Deviant: No Longer Human

"We pray."

"..."

Valerie's face darkened.

An icy knot twisted in her stomach.

A bad feeling—an instinct honed by years of political battles—screamed at her: "Get out."

Maybe… maybe it was related to today's announcement.

Maybe stealing a little credit had crossed a line she couldn't see.

She hadn't thought much of it.

It was just politics.

Just reputation management.

Who would care?

But now—

Now she knew.

She took a slow, deep breath.

Gathered her poise.

Made the decision that had kept her alive through countless political wars:

Get away.

She turned slightly, lifting her hand, signaling for her aides to prepare her exit.

She wasn't going to wait for the horror that was coming.

She wasn't stupid.

But—

Reed's earlier words haunted her mind.

"It's too late."

Before she could take a single step, takashi's voice crossed through like a knife dipped in liquid nitrogen.

"No one is leaving."

The words slammed into the square like a hammer blow.

The soldiers froze.

The press froze.

Even the wind seemed to still.

Takashi stepped forward slightly, his hands calm, every syllable carrying the weight of an ancient verdict.

"If any single person leaves this place…"

"The nation will pay the price."

Valerie stopped moving instantly.

Frozen.

Like someone had stomped on her spine.

She slowly turned, her face twitching between fury and terror.

"A-are you threatening to destroy a sovereign nation?!" she snapped, loud enough for the cameras to catch every word.

Flashbulbs went off like gunshots.

Microphones tilted forward.

Every reporter leaned in.

The broadcast caught it all.

Live.

Unfiltered.

The world watched.

And frowned.

The image of the "strong President" now looked desperate.

Panicked.

Petty.

Takashi's expression didn't change.

He wasn't threatening her.

He was announcing a law of reality.

"Your actions today have already endangered your nation," Takashi said coolly. "If anyone suffers for what happens next, the blame rests solely on you… Miss Valerie."

There was a slight emphasis when he said Miss, not Madam President.

A deliberate demotion.

A public slap across the face.

Valerie's throat tightened.

Her hands trembled slightly at her sides.

"You…" she managed. "You know my father?"

Takashi's gaze was as cold as the polar seas.

"I knew the last of your line," he said. "A man who valued survival over vanity."

"You inherited the name…"

He looked at her like she was a corpse still pretending to breathe.

"But not the wisdom."

He turned away.

Dismissed her.

Like she wasn't even worth finishing the conversation.

Valerie stood there.

Stiff.

The cameras still rolling.

And above them—

BOOOOOOM.

Another rumble tore through the sky.

The clouds above twisted faster now—a bright sun moving like a beast within them.

There was only ever one sun.

So when a second one appeared in the sky, blazing through the clouds like a newborn star, everyone looked up in horror.

"Are we being attacked?" someone shouted, shielding their eyes.

No. It wasn't an attack.

It was her.

Descending like a solar flare wrapped in human form, she entered through the atmosphere with a trail of burning light, landing on the far end of the square.

The concrete around her scorched black.

Her figure was cold, luminous—skin glowing faintly, white hair rippling despite the still air.

Luna Marquis?... Eclipse.

The Guardian of Antarctica.

But why was she here?

Wasn't this the stage for the 'Eighth Prince'? The one whose name people whispered only in tombs?

Even Reed Halvorsen looked stunned. "That's… not him," he murmured. "That's one of the old guard."

But the crowd didn't have time to react—because Eclipse wasn't alone.

BOOM.

BOOM.

BOOM.

Like a heartbeat of the Earth itself, figures began to arrive.

One after another, they stepped from the air, from rifts, from shadows that didn't belong. Five figures, cloaked, faceless, and silent. They took position around the square like sentinels of judgment. None spoke, none moved, yet each radiated authority that bent space itself.

And then—

She came without any display—drifting aimlessly, slowly descending.

Ji Xuehong.

No cloak.

No mask.

Her long crimson hair flowed like blood through the wind, eyes glowing the same hellish red as the sun behind her. Dressed in black battle armor with obsidian spikes, she walked with a presence that silenced the ground she tread on.

Gasps swept the square.

"That's the Red Wraith... isn't she appointed as the European guardian by the Prince, acting as his proxy?"

"She's not a proxy," someone whispered. "She's real."

And that was the truth.

The others were cloaked because they were not what they appeared.

They were puppets. Placed there long ago by Wang Xiao himself.

Guardians of the Seven Continents.

Guardians no longer dormant.

Every one of them was here.

Every continent represented.

Although the other five cloaked figures hadn't been formally introduced, their arrival was enough to stir curiosity.

Whispers began spreading like wildfire.

"Who are the rest?"

"Why are they hiding themselves?"

"What continent are they from?"

But before curiosity could bloom—

SPLUTCH.

A single dark spike fell from the heavens.

No warning, no light, no sound.

One of the reporters was impaled through the chest—skewered like a puppet severed from its master.

He didn't even scream at first.

"??"

Just stared, confused.

Processing the pain.

Then, "Ah—ghck!"

His cry came late, garbled with blood, before his body slid off the spike and collapsed into silence.

And then—

It started to rain.

Not water. Not fire.

Spikes.

Thin, black spears began falling from the sky in a torrent—hundreds, thousands—raining down like divine punishment.

One pierced through the podium.

Another impaled the camera drone.

A dozen more stabbed the stone tiles where reporters stood just seconds ago.

Screams erupted, but the rain didn't stop.

Every time someone spoke—every syllable birthed a spike.

Valerie tried to speak.

"Wh—"

SHUNK!

Her knee exploded with blood.

She dropped, screaming, eyes wide in disbelief.

Reed shouted her name.

SHUNK!

Another spike nailed his calf into the ground. He collapsed next to her, blood running from his eyes.

The cameras were still rolling.

Every screen across the world showed the same thing: Kneeling figures. Blood-soaked pavement, spikes falling from a dead sky.

And through it all, a voice—soft, cold, venomously elegant.

"Be quiet."

It came not from a microphone.

Not from amplification.

But from her.

Ji Xuehong.

She hadn't moved, simply stood at the edge of the square, her crimson hair fluttering like a burning banner, eyes glowing like smoldering suns.

Behind her, an illusion spread, invisible to tech but seen by the soul:

A sea of blood.

Endless.

Crimson waves licking the stone beneath her.

Figures half-submerged—ghosts of those who once defied her.

A living mirage, yet more real than life.

Anyone who dared to speak—

SHUNK!

A spike found their tongue.

Or throat.

Or eyes.

In the entire city, silence fell like a burial shroud.

Mothers pulled children to their chests.

Soldiers dropped their weapons and dropped to their knees.

Even priests stopped praying.

Speaking meant bleeding.

Bleeding meant death.

Takashi glanced at Li Zhiming beside him. Both shrugged.

"We warned them," He muttered under his breath, Takashi nodded.

"Not our problem."

From the control tower, someone tried to issue an evacuation command.

SHUNK!

They died with the button half-pressed.

Now?

Now, fear didn't come from the Prince.

He was a shadow—death that moved behind curtains.

But her?

She was the storm in daylight.

A walking genocide in red.

And still, she hadn't taken a single step.

She just stood there, at the center of the world, the sea of blood swaying gently behind her like it was waiting for her next command.