252 KAIL IS DEAD… FINALLY
[The bridge of the mothership of the Silver city armada]
The armada's mothership ignited its engines, massive thrusters roaring to life as it began its return to Silver City.
The war was over.Their objective had been achieved.
Then the ship lurched violently.
"What the hell is happening now?!" General Ryjer roared.
Captain Zoluse didn't look away from his console as alarms exploded across the bridge."We're under attack, sir. Radars are confirming hostile contact."
He swallowed.
"It's Black Halo."
Ryjer spun on him."Black Halo? That's impossible! Didn't we finish him already?!"
The answer came in the form of destruction.
Dozens of plasma beams slammed into the mothership's engine section in rapid succession. The impact flared across the hull as force fields buckled, flickered—
—and collapsed.
"Our shields are down!" Zoluse shouted.
A lieutenant's voice shook."General, we couldn't defeat Black Halo even with Sorrow on our side. There's no way we can handle him now—he's beyond anything we prepared for."
The force field shattered.
Power failed.
The great ship lost altitude, engines dying as gravity claimed it. The mothership plunged from the sky, crashing into the city below in a thunderous collapse.
It didn't end there.
Black Halo streaked through the air like a living nightmare, hunting the remaining warships one by one. Engines were his only targets.
Precision strikes crippled them mid-flight, sending each vessel spiraling helplessly to the ground.
"No ship leaves Liberty City," Black Halo's voice thundered—metallic, hoarse, filled with rage.
"This is your graveyard."
One by one, the armada fell.
Every warship that had come to conquer Liberty City was grounded, broken, and burning.
"I want annihilation," Black Halo declared.
The words alone sent shivers through every surviving soldier.
They had never known fear like this.
They were no longer soldiers on a battlefield….
….They were lives laid bare on a platter, waiting to be cut down by something that no longer felt human at all.
-----
Black Halo wasn't discriminating.
To him, every warship was the same.
Endless streams of plasma sprayed across the sky, striking each vessel in turn. Their hulls burned and shields collapsed. Metal screamed as ships fell.
Soldiers and crew scrambled to abandon their ships—and the city—but Black Halo was relentless.He was the demon of war.
The god of death.
Hundreds fell. Then thousands.
Of those who had come to invade the city, only a handful would escape his wrath.
Damen hovered in the sky like an eagle, watching his prey.
He activated his Vision Connect. It was about time to check his progress.
Name: Damen Dark
Strength Rank:AAA Meta Rank:AA Blood Rank:BBB Psychic Rank:AAArmor Rank:AAA
Strength:36120 | Charm:14386 | Meta:15131 | Command:15132 | Blood:36243 | Armor:58301
His strength had risen to Rank AAA. He also realized that beyond this point, nearly ten percent of his Strength stat was converted directly into innate armor.
The harvest from the Devour of Sorrow was immense.
The drawback, however, was clear—he would need time to digest all that power.
Black Halo turned his attention back to the battlefield.
Although countless soldiers and crew were still trapped inside the fallen warships, those who remained… few dared to flee. Fear rooted them in place. They hid behind the ships' remaining force fields, hoping they would be enough…. Until help arrives.
"Damnit," Damen muttered. "These bastards are going to make me waste time breaking every last shield before they crawl out."
-----
"General Ryjer, we can't stay here forever. We're sitting ducks," Morana warned.
"What do you expect me to do?" Ryjer snapped. "Even if we launch a shuttle, there's a good chance Black Halo will destroy it. It's safer to stay put behind our remaining force fields."
"What about the drones?" Zoluse suggested. "If we escape in a swarm, there's a chance Black Halo won't catch all of us."
The lieutenant shook his head."It's not possible. More than two-thirds of our drones and juggernauts were disabled by the Quantum Mind. They can't be restarted."
"Damn those bastards," Ryjer growled.
Suddenly—almost as if answering their prayers—the disabled drones lurched back to life. One by one, they rose into the air, turning toward Black Halo.
"What is happening?" Ryjer demanded.
"I don't know," the lieutenant replied, his voice tight. "The drones are being taken over by another entity."
"What do you mean?" Morana asked sharply. "The Quantum Mind isn't dead?"
"No… this isn't the same Quantum Mind," the lieutenant said slowly.
Morana didn't hesitate.
"Whoever it is doesn't matter. We leave this bloody ship immediately. I must send what remains of the Quantum Mind back to the Godfather."
-----
Black Halo hovered in the air as a swarm of drones suddenly surged upward to meet him.
Damen understood immediately. "They're trying to pin me down with drones while their leaders slip away in the chaos," he muttered.
He activated his tracking function and logged onto Kail.
To his surprise, Kail's location signal was still active.
"Good," Damen muttered. "Kail is still alive… somehow."
He knew what the enemy was capable of.
They possessed technology that could preserve life—even after death. They could restore the dead, reshape them, send them back into battle. He had seen it many times with the Atheris Heroes.
Then he found them.
Damen shot forward in a straight line, a streak of black lightning tearing through the sky. He slammed into a shuttle just as it began to lift off, his body smashing through its force fields and ripping metal apart.
With a casual flick of his finger, lightning burst outward. The pilot and crew died instantly.
Only three remained inside the shuttle—two men and a woman.
They were the leaders of the armada.
Name: Captain Zoluse
Strength: Rank BB Meta Rank: A Armor: E
[Since the last upgrade, Damen could read the innate armor of Rank A and above meta. Their armor is usually around 1/10 of their Strength]
"Stop!" Captain Zoluse shouted. "You don't know who you're dealing with. Let us go, and we won't bother you again!"
Black Halo's hand was already at his throat.
Snap.
Zoluse fell dead before the echo faded.
"I destroyed your entire armada, you expect me to believe a nobody like you can make those bastards leave me alone?" Black Halo replied.
General Ryjer collapsed to his knees.
Name: General Ryjer
Strength: Rank BB Meta Rank: AA Armor: Rank E
"Please—spare me," he begged. "I can give you money. One hundred million aur. Please… don't kill me."
"Pathetic," Damen scoffed. "A Rank AA dares to lead an armada?"
In the next instant, General Ryjer collapsed beside Zoluse. He was dead before he could even raise his force field.
"A hundred million aur…" Damen said softly. "You think I'm a pauper?"
Only the woman remained.
-----
Suddenly, the world around Black Halo darkened.
Damen knew what was happening instantly.
Before the illusion could fully drag him under, he activated his Core of Blood.
He normally kept the Core dormant. At his current rank, his blue blood was no longer dangerous to him—on the contrary, it granted him immense benefits, especially the heightened predator sense it bestowed.
But this was different.
He was under psychic attack.And not just any psychic—she was likely as strong as Sienna.
"Core of Blood—Level 7 activated."
The haze shattered.
Reality snapped back into place.
Standing before him was a woman.
Name: Morana
Strength: Rank B Meta Rank: BB Psychic: Rank 6A
In the very next moment, his hand closed around her throat.
Morana was a powerful psychic—but Damen was immune to her. Stripped of her powers, she was nothing more than paper in his grip.
"So," Damen growled, his voice cold and low, "you're the bitch who killed Kail?"
Morana tried to scream.
No sound came out.
Then—she was gone.
"Damn bitch, if only I devoured you with my mining app", Damen murmured.
Damen doesn't dare to use the Devour function during combat after his earlier experience with Sorrow. There was a chance he could get into a temporary indigestion.
"I must find another way to do this", he vowed.
Damen turned his attention to the shuttle.
Only then did he notice a metal tank embedded within it.
He checked the machine and froze.
Inside was Kail's body, suspended in fluid—his last spark of life preserved by the machine.
"Thank goodness," Damen whispered. "You're still alive, Kail."
He reached for the tank.
The alarms began to beep.
Once.
Twice.
Then the line went flat.
"Kail—don't you dare die on me!" Damen shouted, collapsing to the floor.
Desperately, he checked Kail's status on his mining app.
Kail was Gone.
Gone for good this time.
"No…" Damen screamed.
And then he cried.
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