Chapter 404: The War of Attrition
When Pride's greatsword descended, the golden radiance saturated nearly every
coordinate of the Time-Space Domain.
Sophia pivoted. The blade-wave roared past her right flank, severing half of her
sleeve. She counter-struck with her right palm, a 100x Accelerated Strike
impacting Pride's chest head-on.
The sound of structural failure was high-definition.
Pride's sternum collapsed inward; his spine fractured into three discrete
segments. His frame was propelled backward, tumbling twice through the void
before impacting the floor with a terminal thud.
His soul-fire went offline.
The golden circuits faded from his bones, and the newly manifested energy arm
dissipated into static. Pride's skeleton lay motionless, appearing as nothing
more than biological scrap.
Sophia didn't have time to process a recovery cycle.
Skele-Wrath had already closed the distance.
The skeleton, wreathed in dark red flames, discarded all tactical caution. His
left fist slammed forward; Sophia braced her arm to parry, her limb hitting a
"Numbness" threshold from the impact. Wrath followed with a right hook. Sophia
tilted her head to dodge, but the shockwave grazed her temple, causing a "Stun"
effect in her processors.
She pushed off the floor, retreating five meters and deploying a Temporal
Deceleration Zone.
Wrath's velocity plummeted.
Sophia raised her hand, manifesting three consecutive Accelerated Strikes. All
three impacted Wrath's torso. Strike 1: Ribs shattered. Strike 2: Spinal column
severed. Strike 3: Cranium blasted from the cervical vertebrae.
Wrath's soul-fire also went offline.
Two units liquidated.
Avarice and Lust were still accumulating mana in the distance. Greed was
currently in "Stealth Mode," his coordinates unknown.
Sophia prepared to pivot and process the remaining targets when her peripheral
vision flagged a Logic Error.
Pride's skeleton was moving.
The "Scrap" was undergoing a Self-Reassembly Protocol. His sternum realigned;
his spinal segments fused back together. A faint white light enveloped the
fractures, accelerating the healing process.
Duration: 3 seconds.
Pride stood back up. His soul-fire reignited—blue, dimmer than before, but
undeniably active.
Sophia's gait faltered. She looked toward Wrath.
Confirmed.
Wrath's cranium was drifting back to his neck. Shards of bone rose from the
floor, slotting back into their original coordinates and fusing.
Duration: 5 seconds.
Wrath stood up, rattled his newly restored ribs, and wreathed himself in crimson
flames once more.
"Incapable of liquidation?" Sophia's brow furrowed.
Her strikes had been high-tier temporal attacks. The kinetic force alone should
have shattered the soul-to-vessel binding of a Tier-6 undead. Under standard
laws, their link should have been severed permanently.
Yet, they manifested a "Reboot."
Sophia's processors ran a search for half a second.
[AUTHORITY: SOVEREIGN OF THE UNDEAD]
The term manifested in her mind. Kaito's core Authority: Architect Undead.
Resurrect Undead. Fortify Undead. She had audited this description during her
reconnaissance but hadn't prioritized the variable.
Now, she was witnessing the implementation.
"Testing logic," she murmured.
Sophia shifted her methodology. She ceased using physical trauma. Instead, she
condensed temporal Od at her fingertips, manifesting an invisible blade designed
to cut the Soul-Signature directly.
She blurred to Avarice's flank, her fingers forming a claw that pierced into his
thoracic cavity.
She injected Temporal Od.
Avarice's frame locked up. His spatial rifts underwent a total collapse. His
soul-fire pulsed violently three times before—
Offline.
Avarice fell. Sophia withdrew her hand and retreated, auditing the corpse.
One second. Two seconds. Three. Four.
At the fifth second, Avarice's bones began to vibrate. Soul-fire sparked in the
depths of the skull, weak at first but stabilizing rapidly.
Sophia's eyes narrowed to needle-points.
Soul-tier destruction is also sub-optimal?
She audited the battlefield. Pride was back in a combat stance, greatsword held
level. Wrath was testing his joints, the sound of clicking bone echoing through
the void.
"..."
Sophia finally grasped the horror of the Sovereign's Authority. This wasn't a
simple "Resurrection Spell." It was a World Protocol.
As long as the King exists, the Subjects cannot be liquidated.
It sounded like a poetic slogan, but in this domain, it was an iron-clad law
that rewrote the win-conditions. She couldn't kill them. No matter the frequency
of her strikes, they would simply re-initialize.
Sophia took a deep breath, the sand in her hourglass spinning at a manic rate.
"Recalibrating strategy."
She ceased using temporal energy for offensive strikes. Instead, she initiated a
"Diving Protocol."
Deep. Into the soul-structures of the Sins.
She was hunting for the Mark.
When Kaito architected or resurrected an Undead, he left a soul-imprint. It was
the anchor for his Authority—the high-speed channel between the Master and the
Subject. It was the foundation of the "King's Guard" protocol.
If she could manually excise that mark, the Sin would be disconnected from the
Sovereign's server.
No link meant no resurrection. No resurrection meant she could finalize the
liquidation.
A cold smile touched Sophia's lips.
Complete Authority vs. Fragmented Projections.
This was no longer an equal duel. Her Temporal Authority was a "Full Version."
Kaito's link to his Sins was merely a projection—a layer of outsourced
protection.
Theoretically, a Primary Pillar could erase a Fragmented Projection with
absolute ease.
She couldn't kill Kaito yet; he was hard-wired into the Planar Core. As long as
the plane existed, his sequence would persist. But the Generals were not Kaito.
They were merely dependent variables.
Sophia ceased the skirmish. She transformed into a golden blur, pushing her
velocity to the terminal limit. As she swept past each Sin, she executed a
"Digital Hook" on their soul.
It wasn't a strike. It was a Rewrite.
Temporal Od seeped through the soul-fissures, localized Kaito's mark, and began
the erosion protocol.
Pride was the first to detect the anomaly. His soul-fire pulsed erratically. A
sense of profound "Emptiness" surged from his core. It felt as if a fundamental
piece of his architecture was being bleached away.
"What is she doing...?" Pride looked down at his own ribs.
Greed's voice manifested from a coordinate in the void.
"She is liquidating our Marks."
Pride looked up. Greed had emerged from the shadows, his crimson pupils auditing
Sophia's path. His tone was flat, as if describing a routine inventory check.
"The Sovereign's imprint. She is using the Authority of Time to erode the link.
If she succeeds in the excise-protocol, we will be disconnected from the King's
logic."
"And the result of a disconnection?"
"Death remains terminal," Greed said. "We will not rise again."
Wrath bared his teeth in a savage grin. "Then we're basically trash data, huh?"
"Confirmed," Greed nodded.
"THEN WHY ARE YOU SO CALM?!" Wrath roared. "DO SOMETHING!"