Combat Slave Harem-Chapter 60: Soul King’s Might (2)
Egon stood in the flickering shadows of a collapsed archway, his eyes fixed on the vertical battle unfolding in the heavens. The air around him was a vortex of dust and terror, but he remained a statue of cold intent.
He could feel Hilga’s strain. It was a physical ache in his own chest, a sympathetic resonance between his darkness and her light. He saw the Guardian’s scythe descend, a sliver of the void that threatened to snip the thread of her existence, and his hand instinctively twitched toward the hilt of the Chaos Devourer.
"Husband, we have to help her," Vienna whispered, her voice trembling as she stood at his shoulder.
"She’s losing. That thing. it’s too much for her alone."
Egon did not look at her. His gaze was locked on the golden spark that was Hilga.
"If I step out there now, Vienna, the world changes. Not just for me, but for all of us. The eyes in the clouds are searching for an anomaly. If I reveal the Soul King now, they won’t just send monsters. They will send a death platton."
Noella shifted beside them, her Shadow Sword held low. "But she’s dying, hubby. Look at her armor. It’s shattering."
"She won’t die," Egon said, his voice dropping into a low, guttural register.
"Because I am going to give her everything I just took."
He sat cross-legged in the dirt, ignoring the screams of the dying soldiers and the roar of the orcish horde. He closed his eyes and expanded his consciousness, tapping into the newly evolved Soul King skill. In his mind’s eye, the battlefield was no longer a place of stone and blood. It was a sea of energetic ley lines. He saw the bond he had forged with Hilga, like a bridge of silver and gold that connected his hollow void to her radiant sun.
"Soul Transfusion," Egon muttered, the words carrying a weight that seemed to bend the air.
"Redirect the harvest."
He didn’t use his own life force. Instead, he reached into the reservoir of the hundred souls he had just extinguished. The raw, gray essence of the orcs and the ogre-mages began to swirl around him in a silent cyclone. He didn’t devour them for his own growth this time. He refined them, stripping away the malice and the filth until only pure, nameless energy remained.
"Take it, Hilga," he whispered into the spiritual link. "Be the sun that burns them all."
He pushed the energy through the bond. It was like opening a sluice gate. A massive torrent of power rushed from his seated form, traveling through the hidden dimensions of the soul to erupt within Hilga’s failing core.
High above, Hilga felt a sudden, violent jolt. One moment she was drowning in the cold tide of the Guardian’s scythe, her strength flickering out like a spent match. The next, a geyser of power exploded within her marrow. It wasn’t the warm, gentle light of the flower. It was a cold, relentless, and ancient force that felt like the weight of a falling mountain. It was Egon.
Her eyes, which had been dimming, suddenly flared with a light so bright it turned the sky white. The cracks in her Golden Armor of Aegis didn’t just mend; they fused together, the metal turning from gold to a brilliant, blinding platinum.
"What is this?" the Guardian hissed, its vertical eye widening in genuine shock. "Where did this power come from?"
Hilga didn’t answer with words. She felt Egon’s presence behind her, a silent shadow that gave her the courage to be a monster of light.
She gripped Excalibur with both hands, and the blade extended, growing into a pillar of white fire that reached toward the stars.
"This is the end of your journey, demon!" Hilga roared.
She swung.
Slash.
The movement was too fast for the Guardian to parry. The pillar of fire sliced through the Guardian’s void-scythe like a hot wire through wax. It didn’t stop there.
The strike continued through the creature’s chest, bisecting the featureless bone mask and the violet core within.
The Guardian let out a sound that wasn’t a scream, but a collapse of frequencies. Its body began to unravel, the starlight robes dissolving into ash. The Great Rift behind it, deprived of its anchor, began to implode.
"The lords... they will find you..." the Guardian’s voice echoed in a final, dying rasp.
The explosion that followed cleared the sky of every cloud, every gargoyle, and every lingering wisp of smoke for twenty miles. A dome of pure, silent radiance expanded from the point of impact, washing over Dolan City. To the common soldiers, it felt like the touch of a god. To the orcs, it was a wave of annihilation that turned their very blood to steam.
Down in the ruins, Egon slumped forward, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The spiritual strain of acting as a conduit for that much power had left his veins feeling like they were filled with broken glass.
"Husband!" Vienna cried out, kneeling beside him and placing her hands on his chest. Her emerald mana flowed into him, trying to mend the internal fractures.
"You’re burning up. Stop. It’s over. She did it."
"Not really," Egon rasped, coughing up a small amount of dark blood. He looked up through the shattered roof.
Hilga was descending, a slow and majestic fall. She looked like a goddess returning to the earth, her platinum wings slowly folding behind her. The city was silent. Thousands of soldiers had fallen to their knees, weeping and praying as they watched their savior return. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖
"She’s the Hero now," Noella said, her eyes fixed on the spectacle. "No one will ever question her again. But they’ll wonder, Egon. They’ll do wonder how a 3rd Order hero managed to erase a Rift Guardian in a single strike."
"Let them wonder. As long as they look at the light, they won’t notice the man standing in the dark. That is the only way we survive the next phase."
"And the eyes in the sky?" Vienna asked, looking up at the now-clear blue expanse.
"They saw a Hero doing her job," Egon replied. "I masked the transfusion with her own frequency. To the Overseers, it just looked like a desperate protagonist awakening a hidden potential. It’s a trope they understand. They won’t suspect a Walker was the battery."
A few minutes later, the heavy gates of the inner sanctum creaked open. General Varos and a cadre of high-ranking priests rushed out, their faces filled with a feverish devotion. They bypassed the wounded, bypassed the dead, and ran straight toward the spot where Hilga had landed.
"The Holy One! The Shield of Dolan!" the priests cried out, throwing themselves at her feet.
Hilga stood there, her armor still humming with the fading remnants of Egon’s power. She looked exhausted, her silver eyes searching the crowd until they found him. She saw Egon standing in the shadows of the gatehouse, flanked by Vienna and Noella. He gave her a single, sharp nod.
Hilga turned back to the General, her voice sounding far older than her years.
"The rifts are closed. The Guardian is no more. But the war is not over. Collect the wounded. Burn the dead. We have a Kingdom to save."
The cheer that went up from the city was deafening. It was a roar of hope that shook the very foundations of the buildings.
Egon turned away from the light, retreating back into the cool darkness of the inner hallways.
"Come on," he told his wives. "We need to get back to the estate. I have a feeling the Dimensional Merchant is going to have some very expensive items for sale after today’s performance."
"Are you okay though?" Vienna asked, her hand still lingering on his arm.
Egon looked at his hand, which was still trembling slightly from the soul-surge. "I’m fine, Vienna. I just realized that the more I help the Hero, the more I have to become the Villain to balance the scales. It’s a heavy price."
"Then we’ll help you carry it," Noella said, her hand resting on the hilt of the Shadow Sword. "Villain or Merchant, it doesn’t matter to us. You’re the one who gave us our lives back."
Egon looked at them both and felt a rare, genuine smile touch his lips. "Then let’s go home. We have a lot of work to do before the Overseers realize I’m still holding the pen."
As they walked through the quiet gardens of the inner city, away from the cheering crowds, Egon looked at the system screen that only he could see.
[ Quest Update: The Siege of Dolan — SUCCESS ]
[ Secret Objective: Mantle of the Hidden Architect — ACHIEVED ]
[ Reward: 5,000 Luck Points ]
[ New Title Available: The Shadow Behind the Throne ]
The game had changed again. He wasn’t just surviving the story anymore; he was building a new one from the wreckage of the old.
