Part 2
Four days before the attack
To prevent further losses among his defense forces, General Hector Balliard ordered the last remaining guards off the streets. The watchtowers stood empty. Patrol routes were abandoned. Not out of strategy but out of desperation.
The truth was simpler—and crueler:They were all dead.
In just three days, over twenty squads had vanished without a trace. Some torn apart. Others… simply erased.
The people knew.
With every passing hour, unrest swelled like a starving tumor.
Deserting soldiers. Unpaid adventurers. Starving farmers. Elders who no longer believed in the kingdom's anthems.
They all gathered in one place.
The only place still offering something close to peace… and plenty of food.
The Nobles' Social Club.
Its golden doors, once closed to anything that smelled of the common folk, now trembled beneath the weight of collective desperation.
Inside, the elite still toasted. Still danced. Still pretended the war was a distant headline.
A minor inconvenience.Something that would pass.
But the war… was already there.Right at their door.
Lina stood atop a broken cargo crate, her coat torn, her eyes burning like embers. The crowd roared around her—a mass of starving soldiers, broken elders, and youth with no future.
"Fellow citizens!" she called out, her voice sharp as a war bell.
"For years, these nobles have used us, humiliated us, despised us!"
The murmurs died. The raised torches seemed to lean toward her.
"While we starve, they drown in wine! While we bury our children, they play chess with our lives!"
She stepped forward. Her boots crunched against the wet stone.
"And their so-called leader, that coward Maurice Laverick… hides like a rat in his golden den!"
The crowd erupted. They didn't need a hero.They needed a spark.
"But fear not…" she said, with a smile that was both promise and judgment. "Celestia—our true savior—will punish them. Not with divine fire,but with human justice."
Her words were no longer a speech.They were prophecy.
Lina extended her hand.
Light obeyed.
In the next instant, her sacred sword appeared between her fingers. The silence was absolute.
With the Church of Yoru in ruins, her magical signature could no longer be tracked.
She was free.Light without chains.
"Holy Slash."
The cut was clean. Blinding.An arc of divine energy ripped through the front doors of the club, shattering them into a thousand golden shards.
The nobles screamed.Cups fell.The piano stopped.
"To the people, what belongs to the people," Lina murmured, lowering her sword slowly.
And as if answering a divine signal, the citizens surged forward not for gold, but for balance.
Inside the Club, chaos howled like a beast unleashed, but in the main hall, Selka stood tall.
Untouched. Unshaken.
Her crimson gown remained pristine, her gaze colder than the wine she still held.
She was still the Duchess of Ludbridge.
Or at least… she looked the part.
A barrier of sleek, dark energy separated a small group of nobles.
They were unharmed.Silent.Confused.
They had survived the silent judgment of Selka.
"I warned you this would happen," she said with unshakable calm, watching the others smash stained glass and loot the tables.
Count Maurice Laverick lunged at the barrier, face twisted, veins bulging with rage.
"Let us in, you damned bitch! They're going to kill us!"
Selka looked at him the way one might look at a dog that was once noble—now drooling in its own misery.
"You should've knelt when you had the chance," she said with a smile that was almost kind. "Now… it's too late."
The nobles pounded their fists against her magical shield. Some wept. Others begged.
None of them understood.
"Be good little children," she continued. "Accept your judgment. Your excesses brought you here."
She pointed toward the shattered threshold of the entrance.
There stood Lina.
Dressed like an executioner, her black-and-silver garments glowed beneath the torchlight, stained with the fire of faith. She advanced slowly.
Not with rage.
With certainty.
Laverick collapsed to the floor, dragging himself across cracked marble, his hands bloodied.
"No! No, please! I'm not like them! I'm innocent!"
"Count Maurice Laverick…" Lina raised a hand. "You will be judged for your sins."
Chains of light descended from the ceiling, wrapping around his body like divine serpents. He thrashed. He screamed. He pleaded.
A guillotine formed above his neck—pure white light, trembling as if divine will itself pulsed within its blade.
"Why?! Why are you doing this to me?!"
Lina leaned in close.
Her words whispered like a cruel prayer.
"You have been judged by Celestia—the Angel of Justice."
She straightened. Her gaze swept across the remaining nobles like they were already shattered glass.
"All the corrupt will burn. Justice cannot be escaped."
"I'll give you anything! Money, land, titles!" Laverick cried, his dignity crumbling beneath the weight of panic.
Lina looked at him one last time.
"True justice… cannot be bought, Count."
She raised her hand.
The guillotine dropped.
A flash. A clean sound.
His head rolled across the marble like a rotten fruit, stopping just at Lina's feet.
No one screamed.
No one cheered.
And then—Selka snapped her fingers.
No one noticed at first.
But one by one, the marked nobles began to burn.
No flames.
No cries at first.
Just silent combustion.
As if their very souls were condemned beyond resistance.
The screams came later.
And they weren't screams of pain.
They were screams of truth.
Three days before the attack...
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
The sound of the clock didn't come from the wall.
It came from his mind.
Balliard sat alone in his office. His coat disheveled. Beard unshaven. Hands trembling slightly.
It had been hours without reports.
No one told him who was spreading chaos anymore.
No one knew who answered to whom.
His strategy was simple:
Kill the dragon first—deal with the insurgents later.
"Who… are they?" he muttered, turning the glass of whiskey in his hand.
The liquor no longer burned.
It simply kept him company.
"Harlem is busy… preparing the offensive… but…"
He cut himself off.
With a roar of frustration, he hurled the glass against the wall. It shattered—right above the war map.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE THE HEROES EVEN DOING?!" he bellowed, eyes bloodshot.
"WHERE ARE THE REINFORCEMENTS FROM THE CAPITAL?!"
No answer.
No one was there to hear him.
He moved closer to the map.
Whiskey dripped over the marked zones.
Balliard's fingers traced every line—every broken route.
Every fallen post.
Every silenced area.
"If we don't destroy that barrier soon…"
He didn't say it with fear.
He said it with something worse.
Certainty.