NOVEL NEXT Chapter 163: One down
It struck General Luo Shanyu, the twenty six year old rising star from the Southern Corps. The youngest general in Chinese history. His lightning hadn't even activated when his throat was opened.
Damien's sword was already in motion before his mind had caught up. He didn't shout. He didn't demand answers. He simply acted, because there was no time and no room for hesitation.
He moved like a shadow through smoke, his black mana trailing behind him in ribbons of quiet rage.
One step, then another, and he was behind General Bloodbane.
The blade slid cleanly between the vertebrae, punching through armor and flesh with surgical precision. It was a killing blow, fueled not by hatred nor vengeance, but necessity.
His grandfather's body jerked forward as the spear fell from his hand. Damien held the sword steady, eyes locking with the man he hadn't seen since exile.
And for the first time in years, there was no contempt in those eyes. No sneer. No disgust.
There wasn't even surprise.
What Damien saw instead was something that didn't belong in a battlefield gaze.
Gratitude.
It hit him harder than any spell.
He froze, just for a moment, stunned by the emotion he couldn't explain.
The last time they communicated indirectly was when Damien killed Jesslyn and Rick Bloodbane who had been following his orders to kill Damien to wipe the stain from the Bloodbane family name.
Now that same man was staring at him with a strange peace, as though this end, Damien's blade, his death, had somehow released him from something worse.
Damien twisted the sword and stepped back. His grandfather crumpled to the ground, lifeless before his armor finished collapsing.
But the world didn't pause with him.
From the corner of his vision, Damien caught the flash of another blade.
General Shadowbane was already in motion, swinging low with speed that should have been impossible for a man his age.
Except it wasn't.
Damien moved to intercept, parried the strike without thinking, then countered with a slash across the thigh.
The general staggered. Another swing, slower this time.
Damien weaved past it and drove his blade through Shadowbane's ribs, then twisted upward in one long, flowing motion that tore through the man's core and spilled blood across the cracked stones.
The fight was over in seconds.
But it shouldn't have been.
Damien took a step back, chest rising and falling slowly. General Shadowbane collapsed like a broken doll, the light already gone from his eyes before his body hit the ground.
For a moment, Damien could only stare.
This had been one of the nation's strongest, a man whispered about in training camps, feared by generals, respected even by enemies.
Damien had seen him tear a mecha apart with bare hands in archived footage, had read about battles where he'd held entire cities with a dozen men.
Yet here, there had been no resistance. No fury. No hesitation. He had moved like a puppet, empty of instinct or soul.
Damien's pulse slowed, but his thoughts churned.
It didn't feel like betrayal.
Not in the way people imagined. It felt like something far worse, like both men had already been hollowed out long before they raised their weapons.
The gratitude in his grandfather's final look clung to Damien like smoke, refusing to fade. There was no pride left in those eyes, and certainly no loyalty, but also… no malice.
Only release.
And now that he was still, now that his focus wasn't being torn in every direction by reflex and violence, Damien realized something else.
The fight had been too easy.
General Shadowbane hadn't defended himself properly. His technique had been sluggish, almost like he was copying old instincts rather than living them. His grandfather had struck like a machine, methodical, empty.
Both men had fought as if something else had been moving their limbs for them.
Damien felt a chill crawl up his spine.
The mana was wrong. Too clean. Too fresh. And neither man had carried even a trace of the death aura that clung to those who had spent the last week killing their way through the western front.
It wasn't just absence, it was artificial. They hadn't been in the push at all.
The others hadn't noticed.
They had needed strength, and two legendary generals had appeared just in time. But Damien had sensed it. In their posture. In their silence. In the way they looked more dead than alive.
And now, standing over two lifeless bodies that should have never fallen so easily, one thought refused to leave him.
This wasn't treason. It was control.
Damien's eyes rose toward the battlefield, where the European S-Rankers surged through the smoke and flame with uncanny timing, seizing the chaos like they had been waiting for it.
And in that moment, something fell into place.
This was design.
They weren't just fighting a war of conquest.
The Europeans were working with the awakened beasts. And Elly's father, the Awakened Demon Fox. The Beast of Whispers. The one who didn't need to kill to win, only to plant seeds.
And now those seeds were blooming.
Mana tore the sky apart.
"Bastards!! Does your evil know no end?!" General Riki's roar echoed like thunder through the smoking ruins of Blackthorn, his voice carried by flame and fury as he hurled himself into a cluster of enemy mages.
Fire exploded outward, consuming half a city block in incandescent light.
To his right, General Maru moved like a storm wrapped in steel, his hammer cracking bone and shattering earth with each swing. "Qin Hui!!" he bellowed in anguish, as if calling the name could bring the fallen general back.
He crushed an Earth Shaper beneath his weapon and charged into the next wave without pause.
Damien didn't hesitate either.
He moved through the battlefield like a shadow stitched from smoke and intent. His body responded on instinct, muscle and mana perfectly aligned.
He parried a blade of light, slipped past a thrust of ice, and buried his sword in the chest of a European wind mage who'd just finished incinerating two Chinese S-Rankers. The man convulsed once, then dropped, his body smoldering on the cobbled stones.
One down.