Despite having a sword at his neck, the Lord of Threads didn’t seem all that intimidated. He barely paid Davi any mind, the raven-haired man standing directly to the side of the Lord, holding Storymaker up to his throat. The old man’s gaze was entirely focused on Inyeon.

  “Inyeon, please go ahead and kill these people.” The Lord of Threads gave the puppet an innocent smile. “I’d like to go back home and enjoy a nice cup of your tea.”

  Inyeon turned to stare back at Sieg and took a step forward but stopped when Davi called out to her. “I wouldn’t do that.” He announced. “Take another step, and I’ll remove this guy's head.”

  “You can try.” Inyeon’s sweet smile didn’t fade as she kept walking toward Sieg.

  “Let me ask you something.” The Lord of Threads lazily looked toward Davi. “Do you think your sword can cut me?”

  Davi’s grip grew tighter, and he flared his mana into his blade. Without missing a beat, he twisted his body and sliced out with Storymaker, but the sword simply bounced off the old man’s throat, unable to cut his skin. As soon as that happened, Inyeon charged forward with incredible speed and swung her DNA sword out at Sieg.

  The Lord of Threads rubbed the spot the blade had slammed into, and he stared into Davi’s eyes. “Think for a moment. I instructed Inyeon to drop a nuke on this town. I’m also in this town. Do you think I planned my own death? No. Of course, I did not, for this world would be lost without me. I simply did not care if she set off the power of a nuke, for that power pales in comparison to the genius such as myself who has mastered every form of mana and martial arts. If a nuke cannot harm me, what would your little sword be able to do? I’ll tell you what. Nothing. It can do nothing-”

  Davi slammed a spiraling wave of white and black energy, which exploded as it made contact with the Lord of Thread’s mouth, going off in between his jaws. The force of the blast snapped Davi’s shoulder out of its socket and sent the Lord of Threads flying back.

  Davi stabbed his sword into the ground, then grabbed his arm and snapped his shoulder back in place before casually picking Storymaker back up. “You talk too much.” He turned away and looked back at where Sieg and Inyeon were fighting.

  Dozens of the puppets all charged into the fray, including the Grim Reaper ones, but they were all cut down by Inyeon, who accidentally swung her sword in their direction. This was because Sieg managed to parry her strike with his spear, and a blast of deadly radiation erupted from her blade, flash-frying the other puppets and causing them to shatter and break instantly. Not even the crystals within the Grim Reaper puppets could go off in time.

  Sieg clenched his teeth in pain as he felt his spear rapidly heat up, and it began to melt in his hands just from coming in contact with Inyeon’s weapon. Even his gloves were glowing white-hot now.

  Inyeon went to swing again as Sieg’s weapon turned into a puddle of molten slag, but before her blade could reach him, Davi rammed into her, smashing his sword into her side. Her gown was torn, but the fake flesh that covered her body withstood the strike. Just like the Lord of Threads, her own body was highly durable, even more so than the Grim Reaper’s had been, as she needed to survive the blast and heat of her own explosive blasts.

  Just because she was durable, though, didn’t mean she couldn’t be sent flying away, and that’s precisely what happened as Sieg charged his fist with a wave of black lightning and punched her in the face as hard as he could. The force of the strike threw the doll back, and she rammed headfirst into a building, causing it to collapse on top of her.

  “Suits.” Davi glanced back at the carriages. “Get these people out of here.”

  Suits gave a thumbs up, and the last person, including the guards, managed to get loaded onto the metal carriages. Susie stared out the window, still supporting Alice, and she winced. “Can they win?”

  “They have to.” Alice weakly closed her eyes and focused a healing spell on her stomach. “They’re Knights. Knights save the day.”

  The carriages began to leave, and Sieg’s eyes remained locked onto the building. “Think she might have gotten crushed to death-”

  “Row Nuclear Blast.”

  “I do not.” Davi sighed.

  A flash of light filled the air, but Sieg responded just as fast. “Row Electric-Shadow Vault!” A massive thunderbolt rammed into the explosion before it could grow, and then Davi used his own spell.

  “Vil Shadow Vault.” Hundreds of shadowy hands erupted from the ground and twisted around the destroyed building. The hands embraced it and then began to drag it into the ground, sealing it away into the Vault, but before it could grab Inyeon, she came blasting out of the debris, spinning through the air. She jumped all the way up to the twisted mouth above and swung her blade, sending an arching wave of radiation. “Row Shadow Vault.” Davi opened a second vault, his own shadow rising up and twisting into the head of a bird. The hawk opened its mouth and swallowed the wave of energy, getting rid of it.

  “Vil Electric Bow!” Sieg created his bow and grabbed another spear from his back, loading it in. His lightning twisted until it was the size of a greatbow, one meant for slaying dragons, and he fired his massive arrow straight at the falling Inyeon. Inyeon lazily sliced the arrow out of the sky, and then she landed on the ground. “Row Electric-Shadow Vault!” This time, the thunderbolt dropped directly onto Inyeon, but while her explosion might have been too slow, she was anything but, easily dodging with the help of a Mana Step.

  Inyeon appeared in between Davi and Sieg, and her blade met Davi’s. Heat spilled down Storymaker, the sword withstanding it, but the same couldn’t be said for Davi’s arms. He scowled as his gloves started to melt and drip down his body, the absorbing effect of his armor unable to keep up.

  Sieg pulled his third and final spear off his back and rammed it straight into Inyeon’s neck, but she barely reacted. Instead, she pointed her finger at him. “Row Nuclear Blast.”

  “Row Electric-Shadow Vault!”

  “Row Shadow Vault.”

  The explosion was split in two as both Sieg’s and Davi’s vaults devoured it before it could even grow. Davi funneled more energy into his arms and took a step forward, deflecting the nuclear blade off of him. He took another swipe at Inyeon, but he couldn’t cut her. Instead, he focused his kinetic force and tried to shove it into the center of her stomach, but Inyeon instantly caught on to what he was doing, and she Mana Stepped away, getting several meters in distance.

  Sieg charged forward and twisted his spear, swinging it out. He tried to focus on blunt strikes, doing his best to shake up her insides and destroy whatever gears functioned inside of her. Inyeon easily blocked his attack, and her sword started to melt through his spear, but before she could capitalize on the moment and behead him, Sieg’s tail grew and expanded, smashing out and batting Inyeon away.

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  Inyeon was flung through the air by the force and went flying straight at Davi, who was ready for her. His sword was raised into the air, and he charged up his mana. As soon as she got close enough, he stepped forward and smashed his arms down as hard as he could, hitting her with a Sky Cutting Sword strike. The ground in front of him was split in two, and Inyeon was slammed through the dirt and crashed down in the sewers of Daisy.

  She let out a sigh and stared at the puddle of shit, which now stained the bottom of her gown. “You got my clothes dirty. You two are bad boys.”

  Sieg leapt into the air and recreated his bow, launching his final spear down. Inyeon got ready to slice through it, but then she stopped when she saw the spear completely miss her. She went to taunt him, but then the spear rammed into a pipe and set off a gas explosion, which filled the sewers with flames.

  Inyeon then jumped out of the fire, leaving the destroyed sewers behind. Her clothing was a burned mess, and ash coated her skin. She no longer looked as flawless, and her dead eyes bore into both Davi and Sieg.

  “Very bad boys.”

  “Row Electric-Shadow Vault!” A thunderbolt slammed down next to Sieg, and when it faded, three new spears were left behind, identical to his last few. He holstered two on his back and grabbed the third one, ready to use it as a weapon. “You’re quite annoying. Enemies that take no damage aren’t fun to fight against.”

  “If you were stronger, you could harm me.” Inyeon pointed out. “Sadly, the two of you are both weak.”

  “I doubt anyone can hit with the force of a nuke.” Davi muttered.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised.” Inyeon hummed. “You two are pretty weak.”

  “Then we’ll hit you with our special brotherly combo and take you out!” Sieg declared.

  “Our special brotherly combo?” Davi raised an eyebrow and gave Sieg the side-eye.

  “Yeah, we’ll use our team attack.”

  “What is our team attack?”

  “You know?”

  “I do not…”

  “Oh. I never went over that with you, did I?”

  “You did not.”

  “Hmm. Okay, well, we’re going to hit her really hard basically.” Sieg shrugged. “We’ll just improvise something; I don’t know, just make sure it’s some cool combo attack and that it looks rad.”

  “Do you think we can pull something like that off without practicing?”

  “Of course we can.” Sieg nodded. “We’re brothers. We can do it.”

  “I’m being very polite.” Inyeon hummed. “You should both thank me that I am allowing this conversation to go on.”

  “We’ll be with you in a moment.” Sieg waved his hand at her. “Okay, let’s just try something and hope for the best.”

  Davi shrugged. “Sure. I lead, or you lead?”

  “By all means. Go right ahead.”

  “Got it. Then I think we should start with something simple.” Without warning, Davi blasted forward, kicking off the ground and forcing his mana into his legs. He appeared in front of Inyeon, startling her, and he stabbed his sword forward. She cocked her head to the side and managed to dodge it. Her own blade raised up, but before she could bring it down on Davi, Sieg used his electric aura.

  His black lightning spilled out in all directions, and an orange glow enveloped his body. His speed was massively enhanced, allowing him to blitz forward and swing his spear up, deflecting Inyeon’s attack. Her radiation blast flew off into the distance, and both he and Davi began to throw out a series of attacks at her with everything they had.

  Inyeon kept up with both of them, showing a level of swordsmanship as she parried and blocked, weaving in and out of her attacks. She wasn’t able to go on the offensive, however, and was slowly being pushed back by the two brothers as they seemed to get even faster.

  It was as if they were in sync with one another. Davi’s blade would cut through the air as Sieg’s spear pierced forward, and then they would cover each other and block for each other. Sieg had more reach, while Davi dealt more attacks in a shorter amount of time and parried all of Inyeon’s blows before she could properly unleash them.

  Still, no matter how good they were, Inyeon was literally built to be better. She deflected any severe blows and stopped any vibrations or traveling kinetic energy, all while using her impressive defense to tank any attacks. If they wanted to hurt her, they’d have to hit her really, really hard.

  Sieg forced himself forward, ignoring his melting spear, and he struck out with his weapon. Molten slag shot forward, and Inyeon was forced to swipe it away with her hands so it wouldn’t blind her. While she did that, Sieg dropped his weapon and wrapped his fingers around the wrist of her other hand, which was holding her sword. He raised it up and stopped her from striking out, then he twisted his head just in time to use his face to block her punch.

  Inyeon’s fist bounced off his black oni mask, unable to harm it, as the thing was filled to the brim with so much raw mana that it was almost as durable as she was. Inyeon went to yank her arm away, but before she could, Davi used another spell.

  “Row Shadow Vault.” Inyeon felt her legs begin to sink into the Vault as Davi tried to suck her into it. She stopped this effect by simply forcing mana into the bottom of her feet, the same way she would do if she wanted to stand on water, and she was suddenly able to step out of his shadow.

  Sieg suddenly let go of her wrist and smashed himself into her, tackling her over and dropping her back into the Vault, which started to suck her back up. Inyeon flared her mana around her entire form this time and stopped it, but then Sieg slammed his palm down into her stomach.

  “Row Electric-Shadow Vault!” The thunderbolt dropped and slammed into Inyeon’s stomach, shoving her into the Vault entirely. Her dead eyes stared down at various orbs of nuclear energy, which began to pulse and expand. “You can have those back.” Sieg turned his back on her as the Vault door sealed shut, and all the nukes she tried to drop on Daisy went off against her body.

  “I can’t believe that worked,” Davi grunted.

  “I know, I even got a cool line off.” Sieg adjusted his mask and drew his second spear. “Now all that’s left to deal with is that old man.”

  “Yeah. I bet he’s still alive.” Davi sighed.

  “Guess we'd better go hunt him down.” Sieg nodded. “If we take him out, then we’re done with this whole invasion-”

  A wave of intense heat suddenly filled the air, and both men jumped back and raised their guards up. Along the air, dozens of jagged cracks began to form. Steam lifted off the cracks that grew larger, and then space itself broke away, creating a swirling mass of black. From the darkness, Inyeon stepped out, shocking the two brothers.

  By now, her gown was totally gone, but she wasn’t exposed the same way a real woman would be. Her breasts lacked any detail, and her sex was bare and smooth as well, lacking any genitalia. She wasn’t unharmed from the blast, but she also didn’t look that badly damaged.

  A jagged black burn mark was present on her stomach, and several cracks were spreading across her fake flesh, which was torn in a few places, revealing a metallic skeleton beneath it all, but other than that, she looked perfectly fine. Her smile was still present, and her blank look stared at both brothers.

  “I’m going to take my time, slowly removing the flesh from your bones.” Inyeon’s smile grew. “After that, I’ll have my darling hollow out your insides and replace you with mechanical bits. He’ll turn you both into such pretty dolls, and then you can be my sons. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

  “...That’s deeply horrifying,” Davi said flatly.

  “Well, that’s too bad, because I decided you two would make lovely puppets.” Inyeond raised her sword. “Don’t you agree, darling?”

  A soft laughter rang out, followed by footsteps. From behind Inyeon, the Lord of Threads approached. “Indeed. Look at the two of them. They’ll be good warrior puppets. Both of them can keep their faces also.” The Lord of Threads looked both Davi and Sieg up and down. “It has been a while since I’ve added more to my collection. You two will fit into it perfectly.”

  “We’re good,” Sieg called out.

  “Still not a subject that can be negotiated.” The Lord of Threads slowly lifted his hand, and the tips of his fingers glowed. Threads of pure mana began to twist out and scatter in the air. They sliced through buildings and the ground, leaving jagged marks, and began to tear their way to Davi and Sieg.

  Before they reached it, a loud whistle suddenly came from behind the Lord of Threads. The elderly man froze, and Inyeon frowned. The whistling was some song, one that caused Davi’s eyes to widen, as he had heard it before. It was a popular tune back when he lived in his village, and his father used to do it when he’d work or was bored.

  The whistling grew louder and louder, and slowly the Lord of Threads turned. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be writing your story?”

  Adam came to a stop and adjusted his hat. He held a kind smile on his face, but just like Inyeon and Davi, his eyes held no true light behind them. “I had something I wanted to do. Or rather, someone I wanted to meet.”

  Adam Hawker had arrived.