Mated to the Beast of the Wasteland novel Chapter 197

Chapter 197 Twin Cores

Chapter 197 Twin Cores

The words were barely out before Freya’s blades pushed in another half inch.

Merrick and Maddox pulled the chips from their wrist terminals and tossed them skyward.

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The White Griffin and the Cryolotus winked out in an instant. The Blue Phoenix swallowed both chips and split itself in two. One bird shot back to Freya. The other dove for Merrick and Maddox. In the next breath, the scene in front of them shifted entirely.

Merrick and Maddox stood inside the Legion’s quartermaster warehouse.

Meanwhile the White Griffin and the Cryolotus dropped neatly into Freya’s hands, and Gillian and Elara both snapped their eyes open.

Freya pressed the two metal cores into their hands, one each.

“One each. Nobody gets shortchanged.”

Gillian and Elara took the cores without a flicker of hesitation. The three of them had worked this out in

advance.

Freya holding them hostage had been the plan all along, a way to bait Merrick and Maddox into handing over the systems. The blades had barely broken skin. Gillian could have healed those nicks with a flick of her hand.

Everywhere the Blue Phoenix’s tail feathers brushed, the Blue Phoenix Arena flared open.

It swept the 9th Legion personnel right back inside.

As more and more people got trapped, Gillian dashed over to Maddox and ordered the twins in her belly to siphon every trace of purge clean out of him.

Keeping him alive was the only way to keep Elara safe.

Then the three of them swept Grandma up without bothering to hide it, fired up a small airship, and headed straight for the source of the taint.

The airship vanished into the dark of night.

Inside the arena, Merrick and Maddox tore into each other with everything they had.

Both of them were choking on the same rage and blaming each other for it.

Just as Gillian and the others cleared the 9th Legion’s shield, the arena over base housing began to fade.

The instant Merrick and Maddox came to, both of them landed a kick on the other.

The more both of them thought about it, the more pissed off they got.

Merrick and Maddox fought each other to a bloody standstill.

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Chapter 197 Twin Cores

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Then a group of Phoenixkin agents swept in and cut them both off mid-strike.

“Merrick. You haven’t been slacking off all these years.”

Maddox rubbed his chest. Merrick had put real force behind that last kick.

“Maddox, looks like you need to train more. Chase me off Capital Planet and think you can sit easy after that? Look at you. A wet noodle. You’ll be eating cold leftovers the rest of your life.”

Merrick moved fast. Maddox decided Merrick was the kind who never knew when to quit. Give you an inch and you’ll take a mile, huh?”

But Maddox had rotted patches all over his body, some of them eating deep into his lungs. Every breath

burned.

He was in no shape to match Merrick right now.

Merrick knew it too. This was the perfect window to take Maddox’s life, and he stopped pulling his punches.

“Hold on, Merrick. Don’t you want to know how your mother actually died?”

The mention of his mother put a savage edge into every line of Merrick’s body.

Merrick ripped Maddox’s high-grade bio-armor apart with his bare hands.

He gripped a razor metal blade in one hand and looked ready to carve Maddox into a thousand pieces.

Did Maddox really have the nerve to bring up his mother?

The blade hit flesh with a wet, tearing sound.

The tip drove deep into Maddox’s chest, ripping through skin and bone in a single motion.

“I don’t want to know. You die. That’s enough.”

When the blade slashed across Maddox’s chest, the chain holding a clear, colorless warding token snapped. The token rolled across the floor.

Both of their eyes locked onto the gleaming, rounded token,

Maddox’s expression shifted, and he lunged for the token in a desperate motion, leaving his vital point wide open for that one instant.

Merrick twisted the blade off course at the last second. He didn’t take Maddox’s head. He just laid him out cold with one punch.

The pitch dark of night couldn’t wash the fury out of Merrick’s eyes. Adrian, who had just rushed in, took one look and froze in place.

“Commander, we’ve got every last jade griffin in custody.”

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Chapter 197 Twin Cores

Lock them down. Maximum security.”

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Merrick crouched down and scooped up the colorless token from the floor. Maddox’s name had been engraved across its surface, the same kind of token Merrick himself had once worn, except his had been lost back when he had first taken a life.

He drove another hard kick into Maddox’s ribs to bleed off some of the rage in his chest.

We’ll settle the old debt eventually. You and him both. Wait for it.”

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