Chapter 142: [142] Input: Sacrifice
Xavier’s body moved before conscious thought could intervene. The sword missed him by inches—close enough that he felt the displaced air slice across his cheek like a frozen razor.
The impact obliterated the plaza.
Stone exploded. The obsidian blade carved a gaping crater where Xavier had been a heartbeat before. The shockwave buckled the plaza, rolling through the cobblestones like an earthquake and sending the last few standing survivors sprawling.
Xavier hit the fractured stone hard, his shoulder taking the brunt of the impact as he rolled. Pain shot through his ribs, but he forced himself back to his feet, ironwinter dagger still clutched in his grip. His ears rang from the concussion, but through the white noise, he could hear Ashley cursing and Naomi shouting something he couldn’t make out.
Xavier stared at the massive crater. One swing. Not an ability, not a charged attack—just a casual swing. That was enough force to gut a skyscraper. The message hammered itself into his brain: run.
The Bonemarch Knight straightened, withdrawing its sword from the ruined plaza. Those burning blue flames in its eye sockets studied the scattered survivors with what might have been amusement, if such a concept could exist in something so far removed from life.
Xavier’s Input Buffer sat at 120/250, the pink energy crackling around his hands more intensely than before. The near-death experience had pushed his combat system into overdrive, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Not against this.
The Knight raised its free hand, palm open toward the huddled survivors.
The blue flames in its helmet dimmed to barely visible embers, and Xavier felt something vast and alien brush against his mind. Not words—something deeper than language, more fundamental than communication. A concept pressed directly into his consciousness, bypassing every defense his psyche might have offered.
Unworthy.