Jack spun and ran back up the carrier’s flight deck and started clambering up some netting on the side of the Russian destroyer mounted on the back of the aircraft carrier.

On the golden pinnacle, Sphinx climbed quickly.

On the side of the Russian destroyer, Jack clambered upward.

Sphinx gripped every hand- and foothold with grim determination, staring fixedly up at his goal.

Jack scrambled over the destroyer’s handrail, dropped clumsily onto its deck.

Sphinx was only thirty metres below the Throne now and ascending fast, his confidence growing.

Jack ran forward along the deck then scurried up a metal ladder.

Sphinx panted as he climbed. Twenty metres from the Throne.

Jack slipped into the dark cabin of the Russian destroyer’s main forward gun.

It was, to be frank, a big fucking piece of artillery: a whopping 130mm cannon capable of firing fearsomely large rounds at a cyclic rate of thirty rounds per minute.

Jack found a panicked young Russian sailor still in the gunner’s chair. He hurled him out through the door, slammed it after him, and slid into the seat . . .

. . . and peered out through the sight-window to see . . .

. . . dead ahead, across the cityscape of temples, obelisks and towertops, the pinnacle with the Throne on it, with Sphinx barely twenty metres below it.

With the destroyer beached on the carrier’s steeply down-tilted flight deck, its gun was aimed too low. Jack needed to raise its angle a few degrees, so he started turning dials and flicking switches, causing the long 130mm gun barrel to rise on its massive gears.

Sphinx was ten metres away now. So close. His eyes gleamed. His lips turned up in a satisfied smile.

Ezekiel was still under fire from Sphinx’s rearguard sniper.

Rastor and his men were still racing across the new greystone floor of the city.

The waterfalls kept raining seawater into the megastadium.

And then the gun barrel stopped its rising as Jack brought the pinnacle into his sights.

‘Rule this, Sphinx,’ he said.

He slammed his fist down on the firing switch, unleashing the awesome firepower of the warship’s cannon.

Boom-boom!-boom-boom!-boom-boom!

Six booming shots blasted out from the mighty cannon.

The roar of the shots reverberated across the megastadium.

Sphinx’s Warbler might’ve been able to repel small subsonic bullets and shoulder-launched missiles, but it was no match for a fusillade of massive 130mm shells.

Jack’s shells slammed into the golden pinnacle, one after the other, impacting against it with astonishing power, and immediately . . .

. . . the ancient pinnacle cracked at its peak, bare metres above Sphinx . . .

. . . and the golden and silver spire broke . . .

. . . and in almost eerie slow motion, the top of the pinnacle, with the all-powerful Throne of the Tree of Life at its tip, began to tilt and fall.

Now it was Jack who smiled.

‘Bullseye, motherfucker.’