Silence held after Tiamat’s smile. Nobody moved.

Kai lowered the Fractured Blade slowly. "Phase Three."

Everyone understood instantly.

Lily’s expression shifted. "So we’re using it already."

"We’ve confirmed everything else works," Kai said. "It’s time."

Mayor Ko was already on the relay line. "Initiate Final Protocol."

Across Mythal, relay operators started moving at once. Underground relic vaults unlocked one after another. Ancient seals broke open. Mana reserves accumulated over months began flooding into the city’s core.

Gabriel whispered, "They’re really going to use it."

An Astral Church elder paled. "They’re activating the emergency plan already."

"Because she forced them to," Gabriel said quietly.

Lily began the sequence herself. "Emergency Relay beginning."

Unlike every previous activation, nothing happened immediately. The city started storing energy instead, every relay, every barrier, every healing and artillery relic falling silent at once, pulling power inward rather than pushing it out.

Kai watched the golden light building beneath the streets. "We only have one chance."

"And sixty seconds," Lily said.

Silence. Everyone understood exactly what that meant.

They didn’t have to win.

They only had to survive long enough.

Without the relay to back them up, they were alone for the first time all day, and Tiamat came at them fully.

Kai led, cycling through Class Emulations faster than anyone could track, Storm Sovereign into Blood Tyrant into Thread Caster into Pulse Fist into Spirit Archer, pure adaptation with no fixed style long enough to be predicted.

Sera never left his side, shield catching every angle he couldn’t cover, Kai returning the favor the instant she left one open, the same rhythm they’d built through months of sparring.

Mira became the wall, Iron Fortress spreading to full-body coverage, absorbing blows nobody else could survive, each impact sending her skidding several feet across the street.

Raze kept laughing through all of it, Blood Tyrant climbing to a stack higher than anyone had ever seen from him, every swing shaking buildings on impact.

Tiamat walked through the resulting Blood Waves like they were nothing at all.

Elden reshaped the battlefield constantly, gravity fields and stone traps and arcane arrays layered on top of each other, and Tiamat simply changed direction mid-stride, unmaking months of calculation with a single step.

Lily supported everyone at once, thousands of Spirit Archers constantly predicting the next danger, Position Swaps saving teammates a half-second before they’d have taken a killing blow. She wasn’t attacking anymore.

She was keeping everyone alive.

Tiamat raised one finger, and entire rivers appeared in the sky above the city. She lowered her hand, and the rivers compressed into massive drills of water, spinning fast enough to bore through stone. Kai cut one apart, and three more replaced it instantly.

Black lightning filled the heavens, every bolt precisely targeting a hunter instead of striking randomly. Elden managed to redirect roughly half of it. The rest got survived through pure teamwork, everyone covering whoever the bolts locked onto.

She swung one sleeve, and a tidal wave tore through the district. Mira stopped it, barely, her Iron Fortress cracking audibly under the strain.

She turned her attention toward Raze, and gravity spiked hard around him, dropping him to one knee mid-swing.

Still laughing, he managed, "That’s—cheating."

Kai finally landed a clean hit, the Fractured Blade reaching her exposed side.

She blocked it with two fingers.

Silence.

Everyone watching understood exactly what that meant.

One by one, everyone got thrown back. Kai crashed through a row of buildings. Sera coughed blood, wiping it away without slowing. Mira’s armor started cracking apart. Raze’s Blood Armor shattered outright. Elden lost his staff somewhere in the wreckage. Lily’s Spirit Archers blinked out of existence, overtaxed.

Nobody quit.

Kai stood back up first. "Again."

Sera pulled herself upright. "Again."

Raze laughed, climbing to his feet. "Again."

Mira lifted her hammer despite the cracks running through her armor. "Again."

Elden adjusted his broken glasses with a shaking hand. "Again."

Lily summoned another Spirit Archer, voice unsteady but resolute. "Again."

Gabriel watched from a distance, tears forming again. "That’s why the Candidate chose them."

Lily’s relay console pinged. "Thirty seconds."

Everyone shifted strategy instantly, offense giving way to delay. Kai shouted, "Keep her here!"

Sera blocked. Mira anchored. Raze pushed forward despite everything. Elden sealed off every escape route he could manage. Lily manipulated positioning across the whole field, buying seconds one at a time.

"Twenty seconds."

"Twelve."

"Five."

The city itself began vibrating, the accumulated energy beneath the streets reaching its limit.

Even Tiamat noticed. She looked upward, and for the first time all fight, she reacted before an attack landed rather than after. She started walking, deliberate and unhurried, toward the city’s edge.

Kai understood immediately. "She knows."

"NOW!" Kai shouted.

Every remaining relay activated at once, every hidden reserve, every emergency relic, every underground conduit humanity had built emptying itself in a single coordinated burst. Golden light erupted beneath Tiamat, thousands of teleportation circles overlapping into one massive array.

Not moving hunters this time.

Targeting her.

Reality seemed to freeze for one impossible moment.

Time stopped.

For one impossible heartbeat

Nobody breathed.

Tiamat disappeared.

The teleportation array completed.

She reappeared high above Mythal.

Miles into the sky.

Floating.

Golden circles unfolded beneath her.

One.

Ten.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Every relay tower below answered.

The city awakened.

Every relay tower scattered throughout Mythal erupted with golden light at the exact same moment.

Energy raced beneath every road, every district, and every hidden conduit the engineers had spent months constructing, causing brilliant streams of mana to surge through the city like glowing arteries.

Buildings reflected the light, streets blazed with ancient runes, and from above the entire city transformed into a single, incomprehensibly massive magic circle that stretched from one end of Mythal to the other.

Gabriel looked up at the sight with tears already beginning to gather in her eyes. "Beautiful"

Standing before the relay console, Lily placed both trembling hands against its surface. Her body was exhausted, her mana nearly depleted, and blood still stained one side of her face, yet a small smile appeared despite everything.

"Operation Final Light."

The command echoed throughout the city.

Instantly, every relay discharged.

Every emergency reserve hidden beneath Mythal awakened.

Every mana crystal gathered from the hundred cleared B-Rank dungeons emptied itself into the network.

Every relic, every underground storage vault, every emergency battery, every last fragment of energy humanity had collected over months of relentless preparation began flowing toward a single destination.

For the first time since the battle had begun, the city itself began to dim.

Not because its power was failing.

Because every last drop of that power was being drawn inward.

The countless streams of golden mana converged into one overwhelming point directly beneath Tiamat until the pressure alone distorted the surrounding air. Even the clouds above seemed to twist around the gathering energy, unable to escape the sheer force building below them.

Kai slowly lowered the shattered Fractured Blade, his eyes never leaving the figure suspended high above.

"Fire."

The world answered.

There was no ordinary explosion.

No simple beam.

It was as though a second sun had been born beneath the heavens.

An immeasurable pillar of pure golden light erupted from the center of Mythal. Piercing through the sky with such overwhelming force that the atmosphere itself seemed to split apart before it.

Clouds didn’t scatter

they simply ceased to exist, burned away the instant they touched the column of light as it continued climbing higher and higher until it finally struck Tiamat.

For one long, impossible moment, nothing happened.

Then the impact arrived.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

The heavens vanished beneath blinding white light.

The shockwave spread outward in every direction with unstoppable force, flattening forests beyond Mythal’s walls, cracking distant mountains, sending rivers surging violently from their banks, and shattering windows in neighboring cities dozens of miles away. Even the earth beneath their feet trembled as though the entire world had felt humanity’s final attack.

The pillar continued burning through the sky for several long seconds before it slowly began to weaken. One by one, relay towers across Mythal dimmed as their mana reserves were exhausted, their brilliant light fading until the city that had shone like a second sun gradually returned to darkness.

Only then did the beam finally disappear.

Silence reclaimed the battlefield.

The Fractured Blade broke apart completely in Kai’s hand, fragments falling one by one onto the ruined street as he caught only the broken hilt. Around him, everyone instinctively looked upward, their eyes fixed on the slowly dispersing sea of white smoke that concealed the heavens.

Raze let out a quiet, almost disbelieving laugh.

"Tell me"

He swallowed.

"that did something."

No one answered.

They simply stood together beneath the fading light, exhausted beyond words, watching as the smoke drifted aside inch by inch, waiting to learn whether humanity’s greatest weapon had finally accomplished what no civilization before them ever could.

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