The corridor narrowed. Even the air itself grew heavy, as if liquid mercury were filling their lungs.

  The man standing before them, Negra, was no ordinary knight. He was the Kingdom’s physical embodiment of the word “Stop.” His armor did not reflect the torchlight. Instead, it swallowed it, turning it into a cold, metallic gray. The massive two-handed sword in his grip, World Breaker, trembled faintly as if defying gravity, releasing a low-frequency hum that spread throughout the corridor.

  Behind them, Field leaned against the wall, trembling. The color had drained from his face.

  “It’s over…” he whispered, his voice tangled in his throat. “Negra… If he’s here, there’s no exit. He’s not a normal human. Architect, you don’t understand!”

  NO9 melted deeper into the shadows, their tails twitching nervously. Their eyes narrowed.

  “His mana is overwhelmingly oppressive. That man is far beyond our level. We should turn back. Fighting is pointless. It’s a battle we cannot win.”

  Hope spun his scythe. The whistle of metal slicing through the air tore apart the suffocating silence. His usual calm smile rested on his face, but his eyes were calculating.

  “Field, NO9,” Hope said without taking his gaze off the enemy. “Fall back and check the ventilation shafts. Chart a new route. While we deal with this wall, cover our rear. We need to be ready for any possibility.”

  Gashadokuro Jr. stepped forward. He tossed aside the crude blade made from his own ribs. The metal clattered uselessly against the stone floor. A toothpick would not be enough for this opponent.

  He plunged his hands into his own chest, fingers tearing through flesh and muscle.

  CRACK!

  It was a wet, nauseating sound. He ripped out two long, jagged bones. Blood-soaked, he gripped them in reverse.

  “Under that armor…” Gashadokuro growled, saliva dripping from his mouth. “I can feel a very high-quality spine. Raised on premium milk. Packed with calcium… Delicious.”

  Negra spoke from behind his helmet. His voice was dull and metallic, like a dungeon gate slamming shut.

  “Justice devours monsters like you as a feast. Your efforts are futile. Surrender.”

  Negra took a single step forward. That simple step shook the entire corridor. He raised his sword. The motion was so fast the air compressed and detonated.

  WHOOSH!

  The massive blade came crashing down toward Gashadokuro’s head. At the last instant, Gashadokuro crossed his bone daggers to block.

  BOOOOM!

  The impact was like a sledgehammer smashing glass. The marble floor beneath Gashadokuro fractured like a spiderweb and collapsed. His knees buckled, the bones in his forearms shattered. Yet Gashadokuro screamed not in pain, but in ecstasy.

  “Heavy…” he gasped, blood seeping between his broken teeth, his face twisted into a manic grin. “So heavy! HIT ME HARDER, YOU JUSTICE FREAK!”

  “Disgusting,” Negra said with contempt. “You will die here. A meaningless end for a meaningless life.”

  He twisted his sword slightly, releasing incredible torque, and flung Gashadokuro aside like a rag doll. The skeletal man smashed into the wall, stone exploding as he disappeared into a pile of rubble.

  Now it was Hope’s turn.

  Negra spun his body a full three hundred and sixty degrees without losing momentum. A horizontal slash.

  Target: Hope’s waist.

  That strike could have cleaved even an ogre in two.

  This time, Hope couldn’t break the ground. The spot where Negra stood was as solid as an anvil, reinforced by his enchanted armor. Only one option remained: Flow.

  Hope drove the shaft of his scythe into the floor and vaulted into the air like a pole vaulter. The wind from the blade grazed the soles of his feet as it passed beneath him. Flipping midair, he used gravity to bring his scythe down toward the gap between Negra’s helmet and armor, aiming for the neck.

  CLAAANG!

  Metal struck metal. But the sound was not deep or heavy. It was sharp and shrill. Not a single scratch appeared on Negra’s armor. Hope landed and retreated. His hands throbbed violently from the recoil.

  “The armor’s hardness is at an extremely high level. Even higher than I expected. I miscalculated,” he muttered, resetting his stance. “Impact-absorbing enchantment. Kinetic energy disperses across the surface. Cutting damage is ineffective.”

  Negra turned to face him. Blue light flared within the eye slits of his helmet.

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  “Finished analyzing, boy? You are not like the others. You could have had a better end. But unfortunately, justice says this is where your path ends.”

  Negra attacked again. This time, it was not brute force but speed. Right. Left. Overhead. Downward. A barrage of slashes followed. Hope dodged like a dancer, deflecting strikes with the shaft of his scythe, but every clash forced him further back. Walls shattered under the sword’s blows, dust and debris filling the corridor.

  “JUDGMENT OF JUSTICE!” Negra roared.

  A crescent-shaped wave of blue energy tore through the corridor.

  Hope dove right. Gashadokuro burst from the rubble on the left. The energy wave pulverized the pillar behind them into dust. Gashadokuro lunged again, wilder than before.

  “BONE STORM!”

  His joints exploded outward as hundreds of bone fragments fired like shrapnel. They struck Negra’s armor with rapid ticking sounds before bouncing harmlessly away. Negra ignored the attack entirely and charged forward. With a single armored hand, he caught Gashadokuro by the throat mid-air.

  “You are weak,” Negra said coldly. “Comparing me to the insignificant trash you have killed is an insult to a magnificent warrior like myself.”

  He slammed Gashadokuro into the marble floor with such force that cracks spread all the way to the ceiling. Then he raised his massive sword, its tip pointing directly at Gashadokuro’s heart. Within the swirling dust, Hope’s eyes gleamed.

  [Architect’s Sight: Maximum Focus]

  The world turned gray. Time slowed. Hope scanned Negra’s armor like an X-ray. No weak points. Joints sealed by enchantments. Metal layers forged in dragon fire. Penetration from the outside was impossible.

  But…

  Every structure has a resonant frequency. Even the hardest metal has a molecular vibration limit.

  “I can’t break it from the outside,” Hope thought. “But I can shake the inside.”

  Time resumed.

  “Gashadokuro!” Hope shouted, his voice cracking. “Hold the sword! NO MATTER WHAT, HOLD IT!”

  Gashadokuro grinned wildly from the ground, his teeth stained red with blood. Instead of dodging, he tore open his ribcage with both hands.

  “COME TO DADDY, PRETTY BOY!”

  SHLAK!

  The sword pierced his chest, wedging between his ribs near the spine. Gashadokuro screamed as his body convulsed, but his hands locked onto the blade. His bones grew and wrapped around the metal.

  “Got you…” he hissed. “You shiny tin can! You’re not going anywhere!”

  Negra tried to pull the sword free, but Gashadokuro used his own body as a lock.

  A single second of vulnerability. Hope had been waiting for that second. He poured every ounce of strength into his legs and slid across the ground toward Negra. He reversed his grip on the scythe, not to cut, but to wield it like a massive hammer.

  The blunt end of the scythe locked onto the exact center of Negra’s chest armor, right where his heart beat.

  [Structural Resonance]

  “Impact Transmission: One hundred percent.”

  He condensed all his mana into a point no larger than a needle tip. This was not a slash. It was a shockwave.

  BOOOOOOM!

  The sound was not explosive, but deep and muffled, like a colossal bell struck from within.

  The armor did not crack. It did not bend. But the force did not rebound either.

  Hope transmitted the energy through the metal itself, using the armor as a conductor, sending the shock directly into the flesh, blood, and bone beneath. Negra’s armor became a bell. His body became its clapper. The Perfect Knight, the Wall of Justice, Negra… trembled. His eyes widened behind the helmet. Every organ in his body shook simultaneously. Blood burst from his mouth, spilling through the helmet’s grille and staining his silver breastplate. His knees buckled. His fingers loosened around the sword. And the massive, invincible man fell to one knee. The metal groaned as he knelt.

  THUD.

  Absolute silence filled the corridor. Only Negra’s ragged breathing and the sound of dripping blood remained. Field stared with his mouth open. NO9 stood frozen. Even Gashadokuro, impaled through the chest, could not believe it. For the first time in his life, Negra knelt before an enemy.

  “Impossible…” Negra rasped. “What… kind of magic is this?”

  Hope rested the scythe on his shoulder. Sweat poured down his face. His mana was nearly depleted.

  “This isn’t magic. Just a simple low-level physics problem. Walls may be hard on the outside,” he said between breaths. “But they’re hollow inside, Knight. And emptiness has a strange relationship with vibration.”

  Hope raised his scythe for the finishing blow, but victory was short-lived. An explosion thundered from the door at the end of the corridor.

  WUUU-WUUU-WUUU!

  Magical sirens screamed. Red lights flooded the corridor like blood. Hundreds of Royal Guards, Battle Mages, and Elite Archers stood before the door. At the rear, a High Mage slammed his staff into the ground.

  “GRAVITY FIELD!”

  A purple ring engulfed the corridor. Hope and Gashadokuro were slammed to the floor as if a mountain had dropped onto their shoulders. The stone beneath them cracked under the pressure.

  “FIND A WAY IN!” a commander shouted. “THOSE INSIDE, SURRENDER OR BE VAPORIZED!”

  Field paced back and forth in panic. “Are we surrendering? Is it over?”

  NO9 tried to slip into the shadows, but light magic flooding from the doorway dragged them back into view. Hope looked at Gashadokuro lying in his own blood and at Negra, barely holding himself upright on one knee. There was no escape. If they kept fighting, they would die. And if he died, he could never help Lypin. An Architect must know when a structure will collapse. And when evacuation is necessary.

  Hope made his decision. He dismissed his scythe. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself upright against the crushing gravity. He wore that innocent, harmless smile, but danger gleamed in his eyes.

  “Fall back!” Hope shouted. “Grab Gashadokuro! Ventilation tunnel, now! The dust will cover us!”

  Instead of retreating, Hope crawled toward Negra. Gravity crushed his bones, but he had to reach him.

  “You… You made me kneel…” Negra said weakly. For the first time, a trace of emotion surfaced in his voice. “HAHA! Such a worthy opponent. It’s truly a shame you’ll die here.”

  “It’s a shame you won’t remember me,” Hope replied with a wink.

  “What?” Negra could not understand.

  Hope placed his hand on Negra’s head. A faint green light flickered in his palm. The soldiers were forcing the door. The Royal gate was more durable than it looked. There was no time to complete the spell. Hope threw himself backward. Negra collapsed face-first, losing consciousness as the lingering effect of the strike took hold. His fall kicked up a massive cloud of dust, obscuring the soldiers’ vision.

  “NOW!”

  Using the chaos, Hope rejoined his team. Field and NO9 were already dragging the wounded Gashadokuro into the ventilation tunnel. As they moved through the dark passages leading back to their cells, the shouts behind them gradually faded.

  Plan A had failed. They hadn’t broken the wall. But Hope stared at his trembling hands. Not from fear. From excitement. He had proven that Negra could bleed, that even the Royal Wall could crack.

  “Lypin…” Hope whispered into the darkness. “Hold on a little longer. Next time, we’ll shake the building from its foundation.”

  This time, they would take a greater risk.

  And if Plan B failed…

  No one would be returning to their cells.