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The air crackled with raw tension, thick enough to taste. This was it—the final showdown. Both sides were completely done with pleasantries, alliances, and any pretense of cooperation.
The sudden, brutal betrayal by Edison's mechanical army had caught Nero and Elizabeth completely off guard. One moment they'd been celebrating victory; the next, bullets were raining down on them like a goddamn monsoon, a literal wall of lead filling the air.
Fortunately, Elizabeth was built different.
Literally different.
Her Innocent Monster skill—that cruel twist of fate that transformed a Servant based on their twisted legend rather than historical truth—had given her dragon scales, horns, and a tail. Her defense stats were boosted way above Nero's comparatively fragile, unarmored form.
"Get behind me!" Elizabeth screamed over the deafening gunfire.
Without hesitation, she grabbed Nero's smaller frame and pulled her in close, shielding the Emperor with her own body. At the same time, her prehensile dragon tail lashed out with serpentine speed, coiling around a discarded spear lying on the ground. She spun it like a goddamn propeller, creating a makeshift defensive barrier that deflected the second wave of gunfire with a symphony of metallic clangs.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of bullets ricocheting off metal filled the air.
As soon as the robots paused to reload—that brief, critical window between magazine changes—the two idols didn't waste a single second.
"Now!"
Forcing the last remaining ounces of mana from their depleted reserves into their legs, they burst explosively out of the smoke cloud. Nero went left, Elizabeth went right—a classic pincer movement executed with desperate precision, both of them aiming straight for the Lion President himself.
Edison didn't flinch. Didn't even blink.
He stood his ground like a CEO facing down angry shareholders, arms crossed over his blood-stained suit, looking supremely unimpressed with their futile resistance.
"Foolish," he muttered, his voice dripping with condescension.
The massive spotlights flared to life again, even brighter than before, so intense they were physically painful to look at directly.
Noble Phantasm: World • Faith • Domination.
The night sky was forcibly transformed into blinding white day. The very concept of "Mystery"—that fundamental source of magical power—was evicted from the premises like an unwanted tenant.
Nero, mid-sprint, felt her strength evaporate like water on a hot skillet. The Imperial Privilege that had been holding her broken, battered body together—letting her ignore shattered bones, torn muscles, internal bleeding—shattered under the harsh light of scientific logic and mass production.
Her legs gave out completely.
She stumbled forward, momentum carrying her, and crashed face-first onto the concrete with a sickening crack.
Elizabeth fared even worse.
The dragon scales that had been protecting her body, the curved horns sprouting from her head, the powerful tail she'd been using as a weapon—all manifestations of her legend's inherent mystery—dissolved into sparkles of fading light like they'd never existed.
She was reduced to nothing more than a normal girl in a torn gothic dress.
Before she could even reach Edison, before she could close that final gap, the lion-man reached out with one massive, furry hand and caught her by the throat with crushing force.
Choke.
Elizabeth's eyes went wide, her fingers immediately clawing at his grip, trying desperately to pry his fingers loose.
"How... is this... even possible?" Elizabeth gasped, her voice strangled and weak.
"Hmph," Edison sneered, his lion face twisted into an expression of sadistic superiority as he tightened his grip just enough to make breathing an active struggle. "That's a trade secret, sweetheart. Proprietary technology." His eyes gleamed with malice. "Now then... are you ready to experience the wonders of Direct Current?"
ZAP!
"AAAAAHHH!"
This wasn't the destructive sonic scream of a legendary dragon given human form. This was the high-pitched, agonized shriek of a teenage girl being electrocuted, her body convulsing involuntarily. Blue arcs of electricity danced across her skin, her muscles spasming as Edison cranked up the voltage with a disturbing grin, clearly enjoying this.
The chat went absolutely nuclear with rage.
[Rage]: WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?!
[Lore]: Wait, why did his Noble Phantasm do literally nothing to Lu Bu but completely wreck these two?!
[Analysis]: Lu Bu is a pure Stat Monster. Nero and Elizabeth rely on "Mystery" and magical "Skills" for their power. Edison hard-counters magical bullshit, but he can't counter raw physical muscle and technique.
[Scum]: This lion is fucking SMURFING! He was hiding his power level the whole time!
[Wife]: GET UP ELIZABETH! DON'T YOU DARE LOSE!
[Report]: Reported for griefing. This is straight-up abuse. Mods, do something!
[Protect]: SOMEONE SAVE THEM!
While the chat raged impotently, unable to do anything but watch, Nero forced herself to look up from where she'd fallen.
Her entire body was screaming in absolute agony. Without Imperial Privilege actively suppressing the damage, all the pain from fighting Lu Bu—every broken bone, every torn muscle, every internal injury—came rushing back tenfold, hitting her nervous system like a freight train.
But seeing her best friend, her rival, her companion, being tortured by a sadistic capitalist lion mascot?
That ignited something inside her chest that burned hotter than any physical pain.
"Let... her... GO!"
Nero roared, squeezing every single drop of adrenaline her body could produce from her adrenal glands. She gripped Aestus Estus with both trembling, bloody hands and lunged forward with everything she had left.
Squish.
There was a sickening, wet sound of punctured meat and torn muscle.
Nero stopped mid-lunge, her eyes going wide.
Edison's free hand—his left claw, the one that wasn't currently strangling Elizabeth—had punched straight through her crimson gauntlet like it was tissue paper and buried itself deep into her chest cavity, past her ribs, into her vital organs.
Blood welled up around the intrusion point, hot and thick.
"Too slow, little Emperor," Edison whispered, his breath hot against her face.
Down in the chat, viewers were losing their minds.
[Ban]: MODS! BAN THIS FUCKER!
[Dox]: Does anyone have Wayne's IP address? I just want to have a conversation with him.
[ISP]: I'm literally about to pull his internet cable. Right fucking now.
[Tears]: STOP IT! SHE'S ALREADY DEAD! JUST STOP!
[Heartbreak]: I can't watch this anymore.
Edison ripped his bloody hand out of Nero's chest with a wet squelch. Blood sprayed across his formerly white suit, painting it crimson, droplets splattering across his lion face.
"Hahaha!" Edison threw his head back and laughed, the sound carrying across the silent battlefield. He casually wiped his blood-soaked claws on a pocket handkerchief like he'd just finished a messy meal. "Your perseverance is truly commendable! Admirable, even! But unfortunately, the market is cruel and unforgiving. Don't blame me for this. Blame yourselves for not properly diversifying your asset portfolio!"
Nero fell to her knees, one hand clutching desperately at the gaping hole in her chest. Blood poured out in steady streams, pooling around her dress, soaking into the fabric.
She should be dead. By all logic, all medical science, all natural law—she should already be a corpse.
But instead, she smiled.
"You're joking... you bastard lion-head," Nero wheezed, blood bubbling at the corners of her mouth, but that smile—that defiant, beautiful smile—never wavered. "Blame you? No... on the contrary... I should thank you."
"What?" Edison blinked, genuinely confused for the first time.
"This pain..." Nero's eyes suddenly ignited with brilliant golden light, burning like twin suns. "It reminds me that I'm still the lead actor in this play! The star! The protagonist! And an Emperor never exits the stage before the final curtain!"
Skill Activation: Thrice-Setting Sun (Rank A).
This skill wasn't just a game mechanic, some arbitrary buff to make her harder to kill. It was the crystallization of Nero's most tragic, most human moment—the end of her life made manifest as power.
In actual history, Emperor Nero died alone and abandoned. Betrayed by her own people, declared an enemy of Rome, hunted by assassins sent to execute her, she fled into the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on her back. She survived for three agonizing days in the wild, holding onto life for one simple, heartbreaking reason:
She wanted to see if anyone—just one person—would show her kindness.
She waited for a random commoner to offer her water. She waited for a kind word. A smile. Any sign that she'd meant something, that her life had value beyond the crown.
She waited until the sun set three times.
In the end, no one came.
Only a Roman soldier eventually found her corpse and covered it with a red cloth—that final act of basic human dignity allowing her spirit to finally accept death.
In this game, Max the Developer had adapted the legend. The skill didn't last three literal days, but it allowed Nero to survive what should be a fatal blow for up to three hours.
Or alternatively, to endure three separate fatal injuries and keep fighting through sheer willpower alone.
"You..." Edison took an involuntary step backward, genuine fear flickering across his features. "You should be dead! That was a killing blow!"
"An Emperor does not die until the curtain falls and the audience has gone home!"
Nero moved.
Taking full advantage of Edison's moment of shock and hesitation, she swung Aestus Estus in a blur of crimson light, the blade singing through the air.
SLICE.
"AAAAHHH!"
Edison shrieked—a sound no one expected from the confident businessman—as his right hand, the one currently holding Elizabeth by the throat, was severed cleanly at the wrist by Nero's desperate strike.
Blood fountained from the stump like a broken fire hydrant.
The severed hand, still twitching with residual nerve signals, fell to the ground with a wet thump, its fingers finally releasing Elizabeth.
"MY HAND!" Edison screamed, clutching the bleeding stump to his chest, his eyes wide with shock and pain. "MY SIGNATURE HAND! HOW WILL I SIGN CHECKS NOW?! HOW WILL I CLOSE DEALS?!"
"Hehe," Nero coughed up a fresh mouthful of blood, leaning heavily on her sword to stay upright, her legs trembling. "Got... exactly what you deserved... didn't you, you corporate bastard?"
"Kill them!" Edison howled, his composure completely shattered as he retreated rapidly behind his protective wall of robots, cradling his maimed limb. "Mechanical soldiers! Shoot them! Turn them into swiss cheese! Empty every magazine!"
Edison might have been arrogant, pompous, and overconfident—but he wasn't stupid. He'd just lost a limb to a supposedly dying opponent. He absolutely was not going to risk a direct melee confrontation with a zombie Emperor who refused to stay down.
The robots surged forward like a mechanical tide, a wall of steel and imminent death closing in from all sides.
Nero looked down at Elizabeth, who was lying on the scorched ground, still smoking slightly from the electrocution, coughing and gasping for air.
"Hey," Nero nudged her gently with her boot. "Can you still move? The encore performance isn't over yet."
"Of course!" Elizabeth hacked, forcing herself up on shaky limbs, her voice hoarse but defiant. Her tail was gone, her horns were gone, her dragon features completely stripped away—but her spirit remained intact. "My little piglets are watching the stream! An idol never cancels a show! Not for anything!"
They stood back to back, facing the approaching mechanical army on all sides.
Two broken girls against an army of machines.
No powers. No buffs. Just swords and pure determination.
Edison watched from the backline, sneering through his pain. "Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Just die already."
He was focused entirely on the two girls and their futile last stand.
He was focused on his own pain, his severed hand, his wounded pride.
He wasn't focused on the shadow slowly lengthening behind him as the spotlights created the perfect blind spot.
Out of the darkness, moving with the silence of a true Assassin, a black dagger appeared—held by a hand trembling with barely-contained excitement and vindictive satisfaction.
Viper smiled beneath his hood.
"Found you, you corporate fuck."
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