Chapter 109: Shattering the Relic Blade

The rotary kinetic cannons on General Vance’s hydraulic exoskeleton spun up with a dry, mechanical whine that echoed across the three hundred yards of open sea.

The four rotating barrels glowed dull cherry red as the high-capacity capacitors drew power directly from the vanguard gunboat’s miniature nuclear core. Vance had his targeting reticle locked onto Renan’s chest, the ballistic computer flashing green across his panoramic display, calculating eighty-four armor-piercing kinetic rounds per second.

Yet the American general did not pull the primary firing trigger.

Through the heavy spray and smoke, Vance saw the tip of the star-metal broadsword resting against the hollow of Arthur’s throat. Sir Arthur Pendelton was not merely a knight of the British Crown; he was the primary military guarantor of the North Atlantic Treaty. If the First Knight of the Silver Round was obliterated under American artillery fire on an open international broadcast, the diplomatic fallout would fracture the Allied Coalition before the war even reached the mainland.

"General," the tactical officer’s voice crackled through Vance’s internal headset, wet with panic. "Two submerged signatures just surfaced on our port and starboard quarters. It is not fish. It is the wreckage from the Vanguard and Sovereign, moving under automated power. Their forward torpedo tubes are flooded."

Vance exhaled a slow, harsh breath that fogged his visor.

He looked down at his battle display, watching the bathymetric sensors confirm that the entire seafloor beneath them was practically an extension of Renan’s nervous system. To fire now was to trade his command vessel and four hundred elite crewmen for a corpse that had already lost its sword.

"Cease rotary spin," Vance ordered, his voice cold and hard as a lead ingot.

The whining barrels decelerated, the cherry-red heat fading into dark gray titanium.

Vance switched his external loudspeaker to an encrypted international frequency. "Renan. The Geneva Council will not trade territory for hostages. If you slaughter an anointed knight of the Round Table, your peninsula will be placed under a complete scorched-earth embargo. Not a single gram of grain or medicine will cross the Pacific."

Renan did not shift his stance. The tip of the blade remained steady against Arthur’s pale flesh.

"Then tell your farmers to eat their own grain, Vance," Renan replied, his voice rolling over the waves without the aid of a loudspeaker. "Because when my shadow fleet sails into your ports, it will not be to purchase bread."

Vance stared at the young man for three long seconds. The American commander did not shout, nor did he make hollow promises of vengeance. He slowly tapped the hydraulic throttle of his frame, the vanguard gunboat’s thrusters groaning in reverse, carving twin white furrows in the black water as the vessel began its disciplined tactical withdrawal toward the horizon.

"We will meet again when the tide turns, Sovereign," Vance’s mechanical transmission faded into the static of the fog.

On the central deck of the Iron Wall, the wind whipped violently through the twisted antennas.

Arthur Pendelton remained kneeling in the pool of brackish brine and crimson blood, his broken right arm pinned against his shattered ribs. He raised his chin with agonizing slowness, his bloodshot eyes staring down the length of the star-metal blade that had carried his family’s name across two centuries of warfare.

"You should have let him fire," Arthur wheezed, blood flecking his pale lips with every syllable. "A warrior’s death beneath artillery fire is cleaner than becoming a spectacle for your scavengers."

Renan looked down at the eight-foot broadsword in his hand.

The star-metal blade was a masterpiece of human metallurgy and high-tier holy alchemy. The fuller was lined with ninety-two miniature silver runes, each humming with a faint, residual light that repelled the cold salt air. Even now, stripped from its master’s hands, the weapon resisted Renan’s Sovereign mana, the holy enchantments burning hot against the palm of his bare right hand like molten iron.

"A relic built on pride," Renan said softly, his purple pupils tracing the intricate runes along the spine. "You spent forty years worshipping a piece of steel because you believed it made your kingdom invincible."

Arthur’s jaw tightened, his gray eyes flaring with one final spark of indignant fury. "That blade was blessed by the high altar of Canterbury! It severed the horrors of the First Rift! It cannot be corrupted by abyssal filth!"

Renan did not reply.

He lowered the blade from Arthur’s throat, turning the heavy sword sideways until the flat of the star-metal faced the open sky.

[System Notification: Anomalous SSS-Rank Relic Detected] [Item: Sword of the Silver Round (Arthur’s Oath)] [Warning: Ancient Divine Inscriptions Resist External Mana Binding] [Recommended Protocol: Structural Resonance Fracture & Core Siphon]

Renan reached out his left hand, spreading his fingers wide over the center of the silver fuller.

He did not summon his void dagger. He simply concentrated the absolute kinetic gravity of his Monarch Core into the tips of his five fingers. The space directly above the star-metal warped, the light bending in an unnatural, bruised-violet spiral that drew all ambient heat and sound from the surrounding platform.

Beneath the gravitational well, Renan injected a thick, acidic thread of Abyssal Arachnid venom, drawn from the dead behemoths of Sector 0.

The reaction was immediate and violent.

The corrosive abyssal acid seeped directly into the microscopic silver runes. The sacred inscriptions, which had repelled dragon fire and deep-sea pressure for half a century, hissed as the black venom attacked their alchemical bonds. The radiant silver light began to turn a sickly, bruised purple, the holy hum descending into a harsh, metallic scream.

Arthur watched in horror, his breath seizing in his throat as if the acid were eating into his own marrow.

"Stop," Arthur gasped, his uninjured hand clawing desperately at Renan’s boot. "Destroy my flesh if you must, but do not defile the blade of the Crown!"

Renan looked down at the kneeling knight, his expression unmoved by the desperate plea.

"Your Crown failed the moment it crossed my trench," Renan whispered.

Renan drove his left heel down onto the flat of the broadsword while his right hand wrenched the hilt backward with sixty tons of raw physical strength.

CRACK!

The sound was not that of snapping steel; it was the catastrophic detonation of an ancient covenant collapsing.

The eight-foot star-metal broadsword broke clean in half across Renan’s boot.

The blinding silver holy core trapped within the metal ruptured, erupting into a geyser of argent light forty feet high. But before the divine energy could disperse into the weeping storm clouds, Renan opened his maw, his Sovereign aura surging forward like an insatiable black maw to swallow the erupting light whole.

[Absorbing SSS-Rank Relic Core: Shard of the Silver Round] [Purifying Divine Inscriptions... 30%... 70%... 100%] [Permanent Stat Acquisition: +1,200 Physical Resistance, +800 Kinetic Density] [Skill Gained: Conceptual Cleave (Severs Domain Barriers)]

The roaring light vanished into Renan’s chest in less than five seconds, leaving only two jagged, dull pieces of twisted gray iron lying in the pool of dirty water.

Arthur Pendelton stared at the broken scraps of metal, his eyes widening into hollow, empty spheres. The spiritual bond connecting his soul to the weapon tore apart, causing the knight to vomit another mouthful of black blood as his head slumped forward against the wet deck.

Renan stood tall amidst the smoking debris, his body radiating a new, dense argent sheen that blended seamlessly with the dark violet void of his Sovereign skin.

He stepped over the broken shards of the star-metal blade, stopping directly in front of the kneeling knight.

Renan raised his right hand, the void dagger sliding back into his palm, its dark edge humming with the newly acquired conceptual severance.

High above the Eastern Strait, the reconnaissance satellites of the Geneva World Federation zoomed their high-magnification lenses through the parting rain clouds, transmitting the high-definition image of the defeated British champion directly to the emergency war rooms in London, Washington, and Geneva.

Renan did not look at the satellites. He looked down into Arthur’s dull, defeated eyes.

"Arthur Pendelton," Renan’s voice rang out across the open deck, cold and final as the falling of a guillotine. "Your round table is empty."