The war room became a miniature sun. Twenty legionnaire-grade plasma rifles, the pinnacle of the Pale Hand's infantry weaponry, unleashed a concentrated volley. The temperature in the room flashed to several thousand degrees. The reinforced tactical table at the center of the room vaporized instantly. The holographic displays shattered into a rain of molten glass.
Archon Kael, shielded behind a pop-up barricade of solid tungsten, felt the heat wash over him, a dry, scorching wave. It was enough firepower to turn a tank into a puddle of slag. No living thing could survive it. It was absolute overkill, a definitive statement of his military might.
The firing stopped. The air shimmered and crackled with residual heat. The twenty legionnaires stood in a semi-circle, their rifles smoking, their expressions grim and confident.
Through the haze, a figure remained standing.
Ravi hadn't moved an inch. His simple black uniform was untouched, not even singed. The storm of plasma had parted around his body, flowing past him to wreak havoc on the room behind him. He stood in a small, perfect circle of calm amidst a sea of utter destruction.
He looked at the melted walls and the stunned faces of the legionnaires, and he sighed. It was the soft, weary sigh of someone who had repeatedly explained a simple concept to a child who refused to understand.
"A flawed tactic," he said, his voice cutting through the ringing silence. "You are attempting to solve a differential equation with simple arithmetic. The tools are incorrect for the problem."
Before any of the legionnaires could process his words, he moved.
He didn't flow like a shadow or blur like a speedster. He simply… advanced. He walked forward at a normal pace, right into the line of soldiers.
They opened fire again, this time in a panicked, uncontrolled barrage. Ravi walked through the storm of plasma as if strolling through a light spring rain.
He reached the first legionnaire, who was staring in wide-eyed terror. He didn't strike him. He simply placed a hand on the man's plasma rifle. The advanced weapon immediately powered down, its energy cell rendered inert. Ravi then tapped the soldier's helmet. The legionnaire crumpled, unconscious.
He continued his walk. He moved from one soldier to the next, a specter of calm in the chaotic firefight. A touch here, a tap there. One by one, the legionnaires fell silent, their weapons dead, their bodies slumping to the floor. He wasn't fighting them. He was deactivating them, like faulty machines on an assembly line.
In fifteen seconds, all twenty of Kael's elite guard were unconscious on the floor. The only sounds in the ruined war room were the crackle of burning electronics and the ragged, furious breathing of Archon Kael from behind his barricade.
Ravi stopped in the center of the room and looked at the tungsten wall. "Archon Kael. Your soldiers are asleep. Your fortress is breached. Your stand is over."
A guttural roar of defiance answered him. "My stand has just begun!"
The tungsten barricade exploded outwards. Kael charged through, not as a general, but as a berserker. He was a mountain of a man, but now he was something more. His skin was flushed red, steam pouring from his body. Thick cables had sprung from his back, plugging into his spine from a massive power pack—his personal augmentation, the 'Berserker Rig'. It flooded his body with a cocktail of combat stimulants and raw electrical power, pushing his strength and pain tolerance to superhuman levels.
He was wielding a massive hydraulic axe, a weapon normally mounted on a mech suit. He swung it at Ravi, the force of the blow creating a sonic boom that shook the entire floor.
Ravi didn't meet the blow. He took a single, effortless step backward. The massive axe slammed into the floor where he had been standing, tearing a huge trench in the reinforced concrete.
"I am Archon Kael!" he bellowed, his voice distorted by rage and the rig's feedback. "I have fought in a hundred wars! I have crushed rebellions and slaughtered armies! I will not be defeated by a child!"
He swung again, a wild, sweeping arc. Ravi ducked under it, the wind from the axe's passage ruffling his hair. He moved with an infuriating, graceful ease, treating the berserker's rampage as a simple dance. He was an matador, and Kael was the enraged, dying bull.
"Your strength is impressive," Ravi noted, sidestepping another devastating blow. "But it is unfocused. Chaotic. You are burning your own life force for a temporary surge of power."
"It will be enough to crush you!" Kael roared, bringing the axe down in a crushing overhead chop.
This time, Ravi didn't dodge.
He raised a single, open hand.
The hydraulic axe, a weapon that could shear through a bridge support, slammed down onto his palm and stopped.
The impact sent a shockwave through the room that blew out the remaining lights, plunging them into semi-darkness, lit only by the glow of Kael's power pack.
Kael stared, his eyes wide with disbelief and agony. The force of the impact had been reflected back up the axe's haft and into his own arms, shattering the bones within them despite his augmentation. He couldn't let go of the weapon. His grip was locked in a spasm of pain.
Ravi held the weight of the massive weapon on his palm, his expression unchanged.
"No," Ravi said softly. "It is not enough."
He closed his hand, his fingers gripping the head of the axe. A network of fine, glowing red cracks spread across the weapon's surface. With a sound like grinding glass, the axe disintegrated, crumbling into a fine metallic dust that rained down onto the floor.
Kael was left weaponless, his arms shattered, his Berserker Rig whining as it tried to compensate for the catastrophic damage. He stumbled back, his rage finally giving way to a cold, primal fear.
Ravi took a step forward. "You are a general without an army. A warrior without a weapon." He raised his hand. "A man without a future."
"Wait," Kael gasped, his augmented strength failing him. "What do you want? Information? Surrender? I'll give you anything!"
Ravi paused, his hand hovering inches from Kael's face. "You command the Pale Hand's armies. The enforcers. The soldiers who terrorize this city. You give the orders that result in the deaths of innocents, like the family of Ayla Kazuki."
Kael's face went pale. He finally understood. This wasn't about strategy or power. This was personal.
"I want you to send one last order," Ravi said, his voice dropping to an icy whisper.
He placed two fingers on Kael's forehead. He didn't read his mind. He wrote on it. He implanted a single, undeniable command into the Archon's brain.
Kael's eyes went wide, then blank. He straightened up, his shattered arms hanging limply at his sides. He turned and walked to a still-functional emergency comms panel. He activated the channel to every legionnaire, every enforcer, every soldier under his command in the entire city.
His voice boomed out, robotic and stripped of all emotion.
"This is Archon Kael. All Pale Hand military personnel are to disarm. Stand down. Surrender your posts to the authority of the Black Crown. This order is absolute. Kael out."
He turned back to Ravi, the blankness in his eyes receding, replaced by the horror of what he had just been forced to do. He had just unconditionally surrendered his entire army.
"You… monster…" he choked out.
Ravi removed his fingers. "A general's last stand should be to save the lives of his men," he said. "I have allowed you that single honor."
He then tapped Kael on the chest. A gentle tap.
Kael's Berserker Rig short-circuited with a violent flash, the feedback knocking him unconscious and severing his connection to the power pack permanently. He collapsed to the floor, defeated and disgraced, but alive.
Ravi turned and walked out of the ruined war room, stepping over the unconscious bodies of the legionnaires. His part was done.
Across the city, the order was heard. Pale Hand soldiers, confused and leaderless, looked at each other in disbelief. Their Archon, their Warlord, had surrendered.
Then, Jax's forces struck.
The First Battalion, armed with their new weapons and armor, emerged from the shadows. They didn't come to fight. They came to accept a surrender. They systematically and professionally disarmed the confused and demoralized Pale Hand soldiers, meeting little to no resistance.
It was the most peaceful and successful military coup in the city's history.
From the command center at ZERO BASE, Ayla watched the entire operation unfold, her heart pounding with a mixture of disbelief and triumph. She looked at Mira Jin, whose face was a mask of cold satisfaction.
"He did it," Ayla breathed. "He took down their entire military without a single casualty on our side."
"He didn't just defeat a general," Mira corrected, her eyes fixed on the tactical map as Pale Hand strongholds turned from hostile red to neutral gray. "He ripped the spine out of their whole organization."
The Black Crown had claimed his third Archon. And his army now controlled the streets of Duskfall. The game had changed, irrevocably.