Chapter 24: Unplugged

  The golden ring of the Lex Imperative pulsed faintly on the marble floor. Inside its radius, the air felt thin and dead. The ambient Weave of magic had been entirely vacuumed out.

  Agent Locke stepped over the glowing threshold.

  Without the sapphire energy lines powering the servos, his Doorwarden tactical suit was no longer a mechanized exoskeleton; it was a two-hundred-pound metal coffin. Every step required a deliberate, exhausting exertion of pure physical strength. His HUD was black. His comms were dead.

  He stopped ten feet away from Alaric’s champion.

  The Goliath, a mountain of scarred muscle named Kaelen, stood seven feet tall. He wasn't wearing heavy armor, relying instead on his natural, thick hide. In his massive hands, he casually twirled a solid steel warhammer that weighed easily as much as Thorne.

  "You can barely walk, metal-man," Kaelen rumbled, a deep, rumbling laugh shaking his chest. "Take the armor off, or I'll crush you inside it."

  Outside the ring, Lyra gripped the edge of a marble pillar, her knuckles white. "He's too slow," she whispered to Thorne. "Without the Weave to lighten the load, one hit from that hammer will crack his ribs right through the plating."

  Locke didn't take the armor off. He didn't speak. He simply raised his heavy, ceramic-plated gauntlets, settling into a textbook Close Quarters Combat stance. His breathing was slow, measured, and perfectly controlled.

  "Your funeral," Kaelen grunted.

  The Goliath lunged. He swung the massive warhammer in a devastating downward arc, aiming directly for the top of Locke’s featureless black helmet.

  Locke didn’t try to block it. He didn't try to leap backward. Carrying two hundred pounds of dead weight, acrobatic dodges were impossible. Instead, Locke relied on the single most fundamental rule of CQC: economy of motion.

  He simply pivoted his lead foot and aggressively stepped inside the Goliath's guard.

  CRACK.

  The warhammer slammed into the marble floor a fraction of an inch from Locke’s heel, shattering the stone and sending shards of rock flying.

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  Because Kaelen had overcommitted to the downward swing, his chest and ribs were wide open. Locke didn't just punch him; he threw his entire body weight, plus the two hundred pounds of dense Earth-tech armor, into a devastating liver blow.

  The heavy, matte-black gauntlet buried itself into the Goliath’s side with the sickening sound of snapping bone.

  Kaelen’s eyes bulged. All the air violently left his lungs in a wet gasp. A blow that heavy, concentrated into the surface area of a metal fist, was the equivalent of being hit by a compact car.

  But the giant didn't go down. Roaring in pain, Kaelen let go of the hammer with one hand and swung a massive backhand directly at Locke’s head.

  Locke couldn't duck in time. The backhand connected, a glancing blow off his helmet. The impact rattled Locke’s teeth and sent a shockwave down his spine, but the military-grade shock-absorption of the helmet did its job. He didn't black out.

  Instead of fighting the Goliath's momentum, Locke used it.

  As the giant’s arm swung past, Locke reached up, grabbing Kaelen’s thick wrist with both gauntleted hands. Locke immediately dropped his own center of gravity, throwing all of his dead-weight armor toward the floor, dragging the off-balance giant down with him.

  SLAM.

  Kaelen hit the marble floor hard, the breath knocked out of him a second time. Before the Goliath could even attempt to grapple, Locke transitioned seamlessly. He planted his heavy knee directly onto the Goliath's throat, pinning him to the stone.

  Locke raised his right gauntlet high into the air, poising it directly over the giant's face.

  Kaelen froze, staring up at the featureless black visor. He couldn't breathe. The sheer, terrifying weight of the unpowered suit was crushing his windpipe. He tapped the marble floor frantically with his free hand.

  Locke stopped his fist an inch from Kaelen's nose.

  The golden ring on the floor flashed a brilliant, vibrant green. A mechanical chime rang out across the courtyard.

  [RITE_OF_COMBAT: CONCLUDED]

  [VICTOR: THE ACCUSED]

  [STATUS: CLEARED OF CHARGES]

  Locke slowly stood up, every muscle in his back screaming in protest. He stepped off the gasping giant and looked directly at Grandmaster Alaric.

  The entire courtyard was dead silent. The six elite Paladins stared in absolute disbelief. A man without a single drop of magic, carrying the weight of a boulder, had just dismantled their greatest champion in under ten seconds.

  Grandmaster Alaric’s silver beard twitched. His Observer vision couldn't process it. There was no math, no Golden Code, no syntax error. It was just brutal, unfiltered physical supremacy.

  "The laws of the Crucible are absolute," Alaric finally spoke, his voice lacking its usual thunderous certainty. He looked at Lyra and Thorne, who were both staring at Locke with their jaws hanging open. "You are cleared of the charges. You may walk free in Moonveil."

  Locke reached down and picked up his heavy helmet, tucking it under his arm. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the pristine marble floor.

  "Keep your city, Grandmaster," Locke rasped, his eyes cold and hard. "We need to find a proxy terminal. My Admin is still out there."

  The Unpowered Badass!

  Agent Locke just completely flipped the script on the fantasy trope! Sometimes you don't need a magical sword; you just need to know how to throw a proper punch.

  With Lyra, Thorne, and Locke officially free from the Guild's execution, they can begin searching for a way to track Alex down.

  But meanwhile, in the Oblivion Fringe, the ultimate villain is making his move. Silas Vane is out of batteries, out of time, and staring down a literal god of malware.