The second bombardment came before sunrise.
No warning.
No speech.
Just the snap of torsion and the scream of stone cutting through cold air.
Eiden had not slept.
He sat against a supply crate through the night, watching touchlines burn low across the field, measuring patterns in silence. When the first engine fired, he was already standing.
Too early.
High command wanted momentum.
Momentum felt like progress.
Progress felt like victory.
Victory blinded people.
The first volley struck deeper than yesterday.
Engineers had adjusted angle overnight.
Mages had recalculated spread.
The stone hit near the demon midline.
Impact.
Armor shattered.
Two ranks buckled.
For half a second—half a dangerous second—the formation bent.
A ripple of human exhilaration spread along the ridge.
"There!"
"Press them!"
Wilfred Webstere raised his staff immediately.
No hesitation.
A broader compression spell discharged across the fracture point.
This one less precise.
More force.
The blast tore open a visible gap.
Demons fell.
The gap remained open longer than expected.
Too long.
The horn sounded advance before full assessment.
Infantry surged.
Rynn moved with her unit at the front of the push.
Eiden followed, pulse steady.
Too smooth.
Too clean.
Across the field, the red-trimmed demon did not rush to close the gap.
He stepped aside.
Letting the human canter advance.
Eiden felt it.
Not panic.
Invitation.
"They're yielding," a knight shouted.
"They're drawing," Eiden muttered.
No one heard him.
The humans flooded into the breach.
Mud churned.
Steel collided in tight quarters.
The demons retreated in controlled steps—three backward, hold, three backward again.
They were not breaking.
They were curving.
The line bent inward on both sides of the breach.
Subtle.
Measured.
A pressure curve.
Eiden's breathing slowed.
It's forming again.
Different shape than the depression trap.
This time it was elastic.
Stretch the canter.
Snap the sides.
"Rynn!" he shouted.
She was already two positions ahead, blade flashing in disciplined arcs.
She didn't turn.
He pushed forward anyway.
A demon lunged from his left. He parried late—but within tolerance.
Steel scraped along his spear shaft instead of biting into flesh.
He stepped deeper into the formation.
Too deep.
The sound shifted.
Battle has texture.
Open-field combat is loud, chaotic, overlapping.
Encirclement sounds tighter.
Focused.
The noise narrows.
The demon flanks accelerated.
Not charging.
Advancing in compressed lines that angled inward.
The human breach extended further.
Pride disguised as success.
Then the horn pattern changed.
Not human.
Demon.
Three long notes.
One short.
The flanks collapsed inward.
The pressure curve snapped.
Screams erupted along the outer edges.
Shields split.
The human canter found itself narrower than it had realized.
The gap became a pocket.
"Fall back!" someone shouted.
Too late.
Eiden felt the compression slam into his left shoulder.
He twisted sideways as a blade cut through the air where his throat had been.
Not clean.
He stumbled.
A body fell across his legs.
He shoved it aside and rolled under a descending strike.
Mud filled his mouth.
He rose again.
The red-trimmed demon stepped into view.
Close.
Closer than before.
Not attacking.
Watching the collapse.
The human canter was folding inward.
The outer ranks were being sheared off in disciplined slices.
No frenzy.
No rage.
Just geometry.
Rynn was three steps ahead and to the right.
Two demons converged on her blind side.
He saw it early.
Moved early.
He intercepted one strike awkwardly, deflecting enough for Rynn to pivot and finish the second attacker.
She shot him a brief glance.
Not gratitude.
Recognition.
The horn sounded retreat.
Human.
Desperate.
But retreat paths were narrower than expected.
Bodies clogged the breach.
Demons advanced in short, surgical pushes.
Eiden calculated distance.
If he moved now—
He might clear the pressure zone before full collapse.
If he misjudged—
He would anchor this mistake.
No reset.
He had not slept.
This was yesterday's anchor.
If he died now—
He would wake in the tent before artillery.
Not before the first bombardment.
The decision window tightened.
A knight in polished Armor lunged forward again, refusing retreat.
The red-trimmed demon moved.
One step.
Two strikes.
The knight fell.
A clean removal of momentum.
Eiden felt the canter buckle further.
He grabbed Rynn's shoulder.
"Left. Now."
She didn't argue.
They angled diagonally instead of straight back.
Breaking perpendicular retreat pattern.
The pressure followed canter.
Not flanks.
They slipped through the outer arc just as it snapped shut completely.
Behind them, the breach sealed.
Human screams compressed into muffled chaos.
The retreat line stabilized near the ridge.
Demons did not pursue beyond calculated limit.
They disengaged in perfect sequence.
Leaving the human canter bloodied but not annihilated.
Eiden bent forward, hands on his knees.
Alive.
Again.
Rynn wiped blood from her cheek.
"That wasn't a break," she said.
"No."
"It was bait."
"Yes."
She looked back across the field.
The red-trimmed demon stood at the edge of engagement distance.
Not triumphant.
Balanced.
He tilted his head slightly.
Not at Rynn.
At Eiden.
Acknowledgment.
You saw it.
You adapted.
But not fast enough to prevent losses.
Eiden swallowed.
The human officers regrouped near the siege engines.
Arguments already rising.
"…unexpected resistance…"
"…adjust angle…"
"…increase magical output…"
They would escalate again.
They always did.
Across the field, demon engineers moved calmly among their own fallen.
Not hurried.
Not shaken.
The red-trimmed demon turned and spoke briefly to a taller figure in darker Armor.
Another tier.
Hierarchy.
They were discussing patterns.
Eiden felt it settle into place.
Yesterday, they calibrated range.
Today, they calibrated response to overextension.
Tomorrow—
They would test something else.
He straightened slowly.
Rynn studied him.
"You saw that before it closed."
"Yes."
"You hesitated."
"I was calculating."
Her jaw tightened.
"And?"
"And I chose you over canter."
She held his gaze for a long second.
Then nodded once.
"Next time," she said quietly, "choose faster."
He didn't answer.
Across the field, the red-trimmed demon finally turned away.
Not retreating.
Preparing.
Eiden's chest felt tight—not from fear.
From recognition.
This was no longer battlefield improvisation.
This was iterative escalation.
Each day refining.
Each clash tightening.
He had preserved the line.
He had saved Rynn.
But the demon commander had successfully demonstrated something critical:
Human momentum was predictable.
And predictability—
Was a fault line waiting to break.