The lead executioner, held fast in Seraphina's psychic ice, could only watch as the Empty Sword Saint turned his void-shot gaze upon him.
"Your function is complete," Zero stated. A single, focused arc of lightning: thin, wild, and sputtering with unstable power, lanced from his fingertip. It was a raw, newborn spark from the void, not a refined technique. It scorched a blackened furrow through the executioner's shoulder before fizzling out. Messy. Imperfect. A power not yet mastered. It was enough.
The sanctum was a symphony of controlled chaos. Seraphina was a winter queen, her every gesture leaving frozen, broken bodies in her wake. Zero was a silent storm, his movements a blur of precise, debilitating strikes, the occasional wild spark of unstable lightning causing his opponents to convulse and drop. They were an impenetrable fortress around their prize.
Jade stood at the center, a statue of seething ice. His knuckles were white, the Obsidian Core within him a caged star going supernova. He watched a hulking Beast-kin lunging, only to be flash-frozen mid-air. He watched a squad of human ascendants crumple under Zero's dislocating strikes. Insects. All of them.
His violet eyes, burning with restrained psychosis, tracked a new entry.
A Titan female entered. She was statuesque and powerfully built, her form a testament to formidable strength even in her human-like state. Her braided crimson hair was a wild crown, and her eyes held a terrifying, beautiful ferocity. She didn't charge blindly. She assessed the field with a warrior's glint, her gaze locking onto Jade with predatory interest.
Simultaneously, the air shimmered with heat. A Dragon-kin man descended, not with a crash, but by floating effortlessly, held aloft by an unseen current of air. His features were sharp and arrogant, etched with faint, beautiful crimson scales that caught the light. He ignored the lesser combatants, his proud eyes fixed on Jade.
"The Dragon Prince requests an audience," he announced, his voice cutting through the din with effortless authority. "Cease this pointless struggle and come with dignity. His offer is worth more than this... squalor."
This was the final insult. To be discussed as a commodity. To be defended like a relic.
The leash snapped.
"Enough."
Jade's voice was low, but it carried, a glacier calving in the midst of the storm. Both Seraphina and Zero paused for a fraction of a second, feeling the shift.
He didn't look at them. His gaze was on the floating Dragon-kin and the advancing Titan. He raised his hand, and his scythe materialized, the pale bone haft cool against his palm. The black star-iron blade seemed to drink the light, the chaotic purple aura around it writhing like a living thing.
The Dragon-kin, sensing a change, decided to force the issue. He raised a hand, not to kill, but to demonstrate superiority. A shimmering, complex sigil of compressed fire formed in the air before him, aiming to cage Jade.
Jade didn't dodge. He didn't block.
He took a single, deliberate step forward and muttered a single, cold word.
"Obliterate."
There was no grand, crimson wave. The power that erupted from the scythe was a focused beam of annihilating purple-black energy, so dense it distorted space around it, leaving a spiraling trail of nothingness. It didn't roar; it screamed a silent scream of unraveling reality. It pierced the Dragon-kin's fiery sigil, and the complex magic didn't explode—it dissolved, unmade into harmless motes of fading light. The beam continued, grazing the Dragon-kin's shoulder. There was no blood. The scales, flesh, and bone in its path were simply erased, leaving a smooth, concave wound. The Dragon-kin cried out, more in shock than pain, his flight faltering as he clutched his missing shoulder.
The Titan woman froze, her warrior's grin vanishing, replaced by stark awe and caution.
In the stunned silence that followed his display, a new, serene voice spoke from the shattered entrance.
"A fascinating solution to a tedious problem."
Everyone turned. A woman stood there, untouched by the debris and chaos. She was ethereally beautiful, with hair like spun moonlight and eyes that held the gentle, absolute authority of a creating god. An aura of pure, calming power radiated from her, a direct counterpoint to the room's violence. A Demi-god.
Her gaze swept over Seraphina's possessive glare and Zero's ready stance, then settled on Jade, who stood with his still-smoking scythe.
"But brute force is so... inelegant," she said, her voice a melody that promised peace and power in equal measure. "I can make the bounty disappear. All of it. In exchange for a conversation."
She offered a hand, not in threat, but in genuine, terrifying alliance.
The battlefield was frozen. The Dragon-kin was wounded. The Titan was reconsidering. Seraphina was bristling with icy rage. Zero was calculating.
And a Demi-god was offering Jade a way out, her eyes seeing not a weapon or a vessel, but perhaps... an equal.