The Drakkouls' advance did not stop.
Even with the ground broken and the air still vibrating from the impact, they kept coming — some staggering, others untouched, all obedient to an impulse that required no command.
Skýra took the impact head-on.
The shield sank half a palm into the mud, but did not give.
The spear followed immediately, precise, piercing the throat of a Drakkoul that emerged from the left.
"Hold the line," she said, steady, without raising her voice. "They bleed. So they advance like any other."
Kaelir slipped beneath her arm, the daggers appearing only long enough to open tendons before vanishing again.
"They're broken," he said. "But they won't stop."
Rynne spun her body, evading a heavy blow.
The rapier slid cleanly beneath the black ribcage, came out, and she shoved the body away with her foot.
Only then did she speak.
"So that's it," she said, without taking her eyes off the field ahead. "The power of someone chosen by something far too old."
Another Drakkoul advanced.
She drove the blade into its eye. Her tone did not change.
"I thought it would be less," she continued. "Next to Zeph… and what the princess deemed worthy of praise… I thought the rest would just be noise."
Skýra blocked a lateral strike and reset her stance.
"Don't mistake it," she replied. "She hasn't finished showing what she is."
Rynne dodged another blow, her brow tightening.
"There's more?"
Kaelir didn't answer right away.
He stepped back half a pace at the last instant, feeling the wind of a strike that would have crushed his shoulder.
The daggers crossed the Drakkoul's neck immediately after.
Only then did he speak.
"It's not strength," he said, low. "It's recognition."
Rynne hesitated for half a second.
"Recognition of what?"
Skýra stepped forward, the shield opening space, the spear keeping the Drakkouls at bay.
"That creature didn't move by chance," she said. "It moved because it perceived something in her."
A new impact shook the field in the distance.
None of them needed to look.
"Danger," Kaelir finished. "Of the same kind as his."
Rynne tightened her grip on the rapier.
A short smile surfaced — too fast to be comfort.
Rynne rolled the blade once in her hand, adjusting her grip.
"So that's it?" she asked. "We pretend we didn't see… or we move before it reaches us too?"
There was no provocation in her tone. It was a practical question.
Kaelir did not answer.
He watched the field ahead, eyes fixed on the point where the greater impact still made the air vibrate, as if listening to something the others could not hear.
Skýra noticed.
She planted her feet, the shield driven into the ground, the spear braced with precision.
"I know this isn't what you came for," she said, without harshness, but without softening. "And I know it's a lot for a first campaign."
Another Drakkoul fell, pierced by the spear before reaching the line.
Skýra did not look away.
"But the princess is absent," she continued. "And when she is not here… command does not remain empty."
Rynne cast a quick glance at Kaelir.
"And do titles still matter when everything is falling apart?" she asked.
Skýra answered without hesitation.
"They matter when they prevent chaos," she said. "And the highest among us is his."
Kaelir finally spoke.
"I didn't ask for this."
The voice was low, almost swallowed by the sound of battle — but not weak.
Skýra inclined her head slightly.
"No one asks," she replied. "It's assumed."
A few meters behind the line, a human soldier supported on one knee lifted his gaze.
His arm was bleeding. The sword was planted in the mud to keep him upright.
Others did the same.
There was no order.
One straightened first.
Then another.
Then one more — wounded, filthy, exhausted — adjusting their posture like people remembering something forgotten.
Their gazes turned to Kaelir.
Not in search of a promise.
But of direction.
Rynne released a short breath through her nose.
"Great," she said. "Then decide already, brother of the princess."
She raised the rapier, pointing toward the approaching line.
"Because they're not going to wait for you to feel ready."
Kaelir closed his eyes for an instant.
When he opened them, there was no hesitation.
"We hold the line," he said. "We do not advance toward her."
Skýra frowned slightly.
"And if she falls?"
Kaelir answered without raising his voice.
"She won't."
Rynne arched an eyebrow.
"Strange to hear that from someone who says he doesn't recognize strength."
Kaelir looked away for a second — toward the distant impact.
"It's not confidence," he said. "It's the same warning that creature felt."
Brief silence.
Then Rynne smiled again — quick, sharp.
"Alright," she said. "Then we do what we know how to do best."
She stepped forward, blade low, body ready.
"We hold everything that tries to pass."
"And let the big monsters kill each other."
Skýra stepped half a pace forward, closing the formation.
"Line firm," she ordered. "If we fall, we fall standing."
The Drakkouls came.
And they received them.
The field was still intact.
But it was not stable.
Neriah felt it before admitting it.
The water around her — in the ground, in the air, in the fissures of the earth — responded to her… with delay.
Fractions of a second.
Almost imperceptible.
But real.
Each distant impact reverberated inside the field like a belated echo, a return that came too weak, too misaligned.
She kept her eyes half-closed, not from concentration — but because opening them fully would demand more than the field could give back.
Breathing began to require calculation.
Control no longer came as a natural extension of the body.
It came as effort.
She was sustaining three things at once: protection, containment, and the constant pressure that kept the Drakkouls trapped in their own hesitation.
The water obeyed.
But it no longer flowed.
She felt the first error when a drop fell… and did not respond.
Just one.
But it was enough.
Neriah adjusted the field immediately, compressing, reinforcing, pulling deeper — and the world answered with a dull impact, too distant to be external.
It was inside.
She did not fall.
But the field shuddered.
On the other side of the battlefield, Iaso stopped.
Not because he saw something.
But because he knew.
"The moment she began to sustain the field alone…" he said, his voice calm, distant, almost without emotion "…was also the moment this outcome became inevitable."
Lys was already moving.
The blade strapped to his forearm, body leaning forward, eyes fixed on the point where the air still vibrated differently.
"She's pushing beyond the limit," he said, without raising his tone. "And she won't stop on her own."
Iaso watched the field as one watches an event that has already happened.
"At this exact instant," he continued, "her control is still absolute. In twenty-three beats… it will begin to fail at a micro scale. In forty… the field will still exist, but it will cease to protect her."
Lys took another step.
"So it's not a prediction," he said. "It's a warning."
"It's an observation," Iaso replied. "The variable is whether we'll arrive in time."
Lys did not answer.
He was already running.
Back at the center of the field, Neriah felt the second error.
This time, larger.
The field responded… but responded wrong.
The pressure that should have pushed recoiled.
For a minimal instant, the world became too heavy — as if the water were trying to decide whether it was still part of her.
Neriah clenched her teeth.
Forced it.
The field recomposed.
But something inside her gave with it.
She tasted metal before the pain even came.
"Still works," she murmured, more to the field than to herself. "Just a little more."
The water obeyed.
But it no longer sang.
And, for the first time since the combat began, the Drakkouls advanced one step without hesitation.
The field still existed.
But now… it was charging the price.
The impact came like an error in the world.
There was no warning.
There was no fury.
There was weight.
Ghatotkacha advanced.
Not with haste — but with certainty.
The air before him yielded first. Then the water.
Neriah's field answered too late, compressing in an uneven, forced effort, like something being pulled beyond what it could endure.
She raised her arm by instinct.
The water gathered — thick, dense — shaping itself into a curved blade that intercepted the strike.
The shock threw her backward.
Not far.
Enough.
The world spun once.
Just once.
When it returned to place, the second attack was already too close.
Neriah felt the blackout before understanding it.
One empty second.
No field. No water. No sound.
Then — muffled impact.
The water, obedient even in error, closed on its own between her face and the blow, exploding into fragments that burned the skin like shattered ice.
Even so, the impact carried through.
Even reduced.
The sound was dry.
Neriah's body rolled through the mud.
She coughed — and the metallic taste came stronger.
Blood.
She planted a knee on the ground.
The field still existed around her, still pressed, still held the Drakkouls trapped in their own hesitation — even unstable, even fragile.
She spat the blood, drew a deep breath.
Forced her body to respond.
Stood.
Her legs trembled.
Her heart beat out of rhythm.
But the field… remained.
"Still works," she murmured, her voice low, firm, not as hope, but as duty. "They're still fighting."
Her eyes shone.
The field answered — misaligned, imperfect, but alive.
Behind her, Drakkouls retreated half a step, pushed by a pressure that no longer flowed… but still existed.
Ghatotkacha felt it.
Again.
Not pain.
Something worse.
An ancient discomfort.
Incomplete.
Like recognizing something dangerous without being able to name it.
Neriah's heart raced — not from fear, but from effort. The water around her vibrated, unstable, and the field wavered visibly for the first time.
Ghatotkacha advanced again.
Too fast.
Neriah tried to react — and failed.
Her body did not respond.
Her vision fractured into fragments.
She staggered.
Saw, at a distance, Iaso and Lys running toward her — fast, determined.
She knew, without needing to measure, that they would not arrive in time.
The blow came high.
Neriah tried to pull the field.
Failed.
Tried again.
The edges of the world darkened.
That was when the voice came.
Low.
Unhurried.
Without echo.
"Μὴ κινηθῇς."
Neriah did not hear it with her ears.
But she felt the command cut through the place.
The shadows heard.
The shadows on the ground writhed — not like reflections, but like living things. They tried to flee their owners, to spill through the mud, to hide in the fissures of the earth.
They could not.
They were pulled downward.
Pinned.
The pressure fell upon the field like a sky deciding to descend.
Human soldiers felt their knees buckle.
Drakkouls froze mid-advance, limbs trembling under orders the body could no longer obey.
Ghatotkacha stopped.
For the first time.
Not by choice.
Something was there.
Before being seen.
Before being understood.
From atop the wall, the Black Fury felt the smile form before the thought.
Then, he appeared.
The entire field held its breath — even those who could no longer breathe.
He walked. There was no haste.
Each step made the world accept his presence before it was even touched.
The mud yielded in silence.
The rain lost its sound upon touching him.
The shadow behind him dragged — long, deep, wrong — like the trail of something that no longer belonged to the light.
The war still existed.
But now… it was no longer under anyone's control.