Shadow dropped into the valley like a storm.
Ashborn roared underneath him, spitting fire from its wheels as it tore across the broken earth.The mutants came in a screeching tide — half-metal, half-flesh abominations fueled by hate.
Shadow didn't slow down.
He stood up slightly on the bike, balancing with eerie calm, his blackened sword in hand.The first mutant, a lumbering brute with a shattered car door fused to its arm, swung a rusted axe at him.
Too slow.
Shadow ducked low, slicing upward in one clean, brutal arc — his blade shearing through flesh, metal, and bone. Blood sprayed the air in thick, black arcs.
Another mutant leapt at him from the side, its jaw distended, metal claws flashing.
Shadow didn't even look.
He twisted Ashborn slightly, and the bike's flame-spewing exhaust caught the creature mid-air, turning it into a screaming ball of fire before it hit the ground.
More came.
Ashborn roared louder — sensing its master's bloodlust.
Shadow pressed the demon-throttle hidden beneath the handlebars.
With a burst of hellfire, the bike launched forward like a cannonball, crushing two mutants under its flaming wheels. Their broken bodies tumbled across the ash, burning like kindling.
A mutant sniper atop a ruin aimed a jagged rifle at him.
Shadow saw the glint.In a blink, he vanished into the smoke — Shadowstep — teleporting through the darkness.
He reappeared behind the sniper, silent as a ghost.
The mutant turned, too late.
Shadow drove his sword into the creature's throat, lifted it off its feet, and hurled the body from the tower. It hit the ground with a sickening crunch.
The other mutants hesitated.
For the first time, they felt fear.
Shadow stood in the middle of the battlefield, smoke rising from his armor, blood dripping from his blade.Ashborn circled him like a hunting wolf, its engine growling low and savage.
Shadow lifted his free hand.
The runes across his skin flared with burning red light.
The ground cracked.
Shadows stretched from his feet across the valley floor — like black serpents hunting for prey.
The mutants screamed and tried to run.Too late.
The shadows caught them, dragging them screaming into the earth itself.Only silence remained.
Shadow sheathed his sword slowly.
He swung back onto Ashborn, the bike purring like a living thing.
Without a word, he rode on — deeper into the heart of the Ashlands, where even worse monsters waited.
And somewhere beyond the dying horizon...the Architects watched.
And they were afraid.