We Have a Guild to Burn
Clang.
The heavy, brutal thud of the Class-X Subjugation Collar hitting the rusted subway tracks was the loudest sound in the universe.
For ten long, agonizing years, that ring of cold metal had been Seraphina's entire existence.
It dictated every breath she took.
It monitored every heartbeat.
It was her god.
Her master.
Her silent, unyielding torturer that lived right against her skin.
And now?
It was just a piece of broken, smoking garbage lying uselessly in the filthy mud.
Seraphina remained frozen on her knees.
Her blood-stained, heavily scarred hands hovered just inches away from her own throat, trembling so violently they looked like they belonged to a ghost.
The high-grade neural suppression and magical dampeners that had lobotomized her soul for a decade didn't just wear off gently.
They didn't fade with a soft sigh.
They shattered.
The mental firewall collapsed like glass under a hammer, unleashing a cataclysmic, suffocating tidal wave of ten billion suppressed memories crashing directly into her skull all at once.
It felt like a massive containment dam fracturing deep inside her cerebral cortex.
A cataclysmic, blinding flood of ten billion locked-away memories smashed into her consciousness all at once.
Every emotion she had been denied for a decade came rushing back like a tidal wave of boiling lead.
She remembered her name.
Seraphina.
She remembered the fierce, unyielding pride that used to burn in her chest before they turned her into a living weapon.
And then, with the cruel precision of a executioner's blade, the memories returned.
She remembered everything Marcus Thorne had forced her bloody hands to do.
"Ah..."
Seraphina choked out, a raw, wet, pathetic sound escaping her trembling lips as the realization crushed her ribs.
The mental locks were gone, but the truth was infinitely heavier than any shock collar.
She remembered raising her divine-grade greatsword high above her head.
She remembered executing innocent, weeping civilians who had merely dared to protest the brutal Vanguard taxes in the lower wards.
She remembered standing silently like a hollow-eyed, obedient doll in gleaming silver armor.
She remembered guarding Marcus while that monster laughed, poured expensive liquor, and built his entire corporate empire directly over the freshly dug grave of Kaelen Cross.
She remembered the hot, sticky weight of innocent blood dripping down her gauntlets, staining her soul in colors she could never wash away.
"GAAAAAHHHHH!"
The scream that ripped straight from the Fallen Valkyrie's ruined throat wasn't a cry of physical pain.
It was a wretched howl of pure, concentrated, world-ending agony.
It was the sound of a human soul shattering into dust after a decade of forced enslavement.
She violently slammed her bare, bleeding fists straight into the reinforced concrete.
Crack.
The solid rock shattered beneath her knuckles, spiderwebbing outward as if trying to swallow her grief.
She bent double, violently retching into the cold mud, dry-heaving as the phantom, suffocating sensation of innocent blood coated her throat and hands.
This text was taken from NovelFire. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Tears—hot, furious, blinding tears of absolute self-loathing—streamed uncontrollably down her dirt-caked, sweat-soaked face.
She clawed frantically at her own silver armor, her fingers tearing at the metal plates, desperate to rip off her skin, to scrub away the invisible, sticky filth clinging to her soul.
She was an S-Rank Paladin.
She was supposed to be the shield of the innocent. She was supposed to protect them with her dying breath.
Instead, she had slaughtered them with her own hands.
Through the thick, blinding blur of her tears, a pair of heavy, mud-splattered, bloodstained combat boots quietly stepped into her field of vision.
She didn't even need to look up to know who it was.
Kaelen Cross stood over her.
He didn't offer a gentle, comforting smile.
He didn't open his arms for a warm, forgiving embrace.
He reached down instead, his thick fingers gripping the worn leather straps of her battered silver breastplate, and hauled her violently to her feet.
"K-Kael..."
Seraphina sobbed, her legs shaking so uncontrollably she could barely support her own weight.
"I killed them."
Her voice broke into a jagged whisper, drowning in self-hatred.
"I killed so many. The blood... it's all over my hands."
"Look at me."
Kael commanded, his low, gravelly voice cutting through her panic like a cold, serrated blade.
Seraphina blinked through the stinging heat in her eyes.
Her hollow, broken golden gaze finally met his piercing, unyielding silver ones.
"You didn't pull the trigger, Sera."
Kael stated, his tone absolute, heavy with a certainty that defied argument.
"The collar did."
"But my hands..."
"Were chained to a madman."
Kael interrupted instantly, his grip tightening on her armor until his knuckles turned bone-white.
He refused to let her look away.
He kept her trapped right there, forcing her to confront her own reflection in his cold eyes.
For a single, fleeting fraction of a second, the icy, ruthless predator living inside Kael's gaze flickered and softened.
It was a microscopic crack in his impenetrable armor, reserved exclusively for the one woman who had once dared to draw her sword for him when the entire world turned its back.
Kael raised a heavily scarred, calloused thumb, brushing it roughly across her dirt-stained cheek to wipe away a stray tear.
"I know what it's like to be dragged down into the dark," Kael whispered, his voice dropping to a low, raw rumble that only she could hear.
"I know what it's like to starve and eat mud in the dirt while the bastard who put you there sits up top eating caviar."
Seraphina stared up at him, her breath hitching sharply in her throat as the weight of his words settled over her.
"Kael... you didn't have to come back for me," she choked out, her fingers trembling against her chest.
"After everything I became... after I let them bury you..."
"You think I'd leave my best blade rustling in the trash?" Kael murmured, a grim, tired shadow crossing his face before it vanished. "
We're not done yet, Sera. Not by a long shot."
Slowly, Kael let go of her armor.
He stepped back, the familiar, suffocating aura of a cold predator instantly slamming back into place around him like a heavy iron gate.
The warmth was gone, replaced once more by the unyielding iron of survival.
He unslung the massive, eighty-pound 'Vengeance' heavy-assault crossbow from his shoulder with a heavy mechanical click.
"Save the tears," Kael said, his voice dripping with pure, concentrated malice as he checked the magazine load.
"We have a Guild to burn."
Up in the corner of his field of vision, hidden from the physical world but pulsing with manic digital energy, the holographic chat was going absolutely wild.
[Current Viewers: 254,100 (TRENDING GALACTIC)]
[User 'Zark': BRO I CAME HERE FOR BLOOD AND NOW I'M CRYING IN THE CLUB!🥺]
[User 'Star_Dust_69': The Phantom and the Valkyrie! They're actually reuniting! THIS IS PEAK CINEMA!]
[User 'Gore_Whore_9': THAT TRANSITION FROM TEARS TO COLD BLOODED MURDER PROPAGANDA IS GIVING ME LIFE! MY HEART RATE IS AT 180 AND I AM LITERALLY SCREAMING! I LOVE YOU, KING KAEL! 🤤💦]
[User 'Weapons_Nut_44': HOLD UP... DID HE JUST TOUCH HER BREASTPLATE WITH HIS BARE HANDS WITHOUT TRIGGERING THE STUN FEEDBACK MATRIX?! HIS PAIN TOLERANCE IS HIGHER THAN TITANIUM ALLOY! 😲]
[User 'X_Void_Walker_X': 250,000 live connections and climbing. The sub-net is literally melting from the bandwidth spike. They know what's coming.🐐]
[User 'Void_Cynic_01': A broken war machine paired with an unhinged sniper. Marcus Thorne has no idea what kind of apocalypse just walked through his front door.]
[User 'GamerGrip_X': LET'S FUCKING GO!!!!!!!! THE REVENGE ARC HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN! VANGUARD GUILD IS ABOUT TO FIND OUT WHY THEY STARTED PRAYING TO DEAD GODS!]
[User 'Succubus_Envy_99': God, the way he looks at her like she's his only piece of real estate left in this hellhole... my ◼◼◼(censored) just exploded 🥵🩸]
[User 'Shadow_Weaver_99': THE CINEMATOGRAPHY IN THIS STREAM IS INSANE! THAT CLOSE-UP ON HER EYES DILATING WHEN THE SUPPRESSION BROKE? 10/10 DIRECTING BY GOD!]
[User 'MY_FUTURE_HUSBAND_KAEL': I don't care about the Vanguard, I don't care about the money, I just want Kael to look at me the way he looked at her for that one microsecond 🥀💔]
[User 'Blood_Bath_Bill': STOP TALKING AND START SHOOTING! I WANT TO SEE SOME HIGH-TIER CORPORATE EXECUTIVES TURNED INTO CONFETTI! 💥💣]
[User 'DragonBoredom': ...I do not care for mortal emotions. But the loyalty in her eyes... It is a rare, beautiful weapon. Point her at your enemies, Kaelen.]
[User 'Mod_Viper_Admin': CHAT SLOW DOWN! THE STREAM BUFFER IS AT 99% PACKET LOSS BECAUSE OF YOUR THIRST AND RAGE!]
"Oh, please. Someone hand me a bucket."
A voice cut through the dark, dripping with theatrical, venomous sarcasm that made the hairs on the back of the neck stand up.
The ambient temperature in the damp cavern plummeted instantly, freezing the breath in their lungs into tiny crystals of frost.
Vespera materialized silently directly behind Kael.
Her massive, leathery obsidian wings unfurled with a slow, ominous rustle in the dim, flickering light.
She drifted lazily inches off the stone ground, her glowing crimson eyes locked onto the kneeling Paladin with a look of utter, predatory disgust.
"Are we really keeping the stray dog, darling?"
Vespera purred, sliding her pale, inhumanly cold arms around Kael's waist from behind, pressing her chest against his back with an easy, mocking familiarity.
"She reeks entirely of stale holy water and pathetic regret."
Seraphina froze completely.
The lingering dregs of her emotional breakdown vanished, replaced instantly by raw, animalistic survival instinct as her golden eyes widened in shock.
She stared up from the mud, taking in the impossible pale skin, the sharp curved horns resting against dark hair, and the glowing, vicious pink heart-blade twitching lazily on the tip of the demon's tail.
"A... a Void Succubus?"
Seraphina breathed out, the words catching in her dry throat as the final piece of this insane puzzle clicked into place.