The swarm descended upon Angar like a rancid fog, their crimson-veined forms lunging and snapping, claws and maws raking across his armor, destroying Lightning Strike’s shield in the blink of an eye.

  The damage wasn’t significant enough to cause worry, not yet, but each scrape accumulated like venom in the blood, an erosion that would make him seem incompetent before Salvador's unyielding gaze.

  There was no choice but to sever the channel early, the electric hum dying in his palm with a sputter.

  In an instant, his flesh and frame dissolved into a storm of charged particles. Ground Current burrowed him through the cracked earth, erupting amid the heart of the pursuing horde, straight into their writhing mass behind an alpha, the fetid reek of their evaporating mists, shrieks, and the nagging chitter of dark whispers coursing through the air.

  Lightning crashed down, forked bolts slamming into all the nearby wraiths with the crack of the rapid expansion of air.

  The semi-spectral beasts convulsed, their translucent hides blistering and blackening, veins of congealed blood bursting in sprays of foul ichor that sizzled on the ashen soil.

  Dozens toppled, their howls twisting into anguished gargles as the electricity chained between them, leaping from one emaciated form to the next in a web of searing blue-yellow plasma, and the fresh stink of charred ectoplasm filled his helm's filters.

  But the horde was endless, a seething wall of evil that surged onward undeterred. Claws raked at him, maws clamping with vise-like tenacity, their crimson vapors hissing against his plate as they piled on, dragging at his limbs like drowning shadows.

  Angar roared, pivoting into a frenzied spin, his maul gripped in both gauntlets as he became a vortex of destruction.

  The world blurred into a cyclone of motion, the wind of his whirl whipping ash into stinging clouds, the rhythmic thunder of his hammer's impacts echoing like drumbeats in an unholy orchestra.

  Each spin battered into the wraiths, breaking bones, hurling them back in tatters, limbs shearing away in vaporizing splatters of ichor.

  Lightning arced from the weapon's head, extending like electric serpents to bite deep into the press, forking outward to scorch clusters beyond its reach, then forking again.

  The beasts recoiled where they could, their eye-pits glowing in primal wariness, but the swarm's density betrayed them. Packed shoulder to infernal shoulder, they had nowhere to flee, their flight halted by their brethren.

  Angar drove forward through the melee, each whirl a thunderous advance of murder, somewhat wrangling the crowd to Salvador's designated killing ground, though not really. He could say he tried.

  Scores perished in his wake, bodies dissolving into acrid fumes or crumpling into steaming husks of goop, the air charged with the crackle of electricity and the sickening thuds of his maul rupturing Hellspawn.

  In the distance, the horizon flashed with the righteous fire of the battlecycle's turret barking in repeating bursts, Salvador's gatling gun also a relentless growl chewing through the horde like a reaper's scythe.

  As Tempest’s momentum ebbed, leaving him standing amid the carnage, the wraiths lunged in renewed frenzy, a roiling sea of unholiness that boiled over him like spilled bile.

  His maul lashed out at the mass in front of him, the strike empowered by a surge from Glory Thunders, a cataclysmic shockwave erupting from the impact, Holy radiance mingling with raw force in a sweeping arc that engulfed the vanguard.

  The blast ripped through them in a semicircle of devastation, half the fury transmuted to purifying light that seared their infernal essence like an exorcism.

  Wraiths splattered outward in explosive ruin, their forms disintegrating into foul smears across the blighted plain, the surroundings shuddering with the boom of unleashed glory.

  Energy and Charges flooded back into Angar's veins, replenishing his reserves as the echoes of the blast faded, leaving only the grim satisfaction of mass slaughter.

  The shockwave's afterglow lingered in the air, Holy light fading into wisps that scorched the evaporating mists, leaving the ground slick with the ectoplasmic residue of slain wraiths.

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  Angar stood, waiting, his armor marked with scars, light furrows of corrosion where claws and fangs had bitten shallowly.

  The horde silenced for a breath, a brief ebb in the tide, the dark whispers fracturing into discordant echoes as those beyond the devastation, and those to his rear, circled warily, eye-pits glowing with profane hatred.

  But Hell's filth never yielded for long.

  With a thought, he activated Lightning Strike, a shimmering shield covering him as the Hellspawn led by an alpha rushed, a wall of elongated shadows and crimson-veined horror, bounding over the twitching husks of their kin with unnatural leaps that cracked the ashen crust.

  Angar met them head-on, his maul swinging in wide, graviton-charged arcs that pulverized the filth into vaporous sprays.

  One alpha lunged low, its maw gaping wide to clamp onto his thigh, and he crushed its head with a gauntleted fist, something he always enjoyed doing.

  He pivoted on a tripod-foot, the gyrostatic stabilizers grinding as he drove a spinning claw-toe into an underbelly, the infused drill whirring to life in a squirt of ethereal gore that painted his greaves, while the graviton core of his hammer detonating on another’s head in bursts of plasmatic fury.

  A creature died mid-screech as his gauntlet crushed another head, but more piled on from the flanks, their claws raking sparks from his armor, acidic vapors hissing on metal.

  The haze of battle crept around Angar like a shroud of smog, the scent of ozone left lingering from his lightning attacks, the stench of seared wraiths, the Underworld’s reek.

  Resilience dropping perilously low was a risk, especially with his mind filled with the glory of sacred slaughter, where bloodlust roared in his chest like a caged beast, drowning out caution.

  But there were truths that could only be known through discovery, tested in the midst of such combat.

  He delved within, manifesting Electrokinesis with a grunt of focused will, Flow bathing a vast swathe of the blighted earth in a corona of blue-yellow wrath.

  The electric storm encircled him, a crackling barrier too broad for the wraiths to vault, sparing only the scorched patch at his feet from its devouring grasp.

  The Hellspawn caught in its embrace seized in spasms, their semi-spectral forms writhing as arcs of voltage burrowed into translucent hides, blistering veins of congealed blood until they burst in splashes of sizzling mist.

  Angar lashed out with his maul, battering stragglers backward into the storm's maw, where they convulsed in unholy conflagration, their howls turning to pathetic whimpers.

  With another surge of intent, he manifested Chain, lightning erupting from his outstretched gauntlet.

  A cascade streaked forth like Holy vengeance, leaping from one emaciated horror to the next, forking outward in an ever-expanding web of devastation that stretched deep into the horde's ranks.

  The bolts multiplied, hungry tendrils seeking fresh prey, the air alive with the sharp crackle of electricity and the stench of charred ectoplasm as wraiths crumpled in smoldering fits.

  He could have sustained the channel, pouring more of himself into the maelstrom, but the drain was exhausting, his Resilience plummeting like a boulder off a cliff.

  He severed it with a silent curse, the emanation of power fading reluctantly.

  Long seconds ticked by as Flow dissipated in sputtering arcs, leaving him exposed in the ashen desolation, prepared for the new onslaught.

  And it renewed with savage abandon, the bloodwraiths billowing over the fading barrier like a blasphemous tidal wave, maws gaping and claws extended in crimson-veiled hunger.

  Angar met the leading alpha with Glory Thunders, the Capstone unleashing a devastating shockwave in a sweeping half-circle of Holy-infused force.

  The blast ripped through his foes, shredding translucent flesh and bone into jagged tatters hurling backward, slamming into their kin beyond the arc's reach in explosive collisions.

  But the horde was inexhaustible. As he struck, from flanks and rear they piled upon him, a suffocating press of shadows and acid that dragged at his armor, whispers scraping his mind like rusty nails.

  In a shimmer of charged essence, Ground Current dissolved him into the earth, emerging amid a fresh knot of the swarm, wreathing himself in the shimmering veil of Lightning Strike's protective shield.

  The fleeting aegis absorbed the initial frenzy of attacks as the grim ballet endured, a ceaseless grind against the infernal tide.

  Graviton pulses detonated from his maul every swing, Glory Thunders ensuring he had no worry about resources, the hammer’s bursts hurling clusters of wraiths through the air in plumes of plasmatic fire, their bodies bursting apart like soured fruit dashed against stone.

  His gauntleted fist crushed elongated skulls with reckless abandonment, the slurping crunches sending ethereal gore spraying across his visor. I really loved killing that way.

  Below, his cybernetic legs danced him through the press, his tripod-feet pummeling assailants with fury, kicks and clawed toes drilling into infernal filth, gyrostatic balance turning each stomp into a lethal pivot that scattered foes in broken sprawls.

  Thunder charges accrued swiftly in the frenzy, a mounting tally of strikes given and taken, foes felled and energy expended, unleashing Glory Thunders time and again, the sonic booms tearing through the ranks in Holy radiance, shredding the damned to ethereal goop.

  He deployed Lightning Strike with tactical precision, a brief shield to turn the tide of the swarm’s press, while Ground Current and Tempest cycled on cooldown, the latter accruing enough kills to make the bubonic plague jealous.

  In the endless slaughter, there bloomed a radiant glory, the sacred ecstasy of battle, where each felled Hellspawn was a tribute to the Lord, a hymn of the righteous, the clamor of carnage a liturgy of fury.

  Angar reveled in it, doing God’s work, culling the abyssal vomit with unyielding fervor, the glory of Holy War searing into his soul like a benediction.

  The horde might be infinite, but so too was his wrath, forged in the fires of combat, tempered in the blood of the profane.