Chapter 200: Ghost in My Build Finally Speaks

Chapter 200: Chapter 200: Ghost in My Build Finally Speaks

I kept my face as neutral as I could manage, but the afterimage of that gold line was still burned into my vision.

The scale of the cut, the casual way the building had cracked, the complete absence of effort on Draven’s part- it sat in my chest like a weight.

This was the man I had talked about taking down in a restaurant in front of Gianna.

The same man who collected women like rare cards and smiled through every broadcast.

Looking at the headless corpse of an elephant-sized three-headed bull, the memory felt suicidal.

Draven finished his quiet instructions to the barrier team and walked toward us, hands in the open coat pockets, expression already sliding back into cheerful arrogance.

"You saw that?"

He stopped a few paces away, yellow eyes bright.

"I’m awesome, aren’t I? No need for praise. I already know I’m cool."

"I didn’t even say anything."

"You didn’t have to. Your face gave the whole speech for you."

He glanced at the cooling body.

"That was an A-rank, by the way. Mid-tier. The real problems are still inside."

"They jump out on their own?"

"The stronger ones test the membrane. Most get pushed back by the gate’s own pressure. Now and then one forces a breach. That’s why we keep a full rotation on the perimeter even while the main team is clearing."

The red gate pulsed harder, a deep, wet throb that rolled across the plaza.

Dust lifted from the pavement. Several analysts looked up from their pads at the same time.

Giselle’s voice came through the mask, low.

"Frequency spike."

"I feel it."

Draven’s playful tone thinned.

He turned his head toward the gate the way a man checks the weather.

"Second wave is early. Good timing, actually."

I followed his gaze.

The surface of the gate bulged outward in three places at once, like something large was pressing from the other side.

"This is why I brought you," Draven said, still watching the gate.

"Observation is useful. Personal experience is better. You and Giselle will take the next spill. Nothing that requires me. I want to see how the unmarked support and the Empress’s daughter move when the script isn’t written for them."

Giselle didn’t argue.

She simply stepped half a pace forward, weight settling into a ready stance I had already memorised from the training halls.

"Are we gonna fight real monsters?"

I flexed my hands inside the gloves.

The Submission chains answered with a faint, eager warmth. The tail stayed retracted, but the new horns at its tip felt like they were listening.

The gate tore open.

Four creatures came through in a staggered rush.

The first was a long, low reptilian thing with too many legs and a head like a spear blade.

Behind it bounded two canine shapes wreathed in crackling black static.

The last was slower, heavier: a hunched ape-like monster with stone plates growing out of its shoulders and a mouth that opened sideways.

"Left pair is mine," Giselle said.

"Right two," I answered.

She moved first.

A telekinetic hammer of force slammed into the lead reptile’s forelegs and folded them the wrong way.

Before it could scream, she was already closing the distance, palm striking the side of its skull.

The impact sounded like wet wood breaking. The creature dropped, twitching.

One of the static hounds lunged for her open side.

She didn’t bother turning.

A floating scrap of barrier pylon from the earlier chaos intercepted it mid-air and drove it into the pavement hard enough to crater the ferrocrete.

I had no time to admire the efficiency.

The second hound came at me low and fast.

I snapped a chain out of my right palm, let it lengthen, and whipped it in a short arc that caught the beast around the throat.

The moment the links closed, I activated the binding tension and yanked.

The hound’s own momentum did the rest.

It flipped hard onto its back.

I stepped in, drove a second chain through the soft tissue under its jaw, and twisted until the static wreathing its body flickered and died.

The stone-plated ape roared and charged.

I met it head-on.

Fracture Step took me past the first sweeping arm.

The world blurred for a fraction of a second.

I reappeared at its flank and slammed both palms forward.

Chains erupted in a dense web, wrapping one leg, the opposite shoulder, the thick neck.

The ape tore the first two links like paper.

The third held long enough for me to plant my feet and pull.

It staggered.

Giselle’s telekinetic pressure hit it from the opposite side at the same instant, a precise lateral shove that stole its balance.

The ape went down on one knee.

I didn’t give it time to recover.

The memory of Draven’s gold line was still fresh, the angle, the economy, the absolute refusal to waste motion.

I didn’t have his power.

I didn’t have his rank.

But the principle was clear: one clean vector, maximum separation of vital structure.

’Why do I know it?’

I focused every available thread of mana into a single chain, compressed it until the links glowed a hard, pale gold instead of blue, and drew it horizontally through the space where the ape’s neck met its shoulders.

Slash.

The cut was nowhere near Draven’s.

It still worked.

Stone plate parted.

Flesh parted.

The ape’s head shifted a hand’s breadth from true, eyes already emptying, and the body collapsed in a final heap.

Blood darker than the previous bull’s spread across the plaza.

Silence held for half a second.

Giselle’s red eyes were wide behind her mask, fixed on the faintly smoking gold chain that was already dissolving from my hand.

Then a voice that was not the system, and not mine, spoke inside my skull with lazy, intimate satisfaction.

[That was easy.]

I froze.

The voice was female, low, amused, and carried the same texture the Pillow Talk description had promised.

It felt like someone had spoken with their lips almost touching the inside of my ear.

Giselle’s stance shifted; she had read the sudden change in my posture.

"Revien?"

Draven was already walking toward the fresh corpses, expression interested rather than concerned.

"Not bad," he called.

"Sloppy on the second hound, but the finishing cut on the big one was almost stylish. You’ve been practising without telling anyone."

[Feels good, doesn’t it?]

’You...’

[Nice to meet you, Revien]