Gulag lay on the ground.

The massive, seemingly indestructible Vanguard brawler was slumped awkwardly on her hands and knees at the edge of the crater. Her heavy iron mace lay snapped entirely in half a few meters away.

She coughed violently, spitting a thick puddle of crimson onto the splintered wood as she stubbornly struggled to push her battered frame back up.

Standing directly over her was Ghizlan.

The Conqueror looked completely unbothered by the destruction around him. His dark tunic was soaked in fresh blood, though the horrific, crushing wounds covering Gulag’s armor made it entirely clear whose blood it actually was.

He reached down and grabbed the Vanguard brawler by the back of her thick neck, effortlessly lifting her heavy, armored body off the ground with a single hand to showcase his monstrous physical strength.

Ghizlan slowly turned his head to acknowledge the two newcomers. His unblinking eyes swept over Iron-Scale’s star-iron plates before settling with mild amusement on Aaron’s silver Kingdom crest.

A cold, yet polite smile touched the Conqueror’s lips.

"You sent a blunt instrument to break a mountain," Ghizlan stated smoothly, his calm voice carrying effortlessly over the crashing ocean waves.

He casually tossed Gulag’s broken body aside like a discarded toy, letting her crash heavily against a stack of wooden shipping crates.

She didn’t get back up.

Ghizlan wiped a streak of her blood from his knuckles and turned fully to face them. "She was an entertaining warmup. I hope the two of you brought something sharper."

Aaron stared at the Conqueror. The sight of the man who slaughtered his brother completely shattered his knightly composure, tinting his vision red.

"He is mine!" Aaron roared.

He channeled every remaining drop of his mana into the silver greatsword. The weapon ignited with blinding radiance. Aaron sprinted across the splintered docks, ignoring the agonizing burn on his shoulder, and raised the blade for an overhead execution.

Ghizlan watched the approaching knight with boredom. He did not bother drawing a weapon. He simply pulled his right arm back, condensing his suffocating mana entirely around his fist to warp the surrounding air.

Iron-Scale read the lethal shift in atmospheric pressure immediately. He knew the kingdom knight was charging straight into a grave.

Iron-Scale engaged his pneumatic spools. A grapple hook fired laterally, biting deep into the thick mast of an anchored transport ship. The steel wire snapped taut and violently yanked him across the pier.

He slammed directly into Aaron mid-stride, tackling the furious knight out of the intended kill zone.

Ghizlan threw his punch.

The concentrated shockwave obliterated the exact space Aaron had occupied a fraction of a second prior. The kinetic force pulverized the oak planks, sending a geyser of ocean water rocketing into the sky.

Iron-Scale and Aaron tumbled across the wooden deck, skidding dangerously close to the edge of the harbor.

Aaron scrambled to his knees. He gripped his greatsword and glared at the Vanguard commander. "Get off me! I have to kill him!"

"You cannot avenge your brother if your torso is vaporized," Iron-Scale reprimanded coldly. He rose to his feet and checked the tension on his gear. "He is intentionally baiting you. Look at the dock."

Aaron glanced backward, his breath catching in his throat. A twenty-foot section of the reinforced pier was completely gone, leaving only churning water behind. If that punch had connected, it would have blasted right through his armor.

Ghizlan stood near the edge of the newly formed gap. He lowered his fist and sighed softly.

"A tactical retreat," Ghizlan noted, casually adjusting his bloodstained tunic. "You have good instincts. But delaying his execution will not save him. It just means you both die tired."

Iron-Scale narrowed his eyes and drew his star-iron sword. The Conqueror possessed Herald-level physical strength, meaning close-quarters combat without a flawless strategy was suicide. He glanced toward the stack of crates where Gulag lay unmoving.

They needed a miracle, or they were going to lose the shipyard.

Before Ghizlan could advance to finish them off, the stack of shattered shipping crates behind him violently exploded outward.

Splinters of oak rained down across the pier as Gulag pulled herself from the wreckage.

She looked entirely different. A thick, crimson steam wafted from her open wounds, and her eyes were completely bloodshot, devoid of any rational thought. Driven by primal humiliation, she had tapped into a feral, berserker state that actively burned her own life force to artificially inflate her physical strength.

"Heh!" Ghizlan scoffed. "I guess beasts are beasts after all."

With a guttural, inhuman roar, Gulag launched herself at the Conqueror.

She moved twice as fast as her previous charge, her heavy boots cracking the remaining floorboards with every step. Lacking her shattered mace, she simply threw a right hook.

Ghizlan calmly raised his forearms to block, expecting another easy deflection, but the sheer kinetic force of the berserker strike actually caught him off guard. The impact launched him backward, his boots sliding across the wood and carving deep grooves into the pier.

Gulag didn’t give him a single second to recover. She lunged forward again like a rabid animal, unleashing a rapid, blinding flurry of haymakers.

’He is not even using a weapon or any kind of mana, yet he is holding his ground with a troglodyte in its berserk form...’ Aaron’s eyes widened.

Ghizlan weaved beneath a vicious left hook, only to take a grazing right uppercut that snapped his head back. Before he could reestablish his footing, Gulag grabbed the collar of his tunic with both hands and violently headbutted him.

The Conqueror stumbled back, a thin line of blood trickling from his split lip. The mild surprise in his eyes quickly melted into cold calculation. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and noticed Gulag’s muscles actively tearing under the impossible pressure of her own accelerated heartbeat.

She was destroying her own vessel.

"I have to admit, you are the first one in a decade who was able to make me bleed. But well... I don’t think you can last long." Gathering a dense concentration of mana around his palm, Ghizlan stepped directly into her guard to deliver a lethal counterattack.