“And killing the Warden,” Oliver said, watching as the Ork warlord dragged himself upright.
Adrian stood frozen for a heartbeat, his mouth slightly open, his eyes flicking between Oliver and Uklush. Then his pride reasserted itself.
“No chance,” Adrian growled. “The Warden is ours.”
Oliver’s gaze remained steady, his tone calm, thin. “Then let’s make it simple. The first to bring down the Ork claims the Warden.”
For an instant, Adrian hesitated. Then a grin spread across his face. His eyes gleamed with savage joy.
The Red Ork, once a figure of dread, had been reduced to prey, a bloodied beast caught between two predators.
Oliver caught the flicker in Adrian’s eyes, the feral spark of challenge. He allowed himself the faintest curl of a smile.
Every breath became a countdown.
Three. Two. One.
Both men launched forward, their feet exploding against the sand. The dune shook beneath their acceleration, grains spraying as they hurled themselves toward Uklush.
Uklush braced, his mouth twisting into a snarl. His hands tightened on the haft of his axe, raising it high. His armor hung in tatters, broken and split, but his raw might remained.
Adrian reached him first. With a powerful kick against the ground, he vaulted upward, his body twisting as he soared. His leg came down at Uklush’s skull.
The Ork roared, thrusting one massive hand up to block the strike. The impact rang through Uklush’s arm, shock rolling out across the sand. Uklush’s defense held, but in raising his arm, he had left his torso open.
Oliver’s eyes narrowed, his mind calculating, dissecting the angles of attack.
Oliver ignored it.
This was not the time to study. He already carried too many styles.
Oliver followed Adrian’s airborne strike with a brutal punch to the Ork’s midsection. His fist landed with the force of a cannon, lifting Uklush’s massive body clear off the ground, legs dangling above the sand. Uklush still did not fly back.
Instead, Uklush’s mouth curled into a savage grin. His eyes locked on Oliver’s with terrible satisfaction, as though he had been waiting for this moment.
The axe slipped from his hand, crashing into the sand with a heavy thud. His colossal arms snapped outward, faster than his size should have allowed. One hand clamped around Adrian’s torso, crushing the breath from the Meridius Heir. The other seized Oliver by the head.
With a roar, Uklush swung them like ragdolls and hurled them across the battlefield.
The world spun. Sand exploded around Oliver as he struck the ground, the impact rattling his bones. He rolled, coughing, forcing himself back to his feet before the Ork could press the advantage. The desert cloth that had shielded him from the sun now clung to his body, heavy and suffocating. With a sharp motion, he tore it free, pulling the veil over his head and casting it aside.
Color dropped out of his vision, collapsing into stark shades of black and white. His enemies shone in gradients of gray. Their movements were traced by faint streaks of silver, lines of intention, predictions of where their next strikes and movements would be.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had to use this, Oliver thought, his eyes narrowing as the Ork bent to reclaim his axe. But this ends here.
Adrian staggered to his feet nearby, spitting blood into the sand. “If you hadn’t interfered, I would have finished him already,” he snarled, pride still burning even through the pain.
Oliver’s reply was calm, cutting. “From where I stood, you’d be dead.”
Adrian glared at him, unwilling to yield, even with blood dripping down his chin.
Before their argument could escalate, Six’s desperate voice rang out. “Hey! If you two are done bickering, a little help would be nice!”
Oliver’s eyes flicked sideways, catching sight of the struggle. Even with soldiers rallying around him, Six was being overwhelmed. Three Red Orks pressed in on them, their brute strength tearing through the human line.
“A few more seconds,” Oliver answered. He could feel it; the fight was reaching its breaking point. Soon, neither side would hold back.
Uklush hefted his axe once more, his massive chest rising and falling with guttural breaths. He bared his teeth, saliva glistening in the sun, and charged.
Adrian and Oliver moved in unison, their attacks sharp, precise, each blow aimed to kill. Uklush met them head-on, his swings wide and devastating, his every strike narrowly missing a fatal mark.
Yet the tide began to shift.
Uklush had endured the storm of blows, and now the Ork was smiling again. Oliver and Adrian were no allies. Their attacks came fast, brutal, but uncoordinated, as likely to clip each other as the Ork.
Uklush exploited it with ruthless cunning.
Each time Oliver lunged, the Ork twisted at the last instant, forcing the strike to veer dangerously close to Adrian. And when Adrian pressed in, Uklush shifted his massive frame so that his blows nearly collided with Oliver. The more it happened, the more their rivalry flared.
Adrian’s eyes burned with fury, his strikes growing wild, reckless. His pride demanded dominance, demanded that he outshine Oliver here and now. Oliver tracked the narrowing margin. One misstep, one mistimed strike, and he could kill Adrian. On the other hand, if Adrian’s raw power landed, Oliver knew he would not walk away unscathed.
Oliver’s mind sharpened. Calculation replaced instinct. He could not continue with raw speed and power alone. He needed control. Precision.
In an instant, he shifted his stance.
From the explosive, brutal tempo of the [New Earth Army Style], he flowed seamlessly into the deliberate, bone-breaking discipline of the [Imperial Ork Style]. Two martial philosophies he had mastered. One built for sudden devastation, the other designed to dismantle even the monstrous strength of Orks themselves. Where the Army Style struck with overwhelming power, the Ork Style closed on joints, tendons, and leverage.
Uklush, confident in his ability to manipulate their wild attacks, miscalculated. He twisted to dodge Oliver’s strike as he had before, only this time, Oliver was already waiting. His hand clamped down on the Ork’s massive arm, fingers locking around the thick muscle at the joint. With a sharp pivot, he drove his palm into the articulation and wrenched.
The desert trembled as Uklush’s enormous body was lifted and hurled aside.
It was a simple maneuver by the standards of the Ork Style, one of the first techniques he had learned. But Uklush had never expected to see it used, perfectly executed, by a human.
He crashed into the sand, rolling in a spray of grit, his axe tumbling from his grip once more.
For the first time, the mask of unshakable confidence cracked. The smug grin vanished, replaced by a flash of raw shock. His mouth twisted, his eyes wide, the truth dawning on him.
The human had mastered their style.
“How—how do you know that strike?” Uklush snarled.
Oliver gave no reply. He stood silent, his eyes fixed on the Ork commander. The lack of an answer was more damning than words, and it unsettled Uklush more than rage ever could. His bravado went out. What replaced it was colder.
The warlord’s massive hand tapped nervously against the haft of his axe, his eyes darting to the sides as if calculating every shadow. He no longer looked like a beast drunk on pride.
Oliver and Adrian bent their knees, ready for Uklush’s inevitable counterattack.
But the strike never came.
Instead, Uklush pivoted sharply, his massive frame turning away from them. With a guttural roar, he leapt toward the struggling Orks at the edge of the battlefield. His axe whistled through the air, not at Oliver or Adrian, but at the wounded, thrashing scorpion-man.
In a single, brutal arc, the blade cleaved clean through the Warden’s grotesque humanoid torso.
The creature froze, its malformed arms twitching once, twice, before its entire body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Its massive frame struck the sand with a thunderous crash, venom exploding outward in geysers of steaming green. The dunes hissed as the acid spread, eating through everything it touched.
No predictive line had marked the axe. The Ork’s attack wasn’t aimed at him, or at Adrian, so [Observation] had not seen it coming.
Beside him, Adrian stood jaw tight, fists clenched, watching the Warden’s body dissolve into a heap of twitching limbs and venom.
Did I just lose? The thought struck Oliver.
The silence was broken by Six, staggering back into view, his robes torn, his breathing heavy, finally far from the Red Orks. He raised his gauntlet, his voice carrying across the battlefield.
“Are you sure that was the Warden?” he called out. His tone was sharp, urgent. “Because the mark’s still on the map. And it’s moving.”
Oliver’s gaze snapped to him.
“It’s coming here.”