Lira stared at the collapsed building, watching as gray ash settled over the ruins to mix with the red pools on the ground.

Her research was gone, the specimens were dead, and the months she had spent perfecting the procedure were wasted. She looked back at Reidar, who stood atop his raven surrounded by his army, and realized that he wasn't looking at her with anger; he looked bored.

Fear kicked in then, hitting her in the gut. She couldn't win, and her ammunition—the blood—was drying up or being washed away. She had to leave.

Lira gripped her staff, pulling every drop of mana she had available into a spell.

"Blood Mist."

She slammed the staff into a puddle of blood, which vaporized, exploding outward into a metallic-smelling crimson fog that expanded to cover the area.

Lira didn't wait to see if it worked. She turned and sprinted toward the breached wall, casting Haste on herself to speed herself up. If she could just reach the river, she could lose him in the water.

The woman reached the edge of the mist, but then a blue light flared directly in front of her. A horse made of mana blocked her path. It was a rider knight in mana plate armor lowering a lance toward her.

[Spectral Knight—Level 337]

[Spectral Knight—Level 337]

[Spectral Knight—Level 337]

[Spectral Knight—Level 337]

…

[Spectral Knight—Level 337]

[Spectral Knight—Level 337]

…

[Spectral Knight—Level 337]

Lira skidded to a halt, trying to turn and find another route, but 10 more knights materialized from the fog to circle her, cutting off her retreat.

"No!"

Reidar's voice cut through the mist. "Are you done?"

On the ridges above the courtyard, 20 Spectral Archers stood with their bows drawn.

Volley Fire.

The air turned into a cage of blue light. There was no time to think as a wall of hardened blood rose to meet the volley, but the arrows punched through the barrier as if it were mist.

Pain blew up in her shoulder, a searing arrow of energy that shattered her pauldrons. Another arrow took her in the thigh, pinning muscle to bone. Her leg buckled, and the world tilted as she hit the ground. She tried to drag herself away from the death raining down around her.

"Please," she said.

The ground shook as the Spectral Knights charged. They used [Trample], and the ghostly hooves of their mounts slammed into Lira. The woman rolled onto her back, coughing blood, as a shadow fell over her.

A Spectral Swordsman, a helm filled with blue fire, raised a greatsword.

[Phantom Slash]

She didn't feel the blade cut skin. She felt the severance. It was a sudden, jarring disconnection between her mind and her nervous system. The cold wasn't external; it bloomed inside her chest, freezing the mana in her body and the blood in her veins.

She tried to breathe, to fuel a scream of pain, but her lungs refused to take air both in and out. Then nothing.

[High Executor Lira Feid—Level 330—defeated.]

[You have gained 283800 C.L.A.S.P. Points.]

[You have earned 167442 Survival Points.]

Reidar watched the notifications scroll past, then dismissed the raven and landed on the cracked pavement. As the mist faded, revealing Lira's broken body surrounded by his spectral elite, he walked over to the corpse. He didn't feel joy. He just felt tired of all that fighting.

He looked at the Quadraginta standing at attention.

"Good work."

He dismissed them, and the forty warriors dissolved into particles of mana. Reidar turned to the ruined facility just as Jake and Lena were walking toward him from the smoke. They looked battered, but they were walking.

"It's over," Reidar said. "Let's burn what remains of this shitty place and leave."

Reidar turned around as he heard Jake and Lena walking toward him.

"Are the prisoners okay?" He asked.

Lena wiped a smear of soot from her forehead, leaving a dark streak across her pale skin. She looked exhausted, her shoulders sagging under the weight of her dented armor. Deep scratches ran across her breastplate, and her pauldron hung loose on one side where the straps had torn. Blood—not hers—stained her gauntlets and greaves.

"They're alive," she said. "Worn out. Scared out of their minds." She looked at Reidar. "Most of them can barely stand." She paused, looking back toward the extraction point. "We gave them rations and water. They need time to rest before we can move them anywhere."

Reidar nodded. "Good. We'll give them an hour."

Lena stepped through the dissipating steam. She didn't look at the corpse; she simply pointed the tip of her bloodied dagger at the ruin of flesh and steel on the stones.

"Did you get anything from her?"

Lena studied the twisted limbs, the shattered armor, and the dark pool spreading beneath the body.

Even though the woman who had tortured prisoners and turned people into experiments was dead, Lena found that standing over the corpse of High Executor Lira Feid brought out only a hollow, echoing absence where emotion should have been. This victory was nothing more than another name crossed off a list that never seemed to end.

"Any intel on Silas? Or the next base?"

Reidar shook his head. "No. She died before I could ask."

He paused.

"But I learned something else," he said. "I'm stronger than them now, and I'm not saying stronger than their average fighter, I'm saying stronger than their champions. The gap is closing."

Reidar looked at Jake and Lena. The prisoners still needed care. They had been starved, beaten, and tortured for weeks or months in Lira's facility. Most could barely walk. Some couldn't speak. He needed to make sure they had food, water, and medical supplies before forcing them to march out of the city.

"Go feed them," he said. "Make sure they're ready to move. We're not staying here, as we are not going to stay here."

He turned toward the city. Smoke rose from multiple districts. Fires burned in the merchant quarter. His spectral soldiers moved through the streets, cutting down any Church forces they encountered. The Quadraginta and all other summons had orders to eliminate Church members, and they were not going to stop until everything stopped moving inside the city.

<Soon… Silas…>

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.