[Oliver's PoV]

  The display shifted again, showing the data loaded.

  Oliver frowned, his eyes darting across the list.

  “What the hell…” he muttered.

  He’d brought everything he had, every Crystal he had available.

  Even the fragment of Bronze Crystal sat locked in the gauntlet’s containment field.

  But what unsettled him wasn’t the power they offered; it was their status.

  The Bronze Crystal wasn’t displaying a synchronization percentage at all. Instead, two blinking question marks pulsed beside its icon—?? ??% [Unknown]—as if the system itself couldn’t comprehend what it was reading.

  And the Red Crystal was worse. Its indicator wasn’t numerical. It was a pulsing star.

  The Blue Armor was already pushing its limits.

  At 108% synchronization, it wasn’t supposed to go any higher, at least, not much. Its growth had plateaued long ago. Even so, the power it provided was staggering.

  In its base form, the Blue Armor made him five times stronger than a standard Ranger.

  And yet… it still wasn’t enough.

  Not against her.

  Not against the Empress.

  Oliver’s gaze lingered on the flickering options in his gauntlet. The Bronze Crystal was powerful but uncertain.

  If it’s too low, it could hurt me or destabilize mid-fight, he thought grimly. And God only knows what those question marks mean.

  His eyes drifted to the Red Crystal. Its icon pulsed like a heartbeat, a single, blazing star.

  He hesitated for only a moment.

  Then pressed it.

  “I don’t know what ‘Maxed’ means,” he murmured under his breath. “But I need more. Enough to face her.”

  The response was immediate.

  The Blue Armor dissolved.

  It disintegrated, breaking apart into a storm of glowing fragments. The Energy scattered around him like stardust, the fragments orbiting his body before being drawn inward.

  Then came the Red.

  It started as a spark at the center of his chest, a single pulse of crimson light that spread outward in waves. The glow intensified, wrapping around him like a living flame. Plates of radiant red alloy began to form across his body, interlocking into a new exoskeleton.

  The transformation was violent.

  His muscles tensed, his vision blurred, and for a heartbeat, he couldn’t breathe. His senses exploded—every sound, every vibration, every flicker of light amplified a hundredfold.

  The HUD scrambled, struggling to process the new Energy readings.

  [Synchronization Detected: Red Crystal]

  [Status: MAXED]

  [Warning: Output Exceeds Human Parameters]

  Oliver grit his teeth, forcing himself to stay upright as the wave of power surged through him.

  He didn’t know what “Maxed” meant.

  Not 100%. Not 200%. Not anything measurable.

  But he knew this much: whatever it was, it was absolute.

  The surge of power that coursed through him was ten times the strength of a standard Ranger.

  Even then, it was still only half of what a true Unique Crystal could offer. Yet compared to the Blue Armor, this was something else entirely.

  As he flexed his hands, he noticed something new. Golden threads of Energy weaving across his arms and chest, thin lines that glowed faintly on the armor’s surface.

  Whatever Ares had done to him, it had changed Oliver's armor. He could feel it, the faint echo of another presence resonating, like two frequencies aligned.

  Oliver stared at his armor, studying every line and contour. It was unlike anything he had ever worn before. The plating was angular, almost predatory.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Yet what captured his attention was the helmet. There were no holo-interfaces, no transparent visor, no trace of the advanced optics. Instead, it had been replaced by something far older.

  The helm was smooth and unbroken, save for a single, narrow slit carved into the metal. A T-shaped visor. It was a design out of legend, Spartan.

  The moment he realized it, he tried to reshape it. He focused, channeling his control over the Energy that flowed through the armor, willing it to change. The system refused to alter.

  He tried again, harder this time. Nothing.

  He sighed, finally giving up, rolling his shoulders.

  “Fine,” he muttered under his breath. “Guess we’re doing it your way.”

  He extended his hands, preparing to summon his daggers. The Energy gathered in a instant, coalescing into shape.

  But the weight was wrong.

  The balance was off.

  He blinked, looking down.

  “What the hell—”

  Instead of the two daggers he expected, a spear now rested in his hands.

  Its shaft gleamed with the dull glow of bronze. The tip was forged from a silvery metal.

  He turned it over, testing its weight. It was perfectly balanced, too perfect, in fact. The weapon felt as if it had always belonged to him, as if the armor itself had decided this was what he needed.

  “Even in Maxed, you’re still making decisions for me, huh?” he muttered, his voice a mix of irritation and reluctant awe.

  Oliver drew in a deep breath. With a sharp exhale, he kicked off the ground.

  The earth cracked beneath his boots, molten fissures glowing in his wake as he launched himself toward the Empress.

  Faster. Stronger.

  The world around him slowed to a crawl, as his focus narrowed to a single point: the towering figure of the Empress.

  He returned to his strategy, precision over power, exploiting every small opening in her defense.

  It was harder now. The spear in his hands was unfamiliar, its weight unlike that of the twin daggers. But it wasn’t alien. He had used a spear before, in the Trial Tower.

  Never, though, had so much been at stake.

  The Empress loomed ahead, each breath she took radiating waves of Energy that distorted the air. Her movements were impossibly fast for her size, but Oliver could see it, the faint stutter in her rhythm, the split-second lag between strikes.

  The corrupted Crystal was starting to take its toll.

  Stewart was holding her attention, his chain weapon whipping through the air in wide arcs, each swing colliding against her defenses with enough force to shake the ground. Yet the Empress met them all, her massive blade deflecting his strikes with precision.

  Until Oliver thrust.

  The blade pierced through the Empress’s thigh, punching straight through her armor.

  For the first time, she roared in pain.

  The ground trembled under her fury. Her massive body staggered.

  Oliver wrenched the spear free, stepping back as Stewart seized the moment.

  The White Ranger spun his chain weapon in a full arc, the spiked orb glowing with Energy as it gathered momentum. With a sharp pull, he redirected its path, sending it crashing into the Empress’s arm. The impact was deafening.

  The Empress’s arm twisted under the blow, the shockwave rippling through her armor. Her greatsword was knocked from her grasp, spinning through the air before embedding itself deep into the ruins behind her.

  The Empress staggered backward, her eyes blazing with rage and disbelief.

  Oliver didn’t waste a second. He dropped low and advanced to attack again.

  They were getting to her.

  Finally.

  The relentless pressure—Oliver’s precision strikes, Stewart’s heavy assaults—was forcing the Empress to falter.

  “I’ll finish her off, kid—but after that, you and I still have something to finish.”

  He pointed the spiked orb of his chain weapon toward Oliver, but his stance shifted almost immediately, his attention snapping back to the Empress, who was already attacking again.

  “Wouldn’t expect anything less,” Oliver replied, his tone even, his focus unbroken.

  The two of them moved as one now. Their attacks flowed with uncanny precision, their timing perfect, their coordination seamless. It wasn’t luck or instinct; it was training.

  They were both using the New Earth Army Style, forged from the same doctrine, drilled in the same discipline. They knew how the other thought, how the other moved. Each step, each strike, each feint mirrored years of combat logic.

  Together, they pressed the Empress harder than she had ever been.

  Oliver’s [Observation] heightened his senses further. He could see every twitch of her muscles, every flicker of Energy.

  Her attacks were still monstrous; each swing of her sword carried the force of an explosion, but he could read them.

  Every successful strike from them chipped away at her defenses. Every wound they inflicted made her swings wider, sloppier. Her patience was unraveling, her movements growing erratic under the constant pressure.

  Even the strongest warrior, no matter how skilled, would eventually crack under relentless assault.

  Oliver was waiting for that moment.

  He saw it, a slight misstep, a fraction of hesitation after a parried blow from Stewart’s chain weapon.

  That was all he needed.

  Oliver lunged. The spear's tip sliced through the air and struck true, driving deep into the Empress’s abdomen.

  The Empress staggered, her eyes widening for the first time. Not with fear, but with acknowledgment.

  “You shit,” she growled, her voice a guttural rumble that vibrated through the air. “Maybe I underestimated the two of you.”

  But there was something in her tone that made Oliver’s stomach twist.

  She didn’t sound cornered.

  She sounded amused.

  Oliver tightened his grip on the spear, his instincts screaming at him. He pulled back, watching her, every nerve in his body on edge.

  “What are you planning…” he muttered under his breath.

  The Empress straightened, her breathing heavy but steady. Then, with deliberate slowness, she reached into the gap in her armor near her chest.

  When her hand emerged, she was holding a Crystal—smaller than the one embedded in her armor, but radiating a dense wave of power.

  “Another Unique Crystal,” he whispered.

  He didn’t know how the Orks activated Crystals, but he watched, transfixed, as the Empress pressed the new Crystal against her chest.

  She pushed it in.

  The shard sank into the plating of her armor, lodging itself beside the Crystal already fused to her body.

  Oliver’s eyes widened.

  “Two Crystals?”

  That was impossible.

  He had just found how to use them on Mechas and Ships, not on Ranger Armor.

  The orange glow of her armor intensified, flaring so bright that Oliver had to shield his eyes. For a moment, he thought she was burning herself alive. But when the light faded, his breath caught in his throat.

  The Empress's presence was heavier, her power suffocating.

  Her armor hadn’t dissolved as he’d expected; it had evolved.

  Above the molten orange plating, a new layer had formed—silver, sleek and sharp, interlocking with the rest of her armor.

  She flexed her hand, the ground cracking beneath her feet.

  “Now,” she said, her voice dripping with savage delight, “let’s fight for real.”

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