Chapter 176: Chapter 176: The Thing He Feared I
"Even when his own son held it, he feared him."
James’s hand tightened on the sword grip. His eyes flicked once toward Alice, half a breath spent on a line he didn’t have time to understand yet, and then he forced himself back into his body and the fight going on inside it.
Alice moved the second he slowed.
She crossed the throne room with her wings half-spread and struck Marcus first, one wing coming around like a black blade. He got his sword up in time, but the impact still drove him back across the marble in a hard slide. Finn swung in from the side for her ribs, and her tail hooked the axe shaft mid-swing and twisted the blow straight down into the floor.
CRACK.
Saoirse cut across the wing joint in the gap that left, a shallow line, red beading along the black feathers.
[ALICE — HP: 101,420/102,000 → 101,180/102,000]
James saw the number barely move and understood the gap without needing to say it out loud.
He stepped into the midline with his sword drawn, not behind Marcus, not behind anyone. Camillia took his right. The Python slid low across the marble on his left. The wolf circled ahead, body flat to the ground.
Alice sent the living thralls forward, and the fight became two fights at once.
The naked men under her spell threw themselves into the paths of every strike, grabbed at sword arms, rushed at Maeve, stumbled into killing lines at the worst possible second.
James checked one before he touched it with anything.
[THRALL — LIVING]
[STATUS: DESIRE DRAIN]
[HOSTILE CONTROL: ACTIVE]
He used the sword first. One man grabbed his sleeve and James turned his shoulder, cut behind the knee, and dropped him instead of opening his chest. Another reached for his throat and got the flat of the blade across the wrist for it.
[SWORDSMANSHIP (E) EFFECT ACTIVE]
[WEAK POINT STRIKE]
The cuts disabled. They didn’t kill. That was the whole discipline of it.
The air thickened as Alice’s authority pressed harder, the perfume in it turning heavy enough to taste, and a veteran near the back let his weapon dip without seeming to notice.
Maeve pressed her fingers to her own circlet and forced holy light out ahead of the drift.
[MAEVE CALLAHAN — RADIANT FIELD: PURIFY PULSE]
[APOSTLE’S RADIANT CIRCLET RESPONDING]
[LUST AUTHORITY RESISTANCE STABILIZED]
[MENTAL INTERFERENCE RESISTANCE STABILIZED]
[PARTY AURA: +15% MAX HP ACTIVE]
Alice noticed it and changed targets.
More living thralls broke for Maeve’s side of the line, forcing Declan to plant his shield square and James to split his attention across two fronts at once. He raised his hand and sent bone up out of the marble.
[SUMMON UNDEAD SKELETON ACTIVATED]
[MANA: 1,720/1,740 → 1,675/1,740]
The skeletons weren’t there to kill. They grabbed legs, took claws meant for Maeve, and got torn apart buying her room to breathe. That was all they were for, and it was enough.
Marcus tried to break through while Alice’s attention split.
He chained three heavy strikes into her wing guard, the first turning her shoulder, the second opening her stance, and the third should have landed clean in her chest — but a living thrall stumbled into the line at the last instant, and Marcus killed his own strike rather than take a civilian’s head off with it.
Alice punished the hesitation with a claw across his chest.
[MARCUS HALE — HP: 16,800/16,800 → 14,920/16,800]
Finn used the gap Marcus’s third strike had opened and swung low for her knee. Alice lifted with one wingbeat and let the axe crash into the marble instead, and her tail came around and cracked across his ribs hard enough to send him sliding into a pillar.
He got back up. Maeve’s earlier healing held him together enough for that. His ribs still ached where the tail had caught them, and he reset his stance a half-second slower than before.
Saoirse moved before Alice fully reset from the tail-strike.
She cut across Alice’s back, drew another shallow line, and pivoted clear before the counter arrived. Alice caught her wrist between two fingers instead and flung her toward the crowd of living thralls rather than into a wall.
Saoirse twisted midair, refusing to land blade-first into anyone who hadn’t earned it, and hit the marble in a hard roll instead.
[ALICE — HP: 101,180/102,000 → 100,830/102,000]
James sent the Python low while her attention was split three ways.
It coiled once around her ankle. She stepped down and pinned it flat under one bare foot, and cracks spread along its scales under the pressure.
[ABYSSAL VENOM PYTHON — BINDING COIL ATTEMPTED]
[TARGET RESISTED]
[ABYSSAL VENOM PYTHON — HP: 8,840/9,500 → 7,680/9,500]
James felt the strain arrive through the bond, a dull weight behind his own ribs, and used the half-second she spent standing on it.
He cut a thrall’s wrist clear, ducked under a claw from a body already halfway transformed, and fired.
[NECRO BLAST ACTIVATED]
[MANA: 1,675/1,740 → 1,665/1,740]
[INCUBUS THRALL — HP: 8,400/8,400 → 7,680/8,400]
Alice deepened the drain because the raid kept refusing to kill the living.
[DESIRE DRAIN DEEPENED]
More veins darkened. More nails split into claws. Half-formed wings tore wet through more backs, and eyes turned from glassy to burning red-gold one by one down the line.
[INCUBUS THRALL — LEVEL 54]
[STATUS: DESIRE-DRAINED HOST]
The moment the System marked them, James stopped treating them like victims.
"Camillia. Kill the changed ones."
The Dark Knight’s blade turned edge-forward and cut down the first Incubus Thrall rushing Maeve in one clean pass. James used the corpse the second it hit the floor.
[CORPSE EXPLOSION ACTIVATED]
[MANA: 1,665/1,740 → 1,635/1,740]
BOOM.
The blast threw the living thralls back from Maeve’s flank and shredded two more transformed bodies near the center. Declan reset his shield in the gap it bought. Maeve breathed once, and her circlet’s light flickered thin at the edge before steadying.
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