The golden honey mixed slowly with the dark crimson lake on the floorboards, a sickening swirl of sweet and metallic.
Barn didn't scream.
He didn't roar.
The heavy, lazy slump of his shoulders—the posture he had carefully maintained for fifteen years to look like a pathetic, overeating slum guard—completely evaporated.
He dropped heavily to his knees, ignoring the shattered glass that dug into his trousers.
He reached out with trembling, massive hands and gently pulled Elena's limp, scorched body from the cold floor, cradling her against his chest.
Her pristine white hair was matted with blood and ash.
Barn lowered his head, his lips pressing softly against her cold, pale forehead in a long, lingering kiss.
"I'm sorry, my love,"
he whispered, his voice cracking just once before descending into a chilling, hollow bass.
"I was too late."
He gently laid her back down, taking care not to jostle her wounds.
Then, Barn placed his large, calloused right palm flat against the exposed stone foundation of the hearth.
In the dark hallway, Rodolf and the two Iron Vanguard guards were holding their breath, their backs pressed hard against the wooden pillars.
What is he doing? Rodolf thought, his brow furrowing.
Why is he here? Why is he kissing the elf's forehead??
Suddenly, a deep, terrifying hum vibrated through the very bedrock of Morvane.
"He's an Earth-Zheki user,"
one of the Vanguard guards whispered frantically.
"But his file... he's just a Tier 1 Senior! He shouldn't even be able to—"
Before the guard could finish his sentence, the solid stone floor beneath their boots liquefied and surged like a violent ocean wave.
The three men gasped as the stone curled upward, biting into their ankles.
With a single, brutal yank of Barn's will, the earth literally dragged them out of the shadows.
They were violently hurled through the air, crashing onto the blood-stained floorboards directly in front of Barn.
Rodolf scrambled to his hands and knees, completely bewildered.
How?!
Rodolf's mind screamed.
Tier 1 Seniors can barely lift a boulder! He just manipulated the foundation of a house without even looking!
Barn stood up.
He didn't look at Hanjun or Jayhon.
His eyes—now devoid of any warmth, reflecting the absolute, crushing pressure of a Grand General who had shattered a titan—locked onto the three men on the floor.
"Did you three do that?"
Barn asked.
His voice wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
The sheer, suffocating gravity of his aura pressed down on the room so heavily that the two Iron Vanguard guards couldn't even force their lungs to draw breath. They remained completely, terrifiedly silent.
But Rodolf, still blinded by his own ego and a profound, fatal misunderstanding of the monster standing before him, pushed himself up to his feet.
He dusted off his knees, forcing his trademark arrogant smirk onto his face.
"Yeah, it was just me. I did all that,"
Rodolf boasted, puffing out his chest. He looked Barn up and down, taking in the cheap, blood-stained clothes.
"Look, if you're mad because you wanted to interrupt and take the prize for yourself?
That's not possible, sadly. I did the work."
Rodolf took a step forward, lowering his voice into a patronizing, conspiratorial tone.
"But hey... you seem like a pretty poor guy.
Living in this dump.
What's wrong with sharing some of the wealth, right? I'll put a good word in for you. I'll help you get a promotion with me.
" He smiled happily, extending a hand.
Barn didn't speak.
He simply moved.
There was no battle cry.
There was no technique name.
There was only the absolute, unbridled kinetic output of the Golem King Slayer.
Barn's fist eclipsed Rodolf's vision.
BOOM.
The impact didn't sound like flesh hitting flesh; it sounded like a cannon firing inside a closed vault.
The shockwave blew the remaining roof tiles clean off the cottage.
Rodolf's arrogant smile vanished as his ribs instantly caved in.
He was launched backward with the velocity of a siege projectile.
He smashed cleanly through the back wall of the house, turning the heavy timber into toothpicks.
But he didn't stop.
Rodolf's body tore through the air, violently crashing through a brick chimney in the next alley, skipping across a cobblestone street, and smashing through an abandoned warehouse.
He flew across the entire lower district like a skipped stone of meat and armor.
Finally, his trajectory met the colossal, reinforced stone walls that surrounded the inner kingdom.
CRASH!
Rodolf slammed into the monolithic wall with such force that a spiderweb of cracks instantly formed in the ancient stone.
He didn't fall.
He hung there, wedged into the crater he had just created, his limbs bent at horrific, unnatural angles.
A massive torrent of blood erupted from his mouth as his eyes rolled wildly, his consciousness hanging on by a literal, agonizing thread.
Back in the ruined cottage, the two Iron Vanguard guards stared at the gaping, tunnel-like hole Barn had just punched through the city block.
Pure, unadulterated survival instinct overrode their military training.
Run.
"Wind Step!"
the lead Vanguard shrieked.
A swirling vortex of pale green Wind-Zheki erupted around the boots of both guards. They pivoted flawlessly, launching themselves toward the shattered doorway at breakneck speed, desperate to escape the monster.
Barn didn't even turn his head.
He lightly tapped the heel of his boot against the floor.
The earth beneath the fleeing guards violently exploded upward.
Two massive pillars of solid rock shot from the floor like pistons, catching the guards directly in the stomachs and launching them vertically.
THWACK.
Their armored heads slammed brutally into the heavy oak crossbeams of the ceiling.
The thick iron of their helmets dented inward from the sheer crushing force of the earth and wood.
Both men instantly went limp, dropping back to the floor like discarded ragdolls, completely unconscious.
The house fell dead silent again, save for the settling dust and the whistling wind blowing through the ruined walls.
Barn slowly turned his body, his heavy boots crunching over the debris.
He began to walk silently toward the massive hole he had created, his eyes fixed entirely on the distant crater in the kingdom wall where Rodolf was bleeding out. He was going to finish it. He was going to pull the fire-user down from the wall and tear him apart piece by piece.
He took one step. Then another.
"Barn..."
The voice was so faint, so broken, it was practically a ghost.
Barn froze mid-stride.
He looked back over his shoulder.
Elena was still lying in the pool of her own blood, her eyes closed, her breathing nonexistent. But her lips had moved.
Through the absolute limits of her shattered Life-Zheki, clinging to the very edge of the mortal realm, she forced out a single, ragged whisper.
"Don't... kill them..."