The Sovereign's Grave was hungry.
The thick, toxic green fog rolled through the ruined streets of Sector 2, actively searching for lifeforce to feed the massive [Graveborn Mana Heart] pulsing in the Core Tower.
But at the southern perimeter of the Dead Zone, the fog found something... empty.
Twelve figures stepped out of the heavy military transport vehicles.
They wore matte-black, seamless tactical armor. There were no guild insignias. No rank badges.
More disturbingly, their helmets had no visors.
Where the eyes should be, there was only smooth, reinforced black steel. Heavy, sound-dampening acoustic dampeners were bolted directly into the sides of their helmets, completely sealing off their ears.
They were deaf. They were blind.
They were the [Nullifiers]. The executioners of the banned Blind Protocol.
They didn't walk like men. They didn't look around. They didn't communicate.
They moved with terrifying, synchronized perfection. Twelve right feet hit the wet asphalt at the exact same millisecond. Twelve left feet followed.
It wasn't a squad of soldiers. It was a line of code marching across the earth.
A hundred meters away, perched on top of a rusted traffic light, a shadow twisted.
The [Echo Predator] tilted its faceless, smooth bone head.
It had sensed the intrusion. The Domain had alerted it.
The gaunt, three-meter-tall nightmare dropped silently to the street. Its flesh bled into the toxic fog, merging seamlessly with the environment.
It began its hunt.
It didn't attack directly. That wasn't its nature.
It activated [Cognitive Overload].
The Predator projected the heavy, splashing sound of footsteps running through the alleyway to the left of the squad.
It projected the intense, burning heat signature of a massive beast directly above them.
It flooded the air with the overwhelming scent of rotting blood and ozone.
Against the Bloodhounds, this sensory bombardment had shattered their minds in seconds.
The Echo Predator waited for the twelve men to scatter. It waited for them to raise their weapons in panic. It waited for the fear.
The twelve Nullifiers didn't even turn their heads.
Their synchronized marching didn't stutter for a fraction of a second.
The Predator paused.
Not in confusion—but in cold, glitching recognition.
It probed their minds, searching for the instinct to corrupt. Searching for the fear to amplify.
There was nothing.
It was trying to poison an empty cup.
The Nullifiers walked straight through the illusory fire. They marched over the source of the phantom screaming without breaking their stride.
They didn't flinch. They didn't hesitate.
Their olfactory nerves had been surgically deadened. Their minds were locked in a chemically induced, sensory-deprived state, guided entirely by an internal, pre-programmed neural-map of Sector 2 uploaded directly into their brainstems by General Vance.
They were immune to fear, because they lacked the hardware to process it.
For the first time since its creation, the Mythic-tier anomaly was rendered utterly useless.
The Predator shifted from the fog, materializing directly in the path of the marching squad, attempting to physically block them.
It raised its elongated, razor-sharp bone talons, preparing to use [Phantom Strike].
But as its physical mass intersected with the pre-programmed route of the Nullifiers, the squad leader paused.
Just for a fraction of a second.
System recalibration.
The anomaly had triggered a microscopic proximity-sensor built into the leader's armor.
Without a single word, without a shout or a battle cry, the leader raised his heavy, mana-disrupting pulse-rifle.
He didn't aim at the Predator's head. He didn't aim for the heart. He aimed purely based on the spatial coordinate disturbance.
BANG!
A hyper-condensed round of purified white-phosphorus slammed into the Echo Predator's shoulder.
The force of the impact spun the towering nightmare around. The holy fire instantly began to aggressively burn away the dark, void-mist holding its arm together.
The Predator shrieked—a horrific, metallic sound of glitching static.
Even as its body began to melt, it didn't stop fighting. It violently amplified the [Cognitive Overload], flooding the street with a blinding maelstrom of false heat signatures and deafening phantom roars.
The sheer volume of the chaotic data didn't break their minds, but it strained their hardware.
Inside the leader's helmet, a faint warning flashed across his internal HUD.
[Warning: Proximity sensor overload. Neural map stability dropping to 92%.]
For a fraction of a second... the perfect synchronization broke.
One of the Nullifiers took a step half a second too late.
It was a microscopic flaw. But it proved that the machine could bleed.
The moment the leader fired, the other eleven Nullifiers raised their rifles in mechanical unison, adjusting for the slight lag, and fired exactly at the coordinates of the first impact.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The barrage tore through the Predator's torso. Its [Phantom Strike] couldn't activate in time. The overwhelming volume of holy fire overloaded its regenerative void-matter.
Its smooth bone face cracked. Its elongated limbs shattered.
In less than five seconds, the nightmare that had broken the elite Bloodhounds was reduced to a stumbling, burning pile of fragmented bone and mist.
The illusions flickered and died.
The Nullifiers didn't cheer. They didn't confirm the kill.
They simply lowered their rifles, realigned their formation perfectly, and continued their synchronized march toward the Core Tower.
One of the soldiers stepped directly onto a burning fragment of the creature's ribcage. The holy fire scorched his heavy boot.
He didn't react. Not even a twitch.
They marched over the ashes of the Predator as if it were just a pothole in the road.
...
High above, in the silent, red-lit control room of the Core Tower.
Arthur stood by the shattered window.
He was watching the entire encounter through his sensory link with the Domain.
He saw his masterpiece—the psychological terror that was supposed to guard the perimeter—get gunned down like a rabid dog by men who didn't even know what they were shooting at.
The boy, standing in the shadows behind him, tensed. His dark-purple eyes widened in shock.
"They... they killed it," the boy whispered, gripping his dagger. "It couldn't even touch them. They didn't fall for anything."
Arthur didn't yell. He didn't smash his fist against the wall.
He stared down at the twelve marching figures cutting a clean, uninterrupted path through his toxic fog.
A slow, terrifyingly calm smile touched the corner of his pale lips.
"Interesting," Arthur murmured.
He turned away from the window, looking at the massive, beating [Graveborn Mana Heart] behind him.
"General Vance," Arthur said quietly, his voice echoing with genuine respect for his unseen opponent. "You cut out your own soldiers' eyes just to blind me."
Arthur walked slowly toward the center of the room.
He didn't look angry. He looked like a grandmaster who had just watched his opponent sacrifice a queen to take a knight.
"You removed their senses," Arthur whispered to the empty room. His smile widened slightly, cold and absolute.
"So I'll give you something that doesn't need them."
Arthur pointed a pale finger toward the descending staircase that led to the streets below.
"Go," Arthur commanded the boy, the crushing weight of the [Calamity Seed] flaring behind his pitch-black eyes. "Show them what happens when a machine tries to break a wall."