CHAPTER 208: HE WASN’T DONE PART 1

Smoke lay in the valley’s low places like a second river. The HIMARS pod ticked as it cooled. The Black Dragon’s long barrel breathed heat in shimmering sheets. Beneath all of it, Inigo heard small things again: the drip from a shattered gutter, the hiss where river met hot stone, Lyra’s breath—a thin, stubborn rasp.

He slid to her, hands already moving. Pupils: uneven, reactive. Pulse: fast, thready. He eased a folded bandage beneath her broken shoulder to keep it high, cinched the sling tighter, and laid clean cloth along the cut at her temple.

"Lyra," he said softly. "If you hear me, stay still. Breathe. Let me be stupid for a while."

Her lips moved, a soundless refusal, then stilled.

The earth answered with a new sound. Not rockfall—deeper. A pulse, slow as a forge-bellows.

Inigo looked up.

Across the blasted slope, the mountain’s wound gathered its fire inward. Heat folded like fabric. Light braided itself in narrow channels. A shape stood and walked out of the glare as if the bombardment had been a chrysalis.

Armor that had been cracked now ran in fewer, thicker plates, edges beveled like tools. The bright seams no longer leaked; they carried heat on purpose, traced into sigils that meant weight and certainty. The cloak of flame hugged close, a second skin. His hammer had changed too: a twin-faced maul sharing a single burning core, fresh runes scoring the steel—pressure glyphs, denial marks, words that told forces where to go and where not to.

The Lord of Destruction had learned.

He planted the new hammer’s haft into the broken street, tilted his helm as if listening for the valley’s next idea. When he spoke, he didn’t raise his voice.

"You are wastes of minutes," he said, almost conversational. "Yet minutes teach."

Inigo rose. The M4 came up in his hands by habit, settled back down when the math refused to lie. The HIMARS was reloaded once; the Black Dragon had an empty breech; his body felt like a ledger of owed debts. Reinforcements? None. Bells in Elandra were distant rumor.

He called up the interface.

Freedom Shop — Weapon Catalogue

He didn’t browse. He stacked problems.

Heavy Weapons → Autocannons

– GAU-19/A (.50 BMG, triple-barrel) — Tripod — 8,000 Tokens → Buy.

– M61 Vulcan (20×102mm) — Pallet Turret + Power Unit — 22,000 Tokens → Buy.

– GAU-8/A Avenger (30×173mm) — Test Stand + Hydraulics + Power Cart — 120,000 Tokens → Buy.

Grenade Systems

– Mk 19 Mod 3 (40×53mm HEDP) — Tripod + 400 rds — 6,500 Tokens → Buy.

Mortars

– M120 120mm Mortar — Baseplate/Bipod + HE/Smoke/Illum (30 rds) — 18,000 Tokens → Buy.

Recoilless

– Carl Gustaf M4 (84mm) — 10 mixed rds (HEAT/HEDP/Smoke) — 9,500 Tokens → Buy.

MLRS

– ATACMS Pod (HIMARS-compatible) — Block 1A Unitary (2 rds) — 95,000 Tokens → Buy.

Metal obliged. The square became a field of steel animals sprinting into existence: the GAU-19 unfolded on its tripod like a three-throated dog; the Vulcan turret thumped alive with a generator’s purr; the GAU-8 arrived like a verdict, seven fat barrels on a stand that bit hydraulic claws into stone; the Mk 19 grinned on a low-slung cradle; the mortar’s baseplate hit granite with a happy, ground-agreeing thud; the Carl G came to hand light and honest.

He cut his thumb, drew a line of blood along each feed. He refused to enchant the guns—they were faithful because they were simple—but he blessed the conversations their bullets would have with the world.

On the .50 belt: line and bite—keeled flight, mean tip.

On the 20mm: teeth and teeth again—shrapnel that found seams twice.

On the 30mm: spine and steady—keep the slug centered when air said otherwise.

On the 40mm grenades: knock and enter.

On the 120mm HE: fall and finish.

On the Carl G rounds: a single, simple punch.

"Alright," he told the valley. "Lesson plan."

The GAU-19 spun up. A ribbon of tracers stitched across the Lord’s chest, the triple-beat of .50 BMG loud enough to put grit back into a man’s teeth. The bright skin around the giant dimmed a fraction; grooves skittered across the fused plates. He walked through the stream, cloak cinched tight, hammer balanced at his hip, patience like a blade.

Inigo stepped to the Vulcan. The M61’s whine climbed into a hungry, glassy pitch. Twenty-millimeter arguments tore the air. Tracers arrived as tidy red accusations and burned out against bevels he didn’t like. Even so, the Lord—not slowed—chose narrower steps. The hammer flicked; the new runes drank shocks and spit pressure sideways. He wasn’t invulnerable. He was busy.

"Good," Inigo muttered. "Juggle."

He hit the GAU-8 power cart with a shove of raw intent to keep the motor from sagging, then wrapped both hands around the yoke. The Avenger punished, thirty-millimeter rounds marching across the Lord’s waist with the authority of a drumline. Plate peeled in hot petals. Two shots punched through. Three. Molten light hissed like oil.

At last, a sound: not rage—pain. The Lord swung the hammer and pressed air into a wedge. The wedge lifted the 30mm stream just enough to walk it across helm and shoulder instead of center mass. The fifth round smacked the visor and screamed away into rock.

"Mortar!" Inigo barked to no one and everyone. He dropped a prepped HE down the tube and nudged the bipod to bias right six meters. The shell came down like a blunt thought and banged under the Lord’s leading foot. That earned a backward step—balance, not fear. Inigo spent the heartbeat that bought.

"ATACMS."

The HIMARS lid flipped. A single long missile strode skyward, curled, and drove like certainty into the cobbles at the Lord’s toes. The street refuted itself. Stone flew. A crater announced bad manners.

He stepped out of the smoke an instant later, armor blackened, seams bright, hammer steady. Calm as weather that had decided not to change.

"Knives and storms," he said. "I learn. You do not."

The hammer didn’t swing. It arrived. The Vulcan’s turret casing peeled; the GAU-19’s cradle twisted; the GAU-8’s stand howled and sagged. The shock washed over Inigo like a sheet of fast water; he took it with bent knees and moved because staying was a promise to get hit worse.

He yanked the Mk 19 onto its latch, bit a pin, and lobbed a ladder of grenades. HEDP pounded the cobbles in front of the Lord and then burst upward into his shins. If the armor was single-piece now, the shock still traveled along bone-pretending metal.