, brutal horizontal arc swept low—aimed to cleave the ground and all upon it. It snapped back, twin trails of molten air behind it, followed by a thunderous stomp that cracked the world.
In the backdrop of the fight. The mere sight of the daemon was driving mortals mad. But to the Slayer, it was timing. The whip swept left—he was already moving. Meat-hook in. Low angle. Under the arc.
He soared beneath the lash, skimming the ground, then leapt—perfectly timed with the snapback—flipping once in air and landing square in front of Gorlab as the daemon lifted a foot to stomp. He pulled in the pump action. Point-blank blasts ejected at once. Two shells. Spinning and fusing together like binary stars.
They ripped into Gorlab's upper thorax—fire and bone burst backward in a cone of shredded daemonflesh. The stomp landed—but the Slayer was already gone.
This was truly the most entertaining battle of this world so far....