The battlefield was an unending nightmare.Three days, four nights, seven frontal assaults.The walls held.The mages annihilated entire waves.The Douglas held the right flank with near-animal savagery.
From a distant hill, beneath an imperial canopy, the Emperor and Princess Naira drank tea in calm composure, as if the massacre unfolding before them were nothing more than another spectacle.
Imperial banners burned against the sky like living flames.
Corpses piled high like mountains.
Naira watched the Kingdom's right flank.
"The Douglas are not retreating…" she murmured, surprised.
The Emperor nodded.
"And they will not."
He took another sip of tea.
"It is time their leader dies."
Naira set her cup down.
"I will send the generals, Father."
The Emperor smiled—softly, almost amused.
"No.That will not be necessary."
He rose to his feet.
"I will handle him myself."
The air trembled.The earth seemed to freeze.
The Emperor's shadow stretched across the entire battlefield…
And the fate of Duke Douglas was sealed.
The double walls of Acropolis shone like a magical colossus when the first imperial battalions crossed the threshold.The runes carved by Count Carter activated instantly: pressure seals, slowed-mana fields, containment traps that tore through armor and bone with the clinical precision of the royal arcanists.
Hundreds of imperial soldiers were trapped, crushed, or mutilated before they could even raise their shields.The Kingdom's magic—concentrated and merciless—roared through every crack of the Bastion.
But the Empire did not hesitate.
From a distant hill, Naira raised her hand.
"Begin elite deployment."
And as if her words were divine command, the Empire's most feared units advanced:the Crimson Vanguard, the Alabaster Tigers, the Blood Sorcerers—and behind them, like a living eclipse…
the Emperor.
The entire field vibrated.
Superiority by bloodline was no metaphor.It was living pressure.
Among the Kingdom's ranks, Laurence Douglas had already carved a bloody path through imperial legionaries.He moved like a demon of shadow, his black blade splitting armor, his delta magic crackling like controlled lightning.Each motion was a reminder of why the Douglas had been feared since ancient times.
Then it happened.
The battlefield fell into unnatural silence.
Arrows ceased mid-flight.Arcane chants died in their casters' throats.Even the blood flowing across the earth seemed to still.
Laurence Douglas had just felled three imperial legionaries in a single sweeping strike, his sword cloaked in shadows that flickered like black fire.
And then everyone felt it.
The presence.