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Chapter 81 - Don't ever Mock her Again!

The battlefield was chaos, but not disorganized.

It was a storm with a pulse.

And in the eye of it stood Harry, lips tight, calculating. His mind moved faster than his hands as he recalibrated the serum's distribution algorithm on his gauntlet tablet, fingers flicking through vitals, chemical reactions, and impact thresholds.

The answer was there, simple, brilliant.

They didn't need to destroy the Reapers with the serum.

Just paralyze them.

Let the purge do the crippling.

Then… finish it clean.

He commed in, voice tight but urgent. "Li. I need your drones. Reprogram their ammo ports. We're switching tactics."

"Input?" Li asked, already mid-sprint as she ducked behind a half-destroyed column.

"New serum calibration. Lethal if taken whole, but a single dose in the right spot drops a Reaper into full-body purge shock for thirty seconds. Enough to lock them down. After that, they're all yours."

There was silence for only half a second.

Then Li grinned.

"Upload it."

Within moments, the air above shifted.

Li's drones soared in, sleek, fast, matte-black predators cutting through the smoke-filled sky. Their red targeting lenses blinked in sync. Modified serum darts locked into place with a magnetic click.

Slacovich gave a nod.

And the new phase began.

Darts hissed from the sky, one after another, each shot puncturing the Reapers' flesh with needlepoint precision. Not a single wasted round. No friendly fire.

The results were immediate.

Reapers halted mid-strike, their bodies spasming violently, veins glowing a sickly, burning silver as the serum forced the silver-tainted blood to purge.

Some dropped on all fours. Others keeled over screaming.

That was the moment the Demonfires moved.

Tyler struck first, clean and merciless. One Reaper's head hit the ground before its knees did. Another followed, Sofie's blade cutting a silent arc of justice through the smoke.

One by one, paralyzed Reapers were beheaded.

Li darted between her drones and the chaos below, coordinating the shots with exact timing, while Diego spun through tight groups, slashing clean with double blades and catching the rhythm of falling enemies.

Harry, still at the rear, fine-tuned the dosages remotely, watching for resistance patterns. But so far, everything held.

Every dose counted. Every second bought meant another clean kill.

The tide turned swiftly. Efficient. Surgical. The overwhelming flood of Reapers was reduced to scattered pockets of falling bodies and shattered shrieks.

And with every head that rolled, they came closer,

Closer to Volton's gates.

Closer to the core.

Closer to ending this war.

---

The air stilled.

As the last of the Reapers fell, their bodies disintegrated into ash, fine and weightless, swept away by the cold wind crawling across the scorched battlefield. What remained was silence. And ruin. Burn marks splayed like scars across the earth, each a testament to what had stood and been erased.

The Shadow Guards returned then, slipping through the smoke like silent wraiths. Their blades slicked with battle and honor, they bowed once before Sofie, then fanned out to secure the perimeters. Not a single defective was left. Only ash. And certainty.

Slacovich, silent until now, lifted the head of the final Reaper before letting it roll from his grip. His blade hissed back into its sheath with finality.

They turned as one, six warriors standing atop a field of ruin, toward the final path.

Toward him.

Volton Hellgazer.

They didn't have to breach the gates.

He came to them.

From the mouth of the obsidian stronghold, its doors opening like a beast unclenching its jaws, Volton emerged, his coat long, untouched by blood, his smile razor-thin, hands gloved and slow in applause.

"Well done," he said, voice languid, eyes gleaming with something darker than admiration. "A fine performance. Truly."

Behind him, they came.

Lurien, grinning like the scent of death was perfume, madness dancing behind his eyes.

Vaelis and Nereziel, bodies close, barely touching, their indifference chilling, lovers at the end of the world, watching it fall apart like it meant nothing.

And last---

Zevien.

Silent. Cold. Standing with perfect poise.

His gaze unreadable.

His presence, suffocating.

The four perfect Reapers.

Slacovich's boots crunched over glass and ash as he stepped forward, the weight of years burning in his eyes. "Volton," he growled.

Volton only smiled wider. "Ah, Slacovich. The storm-bringer. You look tired. Shall I offer you a seat?"

"I'll take your head," Slacovich snapped, voice like flint.

But Volton just chuckled. "Always so dramatic. So eager. And yet… so predictable."

He snapped his fingers.

From the shadows behind him, cages hissed open. Metal cracked. Chains slithered off like serpents.

And then---

They stepped out.

Ara. And Ara. And another.

Not the real one. But Replicas. Salvaged from the broken labs. Imperfect. Eyes too sharp, skin too pale, grace built, not born.

They smiled.

"Tyler," one said, her voice soft, almost right.

Another tilted her head. "Did you miss me?"

Tyler's hands clenched at his sides, jaw trembling with fury barely caged.

Volton's tone dipped into mockery, silk-wrapped venom.

"You broke my toys. So I stitched together the memory. Over and over. Just to see how long it would take to break you."

"Monster," Diego spat.

"No," Volton murmured, finally lowering his hand to his side, voice low and deadly. "I'm what happens when you let sentiment rule science. When you believe mercy is a virtue."

His eyes darkened.

"And now… you've come to end me. Haven't you?"

Slacovich took another step forward, the sky at his back.

"Not end you," he said, blade drawn and steady.

"Erase you."

Volton grinned.

The Ara Replicas stepped forward, blades unsheathed, moving with the same grace they once knew in a friend they'd buried.

And the four perfect Reapers behind Volton?

They didn't move yet.

They were watching.

Waiting.

Savoring the storm about to break.

---

And then… the ground shook.

A low pulse.

A heartbeat.

A warning.

But no one blinked.

Because this wasn't the end.

It was the beginning.

---

Tyler moved first.

A blur of muscle and vengeance, blade flashing in a clean arc as he lunged into the fray. Sixteen Replicas surged toward them, their forms eerily familiar, too familiar. The way they moved, the way they feinted, spun, ducked---

It was Ara.

But not.

Close… but hollow.

Tyler didn't flinch. He'd faced one before. And that one nearly broke him. But now? Now he saw what made them weak. Now he saw the lies in their patterns.

They were copies, glitches printed over and over.

Not souls.

Just mimicry.

He sidestepped a strike from the nearest Replica, her blade grazing his shoulder. Another lunged, and he caught her mid-motion, twisted, slammed her down in a blur of motion. The steel in his voice rang louder than the clash of blades.

"Nape!" he shouted. "Go for the nape! That's where the core's anchored!"

The others caught on instantly. Sofie's blade sung through the air as she danced between two Replicas, slicing one's shoulder open before pivoting and striking true, right at the back of the neck. Sparks and blood sprayed, and the machine dropped, twitching.

Li moved like lightning, blades in both hands, her strikes calculated, precise, like she'd memorized Ara's real movements and catalogued every error in the copies. "Sloppy code," she muttered, twisting mid-air and landing a brutal stab to the spine of a Replica trying to flank Diego.

Diego, meanwhile, fought hard. Every strike was heavy, full of emotion. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. His blade did all the screaming for him. When a Replica tried to whisper Tyler's name mid-swing, he silenced it with steel through its mouth.

Harry stayed back, coordinating quick-hit strikes, vials in hand. Whenever a Replica faltered, staggered, he tossed a vial of corrosive serum to paralyze the core for a second. That second was all the Demonfires needed.

They worked like breath and blade.

Cutting down one by one.

Sixteen. Then eleven. Then nine. Then five.

Each Replica tried to copy Ara's grace, her stance, her smirk.

But none could replicate her soul.

And one by one, they fell.

The final one, a Replica that moved just a little closer to how Ara used to, tried to feint Tyler from behind. He turned, blocked, and stabbed her clean through the nape, blade driving into the core with a hiss.

She went still.

Her eyes flickered once.

Then nothing.

Sparks danced across the ruins of her body. Limbs scattered. Torn wiring, steel plating, severed joints all lay at the Demonfires' feet like broken toys.

Tyler stood over her wreckage, chest heaving. Then looked up.

"Don't you ever," he said, voice shaking with restrained rage, "mock her again."

And behind him, Slacovich moved.

He was already covered in the oil-blood of fallen Replicas, blade spinning once before he struck the final one cleanly, decapitation in a single motion. The Replica's head hit the earth with a thud, body twitching before crumpling.

Slacovich walked forward, never breaking stride, and hurled the head at Volton's feet.

The cracked face stared up, empty-eyed and sparking.

Slacovich's voice came like thunder, cold, final, and laced with fury.

"You built ghosts out of memory. But we remember her as she was. And you?"

He drew his second blade.

"You're next."

Volton's smile barely moved, but his eyes, just for a second, flickered.

And the four Reapers behind him?

They stepped forward.

As if now, the real battle could begin.

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