The circle of silver-gold steel was closing in as the Paladins pressed their advantage with relentless force. However, a few of the senior Paladins had kept their eyes locked on Lorian ever since he had vaulted back onto the stage. They had watched him summon the dazzling light that had temporarily blinded them, and they had heard him manipulate the Valorian Guard below. Now, they were listening to him dictate his troops' movements, miraculously exposing every Paladin's weakness to the Veridians and whittling down their numbers slowly but steadily.
They realized with sudden, chilling clarity- this man was no mere infantry soldier. He was the tactical anchor holding the Veridians together- either a high-ranking official or the chief strategist of the Veridian Army. He was the head of the snake, and if they killed the head, the snake would die.
With a feral roar, a high-ranking Paladin shattered the front line. Bypassing the cracked shields of the Throne Guards entirely, he used a stone bench as a launching pad and leaped high into the air. His heavy claymore was raised over his head, its edge sparkling in the morning sun, its sharp tip aimed to descend with the full force of his weight and lodge the massive blade straight into Lorian's chest.
Lorian, however, was oblivious to the imminent danger, entirely consumed by feeding his men information about the enemies' vulnerabilities. Caught in the middle of shouting another tactical order to Kaelen, he noticed the looming shadow too late. His eyes widened as the armored knight plummeted toward him.
But he never felt the steel.
From right behind him, a small, petite figure lunged forward with explosive, desperate speed. Before Lorian could even register the movement, slender hands slammed into his shoulder, violently pushing him out of the trajectory.
Strreelt-
It was a sickening sound. The Paladin's claymore descended with brutal momentum, burying its heavy blade deep into the torso of the cloaked figure.
The hood flew back. Bright, silver-gold hair spilled across the blood-slicked marble, and a choked, breathless feminine gasp escaped her lips.
"Selena!" Lorian's voice tore from his throat- a raw, horrified cry that shattered the ruckus of battle.
The name echoed like a thunderclap across the Grand Plaza. Selena. The word seemed to physically freeze the battlefield. For one fraction of a second, blades stopped mid-swing. The Paladins stared in absolute, paralyzing disbelief at the girl impaled on the claymore. Below the stage, the Valorian city guards gasped, the shields slipping from some of their hands. The truth crashed down upon everyone in the plaza like a tidal wave: the Princess had been here the entire time, hidden in plain sight under a Veridian cloak.
And a Paladin had just driven a sword through her.
On the High Stage, Queen Serana Stormhold stared at her daughter's bleeding form. For weeks, she had endured the silent coup, the humiliation of the trial, and the agonizing dread that her child was being tortured and her life was in danger. Now, she saw her. Selena was alive. She had come back.
And she was fatally wounded right before her eyes.
Something inside the Queen broke. The royal, stoic Lady Justice of Valoria vanished, and in her place, an ancient, sleeping terror awoke.
Serana unleashed a bestial howl that wasn't human- a primal, ear-splitting scream of pure matriarchal rage that rattled the very foundations of the stage. She violently wrenched her arms apart, snapping her iron handcuffs as if they were made of silk ribbon. Grand Justicar Malakar froze in his tracks, realizing he was no longer witnessing a captive queen, but the number-one warrior of Valoria, a woman who had solidified her claim to the throne through unmatched martial prowess.
Fueled by the berserk madness of an enraged mother, the legendary Battlemaiden became a demon.
Serana lunged at the Paladin standing beside her- the one who had been trying to force her to sign the letter of abdication. In a violent fury, she grabbed his helmeted head with her bare hands and crushed it like a ripe melon. Blood and gore splattered across her face, making her appearance profoundly vicious. Letting his lifeless body drop, she seized a discarded halberd from the floor and swung it with such monstrous, terrifying velocity that it sheared clean through another nearby Paladin's heavy iron gauntlets, severing his arms at the elbows before the blade buried itself deep into his neck, nearly decapitating him.
The other Paladins recoiled in sudden, absolute horror, but there was no escape. Serana had become a whirlwind of destruction, tearing through their ranks like a wolf through sheep. A senior knight raised his heavy tower shield to block her, but Serana slammed her boot into the shield with such supernatural force that the metal buckled inward, crushing the man's ribcage beneath it and throwing him coughing blood across the floor.
Whirling like someone possessed by a vicious fiend, she struck with terrifying, lightning-fast savagery. She ripped swords from dying hands, driving them through visor-slits, fracturing breastplates with her bare gauntlets, and tearing through full-plate armor as if it were nothing but wet paper. The white marble stage became an absolute slaughterhouse, splattered with the gore and entrails of the holy order as they dropped like flies before her unhinged wrath.
A feeling of doom, a grim hopelessness settled over the remaining Paladins. Their morale didn't just deplete; it evaporated. To them, they were no longer fighting a mortal queen; they were facing the vengeful ghost of the ancient Battlemaiden, a legendary force they had been raised to revere and fear. They couldn't even raise their shields to hold her back. Their arms trembled and their hearts failed them as the once-proud beacon of their kingdom's military might slaughtered them like cattle.
The remaining Paladins were entirely trapped. In front of them, the Throne Guards, Jax, and Zara stood like an unbreakable barrier, refusing to let a single man advance or flee. Behind them, the berserk Queen Serana hunted them with demonic, unrelenting fury, painting the stage completely red in the morning light.
However, behind the Veridian line, the scene was completely different.
Lorian was on his knees, holding Selena's convulsing body. He had secretly given her a reinforced armor vest to wear beneath her dress before the trial, anticipating a betrayal. While the Paladin's heavy claymore had failed to penetrate the high-grade metal fully, the catastrophic kinetic shockwave of the leap had ruptured her internal organs and triggered massive internal bleeding.
Stupefied and horrified, Lorian completely forgot that he was in the middle of a warzone. The Paladin who had attacked Lorian was initially puzzled by the strange resistance of her hidden armor, quickly regained his senses. He wrenched his claymore free and hoisted the heavy steel once more, aiming to kill both the boy and the girl in one final, crushing blow.
But Lorian's mind was gone. He was entirely focused on trying to stop the blood flow gashing from Selena's ribs, completely blind to the sharp, heavy steel descending speedily upon his own skull.