The Vanguard Bastion was plunged into absolute slaughter.
From his vantage point high in the Headmistress's spire, Arthur watched the chaos unfold. The Cult of the Ascendant wasn't invading with soldiers. They were dropping bio engineered nightmares directly into the courtyards. Hulking masses of stitched together muscle, bone blades, and acid spitting maws crashed into the pristine marble to tear into the panicked student body.
Screams of terror echoed over the blaring sirens. The arrogant nobles who had sneered at Arthur hours ago were now getting ripped apart like wet tissue paper. Their expensive rapiers snapped against the hardened carapaces of the Cult's beasts.
[Ding!]
[Employee target 'Caden Cross' has engaged in a life or death struggle!]
[Target has executed a desperate dodge!]
[10,000x ROI Multiplier activated! Host gains: Flawless Evasion Reflexes.]
Arthur's pupils dilated as a rush of combat instinct hardwired itself into his brain. Somewhere down in that meat grinder, his little naive battery was fighting for his life, and every drop of sweat Caden shed was paying Arthur massive dividends.
[Target 'Caden Cross' has cast 'Basic Wind Blade'.]
[10,000x ROI Multiplier activated! Host has gained: God Tier Wind Manipulation Proficiency.]
"Beautiful," Arthur muttered and cracked his knuckles. "Keep working, kid."
Beside him, the air violently dropped in temperature. Sylvia Thorne stepped forward, her silver hair whipping around her in an ethereal wind. Her eyes blazed with a terrifying and absolute zero light.
"I will freeze their portal," Sylvia declared. She raised her hands to conjure a grand tier spell. "I won't let them destroy my academy."
Arthur reached out and clamped his large and calloused hand around her wrist, physically forcing her arm down.
Sylvia whipped her head toward him, anger flashing in her eyes. "What are you doing? Let me go."
"No," Arthur said. His voice was entirely devoid of panic or urgency. He projected his aura, a heavy and suffocating blanket of dominance that wrapped around her. "You just had a high tier parasite ripped out of your soul. Your core is unstable. You cast a spell that big right now, you'll fracture your meridians."
"They are slaughtering my students!" she spat, though her struggles against his grip weakened.
"I don't care about your students," Arthur replied ruthlessly. "I care about my assets. You are an asset. That kid fighting for his life down there is an asset. The rest of them are acceptable losses."
He let go of her wrist and stepped past her toward the shattered window. "Stand down and recover. I'll handle the pests."
Sylvia stood frozen and rubbed her wrist. She had been the untouchable peak of this world for centuries. No one had ever commanded her. No one had ever stood in front of her. But as she watched Arthur's broad back, she felt a strange and intoxicating shudder run through her spine. The overwhelming urge to obey him was terrifyingly pleasant. She slowly lowered her hands and let her mana settle.
Arthur stepped off the edge of the balcony. He plummeted hundreds of feet toward the burning courtyard.
"Cube. Sword form," Arthur commanded in his mind.
The Ebonheart Cube orbiting him instantly collapsed, stretching and flattening with the sound of grinding metal. By the time Arthur's heavy boots slammed into the marble courtyard, cracking the stone beneath him, he was gripping the hilt of a pitch black and perfectly balanced longsword. It absorbed the surrounding light and radiated a lethal hungry hum.
A group of terrified nobles scrambled past him. They screamed for help as a pair of hulking bladed hounds chased them down. Arthur didn't even look at them. He casually side stepped a severed arm and kept walking.
"ROOOAAAR!"
A shadow fell over Arthur. He stopped.
Towering twenty feet in the air was a six armed Abomination. It was a horrific amalgamation of rotting flesh and steel plating, and its multiple hands gripped rusted blood soaked cleavers. It locked its milky and dead eyes onto Arthur and lunged. All six blades came down to chop him into paste.
Arthur sighed. He didn't bend his knees. He didn't enter a stance. He just casually flicked his wrist upward.
He channeled the God tier wind manipulation he had just passively leeched from Caden and merged it with his Domain Level Sword Intent.
"Slash."
A near invisible crescent of pitch black energy erupted from the Ebonheart Sword.
"CRACK!"
The attack didn't just meet the Abomination. It utterly ignored the concept of physical resistance. The black crescent sliced upward and smoothly bisected the twenty foot monster straight up the middle.
But the attack didn't stop there. The residual sword intent tore into the sky and violently split the thick bruised clouds above the academy. This created a massive and terrifying void of clear sky that stretched for miles.
The two halves of the Abomination wetly slapped onto the marble on either side of Arthur. He walked through the raining blood without a single drop touching him, completely repelled by his ambient aura.
At the center of the courtyard, surrounded by a dozen Cultists, stood a man in heavy dark robes holding a glowing staff. The Cult Priest.
The Priest stared at the split clouds and then down at the bifurcated Abomination. His jaw hung completely slack.
Arthur blurred and crossed fifty yards in a fraction of a second using his Void Step Mantra. He appeared directly in front of the Priest. Before the surrounding cultists could even flinch, the Ebonheart Sword lashed out in a horizontal arc, decapitating all twelve guards in a single and fluid motion.
Arthur grabbed the Priest by the throat. He lifted him off his feet and slammed him brutally into a stone pillar.
"You are clearly not the boss," Arthur said coldly as his eyes pinned the terrified man. "Who sent you?"
"Y-You!" the Priest choked as blood dribbled from his lips. "You defy the Heavens! The Cult of the Ascendant serves the true Gods of the Apex Realm! You are just livestock!"
Arthur tightened his grip and heard the cartilage in the man's throat pop. "I asked who sent you."
"Y-Young Master Tristan!" the Priest shrieked as his fanaticism broke under Arthur's murderous intent. "He ordered the strike! We were to retrieve the runaway cauldron! You cannot stop the Apex Realm!"
Arthur's free hand shot out, snatching a glowing and intricately carved silver medallion hanging from the Priest's neck.
[Ding!]
[Item Acquired: Stellar Sigil.]
Arthur inspected the sigil. His thumb traced the foreign and high dimensional energy humming within it. He looked back at the Priest who was desperately gasping for air.
"Tristan, huh?" Arthur mused. A dark and terrible smile stretched across his face.
He casually tossed the Priest to the ground. As the man gasped and tried to crawl away, Arthur brought his heavy boot down on the back of the Priest's skull, crushing it against the marble with a sickening crunch.
Arthur wiped a speck of blood off his cheek and looked up at the fading dark portal in the sky.
"He sounds like a premium battery."