The horn blast from the Atlantic didn't just rattle the glass; it shook the very foundation of the cliff. The map projected by the crystal flickered and died as the Heart of the Void fell back onto the table, now glowing with a steady, ominous pulse.
"Rixsa, Kaelen—get Alex to the reinforced sub-level," Chase barked, his transition from homeowner to Commander instantaneous. "Activate the foundation wards. Nothing gets in without my DNA or a divine signature."
"Chase, wait—" Rixsa started, but one look at his eyes told her there was no room for debate. She grabbed a terrified Alex by the arm, while Kaelen gave Vincent a single, lingering look of longing and terror before following them into the depths of the mansion.
Chase turned to Vincent. The boy-commander was already moving toward the glass doors leading to the beach. He looked different—his posture had sharpened, and the hollow emptiness in his eyes had been replaced by a cold, surgical focus.
"The case, Vance," Vincent said.
Chase didn't argue. He moved to the safe, punched in the code, and handed over the leather-wrapped bundle. Vincent caught it with one hand, the ancient leather creaking as he unslung the weapon. With a single, fluid motion, he tore the wrapping away.
The blade was a masterpiece of tragedy. It was long, single-edged, and forged from a metal that seemed to drink the moonlight. It didn't reflect light; it rippled like oil on water. This was The Conclusion.
"Let's go," Chase said, adjusting his cuffs. He didn't have a sword, but his hands began to hum with a concentrated violet Essence, the air around his knuckles distorting as he prepared to manipulate the very physics of the shoreline.
They stepped out onto the sand. The tide was pulling back unnaturally far, exposing jagged rocks and kelp. Out in the surf, silhouettes were rising. They weren't quite human, and they weren't quite ghosts. They were husks of the Shadow Legion—soldiers who had died in the Divine Strike, their spirits fused with the scorched armor they had worn in their final moments.
There were twelve of them. They moved in perfect, terrifying unison, their boots clanking against the wet stones.
"They want the Heart," Vincent whispered, his lavender hair whipping in the sea gale. "They think it will give them the life the gods stole. They don't realize it will only turn them into mindless singularities."
"Then we send them back to the dirt," Chase said.
The first three Legionnaires lunged. They moved with a jerky, supernatural speed. Chase didn't wait. He slammed his palms together, creating a localized gravity well. The sand beneath the lead soldier erupted upward, freezing into a solid pillar of glass that impaled the husk through its rusted breastplate.
Vincent was a blur of silver. He didn't swing his blade like a brawler; he moved like a conductor. Every strike of The Conclusion left a trail of dark energy in the air. He stepped inside the guard of a spearman, his blade flickering once, twice. The Legionnaire didn't just fall; it dissolved into a cloud of grey ash that was instantly swept away by the wind.
"Behind you!" Vincent called out.
Chase spun, dropping low as a heavy broadsword whistled over his head. He grabbed the attacker's wrist, and for a second, the "Warrior's Wake" flared. He didn't just punch the soldier; he accelerated the time-flow of the soldier's armor. Within a second, the ancient steel rusted into powder, and Chase drove a palm imbued with concentrated kinetic energy into the spirit's chest, shattering the core.
Despite their skill, the Legionnaires were relentless. They didn't feel pain, and they didn't fear death—they were already intimately acquainted with both.
"They're flanking the house!" Vincent shouted, parrying three blades at once. The impact created a shockwave that sent a spray of seawater fifty feet into the air.
Chase looked up toward the mansion. Two shadows were scaling the cliffside, their clawed gauntlets digging into the rock.
"Go!" Vincent yelled over the roar of the ocean. "I'll hold the beach. This is my debt, Vance. My men. My sin. I'll finish this."
Chase hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat. He saw Vincent standing alone against the remaining eight husks—a boy of nineteen facing the physical manifestation of his greatest regret.
"Don't die on my beach, kid," Chase said, then turned and began to sprint up the steep cliff path, his feet barely touching the ground as he used his Essence to defy gravity.
He reached the terrace just as the two Legionnaires crested the railing. Inside the glass walls, he could see Rixsa standing at the door of the sub-level, her daggers drawn, ready to die for the Goddess behind her.
Chase stepped onto the marble deck, his eyes glowing with a cold, predatory light. "You picked the wrong house," he whispered.
He didn't use a subtle technique this time. He reached out and grabbed the very air in front of him, twisting his hands as if wringing a towel. The space between the two Legionnaires warped and folded. There was a sickening sound of metal being crushed by invisible force, and the two husks were collapsed into a tiny, dense sphere of scrap metal before being hurled off the cliff and into the churning sea below.
Chase stood at the edge, chest heaving, looking down. On the beach, Vincent was a whirlwind of dark light, the last of the Legion falling before his blade like wheat before a scythe.
The battle was over in minutes, but the silence that followed was heavier than the combat. Chase looked down at his hands, then at the sprawling mansion. He realized that the "Heart of the Void" hadn't just brought him a home; it had brought the war to his front door.