The Marsh Forest spat them out.
Thane Cladaron and the Serpent's Maw knights emerged from the tree line not as an army marching, but as a natural disaster making landfall. Behind them lay a trail of pulverized timber and severed roots. They had not navigated the forest; they had executed it.
Before them, the battlefield was a painting of apocalypse.
Dragon carcasses rained from the sky, crashing into the earth with wet thuds.
BOOM.
A shockwave ripped across the courtyard. It was the sound of Cahir's massive blade colliding with Corell's Yellowstone sword. The impact was so loud it created a vacuum of silence, a momentary pause in the clash of steel where every soldier flinched.
Thane didn't flinch. He raised his Redstone Axe.
"Break them," Thane ordered.
The Serpents roared.
It was a three-way slaughter.
The Anchors—the muscle of the unit—charged the massive iron gates of the Obsidian Tower, swinging warhammers glowing with kinetic energy. The Ciphers stood behind them, weaving barriers of light to block the arrows and spells raining down from the Falchion archers on the walls.
The Wanderers, caught between the defending Falchions and the attacking Serpents, were squeezed.
CRACK.
The tower gates groaned under the assault of the Serpent Anchors. But before they could shatter the lock, the doors swung open inward.
A blur of motion shot out.
Zip. Zip. Zip.
Three Serpent knights at the front fell, their heads separating from their shoulders before their bodies hit the ground.
Standing in the gateway was Dion. He held his rapier loosely, a cruel smile on his face.
"Trash," Dion spat, flicking blood off his blade. "Leave, or join them."
The Serpents hesitated. Dion's speed was legendary.
"No wonder Remus could not escape from him."
Mat stepped forward, drawing his broadsword. "Dion. You have a lot to answer for."
Dion laughed, a high, whistling sound. "Challenging me is challenging the forest, Mat."
Dion placed two fingers to his lips and whistled a sharp, piercing note.
From the edges of the clearing, the Marsh Forest obeyed. Massive, thorny vines lashed out like whips, bypassing the other combatants to strike specifically at Mat.
"Go!" Mat shouted, parrying a vine as thick as a python. "I will handle him! Get inside!"
While Mat engaged Dion and the living forest, Chief Varic led the charge into the open breach.
"Bastards!" Varic roared, charging into the dark hallway. "Let's settle the score today!"
"Come and try!" a voice echoed back.
Chief Riven met him in the hall, surrounded by elite Falchion guards. The two heavyweights collided, turning the entryway into a meat grinder.
In the confusion, a small, bandaged figure slipped past the duel.
Norvin held two hand-axes tight. He didn't look at Riven. He didn't look at Mat. He ducked under a swinging sword, rolled past a dying guard, and sprinted toward the spiraling staircase that led down.
"Chaos is a ladder", Norvin thought, his heart hammering against his broken ribs. "And I am climbing down."
Outside, in the center of the courtyard, there was a circle of emptiness.
Thane stood there.
Around him, the battle raged. Wanderers fought Bronze Falchion knights. Blood sprayed. The battlefield exploded.
But no one entered the ten-foot radius around Thane.
The Wanderers looked at him with terror. They sensed it—the overwhelming, suffocating pressure of a predator that was simply too big to hunt.
Thane yawned. He rested his axe on his shoulder. "Boring."
He looked at a group of Wanderers who were backing away from him.
"Are you going to fight?" Thane asked. "Or are you just going to stare?"
A Bronze Falchion knight, emboldened by the distraction, saw an opening. He screamed a war cry and charged Thane's blind side, spear raised.
Thane didn't turn. He didn't look. He simply swung the Redstone Axe backward in a lazy arc.
SPLAT.
The knight didn't die; he evaporated. The kinetic force turned him into a red mist inside his armor. The crumpled metal heap flew twenty feet and embedded itself in a wall.
The entire battlefield froze. Wanderers and Falchions alike stopped fighting, staring at the red stain on the wall.
"Where is Gareth?" Thane asked the silence.
WHOOSH.
A gust of wind answered him. High above, a dragon shrieked, banking hard toward the distant town of Ruxwas, chasing a small, flying figure.
Thane looked up. He saw the Golden Knight. He saw the Wind-walker.
"Perfect," Thane grinned. "I can kill two birds with one stone."
He didn't walk. He didn't cast a spell.
He channeled Numen into his legs. His muscles coiled like high-tension steel cables.
BOOM.
The ground where he stood shattered into a crater. Thane vanished.
He was a blur. A streak of black lightning cutting through the battlefield, moving so fast the human eye registered him only as a distortion in the air. He bypassed the soldiers, bypassed the walls, and shot toward the town.
Ruxwax was a city of screams.
The evacuation was halfway done, but thousands were still trapped in the gridlock. They looked up to see a nightmare: A dragon and a flying man tearing their city apart from the sky.
Aegis Kazar was relentless. "Die, filth!" he screamed, throwing wind spears at Gareth.
Gareth shielded himself with his dragon, the beast taking deep gouges in its scales.
Suddenly, a shadow eclipsed them both.
Thane Cladaron had jumped.
He had launched himself from a rooftop, soaring seven stories into the air with purely physical strength. He intercepted the dogfight at its apex.
"Hello, boys!"
Thane swung his axe.
He hit Aegis mid-flight. The Windwalker barely had time to raise a wind shield, but it shattered like glass. Aegis was swatted out of the sky like a fly.
CRASH.
Aegis smashed through the roof of a three-story tavern, burying himself in the rubble.
Thane landed on a hay cart in the street, obliterating it. He stood up, dusting off his coat, looking up at the dragon.
Gareth, pale with shock, pointed his lance down. "Burn him! Burn the monsters!"
The dragon opened its maw, fire building in its throat.
But Aegis exploded out of the tavern ruins. He was bleeding, his clothes torn, but his eyes were glowing with religious fervor.
"BROKEN VESSEL!" Aegis shrieked, pointing at Thane. "You are an affront to the Goddess! You abomination! I will not let a hollow monster kill me!"
Aegis ignored the dragon. He charged Thane on the ground, moving with the speed of a hurricane.
Thane met him.
It was a clash of a phantom Cipher with a prime Nexus. Thane's axe against Aegis's wind blades. They moved so fast that the civilians hiding in the shops only saw sparks and collapsing masonry. Walls disintegrated. Windows shattered.
"Die!" Aegis screamed, his wind scythes cutting deep grooves into the cobblestones. "The Goddess wants your death!"
"Your Goddess has no power here!" Thane roared back, parrying a blow that would have cut a tank in half.
Above them, Gareth saw his chance. "Kill them both!"
The dragon dove, aiming to crush the two combatants into the dirt.
Thane stopped fighting Aegis. He looked up. He grabbed Aegis by the ankle and threw him—physically threw him—at the dragon's face.
"Get off my board!" Thane shouted.
Aegis hit the dragon's snout, disorienting it. The beast crashed into a residential building, its massive bulk bringing the structure down in a cloud of dust. Gareth was thrown from the saddle, tumbling across the street.
Thane leaped onto the fallen dragon before it could recover. He raised the Redstone Axe high. The blade glowed blinding red.
CRUNCH.
He buried the axe in the dragon's neck, severing the spine. The beast thrashed once, let out a gurgling roar, and died.
Dust settled.
Silence returned to the street, broken only by the whimpers of civilians trapped inside the half-collapsed building the dragon had crushed.
"Please!" a woman cried from under a table in the ruins. "Don't kill us! We'll leave!"
Thane stood on the dragon's corpse, pulling his axe free with a wet squelch. He looked at the cowering family. He looked at the mother shielding her child.
For a moment, the monster vanished. The Captain remained.
"No need," Thane said, his voice strangely calm amidst the carnage. "The dragon is dead. It won't hit the building again."
He gestured with a blood-soaked hand.
"Stay there. You are safe in the rubble. Wait until the noise stops."
He knew there were bodies in the other buildings. He knew his fight with Aegis had likely killed dozens of innocents. But this was war. War was a transaction of lives for objectives. It was stupid, it was wasteful, but it was the job.
"THANE!"
Aegis rose from the debris across the street, hovering in the air again, blood streaming from his head. Gareth was groaning in the gutter, trying to stand.
Thane jumped down from the dragon corpse. He cracked his neck.
"Right," Thane said, raising his axe toward the Windwalker. "Where were we?"
Back at the Tower, the fight between Cahir and Corell had devolved into madness. They had smashed through the outer wall and were now fighting inside the courtyard ruins.
They weren't using tactics anymore. They were mauling each other. Cahir was bleeding from a dozen cuts; Corell's armor was dented and crushed by magnetic force.
They snarled like animals, emitting pure bloodlust, willing to tear through friend or foe to land a killing blow.
And deep beneath them, in the silence of the underground...
Norvin slid down the banister of the spiral staircase. He hit the stone floor of the bottom level.
It was quiet here. The sounds of the war above were just a distant vibration.
Norvin looked down the hallway. It was empty. The guards had indeed been pulled to the surface.
He gripped his axes. He took a breath.
"I'm coming," he whispered to the dark. "Hold on Red Ghost."
The air on the ninth underground floor was stagnant, heavy with the weight of centuries of silence.
Norvin stepped off the spiral staircase, his axes gripped so tightly his knuckles turned white. He scanned the corridor. It was unexpected. The rows of prisons were all empty, their doors hanging ajar like the mouths of dead men.
'Empty', Norvin thought, his mind racing. 'I thought the Red Ghost was in the lowest floor, the tenth. Why is this floor empty?'
His eyes locked onto a single prison cell at the absolute opposite end of the corridor. It was the only one sealed. A massive, reinforced metal door, glowing faintly with pulsating purple scripts.
"Restricting spells", Norvin realized, recognizing the patterns of Awen suppression. "Did they move her here? Because she's weak? The prison levels are usually classified by the strength of the inmate. If she's drained, maybe they didn't think she needed the tenth floor."
Norvin took slow, deliberate steps. He didn't make a sound. He clenched his axes, sweat slicking his palms.
He stopped ten feet from the door. He gulped. He didn't know what was inside. It could be the Red Ghost. It could be nothing. It could be something worse. The fear of the unknown paralyzed him for a second.
The battle had shifted. The Wanderers, exhausted from their initial assault, had begun to slow down, taking momentary rests behind debris. But the Bronze Falchion knights couldn't afford that luxury. This was their tower, their town. They had to protect it with their lives.
However, the Serpent's Maw knights were relentless. They were pushing the Wanderers back toward the direction they came from.
For the Wanderers, retreat was an option. For the Falchion, it was not.
Suddenly, the air pressure in the courtyard dropped.
A man descended from the sky amidst the battlefield. He didn't land hard; he touched down with the grace of a feather, but his presence struck fear into the hearts of everyone present.
To the Bronze Falchion, he was salvation. To the Wanderers and Serpents, he was a death sentence.
Sir Kine. A Prime. An S-Tier threat category.
Cahir was busy locking blades with Corell. Aegis was miles away fighting Thane. There was no S-Tier fighter left to stop him.
Kine stood tall, holding a simple steel spear. He looked at the mixed army of Serpents and Wanderers with bored eyes.
"Stand back," Kine ordered his own men. He spun his spear once.
"If you want to die, come and entertain me."
The fighting stopped. The Wanderers looked at Kine, then at each other. Their target wasn't Kine. They couldn't win this. Without a word, the Wanderers broke formation and began to retreat into the shadows.
"Cowards!" a Serpent knight shouted, spitting on the ground.
The Bronze Falchion knights cheered, shouting glories of victory as the Wanderers fled. But the Serpents didn't cheer. They gripped their weapons harder.
They couldn't retreat. They were the Serpent's Maw. They were under orders. To run was to be executed by their own Captain.
A Serpent Kinght looked at Kine, then at his trembling men. He raised his sword.
"We cannot run!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "We fight!"
The voices of the Serpent knights rose in unison, a tragic chorus of the damned.
"MAY OUR SOULS REACH THE COSMIC RIVER OF SOULS!"
" GLORY TO THE RORIC KINGDOM!"
They charged. It was a wave of desperation crashing against a rock.
Kine didn't flinch. He thrust his spear.
Thwip.
A knight was impaled through the chest. Kine pulled the spear back and swung it in a wide arc. Slash. Three heads flew into the air. Boom. He punched a hole through a heavy shield, crushing the heart of the man behind it.
The Serpents fought with everything they had. They held onto each other, protecting their friends, blocking blows meant for their brothers. They were scared. They didn't want to die. But Kine was a reaper, and the harvest had begun.
As the blood soaked the courtyard, every single Serpent knight had the same thought. They remembered the man they feared, the man they hated, the man who treated them like tools.
"Captain... where are you?"
They begged the Gods. "Captain Thane Cladaron... come back and save us."
The floor of the obsidian tower was slick with blood. Walls were demolished.
Chief Varic and Chief Riven were leaning against opposite walls, both heaving for breath, gulping down blood. Their armor was shattered.
"Give up, Varic," Riven wheezed. "Surrender. We will spare your lives. We'll make you prisoners."
"Not possible," Varic spat, wiping his mouth. "If we surrender... Lord Thane will kill us himself."
They clashed again, destroying another support pillar.
Varic gathered his last ounce of strength and delivered a mighty blow with his warhammer. CRACK. He sent Riven flying upward, smashing through the ceiling of the second floor, then the third.
Varic jumped, following him to the third floor.
He landed and froze.
Behind Riven, the entire outer wall was gone. A massive, jagged hole allowed the moonlight to flood the room.
'Our men didn't break this high up', Varic thought, confused. "Who did this?"
Riven groaned, standing up. He saw Varic staring at the hole and laughed—a wet, gurgling sound.
"That hole..." Riven grinned. "That was made by Remus. That's where he tried to escape with the child."
Varic's eyes widened. "Remus..."
"Too bad you guys let the child come back here," Riven mocked. "That old man died in vain. We already know the boy is here."
Varic felt a jolt of shock. 'They know?'
"Then why didn't you send anyone to stop him?!" Varic roared, swinging his hammer again. "If you know he's in the dungeons!"
Riven blocked the blow, sliding back. "We don't need to. Because someone far more terrifying is already down there."
Varic felt a chill crawl up his spine. The intel flashed in his mind. 'The Astarey.'
"The Demon isn't in the upper floors... it's the guard dog of the dungeon."
####
Norvin was still standing in front of the huge metal door, paralyzed by the unknown.
BOOM.
The entire prison level shook. Norvin was caught off guard, stumbling back.
BOOM.
A massive fist imprint appeared on the metal door, bulging outward toward Norvin. The metal screamed as it stretched.
Norvin's eyes widened. "Something inside... something inside is strong enough to bend reinforced Null-Iron with its bare fists."
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The fists rained down from the inside. The door began to warp, the hinges groaning.
Norvin backed away until his back hit the corridor wall. Sweat dripped from his forehead, stinging his eyes. He knew he couldn't handle this. He had messed up.
"The Red Ghost isn't in there. That's not her."
BOOM.
The sound resonated so loudly it traveled up the ventilation shafts, reaching the surface.
Cahir and Corell were locked in their ferocious duel, surrounded by debris.
Suddenly, Cahir stopped. His head snapped toward the tower. His Titan senses picked up a vibration in the earth, a scent of rot and ancient malice.
"That vile creature..." Cahir whispered, his lip curling in disgust. "That foul soul... you finally let it out."
He looked at Corell. "I want his head."
Corell, who was gasping for air, clutching his bruised ribs, looked at the young Titan. He was surprised. Cahir had broken ribs, he was exhausted, yet he was talking about hunting a demon?
"The Wanderers raised a fine young man," Corell noted, ignoring the comment about the demon. "Most would run."
"You should see the Young Lord," Cahir replied, a strange pride in his voice. "He is the most talented of us all."
Corell frowned. 'Young Master? Who does a Titan bow to?'
Before Corell could ask, Cahir turned and ran. He abandoned the duel, jumping over the wreckage, sprinting toward the Obsidian Tower.
"Hey!" Corell shouted. He couldn't let the Titan roam free. He chased after him.
In the town of Ruxwax.
Two monsters were tearing the city apart.
Aegis Kazar hovered in the air, panting. He had decimated entire city blocks with his wind spells, trying to pin down the Captain.
But Thane? Thane was still standing. He held his Redstone Axe, looking up with that same infuriatingly bored expression.
'He's a close combat specialist', Aegis analyzed, wiping blood from his eyes. 'I keep increasing the distance, but he keeps closing it. He looks unhurt... but he must be tired. No one fights like this without burning out.'
Aegis was right. Inside, Thane was running on fumes. His Numen was critically low. That was why he kept charging—he needed to end this quickly.
Suddenly, Aegis froze.
He felt it. The wave of malice. The breaking of a seal.
"The Foul Soul," Aegis whispered. "The prison is broken."
Aegis smiled—a villainous, fanatical smile.
"You are lucky, monster," Aegis called down to Thane. "I have to deal with a Foul Soul first. I will not let a demon walk this earth."
Aegis turned and flew away at high speed toward the Obsidian Tower.
Thane dropped his axe to his side, taking a moment to suck in deep, ragged breaths. He was exhausted.
'He left? Good.'
Thane rubbed his temple. "Gareth... where the hell is Gareth? Norvin gave me three names. Cahir, Dion, Gareth."
The Tower Gates
Dion stood amidst the vines, looking at Mat who was entangled and bleeding.
Dion laughed menacingly. "Do you hear that, Mat? The boom? The tremors? You are all dead now. The Demon is on the run."
Mat gritted his teeth. He couldn't reply. They were in the worst position possible. Kine was slaughtering their men. Varic was trapped inside. And a demon was loose.