The sky cracked.

  Not metaphorically. I mean, it cracked, like someone smacked the heavens with a hammer made of grave decisions and golden buffs. Irwen’s test spell still shimmered overhead, a glimmering aurora of “screw you specifically,” and I could feel it down to the bone.

  [When the Stars Bear Witness]And just like that, every single enemy got another boost. Levels, buffs, and probably a free whiskey on the house.

  Even with infinite mana in my veins, my fingers shaking with raw power… I could kill anything. But not everything.

  And not fast enough.

  “Brace!” someone shouted. Lma, probably, because only he could yell in all caps without sounding like he was trying. The next wave smmed into us like the world owed them retribution.

  [Bone Reavers] didn’t even wait for our spells to finish casting. They just charged. Ghouls scuttled up my own ice formations like they’d trained on it. A [Sky Reaver] dive-bombed into a squad of healers.

  Screams.

  Shouting.

  And through it all, I was casting, casting, casting, hands a blur, voice hoarse from command-spells and half-screamed warnings.

  Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough.

  Frost spread. Fire bloomed. Lightning fshed. All our greatest hits, on repeat. But this was a tidal wave, and we were just frantically building sandcastles.

  Until it all crashed.

  Luminaria. Poised. Composed. Still holding that same stance, as if the battlefield was a chance to show her clothing. Her staff glowed, arcs of electric energy dancing around her fingers as she targeted another [Sky Reaver] overhead. She looked... beautiful, honestly. Terrifying, regal, and ready to burn the heavens.

  Which is when the Reaver Champion came for her.

  It was fast, faster than anything its size had a right to be. Covered in steel that shimmered with Irwen’s mythic aura, dual bdes crackling with cursed energy. It unched itself off the shattered ramparts, heading straight for her.

  She turned just a beat too te. But Lma was there.

  He didn’t say anything fancy. No speech. Just a grunt, a step forward, and his shield raised. The blow should’ve split him in half. It still nearly did. One of the Champion’s bdes drove through his side with a wet crunch that stopped my breath.

  But he didn’t fall.

  He shoved. His shield caught the Champion in the throat and drove it back, long enough for Luminaria to recover, to lift her staff, to scream something I couldn’t hear.

  The wall commander was dead.

  Lightning split the air. Not a bolt, a maelstrom. Her berserk, her ultimate sacrifice spell. Her spell fred so violently it lit the wall in violet-blue fire. But her poised facade cracked for a second.

  And then she let go.

  The spell scorched through a line of enemies. Towering [Reavers] turned to ash mid-step. Sky units rained down like divine confetti. It was beautiful and suicidal and utterly final.

  I lost sight of her in the fsh.

  The next second, the wall behind them colpsed inward.

  “Pull back!” Tramar’s urgent voice cracked. I turned. He was already herding his mages, tossing fireballs behind him like breadcrumbs made of war.

  “Princess, we’re falling back to the fort! You better not die, I just finished my loadout!” he shouted, flinging one st wave of fire that reduced a siege dder and the five Ghouls on it to smoldering trash.

  The mages disappeared into the smoke, screaming, limping, dragging each other. But Tramar never stopped casting. Never stopped watching our backs. His st spell turned the breach into a wall of molten stone. Temporary, but welcoming.

  Although I didn’t have time to thank him. Because the front was still burning. And Lma was gone. Without him, it fell to me.

  His section was colpsing, literally and otherwise. Shield lines buckled. Calls turned frantic. The weight of it pressed behind my ribs, one more burden dumped into already-overloaded arms.

  “Reform the center! Fall back to the red lines! Order… something! Screw it, just listen!” I shouted, amplifying my voice with the ring. “Mages, cover the withdrawal! Tanks, rotate in fives, don’t all die in the same pile!”

  I used to be in his position. Imperial army. Holding.

  I know what to do. So why… I can’t think?

  My heels hit shattered stone as I moved, ice growing with every step, curling beneath my heels like eager dogs. I raised walls, angled, slippery, craggy. I skewered anything that looked demonic, undead, or just generally having a bad day.

  [Foot Soldiers] crunched beneath frost spikes. [Wretched Ghouls] lunged and froze mid-air, bodies shattering. I kept moving, kept yelling.

  “Move! Get off the wall if you don’t want to die dramatically for the camera!”

  Some ughed, of course they did. Death in Rimelion meant downtime, not curtains. But even with a one-day respawn, there was a difference between dying in a duel and being torn apart by a demon champion while your squad screams for help.

  This? This hurt.

  I watched a rogue vanish in a puff of light, cloak crumpling where her body used to be. A tank got dragged off the wall mid-taunt. A mage got skewered through the ribs, barely finished saying, “Wait, is that a—?”

  Gone.

  Doesn’t mean they were lost forever. But it still stung.

  Especially when it’s your fault.

  The wall groaned again beneath me, and I turned to Lunaris.

  Of course, she was still fighting.

  A whirlwind of silver and fury, bdes dancing through demons like she thought she was invincible. Her jacket, that stupid Sock Division original—gods help us—was ripped at the sleeves, singed at the edges, but still fpping behind her like she belonged on a goddamn poster.

  Riker will sell millions of her minis.

  She twirled through a group of Ghouls, ducked a cursed javelin, sshed the knee out of a [Bone Reaver] twice her size, then pivoted mid-air, nding in a low crouch.

  Showoff.

  “Lunaris!” I called.

  She didn’t hear me. Or maybe she ignored me. She turned to cut down another Reaver, and didn’t see the second one coming.

  Too fast. Too close.

  I felt it before I saw it, a sharp twist in the air. One bde rising. One opening exposed.

  Then steel met steel.

  Not hers.

  The rogue appeared like a shadow from smoke, intercepting the strike with a casual parry and a grunt. Grass stem between her teeth. Blood on her sleeve. Casual as ever.

  NightSwallow.

  “You’re—” Lunaris started.

  But our rogue leader was already bleeding. The second Reaver’s bde had found her ribs. A ssh, deep and cruel, turning her armor dark in an instant. She staggered. Smiled around the stem in her mouth.

  “Fight also for me,” she said. Then added, quieter, “Sorry for Ian.”

  Then she dropped.

  No ceremony. No flourish. Just... gone. Turned into a rain of equipment.

  Lunaris shouted at her something back, but it was too te. She charged again, recklessly now, like vengeance was the only thing left worth holding.

  Wait, Ian?

  I wanted to go to her. I really did. And ask about Ian and tell her allies will come back to life.

  But another wave hit.

  They came like a second tide, bigger, faster, buffed to bar and back. Some of them glowing gold from Irwen’s spell. Others burning red with rage.

  I cast. I casted my soul out.

  Ice spikes. Walls. Chains. Barricades. Pilrs. I turned the battlefield into a frozen pyground of murder.

  And they still came.

  A [Bone Reaver] with molten eyes stepped through my st wall like it was fog. I turned it into a sculpture and didn’t even flinch. A dozen Ghouls climbed the ramparts; I froze their hands to the stone and shattered the whole ledge.

  Still. Not. Enough.

  My lungs were burning. My hands were shaking. Mana wasn’t the issue, I was infinite, remember? But I was only one caster. And time, time wasn’t infinite.

  Mi in the command tower activated the rune. A sound like a dying horn echoed across the battlefield.

  We all knew what it meant. Just hoped it won’t come to it.

  Retreat.

  And just like that, chaos broke loose.

  Pyers shouted. Arrows flew. Mages started covering exits. Warriors disengaged in staggered units.

  Tramar’s mages had already lit the sky behind us, torching a path to the fort. I followed it back, step by frozen step.

  I summoned a ramp under a colpsing section, caught a pair of falling shield-bearers and tossed them into safety with a bst of upward ice.

  “MOVE!” I screamed. “I don’t care if you’re top of the leaderboard or tanking your KD, MOVE!”

  Someone ughed. Someone cried.

  I reached the st line. The wall behind me was shuddering. Cracked like a dying tooth.

  And then it fell. Not symbolically. Stone split. Supports colpsed. Frost and fme swallowed one another. And the eastern main wall of Klippe came down with the sound of war itself dying.

  I turned. Looked back.

  Where Lma stood. Where Luminaria died. Where NightSwallow bled. Where Lunaris screamed. Where my company held the line.

  Gone.

  Just rubble. Just ruin. Just red icons and broken buffs and the faint shimmer of respawn particles beginning to flicker on the breeze.

  We’d bought time, but we were running out.

  I felt something move. Someone. Mom.

  Irwen didn’t teleport, no dramatic sparkle, no spell circle fre. She just moved. One moment she was a regal smear in the sky, the next she was in front of me, gold light coiling around her hands like serpents with too many teeth.

  “You did what you could,” she said, voice smooth, even kind. “But it wasn’t enough.” She sounded proud saying that. As if she was gd to see me to build a castle in the sand. But now it was time to pack up things, destroy the castle, and go home.

  “I need to crush any hope your side has remaining,” she said with a sigh, like she was apologizing for canceling a nice brunch. “I must let my demons feel my power. And… we have new demons coming up.”

  My stomach twisted. “I knew you wanted the civilians for something, Mom.” My voice cracked like frost under weight. “But this… this is not right.”

  She shook her head; the runes orbiting her fingers glowing brighter now. “You are right. It isn’t. In a perfect world, the Empire would stay on their nd and not bleed into ours. But this isn’t that world. We live here.” A pause. “And we make decisions.”

  A gold fsh burst from her chest like a sor fre. “And I did mine.” The spell bloomed. Golden, treacherous, beautiful. The sky itself sang with it.

  [Attention! Queen Irwen cast The Final Push During Sunset][The enemy side has +100% attack for the next 10 minutes.]The world bent around her power. But the sky didn’t stay gold. Because then, like a firework punching God in the jaw, red tore through the sky. A pilr of rebellious fme screamed upward, violent, furious, and entirely Lisa.

  “Ohhhh no,” I whispered. “She finished.”

  The fme didn’t arch back down to her. No, it curved. It targeted. And it dove straight for me. “No!” I shouted, waving my arms like I could redirect a warhead. “Told you! Doesn’t stack!”

  [Attention! Lisa, The Rebel Fire cast Eeleim Guarding Fire Protect Us on you]The impact was instant.

  I braced for the colpse. For the explosion. For the messy, painful magical backsh of two buffed spells refusing to py nice.

  But instead? Instead, the crack held. My frost lines wobbled like they were drunk. A little slurred. But then they righted themselves. The air buzzed. My vision danced red and blue at the edges.

  “Wait…” I whispered, blinking as my arms trembled with overloaded energy. “It… works?”

  Because somehow, impossibly… it did.

  Fire didn’t consume the ice. It cloaked it. Wrapped it like a second skin. My mana, limitless and wild, now had teeth.

  [Eeleim Guarding Fire Protect Us]Type: 7-legendaryEffect: Either focus on your primary attribute and increase it by 500%, or increase all attributes by 50%Duration: 60 minutes* you can sacrifice 25% of your mana to buff yourself again, until you have no mana left, or the duration epsedI looked up at Irwen, who was now very much not smiling.

  “Oh Mom,” I said, flexing frost-fmed fingers, voice just a little too gleeful, “I wanna see how you stop me now.”