My team was shattered. Rina, our heart, was a bisected corpse. Eric, our wall, was a headless monument to our failure. We were not just defeated; we had been annihilated, our victory feast turned into our own funeral pyre by a pack of laughing hyenas.
For a long, horrifying moment, my remaining teammates were frozen. They were statues of shock and disbelief, their minds unable to process the sheer, brutal speed of our downfall. Masha's face was a pale, bloodless mask of horror. Jin's sword arm hung limp at his side, his eyes wide and unseeing. Talia had simply vanished into the shadows, a ghost retreating from a nightmare too terrible to face. They were broken.
And then, the horror curdled. The shock shattered. And what was left was a pure, undiluted, and utterly incandescent rage.
The first to break the spell was Lana.
A sound, low and guttural, tore its way from her throat. It was not a scream of fear, but a snarl of pure, animalistic fury. She had been crawling, a wounded, broken thing. But now, she rose. She used her staff as a crutch, her shattered knee screaming in protest, but she got to her feet. Her wild, amethyst eyes, once filled with a desperate plea, now burned with a light that was more terrifying than any dragon's fire.
Lucien, still savoring his victory, still toying with me as I lay trapped in the thorny vines, made the mistake of turning his back on her.
With a roar that was pure madness, Lana launched herself forward. She was no longer a beautiful, wounded girl. She was a tempest, a whirlwind of vengeful fury. She swung her Verdant Iron Staff not like a mage, but like a berserker, a single, two-handed, horizontal strike aimed at Lucien's head.
The blow, fueled by every ounce of her remaining strength and a maniac's rage, connected with a sound like a thunderclap. Lucien was sent flying, tumbling through the air for a dozen meters before crashing into a pile of dragon bones with enough force to shatter them.
The spell of inaction was broken. The dam of horror burst, and a flood of vengeance was unleashed.
Erica, who had been on her knees, her face a mask of tear-streaked shock, now rose, her eyes no longer human. They were twin suns of pure, white-hot plasma. "YOU!" she shrieked, her voice a sound of tearing metal, and she pointed a trembling finger at the spot where Lucien had been. A massive, unstable fireball, the size of a boulder, erupted from her hand.
It never reached its target. The boy with the vine tattoos, Riven, stepped forward, a bored expression on his face. He slammed his hand on the ground, and a thick, thorny wall of interwoven vines erupted from the stone, intercepting the fireball. The explosion was immense, but the living shield absorbed it, the vines charring and burning but not breaking.
Lucien climbed out of the rubble, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth, his manic smile gone, replaced by a look of furious disbelief. He had been hit. He had been hurt.
Erica and Lana didn't give him a moment to recover. They charged, a twin-tailed comet of fire and fury, their only thought to protect me, to avenge me. They became a wall of chaos between me and our tormentors.
That was the signal for the rest of the war to begin.
Masha, her face a pale, grim mask of cold fury, her eyes locked on the plant-wielder, Riven. "You," she whispered, and the ground around him began to flash-freeze, the cold so intense it cracked the very stone.
The two assassins of their group, the one with the predator's eyes, Draven, and the one who could form bone armor, Garron, moved to intercept our own. But Talia was already there, a phantom of vengeance emerging from the shadows, her Viper's Kiss daggers a blur of poisoned steel aimed at Draven. Jin, with a roar of pure, guttural rage for his fallen shield-brother, met Garron's charge head-on, his gauntlets and sword a storm of righteous fury.
The last of their team, the feral-looking boy named Thorne, let out a wild whoop and charged toward Kael, who stood his ground, his face pale but his eyes glowing with a silver, mimetic light.
The battlefield, once a site of our victory, then our execution, was now a chaotic, swirling melee, a desperate, final battle for survival.
And I… I was still trapped. The vines held me fast. My magic was sealed. But in the chaos, as Lucien's team was forced to split their attention, I felt a flicker. The oppressive, magic-dampening aura that had crippled me seemed to weaken, to lose its focus. The silver-haired boy, Veyrion, was backing away from the main fight, a look of concentration on his face, but it was clear his skill required immense focus, a focus that was now being shattered by the all-out war that had just erupted.
It was my only chance. Running was not an option. Surrender was death. The only path forward was through them.
I closed my eyes, ignoring the searing agony in my shoulder, and reached for the single summon I knew I could call, the one whose loyalty was absolute, the one who was the cornerstone of my lie and now the foundation of my last hope.
"Edgar," I whispered into the silence of my own mind.
This time, it worked. The connection, once dead, sparked to life. The pure, dark silhouette of my loyal analyst materialized beside me, its form wavering but present. The vines that held me were a physical restraint, but my summons were a power of the soul.
"Appraise them," I commanded. "All of them. Now."
The data flooded my mind, a torrent of terrifying, world-breaking information that made my blood run cold.
1. Veyrion
Skill: Arcane Silence (formerly Magic Seal)
Role: Anti-mage specialist who disables spells and skills.
Skill Description: Silences a target, preventing any magical or skill use for 5 minutes. Has a significant cooldown.
2. Lucien
Skill: Sanguine Dominion (formerly Blood Control)
Role: Blood manipulator with precision weapons and fluid attacks.
Skill Description: Forms blood into piercing or slashing constructs that can change trajectory mid-flight.
3. Thorne
Skill: Feast of the Beast (formerly Beast Mode)
Role: Feral warrior who consumes creatures for short bursts of raw power.
Skill Description: Gains beast-like traits (claws, enhanced speed, heightened senses) for 30 seconds after devouring monster remains. Cannot stack.
4. Riven
Skill: Verdant Grasp (formerly Nature Spike)
Role: Terrain controller who uses plants to bind, pierce, or trap foes.
Skill Description: Summons vines, roots, or branches from the ground for battlefield control.
5. Draven
Skill: Predator's Eye (formerly Hunter's Focus)
Role: Assassin or hunter who excels in burst reflex and awareness.
Skill Description: Temporarily heightens reflexes and perception for perfect strikes or evasion.
6. Garron
Skill: Ironbone Mantle (formerly Bone Armor)
Role: Defensive fighter who hardens himself with summoned bone plating.
Skill Description: Forms bony armor over vital areas to reduce incoming damage.
I looked at their skills, at the perfect, terrifying synergy of their team. An anti-mage, a blood-assassin, a berserker, a terrain-controller, a reflex-master, and a walking fortress. They were not just a team; they were a living weapon, each part designed to complement the others. They were cheats. All of them. And we were injured, exhausted, and hopelessly outmatched.
Yet, my team was fighting. They were fighting with the fury of the damned, with the courage of those who had nothing left to lose. They were fighting for me.
I looked at my own body, at the vines that held me, at the stump of my shoulder where my arm used to be. I looked at my severed arm lying on the ground, its fingers still wrapped around the hilt of my black sword. And then I looked at the battle raging around me.
Lana and Erica were a storm of iron and fire, their combined, chaotic power forcing Lucien onto the defensive, his blood-sword a desperate, ruby shield against their onslaught. Masha was a goddess of winter, her ice clashing with Riven's vines, a battle of nature's two most implacable forces. Talia was a phantom, her poisoned daggers a blur against Draven's supernaturally fast reflexes, a duel of two perfect assassins. Jin, a roaring bastion of pure, physical force, was hammering against Garron's bone armor, each blow a thunderclap of defiance. And Kael, having copied Jin's raw strength, was locked in a brutal, feral brawl with the beast-like Thorne.
They were fighting. They were dying. But they were fighting.
And I, their leader, their tyrant, their god, would not just lie here and watch. I had a promise to keep. A happy end to claim. And I would carve a path to it through the bones of anyone who stood in my way.