An army cannot kill a single man with a single blow. This has nothing to do with the strength of the army versus the strength of the man. Rather, it has everything to do with simple physics. Even in a virtual world, a person takes up space; as large a man as Tesla was, only four armed killers could surround him at one time with the intent of taking his life. Any more than that would fail to cause any serious harm, as the killers in question would not have enough room to properly wield their weapons without getting in one-another's way.

Tesla's own nature created another extreme: Pound for pound, he was vastly more powerful than any of his enemies were. A single opponent was no match. Thus, the bronze-armored soldiers were faced with an unusual dilemma they were not prepared for. Like a pack of wolves hunting a moose, they would have to whittle him down and wear him out before they could move in for the kill.

Not even the bowyers or magicians were exempted from these simple facts. An arrow loosed, or a spell unleashed, was just as likely to harm an ally as it would Tesla himself so long as he was surrounded. Moreover, a single arrow or spell would be insufficient to land a deathblow. 

There was only one pathway to victory: Mob tactics. Ignore defense; swarm him under. Sacrifice as many as it takes to bring the target down. The first move came from the tallest of the three scouts who revealed themselves earlier. There was no greeting, no offering of terms, or laying out of demands. The man simply reversed his grip on the dagger clenched in his fist, skipped forward in a well-practiced move, then tried to punch the knife into Tesla's right eye.

Tesla was not a swordsman, as the virtual world of Corundum understood the term, for he didn't have the proper Job Class. He could hold a sword in his hand, but the rules stated that he couldn't equip that weapon and use it in battle. At the same time, the device that whipped free from his side in a volatile hiss of whirring, lubricated, steel-on-steel was not a sword. Technically it was a golem and, as Tesla held the pinnacle golem-based Job Class of Golemeister, he was free to wield it however he wished.

There were no skills involved in his counterattack, because he had none. All Tesla could rely on was a combination of raw speed and the superior nature of his device. At two-thirds of his body length, the chainblade had more than enough reach. At fourteen thousand rotations per minute a single steel tooth could strike the body of the scout, orbit all the way around the length of the swordlike golem's guiding bar, and bite into the scout 232 more times in the span of a single second. That effect was multiplied many times over, as every link in the spinning chain was topped with yet another steel tooth.

With a single blow the hardened chain shredded the scout's breastplate like tissue paper, ground his intervening ribs into dust, and liquified a lung. It probably would have bisected the man altogether, but death claimed him in a cloud of reeking smoke before the ghastly chewing weapon made its way to his spinal column. Still, the chainblade managed to produce quite a spectacular arc of brilliant red blood accompanied by less-identifiable bits and gobbets within that astonishingly short time span.

It was a magnificently crude iai, a strike that any self-respecting practitioner of the sword would have ridiculed as hopelessly clumsy and full of wasted movements, but it was horrendously effective. Blades were meant to slice and stab; axes were designed to chop. Saws did something else altogether: A combination of ripping and grinding that, when used against flesh, was not only stomach churning to see but equally nauseous to hear.

The broad circle of armed men and women surrounding Tesla tensed up, but held their ground; the test verified their assumption, after all. The wolves weren't hunting a moose. They just stumbled onto an ice bear. Tesla held the humming device up and pointed it randomly at the crowd. They're not backing away, but look at them flinch. All I need is a long coat and a lit cigar in the corner of my mouth to complete the image. "Right, that's one down. Who's next?"

There was no longer any concern for operating safety, or the survival of one's fellows. A mob could push a victim down then pull him apart with dozens of bare hands, or simply trample someone underfoot. It was the only feasible strategy.

From a tactical standpoint it was both the right and the wrong move to make, but Tesla didn't think any of the men and women dashing forward were actually thinking about tactics. They were right in the sense that they actually had a better chance of pinning him down with sheer numbers, but wrong in their execution. More soldiers were probably going to die at each other's hands due to friendly fire than be killed by Tesla himself. He didn't realize that his enemies were perfectly willing to exchange that much blood for victory, even though he technically understood that he would have to kill so many before they finally backed off. At his heart he was still a modern tactical weapon, used to the idea that a sufficient show of force can deter fools.

Sure enough, individual arrows began to streak in from multiple directions. Occasionally a fireball, or some other bolt of arcane energy, would fly through in counterpoint. Some of them managed to part the air quite close to Tesla's body. All of them impacted against the raging soldiers around him.

Idiots. I'll die where I stand if I keep standing here. Tesla's eyes narrowed as his processing speeds accelerated and the army-turned-horde slowed in response. Better break out before I'm rolled under. Since any one route was just as likely as the other, the ryujin charged in the direction he was facing.

Advancing on a suddenly-berserk swarm of heavily armed and armored men with a howling chainblade gripped in one's trailing hand produces a glorious image of the heroic warrior. Leading with a finger pistol does not. Unfortunately for Tesla's self-image, Lunatic Shot was the kind of spell that needed a focus point to start from and a finger gun was all he had. As a compensating bonus, though, the "Shot" had a short casting time, which allowed Tesla to spam rifle rounds of condensed magic into the meat in front of him like fire support from an embedded sniper.

"Come on, you bastards!" Tesla unleashed an exaggerated spin as he dove through the guttering smoke of dead soldiers, his chainblade roaring in a massive backhand arc at waist height. "Who among you has the balls to escort this dragon to hell!?"

"Your Highness!" A lone guardsman in simple armor pushed through a small wall of men and women, leaving a wash of irritated voices shouting out curses and threats in his wake, as he bulled his way to the center of the makeshift hilltop headquarters his lord and master assembled to defend his precious home. "Make way, make way! Your Highness!" The young Solitaire clansman was one of those special cases: The kind whose future you immediately knew the instant you looked at him. A bull-necked human, with a body that was the same width from the shoulders down to his feet; Brindle Strom was born to put on armor and carry a sword.

"Report." The press of men and women relaxed and pulled back, some unwillingly, to make room for the one person that could inspire the Royal Army's loyalty with a wave of her hand.

The Solitaire guard dropped to one knee, and bowed his head. "Your Highness, there has been an incident-"

Hack, slash, parry, counter, defend, take a hit, counter again. A woman overextended herself with a broadsword, and the edge clashed against the spinning chain. Caught by the weapon's teeth, the sword was quickly dragged by the rotation to the chainblade's handguard. Unable to let go in time, the woman in question was unbalanced further; she fell into the roaring steel, her scream of pain cut short by a gruesome death.

Sensing an opportunity, another bronze soldier leapt forward with his heavy spear. At first he appeared to be attempting an all-or-nothing piercing strike by throwing all of his weight behind it like a lancer's charge, but he changed his approach at the last second and tried to sweep Tesla's feet out from under him instead. He didn't get close; the ryujin's hammer tail swatted the spearhead back with a jarring impact that forced the spear wielder to withdraw.

A pair of arrows whipped in through that opening. One flew too high and grazed Tesla's cheek, but the other dug into his shoulder with a solid thwack. It was a broadhead arrow, too, which meant nothing short of knifework would dig it out. In the greater scheme of things it actually didn't do that much damage, but Tesla already had several lucky shots dug into his back. Those archers were a pain in the ass, but it was nearly impossible to get rid of them. He loosed a couple rounds of the Lunatic Shot in their direction anyway, but didn't spare a glance for whether or not they hit.

Dull gray light warned Tesla of an approaching combat skill. He yanked his arm back just in time to avoid the vicious swing of an axe, then swept it back out again in a lightning-quick back fist that launched his attacker back into the crowd. Judging by the limp nature the man had as he flew back, quickly followed by the disgusted sounds voiced by the fellow's compatriots, he probably didn't survive the experience.

A couple of scouts darted in, their bronze daggers gleaming. Tesla bisected one with the chainblade, but their combined pressure was just enough to push him backwards a step in the process. This triggered a trap spell laid by a mage in all the confusion, and the resulting explosion flung Tesla forward in a neat parabolic arc towards a bunched-up group of spearmen.

Unfortunately for the spear wielders, they oriented their weapons forward because they expected the blast to propel Tesla straight into their ranks. The second of the previous two scouts, however, was standing too close when the blast went off. Smashing into the scout altered Tesla's trajectory and sent him over the uppermost spears the soldiers were wielding, whereupon he dropped on top of them like a crate of rocks.

Another spell appeared; this time, it was a thunderbolt from above. Tesla grunted as his skin burned and the soldiers beneath him were flash-fried, but he dragged himself to his feet and forced his body to walk nonchalantly out of the conflagration. Since the area of effect was relatively broad, the lightning spell forced the attackers back from Tesla's position. The golem device spat blood and ash as Tesla balanced its back guard across his shoulders. The tip of his index finger shone with the light of Lunatic Shot as he stabbed it out at the men and women before him. "Not nearly good enough."

"Soai damn it all," the bronze-armored captain slapped his spyglass closed with an angry snarl and smashed his fist against the top of the wall he was perched on, "what is he, a zombie?"

A feminine voice wafted up from below him. "At the very least, he's far stronger than the reports led us to believe."

The captain groaned and knuckled his forehead. "How many have we lost?"

"Thirty." Another explosion echoed out from the streets beyond. "Make that thirty-two."

"Shit. ...Any movement from the rest?"

"Not yet. I estimate it will take another three minutes to get that rabble into order, then another twenty to sprint all the way here."

"Twenty three minutes to get what we need and get out." The captain scratched idly at the stubble on his chin. "Fine. Contact Chesler; tell him to pull out all the stops; let's get this over with."

Tesla stumbled through an arrow barrage and buried his chainblade in the guts of another axe fighter. "I figured," he muttered, "what are the effects?"

"Then I'm fine, right?" The blonde ryujin spun his golem device in front of his face to ward off another dagger while using Tail Swipe to take out a swordsman at the knees.

"That sucks." A giant of a troll hove into view. He was armored almost as heavily as Trinzet and wielded a hefty stone club studded with iron spikes. Tesla traded a handful of blows with the goliath; he was strong but too slow, a simple kick to the knees brought him low enough for Tesla to plunge his claws into the troll's eye sockets. "How long until it wears off?"

"Great." Tesla dove underneath a prismatic spray of acidic magic, snatched a scout by the collar of her jumpsuit, and tossed her at the mage attacking him. Both went down in a tangle of limbs and curses. "Can I last the event?"

"Oh, god damn it, don't flag me like-" With a despairing cry, one mage thrust his staff at the cobblestone street, and a broad magic circle snapped into existence. Moments later, an enormous serpent slithered out of the mystic gate like it was the entrance to the beast's den. Thanks to its unbelievable size, easily on par with four eighteen-wheelers lined end to end, Tesla was easily able to identify the species. It wasn't the heavy nature of the scales, the pattern on its body, the spade shaped head, or the immense fangs that gave it away. Rather, the way the brown and tan devil coiled up on itself and began to vibrate the dry rattle on the tip of its tail told the entire story.

Just to add insult to injury, six more trolls flanked the giant rattlesnake in a crash of weapons and armor. Without a signal between them, the reinforcements advanced. What happened immediately after was... unexpected.

To say that the relief force dispatched to rescue Tesla was hurriedly assembled was something of an understatement. Janek was quietly impressed with how much Trinzet restrained herself when she heard that the newly-discovered focus of her entire life was battling alone against a roughly two hundred man army, but the rest of the men and women who made their last minute preparations studiously avoided looking her in the eyes. Even hidden behind a heavy helmet, everyone instinctively knew that the expression adorning the Lioness of Rodannes' leonine face was something usually reserved for traitors and excrement discovered on the bottoms of one's boots.

Then something in the distance shrieked like an overheated steam kettle loud enough to fracture glass.

"Stuff it, you goddamned dictionary! Find us a way out of here!" Tesla vaulted the smouldering wreckage of a wagon, booting the back of a fleeing rioter's head in the process, and tumbled out of the way of a monstrous impact to the street behind him. The earth fractured from the force of the blow, and cobblestones flew in all directions like grapeshot fired from the mouths of cannons. The summoned viper ripped its head free of the cratered debris it formed and glared evilly at the fleeing ryujin from a cloud of pulverised rock.

, from its usual habitat into the middle of Diatom. After killing most of your enemies with its angry flailing about, it has chosen to focus on you.>

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tesla silently cursed the world in general. It was bad enough that some overeager mage took it upon him- or her-self to attempt to summon a monster to kill me in a frustrated fit of pique, but to immediately lose control and let a random monstrosity loose in the middle of the city instead? A beast without a leash, that can kill anyone with a single hit? No wonder the entire assaulting force was practically wiped out in seconds! The damn thing went nuts as soon as the trolls surrounded it!

Just as Book had promised before, nothing human-sized could actually hurt a monstrosity. Likewise, any action remotely attack-oriented by such a fiend meant instant death from even a glancing blow. The Diamond-Backed King actually killed most of the surrounding soldiers simply by moving; as its armored belly crushed the streets beneath it, flying shards of rock flew in all directions like flechettes fired from multiple shotgun volleys. The only safe place, in a relative sense, was right in front of the "King," but that put the fleeing Tesla dead center in the monstrosity's sight.

The "King" wasn't particularly interested in such niceties as curving roads or intervening walls, either. It gave every indication that it was perfectly happy to smash through any and all architecture while it tried to swallow Tesla whole in one go. Though he hated the idea of it, Tesla forced himself to take the shortest routes possible by jumping along streets, walls, and rooftops just to stay ahead. Embers were undoubtedly ground to ash behind him, but the thunderous noise of gratuitous destruction and the steamwhistle hiss of the monstrosity mercifully hid their screams.

Eventually the Nobles' Quarter faded away and Tesla found himself in the crowded realm of the city proper. There the constant fires had taken their toll; whole neighborhoods and markets were burned to the ground or little more than skeletal half-shells. The burnt smell of death lingered everywhere. Streets were choked with scorched stone and charred timber. In the chaos, long-time friends and family members tried to kill one another or loot from their own businesses. Madness reigned supreme; the farther Tesla ran, the more he saw out of the corners of his eyes. The farther he ran, the less he wanted to see.

Madness was not enough, though; no amount of stress-induced insanity could override people's instinctive terror of giants. The image of the Diamond-Backed King as it stormed through the blackened rubble sent the mobs scurrying for cover with cries of horror wrenched from the very depths of their souls. The walls are breached, people sobbed, colossi stalk the city. Word spread faster than the fires; the riot in general figuratively tripped over its own feet and performed an epic face-plant. Men crying out for the blood of the king one moment began demanding protection from him the next.

The riots collapsed like a flimsy house of cards as a result. Bronze-armored soldiers, no longer protected by the cover of chaos, were steamrolled by the numerically superior city guard. An effusive use of water-based magics stunted the growth of the omnipresent fires. Thousands of men and women were detained as the king's justice slowly regained its grip.

Tesla missed most of it. The Diamond-Backed King was persistent and, without Book's map functions, the ryujin had no idea where he was going within the vast city limits of Diatom. He meandered everywhere, pursued by a psychopathically overzealous serpent and routinely assaulted by crazed men and women clad in that ubiquitous bronze with blood in their eyes. A lucky break at a ruined apothecarion shop netted him a handful of restorative potions; using them gave him just enough HP to outlast the one hour limit on his poisoned status, but the nonstop action had him dangerously close to "zero" nonetheless.

If he had time to think, he would have immediately realized that he needed to make straight for Diatom's outer wall. It was the most logical place to find the only counter for a monstrosity, after all, but at the time his priorities were somewhat shuffled. Taking advantage of the terrain in order to stay alive for just a handful more seconds came to the forefront; Tesla was in total survival mode.

"Uuuuaaaaaaggggghhhhh!" Tesla leapt from rooftop to rooftop like a parkour enthusiast with a deathwish, his every dive followed by the roaring crash of tons of muscle, wood, and rock, as the Diamond-Backed King rammed into the building he just left behind. "When are you gonna' stop, you bastard!?"

is dead.>

"What the hell!?" Tesla sailed off another roof, grabbed a flagpole, and used his momentum to whip himself towards another building at a right angle from his path. The "King" didn't skip a beat; the titanic rattlesnake exploded out of the building its prey had escaped from and swerved, almost casually, onto Tesla's new route. It plowed into the next structure with contemptible ease, and Tesla heard its high-pitched hissing deepen slightly to something resembling a steamboat's whistle. "How am I supposed to do that!? Pull a cataphract out of my ass!?"

"I've been running for twenty-four hours! If my level weren't in the triple digits I'd have died of exhaustion by now! How much longer will this take!?"

"What?" Tesla jumped off the next roof- and found nothing but ice underneath him. His mind processed furiously; city, then dry docks, piers, and finally a massive plain of ice. He was in the harbor. The blonde ryujin felt his boots give way after so much desperate punishment, then his clawed toes dug into the ice.

The drop was severe; a few more HP were shaved off that Tesla couldn't really afford to lose. There was no time to mourn his condition, though. He immediately started running again while silently praying that his naturally-armored feet would repel the cold as well as they repelled the hard and sharp edges of the bay's ice. Tesla got over a hundred yards into the harbor before he finally noticed that something was off.

The "King" wasn't following him. Instead, the immense serpent was coiled up among the dry docks and staring Tesla's way with a monumental amount of raw hatred. By all appearances, the beast made it as far as the pier before withdrawing; an entire section was partially collapsed. Afraid of the cold? No, wait; Janek said monstrosities were unaffected by natural environmental conditions. Is the ice too thin to support its bulk? The harbor is extremely deep, after all. Normal snakes can swim, even terrestrial versions like the rattler; maybe those super-dense scales are too heavy? Then again, it might just be an issue of preference. "Any ideas, Book?"

"What, seriously?" Tesla glanced around the wharf. "Where?"

Book flipped into Tesla's view and then bounced in a seemingly-random direction further away from the docks. class ship immured in the frozen harbor surrounded by a handful of abandoned cataphracts refitted for demolition and cargo transfer across the ice.>

Sure enough, the unmistakable bulk of a ship sat in the distance, surrounded by a handful of smaller lumps half-buried in snowfall. "So the fat bastard's not afraid of the water, he's afraid of getting bullied by a gang his own size. Typical coward, huh?"

will act.>

With no other option, Tesla ran toward the broken ship. "Can I use one of them?"

"What are my odds?"

"Then, we roll the dice and see what happens." Luckily, the icebreaker wasn't too much farther away; Tesla reached it in short order, and began digging the snow away from the closest super-sized golem. "Where do I-"

, boot up the golem's circuits, and open the access hatch to the located in the cataphract's head section.>

"Umph. Like so, and... like so. What's this engine thing supposed to be? I thought golems ran on cores." The snow-covered machine ground to life with a noise like gears trying to mesh with broken teeth. "Whoa, that sounds bad." Atop the cataphract, at the point normally called the crown of the head on living people, a simple circular hatch popped open on a single hinge. Tesla obliged the invitation, scrambled up to the hatch, and dove in feet-first.

is a golem core; its size and power output simply places it in a class of its own.>

"How does this change my chances of survival?" Inside the cataphract's head there was very little room; just a heavily-cushioned torso space with four inserts for the arms and legs. Resting inside a cataphract's was like wearing a full-body cast after a skiing accident. "Sarcophagus" is a good word. They really don't want you moving around in here. My tail's already killing me, to say nothing about these damn arrowheads in my back. How do I control it?"

"Right. And... start!" The experience was like a coin being flipped over; that is, if you were the coin. Tesla lost awareness of his own body for a moment, then his vision cleared and he found himself sitting in the snow. "Oh. How intuitive; I can imagine hundreds of real-robot enthusiasts moaning in defeat and outrage the first time they use one of these, though." With a metallic groan, Tesla dragged himself upright and tried to find his center of balance. "Of course, a cockpit with a dozen levers, control sticks, switches, and pedals would be too complicated for most players. Commanding the cataphract as an avatar was the right choice."

The Diamond-Backed King rumbled in confusion at the pack of "dangerous things" in the white distance. Its body may have been huge, but its brain was tiny; it was almost impossible for the great viper to tell the difference between a dormant cataphract and an active one. The snow-covered machines' total lack of mobility was starting to warm up a handful of rusty synapses, though.

This nebulous suspicion firmed when only one of the snow-covered cataphracts launched from its position like a toy fired from a rubber band and began careening around like a teenager was behind the wheel. The fact that none of the other machines reacted to the first's antics helped a lot, and the cataphract's overall image further reinforced the giant's bravado. It was a crudely cobbled together mechanism full of riveted patchwork repairs that gave it a scrappy, overused and abused look.

The head, which held both the and the primary golem circuitry, was little more than a glorified dome with a cyclopic camera feed rotating around a ring mount that was completely exposed to the elements. The torso, which housed the and the primary drive mechanisms, was an ex-military refit that looked like it saw its better days a century in the past. The legs... were non-existant; the cataphract plowed through the snow on a tank-like platform with four sets of exposed treads at the corners.

Only two things gave the "King" pause at that time: The arms. The cataphract's right was thin, with a snake-like flexibility, but the hand that capped it was disturbingly large. The left arm was nothing more than a reinforced tube on a pintle mount, but old memories surfaced in the back of what passed for the snake's mind about such things firing off ranged attacks.

In the end, the Diamond-Backed King charged anyway. There was only one opponent, after all, and the huge viper was instinctively certain of its own supremacy. Of far greater importance was the fact that its prey was suddenly tracking in the same place as the hated machine; the "King" felt obligated to act.

"Oh, a heads-up display, how useful!" Tesla slung the cataphract around in a final, broad arc then brought it to a stop. The single camera rotated around its ring mount and examined the immense golem's arms. "Still, only a cargo claw and a glorified cutting torch for weapons, huh?"

"Maybe." The camera rotated again, this time focusing on the titanic snake in the distance. "Then again, maybe not. The Diamond-Backed King is only a double-digit level monstrosity, but I'm a triple-digit smurfing in a tin can. Now that I've bypassed the limitation giant-sized enemies put on you, I should be able to kill it with one hit."

incorporated into all cataphracts exponentially expands the power output of combat skills and spells. However, your skill set is limited to the capabilities this defective unit can handle.> At last, the "King" grew tired of waiting. The tremendous rattler resumed its steamkettle hissing and heaved its bulk out onto the ice. Cracks rippled out across the frozen harbor from the monstrosity's overwhelming mass as it resumed its charge in a blistering cloud of snow and chipped ice like a localized blizzard. , upgraded to , and , upgraded to . However, as the is currently tagged as a class entity, sleep magic is non-effective. Moreover without a tail, or at least a hammer-like device, the upgraded version of is not available.>

Tesla immediately threw the cataphract into reverse and tried to match the "King's" pace. "What about Lunatic Shot, then? If the cargo claw on this heap can withstand an upgraded version of Dragon Claw, surely it can handle a Shot or two?"

would inevitably be channelled through the cataphract's left arm. Unfortunately, the left arm is designed to withstand much weaker flame-based spells to produce a "blowtorch effect" for the cutting of metals. Funnelling through such an arm would cause it to explode. Most likely, secondary explosions would follow within the torso section. This would inevitably kill both the cataphract and yourself.>

Tesla winced internally; the snake was getting closer. "So all I have is the claw, and there's not even any point in trying to duke it out with that fat freak with anything but a skill?"

"Last chance showdowns really aren't my thing, Book." Tesla ground all four treads to a halt in a spray of frost, then slammed into forward gear with a crash of metal. "For the record, this seriously sucks ass." The unmistakable mass of the Diamond-Backed King quickly filled Tesla's HUD; he drew the cargo claw back and tucked the oversized hand-like device close to the cataphract's side. "Damn it, I'm supposed to be retired."

Tesla expanded his awareness, and the world slowed to a crawl. The "King" was already lifting the first third of its body free of the ice, its neck curved into the unmistakable "S" shape of a viper preparing to strike. Its eyes seemed dull and dead, but somehow they burned with an unmistakable malice.

At his mental urging, a targeting reticle swam into view and painted itself right where the rattlesnake's neck joined with its spade shaped head. He aimed for a beheading strike. So did the "King."

The Diamond-Backed King's vast mouth gaped wide, its jaws fully unhinged. Two fangs, long enough to be wielded as swords by a cataphract, glistened with a preemptive discharge of toxic venom. Its throat gaped like a cavern; Tesla could have walked down it.

The cargo claw glowed with a light of its own. That light pushed the claw away from the side of the cataphract as it expanded, then quickly realized itself into a transluscent halo crafted in a stylized image of saurian talons. Tesla had to trail the claws behind the charging cataphract just to make room for them.

Man versus monstrosity; tons of patchworked steel paired against tons of demonic flesh. One winner, one loser, decided in a single pass. Tesla screamed and leaped; the treads of the cataphract exploded as he flexed their drives all at once and forced the mammoth golem airborne.

Temporarily free of the constraints of gravity, Tesla interposed the cataphract's tank platform like a tower shield and met the Diamond-Backed King's wide open jaws head on. The monstrosity's fangs pierced the makeshift shield like tissue paper, but the force of the impact caused them to instinctively close up and lock the cataphract into place. The "King," shrieking in pain and dumb outrage, rose up high into the air and balanced on the last third of its tail. Its head twisted back and forth, like a dog with a rat in its mouth, as it tried to shake the cataphract loose, but its own physiology betrayed it.

Tesla hooked the near-useless left arm over the lip of the tank platform and dragged the torso of the cataphract closer to its edge. He could hear the overstressed waist joints creak and groan as they were forced to bend significantly farther than they were supposed to, but all that mattered were those precious few feet that would bring the monstrosity within reach. In moments, which felt like a lifetime, the cyclopean camera of the cataphract's head section cleared the edge and peered deep into the Diamond-Backed King's flaming eyes.

The Imperial Dragon Claw swept forward like the wrath of a primordial god. "The snake doesn't challenge the dragon. Learn your place."