Lusian descended from the mountain accompanied by the forces of the savanna.
The wind carried dust, ash, and the thick scent of blood already beginning to cover the slopes.
Then Dainsleif darkened in his hand.
It was not a glow.
It was the opposite.
The sword seemed to swallow the light around it as a heavy pressure spread across the battlefield.
The first soldiers who reached him did not even understand what had happened.
One moment they were still running.
The next… their bodies were already falling apart across the stone.
Too fast.
Too clean.
The human lines trembled.
Some tried to react. Raise shields. Form positions. But their eyes could barely follow Lusian's movements.
He did not fight like a man.
He was something worse.
Every step tore through a formation.
Every movement of Dainsleif left opened bodies behind him.
Arms.
Heads.
Armor split apart like paper.
The soldiers watched in horror.
That was the Devil.
The monster the churches spoke about.
The enemy they had crossed the sea to face.
But now that they stood before him…
the reality was far worse than the stories.
Because Lusian did not look like someone fighting an army.
He looked like someone walking through tall grass.
The frontline was no longer a line.
From the base of the Solar Furnaces, Aurelius could see it clearly: the order was falling apart piece by piece.
The front no longer advanced as one force. It shattered into fragments, as if each group had begun fighting its own war without realizing it.
Aurelius narrowed his eyes without looking away from the distance.
—Enjoy it… demon… your end is approaching —he murmured.
But it did not sound triumphant.
The men were retreating even before receiving orders.
Fear was spreading faster than the battle itself.
And the worst part…
was that all of them had arrived believing they held the advantage.
Ten thousand soldiers.
Eighteen Chosen.
Divine weapons.
The blessing of the gods.
They had spent months preparing for this battle.
But before Lusian…
all of that was still flesh.
Only flesh waiting to be cut apart.
In the city at the summit, the air felt unbearably heavy.
As if the sky itself had descended over the mountain.
Emily was kneeling with both hands buried into the stone. The light coming from her did not explode or shine like in the stories of heroes.
It was a different kind of light.
More stable.
Denser.
Every time her mana expanded, the barriers around the city stopped cracking for an instant.
She was holding all of it together almost by herself.
Beside her, Isabella could barely remain standing.
Her magic did not heal wounds directly. It did not close cuts or restore lost blood. It manipulated the environment.
The wind shifted around her fingers.
Invisible currents pushed soldiers out of a blade's reach, deflected arrows inches away from someone's throat, or lifted the wounded before they could be crushed beneath the chaos.
Small things.
But in a war like this, one extra second of life could change everything.
The problem was that Isabella was already reaching her limit.
Her lips had lost their color and her breathing came out unevenly. Even so, she kept moving her hands, forcing the wind to answer once more.
Emily slightly turned her head toward her.
—Don't stop —she said softly—. If you stop now, the line breaks.
Isabella clenched her teeth while another gust diverted a spear away from one of the defenders.
—I'm not stopping… —she murmured, exhausted—. Not yet.
Below, amid the smoke, blood, and noise of war, Isolde raised her gaze toward the summit of the mountain.
And she saw her.
Emily.
Kneeling within the light.
Holding the barriers of that cursed city as if she still had the right to wield the Goddess's power.
The soldiers around her kept fighting and dying, but for a moment Isolde could only stare upward.
That was the traitor.
The woman who abandoned the Light for a man.
The heroine who chose love before faith.
The same one the Goddess herself had condemned.
Her fingers tightened around her sword.
The order remained carved into her mind from the day she received the blessing.
No matter how much time passed.
No matter how many wars came before it.
The mission remained the same.
Climb the mountain.
Find the traitor.
And bring her head before the Goddess of Light.
Mana began flowing through her body.
Around her, several soldiers subtly stepped back upon feeling the pressure.
Isolde took one step forward.
Then another.
Without taking her eyes off Emily.
—At last I found you… —she murmured.
On the lower slopes of Zarhama, the herbivore forces took position.
They did not look like an army preparing to retreat.
They looked like one that had decided to die there if necessary.
The buffaloes occupied the first line. Massive. Motionless. With shields of living wood embedded into their horns and heavy steam pouring from their nostrils.
Behind them, the rhinoceroses slammed the earth again and again impatiently, making the slope tremble beneath their feet.
Farther back stood the antelopes.
Too many.
Rows upon rows.
Spears lowered.
Breathing trembling.
They knew they would be the first to break once the clash began.
And yet they remained there.
Then the carnivores appeared.
The lions descended first through the vegetation, slow, without even roaring. Their bodies were marked with dark lines created by the Lithaar, like living scars running across their skin.
They did not look like beasts.
They looked like weapons.
The hyenas came afterward.
Thin. Hungry. Far too silent.
And behind them advanced the great felines.
Not running.
Not hurrying.
As if they already knew how all of this would end.
The distance between both sides began to vanish.
No one spoke.
No one shouted.
Until the horn sounded.
And the mountain exploded.
The rhinoceroses charged first.
The impact shattered the frontline. Horns piercing bodies, bones breaking, blood splashing across the rocks.
A lion was hurled down the slope.
Another disappeared beneath a buffalo's feet before even getting back up.
But the carnivores kept advancing.
They leaped from the sides.
From above.
They bit wherever the armor failed to cover.
An antelope fell with its throat torn open.
Another lost half its back before even finishing turning around.
And little by little, the formation began to break apart.
Blood ran down the slope in small dark rivers.
The forest roots absorbed it.
As if the mountain itself were drinking too.
And then they understood the worst part.
The carnivores were not fighting like a pack.
They did not argue.
They did not hesitate.
They did not chase prey through instinct.
Every time one fell, another instantly took its place.
As if all of them were being moved by the same will.
The sky roared.
And then the lightning fell.
Elizabeth descended atop Thunder wrapped in an explosion of lightning, tearing through the battlefield like the punishment of heaven itself. Her signature spell illuminated the slopes for an instant, blinding several soldiers before the discharge struck them.
The steed descended along the mountain ridge surrounded by lightning, smashing into the rock with such force that cracks spread beneath its hooves.
Elizabeth rode atop him, leaning forward while electricity coursed through the black armor partially covering the beast's body.
And wherever Thunder passed… men fell.
The discharges exploded around him like branches of wild light, piercing shields, spears, and armor alike. Some soldiers did not even manage to scream before collapsing onto the smoking slope.
Thunder neighed as he tore through another human formation.
He rode like a king through his domain.
Thunder landed so close to Lusian that several soldiers stepped back out of pure instinct.
Elizabeth did not even look at the humans.
—I told you not to wander off alone.
Lusian observed her for a second.
—You never obey either.
Thunder neighed, satisfied.
—Don't stray too far.
Lusian's voice appeared directly inside Thunder's mind.
It was not a spoken spell.
When Thunder reached the highest level as a magical beast, the bond he shared with Lusian changed completely. They no longer needed words to understand one another.
They were emotions.
Impulses.
Intentions flowing naturally between them, as if part of one could feel what the other wanted.
Years ago, Sofia had created a bond between her son and the steed using beast-tamer magic. Something deep. Closer to sharing emotions than truly communicating.
And after Sofia's death…
the bond never disappeared.
Thunder did not need words to understand Lusian.
He felt his concern.
His anger.
His doubts.
Just as Lusian understood when the steed was tired, restless, or simply being stubborn.
Thunder shook his head slightly, lightning crashing around his mane.
Elizabeth smiled faintly.
—I think that was a "no."
In the distance, Lusian sighed while Dainsleif pierced another soldier.
Because yes.
Thunder had just ignored him again.
And honestly… Thunder had been doing that ever since Sofia died.
If he sensed even the slightest danger around Lusian, he ignored every order and ran straight toward him.
Beneath Zarhama, far from the roar of war and the screams above… another battle was about to begin.
The Lithaar descended among the roots of the Mother Tree.
In silence.
The caverns beneath the mountain resembled the inside of a living being. Massive roots pierced through stone in every direction, pulsing with a faint reddish glow that illuminated the tunnels like buried veins.
Beneath Zarhama, where the roots of the Mother Tree pierced the mountain like gigantic veins, the battle had not yet ended.
The Lithaar had managed to force their way through.
Not without cost. Many of their kind perished there.
The advance left shattered bodies among the stone and broken roots. Some still glowed faintly with solar fire, like embers refusing to die completely.
But the advance did not stop.
Fragments of destroyed roots covered the tunnels, twisting over the stone as though still alive. Dark sap ran down the walls while the Tree trembled from the depths, reacting to the damage.
It was not dead.
It was merely responding.
The roots attacked from every direction: piercing stone, crushing entire tunnels, seeking to impale the stone bodies of the Lithaar golems.
And even so, the Lithaar continued advancing.
Because beneath the Mother Tree existed a chamber.
The core.
The only place where that monstrosity could truly be wounded.
And the Lithaar knew it.
That was why they had waited.
That was why they needed the entire mountain distracted by the war above.
When the first golems crossed into the underground chamber… they stopped.
Selvryn was already there. And she was not alone.
Dozens of dark elves occupied the roots surrounding the core. Silent. Perfectly positioned. Weapons ready, without a single unnecessary word. The Mother Tree's reddish glow fell over them like a second skin.
No one spoke.
There was no need.
The Lithaar understood the message immediately.
This was not an improvised defense.
It was a decision.
The dark elves would not surrender that place.
They would not retreat.
Even if the entire mountain collapsed on top of them.
The chamber was enormous. Colossal roots descended from the ceiling and merged around a central mass of living wood that pulsed slowly, like a heart buried beneath the world.
Each pulse made the stone tremble.
Selvryn stepped forward.
Her golden eyes swept across the Lithaar golems as dark mana began spreading around her body.
And for an instant…
the Mother Tree reacted.
The roots behind her slowly rose.
As if recognizing their protector.
Then one of the golems advanced.
The ground trembled.
And the underground chamber exploded into violence.
Dayana appeared directly beside Lusian.
She fell to her knees the moment she touched the ground, breathing heavily. The wound in her abdomen was still slowly closing, but dark blood had already stained the stone beneath her.
Lusian blinked once.
He did not move.
—What happened to you?
Dayana clenched her teeth.
—I hate that woman.
Pause.
—I'm going to kill her.
Lusian looked at her for a moment.
—That doesn't answer my question.
—Because she does weird things with corpses!
Lusian remained silent.
Dayana kept speaking, clearly irritated.
—And her dead obey her even after losing their heads! That makes no sense!
—Uh-huh.
—And she hit me with MY own army!
Lusian slowly rested his head against his hand.
—Amazing.
Dayana immediately pointed at him.
—Don't mock me.
—I'm not mocking you.
—You're mocking me internally.