The moment Raven logged in, he knew something was different.
No courtyard. No regrouping.
He spawned directly inside the heart of the inner sanctum—shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of players. Shields were already raised. Mages were mid-chant. Archers nocked arrows in taut silence. There was no room to move. No margin to think.
The defense line had shifted.
The battle was no longer scattered across Emberwatch. Now it was here. Right at the sanctum gates.
Fold pressure had intensified overnight. A second wave had broken through the northern corridor hours before Raven arrived. Since then, every defender had been pulled inward. Every corridor closed. Every fallback point erased.
This was the line.
Duskrunner appeared beside him in a shimmer of smoke, tail low, muscles tense. "Tight as a dungeon gate," it muttered. Raven didn't answer. His focus was forward.
The Fold weren't visible yet—but they could be heard.
