Bodies drop.
One hits the ground and doesn’t get up.
Another staggers, hands going to his neck, blood spraying bright against the gravel.
Another gets two steps closer, and then his head snaps back, the force throwing him onto his spine like he’s been punched by God.
The gates stay standing. Our line doesn’t move. Because this is not a negotiation. This is not a plea for peace. This is the end.
A man lunges toward the gate with a grenade in his hand. Conan shoots him mid-stride.
The grenade drops.
Grayson doesn’t hesitate, sprinting forward, booting it back down the drive like he’s on a fucking training field.
It explodes twenty meters away, shaking the ground, sending smoke and dirt into the air.
None of us flinches. We’ve lived our whole lives with bombs in our mouths.
This is just louder.
Frankie laughs, wild and vicious, blood splattering his cheek as he reloads. “These cult cunts really thought they had a chance.”
Mikhail answers with violence.
Because this is all or nothing. The final end. The last time we bleed for this life. The last time we let monsters think they can reach inside our walls.
A cult soldier trips over a body and tries to crawl backward.
Frankie steps forward and shoots him in the face without slowing down.
Another raises his weapon toward the gate?—
I take him through the throat.
He drops, hands still clutching the trigger like he thought it would save him.
It doesn’t. Nothing saves them today.
The smoke shifts with the wind, and Inferno comes into view again, a dying beast.
Now it’s burning as if the world is cleansing itself. A final offering. A final lure, now fulfilled.
Enzo’s voice cuts in again, sharp. “They’re retreating! They’re pulling back!”
Good.
Run and carry the message to anyone stupid enough to keep praying.
Because there is no god coming to save them. There will be no other Preacher.
Reggie and Rowan appear at the gates like ghosts made of violence, dragging a chained body between them.
Maria.
The Preacher.
Her head lolls. Her skin is pale. Her blood stains the gravel like a signature.
