"What?!"
Ignis spat, slowly turning his head toward the direction of Aurelius's voice.
His body was already in motion.
As he turned, his hand continued the fluid, practiced arc of unsheathing the Crimson Shade.
A fraction of a second too late, Ignis registered the sight before him: Aurelius, his golden eyes blown wide beneath the visor of his Dark Mantle armor, had extended a gauntleted arm in a desperate, silent gesture.
Do not draw your blade.
But the Crimson Shade was already free.
The katana sliced through the approaching flesh-eating plant in a swift, elegant strike, leaving a wake of superheated flame along its arc.
The plant smoldered, bisected cleanly before Ignis could even attempt to halt his momentum.
Aurelius stopped dead in his tracks.
At first, nothing happened.
Then, a singular, violent ripple tore through the falling mist.
Across the battlefield, the cacophony of war abruptly ceased.
Soldiers from both Tamaskrit and Athervale froze, confused by the sudden, suffocating tension in the atmosphere that had nothing to do with the clash of steel.
The thick, settling dew suddenly vanished, evaporating as an unseen force warped the air itself.
A deafening hissing and crackling filled the silence.
It was immediately followed by a faintly sweet, alcoholic scent—the undeniable, cloying tang of vaporized methanol.
Then, hell broke loose.
At the apex of the Whispering Hollow, Elven King Aelroth watched his kingdom bathed in the deep, copper-red glow of the lunar eclipse.
The stoic, serious expression he had worn for the duration of the siege slowly twisted into a dark, solemn grin.
He watched the mist below ripple and disappear, giving way to a crystal-clear view of the battlefield beneath the canopy.
Chaos was brewing.
He glanced over his shoulder. His wife, Queen Luthien, was gone.
He sighed in mild relief, knowing she had likely dragged Kaelen and Orion by their sharp, pointed ears back into the deepest sanctums of the Hollow.
The young princes had been fiercely demanding to join the vanguard, but they were the future. They could not be here for this.
Aelroth turned his gaze back to the horrific scene unfolding below. The air was already beginning to shimmer with unnatural heat.
"I am sorry, my brave Elven warriors," Aelroth whispered, his voice carrying the heavy, agonizing burden of a king sending his own people to die.
"But sometimes, to win... you have to sin."
He knew the invisible flames would grant no mercy. His warriors would die an agonizing, suffocating death alongside their invaders.
"Your sacrifices will never be forgotten. For the motherland of Athervale."
With a somber face, Aelroth withdrew a holy gold coin from his robes.
He held it over the edge of the great canopy for a fleeting moment, a silent token of respect for the dead and the dying, before letting it slip from his fingers.
It plummeted toward the battlefield, catching the blood-red moonlight.
He remained silent for a few moments, the reflection of the distant slaughter dancing in his eyes.
"Tamaskritians," he muttered darkly. "Welcome to a heaven of hell."
"Aaaaaagh!"
A terrifying cacophony of agony erupted, echoing through the roots and bark of the battlefield. It was a chorus of the damned.
Elven and Tamaskritian soldiers alike began to gurgle and thrash, their lungs literally catching fire from the inside as they inhaled the vaporized inferno.
There were no roaring orange flames to fight or flee from. Instead, the battlefield was seized by an invisible, shimmering heat.
Underneath the metal gears of the Tamaskritian army, bodies began to roast, their armor transforming into living melting pots.
The heat radiated outward, peeling the bark from the surrounding lesser canopies, while the ancient Whispering Hollow stood unaffected, drinking in the slaughter.
The sudden, violent thermal expansion blew Malakor completely out of his stealth.
He hit the ground hard, his specialized assassin's armor offering zero protection against the ambient furnace.
Highly vulnerable and disoriented, he was instantly swarmed by the Hollow's spawns—flesh-eating plants and vile roots that thrived in the chaos, wrapping around his limbs to drag him down.
Darius fared slightly better. His tank-like build and thick earthen armor shielded him from the brunt of the heat, but he was choking.
The invisible, faint blue flames were rapidly consuming the oxygen in the atmosphere.
The battlefield looked like a living nightmare: the ghastly, translucent blue glow of the methanol interacting with the deep copper moonlight made it seem as though ghostly spirits were dancing over the dying forest.
Long, distorted shadows flickered wildly, mingling with the acrid, stomach-churning stench of melting metal visors and roasting raw flesh.
Ferally screeching soldiers tore at their own throats.
But for Kyanos, it was an unparalleled torment.
His blue ice armor, his ultimate defense, was acting as a thermal conductor against the invisible heat.
The ice was rapidly boiling away, and the resulting steam was peeling the skin straight from his bones.
He wailed—an inhuman, soul-tearing scream—as he began to literally melt within the invisible inferno.
"Damn it!" Aurelius cursed under his breath, his mind spiraling as his golden eyes darted between the falling Malakor and the screaming Kyanos.
Aurelius and Ignis were entirely unaffected by the heat, their innate Sun and Fire affinities rendering the inferno harmless to their own bodies.
Through the visor of his Dark Mantle armor, Aurelius stared at Ignis.
It wasn't a look of panic; it was a look of cold, calculating disappointment.
Shaking his head, Aurelius surged forward to protect Malakor from the horde of vile roots—creatures that would have been incinerated by now if Valerius hadn't been running in blurs of unnatural speed, dragging Malakor across the dirt like a tow rope.
Darius slammed his hands into the ground, raising a massive earth barrier to temporarily stall the approaching Hollow spawns.
It was impossible to tell if they were fighting Athervale soldiers or the forest itself anymore.
The elven soldiers, their skin blistering and their lungs burning, still refused to back down, throwing their dying bodies at the Tamaskritian lines.
Darius hoisted Kyanos over his shoulder and began a desperate retreat toward the Great Barrier, carving a bloody path through their own dying, panicked soldiers who lacked the monstrous endurance of the Princes.
Aurelius and Ignis held the vanguard, unleashing solar flares and fire arcs to keep the horde at bay.
Ignis fought with a feral desperation, mentally kicking himself for his arrogance, for not observing the mist, for pulling the trigger on his own army.
But amidst the shrieking chaos, something massive and unseen crept through the shadows toward the Great Barrier—the very place where the archers and Vane were providing long-range backup, and where Darius was currently heading.
Two hundred meters above the slaughter, atop the Great Barrier.
Vane stood near the edge, the high-altitude winds whipping his cloak around him.
His expression was darkened, his eyes locked on the shimmering, distorted heat waves rising from the forest floor.
He had suspected the sudden dew was unnatural, and the horrifying screams rising from the depths confirmed it.
I have to make it rain, Vane thought to himself, the pressure of the moment bearing down on him. It was the only way to dilute the chemical fire.
He knew he had to act fast. He could see the shadows shifting below, and behind him, the copper hue of the moon was beginning to recede.
The lunar eclipse was slowly coming to an end.
"Archers, keep raining arrows!" Vane commanded, his voice cutting through the wind.
"Swordsmen, hold the perimeter! I need to meditate to call upon the thunder clouds."
The soldiers nodded, gripping their weapons tightly as they got into position.
Vane closed his eyes, centering his breathing, beginning the complex mental focus required to manipulate the atmosphere.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
A chorus of terrified screams erupted right beside him.
It was followed by the sickening, wet crunch of a massive maw closing upon human flesh.
Vane snapped his head toward the direction of the scream, his eyes widening in pure horror as the wind howled around him.
"...For God's Sake..."