Chapter 280: Clash In Mythal (Part 3)
Silence held over the city once the dragons finished dissolving into scattered light. The sky stayed clear.
Tiamat didn’t look at Kai. She looked down, toward the streets, toward the glowing relay network still humming beneath the city.
Lily noticed first. "She’s looking at the relays."
Gabriel’s smile disappeared. "She understands."
Tiamat raised one hand, no dramatic motion behind it, and simply pointed. A thin crimson line sliced across the city, aimed not at any hunter, but straight at the relay towers themselves.
BOOOOOOM!!
Five towers vanished at once. Golden light flickered across several districts, power dropping in a widening wave.
Lily’s screen flashed red.
Relay failure.
Relay failure.
Relay failure.
The silence lasted only a second before hidden relay lines ignited underground, reserve towers surfacing where the destroyed ones had stood, golden light rerouting itself through the network in real time. Every severed connection got replaced almost as fast as it broke.
Elden watched the readouts, stunned. "Automatic rerouting."
Mayor Ko smiled. "It worked."
Gabriel stared at the glowing streets. "Impossible."
Not because the network had survived. Because no civilization before this one had ever solved that exact failure point. Every relay Tiamat destroyed only made the surrounding network reroute stronger.
Lily grinned, watching the readout stabilize. "You can’t cut every path at once."
Kai looked toward Tiamat. She stood alone at the center of Mythal. No dragons. No distractions. Only one obstacle remained. Distance.
He tightened his grip on the Fractured Blade. "Get me there."
Nobody questioned him. Not one person. Because every plan, every relay, every battle, every dungeon, had led to this single opening.
Sera moved first. A crimson spear condensed above Kai’s path. Then another. Then twenty. Tiamat hadn’t targeted Kai. She’d targeted the street itself.
The spears descended. Sera exploded forward, golden light bursting beneath her boots, and she threw herself directly between Kai and the storm. Her shield slammed upward.
BOOOOOOOM!!
The first spear shattered against the barrier surrounding her shield. Then another. Then another. The impacts pushed her backward, stone beneath her boots exploding apart, cracks spreading across the road. Her arms trembled. She refused to lower the shield. "GO!"
Kai never slowed. He sprinted straight past her.
The instant he cleared the barrier, another attack arrived. The street ahead twisted, a spinning vortex of compressed ocean mana erupting from beneath the pavement. Mira stepped into it, Iron Fortress spreading across her body, layer after layer, chest, shoulders, arms, legs. Her Blast Maul came down.
BOOOOOOOOM!!
The whirlpool exploded apart, water blasting across entire buildings, the impact driving Mira knee-deep into the street, the pavement beneath her shattering. She didn’t move another inch. "You aren’t getting through." She glared straight at the collapsing ocean. "Not today."
Kai passed beside her, still running.
Tiamat watched. Another gesture. The entire avenue ahead erupted, buildings collapsing inward, a wall of burning rubble crashing toward Kai. Before it could land, a crimson wave split the city. Raze laughed, Blood Tyrant pulsing violently beneath his skin, every heartbeat making him stronger. His greatsword swung once.
BLOOD WAVE!!
The crimson slash stretched across the entire district, buildings, debris, collapsed towers, everything exploding apart until a perfectly straight road opened. Smoke rolled away. Sunlight reached the street.
Raze pointed forward. "RUN!"
Kai shot past him. The distance shrank. Three hundred meters. Two hundred.
The ground suddenly folded upward, reality warping, chunks of the street floating into the air as gravity reversed. Kai prepared to jump.
"Elden."
The mage was already moving. His staff struck the ground, and gravity fields bloomed. One. Five. Ten. Every floating piece of rubble froze, then rearranged into a staircase through open air, perfectly aligned, exactly matching Kai’s stride. He never lost momentum. Each step carried him farther, higher, closer, buildings shifting aside, collapsed bridges lifting themselves, gravity bending around him.
Elden quietly watched the calculations. "Path secured."
Kai landed. One hundred meters.
Tiamat finally looked directly at him. The pressure doubled, crimson lightning filling the sky. It wasn’t aimed at Kai. It was aimed at the road. Destroy the road. Stop the charge.
Lily raised her hand. "Spirit Archers."
Golden circles appeared everywhere, rooftops, windows, collapsed towers, church steeples, relay platforms. One hundred. Five hundred. One thousand. Five thousand. Then ten thousand. Every rooftop overlooking Kai’s path held a Spirit Archer, and they drew their bows together.
The lightning fell. Thousands of arrows answered. The sky exploded, golden arrows intercepting crimson lightning before it reached the ground. Some arrows shattered. Others disappeared. More immediately replaced them. The barrage never stopped. Another ocean spear formed, and three Spirit Archers destroyed it. A mana blast curved toward Kai, and seven intercepted it. A beam descended, and fifteen arrows redirected it into empty sky. Crossfire completely covered the avenue.
Lily’s eyes never left the battlefield. "No distractions."
Kai smiled. "Thanks." He ran faster. Fifty meters.
The relay towers answered. Barrier relays dissolved. Healing relays shut down. Mana reserves emptied. Every district, every street, every underground conduit, golden rivers surged beneath Mythal as the entire city gave Kai everything it had. Roads glowed. Buildings shined. Even broken relay towers released their remaining energy.
Above the battlefield the city looked alive, like a beating heart.
Gabriel stared upward. "Beautiful"
Kai stopped. Only twenty meters separated them now, and the city behind him glowed brighter than the sun.
Golden mana surged into the Fractured Blade, and the weapon screamed, hairline fractures spreading along its surface, one, three, ten, the blade breaking apart even as it held.
Kai smiled. "Hold together."
More mana poured in, every relay answering, every barrier, every healing relic, every artillery reserve, every stored attack, everything flowing into one point until the Fractured Blade shook violently, shouldn’t have survived, and Distortion flickered, blue windows appearing, not commands, almost encouragement.
Kai inhaled. Then stepped forward.
Tiamat watched him calmly. She never raised a weapon, never prepared a spell, never changed her expression, as though she wanted to see what humanity had prepared.
Kai swung. The world disappeared. A pillar of golden light erupted from the blade, not explosive, focused, pure, and it struck Tiamat directly.
For the first time she moved. One foot slid backward, the street beneath her cracking, stone exploding, and the beam kept pushing, buildings behind her vaporizing, the city shaking, relay towers burning brighter.
Kai roared. The Fractured Blade cracked again, and the beam doubled.
Tiamat finally raised one hand, and a transparent crimson barrier unfolded. The beam struck it.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!
The shockwave flattened entire city blocks, windows shattering for kilometers, and everyone shielded their eyes.
Kai refused to stop, mana continuing to pour into him, the relay network screaming beneath Mythal, barrier energy, healing energy, everything, fed forward. The barrier held. For one second.
Then, CRACK.
Silence. Nobody breathed. A tiny fracture spread across the crimson barrier.
Mayor Ko stared. "Did"
Another crack. CRACK. Golden light pushed deeper, and the barrier trembled, another fracture, then another, dozens, hundreds, the entire barrier whitening beneath the pressure.
Gabriel’s breathing became uneven. "No"
Astral Church members stepped closer. One whispered, "Look"
The cracks connected, like shattered glass, and Tiamat looked at them, then back at Kai, and for the first time her expression changed, very slightly. Interest.
Kai smiled. "Break."
The relay network surged one final time, golden veins spreading across every street simultaneously, every remaining reserve emptying, and the beam exploded forward.
CRAAAAAAAAASH!!
The barrier shattered, millions of crimson fragments scattering into the air, and the beam reached Tiamat, carving across her shoulder in one clean line. Nothing dramatic. Nothing explosive. Just one perfect cut.
Silence. The beam faded, smoke drifting slowly upward, and nobody moved.
A single crimson drop formed, hung suspended, then fell.
Tap.
It landed on the broken street. Another followed. Then another.
Blood. Real blood.
Kai stared. "We"
Gabriel collapsed, her knees hitting the pavement, and she wasn’t injured, she simply couldn’t remain standing. Tears streamed down her face as she laughed and cried at once. "She bled" Her voice shook uncontrollably. "She actually bled"
Astral Church members froze. One elderly scholar dropped his staff. Another covered his mouth. A young priest burst into tears. Someone whispered prayers. Someone laughed hysterically. Nobody knew how to react, because centuries, thousands of years, every civilization, every failed record, every impossible battle, none of them had reached this point.
Mayor Ko looked slowly toward Gabriel. She wiped at her eyes. It didn’t help. More tears came. "You changed history." The words echoed across the battlefield.
Even Lily stood motionless, the console still displaying numbers she wasn’t reading anymore, because her simulations, her calculations, had become reality.
Elden lowered his glasses. "Impossible"
Raze laughed softly. "We actually hurt her."
Mira tightened her grip on the Blast Maul. "She’s real."
Sera smiled, only for a moment.
Kai looked at the blood resting on the street, a tiny smile crossing his face. "It worked."
Silence.
Tiamat slowly lifted one hand, touched the wound, looked at the blood on her fingertips, and studied it, as though remembering something. Nobody moved. Hope quietly spread across Mythal, hunters smiling, Association members embracing, people beginning to laugh, because the impossible had happened.
Then Tiamat smiled. Small. Gentle. Almost amused.
Kai’s smile disappeared instantly. His heart stopped. The Candidate’s voice echoed perfectly inside his mind.
If she smiles, run.
The wound closed. Not rapidly. Not dramatically. Calmly, as though the injury had never mattered. The blood disappeared, and the skin became flawless again.
Kai slowly exhaled. "She wasn’t even trying."
Nobody answered. Because every hunter standing in that ruined district had just understood the same terrifying truth at once.
Destroying the dragons. Activating the full relay network. Breaking her barrier. Drawing blood for the first time in recorded history.
It had been enough to finally make Tiamat acknowledge them as real opponents.
It hadn’t been enough to make her desperate.