The Citadel was chaos. The wailing siren drowned out all other sound, a relentless scream of panic. Red light pulsed through the halls, painting everyone's faces in flashes of emergency and fear. People ran in every direction—soldiers toward the armory, civilians toward the deeper shelters, officials shouting orders that were lost in the noise.
Kaelen was swept into the current of bodies, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. Breach. The word was a cold knot in his stomach. The wall had fallen. Safety was a lie.
He followed the stream of soldiers to the main assembly hall. The air was thick with shouted commands and the clatter of weapons and armor being distributed. He saw Commander Valeria at the center of it all, a rock in the storm. Her voice, amplified by a small device on her collar, cut through the din.
"Eastern sector, by the old granary! A B-Rank Behemoth and its swarm! Seal the secondary corridors! I want a defensive line here, here, and here!" She pointed at a large holographic map of the city hovering in the air, her finger stabbing at glowing points. Her gaze was iron, but Kaelen saw the tightness around her eyes. This was bad.
Her eyes scanned the crowd and landed on him. "Kaelen! With me!"
He pushed his way to her. "Commander."
"You feel it," she stated, it wasn't a question. "Your Curse. Is it pulling them? Making this worse?"
He focused inward. The Anchor in his chest was a live wire, humming with a vicious intensity he'd never felt before. It wasn't just pulling; it was singing a song of dread that resonated with the chaos outside. "Yes," he said, his voice tight. "It's... amplifying. They're focused on the breach because I'm here."
A muscle in her jaw twitched. "Then you will be on the front line. Your presence is a threat, but it is also a tool. We will use it as a beacon. Draw them to a point where we can hold them." She grabbed a reinforced vambrace from a passing crate and shoved it into his hands. "Don't die. That's an order."
There was no more time. They moved out.
The journey to the eastern sector was a nightmare. The orderly streets of Havenfall were gone. Smoke filled the air, smelling of ozone and something foul. The sounds of battle grew louder—the shriek of monsters, the explosive crack of energy rifles, and the screams of the wounded.
They rounded a corner, and the Breach came into view.
A section of the great wall was simply gone, replaced by a jagged hole of twisted metal and shattered stone. Through it, the Slumbering Veil poured into the city like a toxic flood. And with it came the nightmares.
Gremlins and Scuttlers swarmed through the streets in a churning, shrieking mass. But leading them was the Behemoth. It was a towering horror of muscle and rage, larger than any building on the street. Its skin was like cracked stone, and from its back grew sharp, bone-like spikes. Each thunderous step shook the ground. It swung a massive limb, smashing a house into rubble.
{Threat Identified: B-Rank - Spireback Behemoth}
This was what Valeria had feared. A B-Rank monster, inside the walls.
"Form the line! Hold them here!" Valeria roared, her voice somehow steadying the panicked soldiers.
Kaelen stood just behind the main defensive line, soldiers with crackling energy shields and heavy rifles forming a wall of their own. He could feel the Behemoth's attention like a physical pressure. The Anchor was doing its work. The monster's head turned, its small, deep-set eyes glowing with malevolent intelligence, fixing directly on him. It ignored the soldiers firing at its legs and took a step toward him.
"Now, Kaelen!" Valeria yelled. "Be the shield!"
He understood. He wasn't here to fight the Behemoth. He was here to be its target.
He poured his energy outward, not in an attack, but in a declaration. He let the Umbral power roar around him, a dark flame in the smoky air. Here I am.
The Spireback Behemoth let out a ground-shaking bellow and charged. Its swarm followed, a tidal wave of claws and teeth.
"Focus fire on the swarm! Keep them off him!" Valeria commanded.
Kaelen held his ground. He shaped his darkness into the largest shield he had ever made, a wall of solid night five meters wide. The Behemoth slammed into it.
The impact was like being hit by a mountain. Kaelen's boots skidded back on the broken street, his arms screaming in protest. The shield held, but cracks of light spiderwebbed across its surface. He poured more energy into it, gritting his teeth, feeling the immense drain.
He was a single point holding back a tsunami. Soldiers fought and died around him to keep the smaller monsters from flanking him. He saw a Scuttler drag a screaming soldier into the swarm. He saw a medic fall, her throat torn out. The cost Valeria had spoken of was being paid in blood right in front of him.
He was just one person. The shield wouldn't hold. He couldn't do this alone.
A new sound joined the battle—a high, singing note that cut through the chaos. A figure dropped from a rooftop above, landing gracefully between Kaelen and the swarming Gremlins. It was Isolde.
She held no weapon. Instead, her hands moved in complex patterns, and illusions sprang to life. Copies of Kaelen appeared a dozen times over, each radiating a faint Umbral signature. The swarm hesitated, confused by the sudden multitude of targets.
"A key is only useful if it survives, little one," she said, her voice calm despite the hell around them. "Do try to stay in one piece."
Before he could process her help, another force joined the fray. From a side street, a wave of thick, thorny vines erupted from the cobblestones, entangling a pack of Scuttlers, holding them fast. Elara stood at the mouth of the street, her hands pressed to the ground, her face strained with effort. She wasn't a fighter, but she was using her Vitalis aspect to protect and hinder.
The three Matriarchs were there, each in their own way: Valeria directing the battle with brutal efficiency, Isolde weaving deception, Elara providing support. And he, Kaelen, was the center they orbited around. The Anchor that held them together in this moment of crisis.
With the swarm distracted, the soldiers could focus. Concentrated rifle fire finally found a weak spot in the Behemoth's stony hide, a joint in its leg. The creature roared in pain and stumbled.
It was the opening Valeria needed. "Now! All fire on its head! Now!"
The combined energy fire of two dozen soldiers lanced upward, striking the Behemoth's face and eyes. Blinded and enraged, it thrashed wildly, swinging its head away from Kaelen's shield.
The pressure eased. Just for a moment.
But a moment was all they needed.
Kaelen didn't waste it. He didn't try to attack. He focused every ounce of his will, every bit of his power, and reinforced the shield. The cracks sealed. The wall of darkness became solid again.
He had held. They had held.
The battle wasn't over, but the tide had turned. The Behemoth was wounded and confused. The swarm was being cut down.
Kaelen stood, panting, his body trembling with exhaustion, supported by the three very different women who had chosen, for their own reasons, to fight beside him. The unwanted crown felt heavier than ever, but for the first time, he didn't feel like he was wearing it alone.