Idan surged to meet him, tracking so fast he was a blur of golden energy.
He seized a wrist and spine in one fluid, devastating motion and brought the attacker down over his knee with a brutal, shattering twist.
Bone gave way with an audible crack.
Followed by a strangled breath, a scream from the downed warrior, and then by silence as they slipped into death’s embrace.
The second swung a blade charged with raw electric current.
Idan shifted aside, caught the man’s throat in his palm, and drove him against the cliff face hard enough to make the rock itself shudder.
The fighter sagged, vanishing under the subsequent rockfall.
Three more advanced, their disciplined, calculated formation long forgotten, as they fought for their lives with wild screams and howls of indignation.
Idan smashed through them with absolute, terrifying certainty.
His elbow shattered one jaw with a sickening crunch. His heel crushed a sternum.
His hand clamped down with sufficient force to dent both armor plating and the ribs beneath it.
One soldier got ripped free from his stealth gear and slammed into the cliff, where he collapsed motionless.
Eight lay motionless, twelve remained.
The next wave switched tactics.
They shot darts aimed at paralyzing, which zipped through the air.
They threw knives targeted at the wild-haired man’s tendons.
Idan brushed most aside with contemptuous ease, and the few that landed bounced harmlessly from his spectral body shield.
Two more fell. Then another.
The tight formation disintegrated into sheer panic.
One of them stumbled as he shouted frantic, desperate pleas into his comm systems.
‘Requesting emergency rescue. Ex-fil us rightfokkin’ now!’
The ship above responded with an attack rather than liberation.
A barrage of laser missiles streaked downward, glowing projectiles igniting the air and carving molten channels into the earth.
Idan stretched out a palm and redirected each of the roaring trajectories, turning them on the hapless soldiers.
The more intrepid assailants, perhaps goaded by their unseen boss in the skies, surged again at Idan.
He took an inhale, then pursed his lips to let out a subsonic whistle, one that echoed through the ley lines of the extensive massif range.
The assailants kept coming, but in between their maddening rushes and weapons fire, he caught the sound of thundering across the cliffs, heading toward him.
Moments later, a massive bellow sounded, reverberating with such power the mountainside shook.
Idan twisted for a moment and grinned at the sight of the massive basilisk bull heaving and snorting on a ridge above.
Shuaqagec, you bastard, took your time. I need your help, old friend. Take on the ground invaders, I’ll eviscerate their vessel.
