I stopped walking and let the battlefield come to me for half a breath, just long enough to feel the pressure of it all at once. The Dracus tightened their circle instinctively as my Essence pushed outward, violent purple coiling thick around my body and bleeding into the air until every breath tasted sharp and metallic. Before they could adapt, before they could reform into something cohesive again, I planted my feet and drew deeper.
Not recklessly. Not all at once.
Deliberately.
I pulled Essence up from my core and into my chest until it felt like my ribs were trying to split from the inside, shaping it with will rather than structure, compressing it until the space in front of me warped under the strain. Stone cracked outward in spiderweb fractures as the air screamed.
Then I released it.
The blast tore forward like a battering ram made of pressure and fury. Not a beam. Not an explosion. A rolling surge that slammed into the heart of the Dracus formation and ripped it apart. Bodies were flung outward in every direction. Armor collapsed inward. The ground plowed up beneath the force as ranks shattered before they could brace.
The encirclement broke in an instant.
I felt the cost immediately. A sharp, nauseating pull tore through my chest and limbs as Essence drained. My vision blurred for a heartbeat before I forced it back into focus.
There was no time to recover.
I launched myself forward into the broken mass before they could regroup, boots slamming into gore-slick stone as I moved. My dagger flashed in my hand as I closed the distance and began cutting through them at close range. No flourish. No wasted motion. Kill after kill as I drove the blade into throats, eye sockets, joints—anywhere armor parted.
Short bursts of Essence reinforced my movements, amplifying speed and impact without letting it spiral. Every strike sent a visceral jolt back up my arm and into my spine, a reminder that this was still a mortal body no matter how much power I pushed through it.
Around me, the battlefield exploded into chaos.
Humans reacted to the sudden break in the Dracus line not with courage or strategy, but instinct. Wounded guards scrambled to their feet. Civilians grabbed whatever weapons lay nearby and threw themselves into the fray because standing still meant dying. Screams and steel mixed as the fight devolved into something close and savage.
They would still be slaughtered like this.
Just more slowly.
I reached outward again. Not to attack.
To reinforce.
I forced Essence through my hands and into the bodies of those nearest me in quick, imperfect transfers that burned through my reserves faster than I liked. Bone hardened. Muscle fibers tightened. Pain dulled just enough to keep them moving.
I didn't make them strong. I didn't awaken anything.
I bought them a chance.
The effect was immediate and uneven. Some staggered in shock as their bodies resisted wounds that should have ended them. Others barely noticed until they realized they were still standing.
That sliver of possibility changed everything.
Instant deaths became survivable injuries. Panic shifted into desperate momentum.
The Dracus adapted again. Of course they did.
They broke into smaller kill packs that flowed around my position. Assassins peeled off to target me directly while warriors focused on the humans I had reinforced. The strain mounted quickly as I fought on multiple fronts.
Essence burned hot and heavy in my veins as I redirected force, blocked blades with reinforced forearms, and drove enemies back with concussive bursts that rattled my teeth and sent pain lancing through my joints. My breathing grew ragged. The edges of my vision began to pulse.
Power spent was not power regained.
Blood coated everything now—human and Dracus alike. Bodies piled in twisted heaps that made footing treacherous. The air was thick with the stench of iron and ash.
I kept moving.
Killing. Reinforcing. Burning myself down piece by piece to keep the people around me alive for seconds longer than they should have had.
Then the pressure shifted.
Deeper. Heavier.
Like the battlefield itself had inhaled and decided not to let the breath go.
I felt it before I saw it. The sudden gravitational pull of something that didn't need to rush or shout to assert its presence.
The Lieutenant had entered the field.
The Dracus responded instantly. Movements sharpened. Cohesion returned as if a spine had been reinserted into the chaos. I knew without needing to look that this was not something I could afford to engage head-on.
Not now. Not without crossing lines I couldn't uncross.
Celest knew it too.
Even as I turned toward the pressure, she was already moving, breaking away from the thinning knot of enemies around her and intercepting the Lieutenant with lethal intent. Her nagata swept in a wide arc that forced it to halt and engage her directly.
The clash of their forces sent a shockwave rippling through the ground that nearly knocked me off my feet.
In that moment, I understood the gift she was giving me.
Time.
Time bought at the cost of her own life if it came to that.
I didn't waste it.
I threw myself back into the fray with renewed urgency, carving through disorganized Dracus packs, reinforcing more humans where I could. My Essence flared and dimmed in violent cycles as I balanced on the edge of exhaustion.
The battle fully devolved into a meat grinder of blood, bodies, and broken stone.
This was no longer about the city. Or the Veil. Or escape.
It was about how much death it would take before one side finally collapsed.
As Celest's fight with the Lieutenant drew the eye of the battlefield away from me, I pushed harder, knowing that every enemy I killed now was one that wouldn't reach her later. One that wouldn't carve through another human before this night was over.
The shape of the war settled into something grim and unmistakable.
Not a fight for victory.
A fight for time.
For space.
For the right to keep breathing just a little while longer in a world that had already decided Aurix was dead.