A few Brawlers and two Casters rushed through the vanguard to heroically engage the cyclops and keep it distracted.
From how well they were managing themselves, they looked like they were high-ranking Cadets — probably in the top 40s.
But Samael wasn't holding his breath on their survival.
At best, they could keep the cyclops distracted for a minute. Maybe two.
It was not nearly enough ti to evacuate more than a handful of people from the plaza.
And it certainly wasn't enough ti to sneak up behind the cyclops and try to take it down while it wasn't busy blasting lasers at them.
Samael gripped the hilt of Aurieth a little tighter.
By then, Michael had made his way to them.
Without a word, Samael jerked his chin toward Juliana.
Michael followed the gesture — then blinked when he saw the white-haired girl slumped on the ground, one hand clutching her calf, blood seeping through her fingers.
He dropped beside her imdiately.
She was losing blood fast and looked even paler than usual. Yet her azure eyes remained as cold and detached as ever.
"What happened to you?" he asked — and instantly realized how dumb that sounded.
Juliana gave him her best deadpan look. "What do you think? I'll give you three guesses."
Michael rolled his eyes, like he knew he deserved that jab.
Then his head snapped up as he began scanning the battlefield — gazing toward the rear guard where the Healers and Supporters had gathered.
He squinted a few tis, then gave a subtle nod as if he'd found a target and activated his Origin Card.
Juliana imdiately realized what he'd done.
He'd copied so Healer's innate ability.
And she was proven right a second later — when a warm, mint-colored glow pulsed from Michael's palm and spread over her wound like a silken veil of light.
The pain in her leg dulled instantly. The bleeding slowed. And the gash began stitching itself shut with unnatural speed — sothing no potion or bandage could've ever pulled off so fast.
Her leg twitched as muscle reknit under her skin.
When she was fully healed, she looked up at Michael with an unreadable expression.
...Well, unreadable to Michael.
Samael, on the other hand, knew that expression perfectly.
It was the look most people only ever saw in murder docuntaries.
The kind of cold, analytical stare serial killers gave when thinking of ways to fit a dismbered body into a washing machine without leaving blood in the drum.
Juliana had that exact twisted look in her eyes.
The infamous murder math.
She wasn't blinking. She wasn't smiling. She was just… assessing.
It was one of her quirks — she did that with anyone she deed dangerous enough to be a future threat.
And Michael — sweet, clueless, tragically unaware Michael — had no idea.
She was already doing equations in her head. Running simulations. Building scenarios. Going over probabilities. Like:
'How many abilities can he copy? Is the process instant? Can he swap a copied power mid-combat? Would it be better to attack him from cover — limit his line of sight — or bait him into copying a useless ability, then kill him before he could switch?'
Of course, only a sociopath would think like that about soone who had just saved their life.
But Juliana wasn't exactly in the running for Most Empathetic Cadet of the Year.
She was, in fact, a high-functioning sociopath.
So even here — in the middle of a battlefield littered with corpses, monsters, and laser-scorched dirt — she still couldn't help but ask herself:
'If I ever have to kill this guy — or worse, want to — how hard would it really be?'
anwhile, the poor, unsuspecting prey tilted his head and gave her the most tragically misplaced smile in the history of tragically misplaced smiles.
"You're welco," he said with a touch of bashful pride in his voice, misinterpreting her dead-eyed murder calculation as — gods help him — a blush.
Yes.
He thought she was blushing.
She.
Juliana Vox Blade.
Blushing.
Samael was torn between wanting to facepalm or sympathetically pat his back as Michael looked so proud of himself — like he'd just saved a damsel in distress.
But instead of correcting his adorable little delusion, Samael simply turned away and focused on the real problem — the cyclops in the distance.
A tired sigh escaped his lips as he narrowed his eyes.
The giant was still rampaging through the plaza — swiping at fleeing students, hurling debris, and firing laser beams that carved molten scars across the stonework.
The brave Cadets who had stepped up to engage that nightmarish thing were barely hanging on.
One of the Casters had already dropped to her knees with smoke rising from her shoulder where a laser had clipped her. She was still breathing, but that could change any second.
A Brawler was bleeding from the scalp. His fists were still raised, but his stance was now wobbling.
They were valiant. But they were also about as dood as side characters in a horror movie.
Right then, Michael ca to stand beside him.
"I saw what you did earlier," he said quietly. "You saved a lot of lives."
"Not enough," Samael replied, shaking his head. Then he pointed at that one-eyed giant in front of the eastern exit. "We need to bring that thing down and get out of the plaza. Or we'll all be butchered soon."
Anywhere would be better than here.
Outside the plaza, they could take cover in buildings, use the narrow streets to isolate monsters, or simply run away.
But here, in the open… there was no running.
They were boxed in from all sides.
And the enemy's numbers were increasing each ti a comrade fell and rose again as a Lesser Solbraith.
At this rate, everyone here would slowly be converted — one corpse at a ti.
They had to escape.
And they had to do it fast.
"I get what you an," Michael said, lifting his sword as shadows swirled around it like mist. "Now I can't explain the details, but this sword has an enchantnt. One that lets kill these monsters, even with their insane regeneration. I'm confident I can kill the cyclops, too."
But of course, Samael already knew that.
The sword in question was the Fang of Xaldreth itself — the cursed blade of the Sixth Demon Prince. The signature weapon of Michael in the ga.
And the enchantnt he was talking about?
It was — [Soul Severance].
A power so lethal it could cut not just flesh or spirit — but the very connection between them.
Even the Solbraiths' regeneration ant nothing if their souls were ripped clean from their bodies. Once that link was severed, they wouldn't rise back up again.
They'd just… die.
Permanently.
Irrevocably.
"But?" Samael prompted.
Michael sighed. "But the problem is, to actually kill it, I still have to land a hit with my sword. And none of the strikes I tried earlier made even a scratch on that thing. My blade couldn't pierce its skin. Its flesh was as hard as rock. It felt like I was trying to stab a boulder with a butter knife."
"That's definitely a problem," Samael said, brows furrowing. "What's the solution?"
Michael hesitated, then raised his hand and pointed at the cyclops' head.
From here, the giant really looked like a walking volcano — blackened skin like cooled magma, thick and jagged as stone. Steam hissed from vents along its shoulders. Molten cracks pulsed with an eerie orange glow beneath its rocky hide. Every step it took sent tremors through the ground like a distant aftershock.
"Its skin's impenetrable," Michael muttered. "But not its eye. To fire those lasers, the giant had to channel all its energy through its one eye — making it a natural weak spot."
Samael nodded quietly — then groaned as the next obvious problem clicked into place.
The thing was at least eighteen feet tall.
"But let guess," Samael said. "You can't reach its eye."
Michael gave a grim nod. "Yes. And getting close to it in the first place is not easy either."
Samael followed the thread. "Because it is not unard. It has a club and smashes anyone who cos near."
"Exactly!" Michael threw his hands up. "So… do you have a plan?"
Samael didn't answer right away.
Instead, a devious smirk curled on his lips. He turned around and casually pointed a thumb at Juliana.
"Oh, I don't," he said. "But she does."
Michael turned — just in ti to see Juliana looking back at them with half-lidded eyes, her expression clearly indicating that she was so done with this day.
"So that's why you dragged here," she said flatly.
Samael nodded without an ounce of sha. "Of course, my loyal Shadow. Ti for you to finally be useful to and do sothing about that overgrown flashlight."
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