The smoke cleared from the arrow detonations, but what stood in the center of the crater made General Gideon's blood run completely cold. The King stood there entirely upright, his majestic frame completely unmarred. There were no scars, no bleeding gashes, and absolutely zero physical damage visible on his smooth, pristine flesh.
He casually rolled his broad shoulders, his golden and black aura stabilizing into a dense, terrifyingly calm shimmer. "Well... I deeply thank my gods. They gave me this wonderfully powerful skill."
Kairo spat a fresh glob of blood onto the stones, his emerald mana violently flickering around his chest. "What's the name... of this overpowered skill?"
The King's majestic eyes locked onto him with absolute, icy dominance. "Behold... the power of the Velvet Predator."
"Take cover!" Leonhart roared, grabbing Kairo's shoulder as Gideon retreated behind a broken marble pillar.
THWACK-WHIRRRRR!
Another massive, black swarm of thousands of anti-magic arrows rained down from the rebel archer ranks, completely blotting out the light. But this time, the King didn't even manifest a shield. The hidden essence of the Velvet Predator activated—a divine state of pure, flawless reflex, peak physical balance, and hyper-dense muscle flexing.
Moving with a sickening, liquid-like grace, the King didn't just dodge the arrows; he smoothly glided between the gaps of the supersonic projectiles. His torso flexed and rippled at micro-angles, letting the silver arrowheads miss his skin by mere fractions of a millimeter. Thousands of arrows violently slammed into the earth around him, yet not a single one scratched his flesh.
Kairo, Leonhart, and Gideon stared from their cover, completely paralyzed by shock. A singular, terrifying thought unified their minds: How the hell are we supposed to beat a monster like this?
Yet, even while facing an absolute, invincible god-tier anomaly, the three vanguard leaders felt something shift inside their chests. Looking at each other's blood-stained faces, the raw terror completely burned away, replaced by an uncompromising, reckless bravery. They didn't care about the concept of death anymore.
Suddenly, a bright, celestial blue interface box violently popped up directly before Kairo's vision, the text pulsing with a warm, ancient light:
[SYSTEM NOTICE: Your true, singular One God is deeply impressed by your absolute bravery in the face of the parasite. He has dispatched invisible Guardian Angels to your coordinate. They will silently guide your motor reflexes on how to defend—though your physical eyes cannot see them.]
Kairo felt an ethereal, warm weight suddenly settling over his shoulders, stabilizing his crashing vitals. He let out a fierce, absolute roar that shook the ruins. "LET'S DO THIS!"
Leonhart and Gideon didn't ask questions. They violently locked eyes with the King, completely agreeing with the play.
The three avatars of the rebellion launched themselves forward, pushing their superhuman speed to its absolute velocity limit. But the King merely smiled maniacally, drawing his massive, unholy dark greatsword.
What followed was a terrifying display of master-class swordsmanship. The King parried and countered the three smaller, ferocious beasts with fluid, single-handed arcs. Kairo, Leonhart, and Gideon were internally awestruck by his flawless technique. The King moved so rapidly, adjusting his angles with such precision, that it didn't even feel like a three-versus-one siege layout—to each of them, it felt like an isolated, intense one-versus-one duel.
The clash of steel rattled the capital walls continuously for one full hour.
To the perception metrics of the three fighters, the intense exchange felt like a literal eternity. Yet, due to the high-tier superhuman stamina baseline of this new world, not a single one of them was gasping for air. Their lungs adapted instantly to the brutal pacing.
Suddenly, Kairo's analytical mind caught a strange rhythmic shift in the invisible angel's guidance. "STOP!" he screamed.
Lunging backward, Kairo violently slapped his hands against Leonhart's and Gideon's shoulders and torsos, physically forcing them to break their offensive momentum and drop their stances into a low defensive crouch.
The King's dark blade sliced cleanly through the empty air where their heads had been a micro-second prior. The monarch froze, his majestic face showing genuine shock.
"Impressive," the King murmured, pulling his blade back into a low guard. "I, the son of Aurelius, the most powerful fighter of this entire land... I, King Lysander, genuinely acknowledge your strategic intelligence. Boy, you are significantly smarter than my own failure of a child, Seraphina. This was my ultimate move i have defeated demons far beyond your imagination with this skill and you read that."
Hearing that specific name leave the lips of the arrogant tyrant was the exact spark Gideon needed to break his tactical restraint. His handsome face twisted with absolute fury, his veins bulging against his neck. "How dare you take her name in your mouth, you arrogant, heartless fool!" Gideon screamed, charging forward blindly.
King Lysander let out a low, mocking chuckle. "Oh... did I hurt your fragile little feelings? Moonlit Blade."
The King's offensive structure completely transformed. The dark greatsword began to radiate a sickeningly beautiful, silver-white luminescent glow. His strikes became an ethereal dance of deadly illusions—feints so perfectly executed that they were mechanically impossible to read with the naked eye.
The blade would appear to be descending from the left in a slow, heavy arc, but the moment Gideon raised his silver sword to parry, the physical mass of the weapon would instantly manifest on the right, cutting through the defensive blind spot with terrifying speed. Gideon and Leonhart struggled violently just to track the light frequencies, their defensive parameters completely falling apart under the beautiful, shifting slashes.
SLASH!
Gideon's right leg flesh was partially cleaved open down to the bone. If Kairo hadn't violently yanked his belt from behind, the entire leg would have been cleanly amputated. Kairo's hand instantly erupted with bright emerald healing magic, sealing the muscle tissue back together before Gideon even hit the dirt.
The King pivoted mid-air, the moonlit blade weaving a flawless, cross-shaped pattern aimed straight at Leonhart's throat.
SPLURT.
Kairo didn't hesitate. Trusting the invisible angel's physical positioning, he threw his upper torso directly into the trajectory, sacrificing both of his arms to block the silver-white light. Both limbs were cleanly severed at the elbows, spraying crimson blood across Leonhart's face armor.
Taking advantage of Kairo's brutal meat-shield intervention, Leonhart managed to twist his torso away from the primary lethal strike, though the pressure wave still deeply cut the flesh across both of his own arms.
Kairo's severed stumps violently burst with hyper-driven green mana, regeneration cells stitching his forearms and fingers back together within three agonizing seconds as he dragged his comrades backward into a tight perimeter.
The Moonlit Blade is tearing their defenses apart, but Kairo's healing magic is keeping them alive. What is the final counter
General Gideon's vision went entirely crimson. The mocking mention of Seraphina's name combined with the sight of Kairo's severed limbs completely snapped his tactical restraint. With an unhinged, guttural scream of pure rage, Gideon lunged forward, pouring every single ounce of his lifeforce into a singular, devastating downward cleave.
SHREEEEEEK!
The strike was so blindingly fast and packed with such raw, unadulterated fury that it completely bypassed the micro-adjustments of the Velvet Predator skill. King Lysander's eyes widened in genuine shock as the silver edge violently tore through his majestic chest armor, biting deep into the flesh beneath.
A fresh spray of crimson blood splattered onto the stones. The King stumbled back, looking down at the deep, ragged cut. Slowly, a maniacal smirk crept back onto his face. He dipped a finger into the wound, licked the blood from his skin, and let out a chilling chuckle. "That's good... you've officially proven why you hold the title of General in this land. But how tragic... you won't live long enough to celebrate it."
Before Gideon could even reset his stance, King Lysander launched a savage, blindingly fast counter-offensive. The sheer speed and raw pressure of the attack completely paralyzed Gideon's muscles—he stood there frozen, his mind unable to process the velocity as the glowing blade flashed directly toward his exposed neck.
In the absolute last micro-second, Kairo used his full, desperate speed to launch himself across the line of fire. With both of his arms currently severed and regenerating from the previous clash, Kairo did the unthinkable—he threw his head forward, blocking the massive blade directly with his mouth.
SPLURT.
The unholy sword violently tore his jaw apart, slicing deep through the roof of his mouth and stopping a mere millimeter before severing his spinal cord. Gideon's eyes dilated with horror. Reacting on pure instinct, he grabbed Kairo's bleeding torso and executed a desperate, heavy leap backward, barely escaping the follow-up range of the King's blade.
Leonhart immediately jumped past them, his sword flashing to engage the King with maximum speed to buy them precious seconds.
Gideon gently placed Kairo's mangled body onto the dirt, his hands trembling as tears of frustration mixed with the blood on his face. "I'm sorry... I'm so damn sorry for being useless here..."
Kairo couldn't speak through his shattered jaw, but his telepathic matrix violently flared, projecting his voice straight into Gideon's consciousness:
[STOP APOLOGIZING. TAKE MY MANA. NOW.]
Gideon didn't want to drain his dying comrade, but looking at the apocalyptic battle before them, he accepted the reality of the situation. He placed his hand on Kairo's chest. Instantly, a massive, roaring torrent of raw, concentrated emerald mana violently transferred into Gideon's pathways.
The sheer influx of energy made Gideon roar like a feral, raging bear, his muscles bulging as the ground beneath his boots cracked.
Gideon stood back up, but instead of rushing forward in a blind rage, he completely changed his operational parameters. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, tuning out the beautiful, distracting silver-white illusions of the Moonlit Blade. He opened them slightly, focusing his entire consciousness only on the King's foot placement and the rhythm of his breathing.
He completely refused to react to any more graceful movements or dazzling feints.
King Lysander noticed the shift and lunged forward, his blade weaving a deceptive, multi-directional pattern of light.
But Gideon didn't budge. He stopped chasing the opponent's weapon entirely. He held a perfect, immovably dense defensive stance, patiently waiting exclusively for the mechanical weight of the true strike.
Yet, the King's attacks were still fundamentally too fast for standard visual tracking. Recognizing the gap, Gideon completely emptied his mind.
Instead of trying to intellectually predict the incoming trajectories, he let Kairo's raw mana flow directly into his nervous system. His conscious mind stepped back entirely, allowing his battle-hardened body to react naturally and automatically to the physical displacement of the air.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Without even looking, Gideon's silver broadsword snapped precisely into place, flawlessly parrying three consecutive god-speed strikes that should have cleanly decapitated him. His physical frame moved on pure, unadulterated instinct.
With his mind completely emptied and his body moving on pure, unadulterated reaction, Gideon found the micro-second gap. As King Lysander swung in a beautiful, moonlit arc, Gideon's silver blade slipped perfectly beneath the guard, biting deep into the King's shoulder.
But just as the steel drew blood, the King's maniacal smile widened. "Queen's Domain," he whispered.
The words struck the air like an icy curse. Kairo and Leonhart's eyes dilated with absolute horror as the temperature in the square plummeted.
From the shifting shadows behind Gideon, a figure materialized out of thin air. The Queen of the Land of Lust had deployed Assassin's Step, her beautiful, youthful face twisting into a mocking grin as she looked at her husband. "You are a very good liar, honey. Playing the desperate, cornered monarch so beautifully..."
The inherent psychological parameters of her unique field trait—Queen's Domain—violently activated, warping the cognitive metrics of everyone on the battlefield.
King's Enemies (the 1,000 rebel soldiers) became instantly, heavily distracted, their operational cohesion shattering.
Villagers and the last remaining soldiers of the King (the King and her hidden guard elements) became hyper-fixated, their instincts burning with an absolute obsession to protect her at all costs.
For a single, fatal second, the battlefield froze.
But Kairo, his jaw still shattered and dripping blood, refused to let the cognitive warp dictate the script. Pushing his remaining mana reserves past the breaking point, he slammed his newly regenerated hands violently into the earth.
"Mud Magic: Iron Tomb!"
The earth beneath the Queen erupted into dense, heavy spikes of clay, violently wrapping around her youthful body and completely crushing her structure within a split second.
Yet, the victory didn't taste like gold. Through the sudden silence of the collapsed clay tomb, a terrifying, rhythmic sound echoed through the battlefield.
Dip... dip... dip...
Kairo's heart dropped. He looked past the crushed mud tomb. The sound wasn't the blood of the Queen. It was coming from Gideon.
Gideon slowly looked down at his own chest. His silver armor had been cleanly, effortlessly bypassed. King Lysander's blood-stained leather glove was buried deep inside his thoracic cavity—his fingers tightly, physically gripping Gideon's still-beating heart.
The King had used his own wife as a mere psychological bait, completely sacrificing her position to secure an absolute blind-spot execution.
Gideon's vision began to blur, the strength draining from his legs. Yet, looking at the horrified faces of Kairo and Leonhart, a peaceful, tired smile broke through his bloody lips. "Sorry... for being useless..."
But Gideon wasn't done.
To King Lysander's absolute, genuine surprise, Gideon used the absolute last spark of his motor reflexes to draw a hidden trench knife from his boot. Pushing past the physical failure of his cardiac system, he slashed upward with a desperate, heavy swing, barely managing to scratch a thin red line across the King's majestic jawline.
The next second, the King violently ripped his hand backward, tearing the heart completely out of Gideon's chest.
Gideon's body collapsed heavily onto the blood-slicked cobblestones, his eyes staring blankly at the smoking sky.
"One down," King Lysander laughed maniacally, raising the dripping organ into the air before crushing it into a bloody paste. "One of your absolute strongest pieces has officially fallen to the dirt! What will you do now, you remaining two?!"