The Paladin's final words hung in the sterile air of the command center. She did not look away from Lilla; her gaze remained steady and unflinching. She knew what came next. The order was a formality now, a single spoken word that would set a chain of events into motion.

On the screen before her, the preparatory commands for the Saintess's personal shuttle glowed, a silent promise of swift departure. Every line of code was in place, waiting. All it required was the final, decisive authorization from the woman whose eyes held the weight of worlds.

Far below, on the planet's scarred surface, that weight was felt in the thunder of artillery and the screams of men. Two teams of paladins had launched a desperate assault, targeting the pirate artillery positions just beyond the protective barrier. Their mission was to break the siege before it truly began.

The outcome was a study in brutal contrast.

One team, led by a seasoned Paladin, had moved with lethal grace. They had raided a pirate emplacement with ruthless efficiency, reducing the heavy guns to smoldering scrap metal. Their success, however, was a lone bright spark in an overwhelming darkness.

The other team, commanded by a military Captain, had walked into a slaughter. The pirates, forewarned and cunning, had sprung their trap. Now, the soldiers were caught in a deadly crossfire, their formation shattered, their voices rising in panicked shouts that were swallowed by the chaos.

"Captain! Where is the Captain?" A soldier from another squad stumbled through the smoke, his eyes wide with terror as he searched for a leader in the maelstrom.

A grim answer came from a voice thick with dust and dread. "The Captain is dead! The sergeant is in command, but he's hit! He's over there, by the tank; a medic is with him!"

No sooner had the words been spoken than a shriek tore through the sky. An artillery shell found its mark, striking the tank with apocalyptic force. The vehicle erupted into a fireball of shredded metal, consuming the soldiers nearby in a single, deafening roar. The sergeant and his medic were gone, vaporized in an instant.

The searching soldier was thrown to the ground, the world dissolving into a dizzying cacophony of ringing ears and choking dust. "Cough, cough! What the heck?" he sputtered, struggling to make sense of the hellscape.

Through the haze, he saw new shapes moving of hulking, muscular warbeasts, unleashed by the pirates. He watched in frozen horror as the creatures fell upon his comrades, their ferocious snarls mingling with the soldiers dying cries.

Then, a strong hand closed on the collar of his armor, dragging him backward. "Pull yourselves together, soldiers!" a voice shouted out, cutting through his stupor. "If you can hear me, start shooting at those bastards! Otherwise, I will run by myself!"

The words were repeated like a mantra of survival. Though his mind was fogged, the soldier latched onto the most vital command... shoot. He raised his rifle; his movements were slow and heavy, but even so, he squeezed the trigger.

The rounds struck the beasts, punching into their hardened hides, but they did not slow. Not a single drop of blood welled from the wounds. It was like throwing pebbles at a landslide.

As he was hauled away, his eyes recorded a nightmare scene... the blinding flash of gunfire from all sides and the warbeasts feasting with a gruesome relish, treating his fellow humans as a delicacy.

His rifle clicked empty, the sound a death knell in his hands. In that moment of utter despair, a new sound reached him... a clear, high chime, like a celestial tinkerbell.

He looked up.

The sky itself seemed to part as a frigate descended, its hull blotting out the sun. Then, the world turned white as a focused laser bombardment lanced down from the heavens, carving into the earth between the soldiers and the beasts, a purifying fire answering the call of the damned.

A ragged cheer went up from the surviving soldiers. "It's a frigate from the Templars!" one soldier shouted, his voice cracking with a mixture of terror and relief as he pointed a trembling finger toward the sky.

Emblazoned on the vessel's hull was the unmistakable symbol of the Templars of the Radiant Moon, a sight more welcome than any sunrise.

Another soldier, who had been pressing his back against a shattered rock for cover, risked a glance upward. "Look! It's not just the Templars! The Crusaders are here too! Why are they here?" His question was swallowed by the sudden, thunderous descent of drop pods from the frigate's underbelly.

Before the dust could even settle, the reinforcements were among them. The Templars and Crusaders hit the ground with the heavy, final sound of divine judgment.

They moved with a synchronized, terrifying grace. Crimson laser blades, humming with contained power, flashed in the hands of the Crusaders, shearing through the warbeasts with brutal efficiency.

Meanwhile, the Templars raised their own brilliant shields of light, weaving a defensive perimeter that created a sudden, blessed safe zone for the wounded.

"We are saved!"

"Thank the White Lady!"

The soldiers' cheers were raw, heartfelt prayers offered from the very depths of their souls. But their celebration was cut short. A monstrous roar echoed from the tree line, and a warbeast of colossal size, a true engine of destruction, burst from the forest. It took one earth-shaking step toward them, its maw dripping with saliva.

It never took a second.

In a blur of motion too fast to follow, the beast was dismantled. It did not simply fall; it came apart, its form dissected into a thousand smoking pieces that rained onto the scorched earth.

And standing where it had been, amidst the settling gore, was a figure in golden power armor, its seams glowing with the fierce red light of a forge. A Paladin. One of the Holy Kingdom's military elite. The awe that washed over the common soldiers was a physical force, silencing them completely.

Yet, what happened next was a sight reserved for scriptures and dreams, too profound for even these fanatics to process.

"Your Holiness," the golden Paladin intoned, her voice filtered and resonant through her helmet. "The Templars have confirmed the destruction of the artillery. All remaining soldiers have been rescued."

"Holiness...?" the soldier breathed the word, his mind struggling to comprehend.

He did not have even a second to ponder it. A powerful, warm wind swept over the battlefield from behind him, carrying with it the same celestial chime he had heard before, now followed by a voice of pure, unsettling melody.

"Mmm, good work." The Saintess of the White Lady, Lilla herself, was speaking. She sounded almost bored. "It seems the report of one of the pirate kings leading this position was fake. There was only a Tier 3 warbeast. It was a total trap."

The soldier turned, his movements slow and reverent, as if in a trance.

And there he saw her. The leader of humanity. The beacon of all their hope. She was walking through the air as if it were solid, each step sending gentle, visible ripples through the atmosphere, like footsteps on the surface of a still pond.

She wore no shoes. Her feet were bare and stained with dark, fresh blood, as were her delicate hands. In one of those blood-slicked hands, she held the severed head of the massive warbeast, her fingers curled tightly around its limp tongue.

With a casual flick of her wrist, she tossed the grisly trophy toward the Paladin, who caught it without flinching.

"Tell command to send a transport," Lilla commanded, her voice losing its melodic lilt and turning sharp with purpose as her feet finally touched the blood-soaked earth.

"Take the head and investigate it. Since this warbeast was activated from a distance, we might yet pry some clues from its flesh as to where their main force is hiding."

"Let us also take this time to—" Lilla's command was cut short, the words dying on her lips. Her head tilted upward, her gaze piercing the heavens as if she could see something the others could not.

A low, mocking laughter rolled down from the empty sky. "Hahaha! It seems the rumors were true. The little queen of these human cattle has sharp eyes!"

Where she was looking, the very fabric of reality splintered. A jagged crack of violet light tore open, and from that wound in the world, a figure emerged.

His aura was a suffocating weight, a pressure that made the very air tremble... a Tier 6 Powerhouse, a true Overlord of the pirate fleets. He was flanked by four others, each radiating a power that marked them as Tier 5 Pirate Kings; their grins were sharp and predatory.

One of the Kings, a hulking brute with a scarred face, let his gaze wander over Lilla with a brazen hunger. "Boss! This female human is just my taste! Can I have her?" he slurred, his eyes devouring her from head to toe.

The Overlord waved a dismissive hand, his composure unnerving as he casually surveyed the battlefield below. "Do whatever you want. Just don't kill her yet. I still have questions that need answering."

The Pirate King's grin widened into a vicious slash. "Hah! Of course, boss! I will do as you said!" In the blink of an eye, he vanished. There was no movement, no blur, only the unsettling silence of instant transmission.

He simply ceased to be in one place and appeared directly in front of Lilla, so close that the soldiers could smell the ozone and blood on him.

A dozen weapons were instantly raised, their barrels aimed at the intruder's head, a chorus of charging lasers humming to life. But Lilla stopped them with a single, calm gesture, her hand rising to halt their fire.

"Mmm?" the Pirate King chuckled, his voice a low, disgusting rumble. "How did you know I like a good, submissive slave?" He reached out a grimy, calloused hand, intending to stroke her cheek with a possessive familiarity.