The flank had become a slaughter pit.
Kael moved like death given form. Spirit Veins open and surging, violet aether trailed every strike as he carved through Gorthak's forces with zero restraint. No feints. No testing. Only cold, efficient killing.
A bone-plated boar charged him head-on, tusks lowered like spears. Kael dropped low and drove his spear upward with full ninth-star power amplified by the opened veins. The tip punched straight through the armored snout, exploded out the top of the skull, and lifted the entire beast off the ground. He twisted viciously, spraying hot blood and brain matter across three traitor warriors behind it, then ripped the spear free and hurled the carcass into their ranks like a battering ram. Bones snapped. Men screamed as they were crushed.
He didn't pause.
Two shadow panthers leaped at him from opposite sides. Kael spun between them, spear shaft cracking the first one's spine mid-air with a wet crunch. Before the second could land, he slammed an elbow into its throat, crushing the windpipe, then drove the bone dagger up under its jaw and out the top of its head. The panther convulsed once and died on its feet. Kael shoved the corpse aside and kept moving.
Thalia fought at his left, blade flashing, but the press of bodies was growing thicker. Traitor warriors had adapted, forming a shield wall around the remaining Sovereign beasts. They knew the boy was the real threat now.
Kael channeled aether through his open veins and exploded forward. His spear became a blur of thrusts—each one finding gaps in armor, eyes, throats. A traitor swung an axe at his head. Kael caught the wrist, snapped it with a brutal twist, then headbutted the man so hard his nose caved in and he dropped dead. Another tried to stab him from behind. Kael pivoted, grabbed the spear mid-thrust, and rammed it back through the attacker's own chest, pinning him to a tree.
Blood soaked the ground ankle-deep. The air reeked of ruptured guts and spilled aether.
No mercy. No hesitation. Kael had stopped playing the moment the assault began.
Then Thalia screamed.
A massive flame-maned lion—Sovereign rank, one of Gorthak's elite—had broken through the line and pinned her against a fallen log. Its jaws snapped shut on her left arm, fangs sinking deep. Fire licked across her skin as the lion shook her like a rag doll. Blood sprayed. Thalia's blade clattered from her grip as the beast's weight crushed her against the wood.
Kael's vision tunneled with cold fury.
He abandoned the frontline and charged.
The lion sensed him coming and released Thalia, turning with a roar that shook leaves from the trees. Flames roared along its mane. It lunged.
Kael met it head-on. No dodging. No tactics. Pure violence.
He leaped inside the jaws, spear discarded, and slammed both fists into the lion's open mouth. Spirit Vein power surged. He grabbed the upper and lower fangs and ripped outward with everything he had. Bone cracked. Flesh tore. The lion's jaw dislocated with a sickening pop as Kael tore half its face open in one savage motion.
The beast howled in agony.
Kael didn't stop. He drove his bone dagger straight into the exposed eye socket, twisting until the blade scraped bone at the back of the skull. Hot blood and flame gushed over his arms and chest. The lion thrashed wildly, claws raking deep gashes across his torso and thighs, but he locked his legs around its neck and rode the death throes like a demon.
With a final, merciless wrench, he snapped the Sovereign beast's neck.
The lion collapsed in a heap of burning fur and blood.
Kael slid off, breathing hard, covered head to toe in gore. His own wounds smoked from rapid regeneration, but the pain only sharpened his focus. He dropped to one knee beside Thalia. Her left arm was mangled—deep puncture wounds, bone visible—but she was conscious, teeth gritted against the agony.
"You're not dying here," he said flatly, voice cold steel. He tore a strip from his own hide harness, bound the worst of the bleeding, and hauled her up with one arm. "Stay behind me."
Thalia's eyes met his—pain, gratitude, and something deeper flashing across her face. "I owe you."
"You owe me nothing until we win." He retrieved her blade and pressed it into her good hand. "Fight one-handed if you have to."
The remaining Gorthak forces faltered at the sight of their fallen Sovereign lion, but the Devourer's roar from the main breach snapped them back into frenzy.
Kael turned toward the center of the battlefield.
Nyxara and Gorthak had broken free from the thorn walls and now clashed in a clearing of splintered trees and churned mud. The big duel had begun in earnest.
The Shadow Sovereign and the Devourer collided like two forces of nature.
Nyxara's colossal direwolf form was a nightmare of living shadow and violet runes. She moved with lethal grace, shadows whipping like blades, jaws snapping for Gorthak's throat. Gorthak answered with raw, brutal power—bone-plated hide shrugging off shadow strikes, massive tusks goring upward, hooves stomping craters into the earth. Corrosive venom dripped from his maw, sizzling where it struck the ground.
Nyxara lunged, fangs clamping onto the Devourer's shoulder. Bone cracked. Gorthak bellowed and twisted, slamming her sideways into a tree that exploded into splinters. Shadows exploded outward, shredding his flank, but the boar's armor held.
They separated for a heartbeat, circling.
"You should have stayed hidden, old wolf," Gorthak snarled, voice like grinding boulders. "Raising a human pet has made you weak."
Nyxara's crimson eyes burned with ancient fury. "And your greed has made you blind, Devourer. The boy you call a pet will be your end."
She attacked again.
This time there was no holding back. No testing. The duel turned savage.
Nyxara's claws raked deep gouges across Gorthak's armored side, peeling bone plates away in bloody sheets. Gorthak retaliated by charging low, tusks ripping into her flank and lifting her off the ground. Blood—dark and glowing with aether—sprayed in wide arcs. Nyxara twisted mid-air, jaws closing around one tusk and shattering it with a crunch that echoed across the battlefield.
Gorthak roared in pain and slammed her down. The impact cratered the earth. Shadows coiled around his legs like chains, trying to pin him, but he powered through, stomping down with a hoof that cracked ribs.
Kael watched from the flank, grey eyes narrowed, Thalia leaning on him for support. The rest of the Emberclaw forces fought desperately to keep lesser beasts from overwhelming the walls, but all eyes were drawn to the Sovereign clash.
Nyxara rose, bloodied but unbowed, shadows writhing around her like a living storm. Gorthak shook gore from his broken tusk, eyes blazing with hatred.
The duel had only just begun.
And the outcome would decide the fate of the entire South.