Alvian dropped his lance. He stepped inside the guard. He caught the massive golden claws with his bare hands.

[Strength Check... Passed.]

[Passive Triggered: Glacial Muscle.]

Alvian's hands froze to the gold. His grip was absolute. He held the massive King in place, his boots cracking the floor as he absorbed the momentum.

"You hide in a shell," Alvian whispered, his face inches from the King's terrified eyes. "You layer yourself in gold and enchantments because you are soft inside."

Alvian began to pull.

His muscles bulged, tearing the sleeves of his under-tunic. The [Cold Fury] skill pushed his strength beyond the limits of the system.

"CREAAAK."

The gold armor on Jinsha's chest began to groan. Seams popped. Rivets fired off like bullets.

"No... No! STOP!" Jinsha shrieked, thrashing, but he couldn't break Alvian's grip.

"Physics Lesson Number Seventeen," Alvian said, his eyes glowing with white light. "Tensile strength failure."

He ripped.

"TEAR!"

It wasn't a clean sound. It was the wet, metallic shriek of gold being torn from flesh. Alvian ripped the chest plate off the King. He didn't stop there. He dug his fingers into the natural chitin beneath.

"AAAARGH!"

Alvian pulled harder. With a wet, sickening crunch, he ripped the Golden King's shell open, exposing the soft, pulsating flesh beneath.

Jinsha collapsed, a broken, exposed mess. He looked up at Alvian, gasping for air.

"Monster..." Jinsha wheezed. "You are... a monster."

"I am the player," Alvian corrected.

He picked up his lance.

"[Glacial Void Pierce]: Execution."

He drove the black blade into the exposed heart of the King.

"SQUELCH."

The violet void energy consumed the King. Jinsha's body turned grey, then crumbled into dust, leaving behind only a pile of loot and a massive, empty golden shell.

[You have slain King Jinsha (The Gilded Sovereign)!]

[Experience Gained: 1,500,000!]

[Level Up!]

[Level 55.]

Alvian stood over the remains, his chest heaving. The [Cold Fury] faded, leaving him exhausted. The adrenaline crash hit him, but he didn't fall. He leaned on his lance, looking around the silent courtyard.

The Golden Army, seeing their invincible King torn apart by hand, dropped their weapons. They knelt. Not out of loyalty, but out of sheer, overwhelming terror.

Alvian looked at them.

"The Golden City falls," Alvian announced, his voice carrying to every corner of the courtyard. "The Void Sanctum rises."

He walked over to the loot pile. He picked up a heavy, golden key.

[Item: Key to the Golden Vault.]

"Funds secured," Alvian muttered.

He looked up toward the entrance of the courtyard. Valeria and Seraphina were walking toward him. They were covered in grime and crab ichor, but they were smiling.

The war for the city was over. But Alvian felt a vibration in his inventory. The [Fragment of the World Shell] was humming.

It wasn't a hum of victory. It was a warning.

The dust of the battle settled slowly over the ruins of the Golden City. The oppressive heat of the southern currents seemed to dissipate with the death of King Jinsha, replaced by a cool, silent drift.

Alvian sat on the steps of the conquered palace, the [Lance of the Void Winter] resting against his shoulder. He was cleaning the black blade with a piece of silk torn from a Syndicate banner. The violet frost on the metal seemed to pulse in time with his own heartbeat.

Valeria walked up the steps. She had removed her helmet, her hair matted with sweat and seawater, but her eyes were bright. She wasn't the terrified girl from the exam anymore. She was a Warlord in her own right, the Golden Knight who had held the line against armies.

She sat down beside him, her armor clanking against the stone.

"You ripped his shell off," Valeria said quietly. It wasn't an accusation. It was a statement of fact, tinged with disbelief. "With your bare hands."

"He relied too much on the plating," Alvian replied, not looking up from his weapon. "Once the structural integrity was compromised, the rest was just leverage."

Valeria laughed, a soft, tired sound. "Leverage. Only you would call tearing a King apart 'leverage'."

She leaned back, looking up at the water above them. The bioluminescent fish were returning, creating a false sky of stars in the deep.

"It's over," she whispered. "We secured the resources. We united the factions. The Syndicate is broken in Azureus."

"For now," Alvian said. He stopped cleaning the blade. He looked at her.

In his past life, he had watched her die. He had watched everyone die. He had been a ghost haunting a graveyard world. But here, she was alive. Strong.

He reached into his inventory. He pulled out the [Ring of the Shark Prince] he had looted from Baron, and a [Golden Carapace Fragment] from Jinsha.

"Here," Alvian said, handing them to her.

Valeria blinked. She took the items. "Loot distribution?"

"Gifts," Alvian corrected. "The ring increases stamina regeneration. The carapace can be forged into an upgrade for your shield. You take too much damage, Valeria. You need to be harder."

Valeria looked at the items, then at him. A flush rose to her cheeks.

"You worry about me," she teased gently.

"You are my tank," Alvian stated, his voice returning to its usual flat cadence. "If the tank dies, the DPS draws aggro. It is inefficient."

Valeria rolled her eyes, but she closed her hand tightly around the gifts. "You're hopeless, Alvian. But... thank you. For everything. For saving the city. For saving me."

"We aren't done yet," Alvian said. "The Syndicate handler... the one pulling the strings... we never found him."

"Seraphina is sweeping the vault," Valeria said. "If there are records, she'll find them."

Alvian nodded. He looked at his hand. The [Fragment of the World Shell] was vibrating again. Harder this time. It felt hot against his skin, even through the inventory space.

"Something is wrong," Alvian stood up.

"What?" Valeria scrambled to her feet, reaching for her sword.

"The mana," Alvian said. "It's not settling. It's... rising."

He looked up.

The water above the city wasn't blue anymore. It was turning a deep, sickly crimson.

The bioluminescent fish stopped swimming. They began to die, their lights flickering out as the water became saturated with a heavy, toxic pressure.

"Seraphina!" Alvian tapped his comms crystal. "Status!"

"Alvian!" Seraphina's voice came back, filled with static and panic. "The Vault! It wasn't a treasury! It was a transmitter! Jinsha wasn't hoarding gold; he was hoarding a signal beacon!"

"Cut it!" Alvian shouted.

"I can't! It's already transmitting! It's aimed at the Draconic Seal!"

Alvian looked toward the deep trench.

A sound echoed through the ocean. It wasn't an explosion. It was the sound of a lock clicking open. A sound that reverberated in the bones of every living thing in Azureus.

"CRACK."

The water turned red.

[System Alert: Global Event Triggered.]

[The Draconic Seal has been Shattered.]

[The Eighth Race has Awakened.]

[Expansion Pack Loaded: The Abyssal Apocalypse.]

The ground shook violently. The Golden Palace groaned as the foundation of the ocean floor shifted.

"Alvian," Valeria whispered, pointing toward the trench. "Look."

From the darkness of the deep, a pillar of red light shot upward, piercing the surface of the ocean miles above. And from that light, shadows emerged. Not hundreds. Thousands.

The Draconic Legion wasn't just a few scouts or a phantom. It was a civilization. And they were rising.

But they weren't the worst thing.

The sky above the city—the ocean roof—cracked open. A massive tear in reality formed, revealing a void of swirling chaos.

And from that tear, a head emerged.

It was colossal. The size of the entire city of Azureus. It was a dragon, but it was made of stars and void and rotting flesh. It had six eyes, each one a burning sun of malice.

[Target Identified: The Demon God of the Deep - Leviathan (True Form)]

[Level: ???]

[Status: Descending]

The massive head peered down through the clouds, its gaze locking onto the tiny city floating in the water.

"YOU," the voice boomed, bypassing ears and slamming directly into their minds. "YOU ARE THE ONES WHO BROKE MY TOYS."

Alvian gripped his lance. His knuckles turned white.

The timeline had shattered. The apocalypse wasn't six months away. It wasn't a year away.

It was here.

"Valeria," Alvian said, his voice low, vibrating with a cold, terrifying resolve. "Get the army. Get the Guardians."

He looked up at the descending God.

"We're going to need a bigger boat."

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