The retreat to the Undercroft was not a flight of cowardice; it was a fighting withdrawal, a strategic contraction of lines designed to bleed the enemy dry.
Alvian acted as the rearguard, a solitary, insurmountable wall of ice and void standing against the tide. He punished any Syndicate force foolish enough to pursue with lethal, mathematical precision.
The campus, once a beacon of learning and light, had transformed into a nightmare. The beautiful floating islands, usually drifting serenely in the azure sky, were now connected by flickering light-bridges that had become choke points of slaughter. Smoke billowed from the spires of the elemental schools, and the screams of the uninitiated mingled with the roar of unauthorized spells.
Alvian stood firm on the bridge connecting the Vanguard District to the Central Library.
It was a narrow span of solidified hard-light, precarious and exposed.
