The War Chamber was silent, save for the low hum of the communication rune.
The King of Valen stood motionless. The words of Marshal Teren Vos hung in the air like a death sentence.
"Aren is in danger."
For a king, the loss of an heir was a strategic disaster. For a father, it was a hollow ache that threatened to tear through his composure.
The doors to the chamber swung open.
The Queen entered. She didn't walk with the practiced grace of a royal; she moved with the urgency of a mother who had already sensed the shift in the atmosphere. She looked at the King, her eyes searching his face before landing on the flickering projection of the Marshal.
"He has been gone for five years," she said, her voice trembling but firm. "Five years since we sent him to that distant horizon to be more than just a prince. I told you then that the world was changing. And now..."
She stepped closer, her hand resting on the cold stone of the war table.
"Bring him back," she whispered. "The Academy is a world away, but I do not care. Do not let the sun set on those halls without our son under our protection."
The King looked at her. He saw the grief she was already preparing to carry. Slowly, he turned back to the tactical map. His eyes, once weary, now burned with a cold, absolute resolve.
"He is coming home," the King said.
He reached for the central command crystal.
The King's hand crushed the crystal.
[Notice: Protocol 'CODE RED' has been initiated.]
The message didn't just flash on a screen. It screamed through the capital.
The Academy was no longer a school. It was a battlefield. And the Kingdom of Valen was going to war.
[Whaaaa-oom!]
The hangar doors beneath the palace groaned as they slid open. The Royal Airship, The Sovereign, hummed to life.
It wasn't a vessel meant for travel. It was a floating fortress.
[Loading Progress: 15%... 45%... 90%...]
Soldiers flooded the ramps. The elite of the kingdom.
[Class: Warriors – 250 Units]
[Class: Mages – 50 Units]
[Class: Strategists – 5 Units]
There were no healers.
The world only had two healers - Evan and Aurelina, and the Academy was now down to one, while Aurelina Valen was isolated at a crash site miles away, surrounded by the enemy. If these soldiers fell during the five-hour flight, there would be no one to stitch them back together.
Armor clattered against metal. Runes glowed blue along the ship's hull as the gravity anchors disengaged.
The King stepped onto the bridge. His cape flared in the wind of the rising engines.
"Maximum output," he commanded. "Ignore the fuel thresholds. If the engines burn out, we glide on raw mana."
The pilot looked back, sweat beading on his forehead. "Sir, the distance is extreme. Even at full burn... we are looking at three hours of flight time."
The King stared at the distant horizon. Three hours. In a battle, Three hours was an eternity.
"Then push the engines until the metal screams," the King interrupted. His voice was a low growl.
"I only care about my son."
[BOOM—!]
The airship broke the sound barrier before it even cleared the palace spires. A massive shockwave shattered the windows of the lower city.
[Current Speed: Mach 1.8] [Estimated Time to Arrival: 180 Minutes]
The King stared into the horizon. Three hours. The five boys at the Academy would have to survive the Lazarus army alone until the sun crossed the sky.
"Hold on, Aren," he whispered into the wind.
While somewhere in the dense forest,
Varkesh didn't wait for the smoke to clear.
He didn't need to see his enemies to know where they were hiding. He could smell their fear. It was a sharp, acidic scent that cut through the smell of burnt mana and ozone.
He stepped over a fractured mana-pike, his boots crushing the enchanted wood into splinters.
"Restraint is for people who expect to have a tomorrow, Aurelina," Varkesh grunted.
He reached down and grabbed a Lazarus soldier who was pinned under a fallen log from the shockwave. The man's armor was high-grade, etched with defensive runes, but under Varkesh's fingers, it felt like parchment.
[Snap.]
Varkesh lifted the armored man into the air with one hand, his grip tightening around the soldier's throat.
Varkesh looked at the remaining nine hundred.
They were regaining their footing. But they were moving too slowly.
"My turn," Varkesh growled.
He didn't throw the soldier. He used him.
Varkesh gripped the man's ankles and swung. The armored body became a six-foot club of reinforced steel and shattered bone.
[CRACK—!]
The first line of Lazarus pikes didn't just break; they vaporized. The armored corpse obliterated the frontline, turning the soldiers into a mess of dented metal and unidentifiable meat. Varkesh spun, the momentum of the body pulling him into a violent, centrifugal dance of demolition.
On the other side of the clearing, Teren Vos moved like a ghost in a cathedral.
He didn't use a body. He didn't need a weapon.
A Lazarus captain lunged, his hand-cannon flaring with a condensed mana-bolt. Teren stepped. A fraction of an inch.
The bolt hissed past his ear, cutting though the air. Teren's palm drove upward, striking the captain beneath the chin.
[Crunch.]
The helmet didn't fly off. It buckled inward, the man's jaw forced into his skull. Teren caught the falling hand-cannon with two fingers, redirected the barrel toward the next rank, and squeezed the trigger without looking.
[Pshhh-oom!]
The mana round punched through three chests in a straight line. Teren discarded the empty weapon and flowed into the next group.
One strike. One exhale. One death.
[Current Kill Count: 47]
Varkesh roared, finally tearing the armored body in half from the sheer force of the swings. He threw the torso into a cluster of terrified mages and reached into the crowd for a fresh "tool."
"Is this the best Lazarus has?" Varkesh's voice was a low earthquake.
The thousand-man army was no longer a circle. It was a slaughterhouse.
And three hours away, the King's airship was still screaming through the clouds.
[Estimated Time to Arrival: 174 Minutes]
Varkesh grabbed two more heads and slammed them together.
[THUMP.]
"Hurry up, Teren," Varkesh laughed, blood splattering across his scarred face. "I'm starting to get bored."
The clearing had become a graveyard of bent metal and broken spirits.
Varkesh stood in the center of the carnage, chest heaving, his boots buried ankle-depth in the ground. Every breath he drew tasted of iron and exhaust.
Behind the flickering blue veil of the barrier, the Potion Master moved with frantic precision. He wasn't looking at the battle; he was looking at the glass.
"Aether! Now!" the Potion Master shouted.
He hurled a crystalline vial. It caught the light of the setting sun, spinning like a diamond before Aether Kryn caught it mid-air. The Head Mage didn't hesitate. He drained the glowing, viscous liquid in one swallow.
[Item: Prime Mana Core Fluid Consumed] [Mana Regeneration: +500%]
The effect was instantaneous. Aether's eyes, normally a dull gray, ignited with a blinding white radiance. The barrier, which had been translucent and brittle, surged with renewed density. It turned opaque, the surface hardening into something that resembled diamond rather than magic.
The Potion Master didn't stop. He flicked two more vials toward the frontline—one gold, one crimson.
"Teren! Varkesh! Stamina!"
The vials shattered against the Legends' boots, releasing a thick, invigorating mist that entered their lungs before it could touch the ground.
[Item: Sovereign's Breath (Stamina Potion) Activated] [Physical Fatigue: Erased]
Varkesh felt the leaden weight in his limbs vanish. His muscles, which had been screaming from the centrifugal force of swinging armored men, tightened with a fresh, violent energy. He let out a low, predatory growl.
Beside the Potion Master, the Master Forgewarden—the Weapon Master—reached into his heavy leather satchel. He had no forge here, but he had brought his masterpieces.
"Keep the barrier up, Aether!" the Weapon Master shouted. "I'm clearing the backyard!"
He began throwing.
[Hiss—BOOM!]
The grenades weren't standard military issue. They were handheld disasters.
One detonated with the force of a collapsing star, creating a localized vacuum that pulled a dozen Lazarus soldiers into a center point of crushing pressure before exploding outward. Another sprayed liquid mana that behaved like living acid, eating through high-grade Lazarus armor as if it were parchment.
Then, the air grew unnaturally cold.
Aurelina Valen stepped toward the edge of the barrier. She didn't reach for a potion. She didn't reach for a tool.
She reached for the life in the air.
[Secret Skill: Life Force Extraction Activated]
This was not a healer's spell. This was a skill she had carved for herself in the dark, a secret kept even from her students.
The Lazarus soldiers in the nearest rank froze. Their skin turned a sickly, ashen gray. Their eyes paled, the light of life flickering out. Visible streams of green mist began to leak from their chests, drifting like smoke toward Aurelina's outstretched hand.
She wasn't just healing her allies. She was feeding on the enemy.
The thousand-man army was no longer a circle. It was a slaughterhouse.
And three hours away, the King's airship was still screaming through the clouds.
[Estimated Time to Arrival: 162 Minutes]
Varkesh grabbed two more heads and slammed them together.
[THUMP.]
"Hurry up, Teren," Varkesh laughed, blood splattering across his scarred face. "I'm starting to get bored."