CHAPTER 205: NOT HOPELESS

The ruins of Stonebridge and Marrowport boiled with heat and silence. Smoke curled in the air, black against the red glow bleeding from the seams in the Lord of Destruction’s armor. Each breath he took made the molten cracks flare and hiss, as if the world itself was being smelted around him.

Inigo braced behind the tilted husk of the JLTV, chest heaving, his last magazine running dry. Lyra crouched on the broken ribs of a granary wall, one arrow left in her quiver, its tip glowing faint with the shimmer of her skill. Both were cut, dusted with ash, and running on the thin edge of exhaustion.

The Lord raised his hammer high, the weight of it dragging the air into silence. His molten eyes fixed on them as though they were nothing but embers left to be stamped out.

"Fall," he intoned, the word carrying like a bell tolling for graves.

The hammer descended.

Lyra moved first, springing left in a blur, vaulting off broken stone. Her arrow streaked wide of his gauntlet, forcing the hammer just enough off line that it smashed into cobble rather than skull. The shockwave cracked the ground, stone teeth erupting skyward, tossing both fighters apart. Inigo rolled hard, ribs screaming, dust blasting across his face.

He came up braced on one knee, rifle barking in short, sharp bursts. The rounds sparked along the molten seam at the Lord’s waist, ricocheting sparks bright as stars. It wasn’t enough to stop him—but it made him look.

Lyra landed atop a broken arch, string already pulled to her cheek. "Now!" she called.

The arrow shrieked through the haze, trailing a shimmer that made the air bend around it. It buried itself in the crack Inigo’s fire had chewed open. For the first time, the Lord’s stride faltered. His knee dipped, weight shifting awkwardly, molten blood seeping in bright rivulets down scorched armor.

Inigo’s pulse jumped. "He bleeds," he spat, disbelieving even as he saw it hiss against the stone.

The Lord’s head turned, molten eyes narrowing. His voice cracked the air. "Knives. Sharp. But still knives."

He wrenched the arrow free with a motion that sprayed molten ichor across the ground. The cobbles hissed, tiny pits smoking where it landed. The brute lifted his hammer, slower this time, one gauntlet pressed to his hip as if unconsciously shielding it.

It was progress. A wound. A mark on the invincible.

Inigo snapped a half-broken RPG tube off the rubble, jammed a warped rocket into its rails, and shouldered the crooked weapon. No sight, no time. He fired.

The rocket screamed across the ruin, impacting square into the crack Lyra had opened. The blast tore another plate free, molten shards clattering across the stone. The Lord staggered two steps backward, gauntlet clawing at the exposed seam.

The roar that followed was not rage but pain.

Lyra’s eyes widened, her breath catching. "We can hurt him."

Inigo slammed a fresh mag into his M4, the bolt snapping forward. "Then we keep hurting him."

The Lord answered not with words but with his hammer. He swung it one-handed, dragging a shockwave that cleaved stone like paper. The blast hurled rubble through the air, shattered the husk of the JLTV, and tossed Inigo clear across the square. He slammed into a cracked column, pain spiking through his ribs, ears ringing.

Lyra vaulted clear, rolling hard, dust blasting across her face. She pulled herself upright, blood at her lip, bowstring already drawn. She loosed fast, arrows rattling out in a rhythm sharper than breath. Each struck sparks, one biting deep into the Lord’s gauntlet seam. The brute turned toward her, cloak of flame coiling, warhammer dragging fire behind it.

"Insect," he rumbled, raising the hammer high.

Inigo staggered upright, vision swimming. His rifle rattled, each burst hammering the seam Lyra had marked. "Not an insect," he muttered through grit teeth. "More like a hornet."

The hammer fell.

The impact split the square, rubble blasted into the sky. Lyra was hurled from her perch, landing hard, breath knocked from her lungs. Inigo ducked behind a toppled arch, ears ringing, teeth clenched. He checked the mag—half empty already.

The Lord loomed through the dust, cloak of flame curling like smoke given purpose. He dragged his hammer across the stone, each scrape leaving molten trails that burned like open wounds in the earth. His gaze fixed on them both, no longer bored.

He had noticed them.

The fight devolved into fragments of survival.

Inigo darted between cover, rifle hammering in short bursts, brass clattering at his boots. Lyra vaulted walls and collapsed beams, arrows striking joints, helm, and seams. Each shot bought seconds, each burst forced the brute to turn, to adjust, to waste motion.

And still he advanced.

Every hammer swing broke another section of ruin. Every shockwave cracked the square wider. The city itself seemed to groan under the weight of his presence.

Inigo slammed his last mag home, the bolt rattling forward. He exhaled, wiped grit from his eyes, and fired again. "Come on, keep looking at me."

The Lord obliged. The molten eyes fixed on him, warhammer swinging in an arc wide enough to take down half a tower. Inigo dove flat, the blast tearing cobble where he’d stood. Lyra’s arrow streaked in the distraction, burying in the back of the brute’s knee. He lurched, knee dipping again.

"Hit!" Lyra shouted.

Inigo snapped the RPG tube back up, loaded his last rocket, and fired. The explosion tore molten plates free, a blast of slag raining down. The brute staggered backward, his gauntlet pressed to the new wound. Molten blood hissed down his thigh, glowing like smelted ore.

The Lord roared again—louder this time, the sound shaking stone and dust from the ruined walls. His hammer rose high, flame coiling around its head, heat warping the air.

"Fall," he intoned again, voice shuddering the ruins.

Inigo gritted his teeth, rifle raised. Lyra strung her last arrow, the glow crawling up the shaft. They stood shoulder to shoulder in the broken square, facing the furnace of his gaze.

The hammer descended—

—but they both moved, faster than thought.

Lyra vaulted left, arrow streaking bright as lightning, piercing the seam in his gauntlet and forcing the swing wide. The hammer smashed into stone, shockwave hurling rubble skyward. Inigo dove right, rifle rattling, bursts hammering into the wound at his waist.

The brute twisted, cloak of flame sweeping ash into a spiral. His armor cracked further, glowing seams spreading like fractures in glass. He staggered, just slightly—but he staggered.

Lyra landed hard, stringing the last arrow. "He’s weakening."

Inigo chambered his final rounds. "Not fast enough."

The Lord’s molten eyes flared brighter. He roared, hammer raised again, voice a prophecy:

"When I finish here, Eldrath will be ash."

Inigo spat blood, rifle braced. "Not if we burn you first."

Lyra loosed.

The arrow streaked, glowing bright enough to sear the air. It buried itself deep in the wound at his waist, vanishing to the fletching. The brute lurched, molten ichor spilling across the cobbles in hissing rivers.

Inigo surged forward, rifle hammering point-blank into the wound. Sparks sprayed, molten blood splattering his vest. He kept firing, teeth bared. "Bleed, damn you!"

The Lord staggered, knees dipping, hammer dragging as he caught his balance. He snarled, molten cracks splitting wider.

For the first time since he had risen from the obsidian ring, he looked less like inevitability—

and more like something that could be killed.

The fight raged on, the ruins themselves groaning under every blow. The Lord’s hammer cracked towers into rubble, shockwaves shattering cobbles into dust. Inigo and Lyra darted between cover, weapons rattling, arrows hissing. Every shot, every strike, every breath became a bargain with time.

But the wound was real. The ichor hissed against stone. His steps were slower, his swings heavier. He was still a furnace, still destruction incarnate—but he was not untouchable.

The stalemate held.

Progress had been made.

But it cost them.

Inigo’s arms shook with the recoil of every burst. His vest was scorched where molten blood had spattered, the stink of burning leather clinging to him. Lyra’s quiver hung empty, the string of her bow fraying from strain, her fingers raw. They were alive only because they moved faster than fear, sharper than exhaustion.

The Lord of Destruction stood taller still, his hammer glowing with furnace heat, cloak of fire licking higher in the night. But his armor bore the truth they had carved into him: cracks running deep, ichor dripping in molten streaks, seams split wider with every clash. He was wounded. He could bleed.

And he knew it.

His molten eyes narrowed, gaze burning into them with something colder than rage. Calculation. Recognition.

"Insects that sting," he rumbled, voice like collapsing stone. "Then I will remember your names when Eldrath burns."

He stepped forward, hammer dragging a fiery trench through the cobbles. Inigo and Lyra braced, shoulders squared, no more arrows to waste, no more rockets to fire—only grit left in their veins.

The ruin groaned around them, smoke rolling thick.

The fight was far from finished.

But for the first time, it was not hopeless.