Lucius descended the glass corridor that spiraled down from the Harvest Chamber toward the golden bunker. The walls were transparent, showing layers of earth and crystal veins pulsing with stolen soul energy. The air grew heavier with every step. Not warm. Dense. Pressing against his skin like an invisible ocean. The combined spiritual pressure of millions of harvested souls flowed through the pipes alongside him, converging toward the underground core.At the end of the corridor stood a titanium door. It was seamless, without handle or keyhole. A single red rune pulsed at its center, linked to a genetic scanner that would only open for the President's DNA. Lucius did not slow his stride. He placed his palm flat against the cold metal and pushed a focused pulse of energy from the Cold Core.The temperature around his hand dropped to absolute zero for a fraction of a second. The metal became brittle. The locking mechanism inside shattered with a muffled crack. The door swung inward with

The golden fist connected with Lucius's chest.The impact was not a strike. It was a cataclysm compressed into a knuckle's width. The shockwave blew outward in a ring of shattered light, tearing silk cushions to threads and ripping gold tiles from the floor. Lucius's body became a projectile. He punched through the bunker wall, through a layer of reinforced concrete, through another, and another, and another. Five structural barriers disintegrated around him before he crashed into the open floor of the Harvest Chamber above.He landed on his back and slid twenty meters across the metal grating. Sparks sprayed from his heels. His coat was shredded across the chest, revealing the gray uniform beneath. The skin over his sternum was red and smoking, but unbroken. The Cold Core had absorbed the brunt of the kinetic energy, distributing it through his body and venting the excess as a wave of frost that crackled across the floor around him.Fast. The President was genuinely fast. Angel-level

The scream that tore from President Hedron's mouth was not a sound made by human vocal cords. It was a shriek ripped from the deepest layer of his soul, a frequency that shattered the remaining glass tubes and sent cracks spiderwebbing across the Harvest Chamber's walls. The black decay from Lucius's fingers had reached the core of the Godly Harvest System. The red tendrils connecting the chalice to the President's palm withered and snapped.The Heavenly Cup went dark.One moment it blazed with the stolen life force of millions. The next, its golden radiance flickered and died, leaving behind only a tarnished brass goblet. The cup clattered from Hedron's limp fingers and rolled across the metal grating with a hollow, empty sound.Then the souls were freed.Millions of trapped voices erupted from the cup in a swirling vortex of pale light. They spiraled upward, a cyclone of liberated spirits, passing through the ceiling of the Harvest Chamber as though the tons of crystal and steel did

The two forces collided and the capital shook.Red lightning met golden radiance. The shockwave tore through the Presidential Palace tower from the inside, blowing out crystal windows floor by floor. Glass and steel rained onto the streets below. Citizens who had gathered for the Festival screamed and scattered as chunks of debris the size of wagons crashed into the plazas. Far above, streaks of crimson and gold painted the night sky, a light show of destruction that could be seen from every district.Inside the ruined Harvest Chamber, Lucius and Archangel Alveo fought without pause.Alveo was a master of the heavenly sword. His blade of holy light moved in patterns that no mortal swordsman could replicate. It cut through the air with perfect precision, each strike flowing into the next like verses of a divine song. He had trained for millennia in the courts of paradise. He had slain demons and rebellious spirits. He had never been pushed back by a human.Until now.Lucius fought like

The blood-red portal tore open in the sky above the ruined capital. Crimson lightning lashed outward, striking the remaining towers of the Presidential Palace and sending fresh showers of debris onto the streets below. The citizens who had not already fled screamed and ran for whatever shelter they could find. The vortex pulsed once, a sickening heartbeat in the clouds, and then it spat out a figure.The body tumbled through the air, limp and broken, trailing smoke from a dozen wounds. It struck the cracked asphalt of the palace courtyard with a sickening thud, bounced once, and rolled to a stop against a chunk of fallen crystal wall. The figure was female. Her clothing was shredded. Her skin was crisscrossed with deep slashes that glowed faintly with residual holy energy, the marks of angelic blades that had cut her over and over.Lucius turned from the ashes of Alveo. His cold eyes found the fallen figure, and recognition sparked. He crossed the rubble in three strides and knelt bes