She ripped her hand free—claws tearing out chunks of charred flesh—and spun toward the fourth man.

He raised his rifle. She was faster. Her legs came up in a scissor motion, thighs clamping around his neck from opposite sides.

I heard the vertebrae crack—three distinct pops like someone snapping thick branches. His head lolled forward at an angle necks weren't designed for. She released him and he crumpled, body twitching as his severed spinal cord sent random electrical impulses to limbs that no longer received coherent signals.

Urine spread across his tactical pants as his bladder released.

The fifth man in their group made the mistake of standing his ground, rifle raised, controlled bursts.

The bullets sparked off Ava's shield. She closed the distance in three steps—her shield flaring each time a round hit it—and drove both knives into his gut, just above the belt.

Then she pulled them apart horizontally, like opening curtains.

His abdominal wall split. His intestines spilled out in a wet rush, hitting the ground with a meaty slap. His liver followed—dark purple and glistening—sliding free and plopping onto the growing pile of his own organs.

He looked down at them, looked up at Ava, and then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into his own viscera.

"Heavy fire!" Ava's voice came sharp through comms. "LMGs, three o'clock!"

I spun.

Three men with belt-fed light machine guns, barrels already spinning up, brass starting to spit from the ejection ports in glittering streams. They'd set up a proper firing position behind overturned concrete planters—good cover, overlapping fields of fire, supporting each other's angles.

Professional.

Useless.

I charged straight at them.

The LMGs roared to life—a combined 2,400 rounds per minute tearing toward me. I watched the bullets come, tracked trajectories, calculated impact points. Most would miss. Some would hit.

The ones that hit struck my shield first, kinetic energy dissipating in explosive sparks. A few punched through—my tenfold durability could handle it, but it still felt like getting repeatedly punched by someone who really meant it.

Bruises bloomed deep in muscle tissue and healed almost instantly, cellular regeneration working overtime.

I reached the first gunner.

He was still firing when I grabbed him by the throat. My fingers closed around his neck—I felt it compress, cartilage rings crushing, windpipe collapsing. His eyes went wide behind his balaclava.

He tried to let go of the LMG, tried to grab my hand, but I was already lifting.

I hoisted him overhead with one hand, held him there for a moment while bullets from his squadmates sparked off my shield around us. Then I grabbed his belt with my other hand and pulled in opposite directions.

His spine resisted for maybe half a second.

Then I felt it start to separate—vertebrae popping apart like a chewed snack, spinal cord stretching, then tearing like wet string. His torso separated from his hips at the waist, organs sliding out of the gap, intestines hanging down like grotesque party streamers. Blood rained down on me, hot and thick.

I threw the upper half at the second gunner. It hit him in the chest hard enough to knock him backward off his firing position. I threw the lower half—legs still twitching—at the third. He tried to dodge, failed.

The legs hit him, knocked his aim wide.

I was on him before he could recover.

I grabbed his LMG with both hands—felt the barrel burning hot from sustained fire—and ripped it free from his grip, belt and all. The ammunition belt snapped, brass casings scattering like golden rain.

I reversed the weapon, swung it like a club. The buttstock hit him in the temple with enough force to cave in the side of his skull. His head compressed visibly, bone splintering inward, brain matter squirting out through his ear. He dropped.

The second gunner was trying to get up, still tangled with the corpse I'd thrown at him. I stepped on his back, driving him down. Then I aimed the captured LMG straight down and pulled the trigger.

The barrel was less than a foot from his spine. The rounds chewed through his tactical vest, through flesh, pulverized his vertebrae one by one. His body jerked with each impact, back arching involuntarily.

Blood sprayed up, painting my legs. His scream was high and thin until a round found his lungs and then it just became a wet wheeze.

I released the trigger. He stopped moving. What was left of his torso looked like it had been put through a meat grinder.

A vibro-knife whistled past my head—one of Ava's throws. It embedded itself in a sniper's groin fifty feet away, blade punching through tactical pants, through flesh, into bone. The vibration activated, and I watched the blade work its way upward like it was burrowing.

It split him from groin to sternum in under two seconds.

His testicles exploded first—liquefied by the vibration, spraying in pink mist. Then his bladder, intestines, stomach, lungs. By the time the blade reached his heart, he was already dead, but it cut through anyway, splitting him nearly in half. He fell in two pieces that stayed connected only by his spine and back muscles.

"Reinforcements!" Ava called. "North side, thirty-plus!"

I turned.

The mansion was emptying its garrison—men pouring from every door and first-floor window, some with rocket launchers, others with explosives strapped to tactical vests. Volkov had held back his main force, waited to see what we could do.

Now he knew.

And he was committing everything.

"My turn for the big guns," I said, and moved.

I blurred across the killing field—tenfold speed making me nearly invisible, just a distortion in the air. I reached a mounted minigun position—military-grade, designed to be vehicle-mounted. The entire assembly was bolted to a reinforced concrete base with six thick industrial bolts.

I grabbed the mount with both hands and pulled.

The bolts snapped like dry twigs, concrete chunks still attached as I ripped the whole assembly free. The weapon was massive—eighty pounds, designed to need a tripod or vehicle mount to manage the recoil. In my hands, it felt like a toy.

I spun toward the reinforcements, brought the minigun up one-handed, other hand grabbing the ammunition belt to feed it properly. My finger found the trigger. The weapon was still warm from the previous operator—he was in pieces ten feet away, courtesy of an EG.

I squeezed.

The minigun roared to life with a sound like the end of the world—six barrels spinning up to three thousand rounds per minute, the weapon vibrating in my grip like it was alive and angry. The first stream of bullets hit three men who'd been running at me in a tight formation.

It felt like I was the second coming of Rambo, but better!

The lead man caught the stream center-mass. I watched his tactical vest disintegrate—Kevlar shredding into cloth confetti, ceramic plates shattering into dust. Then the rounds found flesh. His sternum exploded, ribs fragmenting and punching outward through his sides.

His spine was visible for maybe a tenth of a second before the rounds chewed through it like it was made of cheap plastic. His torso separated from his hips, top half flying backward from the kinetic impact while his legs collapsed forward in different directions.

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