"Faster, come on!" Cassian shouted over his shoulder. Behind him, a dozen young knights struggled to unload a massive metallic pole from the back of a heavy carriage. Their armour clanged and scraped with each movement as they strained under its weight.
"Straighten it! Careful with the base—there!" he barked.
The knights adjusted their grip and, with a final heave, dropped the pole into the wide hole that had been dug into the dirt. The moment the pole struck the ground, the air hummed with the sound of electricity. Brilliant blue light burst from its surface. Within seconds, the pole extended itself, metallic segments locking into place until the entire structure stood tall, gleaming, and alive with electricity. Another of Miles's amplifiers was now active.
Cassian nodded once, satisfied. "Alright, that's it. Mount up. We're moving."
The knights obeyed immediately, grabbing their reins and vaulting onto their horses. Cassian swung into his own saddle in one smooth motion, his black cloak whipping behind him as he took the lead. He turned his horse toward the open road ahead — the path that cut through the Viscount's lands and toward the Barony that lay northwest of IronPeak.
Dust rose behind the group as their horses thundered forward, the rhythmic pounding of hooves echoing across the countryside. Cassian's mind was already three steps ahead, calculating the timing between their position, Elden's, and Ali's own advance.
At that same moment, many miles away, Elden carried a similar amplifier pole over one shoulder as if it weighed nothing. He approached a pit that had already been dug and, with a single motion, hurled the pole into the hole. The impact sent a deep vibration through the ground. Blue light flared out again.
Thorgar sat nearby on horseback, watching the entire process with his usual scowl. The barbarian's sharp eyes kept flicking upward, squinting through the shifting clouds. Every so often, vast crimson wings broke through the mist above — enormous, majestic, and terrifying. Each beat of those wings rippled the clouds and sent a distant echo of thunder rolling through the valley.
'With the dragon, their level-four knight doesn't stand a chance', Thorgar thought, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement at the thought of the coming slaughter. He was already picturing the Baron's head knight, proud and strong, realising too late how hopeless it would be to fight what was coming.
When Elden was done, he dusted off his hands, nodded once, and climbed into his saddle. The two warriors exchanged a wordless glance of understanding before turning their mounts toward the next target. Behind them, a squad of knights followed in formation, their armour glinting under the dim light of the overcast sky. The signal of the dragon on their chests.
Ali had sent these two strike groups to eliminate the remaining barons under the Viscount's command. Those men had foolishly dispatched most of their forces to join the Viscount's campaign against Ali, leaving their castles undermanned and undefended.
They were sitting ducks now — easy prey for warriors who'd survived countless campaigns.
Meanwhile, back in Obidos…
Melissa sat at the long oak table, quietly eating breakfast with her family. The morning sunlight poured through the tall windows. She was trying — and failing — to hide the small, satisfied smile curling at the corners of her lips. There was a calm radiance around her, an unspoken confidence that hadn't been there before.
When Fiona entered the dining hall, she noticed immediately. One glance was enough. She didn't need to ask. The faint colour on Melissa's cheeks, the looseness in her shoulders, the distant dreamy look in her eyes — it all told her what had happened.
'He finally did it, huh…' Fiona thought with a faint, knowing smile tugging at her lips. But the expression vanished almost instantly as she turned toward the double doors behind her, her brows furrowing.
Something felt wrong.
The castle was too quiet.
Since she had walked down the corridor from the office, she hadn't heard a single maid bustling about. No chatter. No footsteps. No clatter of cleaning tools. Just… silence.
STEP. STEP. STEP.
The sound came faintly from the hallway — slow, uneven footsteps echoing off the marble floor. Fiona turned toward it.
Down the corridor, a maid was approaching. Her uniform was disheveled, her walk unsteady and strange, as if she were learning to move again. The back of her outfit was streaked with blood — not smeared, but in long, deliberate lines.
'This technique is difficult', the maid thought silently as she lifted one trembling hand and pressed it against her face. Her fingers dug into the soft flesh beneath her left eye, and with a subtle push she adjusted the skin upward. The flesh shifted and then snapped back into perfect alignment with the right side of her face — like instant surgery done by sheer will.
The hallway under her told the real story.
Seven maids lay sprawled across the floor, their blood pooling into a dark river that crept between the tiles. Each woman's throat had been slit with terrifying precision — the same deep, horizontal cut, executed with surgical speed. It was the work of a killer with impossible skill.
CREAK.
The doors to the dining hall opened. Fiona stood there, framed in the doorway, her expression unreadable as her eyes locked on the figure before her.
The "maid" froze mid-step. For a moment, neither woman moved. Then Fiona's gaze flicked downward, catching the subtle motion at the assassin's sleeve — the faint metallic glint as a thin knife slid silently into her palm.
"Hello, Lady Fiona," the maid said first, her voice smooth and mocking, a wicked smile spreading across her stolen face.
"You're disgusting," Fiona said flatly, her voice cutting through the still air of the blood-stained corridor. "Wearing a young girl's face. I've heard of your people before — a guild of assassins who disguise themselves by wearing the skin of their victims…"
There wasn't a shred of fear in her tone. No tremor. No hesitation. Only icy calm.
That calm — that utter lack of fear — unsettled the assassin more than any weapon could have. Inside, the "maid" felt her pulse quicken. 'Why isn't she afraid? Why does she sound so certain?' Fiona's quiet confidence was gnawing at her nerves, breaking the rhythm she was trying to maintain.
"You are well informed, I see," the assassin replied, her smile twitching. "Are you buying time for help?"
She took a deliberate step forward, her bare feet leaving faint, wet prints of blood behind her. Her eyes flicked past Fiona toward the back of the hall — toward Melissa and Oliver, who stood frozen near the table, shielding Grace behind them.
"Your lord isn't here," the assassin continued, her voice dripping with malice. "The group of fools aren't here either. I killed your knight, and the other one is working at the town gates right now. The dragons are far from here. So tell me—"
Another step forward. Another grin spreading across that half-peeled face. The skin on her cheek had started to slip, revealing a sliver of the darker flesh underneath.
"—who is left to save you?" she finished, a sharp giggle bubbling in her throat as the mask of her false face nearly fell off.
Fiona didn't flinch.
Instead, she smiled — soft, radiant — as the sunlight filtered through the window beside her, hitting her golden hair and making her look for a brief moment like an angel descending into a nightmare.
"A sweet kid named Miles," Fiona said, her voice light, almost playful.
The assassin's smile faltered. "What—?"
SLICE SLICE SLICE SLICE SLICE SLICE SLICE SLICE
The sound came like a whisper — no louder than the rustle of silk — and then it was over.
Before the assassin could even blink, her body fell apart into pieces. Perfect, surgical pieces. Blood splattered in the air like red rain, painting the walls and streaking the polished floor. Her body collapsed into a pile of sliced flesh — eight chunks of meat, twitching in a widening pool of crimson.
All around Fiona, from the corners of the corridor, the shadows came alive.
Metal spiders materialised, their sleek black carapaces glinting with faint blue lights. Each spider extended a narrow blade from its back — blades so thin they seemed like shards of moonlight. The air vibrated faintly from the mechanical hum of their movements.
The small automatons retracted their blades and scuttled toward the remains of the assassin. Six of them stabbed their pointed legs into the corpse, impaling the separate chunks of flesh. Then, with jerky precision, they began dragging the remains away down the corridor — an eerie, grotesque procession of metal and blood.
The seventh spider stopped just before Fiona's feet. Its small, glassy eyes glowed a faint electric blue as it looked up at her.
"I've never been called a sweet boy before," came Miles's robotic voice through the spider.
Fiona's expression softened immediately. She crouched down, the hem of her blue dress soaking up the blood on the floor without a care. Her reflection shimmered faintly in the red puddle beneath her.
"Well, you have now," she said gently, smiling at the small machine. "You're the sweetest boy I know, Miles."
For a moment, there was silence — only the faint hum of circuits and the quiet dripping of blood.
Miles didn't respond. The spider tilted slightly, as if processing her words, then sprang upward to the ceiling. Its metallic body shimmered and vanished as its cloaking system activated, disappearing into thin air.
"What… was that?" Oliver finally managed to ask, his voice cracking as he stepped forward from the dining hall doorway. His eyes darted from the streaks of blood to the faintly smoking corridor.
Far away — at the tree line of the Beast Forest east of Obidos — a hooded man stood leaning against an enormous tree. Two horses grazed lazily beside him, tied to the thick roots. He glanced up at the sky, squinting at the light breaking through the branches.
"She's late," he muttered under his breath.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The words had barely left his mouth before three massive explosions erupted around him, engulfing everything in a blinding wave of fire and dirt. The blast tore through the clearing, shredding the man and his horses into nothing but dust and crimson mist.
A drone, hovering high above, recorded everything in perfect clarity — its lens glinting like a cold, unfeeling eye.
Back in Eagle's Valley, the yellow spear screamed through the air, closing in fast on the hill where Ali stood. The wind shrieked with its passing, distorting the air around it into a golden blur.
Then — BOOM — a shockwave burst outward from Ali's body, shaking the ground beneath his feet. A thick, black aura erupted from his arm, spiralling violently around him like a living storm. The energy wrapped around his red lightsaber, devouring the crimson light until the weapon itself transformed.
The elegant saber elongated and darkened, reshaping into a massive black great-sword etched with veins of red energy. The weapon pulsed in his hand, hungering for release.
Ali swung it down in a single, clean motion — a swing so fast it left a trail of black light cutting through the air.
A ten-meter arc of condensed darkness roared forward, ripping the air apart as it collided with the incoming spear.
TSSSSSSS
The space between them crackled with pressure so intense the sound itself shattered.
CRACK! BOOOOOOOM!
The collision detonated with cataclysmic force. Black and yellow aura exploded outward in every direction, tearing through the valley and splitting the ground into deep, smoking trenches. The shockwave reached the distant hills, forcing some knights to steady themselves else they fall.
"Now," Ali said calmly, his voice steady amid the chaos.
Behind him, Kynari stepped out from the shadows, she lifted her gaze toward the sun above.
Ali vanished — his body exploding from its position like a bullet of darkness — and in the same instant, the Viscount snapped his fingers. The ring on his middle finger melted away, reshaping itself into a gleaming golden spear that materialised in his hand.
"GRAND SHADOW: ECLIPSE!" Eryndis shouted from the top of the hill, her voice echoing like thunder.
The ground trembled violently. Spirit energy burst from the soil in great black streams, coiling upward into the sky. They converged into a vast, pulsating sphere — and then detonated.
A tidal wave of shadow expanded outward, blanketing the sun itself.
Within moments, the world went dark. The valley — the hills — everything within several kilometers — was drowned in absolute, pitch-black night.
"You have an hour," Eryndis said, her voice cold and detached as her body dissolved into the surrounding darkness. She had just used up all the Spirit she had gained from Ali last night, enough to cast an incantation of this scale, a dark elf secret used to fight in the day and gain the advantage of the shadows.
"More than enough," Seraphina replied, her own eyes shifting into their jewel-like crimson form.
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