36 Escapist

Rhok stood before the withered husk of what used to be a nun, his metal-gloved hands clenched tightly around the hilt of his bloodied blade. His eyes darted frantically, taking in the devastation.

Every corpse was a hollow shell, drained of soul and life.

"How could this be?" he whispered in disbelief.

Before he could gather his thoughts, the sky flashed with blinding intensity.

Moments later, the distant thunder of millions of microbombs rolled across the landscape. His fleet. His comrades. They would have scrambled for cover, but death had pursued and reaped them all the same.

"Daniel!" Rhok yelled, his scream lost to the uncaring wind.

Daniel Asher, his silver knight, the one who had watched over him from the sky, came crashing down like a fallen angel. All four of Daniel's and five of Rhok's suits free-fell, exploding upon impact and leaving nothing but pyres of composite ash.

Now, only one functional Armatus suit remained — the very one he had disembarked from to commit this hideous crime. Deserted in the ruins he helped create, the irony was a bitter pill.

Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of Rhok Wagner's misfortunes.

First, the global communication network collapsed across Germund and its neighbouring countries. Days bled into one another without orders.

For weeks, Rhok scavenged for food and supplies, sustaining himself on whatever scraps he could find. His suit contained a week's worth of MREs and medpacks, but he reserved those for true desperation.

Veterans like him knew the dangers of being cut off from the chain of command. Wars could drag on for weeks, months, or even years.

Then, one night, a routing message finally crackled through the silence. It was an instruction, transmitted via an ancient but reliable radio signal, to rendezvous with the remaining knights.

"What else is there to do?" Rhok sighed, finishing his scavenged meal in the shell of an abandoned house.

Soon after, he launched into the night, his Armatus suit hovering just above the ground as he flew undetected towards the rendezvous point.

When he reached the warehouse, nothing indicated it was a Dunkelheit base.

Odd. Either it was exceptionally well-disguised, or this was a trap.

Scepticism gnawed at him as he proceeded cautiously around the perimeter, scanning for heat signatures.

Nothing.

"I hate this…" Rhok grumbled, grinding his teeth.

His dark Armatus suit made a soft landing on the northern side of the warehouse, the thruster lights dimming as the engine powered down.

Disembarking, he moved towards the treeline. To his right, a fallen Armatus suit lay twisted among crushed trees, its impact having obliterated everything in its path.

"Tsk!" Rhok clicked his tongue in exasperation and moved on.

A hidden compartment in his gauntlet slid open, revealing a pulse gun. The plasma nozzle sprang out, humming as it powered up. A tingling premonition crawled up the back of his neck. He might need it.

He wove through rows of silent containers and trunks. Nothing seemed out of place. A glance at his screen confirmed the rendezvous point: the large warehouse ahead.

A rectangular structure with massive, collapsible metal doors stood waiting, eerily still. Flickering fluorescent lamps cast long, dancing shadows, providing meagre illumination.

"This better not be a sick joke," he muttered, stepping through the colossal metal doorway. Darkness swallowed him whole.

His boots clanked against the cold concrete, the sound echoing through the large hall. The oppressive stillness sent a chill down his spine. It dawned on him then, with chilling certainty, that this was a setup.

"Bloody hell," he cursed under his breath.

He groaned but refused to retreat. This wasn't the work of a mage, was it? It had to be those Arcanii bastards and their cheap tricks. Soon, they would realise just how powerful a knight was in his personal suit.

Then, the air shifted.

A ripple.

Rhok spun, but nothing was there. He followed the faint disturbance, hunting for its source. Rounding a corner, he spotted a trail of blood leading into one of the storage rooms.

"The hell…" he muttered again. Hardened by war, he still found that gore unsettled him. He tapped his visor's scanner. Nothing suspicious detected.

"Fine," he groaned, pressing his back against the doorframe.

With his plasma gun humming, he swept through the left and right corners in a swift, fluid motion.

Empty.

Satisfied the room was clear, he followed the blood deeper into the gloom. Night vision could only do so much; the flickering light from his suit's sensors barely illuminated the scene ahead.

"Bloody shit…" Rhok breathed, his eyes widening at the sight.

A mountain of corpses. Not just any corpses. Armatus knights. Their suits, painted in a spectrum of colours, were piled in the corners—a grotesque monument to destruction. None were recognisable. Arms, legs, and torsos were mangled together into a grotesque heap two metres high.

Rhok took an involuntary step back, his boot landing with a sickening splash in a thick pool of crimson.

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Another sharp disturbance tore through the air.

Reflexively, he dodged.

Something whizzed past his head.

He caught it — a kunai, a throwing knife.

A shuffle echoed from the steel rafters. Immediately, his scanner lit up with movement. Over ten enemies closing in. It pinged insistently.

"Fuck me!" Rhok muttered grimly. His grip tightened on his weapon as he steeled himself for a battle against a league of assassins.

Kunai sliced through the air, followed by the muffled thud of footsteps closing in.

Rhok ducked, but not fast enough; one sharp blade plunged into his shoulder while another glanced off his armour, skittering away into the darkness.

Adrenaline surged through him.

His eyes dilated, his jaw clenched. Rhok tumbled forward, his scanner painting hazy red figures in the dark.

Three ahead, four above, and four more closing from the rear.

The figures drew their blades, gripping them in a reverse hold.

A moment later, ethereal purple flames engulfed the steel, casting shifting, demonic shadows across their features. Their faces were concealed beneath masks and hoods, leaving only their eyes gleaming with malice. They wore unusual cloaks, the fabric rippling unnaturally despite the still air.

The only discernible feature was the sigil on their right collarbone: a silver emblem of a sun with a nose and mouth, its writhing tails stretching into radiant strands.

Rhok had heard of them only once, from the sole survivor of a Black Op mission in northern Russha. The terrified man had called them harbingers of death, shadow assassins. They later became known across the land as the Shadowbringers.

Steeling himself, Rhok activated his plasma gun.

The weapon popped open, its nozzle glowing blue before he unleashed three rapid shots at the nearest shadow. The enemy twisted unnaturally, its limbs contorting in an uncanny display of agility as the plasma rounds splintered the wooden crates behind it.

Zeroing in on Rhok, the assassin swept its blade in a horizontal arc, aiming to cleave his torso.

Years of brutal close-quarters combat training took over. Rhok boosted his jetpack, stepping into the attack and ramming his armoured body into his enemy.

The impact sent them crashing through a concrete wall, dust and debris exploding outward.

Rhok kept his head tucked, rolling over the assassin's body and boosting to his feet in one fluid motion, a masterclass in movement, as expected of a Gold-rank knight.

No time to think.

Another kunai sliced through the air, embedding itself deep in his back.

"Argh!" he groaned, his vision blurring. The pain was instantaneous, but his suit's med-pack immediately injected a cocktail of stimulants, heightening his senses, numbing the agony, and cauterising the wound.

He scrambled to his feet, his knee buckling for a moment before he regained his footing.

The booster roared to life, light flaring behind him as he lunged forward at one hundred kilometres per hour, slamming into the concrete floor outside.

He landed hard, rolling to dissipate the momentum before pushing himself upright, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

The HUD flashed a dangerous crimson.

The enemies were just as fast, tailing him without pause.

The treeline was a hundred metres ahead; his Armatus suit was just three hundred.

He boosted again, a desperate gambit to reach his mech before the assassins could.

One of them launched from a metal container, soaring through the air with its flaming blade poised for the kill.

Rhok twisted, his scanner screaming a proximity alert, and raised his gauntlet to block.

The assassin's sword clashed against his metal arm, the blade vibrating violently on impact.

His pulse gun crumbled into scrap, and his arm was left exposed. If not for the armour, it would have been severed entirely.

"Shit! How are they so—," Rhok growled, boosting his jets and using the momentum to drive his knee into the enemy's torso.

The force sent the assassin flying into a stack of shipping containers, which buckled and toppled in a cacophony of screeching metal.

The distant lamplight now offered a slightly clearer view of the area.

Rhok moved as fast as he could, his exposed arm, shoulder, and back throbbing as the med-pack's effects began to subside. He had only taken out two enemies, yet he was already grievously injured. His pulse gun was gone, his med-pack spent.

The odds were against him.

He fled into the treeline, beelining for his Armatus suit. If I can get into my Armatus, I'll kill all of you Arcanii bastards, he thought bitterly.

Then a chilling realisation struck him. The fallen Armatus he had seen earlier — it hadn't crash-landed.

It had been destroyed.

Pushing past the last of the trees, Rhok emerged into the clearing only to see his own Armatus engulfed in flames, a thunderous explosion ripping through the night and sealing its fate.

He froze, sweat chilling his skin inside his helmet. His mind raced, desperately searching for a plan where none existed.

Stray blades rained down on him.

He tumbled sideways, rolling and scrambling to his feet before sprinting west into the oppressive dark of the forest.

The relentless chase continued.

He alternated between boosting and running, the jetpack not designed for sustained flight but for short, sharp repositioning. Overuse would lead to overheating and a drained power source.

Each boost widened the gap, but whenever he was forced to slow, the haunting sound of their footsteps returned.

Hours bled into one another. His suit pinged with a critical battery warning. His legs grew heavier, his breath became ragged and raw, and his heart pounded in sync with the dying power supply.

Finally, he stopped and unbuckled his helmet. A weathered face emerged — a man in his forties, with dark eyes set beneath a strong, defined jawline. His damp brown hair clung to his forehead.

He stumbled to a dead tree trunk, placing a hand on the bark as he sucked in gulps of air, relishing the momentary freedom.

I need to ditch this junk before it drains completely, he thought, glancing over his shoulder.

Silence. No footsteps. Relief washed over him, cool and fleeting.

One by one, he shed the dead weight of his armour, starting with his injured shoulder.

Gritting his teeth, he yanked the embedded blade free, fresh blood seeping from the wound.

He reached for the kunai lodged in his back, his fingers fumbling before he tore it out with a guttural groan, tossing the bloodstained weapons onto the dirt.

Piece by piece, he stripped down to his insulated bodysuit, a dark, form-fitting material that stretched from neck to ankles. It clung to his broad frame, the self-repairing composite already working to close his wounds and regulate his body temperature. Despite its advanced technology, the pain still radiated through him.

Apparently, the engineers hadn't thought Armatus knights would ever need morphine.

He pressed on, lost in the damned forest, heading west. Hours passed as he tramped through the uneven terrain, exhaustion gnawing at him.

Sniffing the air, he caught the scent of damp earth, the unmistakable sign of a river nearby.

His parched throat burned with desperation. He hadn't had a drop of water in at least six hours.

His vision blurred, his legs buckling. He pushed forward, dragging himself through the underbrush, each step sending jolts of pain through his battered body.

Finally, through the haze, he saw it: a river, shimmering in the dawnlight, barely a hundred metres ahead. Ducks glided across its surface, their ducklings trailing behind in the gentle current.

"Go… damn it…" he rasped, commanding his legs to move.

But his knees gave out.

He refused to surrender.

Crawling now, his fingers clawed at the dirt, dragging himself forward inch by inch. Then, his arms faltered. His body slumped onto the cold ground, his vision darkening, his breath slowing to a whisper.

Everything faded to black.

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