Anthem's Fall

Chapter Seventy Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Vengelis

Vengelis watched with a wary expression as the mysterious warrior clad in Imperial Armor reeled backward from his punch. The man's body crashed straight through the building across the street and tumbled out of sight beyond. Deep ringing echoes from the massive strike traveled up and down the avenue of tall offices like the deafening crack of a whip.

The people on the street corner instantaneously scattered, cupping their ears from the sound of the blow and bowing their heads to the pavement. Vengelis remained perfectly still and ready. As the dust cleared, he could see straight through the wrecked building and into the street beyond, where his unknown aggressor had slid and disappeared into a trail of rubble leading into the building one block over.

Vengelis's eyelids shook, not in fear, but in concentration, as he stood at the ready over the wheezing and whimpering Darien. Whom had he just hit? No one was strong enough to defeat Hoff and Darien at the same time, save for a few Royal soldiers.

"M-my lord. I'm . . . s-sorry," Darien gasped by Vengelis's feet. "Thank god you're here. My . . . my arm!"

"Shut up," Vengelis whispered, his voice cold and callous. His eyes were still locked on the burrowed tunnel of carnage.

"H-he's . . . like you, my lord. Nerol s-son. Royal . . . blood . . . trained . . ."

A hushed moment passed where, perhaps just in Vengelis's focused mind, the entire city block seemed to become still with a pulsing medium of apprehension. Then, the muffled supersonic popping sound Vengelis had been waiting for sounded from the loose debris two blocks over. Vengelis grimaced uncertainly as the mysterious young man sprinted back through the tunnel and charged toward him. His eyes suddenly widened in stunned shock as he realized his antagonist's astonishing speed almost before it was too late. Vengelis had barely enough time to raise his forearms to shield his face before his attacker was within striking distance.

The strange warrior unleashed his own equally powerful strike upon Vengelis. The mighty fist smashed into Vengelis's crossed forearms with a pulverizing strength like Vengelis had never before felt, save perhaps against the Felixes. Vengelis's arms flew to his sides in absorption of the punch, and he staggered backward several steps, nearly falling onto his back. Behind Vengelis, the shockwave of raw energy that traveled past the mirrored windows from the blocked punch had a bomb-like effect on the outer wall of the office building. Darkened panes of glass shattered outward all the way up to the fiftieth floor. Millions of tiny shards fell from the lofty heights like torrential sparkling raindrops in the sunlight, chiming noisily against the pavement and upon the two warriors' impervious shoulders.

The two young men stared at each other wordlessly through the cascade of silvery glass. Not crude and ungainly like most Primus soldiers, the two idols each stared at a strikingly similar manifestation of their own Sejero purity. They were young and lean, relatively thin of shoulder, with striking looks.

They were equals in kind.

Vengelis glared at the dark-haired stranger. The young man was within a year or two of his own age, and perhaps an inch taller than he. He was clad in Imperial First Class Armor, yet Vengelis could not place his face. Vengelis would have considered him a human imposter if not for the startling pain that throbbed through his forearms from deflecting this young man's strength. Although this stranger's cheek was bleeding, Vengelis could not believe how little damage his punch had done.