(Execution Livestream Continuation, The Pit, Dupravel Nuna’s POV)
Just like Su Pei, Dupravel was also one of the Cult Commanders that Leo had enslaved by force, and just like Su Pei, Dupravel too had found his calling within the Cult over time, as although he had joined the organisation against his will, as the years passed it had replaced the place in his heart that was once occupied by the Black Serpents.
*Chink*
*BOOM*
A poison grenade detonated deep within the enemy’s rear formation, viridian smoke erupting outward in a violent bloom as Dupravel slipped through the chaos like a shadow given intent, already moving before the screams began, his daggers low and loose in his hands as bodies started to fall choking.
*Cough* *Cough* *Gasp*
He had infiltrated deep into the enemy lines alone, with no escort, no cover and no clear path to retreat.
However, he wasn’t worried, for he knew that this loneliness was exactly how he fought best.
Unlike traditional warriors who could fight both solo or with a team, Dupravel was more of a specialist fighter who preferred moving through the battlefield in narrow corridors of opportunity, where his presence was only felt in the aftermath, in the sudden collapse of a unit that should not have collapsed, or in the collapse of a retreat line that was supposed to be secure.
He struck from blind angles.
A dagger flashing across a throat.
Another sliding between armor plates.
The kills were precise and economical, each motion measured, each withdrawal immediate, as Dupravel refused to linger longer than the span of a breath, his Monarch-tier perception mapping enemy responses in real time, tracking hesitation, fear, and overcorrection as carefully as any blade path.
He did not slaughter for numbers.
He slaughtered for disruption, as unlike the other Cult Commanders, he did not have an army under him, and hence, had nothing chaining him down.
*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*
Another series of poison grenades arced from his hand, bouncing once, twice, before vanishing beneath a shield wall, as the smoke that followed swallowed the enemy unit whole, screams rising as soldiers staggered blindly into one another, formations disintegrating as Captains shouted conflicting orders, unsure whether the threat was singular or legion-wide.
"That’s right baby, Cower before me...."
He murmured, as the fear that the enemy felt because of his rogue movements was the whole point behind his fighting style.
He did not fight for blood, but rather for mass hysteria, so that instead of watching the front, the enemy reflexively checked their flanks and rear, as the paranoia prevented their minds from getting a single second of rest.
"The Cult Army is your enemy later, first you have to handle me...."
He muttered as he cut down a Grandmaster Captain who tried to rally the poisoned ranks, daggers crossing in a tight X before separating, one blade opening the throat while the other severed the spine, the body dropping without sound as Dupravel rolled through the falling corpse and vanished behind a collapsed barricade.
Moments later, a Monarch-tier AOE technique detonated.
Dupravel planted his feet and drove mana through both daggers at once, carving twin arcs of condensed force that tore outward in widening crescents, ripping through clustered enemies in a violent sweep that crushed armor and pulverized bone across hundreds of meters, the sheer pressure flattening those who survived the initial impact.
*KABOOM*
He did not stay to watch the aftermath.
He never did.
By the time enemy formations reacted, he was already gone, his aura suppressed to a whisper as he slipped through ruptured terrain and broken command lines, reappearing minutes later in a different sector entirely, repeating the process with surgical cruelty.
Poison.
Precision.
Terror.
He repeated again and again, until the back lines of the second ring started to turn on one another and began to attack anything they saw move, including their own allies.
’If they fear the darkness behind them,’ Dupravel thought calmly as he wiped blood from his blade while being crouched atop a pile of dead corpses, ’they will never commit fully to the light ahead.’
He thought, as he moved to disrupt yet another sector of enemies.
Having the background of the Black Serpents Guildmaster, he had always been an individual who understood the stakes behind such a big war.
However, it wasn’t until he lost everything to the Righteous Faction, that he realized just how precious an organisation like the Cult was and just how important moments like these were for the future of the organisation.
’The Righteous Faction is corrupt and scummy.
The universe will be a better place with the Cult in charge.
And hence, even though I know that our odds of winning this war are very low, I want to play my part in trying to achieve that impossible dream’
Dupravel thought, as he continued to fight as hard as his limbs allowed.
—-------
(Meanwhile Darnell Nuna)
Back when the Cult had first kidnapped him, Darnell had never imagined that one day he would stand as one of the Cult’s integral pillars, carrying a responsibility that stretched far beyond his own survival, because back then his feelings toward the organization had been simple, raw, and absolute.
Hatred.
He had wanted the Cult erased, wanted Leo Skyshard annihilated, and in those early days, that desire had felt righteous, even necessary, as he clung to it like an anchor in a universe that had been violently overturned.
Yet time had a way of grinding down convictions when they were forced to exist within reality, and as years passed under the Cult’s system, his hatred slowly gave way to something far more unsettling.
Opportunity.
Where others had hoarded power, the Cult invested it.
Where the Righteous Faction had exploited him, the Cult had nurtured him.
From a struggling Master-tier warrior to a Monarch who now shaped the battlefield through sheer presence alone, Darnell had been reforged through expectation, discipline, and a system that demanded results while rewarding growth without prejudice, and somewhere along that ascent, the Cult had stopped feeling like a prison.
It had become his home.
*THRUMM*
The battlefield trembled beneath his boots as he stepped forward, eyes narrowing while he felt the strain creeping into the army’s rhythm, the subtle drag that appeared when momentum began slipping just enough to be dangerous.
’We’re behind schedule,’ he thought grimly, grip tightening around his blade as pressure settled into his bones.
’And we can’t afford even a single minute.’
The absence was impossible to ignore.
Leo should have been here, spearheading the advance, tearing rings apart with overwhelming force and dragging the army forward through inevitability alone, yet he wasn’t, and that absence pressed heavily against Darnell’s awareness.
Which meant the burden had to be shifted.
’I have to push harder,’ he resolved as his aura flared, and he stepped into the line without hesitation.
’I have to carve a path.’
Mana surged violently through his weapon as he swung, the slash tearing outward in a devastating arc as space itself buckled, compressed force ripping through enemy lines and collapsing bodies in swathes, armor splitting and formations unraveling beneath the impact.
The opening appeared.
Darnell did not pause to admire it.
He drove straight through, presence crashing into the breach like a living siege engine as his unit surged after him, the line advancing by blood, momentum, and will alone.
’Until Leo returns,’ he thought as he cut down another enemy without slowing, ’the responsibility to lead falls on us.’
On the Commanders who remained standing.
On him.
’I am a Cult Commander,’ Darnell affirmed silently as his blade rose again, eyes fixed forward.
’And I will not let this army falter.’
The war demanded momentum.
So he became momentum itself.