The upgraded Leraje quiver at her hip thrummed with barely contained malevolence.
Her first target was a group of celestial guards whose armor gleamed with the reflected glory of their masters, beings who had spent centuries enforcing divine will without ever questioning whether that will deserved enforcement. Shihan's arrow took the lead guard in the shoulder, penetrating divine protection as if it were paper, and where it struck, the wound began immediately to fester.
But this wasn't infection in any physical sense. The corruption that spread through the guard's essence was memory—every moment when he had followed orders without thought, every time he had chosen obedience over compassion, every life that had been crushed beneath the weight of his unexamined loyalty. The guard's eyes widened as he experienced, in compressed and agonising detail, the consequences of every action he had taken in service to absolute authority.
