Chapter 214: The Vanguard Strikes

The rain hadn't stopped.

Three days of continuous, heavy rain had turned the battlefield into a swamp and the swamp into a graveyard.

Holden stood at the fortress gate.

Behind him, the fortress was rebuilding. Soldiers carried stone and steel to the damaged walls. Cannon crews repositioned their emplacements. Medics moved between the wounded. The machine of war was turning again, grinding forward because it had no other choice.

Emric stood to his left, shield strapped to his arm and notebook tucked into his back pocket. He had been quiet since the bunker.

Renna stood to his right, bow on her back, one full quiver behind her and a spare hanging from her hip. Her usual energy had been compressed into something smaller and denser. She hadn't spoken a single run-on sentence in hours.

That was the tell.

When Renna went quiet, she was ready.

Lyra stood in front of him with her spear in hand. She had remained steady since the bunker, since the moment she had placed a hand on his arm and said, "I'm here."

She was here now.

"You're leaving us behind," she said.

It wasn't a question. It was a fact.

"I need you on the wall."

"Balthazar can hold the wall."

"Balthazar is Rank 4. He can hold it, but he can't be everywhere. You, Emric, and Renna are Rank 2 elites with a cognitive buff. You can direct the soldiers, plug gaps, and catch things Balthazar misses because he's focused on the bigger picture."

"And the Twins?"

"They're my blades now. I need them where I'm going."

Lyra studied him for a moment. She didn't argue.

Instead, she nodded once. It was the nod of a soldier accepting a position, and the nod of a woman who trusted the man giving the orders.

"Hold the line," Holden said.

"We hold the line," Lyra replied.

He turned toward Emric and Renna.

"Emric, you have command of the wall. Renna, you're his artillery. Anything that comes over that ridge, you put arrows in it."

Emric straightened. "Understood. The defensive formation is currently at sixty-seven percent structural integrity. I'll reinforce the northwest section first. That's where the previous breach occurred."

Renna looked at Holden. Her mouth opened, then closed. She tried again, but this time only two words came out.

"Come back."

There was no joke or long explanation behind them. Just the weight of someone who had learned that people she cared about could disappear.

"I will," Holden said.

He turned and walked toward the gate.

Cora and Sera were waiting on the other side. They stood side by side in identical dark tactical armor, their short swords resting at their hips. Their faces were composed, and their eyes were clear. The redness from an hour earlier had faded.

Neither spoke as Holden approached. They simply fell into formation behind him, one on each side, flanking him with the practiced precision of bodyguards who had spent years protecting someone else.

The difference was that the someone else was now him.

The three of them moved through the fortress gate and into the mud.

No-Man's Land stretched ahead, a quarter mile of churned earth and the scattered remains of the Imperial Army's failed assault. Broken weapons. Abandoned shields. The corpses of siege beasts already bloating beneath the rain.

Holden activated the Void Mantle.

The artifact's effect expanded from his body and wrapped around all three of them. Rain bent around the mantle's edge, leaving a dry bubble of air that moved with them through the downpour. Their body heat vanished. Their energy signatures disappeared.

Three people became nothing.

A gap in the rain. A space where the world simply wasn't.

They crossed No-Man's Land like ghosts, passing the crater where the flagship had fallen and the trenches where Imperial soldiers had charged and died.

The eastern ridge appeared through the downpour. A line of dark hills marking the boundary between the Kingdom's territory and the contested zone. Beyond it, Abyssal corruption was spreading.

The sky above the eastern horizon was the wrong color.

Purple.

It was the same sickly purple Holden had seen above the Epicenter.

His earpiece crackled.

"Holden." Maeve's voice came through the channel. The Supreme Tactician was operating from her station, seeing everything through the national defense grid. "I have satellite imagery of the eastern corridor. The rift you're looking for is active."

"Coordinates."

"Ridge line, sector seven. There's a depression in the terrain approximately three hundred meters past the eastern slope. The rift appears as a concentrated column of dark energy rising from the ground. Thermal readings are consistent with a Rank 3 Abyssal anchor point."

"Guardian?"

"Confirmed. One large signature. Stationary and positioned directly in front of the rift. Energy output is consistent with Rank 3, 5-Star. Designating the target as Abyssal Goliath."

"Description?"

"I'm pulling from the Abyssal bestiary now."

A brief pause followed. Three seconds later, Maeve continued.

"Goliath-class corrupted construct. Body composition is approximately sixty percent corrupted flesh and forty percent twisted iron. Estimated height is twelve meters. Weight is approximately forty tons. No weapons detected. The body itself is the weapon. Blunt-force impacts, crushing attacks, and ground slams. Armor rating is extremely high. The iron component acts as natural plating."

"Weak points?"

"The bestiary notes that the corruption bonds the iron to the flesh at specific connection points. Tendons and joints. The iron doesn't cover everything, so the gaps between the plates are vulnerable to precision strikes."

"Copy that. Keep the channel open."

Holden looked at the Twins.

"Target is a Rank 3, 5-Star Abyssal Goliath. Twelve meters tall and approximately forty tons. Iron-plated flesh. The armor is thick, but the joints are exposed. Tendons and connection points are the weak spots."

Cora's hand moved to her short sword. "Tendons. We cut them."

Sera's hand settled on her own weapon. "Joints. We sever them."

"You move when I tell you to move. You strike when I tell you to strike."

"Understood," Cora said.

"Understood," Sera replied.

The synchronized speech was back now.

They crested the ridge.

The rift was visible immediately.

A column of dark purple energy, twenty feet wide, rose from the ground like a geyser of corrupted light. The rift pulsed and breathed, releasing Miasma into the atmosphere with every surge and feeding the corruption spreading across the continent.

And in front of it, standing between the column and the world, was the Goliath.

Maeve's description had been accurate. The thing was massive, twelve meters tall, which was nearly forty feet. Its body was a nightmare of twisted iron and corrupted flesh fused into a grotesque imitation of a humanoid form. Black iron plates covered its body, streaked with dark red veins that pulsed in time with the rift. Corrupted flesh showed through the gaps between them.

Its head was a lump of iron with two burning red eyes. No mouth. No nose. Just iron, eyes, and hatred radiating from it like heat from a furnace.

The Goliath stood motionless, guarding the rift. Its massive arms hung at its sides. Its legs looked like tree trunks made of iron and flesh, planted firmly in the earth and seemingly impossible to move.

Holden's 10,000x processor activated.

The scan took 0.8 seconds. Every inch of the Goliath's body was mapped, and the processor built a 3D model of its anatomy. Strike angles, timing windows, and vulnerable areas appeared in his mind.

The results were clear.

"The left knee tendon is exposed during forward weight transfer," Holden said, his voice low and calm. "When it steps forward with the left foot, the tendon is visible for 0.6 seconds. Cora, you take the left knee."

"Understood, Master Voss."

"The right elbow tendon is exposed during arm extension. When it throws a punch, the tendon is visible for 0.4 seconds. Sera, you take the right elbow."

"Understood, Master Voss."

"Once both tendons are cut, the Goliath will drop. It can't support forty tons on severed joints. When it falls, I take the kill. Clear?"

"Clear," Cora said.

"Clear," Sera replied.

"Move."

The Void Mantle carried them down the ridge. Three invisible shapes moved through the rain, descending toward the pulsing rift and the Goliath standing before it.

The creature didn't see them. The Void Mantle erased their presence completely. Its burning red eyes remained fixed on the ridge, watching for approaching forces, armies, or anything else it could detect.

It couldn't see them.

They reached the low ground, fifty meters from the Goliath. The rain bent away from their bodies, leaving a dry corridor that moved with them.

Holden stopped, and the Twins stopped with him.

His processor tracked every movement the Goliath made. The way its iron plates settled when it breathed. The way its eyes shifted left, right, then left again as it searched for threats that weren't there.

The creature shifted its weight forward, onto its left foot.

The left knee tendon appeared. A thick, dark band of tissue, six inches wide, stretched across the joint between the iron shin plate and the iron thigh plate.

Exposed.

"Now, Cora."

Cora moved.

She had been invisible until that moment. Then she became a blur of speed. Rank 2, 8-Star speed carried her across the fifty-meter gap in under two seconds. Her short sword was already drawn, her body low as she followed a straight path that took her inside the Goliath's guard before the creature's slow senses could register her approach.

The blade struck the tendon.

Shhhk.

The short sword was enchanted and designed to cut through Rank 2 armor. Against the corrupted tendon of a Rank 3 beast, it wasn't enough to sever the entire band. Still, it cut halfway through, slicing past the outer tissue and into the dense, fibrous core.

The Goliath roared.

A blast of air and energy erupted from its iron body, flattening the mud within a thirty-foot radius. The shockwave struck Cora and threw her sideways, sending her rolling through the mud.

BOOM!

But she had done her job. The left knee tendon was half-severed. The Goliath's left leg buckled, while the remaining fibers strained beneath the weight of forty tons of iron and flesh. The leg was compromised. The creature couldn't put its full weight on it without snapping the tendon.

It shifted its stance, bringing the right foot forward as its right arm extended. An instinctive sweep of its massive fist followed, aimed at the one who had hurt it.

The right elbow tendon appeared, visible for the exact 0.4 seconds Holden's processor had predicted.

"Now, Sera."

Sera moved.

She came from the opposite side. While the Goliath remained focused on its damaged knee, the pain, and the direction where Cora had landed, Sera struck from the right. She moved with the same speed and precision, following a straight path that carried her inside the creature's guard before it could react.

Her short sword struck the right elbow tendon.

Shhhk.

This time, the cut was clean.

The tendon split completely, its severed ends snapping back into the creature's arm. The Goliath's right arm went limp. Its fist, caught in the middle of its swing, lost all momentum and dropped uselessly at its side.

The creature roared again, louder than before. The purple column behind it pulsed in response, dark energy spiking as the guardian reacted to its injuries.

It tried to step forward, but the already damaged left knee tendon couldn't bear the weight.

Snap.

The tendon broke.

The Goliath's left leg collapsed, dropping onto its left knee. The impact cratered the earth beneath it. The ground shook, mud erupted, and the rain around the impact point turned to steam from the force.

BOOM!

The Goliath was down.

Its left knee was destroyed, its right arm useless, and its massive body leaned to one side as it knelt in the mud. The iron plates groaned under the shifted weight.

Its burning red eyes found the three figures standing before it.

The creature tried to rise, but the left leg couldn't support its weight. It tried to punch with the right arm, only for the limb to hang uselessly. When it attempted to sweep with the left arm, the movement was slow and easy to predict.

Its body was failing. Every motion had become a struggle between what it wanted to do and what its damaged frame could still manage.

Holden drew his sword.

The Solar-Forged blade appeared in his hand in a flash of golden light. Fire ignited along the edge, white-hot crimson, blazing against the rain and the purple darkness of the rift.

He looked up at the Goliath, at the massive creature of iron-plated flesh kneeling in the mud. Its burning red eyes stared down at him with nothing but hatred, fury, and the mindless rage of something that existed only to destroy.

Holden jumped.

The Aether-Steel density in his body had increased by forty percent, and the added strength launched him from the ground with enough force. He shot upward, thirty feet, forty, fifty, rising past the Goliath's chest, shoulders, and head until he was above it.

The rain parted around him. The wind screamed. Fire along the Solar-Forged blade burned brighter as Rank 3, 7 star energy poured through the steel.

He reached the apex of his jump and hung in the air for a fraction of a second.

Above the Goliath.

Above the rift.

Looking down, Holden saw the creature's iron skull directly beneath him. Its red eyes turned upward. For the first time, the mindless hatred in them was joined by something else.

Something that looked a lot like fear.

He brought the sword down.

Hellfire Cleave.

Maximum output.

Every ounce of his power flowed through the Solar-Forged blade, compressed into a single vertical arc that fell from the sky like a pillar of fire.

FWOOOOOSH!

The blade struck the top of the Goliath's skull. The iron plate protecting its head, rated to withstand Rank 3 impacts, cracked. Then it split. Then it dissolved.

The fire drove through the iron and the corrupted flesh beneath it, cutting through the entire body from top to bottom.

The Goliath split in half.

BOOM!

BOOM!

Both halves crashed into the ground on either side of the rift, sending shockwaves through the ground. Walls of mud and water rose into the air before falling back down in a dirty brown shower.

The Goliath's red eyes went dark. Its iron plates cracked and fell away from the corrupted flesh, which was already dissolving. The body turned to ash. The iron rusted and crumbled.

The two halves of what had once been a forty-ton guardian became two piles of grey dust and brown rust in the mud.

Tsssss.

The System chimed.

[Abyssal Goliath (Rank 3, 5-Star) Defeated!]

[+10,000 KP!]

[2x KP Booster Active! KP Doubled!]

[+20,000 KP!]

Holden landed in the mud between the two piles of ash. Steam rose from his sword as the fire died, the blade cooling from white-hot to amber, then from amber to silver.

He looked at the rift.

The purple column pulsed, unguarded now. The Goliath was gone.

The gateway was open.

Cora and Sera appeared beside him. They had carried out their strikes and retreated to a safe distance before the kill, exactly as ordered.

"Target eliminated," Cora said.

"Rift is unguarded," Sera added.

Holden looked at the purple column, at the gateway feeding monsters into the world, and at the thing that had helped create the army responsible for Vespera's death.

He dismissed his sword and walked toward it.

"Master Voss," Cora called. "The rift's energy output is unstable. Approaching without protection is not recommended."

Holden kept walking.

"Master Voss," Sera said. "The Miasma concentration at the rift's boundary is lethal to Rank 2 entities. We can't approach any further."

Holden stopped and looked back at them.

"Stay here," he said. "Guard the perimeter. I'll be right back."

Then he turned and walked into the purple light.