Chapter 120: Chapter 120: Break The Cross II
Up close, the cross was worse than it looked from the square.
It wasn’t mounted on the shrine. It was grown through it — black-red material run through the stone like root through soil, and under its surface things moved. Veins. Slow pulses travelling its length, and every pulse that left the cross arrived a half-second later under the Dark Knight’s armor in the square below.
"Maeve!" James called. "Brand it!"
"It’s at my limit—" Her voice cracked across the distance, and then the brand came anyway, a thread of orange light stretched thin across the whole square, and it touched the base of the cross for one second.
One second was enough.
[HEXLIGHT BRAND APPLIED] [SUCCUBUS CROSS ANCHOR EXPOSED]
A point at the cross’s base lit up — a joint where the black-red material entered the stone, thinner than the rest.
James put a Necro Blast into it from three meters.
[NECRO BLAST ACTIVATED] [MANA: 1,360/1,420 → 1,330/1,420] [SUCCUBUS CROSS ANCHOR DAMAGED]
Down in the square, Cillian saw the glow on the shrine and understood without being told. He waited for Ronan’s next block, used the half-second of stillness, and fired long — a single bolt over the boss’s shoulder, across the square, into the same lit point.
CRACK.
[CILLIAN WARD — LIGHTNING IMPACT] [SUCCUBUS CROSS ANCHOR DAMAGED]
"Finn," James said.
Finn was already swinging.
THUNK.
The axe bit into the anchor point and the cross split down one side, a crack running shoulder-height to base, leaking red-black light like heat off a wound.
[SUCCUBUS CROSS ANCHOR CRACKED] [ARMOR REGENERATION INTERRUPTED] [DARK KNIGHT OF THE SUCCUBUS CROSS — DEFENSE REDUCED]
In the square, the Dark Knight staggered.
Mid-swing, for no reason Ronan could see, its lead leg buckled a degree and the blow that should have caved his shield in glanced off the rim instead.
[TRBWatcher]: Cross damage just weakened the boss. Direct link confirmed.
[RaidStatsGuy]: Regeneration INTERRUPTED.
[GuildScout_EU]: They found it. They actually found it.
[Anonymous donated €25,000]: BREAK IT.
The cross retaliated.
The cracked side flared, and everything near the shrine went violent at once. The loose lines on the steps snapped taut. Three of them caught Finn’s axe arm at the wrist and elbow and hauled it back mid-backswing. Two more whipped around James’s leg and dragged it knee-deep into mud that had been solid a second ago. On the base, the hooks in the python doubled, stabbing deeper between the scales.
[CORRUPTION SURGE DETECTED] [PURIFY FIELD STRAIN INCREASED] [ABYSSAL VENOM PYTHON — HP: 4,280/9,500 → 3,610/9,500]
And in the square, the boss surged with it.
It came off its stagger swinging with both hands, and the blow landed on Ronan like a falling wall.
BOOM.
[DARK KNIGHT OF THE SUCCUBUS CROSS — DESPERATION STRIKE] [RONAN CLEARY — HP: 1,960/2,600 → 880/2,600] [SHIELD DURABILITY CRITICAL]
Ronan went down to one knee. The shield stayed up. His arm behind it was not entirely his own anymore.
Maeve had a half-second to choose: pull the field back to the square and save Ronan, or hold the stretch and keep James and Finn alive at the cross.
She held the stretch.
"Cillian!" she shouted. "He’s yours!"
Cillian didn’t hesitate. He dumped everything he had left into one overcharged bolt and put it into the Dark Knight’s sword arm as the blade rose over Ronan’s head.
CRACK-OOM.
[CILLIAN WARD — OVERCHARGED INTERRUPT] [DARK KNIGHT ATTACK DELAYED] [CILLIAN WARD — MANA STRAIN DETECTED]
The arm stalled. One second. Ronan used it to get his feet back under him.
"Finish it!" Maeve screamed toward the shrine. "I can’t hold this!"
James cut his own leg free first — one stroke through both lines — then turned the sword on the mark binding Finn’s arm and burned it with a Necro Blast at point-blank.
[MANA: 1,330/1,420 → 1,300/1,420]
The lines on Finn’s wrist slackened. He tore his arm loose through the rest.
"Again," James said. "Same point. Everything."
The python heard it through the contract and crushed. The shrine base shattered along the coil and the whole structure tilted forward, the cracked cross leaning out over the steps, anchor point exposed to the open air.
Cillian’s last bolt came across the square and hit the crack.
Maeve’s brand landed on it a half-breath later — the final stable pulse the circlet had in it.
[HEXLIGHT BRAND APPLIED]
Everything lined up.
Finn planted his back foot, turned his hips, and swung from the ground up with both hands and everything left in his arms.
CRACK.
The axe went through.
The Succubus Cross split down the center, top to base. Red-black light burst out of the wound in a sheet — then folded inward on itself, collapsing like a flame with its air cut off, and went out.
[SUCCUBUS CROSS ANCHOR DESTROYED] [ARMOR REGENERATION DISABLED] [DARK KNIGHT OF THE SUCCUBUS CROSS — BOSS LINK SEVERED] [CORRUPTION FIELD WEAKENED] [PURIFY FIELD STABILIZING]
The village died around them.
The red marks in the mud went dark in a wave, square to outskirts, one row after another like lights going off down a street. The shapes in the doorways stopped. The hooks in the python dissolved. The weight that had been leaning on Maeve’s field since the helm formed lifted, and her field, suddenly pushing against nothing, flared bright and steadied.
[TRBWatcher]: ANCHOR DESTROYED.
[RaidStatsGuy]: Regeneration disabled. It’s mortal now.
[GuildScout_EU]: They can kill it. They can actually kill it.
[LondonTowerWatch]: Team Zero just broke the floor mechanic on a live stream.
[Anonymous donated €50,000]: FINISH IT.
The Dark Knight stopped moving.
For one second the square was completely silent. No bell. No lines. No pulse.
The black helm turned — away from Ronan, away from all of them — toward the shrine. Toward the split, dead thing hanging off its broken base.
It looked at the cross for a long moment.
The glow inside its armor flickered. The crack Team Zero had opened in its shoulder, the one the shrine had sealed, was open again — and staying open. Something black welled up through the joint and ran down the plate in a thin line.
It did not collapse.
It turned back.
The sword in its hand began to burn — a low red flame crawling up the blade from the grip, the last of the Cross’s light with nowhere left to live but the weapon.
Maeve straightened, field steady and almost empty behind it. Ronan stood up off his knee behind a shield that had one more fight in it at most. Cillian’s lightning flickered uneven around his fists. Finn stood by the broken cross with blood running down one arm and his axe lowered, getting his breath back. James pulled the python off the collapsing shrine base and brought it back to his side, wounded, hood spread, still in the fight.
The cross was gone.
The healing was gone.
And for the first time since the fight began, the Dark Knight could bleed.
