The air was thick with smoke and mana.
Luenor pushed himself up, still taut and trembling but on his feet. His ears were ringing from the blast, and his vision was blurred. His chest heaved.
Around him, chaos was unchecked.
To his left, Liassari lay unconscious, head leaning against a mossy stone, her body still but breathing. Hera had crumpled in the grass nearby, having curled around her baby, but she had survived… and seemed.. lifeless.
Everyone else, he thought, was either injured, comatose, or dead.
Everyone except Telmar.
The young elven leader was bellowing order amongst the remnants of the warriors – a handful of survivors now— as he moved, limping on a broken spear. He appeared in charge, even if their lines were unraveling.
And before them stood the beast - the Stone Tyrant. Later, the elders would name it this. For now, it loomed over them like a god of destruction.
Its hide gleamed like iron, layered with shifting plates of stone, its spiked tail dragging behind it like a morning star fused to a mountain. It moved not like a beast, but like a siege engine—grinding forward, unstoppable.
Telmar and his fighters charged again.
The Stone Tyrant roared and lashed its tail, sweeping two elves into the air. They landed hard, one not moving again. Telmar was caught on the shoulder and flung back like a broken doll, crashing through a tree and groaning as he hit the ground.
Luenor winced as he saw Telmar struggle to rise, blood dripping from his mouth. He clutched his side and watched helplessly as his warriors were slaughtered one by one.
The beasts that had earlier swarmed the glade were now gone—driven off by the overwhelming power of the Stone Tyrant. Only elves and silence remained.
Luenor's legs felt weak. He turned, spotting a fallen warrior sprawled beside a splintered log. A bow, still clutched in the elf's cooling hands. A quiver of arrows rested beside him.
Luenor hobbled over and knelt down next to the elf's lifeless body. He bowed his head and placed his hand delicately on the warrior's chest.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "but I need this now."
He worked the bow free with trembling fingers and pulled the quiver over his head, turning toward the beast.
The bow was heavier than he expected—it was made for mana-infused muscles. His arms straining under the draw, but something else was flowing through him.
A pulse.
A glowing.
That last trace of previous mana wave had not left him. It was tapping into his desperation and filling his limbs with just enough strength. He staggered forward, nocking an arrow and raising the bow.
The Stone Tyrant's focus was on the scattered elven warriors.
He pulled. The bow creaked.
And then let go.
The arrow cut through the air, and by divine accident, hit the beast directly in the eye. The arrow lodged deep, and the beast let out an awful, earth-shaking scream.
It turned slowly and murderously towards Luenor.
Its glowing eye now burned in rage.
Telmar, still somewhat splayed on the ground, looked up in horror. "No…"
The beast charged at them, the ground vibrating as it moved. Luenor nocked another arrow, and shot. It bounced uselessly off the beast's armor.
Another.
Another.
Arwin, climbing out of a mound of debris, saw it happening; he surged and swung Faren's blade in an empty-handed attempt to intercept.
The tail came first.
Arwin shrieked as it struck him on the ribs, both launching him sideways and slamming him into the roots of an ancient tree. He did not get up.
Luenor dropped the bow.
He couldn't run.
The beast came with its maw open, fangs bared.
He shut his eyes.
And then—
A whistle of energy.
A glowing green arrow slammed into the flank of the Stone Tyrant, and the mana burst through armor like a raw missile, cleaving open a horrible wound.
The beast howled, stunned mid-charge, staggering as smoke rose from its body.
Luenor opened his eyes wide in shock.
On a glowing white blur, hair flying, cloak snapping—
Thalanar had returned.
Sitting high on top a fully evolved six-star Valdrak, he stood as if a war-god reborn. His bow lit up with forestlight, and his mana already notched another. Valdrak roared beside him, the frosted beast flashed with the crackle of frozen aura, and vengeance.
The battlefield stopped, for just a heartbeat.
Thalanar raised his voice.
"Valen'Dar lives yet."