Three miles away, the wind howling across the top of the Zenith Tower was bitter and toxic.
Kaelen Cross didn't feel the cold.
He lay perfectly still on the cracked concrete, the heavy pitch-black stock of The Panopticon pressed deep into his shoulder.
His silver eyes were dead to the world, locked entirely into the glowing scope.
The digital crosshairs glowed with a faint, lethal blue light.
They were perfectly synced to the massive numbers hovering in the corner of his vision.
[Current Viewers: 750,200 (VIRAL ASCENSION)]
[Total Cosmic Credits: 161,500]
The universe was watching him.
Over seven hundred thousand cosmic entities were holding their collective breath, waiting to see what this arrogant mortal would do next.
"Kael," Nyx's voice crackled urgently through his earpiece.
The frantic clacking of her mechanical keyboard echoed in the background.
"The Assault Team is in position. I'm reading ten massive heat signatures right above the station's main ceiling."
Kael didn't blink.
"I see them."
Through his glowing blue scope, he could see their red outlines perfectly.
Ten heavy Juggernauts standing in a tight circle on the cracked asphalt right above his team.
They weren't taking cover anymore. They were planting high-yield breaching explosives.
"They brought a massive shield-breaker," Nyx warned, her voice tight with real panic.
"They're going to blow a hole straight through the concrete and drop directly onto Sera's head!"
"Let them," Kael replied. His voice was a flat, dead calm.
"Let them?!" Nyx yelled into the mic.
"Those are siege juggernauts! They're wearing blast armor thick enough to stop a tank!"
"If they drop into that confined space, they'll turn Seraphina into paste!"
Kael smoothly pulled the heavy bolt of the railgun back.
SHHHK-CLICK.
The dark-matter cell whined, vibrating against his cheek with absolute, catastrophic potential.
"You're underestimating our Valkyrie, kid," Kael whispered into the howling wind.
"And they're underestimating me."
Down in the underground gloom of Sakura Station, the air was thick enough to choke on.
The faint blue glow of the mana-shield washed the rusted train cars and cracked tiles in a sickly, pale light.
Seraphina stood dead center in the massive concourse.
She was completely alone on the front line.
Nyx was barricaded inside a rusted ticket booth fifty yards back, monitoring the grid.
Vespera had melted into the pitch-black tunnels to watch the rear.
Seraphina gripped the heavy leather hilt of her unenchanted greatsword.
Her knuckles were completely bone-white.
Her hands were shaking.
It wasn't a slight tremor of adrenaline. It was a violent, uncontrollable rattling.
The heavy steel blade of her sword literally vibrated against the floor tiles, echoing through the empty station.
She closed her eyes, but the darkness offered zero peace.
Her trauma, buried for ten years by the magical lobotomy of her slave collar, was flooding back like a tidal wave.
She could physically feel the phantom weight of that glowing metal band choking her neck.
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She could feel the paralyzing, agonizing voltage driving her to her knees.
She could hear her former master's voice whispering in her ear, forcing her to butcher innocent people.
"Be a good dog, Sera. Swing the sword."
A cold sweat broke out across her forehead. She was hyperventilating, her chest heaving in short, desperate gasps.
She was supposed to be an S-Rank Paladin.
But right now, she just felt like a broken, terrified slave.
"Sera."
The voice in her earpiece didn't belong to a master.
It was the raspy, gravelly grind of a man who had spent a decade screaming in the dark.
It was Kael.
Seraphina gasped, her glowing golden eyes snapping open.
"Your heart rate is spiking," Kael's voice flowed through the comms.
It was perfectly calm. Utterly devoid of panic.
"I... I can't," Seraphina stammered.
She stared up at the cracked concrete ceiling, tears of sheer panic welling in her eyes.
"They're juggernauts, Kael. Vanguard siege-breakers. My aura is corrupted. I'm not a Paladin anymore."
"I didn't ask for a Paladin," Kael replied softly.
The cold rooftop wind howled softly through the open comms channel.
"Paladins fight for gods who sit in the sky and do absolutely nothing," Kael stated, his voice turning to ice.
"I am three miles away. I have a bullet in the chamber."
"And I am watching your back."
Seraphina's breath hitched in her throat.
"I trust you to hold the line, Sera," Kael whispered.
Those words hit her harder than any physical blow.
I trust you.
For ten brutal years, she had been a weapon. A disposable meat-shield. A dog to be used and discarded.
But the man looking through the scope three miles away didn't see a slave.
He saw a Valkyrie.
He saw the only person who had drawn her sword to defend him when the entire universe called him a monster.
Something deep inside Seraphina's shattered soul abruptly, violently clicked into place.
Her god had abandoned her a decade ago.
The Vanguard Guild had butchered her mind.
The holy light had failed her.
But Kaelen Cross hadn't.
He had crawled out of hell, covered in mud and monster blood, and handed her back her freedom.
If her faith in the divine was broken, then she would simply place her faith in the sniper on the roof.
The violent trembling in her hands stopped completely.
Her grip on the leather hilt became absolute, unyielding iron.
"I will not fail him," Seraphina whispered to the empty air.
FWOOSH.
The entire subway station was instantly blinded.
An eruption of catastrophic, corrupted holy light washed away the underground gloom.
Seraphina's aura didn't just flare to life. It detonated.
The heavy, jagged streaks of black malice bleeding into her golden mana didn't weaken her.
It made her completely lethal. It made her absolutely ruthless.
The heavy steel blade of her greatsword ignited.
Roaring, corrupted golden flames erupted from the metal, violently licking the cracked ceiling.
She raised the massive blade, her glowing eyes burning with terrifying, unyielding resolve.
Directly above her head, the ceiling exploded.
BOOOOOOOOOOM.
The Vanguard breaching charge detonated with earth-shattering force.
The faint blue mana-shield flickered violently before a massive hole was punched right through its center.
Tons of reinforced concrete, twisted steel rebar, and chunks of asphalt collapsed inward.
It rained down onto the subway platform in a deafening avalanche of dust and debris.
Through the massive crater in the roof, ten colossal figures dropped into the dark.
CRASH. CRASH. CRASH.
The heavy Juggernauts landed like falling meteors.
The sheer, ridiculous weight of their bodies shattered the floor tiles and cratered the solid concrete.
They were nine feet of pure destruction, completely encased in overlapping plates of impenetrable siege armor.
They wielded massive, two-handed gravity hammers and heavy rotary cannons.
These were monsters designed to walk into a Behemoth's den and walk out covered in blood.
Thick, choking dust billowed out across the ruined platform.
"Target acquired!" the Lead Juggernaut roared.
His voice was amplified into a deafening mechanical boom through his heavy helmet.
"It's the rogue Valkyrie! She's completely alone!"
"CRUSH HER!"
The ten walking tanks lunged forward.
The solid ground violently shook with every single step they took.
[User 'DragonBoredom': Ah. So the chained dog finally remembers how to bite.]
[User 'BloodGod': LOOK AT HER MANA! THAT IS THE AURA OF A KILLER! 🩸🩸🩸]
[User 'Zark': SHE'S FIGHTING 10 JUGGERNAUTS BY HERSELF?! IS SHE INSANE?! 💀]
Seraphina didn't take a single step backward.
She didn't raise her weapon to brace for the impact.
She tightened her grip on her flaming greatsword.
And she charged them.
[User Zark: SHE'S CHARGING TEN JUGGERNAUTS HEAD-ON?! SHE HAS NO ARMOR! 💀💀💀]
[User Star_Dust_69: THE VALKYRIE IS NOT HUMAN! LOOK AT HER AURA! 🤯🔥]
[User Weapons_Nut_44: Gravity hammers hit with enough force to flatten a city block! The mass differential is literally ten to one! THIS IS MATHEMATICAL SUICIDE! 📉📉]
[User BloodGod: BURN THEM TO ASH! SHOW THEM THE WRATH OF A BROKEN ANGEL! 🩸🔥⚔️]
[User DragonBoredom: Finally. A mortal with the spine to run straight into a wall of iron. Do not disappoint me, Valkyrie. 👑]
[User Succubus_Envy_99: I am sorry but the corrupted golden flames reflecting in her completely dead eyes?! Mommy? I mean... Mommy?! 😩🥵🔥]
[User Gore_Whore_9: I WANT TO SEE DEPLETED URANIUM MELT! CRACK THEIR STUPID SHELLS OPEN SERA! 💦🩸🔨]
[User Point_Gamble_God: 200,000 CREDITS SAYS SHE CLEAVES THE FIRST TANK CLEAN IN HALF! LET IT RIDE BOYS! 🎲📈]
[Constellation Mecha-King: The kinetic potential of that corrupted blade against Class-A siege plating... I am genuinely captivated. 🍿🤖]
[User S-Rank_Hater: VANGUARD MEATHEADS ABOUT TO FIND OUT WHY SHE WAS S-RANK! RIP BOZOS! 🤣👎]
[User Galactic_Simp_42: THE WAY SHE DIDN'T EVEN FLINCH WHEN THE CEILING DROPPED! MY AURA DETECTORS ARE OFF THE CHARTS! 😭🔥]
Seraphina didn't just move. She erupted.
With a primal, ear-piercing scream that shattered every remaining pane of glass in the station, she closed the gap in a fraction of a second.
Her heavy boots crushed the floor tiles into fine powder.
She swung her blazing greatsword in a massive, horizontal arc, aiming dead center for the Lead Juggernaut's chest.
The giant sneered behind his thick visor.
He casually raised the heavy steel haft of his gravity hammer to block the strike, utterly convinced the unenchanted sword would just bounce off.
CLANG—SHRRRRK.
The corrupted holy fire didn't just burn. It consumed.
Seraphina's blade sheared straight through the reinforced weapon handle, melting the solid metal instantly.
The momentum of her furious swing didn't even slow down.
The blazing sword carved directly into the Juggernaut's impenetrable breastplate.
It cut through three inches of military-grade blast armor like it was made of wet paper.
The giant shrieked as his chest was torn wide open.
Corrupted golden flames flooded into the brutal wound, instantly incinerating his internal organs and boiling the blood inside his suit.
He dropped dead, his nine-foot frame crashing to the floor like a hollow iron statue.
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