The demons tried to crawl their way up the hoisted earthen beams where Kael and Selka hung suspended like trophies.

But Dominion didn't want such fine specimens wasted as food for mindless creatures. He took one look at the barely conscious women, then swept his gaze across the battlefield searching for more appropriate prey.

He could see Cassandra, but Izar needed her body intact for the dragon essence. His eyes found a better target: the group of fodder near the wrecked wagons. A silver-haired girl. Duchess's right hand woman. Another dark-haired woman sitting in a pool of blood near a corpse.

His smile deepened, becoming almost more grotesque than the demons themselves.

He used his divine gift necromancy to guide the mad creatures toward the helpless group.

Though Dominion called them demons, the more accurate term would be zombies. The walking dead.

The material similar to prismal conduits had drained their life force and stolen their souls long ago. What remained were just borrowed consciousnesses controlled by their master, puppets with functional circuits that could be as strong as they'd been in life but without a single thought of their own.

At Dominion's silent signal, the demons rushed toward the group near the wagon, trampling over each other, crushing their own kind in the mad rush forward. Their nails had grown long from their decaying bodies, transforming hands and feet into claws. The pointed structures made their movement across the frozen ground terrifyingly fast and efficient.

Ilya spotted the maddening rush.

She bit her lower lip, tasting blood, and forced herself to stand on trembling legs. She walked forward, positioning herself between the rushing horde and her companions.

Her hand shook as she gripped her broken sword, the A-tier artifact shattered by the Sword King, now nothing more than a jagged shard of what it had been.

She closed her eyes. Exhaled slowly. When she opened them again, they held no tears. Only determination.

She glared at the demons and took the stance of a fighter who knew she was going to die but refused to do so on her knees.

Lydia turned to watch the scene unfold. She looked back at Rune one final time, bent down, and pressed her lips gently to his forehead: a goodbye and a silent prayer.

She smiled at him as her fingers brushed strands of his dark hair away from his face. Then she slowly rose, careful not to disturb Sera's silent mourning.

She joined Ilya and took her fighting stance.

One with a broken sword. The other with no weapon at all.

Anyone watching would have laughed at the Intermediate-tier duo standing weaponless against a horde of demons. But there were no onlookers. And the duo didn't care.

"Please..."

Cassandra's spoke, visibly shaken from blood loss.

"You can kill us later... but let me help them..."

The Sword King remained silent.

Cassandra bit her lower lip, controlling her anger with visible effort. "I beg you... we would rather die from your sword than from those mindless beasts. Can't you grant us even that leeway?"

She wasn't begging for their lives, she knew there was no use in that. She was begging for a swift death. One from the hands of Ravencourt's strongest. A privileged death for her and her companions.

But the Sword King still remained silent, his stance unchanged, still standing guard against her.

Cassandra shook with fury. Then, slowly, she smiled... a smile of complete resignation. A smile she was certain the ancient warrior before her would never forget.

The Sword King's right hand trembled.

But Cassandra was in no condition to take advantage of that hesitation. She never had been.

She could only watch as the demons raged toward her companions, helpless to do anything but witness their deaths.

Then...

"Huh?"

Sera mumbled, bewildered and confused.

She'd found most of the katana already withdrawn from Rune's chest. For some inexplicable reason, she felt as if the blade was begging her to catch the hilt.

Her hand shot up before she realized what she was doing.

The moment her fingers wrapped around the grip, Essence Absorption activated.

Her mana was violently sucked out of her circuits.

"Wha..."

Sera felt a pull. The strength grew exponentially until the sword was completely free of Rune's body.

The blade vibrated in her hand. She tried to let go, but her fingers folded around the hilt without permission, refusing to release.

In the next moment, just as a demon reached the Intermediate-tier duo, the sword stabbed forward, dragging Sera along with it like she weighed nothing.

The blade pierced straight through the demon's heart.

The creature's back hit the frozen ground and slid backward, crashing into its own kind. After sliding several feet, it finally stopped.

Sera landed hard on the frost-covered ground, her reddened, tear-soaked face completely stunned as she found herself suddenly standing in the middle of the demon horde.

'What...?'

Not just the Intermediate-tier duo. Not just Merin and Cassandra. Even Dominion and the Sword King wore the same expression of shock.

Everyone stared at the silver-haired girl suddenly standing alone among demons.

"SERAAA!!!"

Lydia's scream tore through the air as she dashed into the horde. Ilya followed without hesitation.

The demons rushed toward their free meal from all directions.

Unconsciously, Sera released her frost aura, pushing some back, but the horde closed in from every angle, surrounding her completely.

She closed her eyes, gripping the katana's hilt with both hands, preparing for the end.

Crackle..

Then another hand wrapped around hers.

Larger. Warmer.

The hand gripped hers tightly, and through her grip, tightened around the sword itself.

Before Sera could look up to see who it was, the hand raised hers, and thus the blade, and swung.

BOOM.

The horde of demons was bisected in a perfect diagonal wave of crimson energy that cut through the estate and seemingly carved into the enclave itself.

The slash extended impossibly far, cutting through frozen walls, through demon bodies, through reality in a line that glowed with Blood Raven's signature aura.

Demon bodies fell in two pieces, the cut so clean they didn't even realize they'd been killed until they hit the ground.

"Rune...?"

Sera's tear-soaked eyes struggled to focus through the blur, finding the familiar figure standing behind her, his hand still wrapped around hers on the sword's hilt.

Rune wore the same expression of confusion as everyone else. His golden eyes glowed against the dawn's light.

He blinked.

Looked at the massive diagonal slash carved into the landscape.

Looked at Blood Raven in their joined hands.

Looked at the demons split perfectly in half.

"What just happened?" he asked, genuinely bewildered.

The question everyone wanted to ask.

Silence descended over the battlefield.

Then every eye turned toward the boy who'd been dead moments ago.

The boy who'd just casually obliterated half a demon horde with a single swing.

The boy whose golden eyes now blazed with power that made even the Sword King pause and reassess everything.

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