Dargan coughed again, blood spitting between his cracked teeth.
Liora didn't rush.
She walked calmly—her blade dragging.
She stopped in front of him.
Dargan tried to push himself up with one arm, trembling. "You…"
"You must've heard from that comm-link in your armor," Liora said coldly.
She raised her voice just enough for the distant surveillance gear to catch it.
"Luxoria officially declares war on the Aurelius family."
In a steel-lined chamber deep inside the Aurelius vault, multiple red screens lit up.
Theron Aurelius stood tall, one arm folded behind his back.
The other gripped a control wand linked to his command console.
His guntal eyes narrowed.
"…She said it," Theron growled.
"Replay that. Streamline to Hadrian."
Dargan spat blood into the rubble.
"You… think you'll live long enough to make that matter?"
"You think declaring war makes you powerful?"
Liora tilted her head, unmoved.
"No."
"Declaring war just ans we're done pretending this was passive."
She looked around at the collapsed buildings.
The burned corpses of Flaregul riders and the warped landscape left behind by Leon's domain.
Her voice remained flat.
"This… was just the opening act."
Dargan growled, jaw trembling.
"You won't win. Aurelius has thousands of beasts."
"You have… What? A castle with three tars?"
Liora didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
She raised her blade and placed the glowing edge an inch from his throat.
"Luxoria has exactly what it needs."
"You?"
"No."
She pointed the tip at his chest.
"We have reason."
[Aurelius Command Center]
A junior officer turned to Theron.
"Sir. Orders? Do we deploy containnt?"
Theron watched the screen where Liora stood over Dargan's broken body.
His expression didn't change.
"Not yet."
He tapped the screen once.
"Let her deliver the ssage."
Dargan gritted his teeth.
"Even if you beat ... they'll co for you."
"Cassius. Theron. Hadrian himself. You won't even reach the gates."
Liora crouched slightly, blade still resting against him.
"I won't even reach the gates, huh?"
Liora smirked.
"I am only here to deliver a ssage."
Dargan's blood-slick jaw tensed.
His eyes darted between her face and the gleaming weapon pressing just above his heart.
"We don't need to storm your labs."
"We don't need to chase you through your mountain of war beasts."
"You have numbers," she said with a tilt of her head.
"So do it. I dare you."
Liora leaned in, the heat of Leon's warform suit glowing brighter around her.
"Co to Luxoria."
Dargan gritted his teeth. "You… you'll regret—"
She cut him off with silence.
Her eyes didn't blink.
"Co. Bring your beasts, your suppressors, your engineered horrors."
"I want them all lined up outside our gates."
Dargan's lips twitched. "You're bluff—"
"I'm giving you an invitation," she interrupted.
"Because this ti, we won't be the ones running."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"You ended our ho once. Now we've built a castle."
She stood. The blade lifted by a fraction.
Dargan started to speak again—
And Liora thrust the blade straight through his chest.
The beam didn't explode.
It burned.
It carved.
It evaporated the last of his armor, his ribcage, his heart.
He didn't scream. There was no ti.
His mouth opened.
Then closed.
Then nothing.
Liora withdrew the blade without looking down.
A thin stream of smoke rose behind her as Dargan's lifeless body slumped backward into the crater.
---
Fiona slowly stood from her hiding spot.
Her hand trembled on the edge of her visor.
"Okay," she whispered.
"Uh… that's… that's the end of him."
She slowly stepped forward as her drones hovered in formation, capturing every angle.
The air still shimred faintly from Leon's residual domain presence.
Fiona swallowed hard.
"Chat, I... think that was the most terrifying thing I've ever stread."
---
[Luxoria Castle App – LIVE CHAT]
@Ashfall: SHE DIDN'T EVEN FLINCH
@CoreBurst: Dargan's done. Deleted. Just like that
@MoonByte: 'Co to Luxoria' is actually the hardest threat ever
@SilverSunOrDie: My guy got EXECUTED during a ssage
@FionyxOnFire: I can't even. She just made a political statent AND a killcam in the sa breath
---
Back inside the Aurelius Vault, red indicator lights pulsed one final ti before fading into silence.
Dargan: deceased.
Theron Aurelius didn't flinch.
"Trace the origin of her signal," he said, voice clipped.
"Route all thermal overlays on that city sector. Get confirmation on that beast signature."
The techs scrambled behind him.
One of the analysts, a younger tar with trembling fingers, tapped furiously at his console.
"We've got the battlefield coordinates… infrared data's distorted."
"There's interference. Sothing scrambled the terrain scan."
"Scrambled?" Theron asked sharply, turning.
The analyst flinched.
"Sir, it's not natural interference. It's so kind of radiant overload."
"All sensors caught a burst of solar-elent distortion right before Dargan's vitals flatlined."
Cassius stepped into the observation chamber, arms folded behind his back.
His eyes flicked to the screen.
"No match for any beast signature in our database?"
He asked without even looking at the analyst.
The room went quiet.
"No, sir," the analyst finally admitted.
"Whatever that was… we don't have it on file."
Another technician leaned in.
"We checked it three tis. It's not Vornis. It's not any Luxoria beast we've cataloged."
"It doesn't even behave like a known Sovereign-Tier."
Theron narrowed his eyes. "Describe it."
The tech swallowed.
"We only got fragnted scans…"
"But the energy output was infinite. And changing."
"The form kept shifting."
"So kind of radiant fusion between elental light, solar fla, and silver plasma constructs."
Cassius's voice grew colder. "It adapted?"
"Yes. Mid-battle. Not even a delay between changes."
Cassius frowned, slowly pacing toward the screen. "That's not possible."
"Sir, it used a domain..."
"One that collapsed environntal energy fields and burned out all magic traces in a 50-ter radius."
"We couldn't get clear scans."
Theron looked at the battlefield feed, rewinding to where Liora had walked from the ruins.
"This wasn't the sister who killed Vance," Cassius muttered.
"No," Theron said. "This was the other one. The weapon."
They both stared.
Then Cassius whispered, "So what did they build this ti?"
---
Back on the battlefield, Liora stood over the corpse of the Aurelius enforcer and slowly turned to Fiona.
"It's done," she said.
Fiona nodded quickly. "Y-yeah. Got it. I caught everything."
Liora looked toward the sky.
The sun had fully broken through the clouds now, rays catching the ruined cityscape.
"No more hiding," she said quietly.
Then to Fiona, without turning:
"Let's go ho."
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