I shifted my stance slightly and focused.
"Radiant Drive."
The response was immediate.
Energy surged through my body, not in a burst like before, but in a steady, controlled flow that gathered along my legs and core, pushing forward instead of exploding outward. The ground beneath my feet cracked as I stepped, and the next step came faster, heavier, the momentum building instead of resetting.
Then I moved.
My body shot forward across the plaza, but this time the speed didn’t drop after the initial push. It carried. Each step fed into the next, the acceleration stacking as I crossed the entire stretch in seconds, the air rushing past as the force drove me straight through the open space. I didn’t slow until I reached the far end, my feet dragging slightly as I brought the movement to a stop.
I exhaled once.
"Better than Impact Burst for distance..." I murmured, feeling the energy settle instead of fully draining.
Then I turned back toward the center.
The bodies were still scattered across the ground, the remains of the fight fresh, and I raised the axe again, this time focusing on the second skill.
"Annihilator Cleave."
The energy shifted instantly.
Instead of pushing outward, it pulled inward, tightening around the axe, forming a dense coating of yellow energy along the blade. It didn’t flare or spread. The edge looked thicker, sharper, as if the energy itself had weight, clinging to the metal while the air around it trembled slightly under the pressure.
I stepped forward, closing the distance to the nearest building.
Then swung. The axe connected.
And the moment it did, the energy detonated.
Not outward like a wave, but through the point of contact, bursting into the building and tearing through it in a straight line. The force didn’t stop there. It carried forward, ripping through the next, then the one behind it, the impact chaining through everything in its path as if the strike refused to end at a single target.
By the time the motion finished, the building had been split through in the same line, the force finally fading only after it had nothing left to tear through. I lowered the axe slowly, the yellow coating fading from the blade as the pressure released.
The ground ahead wasn’t cut.
It was broken.
A straight path of disruption where the strike had passed, debris scattered from the force that had pushed through them.
I rolled my shoulder once, testing the feel.
"This is gonna be beautiful." The energy inside me hadn’t dropped.
If anything, it was already building again.
I smiled and opened the map, scanning the area around me for another Believer safe zone, but there was nothing close to my current position. The nearest ones were clustered around another city, one that looked noticeably larger than Seum.
"What now?" I muttered, my gaze lingering on the map for a moment longer.
I didn’t feel like pushing blindly into another city just yet. It made more sense to wait for Lyrate and move together instead of hunting targets without direction.
Then another idea came to mind. I opened the shop and moved straight to the utility section.
[Resource Scanner – 1000 CP]
[Description: Detects valuable resources within a 500-meter radius.]
I read it once and purchased it without hesitation.
The system integrated instantly.
A faint pulse spread outward from me, subtle, almost invisible, and then a new layer appeared on my map interface, ready to mark anything of value within range.
I stepped forward and activated it.
But no markers appeared.
I turned slightly and scanned again.
Still nothing.
"Thats unlucky..." I muttered, closing the panel.
There was nothing left in this city worth staying for. I turned toward the exit and began moving, stepping past the broken structures and scattered remains without slowing. As I crossed one of the streets, my mind flicked briefly to the man I had left unconscious inside the house.
Rudy.
For a second, I considered going back.
Then dismissed it.
"Does not matter," I said quietly, continuing forward.
The gates came into view soon enough, still broken from my earlier entry, and I stepped out of the city without looking back, shifting into a steady run as I moved toward my safe zone.
Billion Sanctuary.
The distance wasn’t short, but my pace didn’t drop. At the same time, I kept the resource scanner active, letting it sweep the area as I moved through the forest, my eyes occasionally flicking to the interface to check for any changes.
Minutes passed.
Then, a marker appeared.
An arrow.
Pointing left. I slowed slightly, turning my head in that direction before adjusting my path without stopping, shifting into the new route as I moved through the trees.
The arrow stayed guiding me forward. After a few more minutes, it changed.
The direction locked. The arrow condensed into a fixed point.
A dot. I leaned forward slightly and increased my pace, moving straight toward it.
The marker pulled me off the main path and deeper into the forest, the trees thinning gradually until the ground dipped ahead, opening into a wide clearing that hadn’t been shaped by nature alone. I slowed as I stepped out of the tree line, my gaze settling on the center of it.
There was a crater.
The edges were uneven, the soil pushed outward as if something had struck down with enough force to tear the land apart and leave it hollowed. The ground inside was darker, compacted, and at the very center something stood.
A platform of stone, circular, raised just slightly above the crater floor, its surface cracked in multiple places but still intact. And on it was a throne.
It was broken.
One half leaned back at an angle, the other split and pushed forward, the fracture line running clean through the center as if something had cut it apart with deliberate force. Deep marks covered its surface, slashes, impacts, scars that hadn’t healed. Chains hung loosely around it, some still attached, most snapped, their broken ends scattered across the platform.
There was no statue. No symbol or presence of anything divine.
Just the remains of something that had once claimed authority and had been brought down.
I stepped forward slowly, the ground inside the crater feeling heavier under my feet, the air quieter than it should have been, as if even the forest chose not to interfere with what stood here.
I reached the platform and stepped onto it, my eyes never leaving the broken throne in front of me. There was no glow, no immediate reaction, nothing to suggest it was active until I took one more step closer.
The system responded.
[Defier Relic Detected]
[Broken Throne of Defiance]
[Claim it... or leave]
I stared at the throne for a moment longer, then stepped forward again, closing the remaining distance.
My hand reached out.
"I don’t leave things behind."
The moment my fingers touched the fractured stone, the platform reacted.