Silas tossed the boy over the side of the skiff. Jax screamed as he fell toward the black marsh, hitting the water with a loud splash.Now it was just Cassian. The Rank 5 Elite stood up. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but his golden armor was still intact. He held his vibro-sword with both hands. The purple light reflected in his terrified eyes."You're just a Dreg," Cassian whispered. He was shaking. "You're just meat. I am a Gilded! I am an Architect's chosen!""You are a child playing with a battery, Cassian," Silas said. His voice was a cold, digital rumble. "And the battery is dead."Silas walked forward. His heavy boots made the floor of the skiff groan.Cassian lunged. He used the Gilded-Strike—a fast, overhead cut designed to slice through heavy armor.Silas didn't move his sword. He didn't even raise his hands to block. He used the "Void-Exhale" again. He stepped into the strike.As the purple blade descended, Silas moved his chest exactly three centimeters. The

Cassian and the others were wearing thermal goggles. These goggles were filled with liquid crystals and sensitive wires. The "Kinetic Stomp" was so powerful that it made the goggles vibrate at a million cycles per second.Sssssss-pop!The goggles literally liquefied. The screens inside the goggles turned into hot, black ink. The cadets screamed as the hot liquid ran into their eyes and down their faces. They were blinded. They were in pain. They were helpless.Silas stood tall in the smoke. He was a shadow of charcoal and white light."NOW!" Silas roared. His voice was a command that broke the silence of the Ash-Lands.From the girders above, the forty Dregs let go. They dropped like black stones. They were covered in mud, and they looked like monsters from a nightmare. They didn't have railguns. They didn't have gold armor. They had sharpened scrap-metal. They had tether-spikes.Ren landed on the back of the skiff. He didn't hesitate. He saw a Gilded boy trying to wipe the melted g

The yellow fog of the Ash-Lands was like a thick wall. It did not want to let the light through. Every few seconds, a drop of "Black-Rain" would hit a rusted steel beam. Ping. Tink. Ping. The sound was lonely and sharp.Silas Kapito stood in the middle of a collapsed office tower. He was looking at the horizon through a pair of binoculars he had taken from a dead Gilded cadet. His eyes, solid and hollow black, were not just looking at the ruins. They were analyzing the "Haze.""They are getting smarter," Silas whispered.Ren crawled up next to him. Ren was covered in the old Sludge-Clay from the marshes. He looked like a muddy shadow. "What do you mean, Silas? We beat them. We took their ship. We have their guns.""Look at the sky, Ren," Silas said. He handed the binoculars to the boy.Ren looked up. Far above the yellow fog, he saw three black dots. They were not dropships. They were smaller. They were "Deep-Scan" Drones. They were moving in a slow, circular pattern. Every few second

The Ash-Lands did not just want to kill the Dregs. It wanted to dry them out. The air was a yellow fog of sulfur and salt. Every breath took a little bit of water out of the body. Silas Kapito stood in the shadow of a tilted wall, watching his small army. The forty Reapers were still covered in the grey "Cold-Skin" clay. They looked like statues, but statues that were starting to crumble.Ren was leaning against a rusted girder. His lips were cracked. His tongue felt like a piece of dry leather in his mouth. He tried to swallow, but there was nothing left to swallow."Silas," Ren whispered. He didn't use the Vibration Taps because he was too tired. "We need water. The marsh water is poison. The Black-Rain is acid. If we don't drink soon, the clay won't matter. We’ll just be dead bodies in the mud."Silas looked at Ren. Silas did not feel the thirst. His "Nerve Stripping" had silenced the alarm bells of his stomach and throat. But he was a General, and he knew how to read the data of

The yellow fog of the Ash-Lands was getting thinner, but the air was still cold. It was a cold that got inside your skin and stayed there. Silas Kapito stood in the middle of a broken street. On his left was a wall made of rusted iron. On his right was a pile of blue glass.Around him, the Reapers were working. They were no longer the scared Dregs from the vats. They were covered in grey mud, looking like statues that had come to life. In their hands, they carried the Mirror-Steel panels they had stripped from the Vapor-Spire. These panels were beautiful. They were polished so brightly that you could see your own eyes in them. They looked like silver water frozen into squares."Gather around," Silas said. His voice was a low hum. It didn't sound like a human voice anymore. It sounded like the vibration of a heavy machine.Ren, Kael, and the others walked over. They moved in the "Low-Stride," keeping their heads down. They sat in a circle around a single piece of Mirror-Steel that Sil