Back in the Rune Division's hall, Adrian sat at his table, still wrapped in the golden shimmer of his temporal veil. Parchments piled high at his side, scrolls glowing faintly as Mira darted between the desks, breathless as she relayed reports from the battlefield.
"The casualty rate is low," she said, sweat dripping down her brow. "Healers actually have breathing room now, the scrolls are working."
Healers were also doing better in this wave, treating those who had already used scrolls to blink or heal themselves and returned to the fortress. Step by step, the wave was being pushed back.
Adrian nodded, but his focus never wavered. The battlefield no longer leaned on blades alone. His runes were holding the tide.
Out on the frontlines, the abyssal leviathan roared. Its dark gaze swept, watching as the tide was pushed back. The runes were a mystery it couldn't comprehend, but it knew this: its assault was faltering.
So it roared again, long, deep, and commanding.
The sea split.
From the abyss, two more titans rose. An armored kraken, water affinity surging from its writhing limbs.
And beside it, a serpentine jormungandr, scales glittering with pale frost, its very breath chilling the air to shards. The Defenders froze in horror.
"Three A-ranks," a soldier whispered, his voice breaking. "We're dead."
Even with miracle scrolls, they could not imagine surviving this. Three A-ranks meant annihilation.
Scarlett's eyes widened, but fear never claimed her. Instead, she barked orders, her voice cutting the panic.
"B-rank Defenders, hold the tide! Those A-ranks are mine!"
Her steps carried her to the rear lines, where Renard was locked in battle with the abyssal leviathan. His grin had vanished, sweat and blood streaking his scarred face.
"Three against two," he muttered grimly. "It planned this."
Scarlett only laughed. "Then let's show it why humans endure."
Her aura ignited, light blue, pure and radiant. It flared beyond her body, wrapping her like armor, crashing outward in waves.
Manifestation! Renard swore under his breath.
Even he couldn't push his affinity beyond his flesh. Scarlett, one of humanity's strongest A-ranks, had just revealed her true weight.
The kraken and jormungandr recoiled instinctively. Their primal senses knew danger when they saw it.
Scarlett struck. Water surged like walls, colliding with the kraken's limbs.
Ice shattered under her fists as she met the jormungandr head-on. The sea howled with their clash.
The abyssal leviathan did not like this. Its darkness poured from its maw, twisting into spears that ripped through the battlefield.
For the first time, three A-rank beasts fought together.
Renard and Scarlett held the line, but gaps opened, tiny openings the monsters exploited. Black spears pierced formations, tentacles crushed squads, icy breath froze men solid before they could even scream.
The Defenders bled.
"The barriers won't hold!" someone shouted from the walls. "They're breaking through!"
Scrolls saved many. But in the face of such overwhelming power, miracles faltered.
Death returned, relentless.
The fortress lines buckled. B-ranks and lesser monsters surged forward, breaching walls and pouring inside the fortress, forcing desperate defenders into the inner halls.
Stone cracked under clawed feet. Screams echoed from the corridors as creatures flooded the passages.
Then the Rune Division itself trembled.
A B-rank beast slammed through the outer wall, rubble exploding inward. Tentacles whipped through the dust, lashing straight toward Adrian.
In his temporal veil, the strike crawled like a sluggish snake. He tensed to dodge—
—but Mira leapt between them.
The tentacles pierced her clean through. She gasped, blood spraying as she turned her head back toward Adrian with a faint smile, as if relieved.
Her small body was hurled backward like a rag doll.
"No!"
"Mira!"
Adrian blurred, catching her before she struck the walls. She smiled faintly, lips trembling.
Then her eyes rolled back, consciousness slipping away.
Rage flooded him, hot and merciless. His Source roared in answer.
Mist surged from him, white-grey and endless, coiling around his arm. It solidified, condensing into a blade of pure light and shadow.
A sword, forged not of steel, but of the Source itself.
The B-rank beast lunged again. Adrian's eyes blazed white-grey.
He swung once.
The sword carved through flesh and bone as if the creature were smoke. It split apart, collapsing before it even realized what had happened.
He lowered Mira carefully, checking her breath. It was faint, fading.
Her life force slipped away with every heartbeat.
"No," he whispered. His healing flared, emerald light pouring into her.
Too little. Too late.
Adrian gritted his teeth, forcing more. Not just mana.
His own life force bled into her, golden sparks of vitality weaving into her veins. Her wounds knitted, her breathing steadied.
The deathly pallor faded.
She lived.
But she remained unconscious, fragile. Adrian laid her on the ground and whispered a spell, a shield of shimmering light wrapping around her like a cocoon.
Then he rose, the mist-blade still burning in his hand. More monsters poured through the shattered wall.
His eyes were cold and mercilessly fixed on them, his voice low, his rage unbroken.
"Come."
The nearest creature, a scaled horror with too many teeth, charged. Adrian stepped forward, blade singing.
The sword passed through its neck without resistance. Its head tumbled, body crashing into the debris.
Two more beasts flanked him, claws gleaming. Adrian spun, the blade extending into a whip of light.
It wrapped around both creatures, cutting them apart in spiraling arcs. Their screams died as they collapsed in pieces.
More enemies flooded through the breach.
A serpentine beast struck like lightning. Adrian caught its fangs on his blade, then drove the point through its skull.
Brain matter scattered across the stone.
Another lunged from his blind side. Adrian's free hand erupted with white-blue flames, incinerating it mid-leap.
The hall filled with smoke and the stench of burning flesh.
More came. Always more.
Adrian moved through them like death itself, the Source blade never dulling, never breaking.