Chapter 73: Blood in the Spillway

The damp stench of diesel fumes, scorched copper, and hot oil slammed into Mei’s lungs as she hurtled downward through the blinding glare of the flash-bangs.

She slammed into Gideon’s chest mid-air, the bone-crunching impact ripping a hoarse gasp from his throat. They hit the wet concrete platform together, skidding across sludge and hot brass shell-casings. The friction tore at her elbows, but Mei rolled instantly, her right dagger flashing up in a lethal arc aimed at his exposed throat.

CLANG!

Gideon’s mana-blade ignited with a deafening, electric screech, the humming purple edge catching her blade an inch from his neck. The blinding light of his plasma-shield washed over her face, radiating a wave of scorching, hair-singeing heat.

"I know that strike," Gideon snarled, his heavy leather coat smoking as he used his raw weight to shove her back. "The Reborn Wraith!"

He swung a brutal, horizontal backhand with his reinforced gauntlet. Mei ducked beneath the whistling steel, the backpressure of his swing whipping her hair wildly across her eyes. She planted both boots against his ribcage and kicked off violently, flipping backward through the air—her muscle memory from four lifetimes of assassination executing the maneuver effortlessly.

THUD-THUD-THUD!

Behind her, Elias slammed into the fray like a runaway train. His massive tower shield caved in the chest plate of the nearest Syndicate enforcer with a sickening crack-crunch of shattered armor and ribs. Wet blood sprayed across the halogen lights, painting the room in crimson streaks.

"Crossfire!" Joshua roared, stepping into his role as Vice Captain. He caught the shifting momentum instantly, issuing tactical adjustments on the fly while dropping to one knee. "Elias, tilt thirty degrees left! Lock their line!"

The air tore apart with the deafening THUM-THUM-THUM report of armor-piercing rounds. Bullets ricoched off Elias’s tower shield in a storm of blinding yellow sparks, the metallic ping-ping-ping echoing wildly inside the concrete chamber.

Joshua leaned out from behind the shield's shadow, squeezed his trigger twice—BANG-BANG—and punched two tidy red holes through the throat of a Syndicate gunner, dropping him into the grinding gears of the pneumatic drill. The machine shrieked, gears binding on bone and steel, throwing up a cloud of black smoke and flying sparks.

Mei didn't watch them work. As a reborn assassin, her body moved before her conscious thought could even catch up.

Gideon lunged out of the smoke, his mana-blade carving a lethal violet arc through the air, melting a jagged trench into the concrete floor where she had stood a millisecond before. The ozone stench of ionized air burned her throat.

Mei activated her secret art from her past life—Shadow-Step.

Her frame blurred into an oily shadow. She reappeared directly behind Gideon’s left flank, where his heavy leather coat parted over his kidney. She drove her left dagger deep into the gap—shuck—feeling the blade bite through kevlar and slide into flesh with practiced precision.

Gideon roared in agony, his free hand swinging back with an iron wrist-cuff, catching Mei across the jaw.

CRACK.

Pain exploded behind her eyes, the metallic taste of hot blood flooding her mouth. She reeled back, tasting copper, her vision swimming for a fraction of a second.

Gideon spun around, his face contorted in a bloody grimace, raising his humming plasma sword for a downward execution strike. "Die, ghost!"

THWIP.

A heavy steel crossbow bolt slammed straight through Gideon's right shoulder joint from fifty feet away, shattering the collarbone. The violet mana-blade sputtered, flickered, and died with a weak, dying hiss.

Gideon stumbled, his eyes wide with shock as he looked past Mei toward the shadows.

Shane stood at the edge of the platform, the absolute authority of the squad's Captain radiating from his calm, steady posture. He was already racking another bolt into his heavy arbalest with cold, terrifying efficiency. "Touch our scout again, Gideon, and the next one goes through your eye."

Mei didn't waste the opening her Captain had bought her. She wiped the blood from her lip, stepped inside Gideon's ruined guard, and swept her right blade upward in a blinding flash of silver—a execution technique perfected across centuries of rebirth.

The edge sheared through his neck straps and throat plate with a wet, heavy slice.

Gideon froze, his hands flying to his neck as a line of dark red burst across his skin. He collapsed to his knees, then crashed face-first into the bloody runoff at her feet.

Around them, the gunfire died away, replaced by the heavy thrum of the dying wall-breaker and the ragged, echoing breaths of the four squad members.

Mei stood over the body, her chest heaving, the taste of her own blood iron-sharp on her tongue. Her hand shook slightly from the sheer adrenaline surge—not from fear, but from the raw, intoxicating realization that as a former solo assassin, she finally had a Captain worth following and a squad that held her flank.

Shane stepped beside her, kicking Gideon’s unpowered sword into the dark water before offering her a clean, dry rag.

"You holding up, Mei?" Shane asked, his voice low and commanding, yet carrying the quiet warmth of a leader who genuinely cared for his point scout.

Joshua jogged up, rifle resting over his shoulder, offering a sharp Vice Captain's nod. "Flank's clear, Captain. Sector secure."

Mei took the rag from Shane, dabbing the blood from her mouth, and looked at her team standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the smoke and sparks.

"I'm fine, Captain," she said, her daggers snapping back into their sheaths with a crisp, unified clack. "Clear the bodies. We have a gate to open."