It was a massacre. Oceanus was a walking natural disaster. He moved with zero wasted motion. He didn't feel pain. He didn't feel fear. He simply processed targets.

General Lin realized he was losing his army. He realized he was losing the fight.

"ENOUGH!" Lin roared. He activated his [Dragon Transformation].

His body expanded. Scales thickened. Wings sprouted from his back. He turned into a massive, bipedal dragon, wreathed in red lightning.

"I WILL EAT YOUR CORE!" Lin flew at Oceanus, his maw open, ready to bite the machine in half.

Oceanus stood his ground. Steam poured from his vents. His metal skin was glowing cherry-red from the heat of his own engine.

"Target locked," Oceanus said.

He didn't punch. He opened his chest plates.

Inside, a blue sun burned. The [Heart of Azureus].

"Beam output: Maximum."

"ZAAAAAAP!"

A beam of pure blue energy, thick as a train, shot from Oceanus's chest. It hit General Lin mid-air.

There was no scream. There was no resistance. The beam vaporized the Dragon General. It punched through his scales, his flesh, his bones. It erased him from the sky.

[Target Neutralized: General Lin.]

The beam continued upward, punching a hole in the clouds, clearing the Red Rain for a brief, shining moment.

Silence fell over the city.

Oceanus stood in the center of the plaza, smoke rising from his chassis. His arm fell off, clattering to the ground. His legs buckled.

"He did it," Valeria breathed.

"Not yet," Alvian said, looking at the rift. "The General was just the vanguard."

From the tear in the sky, a shadow descended. It wasn't a soldier. It was a presence. A pair of eyes the size of islands looked down.

The Dragon King. Apollyon.

"YOU BROKE MY TOY," the voice boomed in their minds.

A beam of red fire, infinitely larger and hotter than anything Lin could produce, descended from the heavens. It was aimed directly at the crippled City Lord.

The beam of red destruction descended from the heavens, a pillar of annihilation sent by a god to crush a machine. The heat was so intense the ocean boiled before the attack even connected. The water around the Royal Palace turned into superheated steam, blinding and deadly.

Lord Oceanus knelt in the center of the plaza. His chassis was slagged. His mana core was critical. He had one arm left.

"Analysis," his mechanical voice hitched. "Evasion impossible. Defense impossible. Survival probability: 0%."

He looked back. At the balcony. At Alvian.

"Then... optimization required."

Oceanus stood up. His joints screamed. Sparks showered from his exposed circuitry. He didn't try to block the beam. He raised his remaining hand, pointing his scepter—now just a rod of blackened metal—at the ocean surrounding the city.

"Unlock Limiters. Access Level: Founder."

[System Alert! Forbidden Protocol Initiated.]

[Protocol: The Seven Sovereign Arts.]

[Warning: This action will permanently fuse the user's consciousness with the ley lines.]

"Do it," Oceanus commanded.

The ocean responded. Not just the water in the city, but the entire Eternal Sea seemed to heave. Seven massive pillars of water erupted from the boundaries of Azureus. They weren't shapeless geysers. They formed into shapes.

The First Art: The Sword. A blade of water three miles long.

The Second Art: The Shield. A wall of density that could stop a meteor.

The Third Art: The Net. A web of currents that bound space.

The Fourth Art: The Hammer. A block of ice the size of a mountain.

The Fifth Art: The Needle. A spear of pressure that could pierce the world.

The Sixth Art: The Wave. A tsunami of pure mana.

The Seventh Art: The Void. A sphere of nothingness that devoured light.

"EXECUTE."

Oceanus swung his scepter.

The Seven Arts moved. They didn't aim for the beam. They aimed for the army.

While the Dragon King's breath attack fell toward Oceanus, the City Lord used his final seconds not to save himself, but to clear the board.

The Sword sliced horizontally through the sky. Thousands of True Dragons were bisected instantly. The sheer speed of the water blade atomized them, turning the red rain into a mist of blood.

The Hammer fell on the remaining siege engines at the city gates. The impact registered as a magnitude 8 earthquake. The machines were flattened.

The Needle shot upward, piercing the clouds, disrupting the portal itself, destabilizing the connection to the Draconic Dimension.

"ROAR!" Apollyon bellowed from the other side of the rift, his army disintegrating in seconds.

The Dragon King's breath attack hit Oceanus.

"BOOM!"

There was no explosion. The red beam hit the machine, and the machine vanished. Oceanus was vaporized. The stone beneath him melted into a lake of lava. The shockwave knocked Alvian and Valeria flat against the palace wall.

[System Notification: City Lord Oceanus has fallen.]

[The Seven Sovereign Arts have been unleashed.]

The remaining Arts—the Shield, the Net, the Wave, and the Void—didn't dissipate. Without a master to guide them, they collapsed inward. They crashed into the city, washing away the fires, washing away the Red Rain, washing away the corpses of the enemy.

It was a cleansing flood.

When the water receded, the plaza was clean. The enemy army was gone. The Dragon King's attack had left a massive, smoking crater in the center of the city, but the rest of Azureus stood.

Battered. Broken. But standing.

Alvian pushed himself up. His ears rang. His health bar was in the red just from the ambient shockwave.

"He... he sacrificed himself," Valeria whispered, staring at the crater. "He traded his life for the army."

"He traded his life for time," Alvian corrected, stumbling toward the edge of the balcony. "He wiped the board. He forced a reset."

Alvian looked up at the sky. The rift was still there. Apollyon was still there. The Dragon King was furious. His toys were broken. His vanguard was dust. And the machine that had defied him was ash.

"YOU," Apollyon's voice echoed, shaking the foundations of the world. "YOU ANTS. YOU THINK THIS IS VICTORY?"

A massive claw pushed through the rift. Apollyon was trying to force his way through.

"He's coming," Seraphina said, appearing beside Alvian. She was bleeding from her nose, the pressure of the God's voice cracking her mental defenses. "Alvian, the barrier is gone. Oceanus is gone. We have nothing left."

Alvian looked at the crater where Oceanus had died. He saw something glittering in the magma.

It was a blue cube. The Core. It had survived.

"We have something," Alvian said. "We have the keys."

He jumped.

"Alvian!" Valeria screamed.

He didn't use a skill. He fell. He used his [Vestments] to slow his descent at the last second, landing on the edge of the cooling lava lake. The heat was intense, burning his boots, but he ignored it.

He walked into the crater. He walked to the blue cube.

[Item Detected: Heart of Azureus (Admin-Level Artifact)]

[Status: Critical. Searching for User.]

The cube pulsed weakly. It was calling out. It was looking for a new administrator. It was looking for someone who could shoulder the weight of a dying city.

"System," Alvian whispered, reaching out with a hand that was charred and shaking. "Authorize transfer."

The cube sensed him. It sensed the [Void Monarch] class. It sensed the [Godslayer] title. It sensed the cold, ruthless efficiency of a man who would burn the world to save it.

[Candidate Identified: Alvian.]

[Compatibility: 98%.]

Alvian grabbed the cube.

"The King is dead," Alvian said, his eyes glowing with a terrifying blue light. "Long live the Warden."

The blue light exploded from his hand, shooting up into the sky, forming a new barrier. But this wasn't the gentle, protective dome of Oceanus. This was a jagged, aggressive field of violet and blue.

It slammed into Apollyon's claw.

"GET OUT OF MY CITY," Alvian roared.

The barrier pushed. It burned the God's flesh. Apollyon howled, pulling his hand back into the rift. The barrier sealed the hole in the sky.

Silence returned to Azureus.

Alvian stood in the crater, the [Heart of Azureus] fused to his hand. He wasn't just a player anymore. He was the Administrator.

He looked up at his friends on the balcony.

"Valeria," Alvian's voice was amplified by the city itself. "Get the Vanguard. We have a lot of work to do."

"What work?" Valeria called down, stunned. "The war is over!"

"No," Alvian said, his eyes cold. "The defense is over. Now... we purge the districts."

He looked toward the industrial sectors where the other Faction Leaders were hiding, waiting to see who won. They had stayed neutral. They had watched while Oceanus died.

"Inefficient loyalty," Alvian muttered. "Time to clean house."

The silence in the Throne Room was suffocating. The dust from the ceiling settled on the shoulders of the nobility like grave dirt. They stared at Alvian, the young man holding the scorched scepter of their dead lord, and fear warred with hope in their eyes.

But the silence was broken by a sound. A mechanical whirring, grinding, and clicking.

On the dais, where the throne of water had been, a hidden compartment opened. A pedestal rose from the floor. On it rested a pulsating blue cube, its surface etched with circuitry that looked like flowing water.

It was the [Heart of Azureus]. The central processing core of the ancient construct that had been Lord Oceanus.

"System Alert," a recorded voice echoed from the cube. It was Oceanus's voice, but stripped of the human cadence, purely robotic. "Lifeform termination confirmed. Initiating Succession Protocol. Scanning for viable candidates."

A beam of blue light swept the room. It passed over the Hammerhead King, who flinched. It passed over the Siren Queen. It passed over Valeria and Seraphina.

It stopped on Alvian.

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