The decision to dive into the mountain might have looked like a desperate, last-second gamble.
It was nothing of the sort… Sirius had run all the options of their situation long before he initiated the shadow jump.
They simply could not use the guardian to weed out the horde any longer. Their spiritual fire reserves were completely dry, and the physical toll of sustaining that three-way crossfire had become unsustainable. If they had pivoted to attack the mutants directly, Selthia would have instantly realized she was fighting a war on two fronts against both the humans and the dragon. She might have ordered a retreat to reassess.
Or perhaps she would have doubled down... But either way, burning their final reserves on a direct clash was a fool's errand. They would not have thinned the ranks significantly, and the surviving monsters would have simply cannibalized the fallen to undo all their hard work.
