Relay's breathing came in ragged, furious gasps. Blood dripped from beneath her cracked porcelain mask, staining the pristine white coat of her uniform. "This isn't over... you wretched surface scum!" she shrieked, her voice laced with venomous pride. Gritting her teeth against the searing agony in her charred shoulder, she reached frantically into her spatial pouch, pulling out three enchanted broadswords. She had no intention of accepting defeat.
Before her fingers could properly wrap around the hilts, a flash of silver steel pierced the air with terrifying speed.
THWACK!
A heavy, runic longsword drove cleanly through Relay's forearm, pinning her right hand to the cobblestone floor.
"Ah... AGH!" Relay screamed, dropping the weapons as a tall, imposing figure stepped out of the lingering smoke.
It was Krama, the former Vice-Commander of the Royal Knight Order—a living legend second only to the Grandmaster in raw, unadulterated swordplay. His steel-grey hair fluttered in the ash-laden wind, his cold, experienced eyes staring down at the writhing cult officer with absolute disdain.
"You have spilled enough blood in this capital, heretic," Krama said, his voice deep and heavy like grinding granite.
"You... you senile old bastard!" Relay spat, blood bubbling over her lips. A manic, desperate grin spread across her contorted face. "If I am going to hell, I am taking this whole district with me!"
Igniting her remaining mana, Relay's body began to swell with a volatile, unstable crimson light. Deep within her chest, a forbidden self-destruction talisman activated, pulsing at a catastrophic frequency. If the blast detonate, the entire eastern quadrant of the royal kingdom would be reduced to a crater.
"Not on my watch," Krama growled calmly.
Moving with the effortless precision of a master, Krama drew his side dagger and executed a lightning-fast, horizontal arc. The blade carved a deep, horrific laceration straight through Relay's left kidney, severing the mana pathways feeding the talisman and shattering the core spell structure before it could reach critical mass.
The crimson light violently fizzled out. Relay's eyes widened in sheer, horrified disbelief as her final gambit failed. "N-No... my core..."
Slumping onto the stone, Relay waited for the final, executing strike. But just as Krama raised his longsword to end her life, the darkness beneath Relay's bleeding body suddenly liquefied into a pitch-black abyss.
A tall man stepped out of the shadow portal. He wore a dark violet mantle, his eyes cold and calculating—Caser, the 7th High Officer of the Western Cult.
"You've made quite a mess of yourself, Relay," Caser remarked smoothly, his voice entirely devoid of panic.
Before Krama or the exhausted Xuka Astri could react, Caser plunged his gloved hand into the shadow pool, grabbing Relay by her blood-soaked collar and yanking her down into the void.
"Halt!" Krama roared, lunging forward with a devastating downward slash.
CLANG!
His steel struck nothing but solid, empty cobblestones. The shadow portal snapped shut in a fraction of a millisecond, leaving only a faint trace of residual dark mana hanging in the cool breeze. Caser had executed the extraction with flawless, terrifying speed, escaping into the night with the wounded 10th Officer before the kingdom's knights could claim their victory.