The ambush began before the bells could ring.
Aethric felt it first not as danger, but as misalignment. Mana across the valley buckled inward, compressing as though a hand had closed around the land itself. The sensation rippled through him like a familiar scar aching before a storm.
"Too many," he said quietly.
Nyra looked up from the road. "Cultists?"
"Yes," Aethric replied. "And something they believe will protect them."
The village of Hollowmere lay below wooden homes clustered tightly around a central shrine, smoke curling lazily from chimneys. Ordinary. Unimportant. Exactly the kind of place the Hollow Sovereign's servants preferred.
Because it would hurt.
The first spell struck the outer fields.
A wave of warped mana tore through the crops, blackening wheat in a perfect arc. Screams followed villagers scattering as robed figures emerged from the tree line, dozens of them, chanting in fractured unison.
Nyra's breath caught. "There are so many."
Aethric stepped forward.
"Stay behind me," he said. "And watch."
The cultists unleashed their opening barrage: hex-fire, void-laced bindings, and corruptions stitched together from stolen grimoires. Sloppy. Desperate. Powerful only in quantity.
Aethric raised his staff.
The battlefield answered.
The ground hardened instantly, stone veins surfacing beneath the soil, forming invisible barriers that redirected incoming spells skyward. Fire twisted into harmless light. Void unravelled into inert ash.
Not blocked.
Reassigned.
Aethric extended his awareness outward, claiming the field not through domination, but declaration. Every inch of space became defined, categorised, and controlled.
He moved once.
Where his foot touched the ground, a lattice of control spread outward like ripples on water.
Cultists charged.
They never reached him.
Gravity shifted subtly, not crushing, not dramatic, just enough to misalign balance and intent. Blades struck too early. Spells discharged too late. Every coordinated assault dissolved into chaos.
Nyra stared, stunned.
He's not fighting them, she realised.
He's conducting them.
Aethric lifted two fingers.
A dozen cultists froze mid-motion, their spells suspended inches from release.
"Your doctrine is flawed," Aethric said calmly, his voice carrying effortlessly across the field. "You believe the Hollow grants power freely."
The cultists screamed and forced their magic forward.
Aethric closed his hand.
Their spells collapsed inward, devouring themselves. The backlash knocked them unconscious, not dead.
He had chosen restraint.
For now.
From the rear, robed figures bearing etched sigils stepped forward, Anchors. Their presence stabilised the corrupted mana, reinforcing the cult's formation.
Nyra felt the hum inside her chest react violently.
"Aethric," she warned. "Those symbols, they're feeding something."
"Yes," he said. "And now we remove them."
He struck the ground with his staff.
The battlefield is segmented.
Invisible lines snapped into place, dividing the cult's formation into isolated pockets. Each Anchor found itself cut off, its supporting mana severed with surgical precision.
Aethric moved again, this time too fast for Nyra to track.
Anchors fell one by one, not slain, but disconnected, their sigils unravelling as the hierarchy they relied upon rejected them.
The cult panicked.
"Hold the formation!" one of them shouted. "The Hollow sees us!"
Aethric paused.
"Hollow," he repeated softly. "Is that what it calls itself now?"
A ripple of fear passed through the cultists.
One laughed hysterically, broken. "You're too late, Archmage! This world is already measured! The Sovereign comes through us!"
Nyra flinched as the hum surged again.
Aethric felt it too.
Something vast stirred beyond the field, not present, but approaching. A pressure like a horizon bending inward.
He raised his staff once more.
"This ends," he said.
He spoke a word of authority, not a spell, but a correction.
The cult's remaining magic collapsed simultaneously. Void drained into nothingness. Corrupt constructs disintegrated. Those still standing fell to their knees, unconscious as the battlefield returned to silence.
No explosion.
No ruin.
The village remained intact.
Nyra exhaled shakily. "You… you wiped them out."
"No," Aethric replied, gaze distant. "I removed their relevance."
He turned toward the treeline, eyes narrowing.
The pressure intensified.
"This was never meant to stop me," he said. "It was meant to delay."
Nyra's blood ran cold. "Delay for what?"
Aethric did not answer immediately.
Far beyond the village, beyond sight, beyond borders, something vast shifted its attention.
A presence older than the cult. Older than the current world order.
Aethric felt it brush against his awareness like a continent moving beneath the sea.
He tightened his grip on the staff.
"The cult is finished," he said quietly. "But the Hollow Sovereign is no longer acting through proxies."
Nyra swallowed. "Then what comes next?"
Aethric looked toward the darkened horizon.
"Now," he said, "the real enemy begins to move."
And somewhere in the unseen depths of the world, a greater force turned its gaze fully toward them for the first time since the First Era.
The cult's full-scale ambush is crushed with absolute battlefield control, but Aethric realises the attack was merely a delay tactic. A far greater presence beyond cults and agents has begun to advance.