The spikes on the lizard's back flared.
I managed to spread out the forward broods, but the lightning did not strike a single target. Blue arcs leapt between the mosquitoes and burned a broad swathe through the swarm in a second.
The pain came all at once.
Not as separate stabs, as it had with the rhino. Thousands of final impulses piled on top of one another: heat, falling, the loss of wings, emptiness. Until then, the soldiers had been a number to me, something that could be replenished with meat.
After the discharge, the number screamed.
I dropped to one knee. Blood ran from my nose.
Cole ordered a retreat through the amplifier. Lily was calling to me from the road. I heard the words, but I could not answer.
The lizard was preparing a second discharge.
Styx descended in front of my face. A black streak marked one wing. She could have gone spectral and escaped alone.
Instead, she sent me an image: scattered points around an enormous body. Not one army, but many targets.
The separate points formed a pattern.
The broods spread across three levels. The explosive ticks stayed close to the ground, the soldiers came from above and the sides, and the captains changed direction independently. The second discharge destroyed hundreds more, but could not pass through the entire swarm.
The lizard lashed its tail, hurled up stones and covered its eyes with transparent plates. The explosive specimens burned through its scales, but the wounds remained shallow. We could not kill it from the outside.
The third discharge struck the captain by its right leg. Along with his death came not only pain but his final route: the smell of hot stone, the shadow beneath the belly and the spot where the lightning travelled into the body.
I sent the image to Styx.
Styx cut the bond so sharply that her refusal needed no words.
The path beneath the belly was too exposed. The lizard would destroy her before she could strike.
We changed tactics. The explosive ticks went for the spikes and forced the beast to discharge too soon. The soldiers did not try to inflict damage; they landed on the plates, took off before the discharge and drew the arcs aside. Each such manoeuvre cost hundreds of specimens, but opened another few metres for Styx.
By the fourth discharge, I could no longer feel my own hands. Cole ordered another retreat. Lily stepped off the road, and the garrison soldiers held her back.
If Styx died, the swarm would be left among people with no common purpose.
I sent her an image of retreat.
She sent back the sight of an open maw.
This time, the choice was hers.
Styx climbed above the electrical arcs.
I sent the swarm at the beast's head. The lizard closed its eyes and mouth and held its breath. Mosquitoes smothered its nostrils, forced their way between its teeth and massed around the bases of its spikes. It spent its lightning on thousands of weak targets.
When the beast opened its maw to roar, Styx went inside.
She passed through the tongue in a spectral rush and drove her stinger into the soft tissue beneath the skull. The lizard's lightning shorted through its own body. The blue spikes flared one last time and went dark.
The lord crashed down so heavily that the impact reached the road.
The System offered a second ascension. I could barely see the lines through the pain. From the lizard's essence, Styx chose lightning, darkness and the ability to pass through barriers.
The new form was smaller than the Queen of Scarlet Wings. Her six wings darkened, and the air trembled around them. The voice named Styx the Empress of the Void Storm and unlocked the puppet parasite: the ability to enter the nervous system of a living creature.
I remembered Brutus.
This time it was not only the hand and the book. For a second I felt his fear of the man to whom he handed over the debts he collected. I did not see the man's face, only a signet ring bearing the seal of the Li family.
When I came to, Cole was standing beside the carcass.
"Did you hear the ones who died?" he asked.
"Yes."
He looked at the swarm, which was gathering the dead specimens along with the lizard's blood.
"Then don't call them ammunition."
We returned to the Guild towards dawn. The assessor spent a long time examining the trophies, then locked the doors and calculated their value twice. The carapaces, glands and venom were worth millions. The titanic core was valued at fifty million credits.
It was enough to clear my debt many times over.
I placed my palm on the black case.
A man in an expensive suit came down from the upper floor. He looked like Leon, except that he smiled as though he already owned everything he laid eyes on.
Kane Li, patriarch of the Li family and vice-president of the Guild.
He opened the case without permission, inspected the core and tossed it to his bodyguard.
"Leon's Void Dragon can make use of this power."
"That is my kill."
Kane took out a hundred-credit note and laid it on the counter.
"Your contribution has been recognised. My son's group weakened the lizard, and you struck the final blow. The Li family does not leave its helpers unrewarded."
The assessor lowered his eyes. He had seen the sensor logs and knew Leon had left the field before the battle.
Kane was relying not on the truth, but on the Guild's seal. Here, he appointed the people who decided who owned a trophy.
I picked up the note and rubbed it between my fingers. The paper crumbled onto the counter.
"You want to buy my kill for a hundred credits?"
"I want to remind you of your place."
Styx sat under my collar. After the lizard, I could feel her exhaustion and someone else's fragments left inside us. Kane was looking at the case, but his bodyguards were watching her.
They wanted more than the core.
"Then the price has changed," I said. "Pay with your life."
Kane's smile vanished.
He turned to the Guild fighters.
"This man is suspected of conspiring with the Demon Cult. Detain him here. Confiscate all his property."
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