The courtyard had beco a slaughterhouse.
Valdris moved like liquid death, its massive form belying the grace with which it fought.
Claws that could rend steel tore through Artifacts and bodies with equal ease. Its flas consud everything they touched, turning the night into a hellish inferno of orange and red.
A Sunlit Order mber tried to activate a Binding Technique, hoping to slow the Divine Beast’s movents. Valdris simply roared, and the sonic force of that sound shattered the Mid Sequence move before it could fully activate.
In the sa motion, one massive paw swept the attacker aside, breaking bones with a sickening crunch.
"Focus fire on the Beast!" Serena commanded, her whip crackling with energy as she coordinated the assault. "Ignore the automatons for now! We need Valdris down!"
The Order mbers obeyed, channeling their Ancient MajiK into concentrated attacks.
Despite the infection still affecting so of them, they pushed through the pain and weakness, knowing that failure here ant everything they’d sacrificed would be worthless.
Unlike with complete beings of Chaos, this corruption only affected them sowhat.
It was far more bearable.
Besides, they had a way to resolve their own corruption.
The mission ca first, however.
Bolts of corrupted energy, manifestations of primarily Spirit and Curse Art, streaked through the air toward Valdris.
Embers of Soul Art also filled the atmosphere.
The Divine Beast weathered the initial barrage, its scales absorbing much of the damage, but even such a magnificent creature had limits.
"Keep pushing!" Logan shouted, his dark armor already scorched and dented from an automaton’s earlier attack. He activated a Technique—Shadow Bind—that sent tendrils of darkness wrapping around Valdris’s legs.
The Beast snarled and flas erupted from its body, burning away the shadows, but the mont of restriction was enough.
Three Order mbers with spear Artifacts lunged forward, their weapons glowing with Curse-infused power.
The spears pierced through gaps in Valdris’s scales, drawing ichor that glowed like molten gold.
The Divine Beast roared in pain and fury, its wings sweeping outward in a devastating arc that sent two of the attackers flying.
One crashed into a wall with a sound that suggested nothing inside remained intact.
The other landed broken and still.
But more Order mbers rushed in to replace them.
"The automatons are advancing!" soone shouted in warning.
Indeed, the four chanical guardians had identified the concentrated assault on Valdris as the primary threat. They moved to support the Divine Beast, their weapons systems charging with deadly intent.
"Block them!" Julius bellowed, his wounded shoulder still bleeding but his determination unshaken. He activated his Curse Art—using Barrier Techniques on his left hand that created shields of compressed force. "Don’t let them support the Beast!"
A dozen Order mbers peeled off from the main assault to engage the automatons. It was a desperate holding action, and everyone knew it.
The chanical warriors were designed for this kind of combat, their programming optimized for battlefield tactics.
One automaton’s energy blade carved through three Order mbers in a single sweep, its movents perfectly calculated for maximum efficiency.
Another’s shoulder cannons fired in rapid succession, each blast finding a target with chanical precision.
Bodies fell.
Screams echoed.
Blood mixed with oil where damaged automatons leaked fluid.
But the Sunlit Order kept coming.
These were people who had suffered under Noble oppression their entire lives.
Many had watched loved ones die from overwork, starvation, or casual cruelty.
The infection ravaging their bodies was just one more pain to endure, and they’d endured far worse in the slums and slave pens.
Many started this mission out of a selfish desire for a better life.
But now, confronted with a life and death situation, their tenacity was put on full display.
"If I die, I’m taking you with !" A woman scread, throwing herself at an automaton while activating a self-sacrificing Soul Art Technique that used up all her Ether and Soul essence at once.
BOOOOOMMM!!!
The detonation rocked the courtyard, destroying the automaton’s left arm and damaging its core systems.
The woman was vaporized instantly, but her sacrifice created an opening that two more attackers exploited, jamming corrupted energy directly into the machine’s exposed circuitry.
The automaton sparked and convulsed, then fell silent and still.
One down. Three to go.
But the cost was staggering. Nearly fifteen Order mbers had died just to destroy a single automaton, and the remaining three showed no signs of weakening.
Worse, Valdris—despite its wounds—continued to be a devastating force. Its flas had created a barrier around Augustus, who remained cradled in one automaton’s protective arms.
Every attempt to reach the young heir was t with fire and fury.
"We’re running out of ti!" Serena panted, her own body bearing multiple burns and cuts. "We need to finish this before the alarm spreads beyond the manor!"
She was right to be concerned. The battle’s noise and light would eventually attract attention from neighboring estates.
Once the City’s Officials, or worse yet, other Noble Houses realized what was happening, reinforcents would arrive.
The Sunlit Order would be trapped and annihilated.
Logan gritted his teeth, making a terrible calculation. They needed more power, and there was only one source available.
"Julius!" he called out. "The Forbidden Technique!"
Julius’s eyes widened, then narrowed with understanding.
"That will kill everyone who uses it."
"We’re dead anyway if we don’t finish this!" Logan shot back.
The man looked at the carnage around them—at the bodies of their comrades, at the still-formidable defenses protecting Augustus, at the narrowing window of opportunity.
Then he nodded slowly.
"Everyone!" Julius shouted. "Those willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, channel your life force into the Final Severance Technique! We end this now!"
Ten Order mbers imdiately stepped forward.
They were the only ones with the affinity required for the activation of this Technique.
They knew what was being asked.
Final Severance was a High Sequence Technique from the Null Art.
It was one of the gifts from their leader.
Their Aether Benefactor.
It was ant to be used as a last resort.
This Forbidden Technique would burn through their very life essence to create an attack of overwhelming power, but it would leave nothing behind—not even bodies to bury.
"For a world without chains," one of them said quietly.
"For our children who’ll never know slavery," another added.
All of a sudden, they were one.
A selfless ideal uniting every single one of them.
They ford a circle, joining hands, and began the chant. Their bodies started to glow with an eerie purple light as life force converted directly into destructive energy. The air itself seed to scream in protest at what they were doing.
Valdris sensed the danger.
"NO! Automatons, intercept—"
Too late.
BOOOOOOOM!!!
The ten sacrificial Order mbers released the technique as one, and a beam of annihilating energy shot forward. It was the color of bruised twilight, and where it passed, reality itself seed to crack and distort.
The beam struck Valdris directly in the chest.
The Divine Beast’s scales, which had withstood so much punishnt, finally failed.
The energy bored through, reaching the creature’s core. Valdris roared one final ti—a sound of defiance and sorrow—before the light consud it from within.
The explosion that followed was trendous.
When the smoke cleared, Valdris was gone. The ten Order mbers who’d perford the technique were also gone, not even ash remaining. And caught in the blast radius, Julius stood swaying, his body burned beyond recognition.
"Did... did we..." he managed to gasp.
Then he fell forward and moved no more.
Serena stared at his body, sothing breaking inside her.
Julius had been insufferable at tis, arrogant and reckless, but he’d believed in their cause with every fiber of his being. And now he was gone, along with so many others.
But they couldn’t stop to mourn.
"Status!" she called out hoarsely.
"Twenty-seven of us left," soone reported. "Most wounded. Infection is getting worse."
"Automatons?"
"Three are still operational. One damaged but functional. They’ve ford a tighter protective circle around the target."
Serena looked at the chanical guardians, now standing in an impenetrable formation around Augustus.
The young heir was barely visible behind their shields and armored bodies. The automatons’ weapons were still active, still tracking for threats.
And the Sunlit Order had fewer than thirty mbers left, most weakened by infection, injuries, or both.
A stalemate.
They couldn’t reach Augustus through the automaton wall, but the automatons couldn’t pursue them without leaving the heir vulnerable.
And every second they stood here was a second closer to discovery and destruction.
"We need a new plan," Logan said, his voice strained. His dark armor was cracked and failing, blood seeping through gaps in the plating.
"We can’t sustain an assault on—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Everyone stopped.
Because soone was walking into the courtyard.
Not running, not charging, just walking with calm, asured steps.
A figure erged from the shadows at the courtyard’s edge, moving through the destruction and carnage as if taking an evening stroll.
The newcor was young, perhaps around fifteen or sixteen years of age, with dark and bright hair and features that seed sohow familiar despite being impossible to place.
He wore simple clothing that was completely out of place in this battlefield of blood and fire.
What struck everyone most, though, were his eyes. They held a depth that shouldn’t exist in soone so young, an ancient quality that made hardened warriors unconsciously take a step back.
"Who—" Serena began.
Then recognition hit her like a physical blow.
"No," she whispered. "It can’t be. You’re dead. We saw... Logan said you were..."
Logan’s face had gone completely white.
"You are...?" His voice cracked. "... Augustus’ Naless Slave, Cursed Boy?"
The na rippled through the Sunlit Order like a shockwave.
This was the boy they’d tried to recruit in the prison. The one Logan had assured them was dead, killed in the Coliseum.
Yet here he stood, very much alive.
Augustus, still held by the automaton, stared at the newcor with the greatest confusion, but also desperate hope.
"Y-you... You’re here! You’re alive?!"
Rey didn’t answer imdiately.
His gaze swept across the courtyard, taking in the bodies of the Desgarron parents, the fallen staff mbers, the dead and dying Sunlit Order mbers, the remaining automatons standing guard.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet but carried clearly through the sudden silence.
"What an unforeseen developnt. It appears both sides are in a stalemate, requiring just a bit of assistance to topple the opposition."
Rey took another step forward.
"So which side should I join? I can’t help but wonder..."
[A/N: It’s finally ti! I wonder what Rey could be planning.]
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