“Garhhhh!”

  The guttural roar shattered the last of the frosted glass lining the courtyard windows. Hochkreuz ducked to the right, feeling the displaced wind scrape across his cheek as a fist the size of a boulder missed his head by inches. He stepped in and swung upward. The runic greatsword carved clean through Garrick’s forearm, severing it at the elbow.

  The limb hit the frozen mud.

  It did not matter.

  Garrick raised his remaining arm and brought it down like a collapsing tower.

  Hochkreuz slipped under the crushing blow and slashed across the giant’s chest. Hot blood burst outward, hissing in the freezing air. He leapt back before the counterstrike could flatten him.

  Above them, Sera directed a rain of green soul-fire. Hochkreuz zigzagged through the bombardment, his heavy boots cracking the ice. Decades of war guided every movement. The flames he could evade, he dodged. The ones he couldn't, he shattered with the flat of his blade, scattering them into harmless sparks.

  Then darkness devoured the world.

  A deep grinding vibration rolled through the earth. Light vanished. Sound vanished. Even the sense of distance collapsed inward. Communication died in the suffocating void.

  Nyx blinked.

  Darkness was her element. Even here, her vision adjusted, reducing the battlefield to harsh shades of black and white.

  The abyss stared back at her.

  An endless tide of shapes poured from the spreading ink. Tentacles lashed. Jaws snapped. Claws tore through solid stone as if it were wet paper. The sheer volume made her scalp prickle with instinctive fear.

  She moved.

  Mira’s limp body went over her shoulder. She seized Oren by the collar and dragged him toward Garrick.

  “Cover us.”

  The words barely formed. The suppression field swallowed her voice, reducing the shout to a faint vibration in her throat. Sweat soaked her skin as she forced the sound through the crushing silence.

  Garrick felt the vibration.

  He dropped Sera and roared, his flesh swelling outward in violent folds. Muscle and bone layered over one another, rapidly forming a thick, pulsating dome around the squad.

  Nyx collapsed against the frozen ground, her chest heaving. Outside the meat barrier, something vast tore through stone and flesh alike.

  Hochkreuz stood alone in the dark.

  Sight and sound eluded him. Even the ground beneath his boots felt like a lie.

  His instincts screamed.

  He swung blindly.

  The blade struck something impossibly solid. The impact detonated through his arms and hurled him backward. He crashed through wall after wall before slamming to a halt in a storm of dust and splintered stone.

  He forced himself upright.

  A hand gripped his shoulder.

  He twisted to strike, but a voice echoed directly inside his mind.

  “It is me.”

  Mother stood behind him, Ren cradled tightly against her chest.

  “The situation has escalated. We must retreat.”

  Her fingers brushed the back of his head. Soul magic surged into his skull.

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  The world snapped into focus.

  Rendered in stark black and white, the courtyard had become a nightmare. The fortress buckled under an ocean of writhing horrors. Towers folded. Walls cracked like brittle bone.

  “Come with me.” Mother's voice echoed in his mind.

  Hochkreuz looked upon the ruin.

  His home. His daughter’s grave.

  He made his decision.

  “No.”

  Mother's eyebrows furrowed. “This is foolish.”

  Hochkreuz shook his head. “Consider this my penance.”

  He planted his feet and gripped the greatsword with both hands. He drew upon every fragment of his aura, forcing his holy power far beyond mortal limits.

  Golden light erupted from his armor.

  Blood spilled from his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. It seeped from his pores, staining his steel crimson. The raw power tore through his physical vessel from the inside.

  His arms trembled.

  The light flickered.

  A violent cough shook his chest, splattering dark blood across his pristine breastplate.

  He smiled.

  Staring into the crushing dark, tasting iron and ash, he spat out the blood.

  “May God bless this land.”

  The light surged. It stabilized, then flared brighter than the dawn.

  “Evacuate!” Hochkreuz roared.

  His holy aura burned right through the suffocating silence.

  “Follow the light!”

  The surviving Paladins saw him. A single star burning against oblivion.

  Their paralyzed terror broke. They ran. They stumbled through the rubble and dragged the wounded, guided entirely by the blazing silhouette of their Marshal.

  The swarm, attracted by the light, poured at Hochkreuz.

  An avalanche of vantablack limbs and jagged maws crashed over him. Hochkreuz swung the greatsword in a devastating arc. The runic blade smashed into a geometric jaw, shattering the shadow-teeth into mist. A spiked tentacle the size of a battering ram slammed into his ribs. Armor cracked. Ribs splintered. Hochkreuz kept his footing. He caught the appendage with his bare hand, his holy aura burning the void flesh, and hurled it back into the tide.

  Claws tore at his pauldrons. Faceless monstrosities buried him under their crushing weight. A burst of blinding gold blasted them away. He became a whirlwind of divine wrath. He could not kill the abyss. The severed limbs reformed instantly. The shattered teeth regrew. But he did not need to kill them. He only needed to be the loudest, brightest prey in the dark. He roared, cleaving a three-story horror in half, bathing in his own blood and the ash of nightmares.

  Mother reached the edge of the shadowed domain.

  She stopped.

  Behind her, the golden star held back the tide.

  Her foot shifted. She had the power to save him. Her soul magic could easily pull him from the brink.

  Then she felt the fragile weight on her shoulder. The shallow, broken breathing of the last sapling. Saving the Marshal meant abandoning the future.

  Her hand tightened around Ren.

  The choice physically hurt.

  An image flashed in her mind. Two children racing through a sunlit courtyard. Blessed. Promising. Unbreakable. War took his wife, then his daughter. Now, it claimed him.

  “Your story will not be forgotten,” she whispered.

  She turned her back on the light and stepped into the blizzard.

  Dawn came.

  The Northern Bastion was gone.

  In its place lay a vast crater of pulverized stone, shattered timber, and frozen blood.

  Hundreds of Paladins ringed the perimeter. Their formation remained disciplined, but their composure had entirely shattered.

  A veteran knight dropped to his knees and vomited his meager rations into the snow. An old priest clutched his holy symbol, his prayer dissolving into a broken sob.

  No one stepped forward. The lingering dread held them firmly in place.

  Far from the holy army, Garrick trudged through the deep snow. He had shrunk to the size of a carriage, moving heavily on all fours like an exhausted beast.

  Nyx sat atop his broad back, gripping the unconscious forms of Elira and Mira.

  Oren sat near the giant’s shoulder. His lute was cracked. He hummed a quiet, slow melody, plucking at the snapped strings with a heavy sigh.

  Sera sat in silence at the center, staring blankly at the smoking crater that had once been her home.

  Elira groaned.

  Her eyelids fluttered open. Her head throbbed with a dull rhythm. Ash coated her tongue. The freezing wind bit at her face as she slowly pushed herself upright.

  She looked back over Garrick’s shoulder.

  Only ruin remained.

  She yawned softly.

  Her muscles felt loose and relaxed. The screaming void inside her head had finally gone quiet. Fragments lingered in her memory. Geometric teeth. Crushing pressure. Endless dark.

  Nyx seized her violently by the collar.

  “You’re finally awake,” the assassin hissed, her shark teeth bared. “What the hell was that? You almost got us crushed.”

  Elira met Nyx’s glare. It was anger at inconvenience, nothing more. The others ignored it. They had nothing left to give.

  Elira looked down at her own hands.

  Horror evaded her. Guilt never came.

  Only a deep, hollow peace remained. It had been a sweet dream.