The wind howling around the North Tower was not merely cold; it was malicious. It stripped the warmth from the skin like a flensing knife and tried to throw anyone foolish enough to stand there into the abyss below.
Marcus stood on the edge of the parapet, his black cape snapping violently behind him.
Behind him, huddled behind the questionable safety of a stone merlon, Mammon was shivering so hard his teeth sounded like castanets. He was clutching a burlap sack to his chest as if it contained his own children.
"This is blasphemy," Mammon whimpered, looking over the edge. "Do you know the resale value of a saint's knuckle? It is exponential! It appreciates faster than gold! And you want to use it as... as chum?"
"Put them on the altar, Mammon," Marcus commanded, not looking back. "Now."
Mammon scurried forward, dumping the contents of the sack onto a flat stone slab Marcus had dragged to the center of the tower. It was a pathetic pile of divine junk: a rusted silver chalice, a finger bone encased in a glass vial, a fragment of a white cloak stained with ancient blood, and a painting of a weeping nun that seemed to silently judge everyone in the vicinity.
"That's it?" General Grognak grunted. He was crouched behind the massive God-Killer Ballista, cranking the winch with muscles that bulged like tree roots. The weapon was loaded with a bolt made of black iron, thicker than a man's arm, tipped with a swirling, unstable purple crystal—Void Ore.
"It's not about quality," Marcus said, his eyes fixed on the glowing golden star hovering in the distance. "It's about the magical signature. To a Seraphim, this isn't junk. It's a distress signal."
Elena stood beside the ballista, her hands glowing with subtle illusion magic. She was weaving a spell over the pile of relics, amplifying their aura, making them shine like a beacon in the spiritual spectrum.
"The decoy is active," Elena said, her voice tight with tension. "But Marcus... once it sees them, it will close the distance in seconds. If Grognak misses..."
"He won't miss," Marcus said.
He stepped up to the altar. He placed his hand over the pile of relics.
He didn't pray. He pushed.
[SKILL: VOID INFUSION (MINOR)]
He pumped a tiny amount of his own corrupted mana into the Holy Relics. It didn't destroy them; it tainted them. It was like putting a single drop of black ink into a glass of milk.
To the Seraphim, this wouldn't just look like lost property. It would look like a hostage situation.
Marcus looked up at the sky and took a deep breath of freezing air.
"ATTENTION, UNIT 01!" Marcus roared, his amplified voice cutting through the wind like a thunderclap. "I AM INITIATING DECONTAMINATION PROTOCOLS! STARTING WITH SAINT PETER'S FINGER!"
He held the glass vial over the edge of the tower, dangling it over the thousand-foot drop.
The reaction was instantaneous.
The golden star in the distance flared. The hum of the Gabriel Horn spiked to a shriek that rattled the tower stones.
[TARGET ACQUISITION: HOLY RELICS DETECTED][STATUS: CORRUPTED][PRIORITY: RETRIEVAL AND CLEANSE][OVERRIDE: PURGE CANCELLED]
The Seraphim moved.
It didn't fly; it simply deleted the space between where it was and where it wanted to be. One second, it was a mile away; the next, it was hovering fifty feet above the North Tower.
The sheer pressure of its presence cracked the stone floor. The heat was blinding, like standing inside a furnace. The six geometric wings of hard light pulsed with a menacing, rhythmic hum.
It raised a hand, its palm glowing with the power of a miniature sun. It aimed directly at Marcus.
Marcus didn't flinch. He held the vial out further, his grip loose.
"Shoot me," Marcus grinned manically, the violet veins in his face pulsing against his pale skin. "Shoot me, and you vaporize the relics. Does your code allow that, Herald? Can you destroy the sacred to kill the sinner?"
The Seraphim froze.
Its hand wavered. The light in its palm dimmed, then flared, then dimmed again. The construct was caught in a logic loop.
[ERROR][DIRECTIVE CONFLICT][CANNOT DESTROY HOLY ASSETS][CALCULATING TRAJECTORY...]
"It's hesitating!" Elena shouted, shielding her eyes from the glare. "It's trying to aim around the artifacts!"
"Grognak!" Marcus screamed. "NOW!"
The Orc General didn't hesitate. He slammed the release lever with a roar.
THOOM.
The sound of the ballista firing was felt in the chest rather than heard. The black iron bolt, heavy as an anvil, screamed through the air.
The Seraphim tried to dodge. Its sensors detected the projectile instantly. It shifted to the left with impossible speed, blurring out of existence.
But it had paused for too long.
The bolt didn't hit its chest. It clipped the Seraphim's left wing—the geometric array of hard light.
CRASH.
The sound was like a stained-glass window the size of a cathedral shattering all at once.
The Void Ore tip detonated on impact. It didn't explode with fire; it exploded with silence. A sphere of anti-magic expanded, eating the light of the wing, turning the holy geometry into static.
The Seraphim shrieked—a mechanical, digital scream of corrupted code that pierced the ears.
Destabilized, the construct leaned heavily to the side. It's perfect, hovering broke. Gravity, ignored for so long, finally staked its claim.
"Reloader!" Grognak roared, cranking the winch frantically, the gears grinding.
"It's recovering!" Marcus shouted, watching the machine stabilize.
The Seraphim wasn't falling. It was spinning, but its remaining five wings were flaring brighter to compensate. The blank mask turned toward the ballista. The conflict in its programming was gone. It had registered a threat level that superseded relic recovery.
[THREAT LEVEL: OMEGA][PROTOCOL: TOTAL ERASURE]
The halo above its head began to spin rapidly. A ball of white plasma formed, growing larger by the millisecond.
"It's charging a Nova!" Elena screamed, throwing up a shadow barrier that looked pitifully thin against the incoming sun. "Grognak can't reload in time!"
Marcus looked at the ballista. The winch was only halfway cranked.
He looked at the plasma ball. It was aiming at the tower. At Elena.
The Void's Hunger in his gut roared. It didn't want to run. It wanted to eat.
"Mammon!" Marcus barked. "Give me the nun!"
"What?" Mammon squeaked, clutching the painting.
Marcus snatched the painting of the weeping nun from the altar. It was a heavy canvas in a gold frame.
He didn't use it as a shield. He used it as a conduit.
Marcus jumped.
He didn't seek cover. He vaulted off the parapet, launching himself directly into the air, straight at the hovering Seraphim.
"MARCUS!" Elena screamed.
Mid-air, Marcus activated every skill he had, draining his mana bar to zero.
[SKILL: SHADOW STEP][SKILL: YIN ASSIMILATION][SKILL: VOID INFUSION - MAXIMUM OUTPUT]
He didn't teleport away. He teleported onto the Seraphim.
He slammed into the construct's chest, his boots finding purchase on the burning gold armor. The heat was unbearable. His skin sizzled, the smell of burning leather and flesh filling his nose.
The Seraphim thrashed, trying to shake off the parasite. The Nova charge was seconds from detonation.
Marcus slapped the painting onto the Seraphim's chest plate like a sticker.
"Eat this!"
He channeled all his mana—his corrupted, hungry, human mana—through the painting and into the Seraphim's core. He forced a feedback loop. He took the Holy Energy of the relic and inverted it using the Void.
[ERROR][CORRUPTION DETECTED IN CORE][SYSTEM FAILURE]
The plasma ball above the Seraphim's head flickered. It turned from white to grey. Then to black.
ZZZRRRPT.
The spell collapsed in on itself. The Seraphim convulsed violently. The light in its wings died.
Marcus pushed off, kicking away from the falling giant.
He fell through the air, watching the machine plummet past him.
The Seraphim crashed into the courtyard below with the force of a meteor. Stone shattered. Dust billowed. The construct lay broken, twitching, sparks of gold and black electricity arcing from its shattered wing.
Marcus hit the tower wall, sliding down the rough stone until his boots hit the balcony of the floor below. He collapsed, gasping for air.
His hands were burned. His armor was smoking.
But the silence... the terrible, bone-rattling hum of the Gabriel Horn was gone.
Elena dropped from the tower above, landing lightly beside him. She immediately checked his pulse, her hands shaking.
"You idiot," she breathed, her eyes wet. "You, suicidal, magnificent idiot. You jumped onto an angel."
"I... performed..." Marcus coughed, black smoke escaping his lips, "...an invasive procedure."
He tried to smile, but his vision blurred.
A red window popped up, obscuring Elena's face.
[COMBAT RESOLVED][Boss Defeated: Seraphim Unit 01 (Incapacitated)][XP Gained: ERROR (Too High)][Corruption Level Increased]
Marcus felt a cold snap in his chest. The heat of the burn vanished, replaced by a freezing numbness that spread from his heart to his fingertips.
"Elena," Marcus whispered. "I feel... cold."
Elena looked at the System window hovering over his chest. Her face went pale as death.
[Current Status: EVOLVING][Corruption Level: 20.0%][Race Change Imminent]
"No," Elena whispered. "Not here. Not now."
Marcus arched his back as a spasm of pain—pure, black pain—ripped through him. It felt like his bones were rearranging themselves. The scar on his eye split open, bleeding not red blood, but a viscous violet fluid.
"It hurts," Marcus gasped, clutching his chest.
"I know," Elena said, tears spilling over. She gathered him into her arms, holding him tight. "Hold on, Marcus. Don't let go of who you are."
"I can't..." Marcus's eyes rolled back. The violet glow consumed his irises completely. "I'm... hungry."
Down in the courtyard, the broken Seraphim began to reboot. Its emergency lights flashed red.
But Marcus didn't care. The monster inside him had finally broken its cage.