Chapter 652: Vanquished by the Light of God

Her voice cracked as she spoke, the words tumbling out faster than she could control them. "We did nothing wrong! All these test subjects, every last one of them, willingly chose this fate. We had agreements, signed and sealed. They knew the risks and they accepted the terms. You cannot simply walk in here and declare judgment like some s-s-self-appointed god!"

For a moment the six of them stood frozen, staring at the naked blade in my hand.

Then the truth settled over them like a heavy cloak, and they began to mumble among themselves: short, broken phrases about contracts, the Company’s protection, about how some elf should never have been able to reach this deep.

The muttering grew louder, more frantic, until the hunched man cut it short with a single sharp click of his tongue.

"Tsk. Very well." He lifted a thin finger and pressed it against the side of his head, the gesture of someone activating a mental communication. "I shall contact reinforcement and have this insect removed before he makes a greater mess of—"

He stopped.

His eyes, half-lidded a moment before, opened a fraction wider. "...Hm. Interesting."

One of the officials, a younger man whose face had gone the color of old milk, shouted across the space between them. "Wh-What?! What happened? Why have you stopped? Call them! Call them now!"

The hunched man turned toward his colleague with a face that had suddenly aged another ten years. The arrogance had drained out of it, leaving only a tired and depressed expression.

"Some... great power is suppressing all forms of long-range magic in these parts," he said slowly. "A complete blackout on teleportation and mental communication. Perhaps someone is trying to keep their own illegal activity hidden... but whatever the reason, it works to our severe disadvantage. No one outside this building can hear us or reach us."

"...Eh...?" The aged woman’s eyes widened until the whites showed all around the irises. "A... And wh-what does this mean? Speak plainly!"

He turned his head toward me one last time and let out a long, quiet sigh that seemed to empty him of whatever hope he had left.

"It means we are... going to die now."

That single sentence was all the cue I needed.

Rage moved through me like a living thing.

It simply filled every vessel, muscle, and inch of my bone until my vision sharpened and the world slowed. I crossed the distance between us in a single step that left no sound on the stone.

"Eep—!"

The cry came from every throat at once as they watched their leader’s face part cleanly down the middle.

From the back of his skull to the tip of his long nose the katana’s holy light had carved a perfect line, as his eyes blinked faster.

The two halves of his head remained balanced for a heartbeat, then slid apart and fell in opposite directions. The body crumpled after them, still upright for a moment as if it had not yet realized it was dead.

Cries for bribes, for mercy, for contracts and gold and rank rose in a tangled chorus.

I ignored every one of them. The katana moved again: a single, wide arc of pale light that swept through the remaining five officials as though they were nothing more solid than morning mist.

Bodies and limbs separated without resistance. Blood had not even begun to spray before the last of them hit the floor.

I turned my attention to the twenty workers scattered throughout the chamber.

Some of them had already snatched up weapons: short blades, staves still crackling with residual energy, even a heavy iron wrench from one of the workbenches.

They formed a loose, trembling line and faced me with the desperate courage of people who knew they were probably already dead.

A few others never looked up at all. Their eyes were empty, their hands still moving through the same repetitive tasks they had been performing when I entered — adjusting gauges, wiping glass, noting characters on stained parchment.

They worked with the dead-eyed focus of people who had long ago decided that nothing outside their immediate task could matter.

I moved.

The Light of God flooded every vessel in my body, pouring through muscle and bone until my skin itself seemed to glow from within.

The katana became an extension of that light. It passed through skulls, through chests, through spines and torsos the way a heated blade passes through snow — clean, effortless, leaving only the soft sound of parting flesh and the heavier sound of bodies collapsing.

The workers who had continued their tasks finally glanced up. They looked first at the spreading pools of blood, then at the sprawling arrays of limbs and organs that had once been their colleagues, then down at their own hands still holding tools.

One young man, no older than twenty, met my eyes. The light of life was already gone from his gaze; only a flat acceptance remained.

"Do what you must," he muttered, voice barely louder than a breath. "Hurry up."

I nodded sharply.

Another movement, faster than a normal eye could follow, and the remaining heads left their shoulders.

Blood arced through the air and struck the tall cylindrical glasses, the crystal formations, the delicate brass instruments. Wherever the hot blood touched metal or glass it hissed and steamed, the sound sharp and wet in the sudden silence.

I looked around the chamber more carefully now.

People hung frozen in positions of endless suffering — experiments that had gone wrong and been left that way.

Chaotic energy still ran through their cells, twisting muscle and bone into shapes that should not have been possible, yet some force kept them alive, breathing, and... disturbingly aware.

Their eyes tracked me as I passed. Their mouths opened and closed without sound. The researchers who had maintained these living failures had never once looked at the faces; the suffering had been irrelevant to the data.

I took a stance in the center of the floor.

The katana began to glow with a bright, pale golden light that pushed back the dimness of the lair, flooding every corner, every blood-slick table, every glass cylinder, until the entire chamber stood revealed in merciless clarity.