Princess Lornera Kalor, third scion of the Crown, stared in dumbfounded shock and disbelief at the impossible scene in front of her. Her younger brother, Hinren, was gone. Not just bodily slain and waiting to respawn back in Kalor Palace, but soul-killed; gone permanently, never to return. Hinren Kalor, a royal with his soul plan fully complete, had his soul pierced, sliced open by an enemy's sword, and broken apart. It was impossible. It had to be. Even full orichalcum-rank nobles could not muster the unbreakable sturdiness required to harm a royal soul—at least, not without a Level advantage far greater than anyone had.
Hinren may have been the youngest and weakest of them, the most lazy and least effective, but he was still a scion of Kalor. Lornera could have believed soone cutting him. The rebels had even proved that they could, with perfect planning and luck, bodily kill him. But this—Hinren's soul shattered and dispersed, never to respawn again—could not possibly be real! The impossibly-sturdy magical sword impaled through his heart had to be so kind of trick, or illusion, or– or sothing, right?
Lornera watched numbly, her mind refusing to comprehend the reality of what she saw, as the young man who had killed Hinren pulled his sword out of the royal corpse and, remarkably quickly, lunged at her next. The man's features and the way he moved seed vaguely familiar, but the associated mory stubbornly refused to co to mind. His soul felt even more familiar, and that association yielded its result when he was only half-way to her. The young man's soul felt extrely similar to Recindril Tostral's soul. He was probably the lord's second or third scion. The first scion, Recindren, was locked up as a hostage—not that that had accomplished anything—and she would have recognized the fourth, Jamar, after her morable encounter with the overly-arrogant girl.
A small blast of air punched into Lornera from the side, laced with familiar mana, but it carried no truly aningful force and failed to get her attention. Then an exceedingly fast shout from her sister reached her ears. "For-the-sake-of-the-Crown-MOVE!" Lornera's body lurched into motion before she could even consciously register what Brenelle was demanding of her. She darted left, barely an instant too late to completely avoid the Tostral scion's high-speed stab. The sharp point of the soul-killing blade dug into her chest, then sliced its way across her skin as she dodged. She ended up with a surface-level cut across her front and part-way along her side. Barely even noticeable as just a flesh wound, really.
Lornera cried out and spasd in agony. Sothing sharp and incredibly strong had slid across the surface of her soul and even scored a shallow gash into it. In the back of her mind, she knew it was that sword, of course, but most of her awareness was filled with pain. So of her mana was spilling out, uncontrolled, and she could feel hairline cracks on her soul along the path of where the sword had cut. Then an outside pressure touched her soul, gently and with great care. Her mana was contained, and all tension at the cracks was relieved. The pounding agony in her everything faded to a more tolerable ache, and she saw Brenelle hovering protectively in front of her.
Then a bright orange flash filled her vision, and she felt the Tostral scion's soul splatter under the sheer blunt force of her father's wrath. King Elston had forced his way through the dungeon-induced syrupy air with simple brute strength, not bothering with the trifling detail of breaking a path in advance to improve efficiency. His orichalcum aura settled to a steady glow, and he frowned at the enchanted sword that was spinning in the air, a severed hand still gripping its hilt.
Elston grabbed the severed hand, pried its fingers loose, and gripped the sword's hilt himself with one hand. He hefted the sword experintally and looked back and forth between it and his own left arm, which was still transford as a sword. Then he smirked and bellowed across the battlefield, "A magnificent gift, Recindril! Shall we see how it compares to my inherent weapons?" He swept his arms to the sides, holding each blade at full extension, dungeon-forged relic on the right and self-transford forearm on the left.
He paused for a mont and glanced over his shoulder at Brenelle and Lornera. He appraised their condition and barked a pair of orders at the speed only they would understand. "Lornera, withdraw and recover; join the observing guard squad. Brenelle, be wary." Then Elston Kalor, leader of the Crown, turned his attention back to battle and charged forward once more, the power of the orichalcum circlet he bore sheathing him from head to toe.
Lornera watched him go as she herself drifted away at only a fraction of her usual speed, then turned her attention to her destination. Brenelle ca with her at first, helping hold her soul together and warding off any who might dare try to prey on her wounded retreat. Lornera waved her off once they weren't closely surrounded by rebels anymore. "Go and help Father. I can handle myself."
Brenelle cocked her head and raised an eyebrow dubiously. "Are you sure? I can still feel tension in that crack."
Lornera swallowed and fird up her focus on holding her soul together. "I'll manage. This is what we have a soul reinforcent superstructure for, after all. But, Brenelle… The rebels have to know that this is a line Father will never forgive. They must have a plan to get him, too. It's the only way this makes any sense. He may need your help to stop them."
The external pressure supporting her soul gradually eased off, and Lornera's face tinged a little white, but she held up under the strain. Already, the outright hole in her soul's outermost surface was sealed, her mana properly contained once more, and the hairline cracks spreading from the cut were nding. She had built a series of anchor points across the cut itself, and the split edges were solidly held in contact with each other. It would take more ti for the two sides to ld and fully heal, but her soul was stable. Brenelle inspected her for a long mont, then at last nodded and flew to rejoin the battle.
Lornera settled to the ground at the top of a hill to observe, nodding solemnly in acknowledgent to the squad of royal guards stationed there. The guard captain gave her a quick battlefield salute, then returned to facing forward, watching the battle impassively from afar. The four guards in the squad took up positions around her, as though she—a Kalor scion!—needed protection, and she found she couldn't muster any objection.
Her mind kept revisiting that mont when she had frozen, replaying in her head how she had just watched in disbelief as an enemy ca within inches of ending her existence. She should have dodged that attack easily. She was more than fast enough, in both movent itself and in quickness of reaction, to have avoided that stab completely. Instead, only Brenelle's shouted admonition and her ingrained response to it had limited the damage to rely incapacitating her. Lornera's eyes saw her father and remaining siblings continuing to fight, but her mind could not see past her own failure.
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His Majesty King Elston Kalor grinned confidently at the enemies before him as he prepared his weapons, one familiar and one newly acquired, for a new charge. He was unused to holding a sword, rather than having it literally be an extension of his arm, but with his mana wrapping around the grip the difference would be irrelevant. He moved, and people parted like water.
The first in line was on the left, and so was cleaved by his armblade. With the power of his circlet sheathing him, Elston barely even felt the resistance of the man's soul as he cut it in half. He barely felt the resistance of the dungeon-thickened air, too, pushing his way through it all with pure strength, like it wasn't even there.
His second victim was on the right, and so Elston swept the soul-cutting dungeon relic into him. The mont the blade made contact, sothing shifted inside it. The sword's mana ford a broad blunt bludgeon that rely shoved the other man away, while the mana of its sharp edge turned inward and tried to cut Elston's own hand. He flinched in surprise and paused to look down at the sword.
Laughter bood across the battlefield, and Elston recognized Recindril's voice, taunting him again. "We are not so stupid as to take no precaution against you seizing our tools, Elston! Please do try it again!"
Arrows and blades bounced off of Elston's aura. Flas curled fruitlessly around him. Lightning struck the orichalcum light and vanished. Five invisible balls of mana spikes tried to dig hooks into him and succeeded only in dulling their own points. The concentrated concept of weakness tried to sink into him and found itself only flailing against an impenetrable wall of strength. An endless variety of attacks joined the onslaught by the second as Elston hovered in the sa spot, heedless of his surroundings.
He noticed none of it. Only one attack he had suffered was potent enough to draw his attention: The immaterial razor edge of the soul-cutting sword's mana, which had turned itself against the hand that held it. That edge was inside his aura, already in direct contact with his skin. More significantly, it was far stronger than any re noble's magic, sturdy and resilient enough to maintain its sharpness despite the invincible durability it was sawing away at. If it had been backed by the physical edge of the weapon's blade and struck sowhere more central than his hand, it might have even been capable of harming him—if it still caught him by surprise, at least.
All of that passed through King Elston's mind, but he dismissed it all. What truly annoyed him was the personal affront; how dare a weapon that he had deigned to wield try to turn against him!? With an angry snarl, he seized that immaterial edge in the grip of his mana, bore down on it firmly, and wrenched it back around to where it belonged. He poured mana into the sword's hilt to clamp down on the shape and orientation of its magic. If its enchantnt would not serve him willingly, then he would force it to comply with his desires.
Elston swung the sword through the air once, holding its enchantnt in its proper place. The soul-cutting edge of its mana stuck precisely to the physical edge of the sword's steel blade, implacably clamped there by his will. He swung again, this ti at an idiot who had dared to try—futilely, of course—to cut off his head. The idiot's armor tore, then skin, then body and soul. Elston nodded in satisfaction.
He glanced at his left armblade for a mont and considered. The rebellious sword he'd taken from the rebels took more effort to achieve the sa result. Using his own armblades would be easier and faster. However, showing the rebels—the few he would allow to respawn—that their tricks had failed would cow them more thoroughly. More importantly, he refused to give Recindril the satisfaction of seeing the Crown back down from sothing the rebel leader had arranged.
Elston spun to clear a little space, armblade extended on the left and firmly-controlled rebel sword extended on the right. This ti, both blades functioned properly, and three more souls fell to his assault.
He looked over to Recindril, who was busily fending off Patrimmon a hundred feet away. Elston brandished the sword and called out, "As you can see, your petty precaution failed! Perhaps now, you might begin to understand the depth of your folly in defying ."
Elston glanced at Patrimmon and quickly assessed the boy's state. Patrimmon was far from exhausted, and was fighting rely to keep Recindril occupied, in accordance with Elston's earlier command to leave the rebel leader's final defeat for him, personally. The boy was nonetheless starting to show signs of fatigue to Elston's senses. He didn't have the power of Elston's inherited circlet to take the burden of fighting through the unexpectedly-potent resistance. Brenelle didn't, either, and he could feel her mana flaring above and behind him as she fought, also showing the faintest early signs of fatigue.
It wouldn't do to let anyone see a Crown scion be worn down by re fatigue. He called out once more, making sure to speak his orders slowly enough for everyone to understand. "In fact, I should show you personally, by myself. I brought my children here for formality and a bit of experience; I do not need their help. Patrimmon, Brenelle, withdraw. I will fight alone. I am more than enough to win this."
"But, father–" Brenelle stamred and hesitated.
Elston firmly admonished her, "Do not question on this, daughter. Withdraw."
His children quietly turned and flew away, and no one even tried to stop them. Once they were suitably distant, Elston extended his blades to the sides again and smiled viciously. "Now then, where were we? Ah yes, I was slaughtering you all."
It felt like Elston had been fighting for hours, but it could have been minutes. It was hard to tell ti in battle, especially with how much ntal acceleration drew things out in his perceptions. He had flown through what seed like a sea of rebels so many tis that he had long ago lost count, each ti scattering soul-killed corpses behind him, but there were always more still standing against him.
Two small groups had tried to flee early on, but he'd made a point of cutting them down imdiately, and the rest stopped trying. One coward had managed to teleport away, but then Elston had figured out the trick to notice the item activation early enough to interrupt it. Maybe if enough of them tried it simultaneously, he might be unable to interrupt all of them at once, but all of the leaders who might be in a position to coordinate such an attempt were still trying to fight. Recindril even seed to still think he could ultimately win.
In the back of Elston's mind, worries were growing that Recindril might possibly even be right. The power of his inherited orichalcum circlet was fading. When he pushed through the dungeon-induced resistance of the air, he felt it now. Worse, he had to actively prepare a path again to prevent being slowed. He weathered the constant attacks as well as always, but he felt them now, and they wore on him. He'd acquired another soul-killing sword at so point in the fighting, and forced its booby-trapped enchantnt to work for him as well. He was starting to regret that choice, as the constant exertion of gripping those enchantnts so tightly was tiring him.
On the other hand, the crowd of rebels was a great deal thinner than before. In fact, he paused after his latest charge to count, and found only a few dozen remaining. He looked around pointedly while facing Recindril. "I'll give you one last chance to surrender now. Confess how you acquired such potent items and turn in the culprits, or help find them if you don't directly know them, and I will allow you to live. Surely you can see how hopeless your position is by now."
Everyone paused, breathing heavily but making no hostile moves, as everyone waited for Recindril's response. "I…" Recindril hesitated and looked around, counting his remaining allies. "You might be right. Bu–"
He was interrupted by a brilliant column of golden light spearing down from the sky above. The light struck his head and cut him in half vertically, the mana in it cutting his soul as well.
Elston looked upward, searching for the source of the spell. A man floated in the air, looking down on all of them. "Tsk, tsk. I went through all the trouble to set this up, and he wavered at the last mont? Can you believe this guy?"
It took a mont for Elston to recognize the new arrival. He knew the man's face and body, but his soul felt very different from the last ti they had t. "Supre Enchanter Nyralis."
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