Someone survived. The thought pounded in Eight’s temples as he survived the mining complex ahead, listening to One’s ethereal voice outlying their plans for all Single Digits in his head. His role in the grand scheme was done. Now he needed to get to Belaz, rendezvous with a Single Digit, assist in bringing back Six, and sneak their way into Iterna, preparing for the final phase of the operation as Maximilian himself handles the situation in the Desolation.

Easy. No need to listen to the plan any further. The survival of those pests irked him more than he cared to admit. Eight didn’t regret not killing the little genetic reject; he’d made a slip, and he’d corrected it through the use of materials at hand. But the Creator’s command to retreat infuriated him. They were right there! Targets to be slaughtered, to be wiped off the game’s board. A Barjoni was among them. His very being wept at the missed opportunity to cause a scandal by killing the whelp. Worse, the Creator had later taken a member of his coven in an attempt to salvage something from the situation.

Four figures accompanied him tonight: one Double Digit and three Triple Digits he had salvaged from the entire country. Perhaps it would have been wise to let them commit suicide themselves and be resurrected. Such a pitiful coven was unworthy of his presence. But Eight was done letting the inferiors have any sort of victories. He’ll lead them out of this wretched, worthless, parasite-infested land.

He pocketed the golden earring and surveyed the facility. Faced with a crisis, the Oathtakers made a sensible move and started spending. They opened national reserves, invested in building roads, rebuilding lost population centers, and opening new industries. Not only had it gravitated their natural rival closer to their country, intertwining their economies and making sudden war impossible. But it also caused a boom in the labor market.

And it opened a way out. A vast mountain range separated the Lands of the Oath from the Reclaimers and the Ravaged Lands. The thunderous cataclysm that wiped out the Old World sculpted it. Stone forests rose from the bedrock, their sides forever fused with the remains of cities by the molten lava. From the Ravaged Lands and the Wastes, the howling tornadoes sharpened the cliffs enough to cut flesh at a simple touch, and the cruel sun heated the stones during the day. The Bento Tribe, Reclamation Army, and even some abominable Wolfkins mined ore in this abundance, tearing away compressed pieces of cities or excavating minerals in deep, kilometers-long mines to fuel their own furnaces.

The Oathtakers’ own mines were located further to the sun, but a wealthy prospector had bought the rights for one such place in the north. The stone walls surrounding the mining complex were incomplete in several places. An elevator shaft had been dug into the side of the mountain to take people to the top, where the workers planned to build a small camp for the military patrols.

A series of buildings encircled several caves leading into the depths. Eight ignored the white streams pouring from the dark caverns and the sounds of industrial drills working. There was no way out through there. But above? The above was different.

The Mountaineers, soldiers in brown suits and camouflage cloaks, served as border guards in this region. In other sections, the Insectones bolstered their ranks, scaling up and down across the carefully placed patrol routes and trying to sneak past these Abnormals. Finding a path through minefields was too risky. This place, however, had removed the mines to construct the elevator, and the path across the uneven mountains led straight to the Resistance territory, away from the prying eyes of the bloodthirsty Wolfkins and closer to Belaz.

Perfection.

“Gather near the northern edge of the walls. Once you hear any commotion, beam yourself inside the compound and head toward the elevator,” Eight commanded his small group, creeping toward the walls.

He had timed his approach to coincide with the arrival of a large convoy carrying the industrial equipment. Projectors on the wall focused on the armored vehicles, and Eight closed the distance, turning his fingers to steel. He skittered along the rocky surface, unconcerned about landmines. The proximity sensors were turned off to receive the convoy. And his enhanced eyes easily spotted the deadly traps hidden amidst the stone cracks. Amateurs.

Soldiers on the wall called to the drivers, and Eight cut a path through a metal grate, betting the plan on luck rather than cold calculation. The night still reigned, and the unfinished camp left many areas shrouded in darkness. His limbs returned to human flesh, and he softly stepped inside, hearing the snoring of the day shift workers resting. It would take but a moment to sneak into the barracks and kill them all, but to what avail? The rejects bred too fast for non-drastic measures to make a dent in their masses. He let them live.

His eyes flashed, attracted to a patrol group moving to the south Five people, cloaks slung over their shoulders, rifles in their hands. They strolled in the projectors’ lights, chatting with their faceplates off, perhaps feeling at ease from the celebration, or simply confident in their false sense of invulnerability. One of them even took off his helmet. And on their belts were grenades.

Good. Eight followed them, stealing a chain from a pile of instruments standing near a warehouse. They stepped into a brief darkness, into an archway of two barracks built close to each other. He cannonballed into them, not bothering about keeping quiet. A Troll’s back snapped at the kick of an iron foot; the helmetless buffoon lost his upper head, and the survivors still didn’t recognize his presence, their fingers not reaching for the triggers.

To them, Eight was a blur of slashing blades and bludgeoning limbs. A hand tapped a soldier on her head, and the entire helmet crumpled, the brain pouring through the nostrils and mouth. Another soldier’s scream died in his mouth as clawed fingers closed on his throat, above the protective circle of the gorget, slicing through the rubberized neck guard, destroying the fiber muscles, biting through the skin, and severing the neck. The paralyzed Troll died from an elbow blow that liquefied the brain, and Eight toppled the last soldier, a terrified woman.

A small metal appendage pierced his black body armor and struck at the woman’s lower jaw, locking her jaws together as Eight ripped off her helmet. He saw her eyes, filled with an ocean of fear, and added to the pain, using his index finger to leave torn wounds all over her body. The soldier’s muffled screams were music to his ears, but he held back, striking to make her bleed and not to kill. Satisfied by his handiwork, he shattered her knees, eliciting another barely audible crescendo of agony, and pierced the sides of her hands.

“This is your lifeline,” he told the weeping eyes. The chain slipped into the gaping holes in her hands, binding them together, and he placed a grenade between her palms, removing the pin and securing the safety spoon with her trembling hands. “Scream. Proclaim the death of the mine. Hold on tight, and you may even survive,” Eight lied.

She will survive. Well, should. His plan depended on it in part, so the metal appendage left her mouth almost gently, ripping out two front teeth. He raced away from the screaming soldier, who desperately tried to hold the grenade up, preventing the explosion. Her bellowing scream for help accompanied the Number as he kept to the inner side of the camp. A barrack’s door opened, and a yawning man stepped out. Eight slit his throat, dropping the half-naked miner in such a way as to indicate his approach to the mine. He murdered two more, just to make sure that the defenders would be mistaken if the worthless trash fainted and failed to convey his decoy.

Eight saw a beam flying over the camp’s walls. Good. His team made their move, traversing through a light, and the guards inside flashed the projectors, concentrating on the commotion area. He added to the chaos by throwing five grenades, one after the other, at the mine, not really caring about killing or damaging the entrance. The goal was to distract.

He sped up past the explosions, accelerating his humanoid form to the maximum and overloading the optical zoom of the camp’s cameras, not that there would be anyone who’d spot him so soon. The massive elevator moved down as patrols above received the warning. It seemed the little piggy had lasted long enough.

Misdirection. Eight found the strategy unworthy. Single Digits should be kings of a battlefield, unrivaled in speed and knowledge, rulers over their lesser kings. Alas, where a Double Digit could be brought back in weeks or even days, Single Digits took months. Eight simply couldn’t risk the chance that a strong enough Abnormal among the guards or a nearby patrol might do him in. He lacked the manpower and knowledge to collapse the caverns.

But he could make the enemy believe it was his objective. Hiding outside of the mining complex, Eight had deduced from visual observation that the elevator could only go up or down, and that each creaking and groaning descent took a dozen minutes. He and his party didn’t need the elevator, but he smiled as a figure in a yellow lightning cloak leapt from above, cratering a booming explosion at the mine’s entrance. Gullible moron.

The camp was now on full alert, with soldiers streaming to the entrance, guarding the barracks, and herding the workers under the protection of the Abnormals. Communication towers sent a relief signal, but oh so slowly. Eight reached the base of the elevator, and a flash of light curved in the sky, hit the ground near him, and the Numbers stepped out. Such a good way to travel. Sadly, it had a downside. It could only be used once every twenty minutes, and its range was limited. No matter.

A Number wearing a female body wrapped her arms around Eight, her eyes closed, and a sphere of silence surrounded the group. They climbed up, using the elevator shaft to scale the treacherous terrain safely, their fingers leaving bulges on the plates, but the soldiers on the platform hadn’t heard a noise. Something exploded in the camp, and the sound of ripping metal and metal crates hitting the walls made Eight frown. Did the soldier die? Couldn’t she last like two or three minutes? Her death was irrelevant, but it bothered him because he hadn’t planned to kill her.

Many things have irked him lately. The rat filth survived. A metal stream flowed over his finger, digging into the rising metal beam. He exhaled, returning the human form to his finger. Yes, he failed. She won by surviving, although Eight hadn’t had a clue how anything could’ve survived the vat. He himself was saved by One’s teleportation, who brought him as far away from the battlefield as possible so he could gather the coven. No, failure isn’t the end of the world — not even close. He had lost before, and he would lose in the future. Setbacks are irrelevant. In the end, he would survive the filth simply by existing.

The commander below had already found corpses. Soon the guards will stumble over the cut grating. This should buy the team some time while the fools below ponder whether the enemy entered or escaped this way. Under the chaos’ cover, Numbers will penetrate deeper into the mountain range, reach the Ravaged Lands, and use the beam power to reach the bottom. Simple, inelegant, but efficient. Eight hoped to find at least a modicum of resistance above.

His hopes were dashed as he reached the top. He could see patrols a few kilometers to the left and right, but these were more skilled Mountaineers, not the greenhorns below. Eight set down the Number he carried, turning to gesture for the others to follow him. Some of his brothers and sisters would already be beating Double Digits, taking out the anger of being outsmarted, but he was of the finer stock. Maximilian taught him that mistakes were inevitable. There is no ideal. Learn what you can from your failings and move on.

A Double Digit reached the cliff next, extending a hand to a climbing Triple Digit. Eight’s eyes widened when a three-fingered paw closed around the woman’s head and rammed the body into the stones, knocking the light off the Number. Two shapes lunged up as the paw dragged the unconscious Number off the cliff. Eight barely had time to dodge a leg that shattered the ground where he stood. The remaining Number wasn’t so lucky, and a maw opened, closing the myriad razor-sharp, needle-like fangs on the body.

The newcomers resembled reptiles. They crouched on two legs, placing the front paws on the ground, never letting Eight out of sight of their unblinking black orbs. All three were identical twins, with mighty arms reaching three meters in length, thin green scales covering their rough hides, mouths stretching all the way to round ears that resembled satellites. Blue membranes connected fingers on each limb, making the hands resemble cups and reminding Eight of the Deepborn. And he had his fill of amphibious waste for a lifetime.

He knew who they were. Hunters. Mass-produced bioforms from Rho Bioengineering, patrol beasts designed to be used and discarded by the hundreds. Their flat nostrils sniffed the air, answering how they had managed to track him. The Number locked in the jaw of one stopped struggling; the paralyzing venom filled the body, preventing any possible self-destruction, and the hunter spat her over the edge, sending the unconscious Double Digit to a rock ledge below.

The hunters dropped low, one circling Eight from the left, another from the right, and the last one creeping at him. Flap. Flap. Their hands made unbearable noises, like suction cups grabbing hold of the rock and ripping away.

“You dare?” Eight asked, astonished at such blatant stupidity. “You vat-grown junk, dare think you can take me on? A Maximilian’s creation?”

His mouth was still open in shock when the middle hunter made a sweep. The bones in the creature’s leg dislocated, giving it greater range, and its heel sliced a deep crescent-shaped gash through the stones, missing his leg by a hair. He responded by turning his hand into a spear, but the leg retracted, the bones rejoined, and the blade struck the stone.

Something sticky wrapped around his spear arm, jerking him off balance. A hunter used his own tongue as a ranged weapon. The remaining hunter closed in at once, seeking to bite Eight in the neck. His free hand morphed into steel claws that touched the air. The hunter turned its head away at an impossible angle to save itself. Eight heard the bones popping and part of the vertebrae pushing against the scaled skin. The air left his own lungs as the creature’s fist crashed into his chest, exploding pain all over his body.

The impact sent him back, and the hunter, holding his arm with its tongue, threw its head up and brought it down, slamming Eight face down into the stones. Filth! How dare they! Sheer indignation surpassed the pain. His trapped arm turned into liquid metal, slipping from the hold. He rose, and another shove nearly caused him to lose his footing. Still reforming his arm, Eight spotted several threads running from his chest to the hunter who had struck him. A slash of his claws severed them.

They came at him as a team, one to his left, another to his right, and the last either danced in front of him or came from behind. A triangle of kicks, elbows, punches, slashes, and tongue lashes descended on Eight, and he found himself hard-pressed, retreating. His legs split, creating four sturdy limbs; one arm now ended with a long blade; he kept his right as a claw; and two metal whips appeared on his shoulders, striking at the blurred shadows.

It wasn’t enough. The damned reptiles never risked; they stayed at the edge of his reach, never once failing a trick as Eight increased the length of his limbs. Their unnatural bones splintered and reassembled, causing the massive bodies to gyrate, dodging his deadly assault. Worse, a dodge could quickly turn into an attack as the hunters swung the weight of their upper or lower bodies, treating gravity and their own sense of direction as an annoying afterthought. They breathed, pumping air through both nostrils and a series of gills at their necks.

“Eight?” One spoke in his mind, stopping outlining her plan to the Single Digits. With Maximilian fully focused on the north, she now spoke for the Creator. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong!” Eight replied. He lured a hunter closer, and his spear almost pierced the black orb. Its ally rescued the creature, kicking the spear limb upward from safety. The third hunter slammed a fist against Eight’s solar plexus, and the superior alloy covering the vulnerable area protected the Number. He rode the impact of this blow, cutting the threads trying to pull him back. “A momentary annoyance. Please do continue, sister.”

Their coordination and the accursed biological abilities grafted onto each other drove Eight closer to rage. In both air and land combat, the creatures never once faltered or lost sight of his blades swinging through the air. Their endurance might keep him here for a tad too long. He needed the solution.

He found it. A stone pillar, a jagged piece of mountain sticking out like a sore thumb. Eight galloped toward it, whipping at the pursuing hunters. He pressed his back against the rock, stood on his hind legs and turned his four limbs towards the two approaching hunters. Two? The last creature leapt to the top of the pillar, creeping down and aiming to grab his head.

As predicted! Eight smiled, and his whips slashed, bisecting the pillar in several places. The stone cascaded down, and the hunter fell along with it, landing to his left. Eight already saw it; his mind had already calculated the trajectory, and his upper legs struck, facing the tongues flying to drag the comrade off the doomed path. He spun, bringing the sword arm to the greenish head.

The hunter’s gills opened wide, releasing a sonic screech of such force that it stopped the blow. The blasted thing didn’t do this as a last resort; it released the sonic wave in a single direction, trying to propel itself away, and several of its scales rose. They shot at Eight, the organic projectiles slicing his nose in two.

“Enough.” Eight accepted the situation. His humiliations were numerous: losing the challenge, failing to kill the whelps, losing valuable Twenty-Eight and Ten, being bound by the promise, the Creator’s insistence on prolonging the trainees’ lives to torment his son… All of it flooded the open gates of his self-control, and he drank deep of it. The anger reached its zenith, culminating in an utter calmness as he was pushed beyond the limits of his tolerance.

And the Gryphon answered. His power coursed through his veins, spreading like a wave from the stolen heart. Limbs pumped like balloons, and four legs merged into two limbs. He stood, a being of the hardest, almost unbreakable steel, four meters tall, each hand ending in oversized claws, a metal ridge rising on his back, his face turning into a beak, and the cruel claws of his legs drumming the music of inevitable doom. Eight has reached his prime.

He disliked using this form. It lacked finesse, agility, and the inconspicuousness of his regular body, screaming at everyone seeing it: Look at me! I am a demigod brawler! It didn’t represent his delicate state of mind at all, not to mention that overwhelming superiority invited overwhelming arrogance.

But right now, Eight was willing to put up with this.

He swung, moving impossibly fast for such a massive body. The steel claws split the fleeing hunter’s head in two, going deeper into the body, severing an arm. Still standing in the same spot, Eight clicked his beak, facing two incoming hits that bounced harmlessly off his exposed side. This wasn’t all. The mutated garbage bit at him, splitting the metal skin and drawing blood. They jumped away, but his returning slice gutted a hunter, sending its entrails splattering across the stone surface.

“So much for Argus’ flesh mastery,” he jeered. The unharmed hunter backed off, picking up his wounded comrade. “And so much for you…”

He stopped, sensing the ground rumble. Lights pierced the sky on the horizon. Several of the Oathtakers’ all-terrain armored vehicles were driving here at full speed. And leading these reinforcements were hunters, dozens, nearing fifty in strength — all charging on all fours, their black eyes focused on the prey. Him.

“Oh, fuck this.” Eight retreated, remembering the sting of pain as the two of them gnawed at his perfect steel skin. “And fuck you,” he told the hunters.

He ran, pushing every muscle in his body, covering the distance faster than any pale imitation of the pathetic and useless Argus Rho could ever hope to. Eight broke through several boulders, not bothering to hide his presence; his legs left wide cracks in the ground as it groaned under his weight. The sun was rising, its rays reflecting off his steel. Eight welcomed it, keeping going, no longer hearing the pursuers, but not daring to stop. He had had enough of this land. If there was any justice, the inferior creatures polluting these lands would die of their own accord and save him the trouble.

Half an hour later, the edge of the mountain leading into the Ravaged Lands appeared further. The Number jumped from it, exploding the cliff. Heat greeted him, his body growing smaller and thinner as he approached the sands below. Still covered in steel, his arms parted the sand, and Eight buried himself in a dune, traversing below the surface to evade his pursuers.

One day. One day, he’ll make them all pay and bring Maximilian’s rule to every corner of the world.