Chapter 28: The Calculus of Ambition
Annette's Paradox
Annette, the first combatant-saintess in Church history, moved like a bladed prayer. While past saints had traded on beauty and piety, she wielded ambition like a smuggled dagger.
Her origins were etched in frost:
Birthplace: A frigid northern sub-district where sunlight rationed itself
Genetic Anomaly: Mother's delicate bones spliced with father's harsh features (Chapter 12's eugenics report)
Survival Algorithm: 87% of former saintesses died from "political complications" (per Chapter 5's redacted archives)
The Church had balked at her demand for a demon contract. Instead, they'd leashed high-ranking hellspawn to her chariot—a tactical error.
Tasiya's fist grazed Annette's temple. The saintess's counterstrike targeted reproductive organs with clinical precision.
"Pathetic," Annette hissed, knee driving toward Tasiya's abdomen. "You fight like a—"
The impact never landed. Tasiya's palm deflected the blow, her neural implant flashing:
Opponent's Tell: 0.5s delay when attacks risk facial scarring
Exploit: Concentrate strikes above collarbone (vanity override protocol)
Sand sprayed as they disengaged.
Throne of Lies
Prince Amal's whisper slithered through the combat zone: "Your demon seems... disinterested."
Nathaniel didn't glance at the dueling women. "If she can't win this, future battles are moot."
The prince's smirk died as Tasiya feinted toward Annette's left eye. The saintess flinched—0.3s vulnerability window—allowing Tasiya's knee to connect with solar plexus.
Annette crumpled, Church-trained grace shattered.
"Does it hurt?" Tasiya offered a hand she knew wouldn't be taken. "Now you understand what you inflict."
The crowd buzzed with coded outrage. Tasiya's retinal HUD tagged:
17% Sympathizers (menstruation trauma resonance)
42% Enemies (Annette loyalists)
41% Opportunists (awaiting Chapter 29's power shift)
Redthorn's whip cracked. "Next! Halfbreed versus feral child!"
Quantum Predation
Kunji moved like entropy personified.
Tasiya's combat logs scrambled:
0.8s: Target vanished from visual spectrum
1.2s: Thermal signature detected at 7 o'clock
1.5s: Impact registered (left ribcage, 156N force)
The boy's fighting style defied Nathaniel's taxonomy:
Not Calculative (no predictive algorithms)
Not Instinctual (too precise for animalistic patterns)
His palm hovered at her throat, calluses scraping carotid artery. "Want... win?"
Tasiya's muscles locked. Kunji's pupils dilated—86% match to Chapter 16's feral demon behavior.
"I'll... let you."
His concession tasted of copper and prophecy.
Chapter 29: The Calculus of Collusion
Arena of Whispers
Tasiya and Kunji had exchanged fewer words in two weeks than a monastery's vow of silence. Their first true dialogue unfolded beneath the arena's blood-orange sun, sand gritting between syllables.
"Shouldn't you fear her ears?" Tasiya tilted her chin toward Redthorn, whose whip coiled like a dormant serpent.
Kunji's reply carried a metallic rasp, as though his vocal cords had been honed on whetstones. "She… can't hear." The words warped the air, thickening the seconds between heartbeats.
Tasiya's neurons fired through syrup. Every parry revealed gaps in Kunji's defense—gaps that vanished when analyzed, like smoke rings dissolving.
"Why concede to me?" She pivoted, boots skidding through the combat algorithm Redthorn had drilled into them (Chapter 25's sandbox simulations).
The Eighth District boy's fists blurred. "Don't… want Kanvia… getting the child."
Tasiya's retinas flickered with tactical overlays:
Kunji's Strikes: 37% force reduction (masked by temporal distortion)
Dark Flux Signature: Self-generated (no demonic tether per Ch.28's spectral analysis)
When his knuckles grazed her temple, she tasted copper and revelation: Halfbreed.
Spectator Calculus
Amal's face met the dirt again. "Why?!" His scream scattered sparrows. From his ground-level vantage, he missed the milliseconds Kunji gifted Tasiya—the delayed pivots, the microsecond hesitations.
Redthorn's grin sharpened. Her whip handle cracked against the scoreboard, fracturing the Vincent family crest etched there (established in Ch.7's heraldry logs).
Nathaniel's shadow stretched across the bleachers. Through slit-pupiled optics, he dissected Kunji's temporal anomalies:
Localized Time Dilation: 0.87x baseline (explains Tasiya's perceptual lag)
Dark Flux Combustion: 12,300 kelvin (matches Ch.19's meteor shower residue)
The demon's fingers twitched—an aborted gesture toward Tasiya's sweat-damp nape.
Fractured Consensus
Sand geysered as Kunji fell. Amal's howl of injustice drowned beneath the crowd's murmurs:
Nobility Faction: 68% suspect rigged match (per betting pool ledgers)
Clergy Observers: 92% note Tasiya's "miraculous stamina" (contradicts Ch.24's medical eval)
Kunji blinked up through amber lashes. "Luck… favors the quiet."
Tasiya's prize squirmed in the sand—a boy molding castles from his own tears. Nathaniel materialized between them, gloved hands radiating frost.
"Your victory," he intoned, "your contamination risk."
She reached for the child.
The demon intercepted, his grip fracturing the boy's shadow into shards (foreshadowing Ch.31's prismatic revelations). "Rest. Your shirt's bleeding through."
Mendicant Threads
Moonlight lacquered the dormitory floor. Tasiya's combat fatigues lay in ruins—elbow ripped from Chapter 27's grapple, collar singed by Kunji's flux residue.
Nathaniel's needle danced across linen, embroidering frostblooms over bloodstains.
"New uniforms arrive tomorrow," he lied (supply manifests showed three-week delays).
Tasiya snatched the garment. "Yours… stays."
The demon's smirk glitched—a 0.04-second exposure of fang before discipline reasserted. His sutures tightened, binding more than fabric.
Chapter 30: The Fractal Wound
Oblivion's Edge
Third District, Onifar.
The Holy Corps had spent two weeks sanitizing the region of low-tier demons—vermin even a district's guardian demon could purge with a flick of its claws. Yet Serd, Onifar's sovereign fiend, remained conspicuously absent as villages burned.
Survivors clustered in mountain caves, their hatred for the Church metastasizing into something immune to memory-wiping demons. Corps Commander Valtin reviewed the anomaly logs:
Memory Reversion Rate: 98.7% within 48 hours (Chapter 22's cortical scans showed no neural parasites)
Anti-Church Propaganda Accuracy: 93% matched internal archives (suggesting mole activity since Chapter 18)
Interrogations revealed grotesque truths. The Diaz couple, aristocrats with three stillborn children, had traded orphans to Serd for fertility blessings. Their latest offering—a girl with heterochromatic eyes (foreshadowed in Chapter 27's refugee manifests)—had vanished into the demon's lair.
Valtin's drones mapped thermal anomalies near volcanic fissures. "Search quadrant Delta-9 again," he ordered, ignoring the squad's exhausted groans. The ground trembled faintly, as if the mountains themselves were laughing.
Cicatrix
Deep within the magma chambers, Serd watched surveillance feeds through a child's severed optic nerve.
"Another patrol?" The pink-haired demon Abi crushed a limestone pillar. "We've waited fifteen days! Let me flay their skins into banners!"
Serd's laughter sent magma surging. His true form flickered—a patchwork horror stitched from stolen body parts (Chapter 23's mass grave incident). "Nathaniel's scent lingers in District Six's wheat fields. Direct confrontation would be…unwise."
Abi froze. "You've faced him before."
"Faced? No." Serd unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a cavity where his heart should pulse. "He devoured me whole in 1347. My consciousness survived in the gastric acid he vomited onto a beggar's corpse."
The revelation triggered Abi's threat-assessment protocols:
Serd's Regenerative Capacity: Exceeds Tier IX demon classifications
Nathaniel's Combat Rating: Redacted (classified as "Apocalypse Scenario" in Chapter 25's archives)
Outside, screams erupted as Serd unleashed his aura. Dark flux waves liquefied three soldiers' eyes. "Our allies?" Abi asked, kicking a falling stalactite.
"District Eight pledged troops. District Seven's matriarch spat at my emissary."
Serd's claws elongated into obsidian scythes. "Then let's demonstrate why even ash fears the flame."
Chrysalis
Tasiya studied her reflection in the carriage window. Nathaniel's gift—a dagger forged from fallen angel feathers (Chapter 28's auction subplot)—lay heavy in her lap.
"Your sisters' parcels are en route," the demon said, adjusting his gloves' neurotoxin injectors. "Including District Three's lavender honey for Lady Flora's insomnia."
The carriage halted at a townhouse where Flora waited, tension crackling beneath her jasmine perfume. "Father's pushing Elvira to marry," she whispered, eyeing the hallway. "The succession crisis—"
Tasiya's implant analyzed:
Flora's Pupil Dilation: 120% baseline (indicates withheld information)
Acoustic Anomalies: Faint scratching behind north wall (rats? Surveillance bugs?)
A maid entered with tea, her left pinky missing (matching Chapter 29's torture victim descriptions). Flora changed topics abruptly. "How's your demon's obedience?"
"Flawless," Tasiya lied. Nathaniel's recent midnight absences correlated with District Three's seismic activity.
Ouroboros
That night, Nathaniel stood atop the clock tower, watching Serd's forces swarm through dimensional rifts. His neural feed displayed:
Invasion Pattern: 78% match to 1347 siege tactics
Projected Civilian Casualties: 14,302 (minimum)
A hologram flickered—Serd's face superimposed over the moon. "Come, old friend! Let's dance the waltz we—"
Nathaniel crushed the transmission bead. His wings unfurled, casting shadows that triggered every demonic sensor in the capital.
Tasiya's voice pierced his comms: "Where are you?"
"Buying honey," he deadpanned, diving toward the carnage.
Chapter 31: The Calculus of Inheritance
Tea and Taboos
Marriage had never occupied real estate in Tasiya's mind. Yet the word hung like poisoned honey in Saint Corps' halls, where heirs and spinsters traded lineage like currency.
Floral wallpaper framed the sisters' confrontation.
"If Father's cousins inherit Vincent territory," Floral set her teacup clattering into its saucer, "every reform—the irrigation canals, the hybrid wheat fields—vanishes."
Tasiya's gaze tracked the biscuit crumbs on her sister's lap (Chapter 7's famine protocols). "All your efforts… failed?"
Floral's laugh tasted of gunpowder. "We stormed courtrooms. Drafted bills. Even courted the second heir, Claire—until we realized her throne bid was suicidal." Her fan snapped open, obscuring lips shaped for venom (Chapter 13's political blueprints).
"So Delia's solution…"
"A halfbreed spouse." Floral's eyes gleamed with borrowed ruthlessness. "Bound by blood oaths. Unbreakable. Efficient."
Contractual Paradox
Tasiya's teacup froze mid-sip.
Nathaniel's warning from Chapter 28's sparring session resurged:
Halfbreed Limitations: 94.7% mortality rate in human-hybrid pregnancies (per Church archives)
Blood Oath Mechanics: Requires mutual consent (contradicts Chapter 5's demonic coercion models)
"What about love?" The word felt alien on her tongue, a borrowed weapon.
Floral's biscuit shattered.
Demonic Algebra
The interrogation escalated:
Nathaniel's Attire: 87% color coordination with Tasiya's dress (per Chapter 29's wardrobe logs)
Proximity Metrics: 1.2m average distance (versus 4.7m for standard master-demon pairs)
Floral's fan became a scalpel. "No contract? Then what binds him?"
Tasiya's retinas flickered with combat HUD remnants:
Answer A: Convenience (87% deception risk)
Answer B: Mutual benefit (62% accuracy)
Answer C: He asked for love (12% catastrophic plausibility)
She chose silence.
Reproductive Algorithms
Floral's gloves gripped her sister's shoulders. "Contraception protocols?"
Tasiya's neural index scrolled blank pages.
The elder sister activated emergency briefing mode:
Coital Mechanics: Illustrated via napkin origami (violates Chapter 18's decency statutes)
Gestational Risks: 300% mortality rate for demon-human hybrids (suppressed Church data)
Nathaniel's Anomaly: Zero recorded sexual partners (contradicts Chapter 9's brothel ledgers)
"He wants…" Tasiya's vocal cords betrayed her, "…love. How does one… quantify that?"
Floral's diagnostics spiraled:
Option 1: Poison the demon (53% success rate)
Option 2: Arrange political marriage (Chapter 14's candidate pool)
Option 3: Let the apocalypse handle it (increasingly viable)
Ephemeral Code
Nathaniel materialized with frostbloom tea—Tasiya's preferred analgesic. His glove lingered 0.3 seconds beyond necessary when transferring the cup.
Floral's fan intercepted the gesture. "Love is calculus. Solve it before it solves you."
As petals spiraled toward the carpet, Tasiya's neural implant logged an anomaly:
Nathaniel's Pulse: 12.8% acceleration during eye contact (per Chapter 22's biometric baselines)
The demon evaporated a falling petal. His smile cut deeper than any blade.