The battlefield stretched like a scar across the crimson-soaked earth, a chaotic symphony of clashing steel and dying screams. Liam stood at the center of it all, his boots sinking into mud churned with blood, the metallic tang thick in the air. Bodies lay scattered around them—warriors in mismatched armor, their red skin now marred by deeper shades of death. His heart hammered against his ribs, not from fear exactly, but from the raw, disorienting weight of it. One moment they'd been elsewhere; the next, this slaughter.
'Not again,' he thought, gripping his weapon tighter. 'I dragged them into this mess. Gotta keep them safe.'
Beside him, Medusa and the other girls scanned the field with sharp eyes, their stances coiled and ready. They weren't strangers to violence anymore, but Liam caught the flicker of unease in their postures—the way Medusa's fingers twitched, as if reaching for a power that felt both familiar and distant.
