Chapter 110: Bloody Scythe
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Emerald hell-light swirled inside the Leopard King’s throat, reflected in a thousand shards of broken quartz.Dune tops glowed sickly green; every ant warrior froze beneath that rising pulse of doom.
Kai tensed in the sand-trench, rear foot corkscrewed for maximum recoil, one arm flung out to warn the nearest haulers. Beneath the plates of his chest he felt the Ruler-Roar stigma throb like a caged sun. Three charges. Each one an extinction flare. "If that beam cuts through the corpse train," he thought, "half the Legion dies and the Queen’s prize is ash."
"I must use the Ruler’s Roar. There’s no choice left."
He sucked a breath, mandibles stretching wide to shape the activation cry...
...and never finished.
Something struck from behind with the weight of a falling tower. The sand under his feet flash-fused to green glass, splintering up his shins. Pain punched the breath out of his thorax. Before he could register the angle of attack, a blur of crimson chitin and saw-edged limbs smashed him sideways.
Slam!
His spear, a custom seven-foot shaft of star-iron and bone, pinwheeled through heat-shimmered air, end-for-end, until one hooked scythe casually snatched its mid-spin snapping the weapon like dry reed.