The thing they had feared most had happened. Kachi had been defeated, unconscious, and near death. With Hack now free, he joined forces with Sawblade to attack another colonel.
They had chosen to support Sawblade rather than Wildcat because they feared Wildcat. Wildcat was the strongest of the four. None of them stood even the slightest chance against him alone, so before coming here, the three of them had met and formed a temporary alliance in case Wildcat tried to betray them after the job was done.
Although Kur had died, the suited man and Kachi had both lost their ability to fight. The balance of high-end combatants had shifted from four against four to three against two. The Marines' defeat was nearly certain, and Hack and Sawblade's focus shifted from fighting the Marines to guarding against Wildcat.
Under the two men's joint assault, the colonel lasted only three minutes. After exchanging a blow with Sawblade, Hack, who had been waiting for an opening, caught him by the right arm and twisted it into a spiral beneath those iron hands.
Just as Sawblade was about to finish the colonel with one strike, Zhong Hao, with Wildcat deliberately going easy on him, used Soru to reach the colonel's side. He severed the man's twisted arm with one slash, freeing him from Hack's grasp, then carried the colonel away from Sawblade's attack.
Before he could steady himself, Hack's iron fist came crashing down. Zhong Hao raised his sword to block, but his strength was ultimately no match for Hack's. Sea Fang held for only an instant before Hack's iron hand drove it into Zhong Hao's chest.
A mouthful of blood surged into his throat as his body flew backward more than twenty meters, bleeding off the force of that heavy blow. Then