Against Damien, who had none of those limitations in any way the foot soldiers could meaningfully exploit, it was a pattern that had only one direction.
The numbers dropped.
Not quickly—there were too many of them for quickly. But steadily. Continuously. The way a tide drops when the pull is constant and the resistance is not.
Damien moved through the interior in a rough expanding pattern, pushing outward from his entry point, clearing sections as he went. Not systematically, not with the rigid structure of a tactical advance—but organically, following the flow of where the pressure was highest, where the clustering was densest, where his presence would do the most to break what was forming before it could form.
Cerbe swept wide arcs of flame through the eastern section of the stronghold, where the foot soldiers had packed tightest around the storage structures and were using them as cover.
The cover helped less than they hoped.
