The march cut a steady line northward, the army moving like a single living current of steel and will. The land beyond Aetherreach grew colder, the morning haze turning into a biting wind that carried the scent of frost and ash. Villages along the way stood abandoned, their gates left open, doors swaying on rusted hinges. Every mile forward felt like pushing deeper into the enemy's shadow.
Scouts returned in swift intervals, their reports quiet and clipped—tracks in the snow that weren't human, the occasional scorch marks across the ground, whispers of shapes moving in the tree line where no wind stirred the branches.
The terrain narrowed as they pressed on, hemmed in by jagged cliff faces on one side and dense, skeletal forest on the other. The sun climbed but offered no warmth, casting stark light over the frostbitten ground. The steady drumbeat of armored boots was the only sound that did not belong to the wilderness.
By midday, the forward line crested a rise and saw it.
The northern battleground stretched out in a dead, frozen valley—its snow churned black from countless battles fought here before. Towering at the far edge was a crumbling fortress carved into the base of a glacier, its gate wide open, revealing nothing but shadow within. Beyond it, the mountains rose like jagged teeth, and the wind that swept down carried a hollow, almost metallic wail.
Alter and Selene halted at the ridge, the Dragoons forming up behind them. He took in the sight without a word, reading the lay of the land, the positioning of the fortress, the unnatural stillness hanging over it.
"This is it," Selene murmured, her voice low.
"Aye," Alter replied, his tone even but heavy with intent. "Beyond that gate is the next chain holding this land under their grip." His gaze sharpened. "We break it, the north begins to breathe again."
Caelum stepped up beside him, scanning the valley. "No visible movement. Which means they're waiting."
"They'll expect a direct push," Alter said, lowering Starsever to his side. "So we'll give it to them—on our terms."
The order rippled back through the column. Shields were adjusted, weapons drawn, banners lowered. The march became a measured advance, the snow crunching underfoot, breath misting in the frigid air.
From somewhere deep within the fortress, a faint, rhythmic pulse echoed—low, steady, and wrong. It vibrated in the bones, like the heartbeat of something vast and watching.
No one spoke now.
The Dragoons crossed the valley floor, the cold gnawing through armor, every step bringing them closer to the shadowed gate. The air itself seemed to resist their passage, thick with unseen pressure.
And then—just as the first ranks passed under the fortress archway—the pulse quickened.
Something was awake.
The first ranks crossed the fortress archway… and the world shifted.
From within the shadowed halls, black frost crept across the stone, spiraling like veins through the ice. A gust of air rushed outward—not wind, but breath—hot and rancid, carrying the stench of iron and decay.
"Shields!" Caelum barked, his voice snapping through the cold.
The echo that answered wasn't human. From the depths of the fortress, the darkness began to move—flowing, curling, coalescing into shapes that stepped forward with deliberate weight.
First came the armored hulks—towering foot soldiers in obsidian plate, their faces hidden behind masks shaped like screaming skulls. Frost steamed from the seams of their armor, and every step cracked the ice beneath them. They carried axes thick enough to split boulders.
Behind them, the walls rippled like water. A chorus of whispers seeped through the air, slipping under armor, brushing against minds. Elira's voice cut through it, a sharp command for the Dragoons to keep their formations tight.
The first clash hit like an avalanche.
Axes slammed into shields with the sound of shattering bone. Sparks leapt where blades met. The narrow entry became a killing funnel—Rhed and Talia drove through with explosive strikes, breaking the line open just enough for Vaelen and Elira to cut down the exposed flanks.
Above, shadowed figures leapt along the battlements, loosing volleys of jagged ice javelins. Selin and Erndor countered with lightning-fast Sky Piercer thrusts, punching holes through the ramparts and silencing the archers in bursts of stone and frost.
Alter moved at the center, Starsever spinning in a golden arc that split armor like parchment. Each swing left streaks of light in the air that didn't fade—they hung there, burning, until a soldier's body passed through and came apart at the seams.
For a moment, it was working. The fortress floor ran black with demon blood.
Then the pulse returned.
It hit like a drumbeat in the chest, rattling teeth. The walls shook, loose ice falling like rain. And from the gaping maw of the fortress hall came three shapes—vast, deliberate, each dragging its presence across the battlefield like a tide.
The first was a horned beast of molten ice, its shoulders wrapped in chains that hissed where they touched its flesh.
The second—a towering spear-wielder with no face, its head a swirling cloud of ash and eyes, its limbs stretched and unnaturally thin.
The third… stopped at the threshold, its body hidden in shadow. Only its voice came forward—deep, low, and utterly certain:
"Mortals. The north belongs to us."
They stepped into the light together, and the temperature dropped so sharply that armor cracked in protest.
Caelum drew in a breath. "Demon gods."
The fortress gate exhaled a killing cold.
Frost spidered across shields; leather straps popped as ice seized and snapped them tight. Then the hulks came—obsidian plate, axe heads like ship prows—funneling through the arch with the inevitability of an avalanche.
"Lock the wedge!" Caelum's call cracked the air.
The Dragoons shifted without thinking—front ranks braced, second ranks set for the drive, third ranks already sighting angles. Resonating crystals brightened in a chain, a pulse running chest to chest until the formation hummed like a single, tense chord.
Rhed hit first.
He tore straight into the lead hulk, Talia pacing his shoulder like a flicker of quicksilver. His hammer slammed the breastplate; her twin cuts kissed the gaps at the collar and hip. The giant staggered, dropped to a knee, and Rhed's second blow finished the argument with a sound like a cathedral bell breaking.
"Left roofline!" Sorei's warning snapped overhead.
Caelum's spear blurred, a glitter of sky-laced steel punching through three javelin-throwers before their arms completed the motion. Sorei rode the wake, wind-step to wind-step, then scissored the parapet in a rolling crescent that sent masonry and archers into the court below.
On the right, Vaelen and Elira became a hinge. Vaelen's guard set hard, absorbing a two-axe charge; Elira slid under his planted elbow, one dagger flicking a wrist tendon, the second finding the seam behind a knee. The hulk toppled forward into Vaelen's rising blade—clean, practiced, silent.
"Archway! Clear me a lane!" Arinelle's voice carried calm fire.
Garran answered with a spiral of heat, his gauntlets venting a sun-hot draft that turned the falling frost to steam. Arinelle stepped into the gap, spirit sigils flaring along her hands in soft gold. A spectral wall unfolded—a curved, translucent bastion that caught a rain of black bolts with crystalline pings. Behind it, Veyna and Jaris advanced as one: her crystal shards braided into a razor fan; his spear found the beats between those shards and hammered them home. A hulk folded around the spearpoint like metal remembering it was once ore.
"Ramp—now!" Selin's warning was a thread of steel.
Cyris was already in motion. He vaulted the low stair, drew a tracing line with his blade across a support spar, and the ramp collapsed with a boom that swallowed a fresh wave of halberdiers. Erndor met the spillover at the base—one sweeping cut, a shoulder-check that flattened plate, a knee like a falling anvil. Lucina moved past the shockwave, frost-laced palms snapping quick seals along Vellmar's pauldron and bracer—his next charge pierced armor and the air itself with a sound like ice splitting on a lake.
The wedge bit deeper.
"Advance—two lengths!" Caelum called.
The formation slid forward in precise, shuffling strides, shields shedding ice, blades striking only when angles promised a finish. The fortress fought back—murder-holes spat sleet darts, floor grates coughed shadow-gnats that chewed at greaves, a side hall belched a scything gust that smelled of grave-metal.
"Counter-surge on my mark," Alter said, voice carrying from the midline—quiet, absolute.
A golden ripple flickered outward from him. The next sleet volley hit… and sizzled harmlessly in a thin veil of heat that hugged the formation like a second skin. The Dragoons drove on. Another hulk tried to jam the wedge, planting both axes into the stones to stop the slide.
Rhed didn't slow. He braced—Talia stepped onto his back, vaulted, planted both blades into the giant's helm, and rode it down as it tore free of its own weapons. Rhed's laugh was a breath of fog. "Again."
"Again," Talia echoed, eyes bright.
At the mouth of a side corridor, Revyn and Mira Snowveil flickered in and out of each other's shadows—his feints cutting dispositions, her frost-rimed cuts sealing nerves. A trio of elites advanced with shield wall discipline; Revyn knocked the lead guard's edge a finger-width wide, and Mira slipped a glass-thin blade through the seam without breaking stride. The wall died in a stagger, quiet as snowfall.
"Hold the keel," Alter said, and the wedge tightened on instinct.
The fortress groaned.
Somewhere deeper, iron chains strained; somewhere above, a hidden bell tolled once, long and low. The floor stones shuddered and then tilted—a subtle cant designed to break balance and open throats to waiting blades.
"Brace feet!" Jaris barked, heel-stabbing his spear butt into a crack. Veyna anchored to him, crystal bristles punching into the stone like roots. Along the line, greaves bit into grouted seams; shoulders locked; the wedge did not slip.
"Now we push," Selene said, her voice a steadying hand.
They did.
Boot by boot, shield by shield, they ground the first wave back through the arch, then two pillars beyond. The corridor widened; the ceiling opened into a ribbed vault that glowed with a dull inner cold. The air changed, like stepping from a winter storm into the throat of a glacier.
"Contact—rear flank!" Sorei's call again—wind edged with warning.
The fortress walls themselves peeled: obsidian seams yawed open and spat lean, hook-limbed crawlers that skittered across stone like dropped knives. Elira's wrist flicked—trip-wire runes snapped to life; Vaelen's heel kicked a scatter of iron caltrops. Crawlers hit glittering threads and became sparks, then ash.
"Front cleansed," Arinelle reported, sweat beading her brow. "Reserves intact."
Alter lifted Starsever, its edge catching the vault's dim glow and returning it as a hard, clean line. "We break this threshold or it will grind us. Caelum, take the top rail. Arinelle, maintain the shield and spare none for flourish. Vellmar—"
"—I've got the door," Vellmar said, already moving.
"Dragoons," Selene called, "on the beat."
The crystals at their chests pulsed once—twice—thrice—timing set. The next drive became a metronome of violence: shield dip, cut, half-step, spear thrust, reset. The hulks began to fail in patterns—one every fourth beat, then two, then a cluster when Talia's low sweep and Rhed's overhead hammer met in a brutal cross-rhythm.
The archway ahead yawned wider, a throat that did not want them. Cold rolled out in a pressure wave that made teeth ache.
And then the pulse sounded again—deep, bone-dull, from the glacier's heart.
The hulks withdrew as if pulled on strings. The crawlers vanished into seams. The murder-holes shut with a whisper.
Three silhouettes took their places in the far glow.
One wreathed in chain-frost, shoulders steaming.
One a spear taller than any man, its head a drifting cloud of eyes.
One still only a voice in the dark—patient, contemptuous, certain:
"Come, then. Let us measure what your hope weighs."
The wedge held. Breath fogged. Blades cooled and brightened.
"Line split on my count," Alter said, gaze never leaving the trio. "Two with us. One with me."
Caelum's knuckles tapped his spear haft twice—ready. Selene's hand brushed Alter's gauntlet—then dropped, steady as a vow.
"Mark," Alter said.
The Dragoons stepped forward to meet the gods.
The air inside the fortress vault felt wrong.
It wasn't just cold anymore—it was heavy, as though the air itself had been hammered flat. Every sound—boots scuffing, armor shifting, even the slow, steady rasp of breath—sounded dull, swallowed by an unseen pressure.
The first to move was the chain-frost giant.
Chains slithered off its body like molten steel cooling in reverse, the links hardening mid-air into jagged spines. With each step, frost exploded outward in glassy petals, scarring the floor. The creature's mouth stretched unnaturally wide, inhaling the light from the vault's crystal sconces.
"Left flank—mine," Caelum barked, dropping his spear into a vertical guard.
"Copy," Sorei said, already veering to his side.
The pair blurred into motion. Caelum's first strike was a vertical drop cut—point-down, spear vibrating with sky-charged energy—that cracked one of the frost chains like brittle sugar glass. Sorei's windstep carried her around the giant's side, her twin shortblades flashing like quicksilver, carving shallow grooves in the ice plating that covered its ribs.
The giant roared, frost mist billowing, and a second chain whipped outward. Caelum pivoted his spear like a lever, catching the chain's momentum and dragging it wide, giving Sorei a clean opening to slip in and drive both blades into the exposed joint. A crack like splitting permafrost rang out.
Across the chamber, the second demon god made its move—the many-eyed spear bearer.
Its weapon moved with a deceptive slowness, drifting forward as though carried by water, but every thrust covered meters in a blink. The spear's head shifted shapes between lunges—sometimes a trident, sometimes a harpoon, sometimes a jagged shard of its own living body.
Arinelle and Garran intercepted first. Garran's gauntlets flared crimson, jets of heat clashing against the weapon's icy glare. Arinelle stepped in behind him, her spirit shield absorbing stray spearpoints as she chanted a low harmonic countertone.
The spear's cloud of eyes swiveled toward her voice—bad mistake. Veyna's crystal barrage hit like a meteor shower from the side, each shard honed with runic edges. Jaris followed, his spear finding the rhythm of the demon's weapon, tapping the haft in the exact moment between transformations. Every touch disrupted the flow, fracturing its fluid movements into stutters and hesitations.
The creature screamed—not in pain, but in outrage—and tried to counter with a sweeping arc meant to clear the entire formation. Garran caught it head-on, his gauntlets flaring with molten intensity, while Arinelle slammed her shield wall forward like a battering ram, pinning the spear against the stone floor.
But the real storm was in the center.
Alter faced the chain-frost giant's advance alone.
Starsever spun into a diagonal guard, divine runes igniting along the blade's edge. His first strike was Sky Piercer: Celestial Thrust, a blinding line of golden lightning that punched clean through the giant's chest plate. Frost hissed, shattered, but reformed almost instantly—the chains knitting the wound shut from within.
He shifted styles without pause. Heaven's Spiral Pulse—a sweeping arc that sent a wave of resonant force rippling through the air—hammered into the demon god's core. The floor groaned and buckled under the impact, yet the giant simply locked its legs and absorbed the shock, its frost aura thickening into an armor of ice-crystal latticework.
It was a test.
The giant stepped forward again, swinging a chain-spiked arm like a guillotine. Alter pivoted, the blade catching the chain just past the hook, twisting and shearing it in two. The sound was deafening—steel and ice screaming together—but the demon didn't falter.
It's reinforcing the damage as fast as I deal it.
Alter's eyes narrowed. Runes spun to life along his forearms, the Elemental Runic Marker Combat System bleeding into his sword art. Sigils for flame, wind, and lightning stacked in sequence, etching themselves into the air around the giant.
He moved.
Dimensional Slash – Omni Wave erupted from Starsever in a silent beam. Dozens of razor-thin edges, spaced by less than a hand's width, carved through the frost giant in perfect parallel. Ice cracked and fell away in sheets.
This time, the chains didn't knit shut fast enough.
The giant staggered. Its frost aura flickered.
"Now!" Alter barked, his voice carrying over the vault.
Caelum's spear became a lightning rod, Sorei's blades blurred into streaks of silver wind, and the combined force of their strikes tore through the giant's chest. With a final, echoing roar, the frost demon god collapsed, its chains falling slack as the frost body inside shattered into a thousand pieces.
The first demon god was down.
But there was no time to celebrate—two more remained.
The vault's echo hadn't even faded from the frost giant's death before the second demon god struck.
Its many-eyed spear became a hurricane of steel and flesh, stabbing, sweeping, and snapping through the defenders like a whip of living lightning. The eyes along its length swiveled in unnatural unison, tracking every movement of the Dragoons and Commanders with unnerving precision.
Veyna was the first to re-engage, her crystal-laced glaive catching a thrust mid-air and splintering into a hail of shimmering shards. They didn't just scatter—they orbited the spear, forcing it to redirect mid-motion.
"Press it!" she shouted, the command ringing like steel through the chamber.
Jaris obeyed without hesitation, his movements sharp and minimal, spear sliding between the demon's weapon and its wielder's arm like a wedge. Each clash made the many-eyed shaft recoil slightly, as though resisting some deeper pain.
Arinelle moved in next, shield shimmering with runic wards, driving forward in a controlled battering advance. Every step she took forced the spear god back a fraction, the floor beneath them cracking from the force of her forward drive. Garran flanked her right, fists burning molten as he struck directly into the demon's weapon arm—each impact a small sunburst in the half-lit vault.
The spear hissed—literally hissed—its eyes narrowing to slits. With a sudden burst, it shed its shape entirely, becoming a fluid mass of tendrils tipped with blades. They lashed outward in every direction.
Selin was already moving before the tendrils reached her. She ghost-stepped along the arc of one, feet barely touching stone, twin daggers flashing upward to slice the tendril in two. Lucina covered her from the side, her frostbound longsword drawing a sweeping crescent of ice that sealed three more tendrils in mid-whip.
The Dragoons weren't just holding—they were compressing the enemy's space, shrinking the room the demon god could move in with every heartbeat.
Vaelen surged forward next, greatsword flaring with runic fire, the swing so heavy it rang through the stone walls. Elira shadowed him, her blade piercing the narrow gaps between its tendrils with surgical precision.
From the far side of the vault, Alter strode toward the melee. Starsever rested at his side, runes still glowing from the frost giant's defeat.
He didn't rush.
Every step measured. Every breath steady.
He watched. Watched as the Commanders rotated positions seamlessly, as the Dragoons pressed without fear. His presence alone seemed to lift their pace, tighten their coordination—until the spear god began to falter.
And then—
Jaris swept its weapon arm wide, opening the core of its body for a single heartbeat. Garran's molten fist crashed into that opening like a falling meteor, followed instantly by Arinelle's shield slam. The demon god's body arched backward, eyes flaring in blinding white panic.
Selin's blades flashed twice. Lucina's frost cleaved downward. Vaelen's greatsword roared in fire as it bit deep.
The spear demon shrieked—and its body split from shoulder to hip, dissolving into a cascade of black ash before it even hit the floor.
The second demon god was gone.
Alter's eyes lifted toward the far end of the chamber, where the last one waited.
The death scream of the spear god hadn't even faded when the chamber's far wall split open with a sound like stone being torn from the bones of the earth.
From the darkness beyond, the third demon god stepped forward—slow, deliberate, as if savoring the sight of its fallen kin.
This one was different.
Its form was tall and draped in armor of seamless obsidian plates, each etched with writhing glyphs that refused to stay still. Six arms hung at its sides, each gripping a different weapon—a warhammer crackling with void lightning, a jagged scythe that bled shadow, twin axes still wet with mortal blood, a curved glaive forged from some starless metal, and a single straight sword humming in a voice like a distant scream.
And above its faceless helm… floated a halo of black fire.
Alter didn't wait.
The moment its foot touched the chamber floor, Starsever came up in his hands, and his body blurred forward, the golden runes across his armor igniting like a rising sun.
The first clash was a detonation.
Void lightning met divine flame, the chamber shaking so violently that cracks raced up the walls and across the ceiling. Dust rained down as Alter's first blow forced the demon's glaive wide, only for its scythe to hook back at his head. He pivoted low, blade rising in a tight arc—Sky Piercer: Celestial Thrust—and drove the demon back a full step.
Behind him, the Dragoons and Commanders surged forward, the fresh adrenaline from their second victory turning into a roaring war cry.
The demon god's left axes spun like a hurricane, forcing Rhed and Talia back in a spray of sparks. Selin slipped in between, daggers flashing, only to be intercepted by the straight sword—it moved like it knew where she would be. Vaelen met that blade with a ringing parry, forcing the enemy's focus long enough for Elira to dive under and strike.
But this demon was no ordinary high-rank.
Its movements didn't just counter—it predicted.
Every Dragoons' angle, every Commander's step, it was already there, waiting. Blocking. Turning each assault into a near-disaster.
Alter saw it. Felt it. And adapted instantly.
"Break its sequence!" he barked, his voice cutting through the din. "Hit it from nowhere!"
They understood.
Lucina drew frost across the floor in a spiraling snare, forcing the demon to adjust its footing. Veyna and Jaris came in from opposite sides, their weapons clashing at mismatched rhythms to break its timing. Arinelle raised her shield and charged head-on, taking the glaive strike full-force to give Garran the opening to smash a molten uppercut into the demon's torso.
It staggered.
Alter moved.
Life Sprinkler ignited in golden light as he split into mirrored phantoms, each one striking from a different angle. The air filled with the clash of steel on steel, ringing in relentless succession, the sheer force of it driving the demon backward step after step—
Until it made a mistake.
Its straight sword rose high to parry one phantom—only to meet the real Alter head-on as he poured the full weight of Starfall Sword Style into the follow-through.
The black fire halo flickered. Its armor cracked.
And that's when the Dragoons struck.
All of their Riftcarver were raised and slashed—each slammed into the openings Alter had carved. The demon god roared, a guttural, ancient sound that shook the floor… and then collapsed into black dust, its weapons shattering into shards of inert stone.
The fortress fell silent.
Three demon gods—slain.
Alter exhaled slowly, Starsever lowering at his side. His gaze swept across the gathered warriors, meeting each set of eyes in turn. No words were needed.
They had won.
The first day after the battle was claimed by silence.
It wasn't the absence of sound, but the kind of quiet born when exhaustion dulls even victory. The fortress of Aetherreach—still bearing the scars of the fight—became a place of rebuilding. The air smelled faintly of worked steel and fresh mortar, mingled with the sharper tang of salves and herbal poultices from Selene's makeshift infirmary.
Dragoons moved in steady lines, hauling stone, reinforcing collapsed sections, and clearing away the twisted remnants of demon flesh. Commanders oversaw the work without needing to bark orders—their presence alone kept the momentum.
Alter spent the morning walking the walls, speaking little, but every soldier felt the weight of his gaze—a silent acknowledgment of their endurance.
By midday, the wind shifted, carrying the smell of clean snow from the north. In the courtyard, Selene knelt beside Vaelen, unwrapping the sling from his arm. "Better," she murmured after a faint pulse of golden light flowed from her hands. "No more strain until the next battle."
Vaelen gave her a respectful nod, while Elira lingered just close enough to watch, her eyes soft but alert.
Elsewhere, Rhed and Talia were sparring—not for practice, but for the comfort of familiar movement. The clash of their weapons was more like a conversation than a contest, each exchange carrying unspoken reassurance. They broke apart laughing, both panting, and returned to sharpening their blades together.
Near the main hall, Veyna leaned back against Jaris's shoulder as they shared a waterskin. Her eyes followed the rebuilding crews, and she murmured, "Feels almost normal, if you forget what's coming."
"Almost," Jaris agreed, his free hand idly tracing circles along her gauntlet.
Vellmar and Lucina stayed near the northern gate, watching the road in companionable silence. Lucina's breath still frosted faintly in the air, the lingering cold from her magic mixing with the winter wind. Erndor and Selin inspected supply crates, the two moving with a precision that suggested their minds were already thinking about the next deployment.
By nightfall of the second day, the fortress felt alive again. Fires burned in the braziers, light spilling over repaired walls. The soldiers—Dragoons, Commanders, and Mythral Dawn alike—gathered in the courtyard for a shared meal. It was nothing fancy, just hot broth, bread, and roasted game, but the warmth cut through the fatigue. Conversations grew louder. Laughter returned.
Alter sat with Selene beneath the shadow of a rebuilt tower, their plates barely touched. "They're ready," she said, watching the recruits swap stories.
"They're recovering," he corrected, though the faint smile at the corner of his mouth betrayed his agreement.
On the third day, the mood sharpened. Training resumed—not as grueling as camp drills, but enough to keep the reflexes alive. The sound of steel and the flare of elemental magic filled the courtyard once more. Archers practiced volleys into the empty hills beyond the wall. Mages shaped controlled bursts of fire, ice, and lightning into formation drills.
By evening, scouts returned from the passes with reports—movement in the north. A force was gathering beyond the range of sight.
As the war council assembled in the great hall, Alter looked over the faces of those who had fought beside him in Aetherreach. The respite had done its work. Armor was repaired. Wounds were mended. The light in their eyes burned steady.
This wasn't just a force ready to march again—it was a force that knew it could win.
The fourth morning broke under a slate-colored sky, the kind that promised snow without yet surrendering to it. The gates of Aetherreach groaned open with a low, metallic complaint, spilling the army out onto the frostbitten plains.
Boots crunched against ice-sheathed grass. The steam of breath from hundreds of soldiers drifted upward like a ghostly fog, carried away on the northbound wind. Dragon banners snapped in the air above them, their colors vivid against the muted sky, the spiral sigils of the Dragoons blazing alongside the crests of the Mythral Dawn and the royal insignia of Drakareth.
Alter led the center column, his armor catching pale light in molten ripples. Selene rode just behind, eyes scanning the horizon. Caelum and Sorei paced ahead with the vanguard, their movements crisp, precise. The rest of the Commanders were spread throughout the formation, keeping their divisions tight and disciplined.
The objective was clear—destroy the riftcore in the northern plains before it could flood the battlefield with more Demon Gods. Scouts had returned with troubling reports: hundreds of acolytes in blackened robes circling the unstable mass of crimson light, their chants rising like a funeral dirge. They weren't simply guarding the riftcore—they were feeding it. Sacrificing themselves in a slow, deliberate ritual to anchor its expansion and call forth horrors from beyond.
The march pressed onward for hours. The air grew colder, the wind sharper, biting at exposed skin. By midday, the land flattened into an endless stretch of hard, frozen plain. In the distance, jagged pillars of obsidian jutted from the earth at crooked angles, each one etched with pulsating infernal runes. The closer they came, the more the air seemed to bend, rippling like heat haze despite the freezing wind.
Then they heard it—the low, resonant hum of the riftcore. It was a sound that bypassed the ears entirely and nested deep in the bones, vibrating through armor and flesh alike. Each step forward made it louder, until the hum became an oppressive thrum, as if the very earth was groaning under the strain.
From the rise ahead, they saw it.
The riftcore stood in the center of a blackened crater, a massive sphere of molten-red light suspended above the ground by writhing chains of void energy. Around it, hundreds of acolytes knelt in perfect concentric rings, their faces hidden beneath hoods. At intervals, one would step forward into the light—skin blistering, flesh unraveling—until their body was pulled into the core with a sound like tearing silk. Each sacrifice made the rift pulse brighter, its chains stretching further into the sky.
Above the core, faint outlines moved within the haze—half-formed Demon Gods pressing against the barrier of reality, their shapes clawing for entry.
Alter's gaze narrowed. "If we don't end this fast, we're not fighting one Demon God. We're fighting an army of them."
The Commanders began issuing orders. Caelum's voice cut through the wind, sending the vanguard into a tightening wedge. Garran's Pyre Division fanned out to the left flank, flame magic already sparking along their lines. Veyna's crystal mages formed the right flank, their staffs glowing with refracted light.
Dragons wheeled overhead—four in total—circling in loose formation, their roars rolling across the plains like distant thunder. The sight alone shook the nearest rings of acolytes, but the chanting never stopped.
Alter shifted Starsever in his grip, the weapon's edge humming with restrained energy. "We break their lines, crush the acolytes, and collapse the core. Nothing leaves this field."
The air thickened, heavy with magic and killing intent. Ahead, the acolytes began to rise in unison, movements sharp, heads turning toward the advancing army. Dark blades materialized in their hands, and the obsidian pillars flared to life, casting jagged shadows across the snow.
The first horn sounded—low, drawn-out, and final.
The battle for the riftcore had begun.