The Sovereign's Zero-Rank Return

Chapter 9: The Logistics of Aggression

‎The transition from a problem to a big threat required more than just strong weapons; it required complete control of the supply chain.

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‎In the three days after the removal of the Core-Breaker, the square of Black-Water Ridge stopped looking like a wild frontier town. Under Orin Clay’s planning it had been completely rebuilt into a very efficient distribution center. The messy collection of iron-sheet shacks was cleared away. Replaced by organized stone sorting areas where raw ore, Cryos-Crystals and refined zero-resistance bars were sorted, labeled and packed according to detailed logistical plans.

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‎Orin stood on the upper level of the administrative building looking out at the long line of transport wagons stretching toward the northern horizon. The Universal Archive System worked quickly its blue data arrays showing across his pupils in clean steady columns of logistical calculations.

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‎"The supply chain is getting stable Orin " Maren Vance said, stepping onto the level behind him. Her heavy iron boots had been replaced with quiet boots made from a special ironwood resin making almost no noise. She handed him a stamped leather document. "The secondary shaft at the deep-iron node has been completely cleared of the gas. The miners are working shifts now that they’ve seen the dividend payments in their private accounts. But we have a logistical issue: workers are getting very tired."

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‎Orin did not turn around. He took the document his fingers moving over the columns of numbers with a speed that was almost too fast for a human. "Workers are like a resource, Captain Vance. If the current workforce is getting tired and less efficient it means your scheduling system is not optimized. You are running twelve-hour shifts on a two-group schedule."

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‎"The men are used to working until they drop Orin. That's how its always been on the frontier " Maren replied, crossing her arms.

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‎A New Plan

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‎". That is why the frontier has always had a hard time making money " Orin said, his voice flat and calm. "When a person works than eight hours under strong spiritual pressure their error rate goes up by forty-four percent. Accidents happen often material waste increases and the overall life of the worker decreases. Change the schedule to an eight-hour three-group matrix. Offer a five percent production bonus to the shift that shows the material waste rate. Let the workers manage their efficiency."

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‎The Plan in Action

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‎Maren looked at him for a moment a wry smile on her face. "You treat people like math problems you know that?"

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‎"The human mind is a complex variable with a lot of emotional influence " Orin said, his silver eyes looking toward the northern mountains where the border wall was. "Reduce the influence. The problem solves itself. What is the status of the Aegis Imports distribution within the capital?"

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‎The Situation in the Capital

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‎"Lord Cross’s first shipment cleared the gate six hours ago " Maren reported, her tone turning serious. "He didn't list it as steel. He registered it as 'Agricultural Structural Reinforcements to bypass the Thorne clan’s customs monopoly. The minor noble houses are already buying it out before the crates even hit the warehouse. They don't know where its coming from. They know a zero-resistance plowshare can be melted down into three high-tier shortswords within an hour."

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‎The Next Move

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‎Orin’s fingers closed over the edge of the stone railing his Void Seed pulsing once with a silent satisfaction. "The market has taken the bait. Now we begin to squeeze."

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‎The Capital Contraction

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‎Economic Turmoil

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‎Inside the financial district of Aethelgard City the economic situation had turned very bad.

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‎The Imperial Iron Exchange—a high-ceilinged building where the major noble houses traded options on mineral futures—was experiencing a liquidity crisis like never before. For generations the Thorne Clan had dominated the floor their military-grade deep-iron options serving as the unshakeable foundation of the empires internal trade balances.

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‎A New Threat

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‎But over the forty-eight hours a silent aggressive short-position had been opened against their stock by a newly registered neutral entity known as Aegis Imports.

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‎Iris Thorne stood on the viewing gallery overlooking the trading pit her long scarlet robes rustling against the marble balustrade. Below her hundreds of clerks in ink-stained silk coats were shouting frantically their hands waving slates covered in declining red numbers. The pricing index for Thorne steel had just dropped by twelve percent in a single morning session.

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‎The Situation is Dire

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‎"This is an attack " Iris whispered, her fingernails digging deep into her jade palms. Her aristocratic features were stiff with a simmering rage. "The Cross family isn't just buying steel. They are deliberately dumping their northern silver reserves to fund a massive buyback of this new zero-resistance alloy. They are shifting their asset portfolio out of our currency."

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‎A Decision Must be Made

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‎Felix Thorne stepped up beside her his gold-trimmed tunic disheveled, his face pale with a mixture of arrogance and growing panic. He had spent the morning attempting to contact Malakor through the Ministry of Justice’s encrypted transmission stones receiving nothing but a localized static that indicated a complete communication failure.

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‎A Plan of Action

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‎"Malakor has failed " Felix growled, his hand resting white-knuckled on his sword hilt. "The border guards are reporting that the southern checkpoints are operating normally. The Sol Syndicates trade offices have been completely shuttered. There is no trace of an imperial enforcement action. Iris... The Core-Breaker is gone. He didn't just fail; he was entirely erased from the ledger."

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‎The Consequences

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‎Iris turned her head slowly her eyes looking at her brother with a terrifying icy focus. "I know he is gone Felix. He was an asset with a fixed lifespan and Orin Clay found a way to write him off.. Orin isn't fighting us with blades anymore. He is using Varian Cross’s signature to drain our liquidity from the capital board."

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‎A Resort

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‎"Then we launch a physical blockade on the northern silver routes!" Felix slammed his fist against the marble rail. "We deploy the Third Regimental Garrison. We declare Aegis Imports an enemy of the state. Seize their warehouses within the city walls!"

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‎The Risks

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‎"On what grounds?!" Iris snapped, her voice cutting through his panic like a whip. "Varian Cross holds a Tier 1 Imperial Trade Charter signed by the Emperor’s hand. If we use force to seize his inventory without a direct decree from the High Council the other minor houses will view it as an illegal corporate coup. They will panic, pull their capital from our banks and trigger an economic collapse that will bankrupt our house before the week is out."

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‎The Reality

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‎She turned back to the trading pit her eyes tracking a clerk who was currently erasing the Thorne clans primary supply projections from the central chalkboard.

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‎The Option

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‎"Orin has positioned himself behind the law " Iris said softly her voice trembling slightly as she realized the true depth of her brother’s former victim. "He knows we cannot strike him within the empire without destroying our market credibility. He is forcing us to fight him on the frontier, where the rules of the court do not apply."

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‎The Final Decision

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‎"Then we fight him on the frontier " Felix said, his eyes gleaming with a vicious light. "We don't send executioners or scouts. We send the Iron Vanguard—our house’s elite legion. Three hundred Stage 4 Core heavy cavalry. We march through the gap bypass the imperial checkpoints entirely and slaughter every living thing within Black-Water Ridge. Let Varian Cross try to enforce a trade treaty with a graveyard."

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‎The Cost

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‎Iris closed her eyes her mind running through the probabilities of a full military deployment. The cost would be immense—moving three hundred cultivators across the high passes required thousands of high-grade spirit stones in logistical maintenance alone. It would leave the capital estate completely exposed to their political rivals.

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‎The But as she looked down at the collapsing numbers, on the exchange floor she knew they no longer had the luxury of choice. Their asset margins had reached a breaking point.

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‎"Do it " Iris whispered, opening her eyes. The dark pupils reflected the crimson light of the setting capital sun. "Deploy the legion tonight, Felix. Do not take prisoners. Do not save the forge. Burn the formula execute the workers and make sure my brother Orin understands that a rank-zero entity cannot out-calculate the iron weight of a house."

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‎The Gap Disruption

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‎The western high pass was known as the Iron-Grip Gap. It was a terrifying fissure that sliced through the massive volcanic bluffs. These bluffs separated the empires provinces from the frontier lowlands.

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‎The gap was a world of grey stone and perpetual freezing winds. It was a place where the ambient mana was so thin that a cultivators core had to work twice as hard just to maintain its internal pressure.

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‎At the neck of the gap, where the stone walls rose five hundred feet vertically into the grey clouds the three hundred heavy cavalry of the Thorne Clans Iron Vanguard moved in a flawless terrifying column of black steel.

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‎Their horses were spirit-bred war beasts. Their hooves were shod in deep-iron. Their bodies were covered in runic barding that hummed with a defensive earth-attributed field.

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‎Each rider was a Stage 4 True-Core Master. Their heavy lances rested against their stirrups. Their faces were hidden behind visored helmets that projected an aura of absolute unstoppable slaughter.

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‎Felix Thorne rode at the head of the legion. His trimmed armor was covered in a heavy grey travel cloak. His face was set in a mask of determination.

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‎He had calculated the distance perfectly. If they maintained their velocity they would clear the high pass by midnight. They would descend upon Black-Water Ridge from the rear slopes before Orins scouts could even sound the alarm.

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‎As the lead elements of the column rounded the final bend of the narrow defile the heavy rhythmic thumping of the horse hooves suddenly came to an abrupt grinding halt.

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‎Sitting in the center of the narrow trail resting his back against a low stone boulder was Orin Clay.

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‎He was entirely alone. He wore his commoners travel cloak. His hands were tucked loosely inside his pockets. His legs were crossed at the ankles as if he were waiting for a merchant wagon rather than an elite military legion.

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‎Beside him sat a circular metal plate forged from the dark sound-swallowing hybrid alloy of Malakors chains. This was the Void-Harmonic Transmission Node.

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‎The three hundred heavy cavalrymen did not charge. They halted in formation. Their massive war beasts snorted clouds of steam into the freezing air. Their visored heads tilted in profound confusion at the sight of the lone pale youth.

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‎Felix Thorne pushed his horse to the front of the line. His eyes widened into two spheres of venomous hatred as he recognized his brothers features through the dim twilight.

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‎"Orin " Felix growled. His voice echoed loudly off the stone walls of the gap. His Stage 4 core flared to life. A bright suffocating blue aura radiated from his body. This caused the loose gravel around his horses hooves to violently vibrate.

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‎Orin slowly raised his head. His silver eyes were completely calm. They carried that flat mathematical certainty that had defined his rise from the mud.

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‎He did not look at Felixs glowing aura. His system was already running a tactical assessment of the entire three hundred-man column.

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‎[TACTICAL OVERLAY: IRON VANGUARD CAVALRY]

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‎[COUNT: 300 INDIVIDUALS. CULTIVATION MEAN: STAGE 4 TRUE-CORE MASTER.]

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‎[TOTAL KINETIC MASS: 420,000 KG. VELOCITY: 0 METERS PER SECOND.]

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‎[STRUCTURAL ANOMALY DETECTED: THE LEGION'S DEFENSIVE RUNES ARE ALL TUNED TO THE ELEMENTAL EARTH FREQUENCY (114 HZ) TO COHERE THE FORMATION SHIELD.]

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‎[CRITICAL MARGIN: IMPLEMENTING HARMONIC DISRUPTION FIELD VIA PROTOTYPE NODE.]

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‎"Your deployment model is highly inefficient Felix " Orin said. His voice was quiet carried a strange geometric clarity that perfectly bypassed the howling wind of the pass.

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‎"You have concentrated eighty percent of our houses military assets into a single narrow geographic line with zero lateral maneuverability. You have traded flexibility for an illusion of brute force."

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‎"Shut your mouth!" Felix screamed. He drew his jade- longsword with a sharp ringing sound that cut through the valley.

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‎"I shattered your core once Orin! I left you to rot in the mud like the rank-zero dog you're ! If you had stayed hidden in the sand-flats you might have lived another year as a beggar.. You dared to touch our familys ledger. You dared to cut our market!"

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‎"The market belongs to whoever optimizes the cost of power Felix " Orin replied smoothly. He slowly rose from his boulder. He did not draw a weapon. He simply extended his foot. His boot gently tapped the edge of the Void-Harmonic Transmission Node sitting in the dirt.

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‎"Your standard deep-iron armor costs forty spirit stones per unit to refine. It requires an external energy drain to maintain its runic coherence. It possesses a twelve percent failure margin against high-frequency vibration. Your technology is obsolete."

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‎"Kill him!" Felix roared. He pointed his blade at Orins chest. "Trample his body into the stones! Forward!"

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‎The lead squad of twelve cavalrymen dropped their visors. Their massive war beasts exploded into a high-velocity charge. The earth-attributed runes on their armor flared with a brown light. This fused their shields into a single three-foot-thick wall of solid spiritual bedrock that rushed down the narrow trail like a mountain landslide.

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‎4.2 seconds until contact... 3.0 Seconds... 1.0 Second...

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‎"Harmonic Disruption " Orin whispered.

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‎The Level 3 Void Seed within his chest thrummed with a low-frequency vacuum pulse. The dark metal plate at his feet did not project a shield. It released a high-frequency acoustic wave that matched the exact 114 Hz frequency of the legions shared earth-attributed runes.

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‎The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.

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‎The three-foot-thick wall of brown energy did not deflect. It violently inverted. The shared frequency of the barding armor experienced a harmonic delamination. The compressed spiritual energy turned back into the metal plates with an explosive crushing velocity.

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‎CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

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‎The heavy deep-iron breastplates of the charging cavalrymen violently buckled inward. The runic inscriptions shattered into a cloud of hot shrapnel that tore through their own horses necks. The massive war beasts let out shrieks of agony. Their legs snapped as their center of gravity was instantly destroyed by the collapse of their shields.

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‎The entire lead squad was thrown into a bloody pile of twisting metal and screaming flesh. This completely blocked the passage for the riders behind them.

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‎The remaining two hundred and eighty cavalrymen slammed on their reins. Their horses reared up in paralyzed panic as they saw their unassailable vanguard dismantled in a single fraction of a second without Orin even drawing a blade.

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‎Felix Thornes horse stumbled backward. Its eyes were wild with fear. The bright blue aura around Felixs body violently wavered.

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He stared at the smoking wreckage of his lead squad. His face drained of what little color remained. His mind was completely unable to process the failure of his houses greatest military assets.

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‎"What... What did you do?!" Felix shrieked. His voice cracked with a rising terror.

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‎"You have no core! You have no magic! How are you breaking my legions armor?!"

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‎Orin stepped over the fallen war beast. His boots stepped calmly through the mud and broken iron plates. His silver eyes locked onto Felixs visored face with a absolute focus.

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‎"I didn't break your armor, Felix. I simply forced your system to pay its accumulated energetic debt " Orin said softly. His right hand slowly came out of his cloak pocket. His palm was surrounded by a twisting orb of absolute silver-veined vacuum. This was theCore Devour Matrixwaiting for the next transaction.

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‎"Your legion is bankrupt, brother " Orin whispered. His voice carried the resonance of the frontier void.

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‎I am here to collect the remaining shares."

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‎The Restructuring of the Vanguard

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The battle in the Iron-Grip Gap did not last enough to be recorded as a traditional military engagement. To the remaining cavalrymen of the Thorne Clan it felt less like a fight and more, like a systematic mechanical liquidation of their assets.

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‎Every time a squad attempted to cohere their fields Orins harmonic transmission node would release the exact inverted frequency. This caused their armor to crush their bones.

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‎Those who attempted to engage in close-quarters combat with their swords found themselves met by Silas Wright and Maren Vance. Their zero-resistance blades sliced through their tier deep-iron shields as if they were wet parchment.

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‎By the time the midnight moon cleared the volcanic bluffs the narrow defile was completely silent. It was broken by the low agonizing groans of the defeated masters and the steady dripping sound of cold frontier rain hitting the stones.

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‎Two hundred and forty elite cavalrymen were on the ground. They did not have their guns. Their heavy iron chest protectors were gone. Their guns were in a pile of steel near the path.

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‎They sat in rows. Their faces showed they had given up.

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‎The Vanguard soldiers walked among them. They used cords to tie the cavalrymen up.

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‎Felix Thorne sat against a stone wall. His golden armor was torn. His jade-handled sword was broken into three pieces. It was next to his knee.

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‎His Stage 4 True-Core was still okay.

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‎The Vanguard troopers moved around. They made sure the cavalrymen could not move.

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‎Felix looked at the Vanguard troopers. They were very strong.

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‎The cavalrymen looked sad. They had lost.

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‎Felixs sword was an one. Now it was broken.

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‎The Vanguard troopers were, in charge now.