The battle was gory, but Leon saw hope.
They were holding the line. The wall of soldiers stood firm, shields locked, weapons flashing. Whenever a breach opened, reserves flooded in to plug it. The formations cycled through their rotations- Red, Blue, Green, White- each activation buying precious seconds, precious lives.
The monsters writhed beyond the defensive line, pressing forward, dying in droves, but making no headway. Bodies piled up so high they formed new obstacles. The killing ground was earning its name.
Leon allowed himself to think it: This might actually work.
He gave a nod of confirmation to one of the mages beside him- a communication specialist wearing a violet armband. The mage nodded back, then closed his eyes, focusing. His lips moved silently, sending a message through their magical communication.
The response came a second later.
The mages posted on the four towers beyond the wall of warriors sprang into action. They activated the formations Leon had pre-installed- massive spell circles carved directly into the tower platforms, designed for maximum destructive output.
Several blasts rang out simultaneously.
The monsters, squeezed together in their mindless rush toward the defenders, made for easy targets. The bombardment was devastating. Hundreds fell in the first volley. Thousands in the sustained onslaught that followed.
Leon had posted over a hundred mages on those four towers- twenty-five per tower, positioned for maximum impact from their closeness to the gate. They worked in shifts, one half taking potions and recovering while the other maintained continuous bombardment.
It was working exactly as he'd calculated.
The pressure on the soldiers eased immediately. They pushed forward to the edge of the trenches, bellowing as they advanced, cutting down stragglers, reclaiming ground.
"DON'T PUSH FURTHER AHEAD!" a call rang out- Casimir's voice, hoarse but still commanding.
The soldiers halted, readying for the next wave. They held position at the trench line, weapons raised, breathing hard but still standing. Still alive.
Leon raised his head, looking toward the gate.
The numbers had dimmed. Fewer creatures were coming through now. The endless tide was slowing.
Leon felt something in his chest- not quite hope, not yet, but maybe the absence of complete despair.
Then an arm smashed through the gate.
It was over twenty meters long- a limb that defied all reasonable proportions, thick as a tree trunk, ending in a massive three-fingered hand. It gripped the edge of the gate and pulled.
Leon's hope evaporated as he watched the body follow.
The creature that emerged was nightmarish in its wrongness. Its arms were three times longer than its body- a compact, blunt torso maybe seven meters long, that ended in a head with no eyes, no nose, no visible organs at all. Just smooth, armored flesh.
It moved forward by dragging itself with those massive arms, faster than something that size should be able to move. It smashed through its own kind without pause, using them as stepping stones. A trap detonated beneath it with enough force to tear a normal creature into pieces.
It moved forward, completely unscathed.
"FOCUS FIRE!" Vera's voice cracked with strain. "ALL MAGES, TARGET THAT!"
The tower mages turned their attention to it. Spells lanced out- fire, lightning, force. They struck the creature dead-on, explosions blooming across its body.
Some attacks bounced off. Others landed with no visible effect. The creature didn't even slow down.
Behind it, the gate darkened again. Another massive swarm charged through- but Leon noticed something crucial. They stayed away from the long-armed creature. Gave it space. Flowed around it like water around a rock.
They're afraid of it, Leon realized with dawning horror.
The formation shattered.
The new wave of monsters swarmed over the soldiers like a living avalanche. Gaps tore through the defensive line. Men died screaming
The creature swung one massive arm in a wide arc.
The first tower exploded.
Not collapsed- exploded. Stone and wood and bodies flew in all directions. Mages fell from the disintegrating platform, flapping their robes desperately, screaming all the way down until they were absorbed into the mass of monsters below.
Leon gripped the rampart so hard his hands blistered, wooden splinters driving into his palms. He couldn't look away. Couldn't process what he was seeing.
Twenty-five mages. Gone in a single swing.
The creature turned toward the second tower and toppled it with casual ease, like a child knocking over building blocks.
A spell - probably fired by the mages in desperation as they fell- shot from the tumbling mass. It flew wild, off-target, and slammed directly into the ranks of soldiers.
The impact was devastating.
A crater opened in the defensive line. Bodies - or pieces - flew outward from the impact. Leon couldn't tell how many died. Dozens. Maybe more.
The remaining soldiers scrambled, trying to reform, to close the gap, but the monster wave was already on them.
From there, it was a massacre.
Soldiers fell in the hundreds. Some dropped their weapons and turned to flee, throwing the formations further into chaos. The carefully orchestrated defense became a panicked rout.
Lord Casimir's voice rose above the screams: "HOLD THE LINE! HOLD!"
No effect. The soldiers couldn't hold. Not against this. Not against something that could destroy fortified positions with a single swing and ignore every magical attack thrown at it.
Behind the creature, a third tower fell. The thing was methodical now, crawling through the mass of its own kind, getting closer to the final tower. Still unscathed. Still unstoppable.
"The first gate's initial clear cost ten thousand lives."
The words echoed in Leon's memory. Finn's voice, back in the barracks at Castle Ravenna, telling stories he thought were exaggerated.
They weren't exaggerated.
They were going to lose six thousand soldiers today. And they wouldn't be anywhere close to clearing the gate. Not with that creature still standing. Not with the endless tide still pouring through.
There was no hope. No way out. Not as long as that thing kept moving.
It had reached the fourth tower. Leon could see Tomás on the platform, the quiet detection specialist, desperately trying to coordinate an evacuation that wouldn't come in time. He was about to be tossed into that unforgiving mass below.
The creature drew closer-
And flew backward.
The movement was so sudden, so violent, that it took Leon's mind a moment to process it. The creature shot back through the horde like it had been hit by a cannonball, its massive body carving a trench through the packed monsters. It flew all the way back to the gate itself and slammed into the frame with an impact that shook the ground.
Was that a bolt of lightning?
No. Not quite. Something else. Something that had struck the creature square in its featureless face and thrown it back when dozens of direct magical attacks had failed.
Leon stared. The creature wasn't moving.
Was it dead?
A flash of light drew his eyes downward. Among the chaos of the battlefield, monsters were falling. Not from bombardment spells. Not from coordinated attacks.
They were simply... falling. In perfect sequence. A line of death cutting through the horde like someone was drawing a blade through flesh.
Because someone was.
Leon saw her now. The glint of a sword flashing side to side, moving so fast it was almost impossible to track. And at its hilt was an armored figure who moved like a dancer - graceful, precise, every movement flowing into the next without pause.
The Sword Saint had joined the battle.