Chapter 30 The Demon of the Bunker
Gildun was pinned behind a crumbling column, clutching a piece of scrap like it was going to save his life. Arrows thunked into the wall inches from his head, one ricocheting off a rusted pipe and landing by his boot. He screamed, stumbling back as a spear clattered off the stone near his shoulder.
"I hate this!" he shouted. "Fighting people sucks!"
I didn't answer.
Because I was too busy laughing.
Zeus's Wrath thundered in my hands, the coils screaming as I sent another bolt of pure electricity across the chamber. It slammed into a Legionnaire mid-charge, turning armor and flesh into glowing ash in less than a heartbeat. What was left hit the floor with a hiss, bones still arcing with residual charge.
I grinned under my helmet, heart pounding, eyes alive.
"RUN, SPARTACUS, RUN!" I shouted, voice echoing like a war god's challenge.
The Legion might've been disciplined—trained to face death without fear—but that only got you so far. Because when a man sees lightning tearing people in half? When he watches his brother get turned into a smoking skeleton by something he doesn't even understand?
He takes cover.
Even Legionaries take cover.
They were scrambling now—some diving behind fallen rubble, others barking orders in Latin, trying to regroup. One fool tried to raise a shield like it would do anything against a coil-driven plasma arc. He found out fast that discipline doesn't ground out lightning.
Zeus's Wrath hummed as the coils charged again, hungry for the next shot.
And I was more than happy to feed it.
I ducked behind a support beam, laughing as sparks rained from the ceiling and the lingering smell of ozone stung my nose. The coils on Zeus's Wrath whined louder with each second, heat bleeding off the weapon in waves.
I gritted my teeth and fired again.
Another Legionnaire was blasted off his feet, his body reduced to carbon and steam.
God, I never liked these bastards.
Even back when I played New Vegas, the Legion had rubbed me the wrong way. Slavers. Fanatics. No art to their brutality—just blood and submission dressed up like honor. They'd always been satisfying to mow down, but now?
Now it was real.
And there was something uniquely liberating about killing a son of a bitch without having to feel morally conflicted about it. No gray area. No innocent caught in the crossfire. Just iron, arrogance, and cruelty reduced to bones.
Zeus's Wrath: Overheat Detected. Auto-Cool Engaged.
The cannon screamed at me through the Focus overlay. I could feel the heat on my exposed neck, the coils spitting angry sparks. Fine. I wasn't about to cook my arm off.
I slotted it back into the Nanoboy with a flick of my wrist. The panels shimmered and drank the weapon back into storage with a metallic hiss.
"Guess it's time to bring out the beast," I muttered, pulling Warcrime from its sling.
The double-barreled Kansani shotgun was all weight and menace. Old-world spirt, tribal engraving, and a break-action hiss that made my spine tingle every time I cracked it open.
I stepped out of cover.
A Legionnaire rushed me, shield raised, spear drawn. Brave idiot.
I didn't hesitate.
BOOM.
The shotgun bucked hard. The shield exploded in a shower of splinters and metal, and the man behind it screamed as he was lifted off the ground and thrown against the far wall like a sack of meat.
I racked the next round, smoke curling from the muzzle.
"Warcrime," I whispered to myself, "still speaks fluent bastard."
The corridor echoed with the thunder of Warcrime, and the Legion kept coming.
I ducked behind a jagged slab of ferrocrete, reloaded, and took a second to breathe. Just a second. And in that second, I let myself admit something I hadn't wanted to say out loud.
The Legion was a force to be reckoned with.
I kept thinking back to that one guy—he'd scaled the bunker wall like a damned lizard, dagger in his teeth, eyes locked on the turret like he was born for war. That shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. Because the Legion I remembered from the games? They were brutal, yeah. Determined. But this?
This was adapted.
In Fallout: New Vegas, they'd conquered Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado—grinding every inch of land beneath Caesar's heel. They bled the West dry with slaves and swords, and in that world, they were a nightmare with a flag.
But here?
Here they had dominion over the MIMAL states. Missouri. Iowa. Minnesota. Arkansas. Louisiana. Terra had moved them into the Midwest—on purpose. Probably to keep the Horizon timeline intact further west. Smart move, lore-wise.
But it didn't make them any less dangerous.
They'd adapted to this world like a virus mutating into something new. They'd traded guns for javelins, bullets for bone tactics. Their old doctrine—kill the weak, crush the tribes, assimilate or erase—still worked. Still scared people. And worse? It was effective.
They weren't just surviving.
They were thriving.
And now they were down here, in my goddamn bunker, trying to take what I'd earned.
I popped out of cover and blew another shield carrier into the wall with Warcrime. Gildun flinched but stayed down, doing his best not to scream again.
"They always come hard," I muttered. "But I'm harder to break."
I moved along the wall, low and fast, Warcrime tucked tight against my chest. The air was thick with the smell of burned flesh and scorched stone, the bunker echoing with shouts in Latin and the hiss of charging turrets still holding the flanks.
As I kicked a spent shell casing aside, I let the thought slip in—half reflection, half deduction.
Terra didn't just push the Legion east.
No, that wouldn't have been enough. They were too big. Too entrenched in Fallout's DNA to just write them off without consequences. If the Legion hadn't been corralled—if they'd spilled west unchecked—Horizon's timeline would've been shredded. The Sundom, the Oseram, hell, even GAIA's rebirth protocols would've been twisted beyond recognition.
So she planted a counterweight.
The Kansani.
A stubborn-as-hell, war-born force of tribal warriors with fists like stone and hearts like iron. A people too proud to bend, too crazy to break. Made in the image of the myths they inherited. Maybe not a direct transplant from any one world, but seeded—engineered through subtle nudges and cultural echoes.
A tribe that could do the impossible.
Keep Caesar out of the West.
It made sense. Let the Legion dominate the Midwest. Let them rewrite the MIMAL states into another scorched domain of slaves and war camps. But stop them there. Block their expansion. Keep the canon safe.
And the Kansani? They didn't even know they were holding back an apocalypse. They were just fighting because it was in their blood.
I grinned under my helmet and racked another shell into Warcrime.
"Good job, Terra," I muttered. "That was a hell of a chess move."
I rounded the corner just as one of the Legionnaires broke from cover, sprinting toward me with a blood-soaked gladius raised high.
Bad move.
I dropped to a knee and pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
The blast hit low, right at the bastard's ankles. One second he was charging, the next his legs were gone, vaporized below the knees. He hit the ground screaming, shield clattering to the side.
I was already moving.
I surged forward, drew my machete with my off-hand, and with one clean swing, I took his head off. The blade carved through flesh and vertebrae like it was nothing. The helmet flew in one direction, the skull in another.
Another Legionnaire roared and came at me from the left. I pivoted and fired Warcrime's last shell into his chest. It caved in the armor and launched him into a wall with a wet crack.
Empty.
No time to reload.
I slung the shotgun behind me, grabbed the machete with both hands, and charged.
They wanted close quarters?
Fine.
Let's see how they handle someone who doesn't flinch.
The narrow hallways became a killing floor.
No more room for wide sweeps or fancy footwork—this was down and dirty, brutal and efficient. I shifted my stance, brought the machete close to my body, elbows tight, knees bent low. I wasn't swinging for flair. I was targeting joints, throats, soft spots in armor. The kind of fighting they drilled into your bones in a military killhouse.
This was what the Old World had perfected. CQC doctrine, room-clearing tactics, combat in confined spaces. It was in my blood, etched into the reflexes of a soldier from a time long gone.
And it was exactly what this place was built for.
The Legion didn't fight like this.
They were battlefield warriors—open field formations, group charges, tight ranks and brutal efficiency under command. Their discipline was their strength. But in a twisting corridor, under flickering lights, with blood-slick floors and blind corners?
They were out of their element.
Only the captain—the one shouting orders through the din—moved with any real understanding of close-quarters flow. His footwork was measured, practiced. He used thrusts, feints, brutal counters. Gladiatorial combat. The kind meant to keep dominance in the ranks, remind his men who was stronger.
I didn't care.
He wasn't fighting for dominance.
I was fighting to end it.
One came at me with a heavy spear—too long for this space. I stepped inside the arc, caught his wrist with one hand, and buried the machete in his neck with the other. Blood sprayed. I kicked the corpse off the blade and pivoted.
Another raised his shield.
I crashed into him shoulder-first, drove the machete through the opening at his ribs, twisted hard. He screamed. I dragged him down as cover and pushed forward again.
This was my terrain.
This was my war.
And I wasn't giving them an inch.
I sheathed the machete in one clean motion and dropped into a lower stance. My breathing slowed. My heart didn't. It roared in my chest like a war drum.
I activated the Kure release technique.
There wasn't a flash or a spark—just that sudden, brutal shift. Muscle fiber contracted tighter. Blood vessels surged. My senses dialed up. Pain dulled. Power surged.
My body knew what to do. It always did when I let the door open.
This wasn't about finesse anymore.
It was about tempo.
I moved faster. Hit harder. The next Legionnaire barely had time to raise his shield before I slammed into him, knocked the wind from his lungs, and dislocated his arm with a savage twist of his elbow joint. I ripped him down and used him as a battering ram to break through the next two in line.
I didn't stop.
I couldn't.
If I let them regroup—if I let them adapt—they'd dig in. Tighten formation. Pin me in.
So I kept pushing. The fight turned savage. I was grappling more now—twisting bodies, slamming heads into walls, tearing at faces. I ripped a chunk of armor from one man's chest and buried it in another's thigh. There was no elegance. Just violence.
That's when he showed up.
A younger man—no older than twenty, but with eyes like old steel. He moved differently. No frantic charges. No wasted motion. He kept his center tight. Balanced. His strikes were precise, aimed at disabling joints and slashing at arteries.
He wasn't just a grunt.
He was trained like a Gladiator.
His first strike clipped my ribs, clean and sharp. I felt the edge kiss the bone.
I grinned.
If I wasn't using the Kure technique, this would've been way more even. Maybe even dangerous. I gave him credit. Hell, I meant it. He was good.
But this wasn't a coliseum match.
This was war.
We traded blows—my fists slamming into his guard, his gladius biting at my side. He ducked a hook and cut into my thigh. I tanked it and crashed into him, elbowing his jaw, cracking a tooth loose.
He staggered but didn't fall. That was the first clue. Most men crumple when I hit them like that. His boots skidded in the blood-slick floor, and he pivoted, planting one foot low and stabbing upward—aiming for the soft spot under my chin. I twisted aside, the blade grazing my shoulder, and brought my knee into his gut.
That knocked the air out of him, but he twisted with it, rolling off the blow and slashing at my wrist as I reached for him again. Smart. He was aiming to disarm me even though I wasn't holding anything.
He didn't know how I fought.
But he was adapting.
I dropped low and swept his legs. He leapt, barely clearing it, and countered midair with a downward slash. I caught it on my forearm, let it drag across flesh, and grabbed his wrist on the way down. He landed. I twisted. Bone creaked.
He didn't scream.
Instead, he used his other hand to punch my throat. I reeled back, coughing, and he broke my grip, spun, and kicked the side of my knee. My leg almost buckled.
Almost.
I surged back in, driving my forehead into his nose. I felt it crunch. Blood sprayed across my helmet's visor. He stumbled.
I pressed the advantage.
Body blows. Left hook to the liver. Right hammerfist to the collarbone. A rising elbow to the cheekbone that snapped his head sideways. I heard the gladius hit the ground.
But he wasn't out.
He roared and grabbed at my arm, dragging me forward with brute momentum, slamming his forehead into mine. My vision flared white. He tackled me back into a rusted bulkhead, fists hammering my ribs like pistons.
I grunted and twisted, shoulder-checking him into the wall.
We broke apart for half a breath.
Circling.
Breathing hard.
Both bleeding now.
He spat blood. I Swallowed the blood in my mouth.
We collided again, breath hot, blood sticky. He feinted high and kicked low—boot slamming my shin—but I didn't flinch. I caught his elbow mid-turn and tried to flip him, but he was ready.
He pivoted inside my guard, arms like coiled cables, and slammed into me.
Suddenly, my arms were pinned—his arm locking my forearms against his side.
Before I could react, he started hammering.
One—a brutal uppercut to my gut that made my stomach lurch.
Two—my ribs flared with pain.
Three—a cough tore from my lungs.
Four—my vision spotted black at the edges.
Five—I felt something shift inside.
He kept me locked there, gritting his teeth through blood and rage.
But he'd made a mistake.
He got close.
Too close.
I reared back, drew in one long breath, and slammed my forehead into his face with every ounce of force I had.
He staggered from the headbutt, but only for a moment. Even through the blood and shock, the fire in his eyes didn't die. He growled—actually growled—and came at me swinging wild, forgetting technique in favor of rage.
I ducked the first blow, took the second on my shoulder, and drove my knee into his thigh. He winced, but his hand lashed out, grabbing a fistful of the fabric near my neck. He tried to haul me down for a knee strike.
Didn't work.
I surged upward, lifting him off his feet with pure brute force and slamming him down onto his back. He rolled, sprung up, went low with a shoulder tackle, and sent us both crashing into the side of a rusted vent stack.
I hammered my elbow into his back. He twisted and caught me with a wild haymaker to the temple. My vision flared. He went for the follow-up—another gut punch—but I turned with it, caught his arm, and snapped my head into his again, nose-first.
He reeled. I didn't let up.
Body shot. Rib shot. Rising hook under his jaw. Blood and spittle flew. He staggered. I stepped into him, twisted, and threw him to the ground again—hard.
But the bastard rolled with it, came back up.
I threw a jab—he slipped it. Landed a kick to my knee. I spun and hit him with a palm strike to the jaw. He crashed into the side of a half-collapsed column, but used it for momentum and flung himself back into me, tackling me to the floor.
We rolled, fists flying.
He landed a few. I landed more.
And then—finally—I saw it.
That flicker. That half-second when instinct stalled.
He hesitated.
I didn't.
I jammed two fingers into his mouth—deep past his teeth—grabbed hold of his cheek and ripped.
The skin tore from his face all the way back to his left ear.
He didn't even scream—just a strangled grunt as I threw him by the mouth into the wall with a wet thud.
He hit the ground and rolled, landing at the base of the Legion shield wall.
"Maxus!" a gruff voice roared.
The command cut through the chaos like a whipcrack. An older man, built like an ancient statue carved from war itself, surged forward from the Legion's rear—but he didn't abandon his formation. His steps were measured, his face grim. His eyes, though, were locked on the battered form of the young man now crumpled at the base of the shield wall.
He didn't panic. Didn't scream in grief or fury. He gave a command with the weight of a man who'd seen sons fall before.
"Pull him back! Shield the boy!"
Two Legionnaires moved instantly. Discipline, even in blood and smoke. Shields raised, they sprinted forward, one grabbing Maxus beneath the arms, the other positioning himself to deflect any blow that might follow. Maxus was still conscious, still clutching the side of his ruined face, but his body hung limp in their arms. Blood poured freely from the torn cheek, staining the floor in a trail behind them.
I stood there, breathing heavy, hands slick with blood—his and mine. My chest rose and fell with the rhythm of war, not fatigue. I wasn't tired. I was humming.
The Kure release technique pulsed through my muscles like electricity. Each movement felt coiled, each breath sharper than the last. My mind was clear, but my body? My body was caught in the flow, riding the current like a predator born for war.
This fight wasn't over. Not by a long shot. But the message had already been delivered.
Adapt all you want, Caesar. I evolve faster.
I wasn't thinking in styles anymore. I wasn't switching between Kansani grappling, Old World CQC, knife fighting, or military strikes. They were bleeding together. Interwoven. Like strands of DNA folding into something new. Something lethal.
The movements weren't planned now. They were instinct. Muscle memory pulled from a dozen lifetimes and combat systems. The Kure technique had dissolved the boundaries between them. Every blow I threw, every step I took, felt like it had been waiting my whole life to be used.
I wasn't fighting like a man anymore.
I was moving like something born to kill.
The whites of my eyes had turned jet black, sclera drowned in the ink of wrath. Through the visor's red glow, I could feel it—that transformation. That monster in the mirror. In the haze of battle, with blood slicking the ground and smoke rising from shattered consoles and ruptured pipes, I didn't look human anymore.
I looked like something that had clawed its way out of the underworld.
And the Legion saw it.
At first, they called out commands. Barked orders with the confidence of discipline. But then the barking turned to shouting. The shouting to confusion. And confusion… to fear.
Because every time I moved, bones cracked. Every time I struck, I drew blood. I made limbs bend the wrong way. I shattered faces beneath my boots. I split shields like old timber with nothing but force and fury.
They weren't calling me a man anymore.
They were calling me a demon.
And maybe… maybe that's what I needed to be.
Because the world doesn't always need a hero. It doesn't always need someone holding a torch or speaking of hope. Sometimes, it needs something worse. Something built in the dark, forged by fire, sharpened by pain.
Sometimes it needs a monster.
And I was more than happy to oblige.
I ran at the wall, planted one boot against the side of it, and kicked off—my body twisting mid-air as I brought both feet crashing into the chest of a Legionnaire. The impact folded him in half, his ribs collapsing under my heels with a crack like brittle wood. He hit the ground hard, gasping for air, his shield clattering uselessly from his hand.
I landed just as hard, the floor beneath me groaning, hairline fractures spidering out beneath my boots. But I didn't stop. Couldn't. Momentum wasn't just strategy anymore—it was survival.
My fingers slid across the surface of the Nanoboy rig on my forearm, black panels shimmering like liquid glass as they registered my intent. It was time to escalate. Time to stop holding back.
Time to show them what an apocalypse looked like.
The rig's plating split with a sharp hiss, energy pulsing through the mesh, and with a metallic shriek that echoed through the fog-choked corridor, World-Cleaver began to manifest.
It didn't just appear. It arrived—like something summoned from myth. A massive black-forged head trailed curling frost and vapor as it locked into form, the haft slamming into my waiting palm with bone-deep finality. It was more than a weapon. It was a sentence.
Old-world alloy. Tribal reforging. Built not for ceremony or showmanship.
Built for execution.
I could feel their eyes on me. The Legion had stopped moving. Every head turned. Their formation shivered as the sight of World-Cleaver burned itself into their minds.
I heard a voice—young, scared, maybe the one holding the rear flank—gasp:
"By Mars... what sorcery is this?"
To them, it wasn't technology. It wasn't pre-war ingenuity.
It was divine. A relic of the Old Ones, conjured from some unknowable place. Proof that they weren't fighting a man.
They were fighting a myth.
I didn't give them the time to understand the difference.
I surged forward.
The first swing met a shield—hardened Legion iron, carried with pride—and shattered it with a sound like a cathedral bell being split down the middle. The shield flew from the Legionnaire's arm and ricocheted down the hall, slamming into a wall hard enough to rupture a steam pipe.
Scalding vapor exploded from the breach, blanketing the tunnel in white-hot fog. The heat kissed my armor, fog swallowing all but the red glow of my visor.
That's when they broke.
The younger ones—barely past their blood rites—lost formation. I could hear the panic in their breathing, in their boots scraping against the floor, in their captains shouting vainly over the rising confusion.
They couldn't see me.
Only that single red glow.
I stepped into the mist and spoke, voice low, stripped of emotion—just cold promise.
"Run."
They didn't.
So I did.
I burst from the fog, World-Cleaver coming down in a brutal vertical arc—and cut a man in half, clean through the collarbone to the groin. His body split open with a sound like tearing canvas, each half collapsing to either side of me as I strode through like I was stepping through a door.
Another swing. Another life ended.
A third—and the axe cleaved through a helmet like it was paper, taking the skull within clean off the shoulders.
The Legion began to unravel. Formations broke. Orders were drowned out by screams. Blood pooled thick across the stone. Their training was failing them—not because it wasn't good, but because it had never been made for this.
You can't teach someone how to survive a god.
And then—
CLANG.
World-Cleaver stopped mid-swing.
A gladius caught the blade—locked it. Steel screamed against steel, sparks hissing in the fog. I followed the resistance back to its source.
And there he stood.
The Legion captain. Broad-shouldered. Worn armor etched by time and fire. His stance was perfect—feet braced, gladius steady, breath measured. His arms trembled, not from fear, but from force.
He looked straight into the red slit of my visor. Unflinching.
The first to stop my advance.
For now.
The captain's gladius held firm against the edge of World-Cleaver, sparks dancing from the contact, the shriek of grinding metal echoing off the stone walls. His arms trembled—not from fear, but from sheer exertion. The kind of strain that comes from resisting something impossible to hold back.
He was older than the rest—not aged, but seasoned. His beard was streaked with gray, his armor worn thin in places where it had turned away more blades than most men ever see. His gaze met mine, unwavering, and there was no illusion of weakness behind it. Just resolve. Hardened. Tempered.
This wasn't a man made by the arena. He wasn't some ceremonial figurehead promoted by favor or legacy. This man had been carved by war itself—by loss, hunger, purpose. That fire in his eyes? You couldn't teach it. You had to earn it.
And I knew, in that moment, who he was. Not by name—but by spirit.
Jorta told me once—most of the Legion's true leadership came from the founding tribes. The ones Caesar raised from the brink of extinction. The ones who had nothing and became something. Tribes that had been enslaved, raided, starved, and broken... until Caesar came and gave them fire.
He didn't just lead them.
He remade them.
He outlawed weakness. Burned away the chaos. Forged discipline and fear into structure. Turned dust into an empire. For those early tribes, the Legion wasn't just a symbol.
It was salvation.
And this captain—this man—he was one of them. One of the originals.
He wasn't here for conquest or obedience. He was here because of faith. Because the Legion had taken him from the edge of the abyss and turned him into something whole.
I could see it in his stance. This wasn't pride. This was identity.
He was fighting for his people. For a future built from the ashes of failure.
And maybe more than that—
He was fighting for his children.
I didn't need a dossier to guess. He likely had sons in the Legion. Perhaps even grandsons in training. His whole life would be interwoven with the structure Caesar had given them. Men like him didn't retire. They didn't surrender.
They died standing.
And I smiled. Because this man?
He was perfect.
Perfect training for what was coming. For Lanius.
The Monster of the East hadn't just been shaped by combat—he'd been forged by culture. By creed. Raised under the same fire. Tempered in the same mold. And if I wanted to face him—and win—I needed more than power.
I needed to understand what made him.
What broke men into gods of war.
And this captain?
He was the mold.
He barked something sharp in Latin, voice like steel drawn from a sheath. Then, in broken but clear English, he shouted over the din of steam and death:
"Pull the wounded! Fall back! Live to strike again!"
From behind him, through the fog and carnage, came a voice.
Broken.
Wet.
Desperate.
"F-Father!"
I turned my head slightly, visor glinting through the mist.
It was Maxus.
The boy I'd torn open. He was still on his feet somehow, half-dragged, half-staggering, blood trailing from his cheek like a banner of pain. His one good eye locked on the captain.
His voice wasn't filled with fear. It was heavier than that.
Shame.
Desperation.
The captain didn't waver. Didn't even flinch.
"Go, Maxus," he commanded, voice resolute. "Retreat."
There was no softness in his words. No hesitation.
Because this wasn't just a battle.
This was a lesson.
And that boy—his son—wasn't being abandoned.
He was being shaped.
Maxus swallowed, his throat working visibly beneath the grime and blood. He backed away slowly, one hand clutching his torn cheek, the other bracing against the bodies of his comrades as they retreated.
But just before he vanished behind the shifting shield wall, he turned.
And he looked at me.
Really looked.
The fear was still there—etched into every line of his face, clinging to the corners of his eyes like frost that wouldn't melt. But behind it, under the agony and shame, I saw the seed of something else.
Resolve.
His jaw trembled, lips split and bleeding, but his voice still came.
Rough. Cracked. But steady.
"One day…" he rasped, "Maxus, son of Henoc, will find you. And I will have my revenge."
I didn't move. Just tilted my head slightly. Let the glow of my red visor catch him full-on—an unblinking signal through the fog.
"Get stronger," I said. "Or you'll die just like the rest."
His eyes twitched. He held for a second longer—just long enough to burn the moment into his soul—then turned and ran.
The shield wall closed behind him, shifting like a living beast in retreat. One by one, they pulled back—dragging the wounded, covering their exit, fading into the mist. All except for one.
Henoc.
Still standing.
Still breathing.
Still waiting.
The old captain hadn't moved an inch. His gladius trembled ever so slightly beneath the weight of World-Cleaver, but his spine remained straight. His gaze never wavered. The same fire in his eyes—old fire, earned through pain and purpose—burned on, unwavering.
His voice was low when he finally spoke. Not loud. Not theatrical. Just true.
"You'll regret letting him live," Henoc said. There was no rage in it. No bluster.
Just certainty.
He didn't scream vengeance. He didn't curse my name.
Because men like Henoc didn't threaten.
They promised.
"My wife—Maxus's mother—died when he was still a babe," he said, his eyes distant, though they never left me. "My older sons, they were already on the path. One trained to be an officer of the Legion, the other studied the sciences. He wanted to understand the old world. To rebuild, not just conquer."
He shifted his stance slightly, adjusting for the weight of his sword. It was subtle, but I caught it. He was readying himself again.
"My daughter," he continued, "was placed in the house of her future husband. Tradition."
"But Maxus…"
A pause.
A breath.
"He stayed with me."
His tone sharpened—like tempered steel.
"He's lived and breathed the battlefield. Slept in armor. Ate with blood still on his hands. He's fought beside me since he could hold a spear."
He wasn't boasting. He was remembering.
"But for all his strength," he said, "for all the iron I beat into him… there was always something missing. He lacked the spark. The fire to push beyond just surviving."
Then he looked at me—really looked. And there wasn't hatred in his eyes. There wasn't even malice.
There was… gratitude.
"And now, thanks to you," he said, "he has it."
Henoc's teeth clenched, not from pain—but to contain the flicker of a smile threatening to rise at the corner of his mouth.
"You've given him something the Legion couldn't. Something even I couldn't."
He raised his gladius. His feet shifted. Centered. Coiled.
"A foe."
He took a single step forward, the weight of purpose in every inch.
"To kill."
And then—
just like that—
the fight began again.
World-Cleaver whistled through the air in a deadly arc, low and fast, forcing Henoc to pivot sharply with the grace of a man who'd spent decades fighting for every inch of ground he stood on. His gladius met the haft of my axe with a sharp clang, the metal grinding as sparks sprayed between us.
He wasted no time on recovery—lunged in with a precise thrust aimed directly for my throat. I twisted my head just enough for the blade to scrape harmlessly past the edge of my visor, then drove my elbow straight into his ribs.
He grunted, pain flashing in his eyes—but he didn't fall back. Didn't even shift his stance.
This man wasn't just hardened.
He was hewn—carved straight from the marrow of war.
We clashed again. A blur of steel, footwork, and will. Boots scraped against the stone floor. Blades sang their ancient song. The air hissed around us—steam still thick from the ruptured pipe, turning the chamber into a forge.
And even as we fought, my mind kept moving. Thinking forward. Past this duel. Past this bunker. Past Henoc.
Caesar wasn't eternal.
I remembered what I'd learned back in New Vegas—the old Caesar had a tumor. A rot in the brain. Brilliant, brutal, mythic... but mortal. And if that was true here too, then time was already devouring him from the inside.
There weren't many who could stop it. Curie could—hell, if anyone could, it was her. But I'd cut off my own hand before I let her within ten miles of St. Louis. She was mine, and the Legion didn't get to have what was mine.
The Enclave? They were already moving against the Legion—cold wars and proxy fronts, shadow knives and buried bombs. They didn't need to cure Caesar. They needed him to die at the right moment.
Which left Worm.
And Worm didn't save people. Worm didn't offer mercy or medicine. Worm replaced. They installed their own leaders, made their own kings. If Caesar was dying, Worm would be there—smiling with a contract and a leash, ready to crown their puppet as the next god of the east.
That's how you kill an empire.
Quietly.
Not with armies.
With whispers. With succession.
Lanius—he was the other pillar. If Caesar was the mind, Lanius was the sword. And I'd already given my word to Jorta.
I was going to fight him.
And I was going to end him.
That meant New Rome would soon be without its head and its blade.
And that meant something had to take their place—or the whole thing would collapse into chaos.
Henoc swung again—a wide, horizontal slash. Powerful. Controlled. I ducked, pivoted low, and brought World-Cleaver upward to knock his arm aside. He adjusted like a machine—barely off balance before his footing reset. His form was nearly flawless.
But I wasn't focused on winning this exchange. Not anymore.
I was studying him.
Watching the way he moved.
The way his fire burned clean and bright behind his eyes.
This wasn't just muscle. It was meaning.
And then I thought of Maxus.
Scarred now. Shamed. Bloodied. But still burning. Still young.
Still moldable.
Henoc believed the boy could be something great—stronger than him.
I believed it now too.
If Maxus chased me—hunted me—trained to kill me…
If he rose through the Legion ranks with that kind of fuel in his chest…
He wouldn't just be a rival.
He'd be the glue holding the Legion together when the old gods died.
The Legion would fracture without direction. Without an heir. Civil war. Splinter groups. Worm's influence. A hundred senatorial dogs each biting the same dying body.
But if Maxus rose above them all—
If he proved himself in fire, in battle, with a name to pursue and a mission to fulfill—
Then maybe, just maybe...
Another strike—this one high—I batted it aside and surged forward, locking blades with Henoc, both our weapons snarling against each other like beasts trying to devour their chains.
...then maybe I wasn't just shaping a rival.
Maybe I was building a king.
Henoc drove his shoulder into mine, trying to unbalance me. He had the weight and timing behind it—an old soldier's move, sharp and brutal. I took the hit, let it slide through the movement, then spun with the force instead of fighting it.
World-Cleaver arced around in a blur of motion, slamming down on his guard like a guillotine.
He grunted, boots grinding against the blood-slick floor as he held his stance. The gladius in his hand locked with my axe once more, sparks bursting between us as steel kissed steel.
But in that moment, I wasn't really looking at him.
I was looking past him.
Nemesis.
That was the endgame. Not the Legion. Not the Enclave. Not Worm. Not the Depths or the Blight or even the Faro plague's shadows still lingering in the world's corpse.
No, it was Nemesis—the cancer squirming in the dark, festering like rot in a sealed tomb. Born from desperation. From ego. From the worst parts of a world that thought it could cheat death with machines and cloned gods.
An AI bent on unmaking everything that came after it. Not because it had a reason. But because it couldn't stand the idea that the world had moved on without it.
And it wasn't going to be beaten by some lost prototype hiding in a vault. Not by clever sabotage or a perfectly aimed weapon at the last second. That kind of story belonged in fairy tales.
Nemesis wouldn't fall to legends.
It would take meat.
Real people. Fighters. Killers. Survivors.
It would take men like Henoc.
Boys like Maxus.
Tribes that knew the feel of starvation. Nations built in the shadow of extinction. Empires risen not from clean design—but from blood, fire, and the will to endure.
Nemesis doesn't fear tech.
It is tech.
What it fears—what it can't understand—is that thing inside people. That ugly, beautiful truth.
Resolve.
The refusal to die. The decision to fight, not because it makes sense—but because surrender isn't an option.
That's what will kill it.
Not just Aloy.
Not just me.
But everyone we can forge in the fires of war. Everyone willing to crawl through hell and spit in the void's face.
I roared and shoved Henoc back, World-Cleaver screaming through the steam as I pressed forward.
"You want to thank me for shaping your son?" I growled. "Good."
I stepped forward, blade dragging across the stone, sparks flying.
"Because I'm shaping more than a killer."
I raised the axe.
"I'm shaping the end of Nemesis."
Henoc's eyes narrowed, his gladius rising once again to meet me. There was confusion in his gaze now. The name didn't land like I expected.
"Nemesis…" he muttered, almost under his breath. "Invidia?"
To the Legion, Nemesis wasn't some hyper-intelligent extinction machine. It was a goddess. A symbol of divine vengeance—Invidia. A concept the Old World had painted in robes and myths.
He probably thought I was speaking in riddles. In prophecy.
But he didn't get the time to dwell on it.
I stepped in, turned my hips, and brought World-Cleaver down like a final judgment.
The blade tore through steel, bone, and all that discipline he'd built across decades. It split his chest open, ribs cracking, heart cleaving in two. The force of the blow knocked the air from his lungs in one shuddering gasp.
Henoc's knees buckled.
He dropped slowly, like an ancient monument crumbling under time, pride holding him upright even as life left his body. Blood pooled beneath him, steam rising in soft tendrils around the wreckage.
I held him upright a moment longer, long enough for our eyes to meet.
"You fought well, old man," I said, quiet. Almost reverent. "And for that fight… I give you peace."
I pulled the axe free.
Let him fall.
"I won't pursue your son."
His eyes—already dimming—widened just a little. The first crack in the armor of his certainty.
"I hope you're right about him. Because if Maxus can keep up—if he grows the way you say he can—then he won't just be another warrior."
I knelt beside him, lowering my voice so that only he could hear it through the hiss of steam and the dying chaos around us.
"He might be the one who helps kill something that thinks it's a god."
Henoc's lips trembled. His chest rose once, ragged. Rattled.
But there was no fear.
Just peace.
Because deep down, some part of him—the father, not the captain—had always known that his youngest son was more than just another blade in the ranks.
He had always known Maxus was the strongest.
And Henoc died with his eyes open—
watching the future walk away.
...…..
As the Legion retreated from the Oseram camp of Golden Plains, the smoke from the bunker still curled into the morning air, tinged with the scent of ash and ozone. The battle below had ended, but for Maxus, the war had just begun.
He stood apart from the others, cradling the side of his ruined face. Once, that face had drawn smiles and glances in the streets of New Rome. Maidens would titter behind their shawls as he escorted his sister through the marble markets beneath the looming shadow of the Great Arch. He had been handsome then—clean-cut, sharp-jawed, proud. Now, his skin was torn from lip to ear, the corner of his mouth twisted into a permanent snarl. It was no longer a face meant for charm or courtship. It was a mark—not just of pain, but of purpose.
His heart didn't ache for himself. It ached for what he would have to say. To his sister. To her children. What would they see when they looked at him now? What would he say when they asked where their father was?
He already knew the answer. He died well, he would tell them. He died fighting a demon.
For a moment, the sorrow clutched at his throat, threatening to overwhelm him. But it didn't last. It couldn't. The grief was burned away, replaced by something hotter. Sharper. Forged from that fire came anger—and from that anger, determination.
Maxus turned back toward the bunker's ruined entrance, the place where everything had changed. His jaw clenched, his eyes filled with fire.
"We'll meet again, Demon," he whispered. "And when we do… you'll face my vengeance."
He turned to face the battered remnants of the Legion patrol. Some were still bloodied. Others bore burns, cracked armor, missing weapons. But they all stood. Not one fell behind.
"Fall in," Maxus ordered, voice rough but resolute. "We return to New Rome. My brothers need to learn what happened to our father."
And they obeyed—not out of protocol, but out of awe.
They had seen what Maxus had done. Had watched him fight the Demon of the Bunker and survive. It didn't matter that he hadn't won. It mattered that he had stood his ground. That he had bled, roared, and endured.
They followed him—not a commander, not a legend, but something new. A man reborn through pain. A son shaped by loss. A symbol forged in fire.
They didn't yet know what they were becoming. But those few—those survivors—would be the first. The core. The foundation of something greater. Something ancient made new.
An elite brotherhood forged in chaos and tempered by war. They would walk through the fires of Caesar's death. Through the civil war that would bloom in the heart of the capital. They would carve through Enclave shock troopers in the shattered ruins of Old Topeka. Burn Worm operatives from the Senate like infection from the flesh of Rome.
Old blood. New blood. Even slaveborn—none would be turned away. All would be tested. All would bleed. And all would rise.
They would be reborn.
As the Sons of Sparta.