Val stared into my eyes for a fraction of a second. She didn’t argue. She simply gave a firm, decisive nod, trusting my judgment completely.
Reaching down to her thigh holster, Val drew the sleek, matte-black combat dagger she always carried. "Be ready to move on my strike."
In the very next second, the sweet, flustered bodyguard who had been awkwardly dancing in the skybox completely vanished.
Val stepped forward, and her physical body simply melted into the cavern shadows. She didn’t run, rather she glided across the uneven limestone floor without making a single sound, her dark suit blending flawlessly into the darkness.
As she closed the distance, dense, pitch-black mana surged from her grip. The sleek combat dagger in her hand rapidly extended, the shadowy energy solidifying into a massive, wickedly curved scythe.
She materialized directly behind the largest of the five cloaked figures.
Sensing the sudden, terrifying drop in temperature, the man spun around with shocking speed, a heavy, enchanted broadsword materializing in his grip. He swung the massive blade in a brutal horizontal arc aimed straight at Val’s torso.
Val didn’t even flinch.
The moment the glowing broadsword was about to slice her in half, Val’s physical body turned completely translucent, shifting into a dark, ethereal mist. The heavy broadsword phased harmlessly through her waist, striking nothing but empty air.
Before the man could even process the impossible dodge, Val’s body solidified. With a cold, emotionless flick of her wrists, she swung the massive shadow scythe. The curved blade cleaved effortlessly through his reinforced aura, severing his head from his shoulders in a single, perfectly executed strike.
The man’s body crumpled to the cave floor.
I watched from the edge of the cavern, genuinely amazed. I almost forgot I was supposed to be defusing the bomb.
[Impressive, isn’t she?] Paige’s voice chimed in my head, laced with genuine appreciation for the violence. [Valerie’s Astral Soul is named ’Soulshade.’ It’s a highly specialized, mid-to-high-tier soul governing the concepts of Spirit and Shadows. That intangibility she just used is her signature defensive ability, shifting her physical form into the spiritual plane for brief intervals to phase through physical and magical attacks.]
Shaking myself out of my awe, I dropped into a low crouch and quickly skirted along the outer perimeter of the cavern, using the jagged stalagmites for cover as the remaining four cultists realized they were under attack.
"Intruder!" the spear-wielding leader roared, his voice echoing off the cave walls. "Kill her!"
The cavern instantly erupted into a flurry of combat magic.
The cultist on the far left slammed his palms onto the limestone floor. A series of massive, razor-sharp earth spikes erupted from the ground, tearing toward Val at blinding speed. Val simply stepped backward, her body sinking seamlessly into the shadows cast by the very spikes meant to impale her.
She reappeared instantly in the shadow of the second cultist, a mage rapidly condensing a swirling sphere of volatile, roaring fire in his hands.
Before the mage could launch the fireball, Val’s scythe hooked around his ankle. With a brutal yank, she shattered his stance, sending him crashing to his knees. As the fireball fizzled out of his control, Val spun the scythe by its long haft, driving the bladed tip straight through the back of his neck, pinning him to the stone floor.
Two down. Three to go.
"Burn her to ash!" the spear-wielding leader yelled, thrusting his sensory-jamming artifact forward. A dozen compressed, crescent-shaped wind blades shot out from the spear tip, shrieking through the air toward Val.
At the same time, the third remaining cultist charged her. His arms were wrapped in glowing kinetic-enhancement gauntlets that vibrated with enough concussive force to shatter a tank. He threw a devastating, explosive right hook straight at Val’s face.
Val remained perfectly, terrifyingly calm.
She pulled her scythe free from the dead mage and twirled it in a blindingly fast defensive arc. The haft of the shadow weapon collided with the incoming wind blades, deflecting them upward into the cavern ceiling, where they exploded in showers of limestone dust.
As the brawler closed in, his glowing fist inches from her jaw, Val activated her Soulshade intangibility once again.
Her head turned into grey mist. The explosive punch phased harmlessly through her face. But the kinetic brawler had put his entire body weight into the strike and with his target suddenly turning to smoke, his momentum carried him stumbling forward.
Val solidified instantly, pivoting gracefully on her heel. She brought the heavy, blunt end of her scythe haft crashing directly into the back of his knee. A sickening CRACK echoed through the cave. As the brawler collapsed screaming, Val smoothly reversed her grip, sweeping the scythe blade across his throat in a clean, merciless arc.
While Val was systematically dismantling a squad of hardened magical mercenaries like they were training dummies, I finally reached the center of the cavern, sliding into position beside the metal pillar.
Up close, the glowing blue cube was a nightmare of complex runic circuitry. The mana inside was churning violently, emitting a high-pitched, whining frequency that signaled it was mere minutes away from critical mass.
"Alright, Paige," I muttered, raising my hands toward the cube. "How do we stop this thing without turning the stadium into a crater?"
[Scanning the structural matrix!] Paige responded instantly, a detailed, glowing holographic blueprint of the bomb projecting over my vision. [It’s a localized compression trigger. If you cut the physical wires, the fail-safe will detonate it instantly. You need to use your Origin authority to manually unravel the reality of the tertiary mana-flow rune located in the bottom-left corner. Just erase the concept of the connection.]
"Got it. Help me here, though. I can’t do it alone."
I focused my mind, letting the primordial, boundless authority of my Astral Soul flood through my fingertips. I didn’t need tools or even need to touch the bomb physically. I simply looked at the glowing sequence of mana binding the core together, located the specific tertiary rune Paige highlighted, and commanded reality to alter its state.
Hiss.
The dense, violent blue glow of the cube flickered. The high-pitched whining noise instantly died down, and the volatile mana inside settled into a dull, inert grey block of harmless crystal.
"Bomb disabled," I whispered, letting out a long breath of relief. "Thanks, Paige."
[You’re welcum.]
I sighed.
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