Chapter 260 – The Battle for Frontier City Akela (8): Freedom Party

Chapter 260

The Battle for Frontier City Akela (8): Freedom Party

Date : Day 18 of Firstthaw 1024 Aethellgard Concord Year.

Hyoren kept charging at the tip of the wedge.

He kept moving, and as he moved, he assessed the battlefield.

Ever since the night riders and the Wood and Iron ranks had joined, the pressure on the tip of the wedge had eased. 

And so the wedge was moving again. Faster now, deeper, cutting into the horde step by step.

But Hyoren could see how far there still was to go.

The tip of the wedge had only just reached the middle of the plain. Ahead of him, beyond the churning green mass, there were still six or seven hundred meters to the foot of the hill.

And on that hill, the Goblin Chieftain kept moving. Slowly. Unhurried. Descending the slope one deliberate step at a time, its entourage of Lords, Shamans and Archers kept tightly around it like a living fortress.

Hyoren's grip tightened on Étendard Sacré du Lys.

He didn't stop charging while he thought. His shield kept slamming. Dawn Breaker kept cutting. Through the crimson haze, his mind worked.

We've been in phase four for over an hour now…

A Goblin Warrior lunged at his flank. He took its axe blow on his ribs. Mist Dispersion flared, and two goblins beside it staggered from the reflected force. He split its skull with Dawn Breaker.

Thanks to Berserker, I can keep fighting…

He glanced back over his shoulder.

Jackey was still a blur, his blue Aethell flickering, but there were fresh cuts on his arms, and every so often his footing slipped in the gore. 

Killa's swings had grown wider and slower. She was relying more on the weight of her scythe than on her own arms. Jigor's shield arm had begun to drop between blows. Fits was breathing hard through clenched teeth, his golden blade dimmer than it had been. The dwarf woman of Shining Force had a gash across her brow, and blood was running into one eye.

Behind them, it was worse. The veterans were tiring. The fledglings were terrified. All of them were bleeding.

Everyone else is going to run out of strength eventually…

He turned back to the front and slammed his shield into another goblin.

They'll get tired... They'll make mistakes... Then they'll get wounded... Or worse… killed…

His jaw clenched.

At this pace, they would reach the foot of the hill with half of them dead and the other half barely standing. And then they would still have to fight their way through the Chieftain's elite guard.

I need to go faster…

He gripped both weapons so tightly the leather of his gauntlets creaked.

Even if I have to do it alone…

He turned his head and shouted over his shoulder.

"Jackey! You don't need to keep pace with me anymore! I'm going to rush the Chieftain alone!"

Jackey froze.

For a single heartbeat, the blur of his axes stopped completely. A goblin lunged at him. He cut it down without even looking, his golden eyes wide and fixed on Hyoren's back.

"No! What are you thinking, Big Bro!?"

A few steps behind him, Jigor slammed his shield into a goblin and bellowed.

"Are you out of your mind, lad!? Alone!? Into that!?"

Fits parried a Warrior's blade and ran it through. His calm finally cracked.

"That's insane, Hyoren! Even you can't punch through all of that on your own!"

Killa didn't say anything at all. She just stared at Hyoren's back, her scythe trembling in her hands.

Hyoren didn't stop fighting. He took another blow on his shield, threw the goblin back and shouted over the din.

"But we won't reach the Chieftain before everyone's exhausted!"

Jackey gritted his teeth so hard they ached.

"But…!"

The word caught in his throat.

He wanted to argue. He wanted to scream that it was a stupid plan, that Big Bro would get himself killed, that he couldn't do everything alone. But even with his simple mind, Jackey could see it. He could feel his own arms getting heavier despite Limit Overdrive. He could see Killa's slowing swings, Jigor's sagging shield, the blood running down Fits' face. He could hear the fledglings crying out behind them.

Big Bro was right.

And that made it worse.

His tabby cat ears flattened against his skull. His tail lashed behind him.

"Damn it…! Damn it, Big Bro!"

Hyoren didn't look back this time. He tightened his grip on both weapons, lowered his stance and angled Umbral Phalanx forward. Every muscle in his Berserker-swollen body contracted.

"Don't follow me! I'm going to charge…"

But before he could commit to it, something happened.

Something that stopped every single one of them in their tracks.

***

A few moments before Hyoren made his reckless decision, Arianna stood on the battlements.

The wall had gone almost quiet.

When the battle started, it had thundered with spells. Fireballs and Wind Slicers had streaked out over the plain one after another, and the air had crackled with Aethell. Now only a scattered handful of casters were still raising their staves. The rest of the battlements lay in silence.

Dennis and Reinora had collapsed.

They lay side by side against the parapet where they had fallen. Dennis's slim wand had rolled from his limp fingers. Reinora's staff lay across her lap. They had forced their Aethell Cores again and again, spell after spell, every time a trickle came back, until their bodies and minds simply couldn't take any more. Someone had propped them up against the stone and draped a cloak over them. Their faces were deathly pale.

A little farther along, Baron Guts stood braced against the battlements, his red-orb staff planted at his side. He hadn't raised it since his second Hellfire. He couldn't. One more spell, and he would collapse just like them. And as one of the commanders of Akela's defense, he couldn't let himself fall.

The other mages along the wall were slumped where they stood or sat. They were conscious, but empty. Their eyes were glazed and their hands hung limp. Around their feet, dozens of empty magic potion vials lay scattered across the stone, the last of their blue liquid drained long ago.

Even Oria was pale.

Her small form was pressed against the battlements, both hands clutching the stone to keep herself upright. Her Azure Wand hung loosely from her wrist by its cord. Strands of hair clung to her sweat-soaked face, and her breathing came shallow and fast.

Out on the river, the water was still. Elsylua was gone. Oria had finally been unable to hold the tether any longer, and the water spirit had dissolved back into the Akela River.

Arianna looked at the small elf with quiet awe.

She lasted as long as I did… and I had Noctynara's Lament to refill me…

Oria had cast without stopping since the bombardment and kept her spirit fighting the entire time, all on her own reserves. Arianna had always known Oria was a prodigy of Water Magic. But today, she had seen what that truly meant.

Arianna's gaze drifted toward the riverbank.

All morning, the Chieftain had kept its archers posted along the bank of the Akela River, guarding that flank and ready to rain arrows on anyone who came near. Now the riverbank was almost empty. Only scattered bodies lay in the mud where the archer squads had stood. Oria's water magic and Elsylua's Hydro Pumps had picked them apart, squad after squad, until hardly any were left.

Most of the archers on the riverbank are gone… because of those two.

If they had still been there, the night riders couldn't have swept the right flank so freely. And the wedge would have been taking arrows from the side this whole time.

Arianna's light-blue eyes moved again.

Along the wall, most of the archers had lowered their bows. Their arms trembled too badly to draw, and their fingers were raw and bleeding. Only a handful of them were still shooting. Cathy in the north tower, slower than before but still loosing. A couple of others scattered along the wall.

And Elise.

On the watchtower above, the silver-haired elf was still drawing and loosing as if she didn't know what exhaustion was. Green streak after green streak flew out across the plain.

Arianna's fingers tightened around Quadraflux Weaver.

She glanced at her father again.

To anyone else, Baron Guts would have looked composed. He stood upright, his gaze fixed on the battlefield, his expression unreadable. The very image of a calm commander.

But Arianna was his daughter.

She noticed what no one else would. The way the fingers of his left hand kept twitching against the stone. The way his right foot tapped against the walkway in a small, restless rhythm, a tic she had seen since she was a child, whenever he was trying to hide how worried he truly was.

Her father was not nearly as calm as he looked.

Her light-blue eyes swept back to the battlefield.

For now, it looked as though the defenders were winning. The wedge was moving again. The night riders were raking both flanks. The fledglings had filled the gaps. The white banner was pushing deeper into the horde.

But Arianna could see what lay underneath it.

They were standing at the edge of a cliff.

Everyone out there was running on the last of their strength. Every swing was slower than the last. Every step forward cost blood. In less than an hour, maybe not even thirty minutes, the balance would tip. The defenders would run out of strength before the goblins ran out of bodies. And then the green tide would close over them.

She gritted her teeth.

If only I could cast one more big spell… just one. Something to pave the way for Leader and the others…

She closed her eyes and turned her focus inward, toward her Aethell Core.

It was nearly empty. A faint, guttering glow at the bottom of a well that had brimmed full only an hour ago.

My reserve… not even twenty percent left…

And Earth Fissure, the only spell she had that could change the course of this battle, needed almost half of her reserve.

It wasn't close. It wasn't even possible.

What should I do…?

The sounds of battle began to fade. The shouting. The clash of steel. The snarls of goblins. The thunder of hooves. All of it grew distant and muffled, and then it was gone.

And her mind drifted back to the academy.

***

The headmistress's office had always smelled of old parchment and ink.

Tall shelves lined every wall, crammed with books so old their spines had cracked and faded. Sunlight filtered through a tall arched window behind the desk and fell across stacks of papers and half-finished runic diagrams.

Arianna had been younger then. Younger, and far more impatient.

"Headmistress. Is there any other way to refill our Aethell quickly? What if our reserve runs dry in the middle of a battle?"

Headmistress Thavenessia stood beside her desk with a thick, leather-bound book open in one hand.

She was a middle-aged woman, tall but thin, with black hair swept up into an elegant braided bun. Small gold-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of her nose, a fine gold chain looping from them down to her collar. She wore a simple black scholar's robe with almost no decoration at all. It hardly seemed fitting for the headmistress of the most prestigious academy in Altaria.

And yet she carried herself with an effortless elegance that no amount of embroidery could have matched.

Her sharp eyes lifted from the book and pierced straight into Arianna.

"That is precisely why I keep telling you to manage your reserve properly, stupid pupil."

Arianna winced.

Thavenessia closed the book with a soft thump and turned toward the window. For a long moment, she simply looked out at the academy grounds below.

"Well… there is a technique. One that allows you to use magic even when you lack the Aethell for it."

Arianna's eyes lit up. She leaned forward eagerly.

Thavenessia turned back. Her gaze was cold and sharp behind her glasses.

"But I won't teach it to you. I won't even give you a hint."

Arianna's eyebrows drew together.

"Why, Headmistress? Is it a forbidden technique?"

The headmistress shook her head slowly.

"Not exactly forbidden. It's an old practice. So old that most have already forgotten it."

She set the book down on her desk and rested her fingertips on its cover.

"And there is a reason it was forgotten. It comes at a price."

Her voice dropped.

"Your own life force."

Arianna's breath caught. She gasped.

Thavenessia watched her for a moment, as if making sure the words had truly sunk in. Then she continued, her tone leaving no room for argument.

"That is why I will never teach it to you. I won't even tell you its name. And you won't find it in the library either. Even if it's not a forbidden technique, it has been banned from this academy for centuries because of the danger it poses."

***

The sounds of battle came rushing back.

The roar of steel. The screams. The thunder of hooves. The snarls of three thousand goblins.

Arianna's eyes opened.

Down on the plain, the white banner was still pushing forward through the green tide.

And her fingers had tightened around Quadraflux Weaver until her knuckles turned white.

Arianna's mind raced.

A technique that uses life force to make up for Aethell…

She had searched for it. After that day in the headmistress's office, she had combed every library she could get into. She had pored over old grimoires in the capital's archives and asked senior scholars careful, roundabout questions. She had found nothing. Not a name. Not a single line of runes. Not even a rumor.

If only I could…

She was out of options.

The defenders would fall sooner or later. The wedge would be swallowed. And then the green tide would pour through Gate of Guts and into the city behind her. Into the streets she had grown up in. The manor. The people.

If she knew the technique, she would gladly pay for it with her own life force. Without a moment's hesitation.

But she didn't.

Her grip tightened around Quadraflux Weaver.

Then I'll try anyway.

The thought settled in her chest, cold and clear.

When the spell demands more Aethell than I have, I'll push through the headache and keep casting. Somehow. I'll force it.

She raised Quadraflux Weaver.

She closed her eyes and drew on the last of her Aethell, the faint, guttering glow at the bottom of her core. Then she converted it into Earth and began to build the image of Earth Fissure in her mind.

A blank brown circle bloomed before the tip of her staff.

A few steps away, Baron Guts saw it.

His head snapped toward her. For the first time all day, the mask of composure fell completely from his face.

"Arianna!? You don't have enough Aethell left! Stop casting Branch Magic, it'll fry your brain! Casting a spell that big on a reserve that low could destroy your mind!"

Arianna didn't open her eyes. She didn't even turn her head.

"Please be quiet, Esteemed Father. I'm trying to concentrate."

Baron Guts gritted his teeth.

Every instinct he had as a father screamed at him to grab her arm, to pull the staff out of her hands, to stop her. His hand actually lifted toward her.

Then he saw her face.

Sweat streamed down her temples. Her lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line. Beneath her closed eyelids, her eyes were moving rapidly as she worked. Her expression was set in a grim determination so absolute that he couldn't find a single word to break it.

He had seen that look before. On Fiona's face, in a shattered gateway eight years ago.

His hand slowly fell back to his side.

He clenched his fists until they shook and said nothing more. He would let his daughter attempt the impossible.

Arianna focused on the spell image.

Earth Fissure… but not to kill.

She thought back to the kilometer-and-a-half chasm she had carved across the plain to cut the goblins off from the northern cliffs. That spell hadn't been aimed at the army either. It had been aimed at the land.

If I go for kills again, eight hundred, maybe a thousand goblins… and it won't change anything. There will still be two thousand left, enough to swallow the wedge and the city with it.

Her brow furrowed in concentration.

What I need is to pave the way.

The image took shape.

Her left hand rose, and she began to trace the Runic Array.

Earth.

The first rune locked into place at the center of the blank circle.

Terraforma. Terraforma. Terraforma. Terraforma.

Her fingers never paused.

Point. Width. Length.

Here she rebuilt the spell almost completely, just as she had for the chasm.

Normally, when killing was the goal, she made her fissure as broad and wide as she could. Now she pulled it in.

Five meters wide. That's all I need.

And the length…

In her mind's eye, she traced a line across the battlefield. From the white banner at the tip of the wedge, straight through the sea of green, all the way to the foot of the hill where the Chieftain waited.

About eight hundred meters.

The runes settled into the array.

Depth. Forward.

She changed the depth as well. She didn't want a chasm this time. A chasm would only cut Hyoren off from his target. She imagined the fissure as shallow as she could make it. The earth wouldn't split open into an abyss. It would be stripped flat and pressed down.

A road for Leader.

Press. Press. Press. Press.

Quake. Quake. Tremor. Tremor.

The Runic Array grew more intricate with every rune, its brown lines layering over one another. At the same time, the orb atop Quadraflux Weaver began to glow a deep earthen brown.

Split. Rupture.

Erupt. Shockwave. Surge. Upward.

Control.

She dialed this part down. She didn't need the violent eruption that usually hurled earth into the sky, or the shockwave that crushed everything nearby. Those would harm the defenders at the tip of the wedge as much as the goblins. She needed precision, not destruction.

Stone. Stone. Stone. Solid. Sharp.

And these runes she shaped with particular care. The jagged stone spikes that normally lined the edges of the fissure would rise along both sides of the road, row after row of them, forming two walls of stone. Any goblin trying to cross into the road would be impaled. The path between them would be protected.

The thirtieth rune locked into place.

The Runic Array was complete.

And Arianna was stuck.

Pain lanced through her skull.

It wasn't a headache. It was as if a dozen iron stakes had been driven into her head all at once, from every direction. Her mind screamed warning after warning. Stop. Stop. STOP.

The last twenty percent of her reserve had been drained into the array. Every last drop of it was gone.

And it wasn't enough.

The array before her staff glowed, complete but hungry. No duplicate array had appeared over the battlefield. The spell was finished, but it couldn't be released. It needed more, far more, and she had nothing left to give it.

The throbbing grew worse. Then it began to burn, a searing heat spreading from behind her eyes into every corner of her skull.

The world around her distorted.

The battlements tilted and smeared. Colors bled into each other. The roar of battle faded into a high, thin whine, then into nothing at all. She couldn't see. She couldn't hear. Somewhere very far away, her father might have been shouting her name. She couldn't tell anymore.

All that remained was the array and the pain.

I have to keep going…

She clung to the spell with everything she had.

Spell… take my life force! Use it!

She didn't know the technique. She didn't know a single rune of it. So she tried to brute-force it, throwing her will against the empty space in her core, reaching for something deeper. Something beneath the Aethell. The warm, living thing at the center of her.

I don't care if my mind breaks! Just let me release this spell!

But nothing happened.

She didn't understand how. She couldn't find the thread. No matter how hard she reached, she couldn't turn her life force into Aethell. It slipped through her grasp like water through her fingers.

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes.

“Headmistress… what should I do…? I just want to save my family!!"

Her voice cracked. Even she couldn't hear it.

And in her desperation, she did something she had never done in her life.

She reached for the divine.

Arianna had always been a scholar. At the academy, many of her fellow students had quietly prayed to the Goddess of Knowledge before examinations and late nights in the library. Arianna never had. She had always been pragmatic. She had believed in study, in practice, in runes and logic. Not in prayer.

But now, with nothing else left, her trembling left hand left the array and closed around the pendant at her throat.

Noctynara's Lament.

The artifact of the Goddess of Darkness, Knowledge, and Ambition.

Please… Noctynara…

She clutched it with all her strength.

Let me help my family.

She knew it was foolish. The orb had gone inert. Its power was spent for a month. And the gods didn't simply answer prayers whenever someone called out to them. Everyone knew that.

But the orb in her hand turned hot.

Arianna's breath caught.

The black stone pulsed once. Then it flashed. A burst of deep, dark light flared between her fingers.

And to the shock of everyone on the battlements, shadow poured out of it.

It gushed from the orb like black water from a broken dam. It spilled over Arianna's hand, up her arm, across her shoulders, and wrapped around her entire body until she was enveloped in a swirling cocoon of darkness.

Shouts rang out along the wall.

"Lady Arianna!?"

"Something's attacking her!"

"Get it off her!"

Baron Guts lunged toward his daughter, his staff raised. A pair of exhausted archers stumbled forward, reaching for their knives. Oria pushed herself off the battlements, her Azure Wand snapping up.

Then they all froze.

The shadow was changing.

It was gathering. Drawing in on itself. It rose behind Arianna and took shape. A tall, slender figure, blurred and indistinct, as if seen through smoke. Long hair flowing down its back. A face serene and cold.

Anyone who had ever stood in a church of Luminara and looked at the small statues lined up before the altar would have recognized it. The same face as the Sun Queen, rendered in black and silver.

It was the figure of Noctynara.

The shadowy goddess wrapped her arms around Arianna from behind and held her close, embracing the young mage as gently as a mother holding her child.

Arianna knew none of this. Her eyes were still shut, her mind still clinging to the array.

But she heard a whisper.

It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was the voice of the void itself, cold and endless and deep. And yet beneath that coldness was something warm. Something kind.

"Your prayer is heard. I see the intent of sacrifice for others. Now, save your family."

Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the whisper was gone.

The shadow figure faded, unraveling into wisps of darkness that dissolved into the air.

Arianna's eyes snapped wide open.

And a voice resounded in her mind.

"Blessing of the Whisperer of Knowledge - Blessing Acquired."

Her breath stopped.

A pause. Then another notification rang out.

"Vitallium Exchange - Skill Acquired."

A Blessing…? From Goddess Noctynara…?

Before she could even begin to understand it, knowledge flooded into her mind, as clear and precise as any textbook.

Vitallium Exchange. A skill that paid the Aethell a spell demanded with the caster's own life force. Exactly what the headmistress had refused to teach her.

And with the knowledge came the price.

After the spell was released, the agony would come. Then unconsciousness. And the deeper the debt, the longer she would stay under. This spell had already drunk her last twenty percent. 

To pay for the rest… Two to four days unconscious…

Arianna almost laughed.

That's cheap.

The skill took hold at once. Slowly and steadily, it began to draw something from deep inside her. Not Aethell. Something warmer, something more fundamental. Something that had been hers since the moment she was born. It converted it, thread by thread, and fed it into the hungry array before her staff.

And her body began to break.

It felt like being beaten from every side at once. Fists slamming into her ribs, her stomach, her spine, her limbs. Her head throbbed so violently that her vision flashed white. Her bones screamed as though they were being twisted in their sockets. Something warm ran down her upper lip, and she tasted copper. Her nose was bleeding.

She gritted her teeth until her jaw ached.

Not yet…! Not until it's done…!

She held on.

The array drank and drank.

And then it was full.

The Runic Array flared so brightly that the battlements were washed in brown light. Out on the battlefield, in front of the white banner at the tip of the wedge, a second array blazed to life. It was long and narrow, stretching across the plain like a road drawn in light, all the way to the foot of the hill.

The duplicate array.

The pain hit its peak. A scream tore its way out of Arianna's throat.

"Uuaghhhh…!"

Her knees buckled. Her vision went dark at the edges. But she forced her staff upward, gripping it with both shaking hands. She had to finish this. She had to.

"Uggghhh… Earth…! FISSURE!!! AAAAGHHHHH!"

The spell activated.

The array blazed. Somewhere far below, the earth began to roar.

But Arianna never saw it.

Her scream broke off. The world dissolved into darkness.

Quadraflux Weaver slipped from her fingers and clattered against the stone.

And she fell.

Strong arms caught her before she hit the ground. A familiar voice was shouting her name, broken and desperate. But she couldn't hear it anymore.

Baron Guts held his unconscious daughter in his arms, blood running from her nose, and for the first time that day, his hands were shaking.

***

Hyoren's charge faltered.

A line of brown light had appeared on the ground in front of him.

It unrolled across the plain from just beyond the tip of the wedge, cutting straight through the sea of green and stretching all the way to the foot of the hill where the Chieftain stood. It was long and narrow and impossibly straight, a road drawn in glowing runes across the battlefield. The goblins standing on it looked down at their feet in confusion, their snarls dying in their throats.

Hyoren's eyes widened behind the crimson haze.

That's… a duplicate array?

Then he felt it.

The tremor started deep beneath his boots. It was a low vibration at first, then a growing rumble that rattled up through his legs and into his chest. All around him, goblins and defenders alike staggered.

CRAAACKKK!

The earth split open along the entire line of light.

Hyoren braced himself, expecting the violent eruption he'd seen at dawn, when Earth Fissure had hurled stone and soil into the sky and torn a chasm across the plain.

It didn't come.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

There were explosions, a rapid chain of them racing down the length of the line toward the hill. But they were smaller, tighter and more contained. Bursts of earth and stone erupted along the narrow strip, and every goblin standing on it was blasted off its feet or torn apart where it stood. The blasts didn't spread. They didn't spill out into the horde on either side or reach back toward the wedge. They simply cleared the line.

And when the dust settled, there was no chasm.

The ground along the line had parted only a few centimeters deep. It had been pressed flat and smooth, stripped of goblins and corpses alike.

It was a road.

On both sides of it, stone erupted from the earth. Jagged spikes thrust upward one after another, row after row, stacked against each other until they towered more than five meters high. Sharp as spearheads, packed so tightly that nothing could squeeze between them. Two walls of stone ran side by side across the plain, with an open road between them.

All the way to the foot of the hill.

Along the edges, the goblins that had been caught as the spikes rose hung impaled on the stone, still twitching. The rest of the horde stood on the far sides of the walls, snarling and clawing at the rock, unable to climb it and unable to pass.

For a moment, the whole tip of the wedge simply stopped.

Fits stood frozen with his greatsword half-raised, staring down the length of the road. His mouth opened and closed.

"A road…? She made a road…?"

Beside him, Jigor slowly lowered his shield. His bushy eyebrows had climbed so high they nearly disappeared beneath his helmet.

"By Gravok's beard… That girl just paved us a path straight to the Chieftain…"

Killa's grip on her scythe went slack. Her black eyes were wide, her drooping ears lifted in shock.

"Is this… Earth Fissure? But it's nothing like this morning…"

Hyoren stared down the road.

His mind churned through the crimson haze.

How…? Arianna shouldn't have had enough Aethell left for this. She told me herself. She was almost empty after the two Earth Hammers.

He turned toward the city wall on instinct.

Even at this distance, with Berserker sharpening his eyes, he could make out the battlements. The cluster of mages. The figure in a purple robe and wide-brimmed hat.

And as he watched, she fell.

Her staff dropped from her hands. Her body crumpled. And a broad figure in a black-red robe lunged forward and caught her before she hit the stone.

Hyoren's chest tightened.

Beside him, Jackey had seen it too.

The tabby Cat-clan Beastkin had gone completely still. The blur of his axes stopped. His golden eyes were locked on the wall, and his tabby cat ears had flattened tight against his skull.

"Arianna…?"

His voice came out small. Thin. Nothing like the Jackey who had been howling with laughter a moment ago.

"ARIANNA!"

He took a half step toward the wall, toward the gate, toward her. His tail stood straight and rigid behind him.

Killa looked at him. At the raw fear on his face. Something flickered in her eyes, sharp and painful, and then she looked away.

Hyoren tightened his grip on both his weapons.

He didn't know what had happened. He didn't know how she had done it. But he understood one thing with absolute certainty.

Arianna had made the impossible possible.

And in this world, nothing like that came for free.

Every power has a price. Berserker taught me that.

Whatever she had done, she would pay for it. Maybe she was already paying for it.

He looked down the road again. Down the long, empty corridor of stone, to the foot of the hill where the Goblin Chieftain had stopped moving. Its entourage tightened around it as if it, too, understood what had just happened.

Then I can't waste this. Not a single second of it.

He raised Étendard Sacré du Lys high and roared, the Berserker-strengthened voice thundering across the battlefield.

"EVERYONE! THE ROAD IS OPEN! CHARGE!"

Then he turned and grabbed Jackey's attention with his voice alone.

"Jackey! Worry about her later! Right now, don't let her sacrifice be for nothing!"

Jackey flinched as if he'd been struck.

For a heartbeat, he stood trembling, his eyes still fixed on the wall. His jaw worked. His hands shook around his axes.

Then he squeezed his eyes shut, drew a ragged breath and turned away from the wall.

When he opened his eyes again, they were burning.

He gripped both axes so hard his knuckles cracked.

"Big Bro's right…"

His voice was thick. He swallowed hard.

"Arianna's fine. I know she is. She's strong. Stronger than me."

His tabby cat ears rose slowly, then snapped forward. His tail lashed.

"And we're gonna use the chance she gave us! UOOOOOGHHH!"

His roar ripped across the battlefield. Blue Aethell flared across his skin, brighter than before.

Hyoren charged onto the road.

His boots hit the pressed earth, smooth and flat, and for the first time since phase four began, there was nothing in front of him. No goblins to bash aside. No bodies to climb over. Just open ground and the walls of jagged stone rising on either side of him, more than five meters high and stacked so tightly that not a single goblin could get through. He could hear them on the other side, clawing and snarling against the rock. They couldn't reach him.

It was a highway of jagged stone, built for one purpose.

He glanced at Umbral Phalanx in its shield form.

I don't need this now…

“Compact Form.”

The interlocked plates folded back into their leaf shape.

Jackey was right behind him, his axes held low, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

Fits and Shining Force poured onto the road after them. The dwarf woman slammed her hammer against her shield. The Lion-clan scout bounded ahead, twin daggers glinting. Fits raised his greatsword and flicked a glance back at the wall, at the place where Arianna had fallen.

"Respect is earned, not given…"

His jaw tightened.

"And that girl just earned every bit of mine. Shining Force! Don't fall behind!"

Jigor charged in beside them, his hammer raised high.

"Gyahaha! You heard the lad! Move your legs! The young lady didn't break her back so we could stand around gawking!"

Killa ran too. She stayed close behind Jackey, her scythe held ready, her face unreadable.

Behind them, all along the wedge, morale surged.

Defenders who had been dragging their feet a moment ago straightened. Exhausted faces lit up. A road had opened in front of them, straight through the horde. Someone had given everything to make it.

At the left side of the wedge, Fiona ripped her greatsword free of a goblin and thrust it toward the road.

"GO! SAVE AKELA!"

Her voice cracked like thunder. Then she swung around to face the adventurers behind her. Her eyes blazed.

"The rest of you, listen up! Your job is to hold the goblins back so they can't get into that road! Nothing gets past those walls! NOTHING!"

A few steps from her, Ronald braced his dented shield and planted his feet beside the stone wall.

"Slow and steady! Hold the line along the stone! Don't let a single one of them climb over!"

Beside him, Reon pressed her round shield against her father's. Her face was pale and her arms were shaking, but her voice was steady.

"Yes, Father! Not one of them gets through!"

On the right side of the wedge, Captain Yugold raised his sword and turned to his knights.

"Knights! Form up along the eastern wall! Shields out, spears ready! We will hold the flank until the commander reaches the Chieftain!"

"YES, CAPTAIN!"

The knights' shields slammed together with a single thunderous clang. The Templar Knights moved to the front, their dimming golden glow flaring brighter as they took their places.

And so the defenders pushed out along the outside of the jagged walls.

The knights to the right. The adventurers to the left. The night riders swept along the outer flanks, and the fledglings filled every gap between them. They threw themselves at the goblins massing against the stone, hacking and stabbing and shoving. They kept the horde busy and dragged its attention away from the road. Anything that tried to climb the spikes was cut down before it reached the top.

And down the long corridor of stone, the white banner streamed forward.

***

Hyoren ran.

His boots pounded down the pressed earth of the road, and the stone walls blurred past on either side. Beyond them, the snarling and clawing of the horde echoed against the rock, close but unable to reach him. The white banner streamed out behind his spear, and Aetovacus soared black against it with every stride.

Jackey ran at his shoulder, blue Aethell flickering across his skin. Close behind came Killa with her scythe, Jigor with his glowing shield, and Fits with Shining Force. 

They were the elite. The spearhead. The ones who would strike the head of this army.

The road ran on and on. Four hundred meters. Three hundred. Two hundred.

Then, at the end of the stone corridor, a figure slowly came into view.

The Goblin Chieftain.

It stood at the foot of the hill where the road ended, and it was tall. Far taller than any other goblin, almost the height of a grown human. It wore armor, real armor. Not the scavenged, mismatched scraps the other goblins wore, but a full set of fitted plates, dark and well made, shaped for a goblin's frame. Someone had forged it for this creature. Or it had taken it from someone who had.

And its eyes, they weren't the small, beady, bloodshot eyes of an ordinary goblin. They were narrow and sharp, and they were watching him. Studying him. Measuring him. There was intelligence in that gaze. Cold, calculating intelligence.

It carried no weapon. No sword, no axe, no spear. Only the huge horn strapped across its back, the horn that had commanded this entire army all day.

It doesn't fight with its own hands... It fights with its entourage... With its leadership. With strategy…

Hyoren's eyes swept across the creatures surrounding it, and his Magic Eyes : Diagnostic Sight flickered to life behind the crimson haze.

Five Goblin Lords stood in a tight ring around the Chieftain, each one holding a massive square shield that came up to its chin. A living wall. Its personal guard.

Three Goblin Shamans were spread out around it. One stood directly in front of the Chieftain. The other two were a few meters to its left and right, crooked staves raised, bone charms rattling at their tips. Diagnostic Sight flashed a number above each of their heads.

Level 24… All of them… They're close to evolving into Chieftains themselves…

A few meters in front of the Shamans stood the Archers. Only about five were left. Most must have been sent to the frontline and picked off there, or cut down on the riverbank by Oria and Elsylua.

And in front of all of them stood a line of Goblin Lords.

About twenty, each armed with a shield and a sword. Diagnostic Sight flashed above them too.

Level 24... Every single one…

Its entire entourage, every one of them only a step away from becoming a Chieftain. 

But that was all. There were no more Warriors or Fighters around them. The Chieftain had already thrown every ordinary goblin it had at the wedge. Only its elite remained.

Hyoren's grip tightened on both his weapons.

He didn't slow down. He raised his voice over his shoulder.

"You guys handle the Lords and the Archers! Leave the Chieftain to me!"

Jackey grinned through the blood streaking his face, his axes spinning in his hands.

"Got it, Big Bro! Go whack that big skulker!"

Jigor slammed his hammer against his shield with a resounding clang.

"Gyahaha! Twenty Lords, eh? Finally, something worth swinging at!"

Fits leveled his thin greatsword. Golden light flared down its length.

"Shining Force, take the right side! Don't let a single one of them reach Hyoren's back!"

Killa didn't say anything. She just shifted her grip on her scythe, and its edge began to glow a dark, hungry red.

Then the road ended.

They burst out of the stone corridor into open ground at the foot of the hill, and the Chieftain's entourage was waiting for them.

Hyoren charged straight down the middle.

Jackey was right behind him.

Killa and Jigor peeled off to the left. Fits and Shining Force swung to the right. The line of twenty Goblin Lords split to meet them, shields raised and swords drawn.

And as he ran, Hyoren poured Aethell into everything he had.

"Magic Blade!"

A shimmering layer of Aethell coated Dawn Breaker and the spearhead of Étendard Sacré du Lys. Their edges sharpened.

"Enchant Maledict!"

A dark sheen bled across both weapons, dripping with curses waiting to stack on anything they cut.

"Accel Zone!"

Soft golden light wrapped around him. The world slowed as his body sped up.

"Mist Dispersion!"

The dark mist around him surged thicker, coiling with the crimson steam rising off his skin.

"Strong Legs!"

Power flooded into his legs. His strides lengthened. The ground shook beneath each step.

He was almost at the wall of shield-bearing Lords now. Five massive square shields, locked edge to edge. Five pairs of narrow eyes watching him over the rims.

Hyoren lowered his spear.

"Piercing Thrust!"

Étendard Sacré du Lys shot forward like a bolt of white lightning.

The spearhead struck the center shield and punched clean through it. Through the shield. Through the Goblin Lord's armor. Through the Goblin Lord. The tip burst out of its back in a spray of blood.

The Lord's eyes bulged. Its mouth opened in a soundless gasp.

Hyoren didn't stop. With a roar, he heaved upward with every ounce of Berserker's strength and flung the impaled Lord off his spear like a sack of grain. It sailed through the air, crashed into the Lord beside it and sent both of them tumbling to the ground.

The wall of shields had a gap in it now.

Through that gap, the Goblin Chieftain's sharp, intelligent eyes met his.

Hyoren grinned.

And he charged at the Chieftain.

The Goblin Lords on either side of the gap he'd torn in their shield wall lunged at him. One sword glanced off his shoulder, and Mist Dispersion flared, staggering both of them. Another blade raked across his back. He barely felt it. His eyes were locked on the tall, armored figure behind the remaining shields.

I need to finish this fast…

Behind him, he could hear the clash of steel. Jackey's howl. Jigor's roar. The ring of Fits' greatsword against shields. Every second he spent here was another second his companions fought twenty Level 24 Lords. Another second the defenders along the stone walls bled. Another second Arianna's sacrifice slipped away.

Time to use my trump card…

In the middle of his charge, he drove Étendard Sacré du Lys into the earth.

The pure mithril spear sank deep into the ground and stood upright on its own. Above it, the white banner snapped open in the wind, and the black Aetovacus soared against the white, fluttering proudly over the battlefield even with no hand to hold it.

For now, the army could do without his grip on the banner for a moment.

What he needed now was his strongest attack. Something that could end the Chieftain in a single blow.

And he had one.

He kept running, gripped Dawn Breaker in both hands and raised it high above his head.

Then he poured his Aethell into it. All of it. Everything his skills hadn't burned and the morning hadn't drained.

Light gathered along the white blade, faint at first, then blinding.

"Luminara's Judgement - Lumen Severance!"

The light exploded upward.

A colossal blade of pure Light Aethell erupted from Dawn Breaker, stretching into the sky. Five meters. Eight. More than ten, towering over the battlefield like a pillar of sunlight. It hummed with a deep, resonant power that made the air tremble around it. Its brilliance washed across the foot of the hill and lit every goblin face in stark white, turning the crimson haze of Hyoren's vision gold at its edges.

All across the battlefield, heads turned toward the light.

The Chieftain's sharp eyes widened.

It understood instantly that something was very wrong.

Its jaws opened, and it snarled. It wasn't the mindless, bestial noise of an ordinary goblin. It was short, sharp and precise, a command barked by something that knew exactly what it wanted. Even through the snarl, Hyoren could hear the intelligence behind it.

Its entourage obeyed at once.

The four remaining shield-bearing Lords snapped together in front of their master, slamming their massive square shields edge to edge into a solid wall.

At the same moment, the three Goblin Shamans raised their crooked staves in perfect unison. Bone charms rattled. Dark Aethell surged around them.

And barriers appeared.

One translucent dome bloomed over the Chieftain. Then a second, layered over the first. Then a third. Three stacked barriers shimmered in the air, faint green and pulsing, one inside another.

Hyoren's jaw clenched.

Barriers… Three of them...

But he couldn't stop now.

The spell had already devoured almost everything he had left. Lumen Severance alone took half of his maximum reserve, and he had been casting since dawn: Shadow Bloom, Magic Blade, Mist Dispersion, everything he'd just thrown on during his charge. His core was nearly empty. If he cancelled the spell now, all of that Aethell would be wasted, and he would never get another chance like this.

There was no turning back.

He swung.

Dawn Breaker came down, and the blade of light came down with it, following the sword's path in a vast, blazing arc from the sky toward the Chieftain.

It struck the barriers.

GRIIIND!

The sound was like steel grinding against steel. 

The blade of light slammed into all three stacked barriers at once, and the impact sent a shockwave rolling out across the foot of the hill. Dust and loose stones flew. The goblins nearest the Chieftain staggered.

The three barriers flickered.

They pulsed and dimmed under the weight of the blade, their faint green light wavering as the Shamans poured more Dark Aethell into them. 

The three Goblin Shamans trembled, their crooked staves shaking in their grip, their bone charms rattling wildly.

But the barriers held.

The blade of light ground against them, sparks of white and green spraying in every direction. Hyoren pressed down with all of Berserker's strength. His muscles screamed. The crimson streaks across his body blazed.

It didn't break through.

Then, beneath the barriers, the Goblin Lords moved.

The four shield-bearers braced their feet and set their shoulders against their massive square shields. Their shields began to glow, a dull, heavy light seeping across the battered metal. Then they pushed. They shoved their shields upward against the underside of the barriers, adding their strength to the Shamans', holding back the blade of light with their own bodies.

The barriers steadied. They stopped flickering.

The blade of light hung there, pressed against shields and barrier, trembling with power. It couldn't push through.

And on the other side, the Chieftain's sharp, intelligent eyes stared at Hyoren through the fractured green light.

***

Jackey heard Big Bro's order to deal with the twenty Lords.

He charged in right behind Hyoren, then veered slightly to the left as the line of Goblin Lords broke apart to meet them.

The others had already engaged. Jigor caught two Lords on his glowing shield at once, his hammer rising and falling. Killa swept her scythe in a wide arc and pulled two more into a duel with her. Fits crossed blades with one, golden light flaring. The dwarf woman of Shining Force took on two at once, her hammer ringing off their shields. And the Lion-clan scout was dancing circles around a single Lord, her twin daggers flicking in and out, toying with it.

Eight Lords were tied up.

That left twelve.

And those twelve were running. Not at Jackey, not at the others, but straight past them, toward the crimson-streaked figure charging at their leader.

Toward Hyoren.

Jackey's tabby cat ears snapped forward.

"Not on my watch!"

He was already wrapped in the blue Aethell of Limit Overdrive. He didn't care. He wanted more.

"Strong Legs!"

Power surged into his legs on top of everything Limit Overdrive was already pouring into him. He kicked off the ground.

The earth cracked under his boots. A ring of dust and loose stone burst outward behind him. In a single explosive dash, he closed the distance to the nearest Lord.

The Bloody Axe tore across its back. Armor split, flesh split, and the Lord pitched forward into the dirt without a sound.

He dashed again.

The next Lord half-turned at the noise, just in time to take the Blackmaw Tomahawk straight into the side of its skull. It dropped like a stone.

He dashed again.

A third Lord took the Bloody Axe between its shoulder blades. It crashed face-first into the earth.

Jackey blurred onward, his axes dripping, his golden eyes locked on the backs of the Lords still running at Hyoren.

Then the world turned white.

He looked up.

Ahead of him, Hyoren had raised Dawn Breaker to the sky, and a colossal blade of light had burst from it. It towered more than ten meters into the air, blinding and humming, like a pillar of sunlight driven down from the heavens. It lit up the entire foot of the hill.

Jackey's face split into an enormous grin.

"Big Bro's using his trump card! We're gonna win this!"

His tail spiraled wildly behind him.

"Then it's time to whack the rest of these skulkers!"

He threw himself back into the chase.

His right axe blurred, and a Lord went down. His left axe blurred, and another went down. He spun between two more, carving through the backs of their knees, and finished them both before they hit the ground.

Seven Lords dead. Five still running for Hyoren.

Jackey's eyes flicked forward again.

And his grin vanished.

"Big Bro's light sword… it got stopped!"

The towering blade of light had come down on the Chieftain, and it was hanging there. It had been caught against layered green barriers and a wall of glowing shields.

Hyoren was stuck. And he couldn't move.

Then Jackey saw the Archers.

Five of them, scattered around the foot of the hill, two on the left and three on the right. Every one of them had an arrow nocked, every bowstring drawn. Every arrowhead was pointed at Hyoren.

And the five Lords still running at Big Bro's back were almost on him, swords raised.

Jackey's head whipped around. Jigor was locked against two Lords, his shield buckling under their blows. Killa was still fighting both of hers. Fits was trading strikes with his. The dwarf woman, the Lion-clan scout, all of them were busy. None of them could break free in time.

No one else could reach him.

Time seemed to slow. One second stretched into two. Two into three. 

The Archers' fingers tightened on their bowstrings. The Lords' swords rose higher. Big Bro was still roaring against the barrier, his back wide open.

"Big Bro's in danger!"

Jackey pushed. He forced every last drop of adrenaline in his body into his limbs. He tore through limits that Limit Overdrive had already broken, past the point where his body was screaming at him to stop.

"Move, body! MOVE!"

But even if he moved as fast as he possibly could, he couldn't hit ten goblins at once. The Archers were scattered across the foot of the hill. If he threw the Blackmaw Tomahawk, he might take down one, maybe two. The rest would loose their arrows. The Lords would bring their swords down.

He couldn't do it.

He couldn't save Big Bro.

"I have to do SOMETHIIIIIIIIING!!!"

His heart hammered so hard it felt like it would burst out of his chest. Adrenaline roared through his veins, so strong that the whole world seemed to stop moving at once.

And then Jackey did something he had never done in his entire life.

He prayed.

Simple-minded Jackey. The Cat-clan Beastkin who used to spend his nights in brothels. Who had never once set foot in Zalkier's temple. Who couldn't even really understand what worship was supposed to mean.

He knew other Beastkin prayed. He'd seen them do it, back home on the plateau and in the city. He'd never understood why.

But if it would save Big Bro, he would do it too.

He squeezed his eyes shut and screamed with everything he had left.

"ZALKIER! PLEASE HELP BIG BRO!!!!"

Warmth suddenly spread through his body, and the  Voice of Aethell answered.

"Blessing of the Strong One - Blessing Acquired."

Jackey's eyes flew open.

A pause. Then another voice rang out in his head.

"Ground Shrink - Skill Acquired."

Knowledge flooded into him all at once, as clear as if he'd always known it.

Ground Shrink. Instantaneous movement. With it, he could cross up to twenty meters in an instant, faster than any eye could follow. But every single use would tear at his body, a terrible strain that piled up with each step.

Jackey didn't care.

I'm gonna use it to save Big Bro.

"Ground Shrink!"

SWISH!

The ground vanished beneath his feet.

In the blink of an eye, he was standing beside the nearest Lord, as if the ten meters between them had never existed. A jolt of pain shot through every muscle in his body, sharp and hot, even through Limit Overdrive.

He ignored it.

His right axe flashed. His left axe flashed. Two Lords fell at the same instant, cut down before they even knew he was there.

"Ground Shrink!"

SWISH!

This time it felt like a battering ram had slammed into his entire body. Limit Overdrive was supposed to drown out the pain. It wasn't enough. Not this.

He ignored it.

He landed in the middle of the last three Lords and spun. Both axes swept around him in a single circular motion.

SCREEECK!

All three Lords crumpled, mere steps from Hyoren's back.

Five Lords down.

"Ground Shrink!"

SWISH!

Blood burst from his mouth. He coughed, spraying red across his chin. Something inside him had torn.

But his axes were already swinging. He had appeared between the two of the Archers on the right, and both of them went down before they could loose.

SCREEECK!

His legs shook. His vision swam. His body was barely holding together.

But he didn't stop.

"Ground… Shrink!"

SWISH!

It felt like his skull had cracked open. White pain exploded behind his eyes. For a heartbeat, he couldn't see anything at all.

He ignored it.

He landed beside the two Archers on the left and swung blind, both axes at once.

SCREEECK!

Both Archers fell.

The last Archer, alone on the slope, bowstring drawn to its cheek and arrow aimed at Hyoren's back.

Jackey flicked his left wrist.

"Precision Throw!"

The Blackmaw Tomahawk spun through the air.

SWOOSH!

It buried itself in the Archer's skull just as its fingers began to open.

SCREEECK!

The arrow fell harmlessly into the dirt beside its body.

Ten goblins. Five Lords and five Archers. All of them dead in less than five seconds.

For a moment, everyone at the foot of the hill went still.

Jigor's hammer froze mid-swing. Fits' blade dipped. Killa stared with her mouth open. Even the Goblin Lords locked in combat with them hesitated, their beady eyes darting toward the bodies scattered around the slope.

Everyone except Hyoren, still roaring against the barrier, still pressing down with the blade of light, unaware of everything that had just happened behind him.

Jackey stood in the middle of it all, swaying on his feet.

Blood ran from his eyes in two thin red lines down his cheeks. It trickled from his nose. It seeped from his ears and dripped down his neck.

But he smirked.

He turned toward the crimson-streaked figure fighting the barrier, and his voice came out hoarse and cracked.

"Big Bro… now no skulkers are gonna bother you… Go whack that skulker Chieftain and end this…!"

He raised his left hand and gave a shaky thumbs-up.

"FREEDOM PARTY STRONG! WOHOO!"

Then his legs gave out.

He collapsed into the dirt.

Four consecutive Ground Shrinks had wrecked his body from the inside. The blue Aethell of Limit Overdrive flickered once across his skin and went out.

And then Jackey began to convulse.

His back arched. His limbs jerked against the ground. His teeth clenched so hard that blood seeped from his gums.

Killa screamed.

It was a raw, horrified sound that tore out of her throat before she could stop it. She swung her scythe in a single furious arc and cut down the Goblin Lord in front of her. Then she dropped everything and ran.

"JACKEY! JACKEY!"

She threw herself to her knees beside him. Her hands hovered over his shaking body, not knowing where to touch, where it would hurt. She grabbed his face, turning it toward her, smearing the blood from his eyes with her thumbs.

"Jackey! Look at me! Jackey!"

Around them, the others finished their own fights. Jigor crushed the last Lord's skull with his hammer. Fits ran his opponent through. The dwarf woman and the Lion-clan scout brought down theirs.

Then they all turned and stared.

At the Cat-clan Beastkin convulsing in the dirt, broken by his own new skill.

And beyond him, at the foot of the hill, Hyoren was still roaring. His muscles bulged, his crimson streaks blazed and steam poured off his body as he pressed the blade of light against the barrier, trying with everything he had to break through.

***

Elise stood on the battlements.

Her arrows couldn't reach the battlefield anymore. The fighting had pushed too far out across the plain, deep into the horde and all the way to the foot of the hill. So she had climbed down from the watchtower.

Moonveil Bow hung loosely in one hand.

She raised her eyes toward the plain and narrowed them.

"Sharpshooter Aim."

Her vision magnified. The battlefield rushed toward her.

At the far end of the long road of jagged stone, Hyoren and the others had just burst out into the open ground at the foot of the hill. Small figures, even magnified. The white banner. A flicker of blue. They were spreading out, preparing for the final assault against the Chieftain and its entourage.

Elise lowered her gaze to the walkway at her feet.

Arianna lay against the inner wall of the battlements where Baron Guts had laid her down. Her crimson hair was spread across the stone, her face deathly pale, and dried blood was crusted beneath her nose. Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths.

Oria knelt beside her, her small hands trembling as she tucked away an empty vial.

"She's alive. I already gave her a high-grade potion. Her body's fine. As fine as it can be, anyway."

Elise knelt and checked for herself. She pressed two fingers to Arianna's throat and felt the pulse there, weak but steady. She laid a palm on her forehead. Cold and clammy, but no fever. She watched the slow rise and fall of her breathing.

A little way off, Baron Guts stood watching them. He had already checked his daughter over himself, more than once. His hands had finally stopped shaking. But his eyes hadn't left her.

Elise let out a slow breath.

She's unconscious. But her life isn't in danger.

She studied Arianna's pale face, the dried blood, the way her body had simply shut down.

This must be something like Hyoren's Berserker backlash…

Elise unfastened her green mantle, drew it from her shoulders and gently draped it over the crimson-haired mage. She tucked the edge beneath Arianna's chin.

"You did well, Arianna. Rest now."

Then she rose to her feet.

She looked out over the battlements, toward the distant foot of the hill.

"The battle is nearly over. If Hyoren can kill the Chieftain, Akela City will be saved. If not…"

She trailed off.

Behind her, Baron Guts finished the sentence for her. His voice was low and heavy.

"We'll be wiped off the map."

Elise's grip tightened around Moonveil Bow.

Then the world turned white.

Far out at the foot of the hill, a colossal blade of light had burst into the sky. It towered over the battlefield, blinding and golden, so bright that even from the city wall, almost a kilometer and a half away, she could see it clearly with her bare eyes. Along the battlements, exhausted mages and archers lifted their heads and stared.

A smile spread across Elise's face.

"He's using his trump card…"

Lumen Severance. She knew that spell well. 

The blade came down.

And stopped.

Elise's smile faltered.

The towering blade of light wasn't moving. It hung there in the air above the foot of the hill, trembling, but it didn't fall any further.

Her eyes narrowed.

"Sharpshooter Aim."

Her vision rushed forward again, straining to its limit. The image was blurred and tiny, but she could make it out. Three translucent green domes shimmered around a tall figure at the foot of the hill. Beneath them, a wall of glowing square shields was pressed upward against the barriers. And on top of it all, the blade of light was grinding against the green, unable to break through.

Her heart lurched.

"The barriers and the shields have stopped the blade!"

She didn't hesitate.

Her hand went to her storage bag at her waist. From it, she drew out a long, gleaming silver arrows.

It wasn't an ordinary arrow. The head, the shaft, even the fin stabilizers at its tail were all forged from pure mithril. It shimmered in the light, pure and flawless, humming faintly as her Aethell brushed against it.

She had commissioned it from Borin months ago. Her own trump card. Mithril carried Aethell more efficiently than anything else. With an arrow like this, she could channel Sacred Wind far more efficiently than through wood and steel. Efficiently enough that a second shot wouldn't tear her apart—it would only drain her to nothing.

But mithril equipment was incredibly difficult to make. Even Borin had only managed to finish two before his orders piled up and swamped his forge.

Two arrows. Two chances.

Elise gripped the arrow tightly.

I could strike them from this distance with Sacred Wind… but…

She stared at the tiny, blurred figures at the foot of the hill.

The stacked barriers. The shield-bearing Lords. The Chieftain buried somewhere behind all of it, a smudge she couldn't even properly see. Her earlier fear came back to her. A single shot, blocked or deflected or simply missing, and her trump card would be wasted.

She shook her head.

There was no time to doubt. Not now.

I have two chances. Then I'll gamble with both.

She nocked the first mithril arrow to Moonveil Bow and drew the string back to her cheek.

"Enchant Magic : Sacred Wind."

The world around her shifted.

A gust of wind swept across the battlements. It wasn't the hot, smoky wind of the battlefield. It was cool, clean and impossibly pure, carrying the scent of deep forests and morning dew. It whipped through Elise's silver hair and set her clothes fluttering. Exhausted mages lifted their heads in confusion. Even Baron Guts turned, his eyes widening. Oria watched with a rare, serene expression.

Then Moonveil Bow began to glow.

It was a soft emerald light at first, spreading from the grip along the silver-wood limbs. Then brighter. Then brighter still. The light gathered around the mithril arrow and wrapped around it, and the arrow drank it in and blazed. Slowly but steadily, the glow kept building until Elise herself was enveloped in it, until the light was so brilliant that everyone on the battlements had to shield their eyes and turn away.

And now, across the entire battlefield, there were two great lights.

At the foot of the hill, the towering golden blade of Lumen Severance.

On the city wall, the blazing emerald radiance of Sacred Wind.

Elise held the drawn string steady and narrowed her eyes.

"Sharpshooter Aim."

She pushed it to its absolute limit.

"Tch…"

Even at its strongest, the Chieftain was only a speck. A tiny dark smudge among a hundred other tiny dark smudges. Goblins, debris, scattered rocks, all blending together into one blurred mess at the foot of the hill.

I can barely tell it apart from everything else…

Her teeth ground together.

What can I do to raise my chances of hitting?

Then she remembered something. Something she had done in the dungeon, long ago, forcing Aethell into her eyes until she could see what no one else could.

"Aethell Sense."

The second skill layered over the first. Her emerald eyes began to glow faintly.

The world shifted again.

Now, among the blurred smudges at the foot of the hill, tiny points of light appeared. Aethell Cores. Glowing faintly inside each living goblin. She could finally tell the creatures apart from the rocks and the debris and the corpses.

But they were still so small.

So unbelievably small. A single core was barely a pinprick at this distance. If her hand wavered by even a millimeter, the shot would go wide by meters by the time it reached the hill.

Sweat beaded on her brow. The string trembled against her cheek.

Do I risk this shot… or not…?

Before she could decide, a voice rang out in her mind.

"Aethell Sense - Level Up to Level 3."

Elise blinked.

The glowing cores sharpened. Their light grew clearer and steadier, easier to pick out. But they were still tiny pinpricks at the edge of her sight.

It wasn't enough.

But the notifications hadn't stopped.

"Prerequisites met. Evolving the Skill."

Elise's breath caught.

A pause.

"Aethell Sense and Sharpshooter Aim have merged."

Another pause. It felt like an eternity.

"Magic Eyes : Far Sight - Skill Acquired."

Elise's emerald eyes went wide.

Knowledge flooded into her mind, sharp and clear.

Sharpshooter Aim had only magnified her sight, and it had a limit. Past a kilometer, it couldn't bring a target close enough to aim at with any precision.

But Magic Eyes : Far Sight had no such limit. As long as her target was within the horizon and nothing stood between them, she could magnify her sight as far as she needed. It carried Aethell Sense within it too, so every glowing core would be visible. And more than that, it could highlight enemies, setting them apart from everything around them.

Elise didn't waste a single second.

"Magic Eyes."

The world changed.

Everything was suddenly bathed in a soft, glowing green hue. And the battlefield simply came to her. She pushed her sight across the plain, past the wedge, down the long stone road, all the way to the foot of the hill. Further. Closer. Until she could see it all as clearly as if she were standing among them.

The blade of light grinding against the barriers. Hyoren beneath it, roaring, every muscle straining. The four shield-bearing Lords pressed against their glowing shields. The three Shamans with their crooked staves raised, their barriers stacked over the Chieftain.

And the Chieftain itself. Tall, armored and watching.

Every enemy glowed with a faint red outline. Every Aethell Core burned bright.

Elise let out a long, shaky breath of relief.

I'm so glad I didn't shoot…

Her eyes moved across the scene, taking it all in.

If I'd aimed at the Chieftain, my Sacred Wind would have been blocked by those three barriers and the Lords' shields.

Three barriers, one on top of another. Four shields, glowing and braced. Even Sacred Wind might not have been able to punch through all of that.

Her aim shifted slightly. Away from the Chieftain. Toward the Shaman standing a few meters to its left, its staff raised, pouring its Aethell into its barrier.

A small smile touched her lips.

But a single barrier won't save you.

She released the string.

“Charge Sacred Wind Arrow!”

The mithril arrow vanished.

In its place, a beam of brilliant emerald light tore out from Moonveil Bow. It wasn't an arrow in flight. It was a lance of pure, sacred wind, blazing across the plain. It flew over the battlements, over the second wall, over the wedge and the jagged stone road, over a kilometer and a half of battlefield.

And it arrived in a single heartbeat.

The left Shaman never saw it coming. The beam punched straight through it, through its feeble personal barrier, through its body, and out the other side in a spray of green light. It didn't even have time to fall before its barrier flickered and went out.

On the battlements, no one breathed.

Elise was already reaching for the second mithril arrow.

Her hands were shaking now. The first shot had taken a terrible amount out of her. She could feel her Aethell Core draining, the reserve dropping lower and lower, the edges of her vision beginning to blur even through Magic Eyes.

She nocked the arrow anyway and drew the string back to her cheek.

Moonveil Bow began to glow again.

She shifted her aim to the Shaman on the right.

After this, my Aethell will be completely empty. But…

She drew in one long, slow breath.

He always goes in front, protecting me. And I always protect his back.

She released the string.

“Charge Sacred Wind Arrow!”

A second emerald beam tore across the battlefield.

It struck the Shaman on the right squarely in the chest. The goblin was blown apart. Its staff spun away into the dust, and a second barrier collapsed into fading green sparks.

Two barriers gone.

Only one remained.

Pain stabbed through Elise's skull.

Her vision swam. The green hue of Magic Eyes flickered and faded. The world tilted beneath her feet. Her Aethell Core was empty, scraped completely dry, and her body was shutting down around it. She could feel consciousness slipping away from her like water through her fingers.

But there was one more thing she needed to do.

She lifted her eyes toward the distant golden light at the foot of the hill and whispered with the last of her strength.

"May Sylvana bless you… with Her wind of victory, Hyoren…"

Moonveil Bow slipped from her fingers and clattered against the stone. And the silver-haired elf collapsed.

***

Hyoren kept pushing.

Dawn Breaker trembled in his grip. The colossal blade of light above it ground against the stacked green barriers, sparks of white and green spraying in every direction. Beneath the barriers, the four shield-bearing Lords strained against their glowing shields, their clawed feet sinking into the earth under the weight.

It wasn't moving.

And every second he held it there, the spell drank more of him.

Lumen Severance wasn't a spell meant to be held. It was meant to cut and finish in one stroke. Sustaining it like this was draining his Aethell in a steady, merciless stream. He could feel his core emptying, the reserve already worn thin by a whole day of fighting, now sinking toward nothing.

He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached.

"UOOOOGHH!!"

He poured in everything he had left. Every scrap of Aethell. Every ounce of strength Berserker could tear out of his body. His muscles bulged until it felt like his skin would split. The crimson streaks across his body blazed so bright they almost glowed.

But the three barriers held. The four shields held. Unyielding.

Then, from somewhere behind him, a voice cut through the din. Hoarse. Cracked. But unmistakable.

"FREEDOM PARTY STRONG! WOHOO!"

Jackey…?

The corner of Hyoren's mouth twitched.

Then a scream tore across the battlefield.

Killa…

It was raw and horrified, the sound of someone watching something terrible happen. The grin died before it could form. Something in Hyoren's chest clenched.

But he didn't have time to look back.

He couldn't spare even a glance. If he let his focus slip for an instant, the blade would falter and everything would be lost.

So he kept pushing. Everything he had, into one swing.

And then a flash of green tore across the battlefield on his left.

It was a beam of brilliant emerald light, so fast and so bright it seemed to burn a line through the air itself. It struck the Shaman to the left of the Chieftain and punched straight through it in a spray of green sparks. The goblin didn't even have time to scream. It was simply gone.

Hyoren's eyes went wide behind the crimson haze.

"That's… Elise's Sacred Wind!? How is it this accurate!?"

The outermost barrier flickered violently.

Then it vanished.

One barrier gone. Two left.

The two remaining barriers began to flicker again, pulsing and dimming under the weight of the blade. But they held, at least for now.

His mind raced.

Elise can only fire Sacred Wind twice, even with those mithril arrows… And she's that far away... Did she gamble… and actually hit the jackpot...?

But it wasn't enough.

He could feel it. His Aethell was almost gone. At this rate, he would run dry before he could break through the two barriers still standing.

Then a second flash of green tore across the battlefield on his right.

Another beam of emerald light streaked in from the distant city wall and struck the Shaman on the right squarely in the chest. The goblin was blown apart in a burst of green light, its staff spinning away into the dust.

Hyoren's breath caught.

"Another Sacred Wind!? With pinpoint accuracy again!? How!?"

The second barrier flickered and dissolved into fading green sparks.

Two barriers gone.

Only one left.

The last barrier began to flicker faster and faster, its light stuttering, its surface rippling under the weight of the blade. The final Shaman standing before the Chieftain was trembling, its staff shaking in its claws. Alone, it couldn't hold the barrier steady.

Something warm swelled in Hyoren's chest, even through the agony of the strain.

"I don't know how you did it, Elise…"

A grin spread across his blood-streaked face.

"But thank you. You're always saving me!"

He drew in one last breath, deep enough to fill every corner of his Berserker-swollen chest.

And he poured everything he had into one final push.

"UUUUOOOOOOOGHHHH!!!"

The barrier's flickering stopped.

For one frozen heartbeat, everything hung in perfect stillness.

Then it shattered.

CRACK!

The last barrier burst apart like glass, its fragments scattering into the air and fading to nothing. The final Shaman was flung backward by the recoil and crumpled to the ground.

Now there was nothing between the blade and the shields.

Hyoren pushed again.

The blade of light pressed down onto the four glowing square shields. For a moment, the Lords held. Their shields blazed, and their legs buckled. Then the blade began to cut. It sank into the first shield, slow and grinding, then sheared through it. Then into the second. The third. The fourth. One by one, the shields gave way.

Behind them, the Goblin Chieftain's sharp, intelligent eyes finally widened.

For the first time all day, the creature that had commanded fifteen thousand goblins, that had adapted to every move they made, looked afraid.

Hyoren grinned.

And he pushed down harder.

The blade of light came down.

It cut through the four Goblin Lords and their shattered shields. It cut through the Goblin Chieftain, through its fitted armor and its tall body, from shoulder to hip.

All of them, in a single swing.

For a moment, nothing happened. The Lords and the Chieftain stood frozen, a thin line of light glowing across their bodies.

Then the blade discharged.

BOOM!

A pillar of light erupted at the foot of the hill.

It burst upward and outward in a towering column of blinding gold-white radiance, swallowing the Chieftain and the four Lords completely. The shockwave rolled out across the plain, flattening the dust and sending goblins and defenders alike staggering. The light was so brilliant that, for a moment, the entire battlefield turned white. From the second wall to the city battlements, every person and every goblin had to turn their eyes away.

Slowly, the light subsided.

It faded from blinding white to pale gold, then to a soft glow, then to nothing at all.

And where the Goblin Chieftain had stood, there was almost nothing.

No body. No armor. No horn. Only a smoking crater at the foot of the hill, its edges still glowing faintly with fading light.