Adrian's breath caught as the true scope of the horde became clear.
Thousands of creatures surged across the wasteland. Their howls merged into a symphony of hunger that made the fortress walls vibrate.
"There are so many," someone whispered behind him.
The monsters weren't just numerous, they were diverse. Razor Wolves crackled with electricity as they bounded forward on lean limbs. Their lightning-wreathed forms left scorched earth in their wake.
Massive Stonehide Behemoths thundered behind them, each footstep splitting the ground. Their rocky hides gleamed with earth affinity, making them living siege engines.
Above, Winged Serpents wheeled through the darkening sky. Fire and venom dripped from their maws as they circled like vultures waiting for carrion.
"They're not charging straight at us," Helena observed, her voice tight with concern.
Adrian followed her gaze and felt his stomach drop. The horde was splitting, dividing into three distinct fronts that would hit them from multiple angles.
"Three directions," Commander Lysara said grimly. "They mean to surround us."
The defenders on the walls shifted nervously. Fighting ten thousand monsters from one direction was already impossible. From three directions, it was suicide.
"Look there," Drake pointed to the left flank. "And there, on the right."
Two massive figures towered above their respective hordes. Even at this distance, their presence was unmistakable, the raw power that marked C-Rank monsters.
The left leader was a crystalline beast with molten eyes. Heat waves shimmered around its claws, distorting the air like a mirage.
The right commander was pure nightmare, chitinous armor over shadowed muscle. It gestured to its pack with intelligence, directing the assault like a general.
"C-Ranks," someone breathed. "Two of them."
The middle front looked weaker by comparison. Hundreds of F and E-Rank beasts with scattered D-Ranks pushing behind them.
"It's a trap," Adrian realized. "The center's bait. They want us to focus there while the flanks tear us apart."
Commander Lysara's water affinity began to swirl around her hands. "Intelligence. They're not just monsters anymore."
A ripple of despair coursed through everyone. If even D-Ranks had intelligence, how much sharper must the cunning of a C-Rank be?
The ground trembled harder now. The outer edges of the horde were less than a kilometer away.
The commanders moved before hopelessness could fester.
"I'll take the west front!" Drake's voice cracked like thunder. His lightning flared, wrapping his body in a corona of stormlight. "That C-Rank is mine."
"Then the east is mine," Lysara replied, her voice calm, steady, like an unshakable current. Water surged around her in a spiraling torrent, blades forming within the tide.
The defenders stared, wide-eyed. To witness B-Ranks in full was rare. To see them charge alone into armies was a myth come alive.
Drake leapt first. The ground exploded beneath his takeoff, and in the next breath, he was in the midst of the west horde. Lightning cascaded in storms, bolts tearing craters through ranks of monsters.
Dozens fell with each strike, bodies charred and twitching. He was a storm incarnate, his blade lashing with electric fury, cutting paths through the swarm.
But the C-Rank monster led with cunning. It roared, a guttural sound that resonated with command, and the beasts shifted instantly. Stonehide Behemoths locked into phalanx-like lines, absorbing the worst of Drake's strikes.
Winged Serpents dove at his blind spots, fire forcing him to twist and deflect. The monster itself hurled waves of molten heat, driving him back, its intelligence evident in how it positioned fodder to drain his energy.
On the eastern side, Lysara moved like a tide. Waves erupted from her gestures, torrents sweeping away swaths of creatures at once. Blades of water cut with precision, decapitating lines of beasts.
She wove barriers of flowing current to blunt impacts, shifting seamlessly between defense and offense. Yet her opponent was no brute.
The C-Rank commander-beast howled, and its army flowed around her like a hunting pack. Venomous hounds forced her barriers, winged predators cut her angles, and the monster itself wielded its dark chitin plates as weapons, flinging them like serrated discs.
Its coordination made every moment dangerous, every kill costly. The spectacle was awe-inspiring and terrifying.
B-Rank power was overwhelming, storms and floods unleashed against legions. Yet even they could not dominate, not when facing tens of thousands directed by intelligent foes.
And so the realization struck the defenders. The B-Ranks could hold their flanks, but they could not help anyone else.
That left the middle.
...
The defenders at the tower steeled themselves. One thousand men and women, facing a tide of several thousand lesser beasts.
The Vanguard cadets among them braced, weapons ready, mana surging. Adrian felt his teammates' tension.
Adrian's gaze lingered on Drake and Lysara for a moment, Source whispering in his veins as he analyzed their mastery. The perfect harmony of affinity and experience unfolded before him like an open book.
But then his focus snapped to the center wave. This was their battlefield.
A murmur ran through the ranks around him. "If we finish the middle fast, maybe we can reinforce the flanks."
Hope mingled with terror, fragile but real. Adrian heard someone whisper a prayer to whatever god still listened.
The horn sounded.
Its deep, resonant call cut through the chaos of distant lightning and rushing water. Every defender felt it in their bones.
The middle wave crashed forward. Hundreds of Razor Wolves bounded ahead, their electric fur crackling with anticipation.
Behind them, Stonehide Behemoths charged like living battering rams. The ground split beneath their massive feet.
And the defenders charged to meet them.
"Stay together!" Commander Martinez shouted as Division Three surged forward. "Don't let them separate us!"
Adrian ran with his team, Source energy flooding his channels. His mana pool felt vast, deeper than the ocean.
The first collision came like thunder.
Defenders slammed into the monster line with desperate fury.
A Razor Wolf leaped at Adrian's throat. Lightning wreathed its form, jaws wide enough to snap a man in half.
Adrian's hand moved without conscious thought. Gravity seized the beast mid-air, crushing it into the earth with bone-breaking force.
"Adrian!" Kai's voice cut through the din. "Behind you!"
A Stonehide Behemoth charged through the melee. Its rocky hide gleamed with earth affinity, making it nearly invulnerable.
Adrian spun, Source knowledge flooding his mind. Earth affinity meant density, weight, mass.
But it also meant brittleness under the right pressure.
He raised both hands. Fire and ice erupted simultaneously, one superheating the creature's hide while the other froze it.
The thermal shock cracked the stone like glass. The behemoth stumbled, suddenly vulnerable.
Marcus was there in an instant. His metal shards punched through the weakened hide, finding the soft flesh beneath.
The war had begun.