Everett stood nearby, his own posture carrying quiet, watchful patience rather than open triumph. When his eyes met Vincent's, something passed between them that looked less like enemies and more like two men who understood exactly what political theater required of both of them."We've both lost children to this war in different ways," Everett said quietly, close enough that only Vincent could hear it clearly. "I take no pleasure in this.""Neither do I," Vincent replied, equally quiet.The executioner stepped forward.Chaos erupted.Andre's signal came without warning, hundreds of Basa family members emerging from positions they'd spent hours establishing throughout the crowd, their coordinated movement overwhelming the platform guards before proper resistance could organize. Everett, watching from his position, made a deliberate choice not to intervene immediately, his own guards receiving no urgent orders despite the chaos unfolding directly in front of him.Andre reached Victoria

Marco woke with a headache and the specific mental clarity that came from processing an enormous amount of absorbed vital energy.He checked his status immediately.Second Transition Level Two. Still. The eight thousand soldiers had pushed him close, close enough that he could feel the pressure sitting right at the threshold, but not quite enough to cross it."You're disappointed," Nightingale observed, watching his expression from where she sat cleaning a blade nearby."I killed an entire army," Marco said. "I expected more from that.""You killed an army of ordinary soldiers with a single indiscriminate technique," Nightingale said. "The system rewards engagement quality, not just body count. A thousand ants don't teach you as much as one skilled opponent.""That's an annoying design philosophy.""Take it up with whoever built the universe," she said, unbothered.The breakthrough came four days later, after a string of ambushes that Nightingale orchestrated with the precision of som

The Judgment Knight burst through the portal a half-second behind Marco, unicorn and rider both, his fury undimmed by whatever disorientation the crossing should have produced."You think a smokescreen ends this?" he shouted.Marco turned, already exhausted from the earlier engagement, and made a calculation he'd been avoiding since Mountain Mao Town. He couldn't outlast this fight in a fair exchange. He needed to end it before it started."War Holy Sword," he said.The knight's expression flickered with recognition. "That's—"Marco didn't let him finish. Extreme Flash gathered in a single desperate burst, the technique's cost accepted before it was even fully formed, silver-grey light erupting from the blade and cutting straight through the knight's ceremonial armor in one motion.The impact sent the knight tumbling backward off his unicorn, his breastplate shattered, blood spreading across the fractured metal. He hit the ground hard and didn't immediately rise.Marco didn't wait to

The Beast King, watching the crimson conflagration swallow the mountaintop, made a decision that carried more panic than tactical clarity."Release them!" he shouted to the handlers positioned behind his command line. "All three! Now!"Three cages the size of small buildings shuddered open in rapid succession.A tenth-level golden eagle burst skyward first, its wingspan blotting out sections of the smoke-filled sky, its modified eyes tracking the crimson mass with predatory focus. Behind it, a Barbaric Bull descended the ridge with earth-shattering force, its hide already thickening with defensive stone formation. The Beast King's own scorpion, still reeling from its earlier retreat, turned back toward the flames with reluctant obedience.Inside the crimson fire, something answered.Marco's consciousness had gone somewhere distant, buried under Bloodthirst's absolute peak, but what remained wasn't helpless. Blood Source Control, a skill he'd barely touched in previous engagements, act

The meteor's weight pressed down on the Blood Beast with catastrophic force, its glowing surface still radiating heat that scorched the crater around it further with every passing second.Then hundreds of thick arms erupted from the crimson mass, converging on the burning projectile from every angle, closing around it with the patient, mindless persistence of something that had never learned the concept of overwhelming odds.Christopher, still hovering above, watched in disbelief as the meteor began rising, the arms lifting it back skyward against gravity and its own considerable mass."Impossible," he said.He didn't waste time questioning it further."Then let's see if a thousand does what one couldn't," he snapped, and gestured with both hands.Fire spears erupted around him, condensing from the ambient heat of the surrounding inferno, each one burning white-hot and sharpened to a killing point. They numbered easily in the thousands, filling the sky above the crater like a second s