The order came at midday.
Not shouted.
Signed.
A runner carried the sealed directive from the command ridge to the Mage Division.
The wax bore High Marshal Garry Hawkinge's crest.
Wilfred Webstere broke it, read once, and did not look pleased.
Eiden watched from the third-rank assembly line.
"What is it?" Rynn asked quietly.
"Saturation," he said.
She glanced at him. "You can't know that."
"I can."
Wilfred lifted his staff and began issuing clipped instructions.
"Full-circle formation. Increase density. I want layered discharge, not linear. On my mark."
Layered.
Not precise strikes.
Area coverage.
The siege engines rolled another pace forward—incremental arrogance.
Engineers tightened torsion ropes to a pitch that made the wood hum.
The air felt stretched.
Across the field, the demon formation had not advanced.
They had widened again thinner at the front, deeper behind.
Mantlets angled inward as before.
The red-trimmed demon stood near the central axis, gaze steady, posture untroubled.
He knew.
A human horn sounded—three short, two longs.
Preparation for coordinated magical barrage.
Rynn exhaled slowly. "We're done measuring."
"Yes."
"Good."
"No."
Wilfred's staff flared.
Light gathered not as a sphere this time, but as a ring—thin, sharp, humming at the edges.
Other mages mirrored him, forming a larger circumference behind the infantry.
The first discharge cracked across the field like glass splitting.
A wide arc of compressed force tore through the demon front, not targeting a seam—blanketing it.
Impact.
Armor fractured.
Mantlets splintered.
Two ranks buckled visibly.
Human soldiers shouted in sudden exhilaration.
"Push!"
"Advance!"
The second layer fired before the dust settled.
A cross-pattern this time.
Interlocking arcs of pale gold intersected midair and detonated on contact with shield lines.
The ground convulsed.
Demons fell.
More than before.
A gap appeared—not narrow, not subtle.
Broad.
Tempting.
Eiden felt his pulse slow to a thin line.
Too much.
They overcommitted energy.
The horn sounded advance immediately.
Infantry surged.
Rynn moved with her unit into the widening breach.
Eiden followed, counting spacing, scanning flanks.
The demons did not retreat in the elastic rhythm of earlier days.
They staggered.
Truly staggered.
For three heartbeats, the line bent.
For three heartbeats, it looked like collapse.
Then the red-trimmed demon moved.
Not into the breach.
Behind it.
He signalled once—flat palm downward.
The second demon rank stepped forward—not to fill the gap, but to split it.
Two columns advanced inward along the edges of the breach, creating corridors instead of sealing it.
Corridors that funnelled the human surge.
They're channelling us.
Eiden accelerated.
"Rynn! Don't go canter!"
She heard him too late.
The human canter had already committed.
Inside the breach, visibility was clearer than during smoke—but depth perception still skewed from dust and residual magic haze.
Wilfred fired again.
A third layer.
Denser.
Hotter.
The air rippled.
This one struck too deep.
The blast hit near the demon second rank—where spacing had already shifted.
The ground fractured violently.
A shockwave rolled outward.
Not clean.
Not controlled.
Eiden felt it through his boots.
The mage circle wavered.
One junior mage staggered backward, nose bleeding.
The red-trimmed demon did not flinch.
He stepped aside from the unstable impact radius.
He was not concerned about the breach.
He was watching the mages.
The demon flanks began advancing—not fast, not slow.
Steady compression around the corridors they had created.
The human surge was now inside structured lanes.
Not open ground.
Eiden cut down a demon who lunged clumsily—less disciplined than the red-trimmed officer.
Good.
But the spacing ahead tightened.
The corridor narrowed.
"Back two!" he shouted.
Rynn pivoted, blade flashing.
Too many humans had pushed forward.
Too much momentum.
Behind them, the mage ring flared again.
Wilfred shouted something—too late.
The fourth discharge erupted unevenly.
A ripple of instability ran through the arc before release.
The spell detonated mid-projection.
Not full backlash.
But distortion.
The explosion did not strike the demon line.
It struck the ground between both armies.
A crater opened violently.
Mud, blood, and fractured stone sprayed outward in a chaotic spray.
The human left flank staggered from the concussive force.
The demon canter halted—perfectly timed.
They had waited.
They had anticipated over-saturation.
The red-trimmed demon signalled once more.
Demon infantry advanced into the destabilized zone.
Not charging.
Walking.
Filling the corridors.
The human surge faltered.
The breach was no longer advantage.
It was entrapment.
Eiden felt the seam forming behind him.
Not full encirclement.
Compression.
Again.
But this time with mage instability layered into it.
Wilfred barked a corrective order.
"Stabilize! Tighten formation! No further discharge!"
Too late.
The human line had committed inside a fractured ground field.
Footing unstable.
Spacing disrupted.
The demon flanks angled inward—precise, controlled.
Rynn fought two opponents at once.
He intercepted one strike meant for her ribs.
Steel rang hard.
He stepped left instead of forward.
Breaking linear retreat.
"Diagonal! Now!"
She didn't question it.
They cut through the narrowing corridor at an angle instead of trying to force backward momentum.
Behind them, screams intensified.
The corridor sealed.
Not fully.
Enough.
The retreat horn sounded human.
Desperate.
Demon infantry did not pursue beyond calculated limit again.
They disengaged at optimal distance.
Leaving a destabilized crater between lines.
Silence fell faster than usual.
The human line reformed on the ridge with visible cracks in discipline.
Several mages sat on the ground, pale.
One bled from both ears.
Wilfred stood rigid, staff lowered.
He did not look at the crater.
He looked at the red-trimmed demon.
Across the field, the demon commander returned the gaze calmly.
Acknowledgment.
You escalated.
You destabilized yourself.
Rynn wiped dust from her face.
"That wasn't clean."
"No."
"That wasn't supposed to happen."
"No."
She looked toward the mage circle.
"They overextended."
"Yes."
He swallowed slowly.
Today was not catastrophe.
But it was instability.
A hairline fracture in command confidence.
The siege engines were silent.
The mage ring dim.
High command gathered in tight formation on the ridge.
Voices raised.
Arguments sharper than before.
Across the field, the demon mantlets were repositioned again.
Not forward.
Not backward.
Balanced.
The red-trimmed demon turned away first this time.
Not retreating.
Satisfied.
Eiden felt it settle in his bones.
They had tested artillery.
They had tested breach.
They had tested smoke.
Now—
They had tested magical saturation.
And the result was clear.
Human escalation created human instability.
He looked at the crater again.
Uneven.
Jagged.
A scar between lines.
Small today.
Larger tomorrow.
If they continued this pattern—
The next instability would not be contained to a crater.
It would split the line entirely.
Eiden exhaled slowly.
The battlefield was no longer about pressure.
It was about tolerance.
And human tolerance for escalation—
Was thinner than command believed.