The Furnaceback Centipede answered the Biggest Kev by twisting its head with enough force to tear a section of the road apart.
Its four jaws pulled in different directions.
However, the golden claw holding two of the jaws did not loosen.
Instead, the plates covering Kev’s gauntlet shifted and locked over one another. The harder the beast struggled, the tighter his fingers became.
The Centipede’s six eyes burned brighter.
Hundreds of legs struck the ground at once.
BOOOOM!
The cracked road rose beneath Kev in a forest of jagged stone. Pillars stabbed upward around his legs and chest, while the ridge behind him folded inward like a collapsing wall.
Kev released one jaw and brought his free arm across his body.
The plates along his back opened, and a broad black war hammer dropped into his waiting hand.
He swung it without any elegant movement.
There was no complicated stance or beautiful technique. He simply chose the nearest stone pillar and smashed through it.
BANG!
The pillar burst.
The hammer continued moving and struck the Centipede beneath its wounded eye.
BANG!
A thick plate cracked, but the beast did not fall. Its head snapped sideways, dragging Kev several steps through the broken road before another pair of jaws closed around his shoulder.
The metal teeth scraped across his armour.
Sparks flew.
Inside the creature, Simon was thrown against the burning wall of its throat.
The compressed wind and spatial energy around him shook violently. The rebel thief slipped from his control and began sliding deeper, but Simon caught his ankle with another current of wind.
The Centipede’s muscles tightened.
Hot flesh closed around Simon from every side, attempting to crush him and force him toward the stomach below.
Then the entire creature shook again.
Through the Shadow Eye moving beneath its body, Simon saw Kev plant both feet in the ground.
A heavy click came from somewhere around his waist.
The road sank beneath him until stone reached his ankles, yet the Furnaceback Centipede could no longer drag him forward.
It released a metallic scream.
Dark-red light spread across the gaps in its body.
"Fire!" someone shouted.
Every opening along the Centipede’s sides erupted.
Flames blasted across the road and rolled over Kev from head to toe. The heat turned nearby stone red, melted black glass, and forced soldiers and rebels alike to retreat farther.
For several breaths, the Biggest Kev disappeared inside the fire.
Then his shape moved.
He walked out of the flames with smoke rising from his armour.
Several plates had turned dull red. One piece near his shoulder had cracked beneath the Centipede’s bite, but the armour had spread the force of the bite across his chest, back, and legs instead of allowing it to destroy one place.
Kev looked at the crack.
"That was one of my better plates."
His voice became slightly less amused.
The Furnaceback Centipede lunged again.
Kev threw the war hammer.
It spun once and struck the beast between two eyes. The blow made its head dip, but Kev had already moved before the weapon bounced away.
For a demon carrying so much metal, his sudden speed was absurd.
The ground exploded beneath one step.
He appeared beneath the Centipede’s head and drove his shoulder into the broad plate protecting its lower jaw.
BOOOOM!
The impact lifted the front of the Half-Step Abyssal Beast from the road.
Its hundreds of legs clawed at empty air.
A shockwave travelled through the narrow path. Broken wagons jumped from the ground. Demons were knocked from their feet, while loose pieces of the ridge rained across both armies.
Inside the beast, Simon struck the wall hard enough for his protective layer to bend inward.
The thief coughed out blood, and Simon’s eyes darkened.
He had been waiting for the Centipede to retreat or burrow underground. Once it left the battlefield, he could take the thief’s ring, copy his face, and continue as the Outsider without anyone seeing him emerge.
Kev was giving the creature no chance to flee, and the centipede itself seemed to have no intentions of fleeing.
The Furnaceback Centipede coiled.
Its long body curved around Kev from both sides, while rows of hooked legs tore deep trenches through the road. Stone surged over its lower segments, creating another layer of armour as the earth answered its call.
The Furnaceback Centipede had both earth and fire affinity.
Then it tightened, and its massive body wrapped around Kev like a living wall.
Black plates ground against black armour.
The pressure crushed the road beneath them and forced burning air from the fissures in violent bursts.
Sonya, Akaza, and every demon nearby retreated from the collapsing ground.
For a moment, only Kev’s helmet remained visible between the Centipede’s segments.
Then a chain shot out.
One of the dark chains wrapped around his right arm had uncoiled. It passed around three of the beast’s segments, slipped between its legs, and returned to his hand.
Kev caught it.
The Centipede tried to pull away but the chain tightened.
Its links sank between the black plates, and the more the creature twisted, the deeper the restraint locked.
Kev’s golden gauntlet closed around the chain.
His other hand seized the edge of one body segment.
"Big worm," he said through the Blood Jaguar helmet, "you are much lighter than you look."
The Furnaceback Centipede screamed and released another wave of fire directly over him.
Kev bent his knees.
The road beneath his feet collapsed.
Then he turned.
It was not a punch.
It was not a technique anyone nearby immediately understood.
The Biggest Kev used the chain, his grip, and the Centipede’s own enormous body as leverage. His waist twisted. The muscles beneath his armour tightened, and every plate across his body groaned at once.
The Half-Step Abyssal Beast left the ground.
For one impossible second, the building-sized creature hung above the narrow road.
Then Kev threw it.
The Furnaceback Centipede flew across the broken ridge, carrying burning stone and entire sections of earth with it. Its long body struck the ground far from the convoy, bounced once, and tore through the cracked lands like a derailed train.
The impact opened a trench across the landscape.
A cloud of dust and fire rose high enough to hide the beast from everyone below.
Inside its throat, Simon and the thief were hurled deeper into darkness.
Burning liquid rushed toward them. The thief’s spatial ring flashed as his hand struck the inner wall, and Simon barely caught his wrist before the demon vanished into the Centipede’s stomach.
His calm expression finally twitched.
The Biggest Kev had stopped the creature from burrowing, kept it beneath the observation eagle, and thrown Simon farther into its body.
Simon tightened the wind around the thief and cursed in his heart.
’Damn you, Biggest Kev.’