The maintenance of Amari's chain weapon required meticulous attention—each link needed individual inspection for stress fractures, the weighted blades at both ends needed edge alignment verification, and the connection points where chain met blade housing demanded particular scrutiny. He'd been working for forty-seven minutes in his assigned quarters, a small room he shared with two other trainees, both currently at evening meal. The weapon lay disassembled across his bunk: three meters of chain in coiled sections, both blades detached, small pot of mineral oil for rust prevention, cloth for cleaning.
His torso was bare—easier to work without fabric catching on chain links—and he'd been absorbed in checking the seventh section when the sound hit.
Not an explosion. Worse.
The barrier's mana field distorting under concentrated assault produced a resonance that most people couldn't consciously identify but felt in their bones—a frequency that made teeth ache and chest cavities vibrate. Amari's head snapped up. The oil pot tipped, spilling across stone floor. He was already moving, abandoning the disassembled weapon, grabbing only the twin daggers he kept as backup—shorter, cruder, but functional.
The alarm bell started ringing three seconds later.
He pushed through the door shirtless, bare feet on stone, into corridor chaos. People running—some toward armory, some toward designated defensive positions, others just running because panic overrode training. A woman carrying medical supplies nearly collided with him. Two men in sleeping clothes stumbled past, one still pulling on boots.
"What's happening?" someone yelled.
"We've been found!" The voice came from near the entrance—one of the perimeter scouts, a man named Petros who'd been on evening patrol rotation. "They're here! The Order found us!"
Amari's first thought was tactical: How many? His second: Where's Commander Voss?
The answer to the second question came immediately—Voss emerged from the command complex already armored, already armed, moving with the controlled urgency of someone who'd prepared for this scenario countless times. His face showed no surprise. Only grim calculation.
"Traitor," Voss said, not to anyone in particular, voice carrying across the gathering crowd. "Has to be. Figure out who later. Right now we fight."
The barrier holder was Magistrate Sera Okonkwo, one of the six council members who governed Sanctuary's strategic decisions. Her Uncos—Aegis Weaving—allowed her to create and maintain large-scale protective barriers by threading mana through spatial coordinates, essentially turning empty air into solidified defensive structures. The barrier surrounding Sanctuary had been her work, maintained constantly for the past eight months, a dome three hundred meters in diameter that rendered the entire settlement invisible from outside—appearing as nothing but a still lake to anyone who didn't know the precise entry coordinates.
But constant maintenance meant constant mana expenditure. Sera had been operating at approximately sixty percent of her normal combat capacity for months. And now someone was hitting her barrier with concentrated artillery-grade Uncos attacks.
Amari reached the eastern perimeter as the second assault wave struck. The barrier rippled—visible distortion like heat waves, cracks of light spreading from impact points where hostile mana met defensive structure. Through the translucent dome he could see them: Order soldiers. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Hard to count through the barrier's distortion, but the formations were clear—professional military arrangement, multiple units, siege equipment.
Commander Voss reached the barrier's edge where Sera stood, one hand pressed against the translucent surface, sweat already soaking through her shirt despite the evening cold. She was forty-three, broad-shouldered, with graying hair tied back and the kind of weathered face that came from decades of combat experience.
"How long?" Voss asked.
"If they keep hitting like this?" Sera's jaw clenched as another impact reverberated through the barrier. "Ten minutes. Maybe twelve. After that I can't guarantee structural integrity."
"Can you collapse it on command? Controlled drop?"
"Yes. But the moment it's down, we're exposed."
Voss turned to address the gathered Liberators—approximately two hundred and thirty people, combat-ready or close to it, spreading across the eastern perimeter. Amari recognized most: veterans like Erik and Thane from his first mission, younger fighters like Lena who'd been training alongside him, support staff who'd grabbed whatever weapons they could find.
"Listen!" Voss's voice cut through the chaos. "They found us. Doesn't matter how right now—we deal with that later. What matters: they think we're trapped. They think the barrier makes us sitting targets."
Someone outside—amplified voice, probably artifact-enhanced—began speaking: "Insurgents of Sanctuary. This is General Matthias Crane of the Order's Fourth Directorate. You are surrounded by three battalions comprising four hundred and twenty soldiers. Your barrier cannot hold indefinitely. Surrender immediately and casualties will be minimized. Resist and—"
"Yeah, yeah, we'll all be executed, blah blah." Voss pulled something from his belt—a communication artifact they'd stolen three weeks ago during a supply raid. He activated it, his voice now matching Crane's amplification. "General Crane. This is Commander Marcus Voss. Appreciate the offer but we're going to have to decline. See, we've got one of these fancy talking devices too. Stolen it off your boys. Works great."
Silence from outside. Then: "Your confidence is misplaced, Commander."
"Maybe. But here's the thing—you're thinking we're trapped in here with you. We're thinking you're trapped out there with us. Because in about thirty seconds, we're dropping this barrier and coming out. Hope your boys are ready."
Voss killed the artifact. Turned to his people. "They expect us to defend from inside. We're going to charge. Hit them before they're set for offensive engagement. Sera drops the barrier, we flood out in three-wave formation. First wave hits their front line with heavy combat Uncos—break their formation. Second wave exploits gaps—fast strikers, high mobility. Third wave handles support and extraction for wounded. Questions?"
No one spoke. Some looked terrified. Others eager. Amari felt his heartbeat accelerate—not fear exactly, but something sharper. Anticipation.
Bjorn emerged from the crowd, fully armed now, his single arm carrying a massive war axe. "Amari! You're wave two. Fast strikers. That chain weapon ready?"
"Disassembled. I've got daggers."
"Then use the damn daggers. Stay mobile, watch for openings, and for fuck's sake don't try to be a hero. You're still a trainee."
Voss raised one hand. "Sera. On my mark."
The Magistrate nodded, both hands now pressed against the barrier, mana flowing visible as golden light through her fingers.
"First wave—ready!"
Twenty fighters moved forward: the council's heavy hitters. Bjorn. A woman named Kara whose Titan Strength Uncos made her capable of lifting siege equipment. A man called Forge whose metal manipulation could turn any battlefield into a weapon. Others Amari recognized by reputation if not name.
"Second wave—ready!"
Amari moved into position. Sixty fighters, mostly younger but trained, all carrying speed-focused Uncos or close-quarters weapons. Lena was there, looking pale but determined. Erik. Thane. Others from his cohort.
"Third wave—hold for my signal!"
The remaining forces: medical, ranged support, and reserve fighters who'd cover retreat if necessary.
Voss drew his sword—a straight blade, single-edged, worn from decades of use. His Uncos wasn't flashy: Combat Prescience, the ability to read tactical situations two to three seconds ahead of real-time. Made him almost impossible to surprise, nearly unbeatable in duels.
"Drop it!"
Sera released. The barrier collapsed—not shattering, but dissolving like mist in sunlight, the mana structure unweaving across three hundred meters in less than two seconds.
And they charged.
The first clash was immediate and brutal.
Bjorn hit the Order's front line like a ballistic projectile, his Berserker Fury Uncos flooding his system with combat enhancement that made him faster, stronger, and nearly immune to pain. The war axe took someone's head clean off—arterial spray painting the grass red. He spun, kicked another soldier in the chest hard enough to collapse ribs, brought the axe down through a third man's shoulder and kept pushing until he hit spine.
Kara grabbed a soldier by the leg and swung him like a club into three of his companions. Bones broke. Bodies flew. She dropped the corpse and charged forward, each step leaving boot-prints in stone.
Forge slammed both hands into the ground. Metal—weapons, armor, belt buckles, anything ferrous within twenty meters—responded. Swords ripped from scabbards and turned on their wielders. Armor plates constricted, crushing the soldiers wearing them. One man's helmet collapsed inward with a wet crunch.
The Order soldiers responded with professional discipline—formation tightening, ranged Uncos users falling back to provide covering fire. Someone with fire manipulation sent a column of flame toward Kara; she walked through it, skin blistering but not stopping. Another soldier with earth Uncos created a wall to block Bjorn's advance; he shattered it with two axe strikes.
Voss's voice cut through the chaos: "Second wave—now!"
Amari ran.
The battlefield was already carnage—bodies on both sides, blood turning grass muddy, screaming from wounded mixing with combat shouts. He saw an opening: three Order soldiers clustered around a Liberator with a spear, trying to flank. Amari accelerated, both daggers in reverse grip, and hit them from the side.
First soldier didn't see him coming—dagger through the kidney, angled upward into lung. Amari used the falling body as cover, rolled past the second soldier's sword swing, came up behind him and opened his throat. The third managed to turn, raising a short blade to block, but Amari was already inside his guard—dagger punching through the gap between chest plate and helmet, finding the soft tissue of armpit where major arteries ran close to skin.
Three men down in four seconds.
He kept moving. The battlefield wasn't like training—it was louder, more chaotic, harder to track individual threats. But his mind processed it mechanically: threat assessment, priority targeting, movement prediction. A soldier with strength-enhancement Uncos charged him; Amari waited until the last second, sidestepped, and let the man's momentum carry him past. Hamstring slash as he went by. The soldier collapsed, screaming.
Another opening—two Order soldiers trying to pin down Erik, whose barrier Uncos was cracking under concentrated assault. Amari hit them from behind: one dagger through the base of the skull, instant kill. The second soldier turned faster than expected, blade catching Amari across the ribs—shallow cut but painful. Amari ignored it, got inside the man's reach, drove the dagger up through the soft tissue under the jaw into brain cavity.
Erik nodded thanks and moved to support someone else.
Lena was twenty meters away, using her plant Uncos to grow thorned vines that wrapped around soldiers' legs and pulled them down. She looked terrified but functional. One soldier broke through her defenses; Amari threw a dagger—not his preferred tactic but necessary—and caught the man in the throat. Lena glanced at him, wide-eyed, then kept fighting.
The battle became rhythm: identify target, move, strike, confirm kill, move again. Amari's mind was clear—clearer than normal conversation, clearer than training. This was what he was good at. This made sense in ways nothing else did.
A soldier with weapon-enhancement Uncos—making his spear cut through armor like cloth—nearly took Amari's arm off. Amari dropped flat, rolled under the thrust, came up inside the spear's reach. The soldier tried to headbutt him; Amari took it on the shoulder instead of face, drove both daggers into the man's stomach and twisted.
The Order's formation was breaking. First wave had shattered their front line, second wave was exploiting the chaos, and their command structure—built for siege warfare, not open-field melee—was collapsing into confused pockets of resistance.
Commander Voss was in the center of it, sword moving in economical arcs that left bodies in his wake. His Combat Prescience meant he never wasted movement—every block deflected attacks into other enemies, every strike found gaps in armor, every step positioned him perfectly for the next engagement.
General Crane himself had entered combat—older man, probably mid-fifties, with Lightning Speed Uncos that made him blur between positions. He was dueling Bjorn, both fighters moving faster than most people could track. Bjorn's axe created shockwaves; Crane's lightning-wreathed sword left burn marks on stone. Neither was winning.
Amari killed two more soldiers—one with a dagger through the eye socket, another with a throat slash—and then the Order's retreat signal sounded. A horn blast, three short notes.
The remaining soldiers disengaged with professional discipline, falling back in covered formation, ranged fighters providing suppression while melee troops withdrew. Crane broke from Bjorn with a final exchange that sent both fighters stumbling backward, then disappeared in a lightning-fast retreat.
The Liberators didn't pursue—Voss's voice calling halt, calling formation, calling casualty count.
The battlefield was a slaughterhouse. Bodies everywhere—Order soldiers mostly, but Liberators too. Maybe thirty dead on their side, twice that wounded. The grass was churned mud and blood. The smell was copper and shit and burned flesh.
Amari stood there, both daggers dripping, his torso painted red with other people's blood mixed with his own from the rib cut. His heartbeat was still elevated. His hands weren't shaking.
He felt alive.
Two hours later, after the wounded had been treated and the dead counted and the perimeter re-established with emergency barriers, Voss called assembly. Not the council—everyone. All two hundred-plus Liberators who could walk gathered in Sanctuary's central plaza, faces grim, many still wearing bandages or bloodstained clothes.
Voss stood on the raised platform where announcements were usually made, flanked by the council members. His expression was carved from stone.
"There's a traitor among us."
The crowd's reaction was immediate—gasps, angry shouts, confused questions.
"Quiet!" Voss's voice cracked like a whip. "I said quiet and I meant it."
Silence fell. Tense and fragile, but silence.
"The barrier doesn't just hide us," Voss continued. "It erases knowledge of our location from anyone who doesn't have authorization. You all got that authorization when you took the oath—when you swore to the cause and the barrier recognized you. From outside, Sanctuary looks like a lake. No heat signatures, no mana signatures, nothing. The only way the Order finds us is if someone inside carries a tracking device past the barrier threshold."
He let that sink in. People were looking at each other now—suspicious, scared.
"If you're the traitor," Voss said quietly, "you should be panicking right now. Because you're about to die. Right here. In front of everyone."
More murmuring. Someone in the back tried to run—got three steps before two guards grabbed him. Not the traitor, just terrified. They let him go.
"Magistrate Chen," Voss said.
A small woman stepped forward—maybe forty, East Asian features, wearing simple robes. Amari knew her by reputation: Mind Reader, one of the most invasive Uncos types. She could parse surface thoughts, emotional states, deception markers.
"I'm going to walk through the crowd," Chen said, her voice soft but carrying. "If you're thinking about the traitor, if you're worried someone will accuse you, that's normal. Fear reads differently than guilt. I'm looking for guilt."
She descended from the platform and began moving through the assembled Liberators. People stepped back instinctively—nobody liked having their mind touched. Chen's eyes were half-closed, concentration visible on her face. She passed Amari without pause. Moved through the crowd systematically.
Then she stopped. Her eyes opened fully, locked on someone twenty meters away. A man—maybe mid-thirties, medium height, unremarkable features. Someone Amari vaguely recognized from meals but couldn't name.
"Him," Chen said.
The man bolted. Got five meters before Forge's metal manipulation grabbed every piece of metal on his person—belt buckle, boot clasps, a hidden dagger—and locked them in place. He crashed face-first into stone.
Two guards hauled him upright. He was screaming: "It wasn't my choice! They had my daughter! They said they'd kill her if I didn't—"
Voss walked down from the platform. Slowly. Deliberately. He stopped in front of the man.
"What's your daughter's name?"
"Elena. She's seven. They took her when—"
"Where is she?"
"I don't know! They just said they'd release her if I—"
Voss drew a knife. "Your daughter is already dead. The Order doesn't make deals with traitors. They used her to manipulate you, then killed her the moment you were no longer useful. You know this. Part of you knew it the whole time."
The man's face crumpled. "No. No, they promised—"
"You got thirty-seven people killed today," Voss said. "Good people. People who trusted you. People who died because you led wolves to our door."
"I didn't have a choice!"
"Everyone has a choice." Voss looked out at the crowd. "Let this be the lesson. Betray the cause, betray your brothers and sisters, and this is what happens. No exceptions. No mercy. We can't afford it."
He grabbed the man by the hair, yanked his head back, and cut his throat. One smooth motion—left to right, deep enough to sever both carotid arteries and windpipe. Blood sprayed. The man gurgled, tried to speak, couldn't. Collapsed when Voss released him.
The commander stood there, holding the bloody knife, while the traitor bled out at his feet. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
"Clean this up," Voss said finally. "And someone check the body for the tracking device. I want to know what model the Order is using these days."
He walked back toward the command complex, leaving the corpse behind.
Amari watched him go. Watched the blood pool spreading across stone. Watched the way people looked at the body—some with satisfaction, some with horror, most with grim acceptance.
This was war. Real war. Not the noble struggle Amari had imagined. Just blood and pragmatism and hard choices that left corpses in their wake.
He found that he didn't mind.
That scared him more than the battle had.