Chapter 427

Chapter 427
## Chapter 427

Masquerade (5)

Coinciding with the moment the Executioner engaged in combat with the individual donning the Lion Mask,

“…Oracle, a complication has arisen.”

…Nagaraja, who commanded the Southeast Asia Branch of the Heaven’s Turn Society, made urgent contact with Oracle.

The isolation barrier erected over this territory was designed to completely sever external communications… yet the Heaven’s Turn Society naturally possessed distinct mechanisms to circumvent such blockades.

-“Yes, I have detected it as well. The threads of causality are… violently destabilizing. A massive disturbance is occurring. Relate the situation.”

“The Masquerade has mobilized. Four operatives have arrived.”

-“Four? That falls within the margins of our… anticipated contingencies…”

“Three of them are evaluated to possess combat capabilities on par with the Executioner.”

-“…What?”

Oracle fell into an astonished silence.

The Executioner was universally recognized as their premier combatant, second only to the Master himself.

Naturally, this did not equate to him being the absolute… second-in-command of the organization.

Other figures held equivalent systemic value, such as Oracle, who governed global operations from the darkness, and Doctor, whose synthesized mastery of sorcery and engineering far eclipsed contemporary mystical paradigms.

Yet, even they deferred to his sheer lethality, his function as an executioner—a specialized tool engineered to obliterate adversity.

He was, fundamentally, the instrument that enforced the Master’s decrees, purging anyone who stood against the Heaven’s Turn Society.

The current subjugation of the Burning Torch was merely… another demonstration of his… calculated lethality.

“Furthermore, the identities are even more shocking. Two among them are the… extra-dimensional Saint and the vampire known as Phantom.”

-“…They possess such might? That defies logic… Even accounting for rapid progression, to ascend to the tier of a… demigod…”

“We can analyze the logistics later. Do you comprehend the gravity of why I initiated this transmission?”

Nagaraja cut through her analysis, his words sharp and absolute.

This was the core reality of his transmission.

“If left unaided, we face absolute annihilation.”

Therefore, intervene immediately, unless you desire to see our entire contingent… wiped out.

Stripped of pretense, it was an explicit… plea for salvation.

-“…Maintain your position. I will orchestrate an intervention.”

Inevitably, Oracle could not disregard his distress call.

The personnel currently committed to this theatre were indispensable resources, comprising upper-echelon directors of the Heaven’s Turn Society.

This was particularly true for the Executioner, who had successfully manifested his divinity, and Nagaraja, a veteran of transcendent caliber. Their termination was an unacceptable loss.

“Ah.”

Yet, the sound that escaped his lips was not a release of tension.

It was a sharp, subdued inhalation born of… sheer bewilderment.

-“…What transpires?”

“This is…”

Oracle, recognizing the sudden shift in atmospheric tension, pressed further, her tone thick with apprehension… but Nagaraja was incapable of articulating a response.

He stood… paralyzed, his cognitive faculties overwhelmed by the… cataclysm unfolding before his eyes.

“…Simply… expedite the reinforcement.”

A surging tide of luminescence, reminiscent of a sacred cathedral, was expanding outward, consuming the entire theater of war.

It washed over the crippled operatives of the Burning Torch, instantly sealing their lacerations and restoring their vitality… while simultaneously exerting a crushing weight upon the forces of the Heaven’s Turn Society, decelerating their reflexes and causing their personal barriers to fragment.

Flash—

At the epicenter of this radiant expansion, a silhouette emerged, projecting an incomprehensible aura of majesty.

“…Otherwise, the intervention will arrive only to salvage our corpses.”

It was a recognizable visage, one he had crossed paths with on several occasions during his tenure as Branch Manager.

Yet, in contrast to their prior encounters, where the individual emitted a comforting, amber radiance… he was now entirely… altered, his presence manifesting as a brilliant, platinum-white brilliance, akin to the first light of dawn.

An angelic entity, blade hoisted, tracking them with a chilling focus,

…representing an absolute verdict, a sentence of damnation.

—

A mature gentleman sporting a trimmed beard—the supreme commander of the Burning Torch, the President.

Mimic, the Heaven’s Turn Society transcendent currently operating under the guise of the President, scowled deeply.

‘…This situation is deteriorating.’

The Executioner, having initiated the duel, was undeniably controlling the engagement.

Victory would eventually materialize, even if the process proved protracted.

However, the Executioner was not the sole variable on the field.

“So, you are Mimic?… Fascinating. The assimilation remains incomplete.”

Mimic recoiled slightly as the arriving entity addressed him directly, their eyes locking.

A pair of aurum irises, glowing with the intensity of confined stars, appeared to… strip away his fabrications, peering directly into his true self.

‘…Inconceivable, how did he pierce the deception?’

He clenched his teeth, his jaw tightening under the pressure.

He had been immensely precise, taking every precaution to mask his intrinsic signature.

The operational parameters had proceeded flawlessly until this juncture. He had even succeeded in… consuming the President, a formidable transcendent whom he could never hope to overpower in standard combat.

His unique attribute permitted him to monopolize another entity’s core, claiming their energy, recollections, and absolute profile… fundamentally replacing them.

This mechanism was the catalyst that allowed him to surpass his natural boundaries.

‘…Damn it, that oppressive sacred energy is disrupting the synchronization!’

Predictably, an attribute of this magnitude carried profound restrictions.

The chronological investment required to fully process a target’s core was extensive, and the probability of success plummeted drastically unless he had personally… broken their spirit.

‘…Quiet down… Cease resisting!’

He had successfully claimed the President’s core solely through the coordinated suppression provided by the other transcendents, meaning he had not… earned the conquest through his own merit.

He was currently enduring severe… internal indigestion, as the President’s raw output and spiritual tier vastly eclipsed his own.

The integration process would demand years to finalize.

He had operated under the assumption that personal combat would be unnecessary, given the presence of the Executioner and the rest of the elite Heaven’s Turn Society vanguard…

“I was beginning to find this… monotonous… This development is… ideal. The Burning Torch will possess greater… utility with their authentic commander restored.”

…but as he observed the angelic figure, its sacred blade shimmering, its focus locked onto his position, its gaze burning with an… icy malice that contrasted sharply with its divine facade,

…he understood that hesitation meant death.

Kaboom—!

A colossal column of radiance erupted from the heavens, its velocity and destructive potential so immense it left no room for evasion.

He was forced into immediate defensive maneuvers to avoid being… erased from existence.

“Spatial dampening! Layered fortification! Kinetic dispersion! Reactive kinetic ward… Argh!”

His defensive arrays, constructed from the accumulated stolen techniques of dozens of transcendents, were casually dismantled, shattered sequentially without effort.

Compounding the crisis, the more violently he fought to maintain control, the more fierce the internal rebellion became, as the President’s residual spirit revolted, fighting against being… dissolved.

“Designate adversary, augment energy output, deploy anti-divine warding!”

“My perimeter is absolute! Impregnable Shield!”

“Triggering trap matrix— Endless Mirror Corridor!”

He managed to endure the initial onslaught solely due to the intervention of his allies, each an accomplished transcendent in their own right.

Their integrated counter-offensive, a sophisticated amalgamation of sorcery and technology derived from disparate dimensions, represented the pinnacle of the Heaven’s Turn Society’s doctrine.

Clang!

Their counter-measures were not limited to passive defense.

A monumental hand manifested from the bedrock, its digits resembling structural columns, wielding a blade wreathed in illumination as localized gravity surged to compromise his positioning. Simultaneously, a lance resembling a striking serpent darted forward, its tip poised to impale the target.

“Impressive…”

Even Heinrich could not suppress a spark of admiration.

They were executing a coordinated defense with immense competence, despite the glaring disparity in raw power.

They were, at their core, transcendents—individuals who had outlived countless slaughterhouses, each a champion or a… living disaster within their respective origins.

‘…Whereas my own foundation remains… unrefined.’

In contrast to these veterans, who had ascended to their current echelons through decades of relentless refinement and life-or-death struggles, he had reached his position through… expedited pathways and… fortune.

They were masters of survival, adept at operating at absolute capacity and exploiting every nuance of their capabilities.

It was entirely logical that they could mount a resistance against him, a newcomer who had yet to fully internalize his elevated state.

‘…Nonetheless, this constitutes an exceptional… instructional environment.’

Heinrich’s expression turned cold, his gaze sharpening.

His respiration steadied, his cognitive processing accelerated, and the surrounding environment seemed to… decelerate, every minor detail manifesting with pristine clarity.

He commenced a systematic decomposition of their trajectories, their mystical formulations, and their tactical deployments, extracting… foundational insights.

‘…They serve as magnificent… sparring assets. This experience will prove invaluable when the time arrives to confront the Master of Heaven’s Turn Society.’

This mirrored the exact rationale behind Harley’s insistence on isolating the Executioner in a duel.

He had placed an excessive emphasis on raw output and efficiency, neglecting the… core mechanics of combat.

He risked becoming nothing more than a… massive, yet… clumsy… entity if he maintained that trajectory.

This cognitive realignment immediately reflected in his physical execution.

Nagaraja, the East Asia Branch Manager of Heaven’s Turn Society, who was currently directing the… anti-angel suppression protocols, grimaced, his features contorting.

‘…What is occurring here…?!’

His target’s structural vulnerabilities, which had been glaringly abundant and… straightforward to exploit mere moments ago, were vanishing sequentially in real time, as if undergoing a rapid… optimization and… hot-fixing.

Vectors of attack that had previously found purchase were now met with precise parries or fluid evasions.

His strategic formulations, his meticulously orchestrated maneuvers… were being systematically… anticipated and… neutralized.

It appeared as though the entity was… absorbing knowledge and… transforming at an impossible velocity, cannibalizing their combat wisdom.

He could no longer discern whether this was an absolute struggle for survival or an interactive… diagnostic calibration.

The remaining operatives, detecting the paradigm shift in momentum, likewise darkened, their expressions twisted with unease.

‘…How is his comprehension accelerating at this rate? It defies standard magical laws… ‘

The disparity only widened as the seconds ticked by.

Initially, Heinrich had been adjusting his own mechanical flaws… but now, the roles had inverted, and Nagaraja’s unit was the one being… interrogated, their every motion anticipated, their every intent parsed.

The adversary’s offensive sequences felt like… direct inquiries.

*What is the optimal mitigation for this specific trajectory? How do you counter this variant?*

*By what mechanism do I bypass this specific fortification? What is the most streamlined counter-offensive?*

“Gah! Accursed beast…!”

An unrelenting sequence of strike and counter-strike, a rapid escalation of tactical sophistication.

Ultimately, the structural failure manifested first… within Mimic, who was already failing to sustain the integrity of his stolen form.

He expectorated a torrent of dark blood and collapsed, his physical form convulsing and twisting violently upon the stone, his skeletal structure… warping as though an entity was preparing to… tear its way out from his thorax.

The spectacle mirrored a sequence from a grotesque nightmare.

‘…Securing the primary target takes precedence.’

Both entities would be completely exposed during the extraction phase.

Furthermore, introducing a localized infusion of sacred energy would likely… facilitate the process.

He possessed zero investment in Mimic’s survival, but the President represented a critical… asset, an individual required for the broader campaign against the Heaven’s Turn Society.

Whoosh—

His six wings unfurled completely, and a torrent of immaculate illumination, a wave of condensed sacred force, saturated the immediate vicinity.

In the next instant,

…Mimic, who had been writhing helplessly upon the floor,

…was suddenly positioned within his grasp.

Naturally, the opposing transcendents attempted a frantic interception, but their efforts were inconsequential.

They were already pushed to their absolute limits maintaining their own positions; expecting them to successfully execute a rescue operation under these conditions was a mathematical impossibility.

As Heinrich directed his sacred energy into Mimic’s compromised anatomy, his awareness registered an anomaly.

‘…Oh? This signature is… ‘

He detected a highly… calculated, secondary energy source interacting with his divine power.

An unidentified frequency, actively assisting the President’s consciousness in severing its ties to Mimic.

He traced the feedback loop, expanding his sensory perimeter.

He located the source.

‘…Ahn? This resonance… It feels identical to… the frequency present when I breached this pocket dimension. Did she employ this exact mechanism during that event?’

It was Ahn, positioned at the core of the remaining Burning Torch command staff, her physical form emitting a subtle, rhythmic glow.

Having managed to conserve her reserves due to his timely intervention, she had executed her specific attribute at the absolute optimal threshold.

The structural consequence was instantaneous.

“Ugh—! Aaaagh—!”

An aborted attempt to force an artificial ascension universally demanded a catastrophic toll.

The absence of a rebound implied that the boundaries of the self had never truly been challenged.

Mimic, having attempted to domesticate a consciousness vastly superior to his own without possessing the foundational right…

Swish—

…his stolen architecture, his borrowed identity, began to… disintegrate, his anatomy fracturing and separating like an unstable organism dividing, a singular form bifurcating into two distinct entities.

The process lacked the… visceral horror of a conventional mutilation… yet it remained deeply… anomalous.

“Ugh! Gah!”

The first silhouette to stabilize was a male so profoundly wasted that identifying his chronological age was an impossibility. He lay there, coughing violently and gasping for oxygen.

This was, presumably, Mimic’s authentic state.

His dehydrated, leathery physique, resembling an ancient specimen, was the direct consequence of having his… life force… systematically drained over time.

As for the secondary entity…

“Freddy!”

Ahn’s cry echoed through the chamber, saturated with profound relief and… an underlying complexity.

…That entity was, unmistakably, the true President.

Heinrich found himself experiencing a profound wave of… cognitive dissonance.

‘…Wait, is this accurate?’

The robust, bearded patriarch had vanished completely, replaced by a… strikingly beautiful woman, resting unconscious upon the cold ground.

Furthermore, she was mostly unclad.

‘…A female? Yet Freddy… the commander… was verified as a patriarch… Wait, Freddy?’

In that instant, his memory recalled Ahn’s frantic vocalizations.

The specific words she had shouted during the initial ambush by the Heaven’s Turn Society.

-“Where is the Commander?! What have you done with Freddy?!”

‘…I had assumed she was merely… stumbling over her syntax due to the sheer panic of the assault… ’

Evidently, that was her legitimate nomenclature.

He observed her form for a brief interval, his expression… unreadable, before retrieving a heavy textile from his dimensional inventory to drape over her form, turning his gaze away.

He was far from the only individual paralyzed by this revelation.

“Who is that person? Where is our Commander?”

“The President is female?! Ahn! Provide an immediate explanation!”

“Ugh, Mimic…!… Is that truly the executive authority?”

“…Hold, did Mimic truly operate without this knowledge?”

Not only were the remaining Burning Torch directors completely disoriented, but the Heaven’s Turn Society transcendents—who had deliberately targeted the President to utilize his identity as a strategic infiltration mechanism—

…were entirely paralyzed with confusion.

‘…A high-tier camouflage attribute?’

It appeared that even Mimic himself had remained ignorant of the reality, as he had failed to achieve deep integration with the President’s core.

Perhaps this fundamental incompatibility was the catalyst for the incredibly sluggish absorption rate.

‘…Ultimately, it is irrelevant.’

They had successfully extricated the President, the supreme authority of the Burning Torch and a high-tier transcendent asset, while effectively neutralizing a core member of the Heaven’s Turn Society vanguard.

The remaining objective was simple:… eliminate the survivors.

‘…My systems are still… far from peak optimization… but remaining stationary is not an option. Future opportunities for refinement will present themselves.’

Ahn and the surviving directors, their conditions stabilized by the prior wave of sacred energy, converged upon the unconscious leader, initiating emergency medical stabilization.

Concurrently, Ken, who had maintained a cautious perimeter to avoid the caustic effects of the holy radiation, and Harris, who had been conducting a structural audit of the architecture, closed ranks with the main body.

“Let us conclude this engagement.”

The moment Heinrich raised his sacred edge, adjusting his stance to deliver the terminal strike,

…Crackle—

…the localized barrier sealing the pocket dimension suddenly manifested a cascade of structural fractures.