The blast punched the air from Alarik's lungs.
Heat and grit roared past his face as a jagged gap tore open in the wall he'd raised. Shards of stone clattered against his armor and slid to the mossy ground at his feet.
Impossible.
That barrier wasn't just rock — it was shaped through him, bound with mana until it could shrug off siege bolts and battering rams. To blow a hole straight through it… the arrow's head must have been rune-fused steel, etched at least three layers deep. That kind of work cost more than a border village could earn in a year.
And that meant whoever had sent it wasn't some roadside scavenger.
Alarik stepped forward, boots grinding the rubble. Through the settling smoke, he saw the man in red — the one who had stepped from the trees earlier — standing with a throwing knife spinning lazily between his fingers. Strips of leather armor, patched but well-worn, clung to a lean frame. His belts gleamed with knives, each sheathed for quick draw.
"Expensive shot for a highway tax," Alarik said, voice low and steady.
The man tilted his head, eyes half-lidded. "I don't mind spending coin, if the return's good." His tone was casual, almost bored — the sound of someone whose plan was already in motion.
"That was an enchanted arrow," Alarik said. "Three etchings, maybe more. High-tier enchanter. You could buy yourself a merchant's townhouse for the cost of that shot."
The man's eyes curved in faint amusement. "Maybe I already own one."
Alarik's shield slid from his back to his arm with a practiced snap. "You're no bandit."
"Maybe I'm better." The knife flipped into a reverse grip. A ripple of mana curled around the blade — thin, sharp, a whisper of air that smelled faintly of rain on stone.
Wind magic.
Fast. Knives for both reach and melee. Wind magic to close the gaps. Mid-range assassin, Alarik judged.
Then the man's eyes flicked briefly toward the royal carriage, and Alarik understood. His job wasn't to kill the commander. It was to keep him busy while the others broke the convoy apart.
Not happening.
Alarik shifted his mace into his right hand, the head heavy and dark as a thundercloud. "You picked the wrong wall to test."
The man's grin widened just enough to show teeth. "Stone walls crack. You just need the right wind."
He moved first. A flick of his wrist — three knives arcing out, too fast for most eyes to track. At first, they were thrown wide, nowhere near hitting. "WhisperCurve," Then the air shimmered, and with a sharp thoom they bent in midair, slicing toward the openings in Alarik's guard.
Alarik's shield rose — steel met steel with a hard clang. He stepped aside from the second, felt it whisper past his ear. The third he met with a gauntleted fist, sparks skittering where steel kissed steel.
The edge had bitten deeper than it should. The wind-wrapped blade hadn't just been redirected — it had been sharpened.
He didn't break stride. The earth answered as his boots struck the ground.
"Bastion of Earth!"
Stone surged from the path behind him, curling upward to seal the gap the arrow had blasted open. The ground roared like a giant clearing its throat.
The man whistled low, spinning his knife lazily in his fingers. "Big tricks for an old man."
Alarik's eyes locked on him, steady as bedrock. His voice rumbled low, carrying the weight of the soil beneath their feet. "The wind dances quick, I'll give you that… but it scatters when the storm passes. Stone endures. It bears the years, the rain, the blows. It doesn't sway, it doesn't bend—" his shield shifted subtly, the metal edge catching the dim light, "—and when it falls, it takes everything beneath it."
He took a deliberate step forward, boots grinding against the earth with a sound that seemed louder than it should have been, the kind of sound that carried a promise: he wasn't going anywhere, and he'd be the last thing standing when the dust settled.
He lunged. The mace came in a sweeping arc — the assassin vaulted back, the blow shattering the earth where he'd stood. Pebbles skittered across the moss.
Another flick — a knife spun through the air. The assassin whispered under his breath "Whisper Curve", and the blade's edge shimmered into something impossibly thin. It darted toward Alarik's flank — then curved like a hunting hawk, angling for his back.
Alarik's stance didn't break. He pivoted hard — the mace came down in a crushing vertical strike, smashing the knife from the air. Stone erupted from the ground in the same breath, a jagged spike tearing upward where the assassin had meant to land.
The man twisted away, boot scraping the spike as he sailed clear.
Alarik's voice was low. "Pillar Break."
The assassin's grin widened. "Trying to pin me down, old man?"
Alarik's eyes narrowed, his voice like grinding gravel. "If you stop moving, I only need to hit you once."
They closed again — the assassin's lips curved into something between a grin and a snarl.
"Tempest Volley."
Knives burst from his hands in a low, circling pattern, the movements so fluid it was as if the steel were an extension of his own blood. Each flick of his wrist was followed by the sharp, whip-crack of compressed air splitting the space between them. This time, the blades didn't weave or feint — they came as straight, unyielding lines of death, each one propelled by a surge of wind so dense it made the air vibrate.
The strikes hammered forward with brutal force — three times heavier than his earlier attacks — each impact against Alarik's shield ringing like a blacksmith's anvil under a sledge. Sparks spat from the edges of the steel as the barrage drove him a half step back.
One blade slipped past the rim of the shield, biting into the metal of his shoulder plate with a metallic screech. The impact rattled his bones, threatening to knock him off balance.
Alarik's jaw clenched. His voice dropped into a growl that seemed to vibrate through the stones beneath him.
"Stoneheart Surge."
The earth answered. A dull tremor rolled outward from his stance, and stone rippled up his frame like molten rock cooling in an instant. His skin fissured into plates of jagged granite, the gaps between them glowing faintly with the echo of mana. His feet sank fractionally into the ground as if the soil itself had chosen to anchor him.
The next wave of knives struck and rang harmlessly away — their edges meeting not flesh and armor, but the implacable will of the mountain. Each breath he drew was slow, heavy, perfectly in time with the steady heartbeat of the earth beneath him.
The assassin's grin faltered. "New trick?"
Alarik stepped forward, granite plates grinding. "Old as the earth."