Chapter 298 — The Breach
The distance between Gaius and the bridge had been shrinking rapidly for several minutes.
The Covenant had tried everything.
Security teams.
Barricades.
Plasma fire.
Explosives.
None of it had mattered.
Gaius was no longer advancing through the flagship.
He was carving a path through it.
His Iron Jetpack roared continuously, blue flames blazing behind him as it propelled his massive frame down the corridors. He flew upright like a moving wall of auramite and ceramite.
Covenant warriors threw themselves into his path.
Sangheili.
Kig-Yar.
Unggoy.
Even Jiralhanae.
Gaius barely acknowledged their existence.
He did not slow.
He did not dodge.
He simply continued forward.
The unlucky were struck directly.
Their bodies shattered beneath the impact.
Others were hurled aside like rag dolls, smashing into bulkheads hard enough to dent metal. Some never even touched him. The shockwave generated by his passage and the violence of the impacts sent them flying regardless.
Plasma bolts struck his Iron Halo.
Needler shards detonated against his shields.
Fuel-rod blasts erupted around him.
The giant ignored them all.
The attacks accomplished nothing except briefly illuminating the corridor in flashes of blue, green, and violet.
Through every explosion.
Through every barrage.
Gaius continued advancing.
Unstoppable.
Relentless.
Every second brought him closer to the bridge.
And every Covenant warrior in his path became merely another obstacle to be smashed aside.
Finally, the corridor widened.
A massive armored blast door stood before him.
Unlike the doors he had destroyed throughout the ship, this one was clearly designed to protect something important.
The command center.
The heart of the vessel.
The bridge.
For the first time since leaving the launch pod, Gaius slowed.
Not because the door concerned him.
Because he no longer needed to rush.
He had arrived.
Through Observation Haki, he could sense them beyond the barrier.
Dozens.
No.
Nearly a hundred.
Life signatures clustered together on the other side.
The Fleetmaster.
His officers.
Elite guards.
Security detachments.
Everyone important aboard the vessel was gathered on the other side.
Waiting.
Preparing.
Hoping.
The blast door itself was enormous, several meters thick and built from layers of reinforced Covenant alloy. But the metal was not the true defense.
A shimmering blue energy field covered the entire structure.
Powerful.
Dense.
Emergency power had clearly been diverted into it. Every available system reinforced the barrier.
Behind it, alarms continued to echo throughout the flagship.
Gaius could sense movement.
Fear.
Tension.
The Covenant knew exactly where he was.
And they knew exactly where he was going.
The giant stared at the barrier for several seconds.
Then slowly raised his right hand.
The Power Fist.
The red gems embedded within the massive gauntlet glowed brighter. The disruption field roared to life.
Then Gaius punched.
The blow landed like a siege cannon.
The combined force of his Primarch-level strength and the Power Fist erupted outward in a violent shockwave.
The corridor shook violently.
Metal groaned.
Loose debris bounced across the deck.
Even the surrounding bulkheads trembled.
The shield flared bright blue. Cracks of unstable light spread across its surface.
For a brief moment, it looked as though it would fail.
Then power surged through the network.
The cracks vanished.
The barrier stabilized.
Gaius watched silently.
Physical force and the Power Fist alone would eventually break through, but it would still take several more consecutive strikes.
He had another attack in mind.
On the bridge, several officers exhaled in relief.
The shield had held.
Barely.
But it had held.
Then Gaius raised his fist again.
This time, something was different.
Armament Haki flowed into the Power Fist.
Invisible power condensed around the massive gauntlet in layers.
Compressed.
Focused.
Refined.
Only Gaius, through Observation Haki, could perceive the dense black pressure gathering around it.
Then red-and-black lightning appeared.
Violent arcs snapped through the air.
Conqueror's Haki.
Ever since awakening the three forms of Haki, Gaius had trained them. Not obsessively, but consistently. His superbrain, an intellect capable of rivaling a Primarch's, and his extraordinary willpower had made mastery come far more naturally than it should have.
Observation Haki had expanded.
Armament Haki had grown denser.
And most importantly, he had learned to control Conqueror's Haki.
No longer merely a force that overwhelmed weaker minds.
Now it could be directed.
Focused.
Infused into a strike.
The air began trembling.
The deck beneath his feet vibrated.
Tiny fragments of metal lifted from the ground before falling again.
Even the shield reacted.
Its surface distorted as though sensing the power gathering before it.
On the bridge, relief vanished.
Every officer stared at the security feed.
One sensor operator stiffened suddenly.
"Excellency—"
"The energy concentration is increasing."
Another officer checked his console.
His mandibles tightened.
"Those readings..."
"That cannot be correct."
"It is,"
the sensor operator replied.
"The energy output is still increasing."
The numbers continued climbing.
Higher.
Higher.
Still higher.
One officer stared at his display.
"What kind of energy is that?"
"Unknown,"
the sensor operator answered immediately.
"It doesn't match plasma."
"It doesn't match slipspace radiation."
"It doesn't match any Covenant or human power source in our database."
Silence followed.
"Then what are we looking at?"
Nobody answered.
An Unggoy attendant trembled as he stared at the screen.
"A Master Demon..."
Several heads turned toward him.
No one rebuked him.
After everything they had witnessed, the description no longer sounded unreasonable.
Another officer swallowed hard.
"Excellency..."
"The energy concentration is approaching the shield's maximum tolerance."
The bridge fell completely silent.
Then Gaius punched.
The strike landed.
The entire bridge section of the flagship shook.
Consoles rattled.
Lights flickered.
Several officers nearly lost their footing.
The shield flared brighter than before.
For a fraction of a second, it resisted.
Then it shattered.
Blue light exploded outward.
The energy field collapsed completely.
The remaining force slammed into the blast door behind it.
The reinforced alloy folded inward.
Structural supports snapped.
Armor plating crumpled.
A shockwave raced through the bridge.
Displays exploded.
Officers were thrown from their stations.
For several seconds, the only sound was the howl of alarms.
Then the smoke began to clear.
Where the bridge entrance had once stood was now an enormous hole.
Twisted metal hung from the edges.
Sparks rained from severed conduits.
And standing beyond it was Gaius.
The giant lowered his fist.
The black-and-red lightning slowly faded.
His golden armor remained completely untouched.
His gaze swept across the bridge.
Calm.
Cold.
Unhurried.
As though breaking through the strongest defenses aboard the flagship had required no effort at all.
Silence gripped the command center.
One Sangheili officer unconsciously took a step backward.
Another dropped his plasma rifle.
Even the Jiralhanae bodyguards tightened their grip on their gravity hammers.
Gaius stood motionless in the shattered entrance, towering over the bridge and everyone inside it.
And for the first time since the battle for Cascade had begun, the Covenant Fleetmaster was face-to-face with the being that had turned his flagship into a battlefield.
~~~
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