Aaron and Bloodletter glared at their enemy, their mouths gaping wide open. Schaefer was now just as indestructible as they were. Given the fact he survived getting impaled through the brain, he might actually be more superior than the two of them.

"You had Ambrosia in you all along," Aaron said.

"Yes, sir," Schaefer said as he watched the flesh grow back on his new arm. "Injected it into my bloodstream as soon as I left the lab. I know I've made plenty of mistakes, but luckily this one was surprisingly easy to fix. Just had to correct a few errors in the code to eradicate the bot's parasitic nature and voilà. I'm the most powerful man in the world now."

"I knew you'd admit it eventually," Aaron said. "And now that I think about it, that explains why Commoner Deadmen never attack you. You're basically one of us."

Schaefer burst out laughing. "One of you? I'm more superior than either of you could even imagine! Charismatic, intelligent, and undetected by the main enemy of humanity, I'm everything all men wish they could be."

"Because every man wants to be a megalomaniac with a dead family," Bloodletter added coldly.

Schaefer's cocky grin transformed into anger. "That was your doing. If Tabitha and Edgar were still alive today, I might've actually gone soft."

"I didn't do anything to your wife," Bloodletter replied. "Trust me, it was tempting after what you did to Sarah, but unlike you, I know how to set limits. In fact, I thought it would be fun seeing you be the cause of your own self-destruction."

Schaefer pulled out his machete and held it beside him.

"Here we go again," Aaron spoke. "Colonel Troy Schaefer erasing evidence of his crimes rather than confessing to them."

"You're right, lad," Schaefer replied, his grip on the machete tightening. "I hate admitting when I've made mistakes. And God knows I've made so many of them. But one thing that brings me comfort is that even if I can't run away from my mistakes, at least I know I can bury them."

"Please," Bloodletter said mockingly. "By the time you finish killing us, everyone in this tower will be long gone."

"Oh really? I'm not sure if you two realize something."

"Yeah, what?"

"I have no weak points. All you two need is a few direct hits to your cranium and you'll be out like a light."

Aaron and Bloodletter shared the same thought: Fuck.

"So just try to take me down!" Schaefer shouted, and he charged at the two Deadmen with his machete in hand.

He took his first swing at Aaron, who narrowly avoided getting stabbed in the head. The blade buried into his shoulder, and he stabbed his talons into Schaefer's arm as he tried yanking it back out, tearing his arm from his elbow.

Schaefer backed away from his enemy and glanced down at the bloody stump where his arm used to be. "Just a flesh wound," he chuckled, and a new arm grew back in seconds.

Aaron stared at the machete lodged in his shoulder, Schaefer's old arm still grasping the handle. He ripped it back out, removed the arm, and prepared to attack Schaefer with his own weapon. However, before he could take his shot, Schaefer grabbed his arm and twisted it back until it broke. He dropped the weapon.

Schaefer picked the machete back up, but when he saw Bloodletter charging toward him, he slashed his face and left behind a long gash. "Don't even think about putting that damn helmet back on, coward," he told Bloodletter.

"I don't even need it," Bloodletter replied, and he grabbed Schaefer's face. "Y'know, I killed your mate Bennington like this. Just had to grab his skull and—"

Schaefer's head was ripped in half. Aaron, who stood on the sidelines as his broken arm repaired itself, gagged at the sight of Schaefer's body stumbling back as his brains dripped out of the massive crack in his head. The sight of the halves of his head mushing back together like melted wax only made it worse. Yet Schaefer continued moving as if none of that ever happened and punched a hole straight through Bloodletter's heart.

Bloodletter started coughing up blood as he looked down to see Schaefer's arm impaled through his chest. "Is that a look of defeat I see?" Schaefer asked. He pulled his arm back out of the new hole in Bloodletter's chest, taking his heart with him. "What a surprise. I didn't think either of us had one of these."

Bloodletter extended his arm down. Blood floated out of the new wound and swirled around his hand, vaguely taking the shape of Schaefer's own machete. Once the blade was completely formed, he swung at his enemy's face and sliced through his cheeks to form a ghastly, mutilated grin.

Aaron came up from behind and stabbed through his skull with his talons. With one hand still embedded in Schaefer's cranium, he ripped the other one out and jabbed it into his spine. He refused to believe his enemy had no weak points.

"Fuck off," Schaefer groaned as he reached his hand behind his back to grab at Aaron. He managed to gouge out one of his eyes before peeling the entire right half of his face off. Once he regained the ability to move his body, he shoved Aaron away and dug his machete into the remaining half of his face.

Aaron snatched the machete out of his cheek and tossed it to the floor beside him. He punched Schaefer in the jaw, knocking him back. Bloodletter then placed a disoriented Schaefer in a chokehold, slowly crushing his windpipe with his superhuman strength. Schaefer spent the next few seconds gasping for air, finally acknowledging one flaw of the Ambrosia.

Aaron approached him, the missing half of his face still healing. "You seem to have trouble remaining silent," he said, his teeth and facial muscles visible. "So how about you make yourself useful and answer some questions?"

Schaefer couldn't speak since Bloodletter was crushing his throat. He was still suffocating, and blood was dripping out of his mouth as the previous incisions in his cheeks healed up.

"Loosen your grip on him," Aaron told Bloodletter. "I need him barely alive enough to respond."

"You haven't learned enough already?" Bloodletter asked.

"Of course. I just need some confirmation from a credible source. Or in our case, this arsehole."

"Lad, I'm the only arsehole you need to confirm what you've learned. As long as it's something terrible, it's probably true."

"But I'd like to know why he thought he could get away with it."

Bloodletter paused. "Fair point." He punched Schaefer in the head. "Start talking."

"Or what?" Schaefer replied in a raspy voice. "Nothing you do is gonna work."

Bloodletter snapped his neck so now all he could do was sprawl limply on the floor, his head still in a chokehold. "That works," Schaefer groaned as blood dripped out of his mouth and nose.

"Make sure his neck stays broken," Aaron ordered. "If he even starts twitching, shatter his bones apart."

"And yet I'm the sadistic one."

Aaron glanced at Schaefer. "So, Colonel, what were you doing while the Matheson science department continued theorizing the origins of the Deadmen?"

"Frankly, I was standing in the corner trying to stifle my laughter," Schaefer replied. "I thought it would be entertaining to see what those bastards would try to come up with. A centuries-old curse, the wrath of God, Cordyceps fungus, nuclear radiation, blah blah blah. This one scientist, Bruce Druckmann, almost got too close to figuring it out. He was the first to discover that it was nanites that caused all this."

"Bruce Druckmann?" Aaron repeated while clenching his fist. "The same man you ordered me to execute while I was on prison duty? The man you called a traitor working with the Cutthroats?"

"That's the one. He knew a little too much."

"Next question. Why did you think killing your colleagues would keep everything a secret?"

"Believe it or not, I actually regret that a little." He let out a brief grunt as Bloodletter snapped his neck again. "Because of two people: Simon Reid and Abigail Maddox."

Aaron tilted his head down as if he were offering his condolences. He remembered their aliases from the documents he found. "Poseidon and Artemis," he said.

Bloodletter gasped in horror and proceeded to choke Schaefer. "You killed Artemis?" he shouted.

"Are you taking the piss?" Schaefer replied in a scratchy throat. "You were trapped in that lab for two years. Did you not find her corpse?"

"Oh, I found her alright." He squeezed Schaefer's throat tighter. "I was a bit optimistic back then. I thought maybe she blew her brains out, had enough of your shit. But now that I think about it, her corpse always seemed to have that look of terror permanently plastered on her face. The kind of expression you'd see on someone who'd just endured betrayal."

Bloodletter punched the back of Schaefer's neck, breaking it down to smaller pieces. "Killing her," Schaefer explained, "was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Young, brilliant, full of potential, I hated that she was wasted on such a vile experience like the Ambrosia Project. She was like a daughter to me."

And with that comment, Bloodletter tore part of Schaefer's face off so his right set of teeth were exposed. "Fuck you, Schaefer! You didn't give a shit about her! Or Sarah! Or anybody! 'She was like a daughter to me'. Fucking bollocks!"

"Bloodletter, shut up," Aaron said. "You're only making yourself feel worse."

"If she was your goddamn daughter, what would you have done with Artemis? Where would she be?"

"Probably the opposite of your daughter. Alive."

That was all it took. Bloodletter twisted Schaefer's head nearly all the way around before ripping it from his shoulders. Schaefer's decapitated body slumped to the ground in a contorted position, still twitching.

"I knew I couldn't stop you," Aaron told Bloodletter, who dropped Schaefer's head on the floor. "And even if I could've, I wouldn't have."

Bloodletter didn't say anything else. He extended his hands out as two long blades materialized in his hands out of his blood. His next plan was to slice Schaefer up into small pieces and feed them to the Deadmen below.

"That's unfortunate."

Aaron and Bloodletter froze in place. That was Schaefer speaking. And when they looked down, his disembodied head flashed his usual sadistic smirk.

"Looks like that 'go for the head' trick doesn't work on me," he said.

And his headless body started dragging itself toward his head, creeping across the floor like a spider.

"Fucking die already!" Bloodletter screamed as he tried mangling up Schaefer's headless body. He only managed to remove his right leg and stab his back, but Schaefer's body reunited with his head, which he reconnected to his neck and spine like a detachable toy piece

Bloodletter raised his blades up and prepared to plunge them into his enemy, but Schaefer made his move first. And soon Bloodletter realized there was a machete lodged in his throat. He couldn't feel his arms or his legs. He collapsed to the floor as Schaefer yanked his blade back out, and Bloodletter slumped to the floor as blood poured out of the new holes in his neck.

"You son of a bitch!" Aaron exclaimed as he charged at Schaefer with his talons out.

Once again, Schaefer used a counterattack. He plunged his machete into Aaron's stomach and flipped him over so he crashed to the floor on his back. He ripped the blade back out and punched him in the nose, instantly breaking it. To finish it off, he stabbed the machete through Aaron's sternum, penetrating through the metal floor beneath him.

Schaefer kneeled down on top of Aaron. "You're only making this worse for you," he whispered.

"I can't move," Aaron croaked.

"That tends to happen after critical spinal injuries."

Instead of yanking the blade out, Schaefer grabbed Aaron and pulled him from the floor, letting the blade continue to impale through his spine. A large pool of blood had formed underneath the boy, and his legs dragged lazily on the floor as Schaefer carried him toward the nearest ledge.

"Schaefer," Aaron spoke slowly. "I know you have a weakness. We all do."

Schaefer chuckled. "Keep telling yourself that, lad. I'm incorruptible."

He held him over the edge of a ten-story drop. Down below, humans and Deadmen were still engaged in violent conflict.

"It was a pleasure knowing you, O'Connor," Schaefer spoke. "I'd shake your hand if you still had the physical ability to move your limbs. And I'll make sure to remember you once I see your corpse splattered across the pavement of the Commons."

Bloodletter remained on the floor in a catatonic state. He was choking on his own blood, his own weapon.

"Aaron, don't go," said Nika's voice. Aaron glanced around and saw her standing beside Schaefer, next to Jonah and Natalya. All three of them had that blue spectral glow. "This can't be the end."

"Goodbye, O'Connor."

Following the sound of a gunshot, Schaefer let go.