Night spread like ink over the jagged peaks where Valtross's war camp festered.
Tents stood in tight clusters. Fires flickered, but there was no cheer.
Whispers slithered between soldiers. They spoke of the intercept. Of the flaming death from the sky. Of the skeleton that moved like a god.
They had tried to breach Sanctum once.
They didn't get within ten meters of the wall.
Inside a large obsidian pavilion, Valtross stared at the map in silence.
Behind him, three Candidates argued in hushed, panicked tones.
"We need siege breakers. That gate won't fall to brute force."
"What if we go around—hit the civilians?"
"We already tried. Their forest burned us alive. They saw us before we saw the trees."
Valtross lifted his head.
"Then it's time we stop pretending this is a contest of equals."
He walked toward a stone altar, carved with runes older than human existence. He drew a blade.
The three Candidates recoiled.
"You're not serious—"
"We summon the Gloomshard Pact," Valtross said, pressing the blade to his palm. Blood pooled.
"We pay the cost."
[System Alert: Valtross has activated Forbidden Contract – Tier C+ Summon Access Granted]
→ Gloom-Bonded Reaver x3→ Abyssal Siege Worm (Bound to Pact)→ Morale restored. Control cost increased.
But as the summoning smoke cleared, Valtross could feel something watching. Something that would demand more than blood later.
Arlen stood beside Rael and a pair of Builders, eyes wide as the final missile launcher clicked into its reinforced rail mount on the northern tower.
The tubes shimmered with mana-sealed circuits, Earth-born engineering merged with Sanctum's ambient flow.
"Iden made that?" Arlen asked, low.
"With Kael's mana compression method," Rael replied proudly. "Three weeks ago it was a sketch."
"He's not a tactician. He's a damn force of nature."
Together, they planted Cluster Spike Mines across 200 meters of approach routes, overlapping their detonation zones with thin illusion barriers.
Arlen deployed tremor sensors using Earth blueprints, adjusted with mana attunement glyphs, rigging them to burst with concussive shock if too many enemies stepped near.
As he locked the final sensor plate…
[Class Advancement Triggered – Arlen]→ New Class: Mana-Tech Engineer (Hybrid | Blueprint Channeler)→ Skill Acquired: [Arcane Artillery Calibration] – Improves range and targeting efficiency of mechanical-magical weapons→ Trait: [Schematics from Another World] – Can convert Earth-based designs into functional blueprints with mana infusion
His eyes widened.
"Guess I got promoted."
Rael smirked. "Welcome to Sanctum."
Arlen handed him the refined targeting data.
"Launcher now has a 12% accuracy improvement with my system. And I've got a dozen more designs we can try—trip-detonators, pocket turrets, smart claymores."
Iden looked up from his battle scrolls, impressed.
"Second class?"
"Yeah. I think your chaos rubbed off on me."
They laughed lightly—only briefly.
Because dawn was coming.
And so was war.