Cain sprinted across the battlefield, his breath controlled, his muscles coiled with tension, each step eating away at the distance between him and the descending Titan Hunters. Dust and debris swirled around him, carried by the force of the warships looming overhead.
The floating cities had finally made their move.
The first barrage had been a warning—measured, precise, meant to test his reaction time. The next would not be.
He could already hear the shifting of heavy artillery, the whine of targeting mechanisms adjusting, locking onto their prey. The Forsaken stronghold was nothing more than a ruin—no real defenses, no walls strong enough to withstand what was coming. The rebels who had once sought to kill him now looked toward him with the same question written across their faces.
What now?
Cain's mind raced. His body felt off—not weak, not slow, but… different. Since the breaking of the final chain, his movements had been too fluid, his reactions almost too fast, too precise—like his body was operating just a fraction of a second ahead of the rest of the world.
The worst part was that he hadn't decided whether that was a good thing.
A sudden shift in the air made his instincts scream.
Cain dove forward just as the second wave hit.
A precise artillery strike detonated where he had been standing moments before, shattering the stone, ripping a crater into the ground, sending shockwaves rolling across the battlefield. Cain hit the dirt, rolling smoothly, using the momentum to spring back to his feet.
Above, the warships adjusted their positioning, forming a perfect perimeter around the Forsaken ruins. This was not an ordinary military raid—this was an extermination.
Then, they began to drop.
Titan Hunters.
Elite soldiers, each clad in modified combat exo-frames, dropped from the sky in tight formations. Unlike the warships, they weren't relying on sheer firepower—they were here to fight him directly.
Cain exhaled, steadying himself.
It had been a long time since someone had been bold enough to face him head-on.
The first soldier landed just a few meters away, his boots crunching against the broken stone. His armor was reinforced, plating streamlined for both speed and durability, his helmet's visor scanning rapidly, assessing Cain's stance.
A second landed, then a third, then more.
Within moments, a dozen Titan Hunters surrounded him, each maintaining perfect combat spacing, forming an encirclement that gave Cain no easy way out.
A commander stepped forward, his helmet adorned with an insignia Cain didn't recognize. The rifle at his side remained holstered—a sign that he wasn't here for a simple execution.
"You've been running long enough, Forsaken," the commander said, his voice filtered through a mechanical amplifier. "Do you understand what's happening here?"
Cain remained silent.
The commander didn't seem to care. "You broke the final chain. Do you even realize what that means?"
Cain's fingers twitched, his body still adjusting to the new weight of himself. "Enlighten me."
The Titan Hunters did not react to his words. No shifting of stances, no murmurs. Their discipline was absolute.
"It means," the commander said, "that the last Titan standing is about to fall."
Cain didn't respond immediately. He was measuring them—their distance, their breathing, the way their fingers lingered near their weapons.
"Funny," he said. "You brought a lot of guns for a dying man."
"Not just for you," the commander replied. "For the entire Abyss. Your existence is a contamination. You—"
Cain moved.
No warning. No tell.
Just pure motion.
One moment he stood at the center of the formation, the next, he was inside their guard. His foot planted, and his elbow slammed into the closest soldier's helmet, caving the visor inward, sending the man skidding backward.
Another Titan Hunter raised his weapon, but Cain's hand was already on his wrist, twisting with enough force to snap bone through reinforced plating.
The battlefield erupted into chaos.
Gunfire tore through the space Cain had been standing in seconds before, but he wasn't there anymore. He was already moving, already dismantling them one by one.
A fist shot toward his head—Cain tilted slightly, letting it graze past his temple, before retaliating with a sharp knee to the soldier's gut. The impact lifted the man off his feet, his armor cracking under the force.
Cain had not fought like this before.
His body was operating at a level beyond instinct, beyond conscious thought. Every attack, every reaction was perfect, as if he had already seen the battle unfold before it even began.
But there was no time to think.
Because they were adapting.
The Titan Hunters were not ordinary soldiers—they were trained specifically for beings like him. Within seconds, they shifted formation, adjusting to Cain's speed. They no longer aimed for direct strikes—they aimed to contain him.
Cain sidestepped a grappling maneuver, barely avoiding the attempt to lock him down, but another soldier came from behind, aiming a reinforced shock baton toward his spine.
Cain twisted, catching the weapon mid-swing, then ripped it from the man's grasp with a force that sent him tumbling backward.
For a brief moment, Cain felt something unusual.
The air itself shifted.
His Titan Core pulsed—not wildly, not chaotically, but deliberately.
Like something was interfering with his movement.
And then he saw it.
The commander stood outside the fight, a small device in his palm, glowing faintly with energy.
Cain felt his muscles seize.
A Titan Suppression Field.
They had planned for him.
Cain staggered, his limbs suddenly feeling like lead, his speed diminishing. His opponents pressed the advantage immediately, striking in unison, forcing him back, restraining his movements further.
This was not a fair fight.
They had come here to neutralize him, to break him down piece by piece before the real execution began.
Cain's teeth clenched, his vision narrowing.
This wasn't over.
He just needed one opening.
And then—
A new explosion rocked the battlefield.
Not from the warships.
Not from the Titan Hunters.
From inside the Forsaken stronghold.
The commander's head snapped toward the source of the blast, and Cain used that fraction of a second to act.
Ignoring the weight pulling at his limbs, ignoring the restraint, he forced his body forward, driving a shoulder into the closest Titan Hunter, sending them crashing into the others.
The battlefield was shifting.
Something was happening inside the stronghold.
Cain didn't know what.
But he knew one thing for certain.
He wasn't the only one fighting back.