DATE: 01/20/501 PC

  LOCATION: The Red Zone – 7 Miles Beyond Bastion Gamma

  Zel was no longer a man; he was a flickering crimson ghost. At 100% capacity, the world moved in slow motion. He could see the individual droplets of acidic blood spray from the Ogre’s punctured eye. But the cost was agonizing. Every muscle in his body felt like it was being scorched from the inside out by the supercritical flow of mana.

  Ignore the pain. Focus on the joints.

  He knew he couldn't kill this mountain of meat with a single blow. He had to dismantle it.

  Zel blurred, appearing behind the Ogre’s massive heel. Slash. The blackened alloy blade bit deep into the Achilles tendon. The Ogre roared, its movement stuttering. Zel didn't stay to admire his work; he was already airborne, slicing across the back of the Ogre’s knee before diving under a blind, crushing swipe of the creature's arm.

  He was a mosquito with a lethally sharp sting.

  As the minutes dragged on, Zel noticed the shift he had been praying for. The vibrant green veins pulsing through the Ogre's neck began to dim, flickering like a dying lamp. The regeneration was failing. The deep gash on the creature's wrist—usually a wound that would knit shut in seconds—remained open, leaking dark, viscous ichor.

  Its green reserve is tapped out. It’s all Red now.

  This was his only window. Zel checked his HUD. The Red Core was pulsing a frantic, rhythmic purple—the sign of imminent depletion. [CORE STABILITY: 42% AND DROPPING.]

  "Time to end this," Zel wheezed, his vision blurring.

  He feinted to the left, drawing a massive, desperate swing from the Ogre. As the giant's arm overextended, Zel didn't retreat. He lunged forward, his boots screaming as they gripped the Ogre’s hairy chest. With a series of frantic, precise clicks, he slapped four High-Output Mana Grenades directly onto the Ogre’s sternum.

  Zel kicked off the creature's chest, using a 5% burst of mana to propel himself backward like a human cannonball. Mid-air, he leveled his sidearm.

  CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

  The bullets struck the grenades.

  BOOM.

  A pillar of blue and red fire erupted, engulfing the Ogre’s upper torso. The shockwave stripped the leaves from the petrified trees for fifty yards. Zel allowed himself a fraction of a second to breathe, watching the smoke rise.

  But the smoke didn't settle. It was torn apart.

  Through the fire, a massive, charred arm—shorn of its skin but fueled by pure, vengeful Red mana—swung in a wide, horizontal arc. Zel was still mid-air, his energy levels too low to trigger another thruster burst.

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  "Crap—"

  He had just enough time to cross his arms and trigger the suit’s Maximum Compression. The black latex tightened so hard it cracked his own ribs, creating a rigid shell.

  SMACK.

  The impact was like being hit by a speeding freight train. The world turned into a chaotic blur of green and brown as Zel was launched backward. He smashed through a petrified oak, then another, his momentum barely slowed by the shattering wood.

  For a hundred meters, he was a projectile. Finally, he slammed into a massive stone boulder at the edge of the gorge. The impact left a spiderweb of cracks in the rock.

  Zel slumped to the ground, his MBS sparking violently. The Red Core flickered—a dull, dying ember at 15%. His visor was cracked, and the taste of iron filled his mouth.

  He tried to move his hand, but all he felt was the heavy, suffocating silence of the Red Zone.

  DATE: 01/20/501 PC

  LOCATION: The Red Zone – 7 Miles Beyond Bastion Gamma

  Zel lay in the crater of the shattered boulder, his vision a fractured mosaic of red warning lights and gray stone. Every breath felt like inhaling liquid glass. Through the spiderweb cracks in his visor, he saw the nightmare approaching.

  The Ogre was a ruin. Its chest was a blackened pit of exposed muscle, one eye was a hollow socket, and it dragged its mangled leg with a sickening scrape. But the Red mana still burned in its remaining eye—a guttering flame of pure, unadulterated hatred. It raised a fist the size of a tactical transport, prepared to grind Zel into the sediment of the Red Zone.

  CRACK-BOOM.

  The sound didn't come from the Ogre. It was the sharp, whip-crack report of a high-velocity mana sniper rifle.

  A bolt of pure, stabilized neutral energy streaked across the two-kilometer distance, banking off the atmospheric pressure before slamming into the Ogre’s jaw. The impact was surgical, shattering the creature's remaining tusk and snapping its head back in a spray of black blood.

  Zel’s eyes widened. He knew that firing rhythm. He knew the specific, over-tuned hum of that rifle’s discharge.

  "Mac..." Zel wheezed, a bloody smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You stubborn, insubordinate old bastard."

  He looked toward the distant ridge. Two kilometers away, three black-armored silhouettes were perched on a jagged cliffside. They hadn't run. They hadn't gone back to the safety of the dome. The Void Wolves were howling back.

  "Insubordination..." Zel coughed, blood flecking the inside of his cracked visor. "Fine. If you want to die badly, then let's die together."

  Zel felt the Red Core in his chest give a final, desperate throb. 14%. That was all that was left of his life support, his armor, and his strength. He didn't waste it on defense. He didn't waste it on the HUD. He rerouted every single spark of mana into the suit’s lower-leg actuators and the magnetic stabilizers of his blackened blade.

  The suit groaned, the latex seams stretching to the point of tearing. Zel stood up, his legs shaking with a violent, mana-induced tremor. He locked his sword in a forward thrust, the tip humming with the last of his lightning.

  The Ogre recovered, letting out a confused, guttural roar as it sighted the tiny human standing once more. It lunged, its massive hand reaching out to crush the life from the "flickering spark."

  Zel didn't dodge. He launched.

  Using the last 14% in a single, suicidal burst of kinetic propulsion, Zel turned himself into a living projectile. He wasn't a man anymore; he was a needle of black steel and red light.

  The world vanished into a roar of wind and the smell of ozone.

  Zel felt the sensation of resistance—the wet, thick tearing of hide and the snapping of ribs. He felt a heat so intense it transcended pain. But as his consciousness began to slip into the dark, he couldn't tell whose flesh was being ripped. He couldn't tell if the blood splashing against his suit was the Ogre’s final gift or his own life leaking out into the purple mud.

  The impact was absolute. Then, there was only silence.