"Good. I was getting tired of quiet places."
Arthur's voice didn't echo in the sterile, metallic corridor. The oppressive holy light radiating from the two S-Rank Saints swallowed the sound, actively dampening any anomaly within its reach.
The air wasn't just heavy.
It was abrasive.
Every breath Arthur took felt like inhaling spun glass. The [Graveborn Mana Heart] thudded violently against his ribs, starving and furious, its dark energy boiling beneath his skin as it rejected the purified environment.
The two Saints didn't banter. They didn't pause to analyze his threat level.
"Execution authorized," they droned in perfect, chilling unison.
They moved.
It wasn't a charge. It was a localized displacement of light.
One moment they were standing before the massive blast doors. The next, the Saint on the right was directly in front of Arthur, bringing its condensed-energy glaive down in a flawless, blinding arc.
Arthur didn't try to warp the space. In an environment this saturated with Order, a spatial misalignment would simply tear his own body apart.
"Shadow," Arthur commanded flatly.
The boy erupted from the darkness. He threw his left arm forward—the massive, jagged void-gauntlet he had forged from his own trauma.
CLANG!
The holy glaive slammed into the dark-purple void-matter.
The impact was catastrophic. A shockwave of pure kinetic and magical energy blasted down the corridor, shattering the fluorescent lights and buckling the steel walls.
The boy was driven to his knees. The holy light from the glaive sizzled against the void-gauntlet, aggressively trying to burn away the dark energy. The boy screamed, a raw, gargling sound as the sheer, S-Rank pressure threatened to crush his spine.
But the gauntlet held.
[Subordinate Trait Activated: The Broken Vanguard]
The boy's purple eyes turned entirely pitch-black. The void-mana inside the gauntlet roared, violently drinking the kinetic force of the Saint's strike.
"I am heavier than your light," the boy hissed, blood pouring from his nose as he forced himself to stand, physically pushing the massive glaive upward.
The first Saint didn't react to the resistance. It simply adjusted its grip.
But the second Saint had already bypassed the boy.
It blurred past the clash, materializing directly beside Elara. She was already struggling to stand under the crushing pressure of the holy auras.
The Saint raised its glaive.
The tip glowed with lethal, condensed energy.
It aimed directly for her heart.
"Anomaly anchor identified. Erasing."
Elara didn't flinch. Her silver eye flared with absolute, desperate focus.
"Value reassigned," Elara whispered rapidly, her bandaged hand raised toward the descending blade. "Trajectory = Inverse."
The holy glaive stuttered in mid-air.
The golden light flickered violently as the physical laws governing the weapon's movement were aggressively rewritten. Instead of plunging into Elara's chest, the glaive violently jerked backward, the kinetic force reversing upon itself.
The Saint's arm snapped with a sickening CRACK.
The elbow bent at a grotesque, unnatural angle as the weapon forcefully threw itself away from its target.
Elara gasped, collapsing onto her hands and knees. Blood poured from both her nose and her silver eye.
Her silver eye flickered.
For a moment—
She almost lost the equation.
Almost.
Too dense, her mind screamed. The System's holy mana here is too dense. I cannot rewrite them directly. I can only deflect.
The second Saint didn't scream. It didn't look at its broken arm.
Its faceless visor simply locked back onto Elara. It dropped the glaive and raised its uninjured hand.
A blinding sphere of pure holy fire condensed in its palm.
It was preparing to vaporize her at point-blank range.
Arthur stepped into the gap.
He moved with the cold, unyielding certainty of a collapsing star.
The Saint didn't hesitate. It shoved the sphere of holy fire directly at Arthur's chest.
Arthur didn't dodge. He raised his right hand, the terrifying, blood-red lightning of [Absolute Synthesis] igniting around his pale fingers.
He didn't aim for the fireball.
He slammed his hand directly into the center of the Saint's pristine, silver-and-white breastplate.
"System," Arthur whispered, his voice dropping into a dark, abyssal echo. "Deconstruct."
The red lightning didn't spark—it roared. It collided with the Saint's purity in a violent, reality-tearing clash.
Arthur's vision went white.
Still, he pushed.
"You are just armor," Arthur roared. "You are just code. BREAK."
CRUNCH.
The pristine silver breastplate shattered.
The red lightning bypassed the holy shielding, aggressively unmaking the molecular bonds of the armor. The solid metal dissolved into gray, lifeless dust.
Inside the armor, there was no blood. There were no organs.
There was only a swirling, blindingly bright core of pure, condensed holy mana.
Arthur's hand pierced the core.
There was no blood.
Only light.
It burned. It resisted. It tried to erase him.
Arthur didn't pull back.
"Synthesis."
The light screamed.
And then—
It broke.
He forcefully dragged the pure, holy energy of the Saint's core directly into the [Graveborn Mana Heart] beating inside his own chest.
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ABSORPTION DETECTED.]
[Lethal Incompatibility. Host Annihilation Imminent.]
The blue screen flashed violently in his vision.
"Shut up," Arthur hissed.
His body arched violently. A soundless scream tore at his throat as the two opposing forces waged a devastating war inside his soul. His ribs cracked. The dark veins beneath his skin turned a blinding gold.
But he was the Sovereign. He dictated the terms of his own existence.
With a monstrous exertion of willpower, Arthur crushed the holy energy, forcefully aligning it with his Void.
THUMP.
The golden light inside the Saint's chest flickered, then died completely.
The remaining pieces of its silver armor collapsed onto the metal floor.
The S-Rank Executioner had been unmade. Not killed. Digested.
Arthur fell to his knees, gasping for air. His right arm was severely burned, the skin blackened and cracked.
[Ding!]
[S-Rank Entity Deconstructed.]
[Massive Mana Absorption Successful.]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Current Level: 31]
Arthur spat a glob of black blood onto the floor, slowly pushing himself up.
He looked at the remaining Saint.
The first Executioner had finally broken the boy's guard.
The gauntlet cracked.
Once.
Twice.
The void shrieked—
Then shattered.
The boy was sent crashing into the wall, broken and bleeding, his left arm a mangled, smoking ruin once more.
The Saint turned its faceless visor toward Arthur.
It didn't register fear at the death of its partner. It didn't hesitate.
"Anomaly threat level increased. Adjusting parameters."
The Saint raised its glaive.
The light condensed.
The corridor held its breath.
Arthur didn't raise his burned hand.
He looked at the System's flawless executioner.
"You are not a judge," Arthur said quietly, his voice echoing with the terrifying, abyssal weight of the Calamity Seed.
He took a slow step forward. The darkness of his Mantle flared, aggressively swallowing the sterile, fluorescent light.
"You are a function."
The shadows surged.
"And I am the error you cannot correct."