The moment he hit the floor, Stephen Blackheart's world shrank.
The sensations of his body vanished, the feelings of flesh turning into data and merging with his subconscious.
Everyone in the Judgment Hall had understood since childhood that they were born to be weapons—killers and executioners—but most were accustomed to doing such work from afar.
They were not paladins, nor were they assassins. They were not even like the Temple's slaughterers.
Inquisitors killed like gods, without even needing to hold a blade or stain themselves with blood. Areas of direct physical action were cramped, the variables too subtle, and mistakes too easily made.
It meant chaos. It represented corruption and destruction.
But sometimes, it was necessary.
At the end of the darkness, those blurry figures moved too quickly to track.
But that did not matter. Stephen Blackheart did not rely on reaction; prediction was everything.
Soon, the heavy stench of sorcery filled his nostrils, and several of the most useful pieces of information surfaced rapidly in his mind—
Three weapons. Evil objects forged through blood sacrifice. Ninety percent chance they were ranged weapons.
The next second, he rose from his roll.
The electronic implants in his brain allowed him to combine neural reflexes with feedback data, as though he were temporarily handing his body over to the machine in his head rather than his own soul.
It sounded somewhat terrifying, but it was critically important, because his opponents' training and conditioned reflexes made one thing clear: they would predict their target's movements before firing.
Stephen Blackheart twisted his body and flattened himself against the ground, spreading his limbs like a spider.
In an instant, two red beams of eldritch energy sliced through the spot where he had been.
But one opponent had yet to make a move.
His muscles tightened.