Valen hit the dirt floor of the choke point like a falling meteor.
The forty-foot drop was cushioned by a violent, outward pulse of raw purple kinetic energy.
The shockwave tore through the frontline, blasting three iron-clad soldiers off their feet and sending dirt, shattered pikes, and calcified shrapnel flying into the air.
CRACK-THUD!
Valen rose from his three-point landing, his knees popping under the immense strain.
Streams of violet electrical arc danced across his arms and shoulders, sizzling as they burned away his cloth sleeves.
Beneath his skin, his veins glowed like burning wire, black-and-purple bio-steam venting from his neck and wrists.
[SYSTEM OVERLOAD: TISSUE BURNOUT]
[Neural Strain: 88%]
[Warning: Cellular Rupture Imminent.
Reduce Power Draw Immediately.]
Ignoring the flashing red alerts across his vision, Valen pulled Torin back behind his shoulder.
“Fall back to the tread line,” Valen commanded, his voice raspy and deep, vibrating with unstable System energy.
“Karen, fire the secondary steam vents!”
A blast of scalding blue steam hissed out from the side of the crippled Leviathan, blinding the enemy soldiers trying to flank them.
“Look at him!” a loud, booming voice roared through the smoke.
“The butcher-lord of the grave!”
The smoke parted, revealing Lord Hector Vane himself.
Mounted atop an armored heavy warhorse, Vane was clad in master-forged iron plate adorned with the golden lion sigil of House Vane.
In his right hand, he held a massive, four-foot steel broadsword running with yellow enchantment runes.
Behind him stood twelve of his elite Vanguard Knights, their halberds raised.
“You’ve butchered my men with cowardly traps and monster-machines,” Lord Vane spat, his eyes wide with rage as he drew his blade.
“Face me, boy, or I’ll cut down every last penal worker in this ditch!”
Valen wiped a line of dark black blood from his lip, his vision blurring slightly.
The power he had funneled from the Nerve-Scribe Tower was tearing his internal organs apart, but he couldn’t afford to show weakness.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: Lord Hector Vane]
[Level: 42 – Iron-Reach Warlord]
[Armor: Masterwork Enchanted Plate (Flaw Detected: Left Rib Joint)]
[Stamina: 78% | System Energy: Null]
“You marched two thousand men to my door for land and bone,” Valen said, stepping forward as his right hand crystallized into a razor-sharp, calcified blade.
“You don’t get to leave.”
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Vane spurred his heavy warhorse forward, bringing his enchanted broadsword down in a sweeping, devastating downward arc meant to split Valen in two.
Valen didn’t try to block it head-on.
At the last fraction of a second, he sidestepped the charging beast, ducking beneath the glowing blade.
He drove his bone-bladed forearm upward into the horse’s front leg joint.
CRACK!
The warhorse shrieked, collapsing instantly as its foreleg gave way.
Lord Vane was thrown violently from the saddle, crashing heavily into the shale dirt.
Before Vane could scramble to his feet, Valen was on him.
Vane swiped frantically with his broadsword from his knees, the steel edge biting across Valen’s ribs.
SLASH!
Pain flared like liquid fire across Valen’s torso.
Steel cut deep into flesh, and blood poured onto his torn shirt.
Valen gasped, staggering back two paces, his vision going white for a split second.
[CRITICAL HEALTH ALERT: 112 / 450]
[Status: Severe Laceration (Torso)]
[Warning: Neural Failure Imminent]
“You’re just a mortal boy hiding behind dead men’s bones!” Vane bellowed, rising to his feet and raising his broadsword with both hands for a killing thrust.
Valen gritted his teeth through the blinding agony.
Focusing every remaining scrap of purple System energy into his left hand, he ignored the sword point coming toward his chest and stepped straight into Vane’s guard.
CLANG!
Valen caught the flat of Vane’s broadsword with his bare, calcified palm, stopping the thrust inches from his neck.
With a violent twist of his hand, he shattered the enchanted steel blade into three jagged pieces.
“My turn,” Valen whispered.
Using the flaw highlighted by his Diagnostic Vision, Valen slammed his right bone-blade directly beneath Vane’s left armpit, driving the calcified point straight through the seam of his masterwork plate and deep into his chest.
Lord Hector Vane froze.
His eyes widened in shock as he looked down at the bone blade protruding from his ribs.
“This…
over…” Vane choked out, blood bubbling up over his lips.
Valen pulled the blade free.
Lord Vane crumpled onto his face in the gray dust, his gold-and-iron armor clattering lifelessly against the stone.
Silence fell over the choke point.
The remaining iron-clad soldiers, seeing their lord fall, froze in terror.
Behind them, Torin, Marcus, and the four remaining Vanguard raised their bone-weapons, letting out a deafening, savage war cry that echoed off the canyon walls.
[BOSS NEUTRALIZED: Lord Hector Vane]
[Enemy Vanguard Morale: COLLAPSED]
[Remaining Hostiles: 1,840 (Surrendering)]
“Drop your weapons!” Marcus roared at the enemy ranks, stepping over Vane’s body with his massive shield.
“Drop them now, or we kill every last one of you!”
One by one, the iron-clad soldiers began throwing down their pikes and broadswords, the sound of clattering steel filling the pass.
Valen stood over Vane’s body, his chest heaving as he tried to draw a breath.
Then, the world tilted.
The purple glow around his hands dissolved into fine gray ash.
The black steam venting from his skin turned cold.
A wave of excruciating heat shot straight into his brain as the Nerve-Scribe Tower’s overcharged feedback finally hit his nervous system.
[CRITICAL SYSTEM SHUTDOWN: NEURAL COLLAPSE]
[System Energy: 0 / 680]
[Physical Status: Unconscious]
Valen’s knees gave out.
His eyes rolled back, and he pitched forward into the dirt beside his fallen enemy.
“Valen!”
Lyra’s voice sounded muffled, as if coming from under twenty feet of water.
He heard footsteps rushing toward him—Marcus’s heavy iron boots, Karen’s mechanical limb whirring in panic, and Lyra dropping to her knees beside him, her cool hands cupping his burning face.
“Get him to the medical chamber!” Karen screamed into her tube.
“The core is burning him from the inside out!”
As Marcus scooped Valen’s limp, bloodied body into his arms, darkness swallowed Valen completely, leaving only the faint, rhythmic ticking of the System in the silence of his mind:
[EXP GAINED: 14,500]
[SETTLEMENT TIER 3 UNLOCKED: REGIONAL SOVEREIGN]
[System Entering Regeneration Mode…]