Chương 45: Billions Revealed — The Fifth Seal Detonates

The night before the Final. The lodging quarters reserved for the Holy Church's delegation sat wrapped in a suffocating, oppressive gloom. Inside a stone chamber locked behind three layers of soundproofing seals, four Enforcers in dark-red, black-trimmed robes closed in around Astra, magical iron chains coiled and ready in their hands.

At the center of the room, the High Priest leading the delegation held up a glass vial of bubbling, sulfur-yellow liquid that reeked of brimstone — Blazing Holy Blood, a brutal, forbidden stimulant capable of forcibly burning away a person's entire lifespan to trigger the deepest layers of a soul-bound seal. The High Priest shoved the vial toward Astra's face, his voice grinding out each word.

"Drink it, Holy Maiden. Tomorrow's Final, you will defeat that Vance bastard by any means necessary to preserve the Church's honor. Sacrifice your life for the glory of the gods!" Astra sat in the wooden chair, her ash-grey eyes cold as she looked at the vial of poison. She pushed the priest's hand away gently.

"I won't drink it. My employment contract has a clause prohibiting the use of health-damaging stimulants."

"Contract, what contract?!" the nearest Enforcer snapped, slamming a length of iron chain against the stone floor.

"You are property of the Holy Church! You have no right to refuse!" Astra went rigid. The room's suppression wards were already interfering with Lucian's limiter. Astra could still tear the room apart, but with four men standing within arm's reach, one uncontrolled movement could kill someone. She hesitated. All four Enforcers channeled mana at once. Four glowing red chains shot forward, locking Astra's wrists and ankles to the corners of the chair and forcing her jaw open. Whoosh.

The space in the middle of the room suddenly bent into a streak of silver light. Lucian appeared directly in front of the High Priest. He didn't bother drawing a blade. His right hand held a stack of red-sealed parchment from the Municipal Regulatory Bureau, and he slapped it straight across the priest's forehead.

"Per Article 14 of the Imperial Labor Code: threatening or coercing an employee into using a health-hazardous substance outside of working hours carries a five-thousand-gold administrative fine! I am her legal representative — release my employee immediately!" The High Priest staggered back three steps, clutching his forehead, glaring at the ten-year-old who'd stepped out of nowhere.

"Lucian Vance?! You— how dare you barge in here— Seize him!" Lucian didn't even bother looking at the Enforcers. He reached out, took hold of Astra's right wrist, activated his ninety-five billion points of Spell Control, and sent a razor-fine thread of mana straight through, severing the Church's forced binding. Cutting that second binding tripped the automatic dissolution clause of the Fifth Seal without warning. CRACK! A sharp fracturing sound rang out from deep inside Astra's chest.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The fifth ring of light wrapped around her heart shattered. BOOM! A colossal pillar of platinum-white holy light, thirty meters across, erupted from the grey-haired girl's body and shot straight up into the sky. The entire granite roof of the Church's lodging house was crushed into fine powder by the pressure in a thousandth of a second.

All four Enforcers and the High Priest were ripped off their feet and hurled through the collapsing wall. The compound's emergency wards caught them in midair and dumped all five into the courtyard in a smoking heap. The shockwave rattled windows across the entire district. Ting! Ting! Ting! A dim black notification window from the System v2. 0 burst into Lucian's vision, its glare so blinding he had to squint. [EMERGENCY CLAUSE INVOKED: EMPLOYEE PROTECTION.] [FIFTH SEAL: FULLY DETONATED!] [Energy release ratio: 0. 01% → 1. 0% (A 100-FOLD INCREASE)!] ASTRA Level: 42 → 60 Rank: B — National (approaching Rank A — Legendary) Physical Strength: 4, 200, 000 → 42, 000, 000 (×10) Speed: 2, 560, 000 → 25, 600, 000 (×10) Endurance: 3, 422, 000 → 34, 220, 000 (×10) Mana: 4, 400, 000 → 44, 000, 000 (×10) OVERALL COMBAT POWER: 41, 200, 000 → 1, 840, 000, 000 (1. 84 BILLION!) One billion eight hundred forty million.

The word "Million" on the official status board had been struck out and replaced with a brilliant gold "BILLION." A storm of raging mana tore through the street. Lucian stood alone in the middle of what used to be a room — no roof left above him now, the night wind sweeping freely through his black hair. He stared at the ten-digit number on the System board, eyes glazed, mouth hanging open, unable to close it. One second... two seconds... three seconds...

Lucian raised both hands to his head, his voice dropping to a whisper amid the collapse of his own mental math.

"Stop... wait... just give me a few minutes to sit down and rebalance this ledger..." Amid the rubble, Astra slowly stood up. Her entire body was bathed in platinum-white holy light bright enough to outshine the full moon. Her ash-grey hair drifted in the air on its own, and the Sun-Slaying Dragon Sword at her hip rang out with deep, resonant chimes.

She blinked, dazed, up at the star-filled night sky where the ceiling used to be, then at the five streaks of light vanishing toward the horizon, and turned to Lucian, flustered.

"Lucian... I think I... accidentally wrecked the lodging house... Is that coming out of my pay?" Lucian slowly lowered his hands, looked at the girl standing before him now carrying 1. 84 billion Combat Power, and let out a long, mournful sigh.

"No. I'm billing the Church." Lucian looked at the missing roof.

"But I'm charging you one silver for the paperwork." At the same moment, across the streets of the capital of Solaris— Hundreds of thousands of citizens and adventurers wandering the night market all stopped in their tracks at once, staring in shock up at the pillar of holy light piercing through the ninth layer of clouds, rising from the Church's grounds. The warm, sacred glow washed over the entire capital, driving back every shadow of the night.

Thousands of the faithful and passing knights immediately dropped to their knees on the stone, hands clasped, weeping in fervent prayer.

"A miracle... the Goddess of Light has descended to bless humanity!" But atop the tallest bell tower of the Royal Palace— A blind old mage in ancient astronomer's robes suddenly let his ebony staff slip from his trembling hand and clatter onto the stone floor. His ears had just caught a strange sound drifting down from the highest layer of the atmosphere. Crack... crack...

The Ancient Barrier — the ten-thousand-year-old ward protecting the continent's borders from the Void Beasts — had just let out its first fractures. The old mage tilted his blind face up toward the sky, his voice trembling with utter dread.

"The energy source feeding the barrier has just been cut off... the ten-thousand-year-old rift in space... is opening! The ancient covenant is collapsing!"