Chapter 441: Graveward Corps

Arlen tightened her grip, every instinct screaming to shoot first and ask later. Xavier, on the other hand, didn’t move. He stood there with his hands loose at his sides, posture relaxed enough to be irritating.

She glanced at him. “Why aren’t you calling your weapon?”

Xavier didn’t look at her right away. His eyes stayed on the structural supports lining the chamber walls. “Because this place is holding Helior Prime up,” he said. “Old load-bearing pylons, pressure-balancing columns, power conduits that feed half the lower districts. One bad strike and we don’t just bury ourselves, we take a few city blocks with us.”

He gestured vaguely upward. “Mag-lines, coolant channels, emergency transit shafts. I don’t know what’s critical and what’s decorative, and I’m not interested in finding out the hard way.”

Arlen tossed him her sidearm without hesitation. “Then stay alert.”

He caught it, weighed it once, and tossed it right back to her. “No. You stand back.”

She stared at him. “There are a lot of them coming. You don’t win that kind of fight empty-handed.”

“I don’t need a gun,” Xavier replied. “And you shouldn’t be here at all.”

Her jaw tightened. “I’m not leaving.”

“This isn’t about leaving,” he said. “You’re the law. Every private outfit that comes through here is something your badge shouldn’t touch. You start shooting mercenaries underground and whatever career you think you still have disappears.”

Arlen scoffed. “I didn’t come this far because I was worried about paperwork.”

She stepped closer, voice low and sharp. “I’m here because I chose to be.”

Xavier finally turned to her and met her eyes. His expression didn’t change much, but his tone did. “Then choose to listen.”

She crossed her arms. “Or what?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Or I stop fucking you.”

The words landed harder than the approaching footsteps.

Arlen stared at him for a second, then muttered something under her breath and backed toward the edge of the chamber, positioning herself where she could still see everything without being in the way. “You’re an asshole.”

Xavier nodded once. “Stand there. Stay alive.”

The first wave came out of the side corridors in tight formation, boots clanking against the metal floor, armor sealed from head to toe with matte plating and active shielding buzzing faintly across their frames. Their visors glowed with internal targeting data, rifles already raised before they were fully in the open.

Arlen recognized the markings instantly and swore. “That’s Graveward Corps,” she shouted. “Private heavy-response unit. These aren’t street idiots. They’re trained, armored, and they don’t miss.” She glanced at Xavier, saw his empty hands, and cursed again. “You can’t fight them like this. They’re armed.”

She broke into a run anyway, gun up, intent on drawing fire or at least buying him a few seconds.

Xavier didn’t move at first. He watched them advance, measured the spacing, the angles, the weight distribution in their steps. Then he lifted one arm.

Every rifle jerked violently out of their hands at once. Weapons ripped free from magnetic grips, sidearms tore loose from thigh holsters, even backup guns hidden under armor plating snapped out like they’d been yanked by invisible hooks. The sudden loss of weight threw the front line off balance, curses and shouted commands overlapping as they looked up in disbelief.

Xavier twisted his wrist and pulled sideways.

The entire cluster of weapons slammed into the far wall behind them, metal screaming as barrels bent and receivers shattered on impact. The noise echoed through the chamber like an explosion.

Arlen skidded to a stop mid-run, staring.

The Graveward soldiers stared too, just long enough for panic to creep in.

They recovered fast. Batons crackled to life. Combat knives slid out from forearm housings. One of them barked an order, and they rushed him anyway.

Xavier met them head-on.

He moved into them instead of backing away, closing distance before their formation could tighten. The first baton swung toward his head and he ducked under it, drove his shoulder into the attacker’s chest, and sent him flying into another soldier hard enough that both of them went down. A knife slashed toward his ribs and he twisted, caught the wrist, snapped it sideways until bone gave, and used the same motion to throw the man across the floor.

They surrounded him, trying to overwhelm him with numbers now that firepower was gone. Xavier didn’t let them settle. He vaulted off a fallen crate, kicked one soldier in the helmet hard enough to ring steel, landed, rolled, and came up inside another’s guard. A sharp strike to the knee, another to the elbow, which left the man screaming and useless.

Batons cracked against the floor where his head had been a second earlier. He grabbed one mid-swing, yanked it free, and slammed it into its owner’s collarbone with enough force to collapse the joint.

Arlen watched from the side, gun lowered without her realizing it. This wasn’t wild or sloppy. Xavier wasn’t trying to kill them. He was dismantling them.

One soldier managed to tackle him from behind. Xavier let himself fall with it, rolled, and pinned the man underneath him. Two fast blows to the spine, angled just right, and the body went limp without going still. Xavier pushed off and was back on his feet before the others could capitalize.

They kept coming, and Xavier kept breaking them.

By the time the last one dropped, the chamber floor was littered with armored bodies groaning, bleeding, or lying completely still but breathing. Arms hung at wrong angles. Legs bent where they shouldn’t. Not a single weapon remained intact.

Xavier stood in the middle of it, chest rising steadily, not even winded.

Arlen finally found her voice. “What the hell are you? I knew you could fight, but even without a weapon…”

He glanced at her. “Careful.”

She shook her head slowly, eyes still on the broken soldiers. “None of them are dead.”

“I know,” Xavier replied. “They’ll live. They just won’t be doing this job again.”

Somewhere deeper in the chamber, systems began reacting to the disturbance, alarms shifting pitch, power rerouting. Whatever else was tied to this place had noticed the fight.

Xavier rolled his shoulders once and looked down the corridor the Graveward Corps had come from.

“Do you think more are coming?” Arlen asked.

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