Leon stood at the edge of the battlefield and looked out at the beast swarm.
Despite the killing intent rising off the coalition army behind him — dense, heavy, the kind that took years of desperate fighting to build — he could feel the fear underneath it. Not weakness. Fear was never weakness when it was honest. It kept people sharp, kept them giving everything rather than coasting on confidence. The soldiers standing here had earned their fear and were using it correctly.
But the beasts weren't moving.
That was the thing that had caught his attention from the moment he'd arrived, and the more he looked at it, the more curious it made him. Almost a million corrupted creatures massed around the crack, and not one of them was pressing forward. They sat at the edge of their territory like a tide that had decided not to come in.
Why?
