Relying on his extraordinary speed, he chose evasion over resistance. In a single explosive burst of movement, he vanished from his current location, carrying Kiara with him, and reappeared several hundred meters away.
Then—BOOOOOMMMM!!!
The moment the beams struck the location where Mikael and Kiara had just been, their energies began to destabilize. The blue beams flickered and distorted for a fraction of a second before violently collapsing in on themselves—releasing their contained energy in a devastating wave. The resulting explosion didn't just create sound; it howled, like a storm given form, as a colossal sphere of white-and-blue energy surged outward in a directed blast.
But this wasn't some chaotic, uncontrolled detonation. No, this was something far more terrifying—it was precise. The energy did not scatter aimlessly in every direction. It expanded with surgical intent, forming a controlled blast that surged only toward Mikael's new location, sparing the inner wall and the dwarves stationed around it.
Seeing the oncoming wave of residual energy, Mikael didn't hesitate. He had already evaded the original beams—entities far faster and more focused than their leftover shockwave—so this follow-up? It was almost trivial.
With another blur of motion, he darted backward, gaining several more hundreds of meters in an instant. Now positioned at a safe distance, he watched with a calm, analyzing gaze as the glowing sphere continued to expand. It engulfed everything in its path—structures, homes, and unfortunate dwarves or human slaves in pitiful living conditions who happened to be stationed too close to the inner wall.
There was no distinction between the robust and the fragile. Solid stone buildings and living bodies alike were vaporized on contact, erased without resistance by the lingering wrath of the beams.
It took nearly a full minute for the explosion to finally dissipate. The blinding light gradually faded, revealing the scope of the devastation left behind. What had once been one of the wealthiest sectors of Morndural—a place adorned with luxurious stone-built homes and inhabited by some of the city's elite—was now reduced to a lifeless stretch of rubble and smoking debris. Nothing remained of its former glory, only ruins swallowed by silence.
Someone with a weaker will—or even a sliver of compassion—might have been horrified by the sheer scale of the destruction and the thousands of lives snuffed out in an instant. But Mikael didn't so much as flinch. His gaze, cold and focused, settled once more on the 'inner wall'. There, he could see dwarves staring down at the carnage with expressions frozen in horror.
Their attention clearly wasn't on him or Kiara anymore. In their minds, the intruders had perished. After all, Mikael and Kiara had been at the very heart of that colossal explosion—how could they possibly have survived such a catastrophic attack? To them, the answer was obvious: they were mere flesh and blood, insignificant in the face of advanced technological weaponry.
And that assumption served Mikael just fine. Their misplaced belief granted him a few precious moments of freedom from focused fire. Still, that wasn't what concerned him the most. No, what truly drew his attention were the white-and-blue cannons—the ones responsible for unleashing the devastating beams just moments earlier.
Those weapons were the real danger.
Other defensive systems only gradually depleted his aura reserves, giving him time to react. But these cannons… these were different. The beams they fired were on a completely different level—so powerful that, had he failed to evade in time, he genuinely didn't know if he would've escaped unharmed… or escaped at all.
That thought alone made his next course of action obvious. Ignoring the dwarves, who were still paralyzed by the scale of the destruction, Mikael locked his gaze onto the barrels of the cannons. There, he noticed something critical: the once white-and-blue barrels had turned a deep, glowing orange—a clear sign of overheating. Moreover, they weren't charging up for a second salvo.
That was his window.
"Hold on, we break through now!" he shouted to Kiara, not bothering to wait for a response. In the very next instant, he moved.
Like a shimmering mirage, he crossed the hundreds of meters separating him from the wall in a flash. As soon as he arrived, he resumed his assault without pause, activating Blade Tempest and slashing at the structure with renewed ferocity.
A second passed before the dwarves finally registered what had happened.
"No way… how are they still alive?" one of them stammered in disbelief.
"HOW are they alive?! They were in the middle of a bombardment from multiple Arc-12 Helios Drivers! No one survives that!"
"Wait… does that mean we just bombarded our own city for nothing?" The despairing tone of the dwarf who asked the question cast a heavy silence over the defenders—one that was broken only by the rhythmic sound of metal crashing against metal, as Mikael continued to tear into the wall, utterly unmoved by their reactions.
Of course, Mikael wasn't entirely ignored. The automated defense turrets installed along the inner wall quickly activated, opening fire on him. But they were simply too slow to make a meaningful impact. Their rate of fire and targeting systems weren't enough, they barely managed to chip away at his aura reserves. Worse for the defenders, the dwarves themselves had taken several seconds to recover from their shock before joining the attack.
And so, by the time Mikael's aura reserves had dropped to 54%, the inner wall was finally breached. Without wasting a single heartbeat, Mikael plunged through the gap.
On the other side, he and Kiara found themselves in a city that, while sharing similarities with the one beyond the wall, had key differences. The most striking among them was its structure: this inner city was built entirely into the mountainside. The open sky they had left behind had been replaced by a vast, uneven ceiling of solid rock overhead, casting the whole area in a dim, cavernous atmosphere.
But that wasn't the only distinction.
Another major difference was the quality and appearance of the buildings themselves. Whether they were grand residences or functional structures, every one of them appeared far more luxurious—ornate and polished in design—and also notably more technologically sophisticated. Smooth stone integrated with glowing circuits, metallic panels, and precise engravings formed a seamless blend of dwarven tradition and modern innovation.
Their quick scan of the environment was interrupted by a chorus of horrified screams. The well-dressed dwarves—adorned in elegant fabrics and jewelry—who had been curiously observing the tremors near the wall, suddenly erupted in panic. As they witnessed the inner wall be breached and two human figures emerge from the breach, their fascination turned instantly to terror.
Chaos broke out.
The wealthy dwarves began to flee in all directions, their polished shoes clicking frantically against the smooth pavement, accompanying them were the occasional human slaves either with chains around their necks or their limbs, dressed in ragged clothings.
While this was happening guards began to emerge from between buildings and alleyways, sprinting toward Mikael and Kiara with swords and pistols drawn. At the same time, the inner city's defense systems activated in full. Dozens of mechanical nodes and turrets pivoted sharply, their sensors aligning with inhuman speed as they locked onto the intruders.
Yet Mikael and Kiara paid no attention to the spreading panic, nor to the defenders now mobilizing around them. Their attention was wholly fixed on the towering rocky palace at the far end of the city—a massive structure fused directly into the mountain's heart, its presence dominating the entire horizon like a sleeping colossus.
They exchanged a glance. Kiara's voice cut through the chaos.
"The palace! We go with Plan A?"
"For now, yes!" Mikael answered, nodding sharply.
Without further hesitation, Mikael accelerated toward the palace. His movement was so impossibly fast that the approaching guards couldn't even react before he was already soaring high above them.
The city's defense systems, however, responded with ruthless precision. The instant Mikael began his rapid flight, they initiated a full-scale countermeasure, wasting no time.
Hidden compartments embedded in the rocky ceiling, along the flanks of towering mansions, and even within decorative statues shifted and split open. Sleek, mechanical turrets extended outward with smooth, practiced precision, as if the city had rehearsed this moment countless times. In seconds, dozens of targeting systems had locked onto both Mikael and Kiara, their weapons honed with the precision expected of a stronghold meant to protect the ruling elite.
Blazing energy projectiles screamed through the air, each one designed to detonate mid-flight rather than on contact. Some burned with scorching heat, others shimmered with freezing particles, and a few pulsed with raw concussive force—but none were allowed to strike the ground. Every shot was expertly calibrated to explode at the perfect height, ensuring the panicked dwarves below, scrambling to escape, remained completely unharmed.
But it didn't matter.
Mikael cut through the sky like a streak of lightning, his velocity turning the world below into little more than a smear of blurred shapes and color. When a blazing bolt of heat ignited in his path, he slipped beneath it with unflinching ease. A wave of cryogenic missiles arced toward him from the side—he rolled through a narrow opening, letting them crash behind him in a spectacular frost-laced detonation.
It was as if time itself had slowed to accommodate him. Every motion he made, every turn and twist of his body, felt so precise it bordered on instinct. Explosions lit up the sky around him, painting the cavernous ceiling with chaotic bursts of color and sound—yet none managed to even graze him.
And so, his flight continued, unimpeded. No matter how many systems the city deployed, none could stop him. The distance between him and the palace shrank rapidly. What had once felt distant was now directly in front of him.
Another cluster of projectiles barreled his way. Mikael banked hard to the side, then dove straight toward the palace. In that instant, he was met by the familiar blaze of white and blue beams, their radiant light flashing with lethal intensity. But Mikael had expected the palace to be strongly defended. With a sharp turn, he narrowly avoided the incoming fire, which detonated behind him in a massive explosion that lit up the sky—but left him entirely unharmed.
Within the blink of an eye, he reached the palace gates. Towering golden doors stood closed, their polished surfaces gleaming under the distorted light of the energy blasts. A quick glance told him what he needed to know—cutting through them in an instant wouldn't be possible.
But did he need to?
After all, while the main gates were clearly reinforced to the extreme... the decorative windows around them likely weren't given the same treatment, were they?
"Slash"
With an aura-infused strike of his swords, Mikael carved through one of the ornate windows. Ignoring the startled screams of the nearby guards, he slipped through the now-shattered opening and entered the palace. The overwhelming opulence of the interior struck him instantly—but he paid it no mind, accelerating forward at incredible speed in search of his target.
He moved like a phantom through the gilded halls, his figure nothing more than a blur to the unsuspecting guards. They were far too slow to react, and since he was now inside the palace, no defensive turrets or automated weapons fired at him—likely out of fear of harming someone important.
And so, this strange situation unfolded: Mikael and Kiara infiltrated the palace with barely any resistance. Navigating the extravagant corridors with a mix of instinct and speed, they soon found themselves before a grand double door that stood wide open, leading directly into the throne room.
Without a word, Kiara plucked a silent note from the air. The two guards flanking the doorway collapsed in an instant, their small forms crumpling to the floor with a soft thud—muffled by the sound of raised voices and frantic shouting echoing from within.
"Thud."
Kiara's feet touched the floor gently as she reluctantly letting go, landed beside Mikael. The two of them stepped forward in unison, crossing the threshold into the throne room.
Author Note:
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