The silence lingered too long.
Too still. Too perfect.
Leo's breath had barely begun to settle when the first sound returned—not a roar or a battle cry.
It was the rhythmic clink of metal on stone.
Footsteps. Precise. Controlled.
He looked up, eyes narrowing against the swirling mist.
Figures emerged—not skittering or hunched like goblins or kobolds. These walked tall. Graceful. Almost regal.
They were humanoid—roughly—except their skin was a glossy, chitinous black, and each one had four arms, each limb gripping a sword with curved or serrated blades. Their heads were elongated, eyeless, with slits where mouths should be. They moved in unison. Silently. Fluidly.
The Tower had changed the game.
"New type," Aric called from the left, his voice sharp now—no longer measured. "Watch everything."
Leo didn't have time to respond.
The creatures sprinted forward—faster than the goblins. Faster than Leo expected.
One closed the distance in a blink, blades flashing.
Leo barely got his spear up to parry.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
Four blades struck in a cascade of precision. He deflected the first two, dodged the third, but the fourth scraped his side, ripping cloth and skin.
He fell back, gasping, and thrust his spear forward—only to find air.
The creature had already moved.
He pivoted just in time to block a downward swing, using both hands and planting his feet wide. His spear vibrated violently on impact. The creature's strength was incredible.
There were fewer of them than the goblins.
But it didn't matter.
Leo couldn't hold back anymore.
He drew on everything—his spear forms, the flickers of intent, even the hint of compressed space that once saved his life. He felt the strain in his core as he pushed qi through his system, drawing on fire to fuel speed and space to shift his stance between swings.
But it wasn't enough.
All around him, others fell.
One man tried to shield a teammate and was cleaved through the collarbone. Another stumbled, screamed, and vanished beneath four converging blades. Even coordinated teams broke apart under the relentless grace of these new creatures.
Leo ducked, rolled, lashed out—his spear catching one creature in the leg, staggering it. He struck again, this time driving the spear upward into the chest.
It didn't scream.
It just died—silently.
Then another took its place.
He felt something wet and hot trickling down his arm. Blood. He didn't know how bad.
His lungs burned. His body felt leaden.
And still, he fought.
At the center—
Mira was a blur.
Her fists struck like hammers, enhanced by strength, speed, and desperation. But even she had changed—no longer measured, no longer conserving.
She was fighting.
One creature lunged, and she sidestepped—barely—before driving a palm into its chest and launching it off the bridge.
A second one came. Then a third.
She spun between them, trading blows, but her movements weren't perfect anymore. Her breathing was heavier. Her eyes sharper, more furious.
She grabbed one by the arm, twisted, and shattered its elbow—but a blade scraped across her thigh. She staggered, hissed, and threw the creature off the edge with a snarl.
She wiped blood from her lip and turned to face the next one.
On the left—
Aric's water no longer flowed in graceful ribbons.
It lashed. It snapped. It struck.
He coated his arms in dense, pressurized water, blocking with forearms and countering with whips and spikes.
He drove one creature back with a blast that tore its midsection open.
But a second nearly reached him, its sword slashing across his shoulder before he froze its legs and shattered it with a sweeping kick.
His jaw clenched.
Even he was bleeding now.
And in the midst of it all, Leo staggered back, chest heaving, blood dripping down his arm, knuckles white around the spear shaft.
He saw another flicker—a path.
It vanished too fast.
He was falling behind again.
Leo's vision blurred.
Another blade scraped past his side—he barely turned in time. His spear deflected one strike, then another—but the next slash forced him back a step. Then another. His heels scraped the blood-slick stone.
He was losing ground.
Too fast. Too many. Too clean.
Each of the creatures moved like a master duelist, and he was no longer fast enough to chase paths as they flickered. They were gone before he could even respond.
Another pair came from the flank. He turned just in time to block—but too high. A blade slashed across his thigh. He grunted, falling to one knee, sweat and blood soaking into his torn shirt.
Everything hurt.
His breath came in short, shallow gasps.
And then—
Something cracked inside him.
Not pain. Not fear.
Stillness.
His breath slowed. The battle sounds faded into the background like echoes underwater.
The world didn't slow.
He sped up.
Paths didn't shimmer faintly anymore.
They snapped into place.
With total clarity, Leo saw them—not possibilities, but truths. Every motion, every intention, every shift of weight from the enemy, mapped out like lines of force through the air.
The next creature lunged.
Leo moved before it did.
He wasn't chasing paths anymore.
He was flowing through them.
His spear danced—not striking wildly, but precisely. One arc disarmed, the follow-through pierced. He pivoted, slipped beneath a twin strike, and countered through the open flank.
The creatures came faster now—but so did he.
Each motion led seamlessly into the next.
A cut dodged. A limb shattered. A throat pierced.
He wasn't fighting from fear anymore.
He was the spear.
From across the bridge, Mira spared a glance toward the right flank—and blinked.
"Aric," she called between heavy strikes. "Look at him."
Aric did—and his expression tightened.
Leo moved like someone possessed. Not frantically, not wildly—but with purpose and flow. The spear wasn't a tool. It was an extension of his very being.
"He's grasped a deeper level," Aric murmured. "The paths aren't showing. They're guiding."
Mira drove her fist into a creature's jaw, sending it spinning off the bridge. "About damn time."
The wave began to thin.
The four-armed creatures, once an unstoppable tide, began to falter. One by one, they fell—unable to match the sudden precision and fury of the defenders, pushed back by relentless counters and cohesion finally born in the face of death.
Leo didn't stop.
Not until the last creature staggered and fell beneath his blade.
Then—
Silence.
Again.
The bridge was littered with bodies. More humans now. But more monsters, too.
The mist receded slightly. The red storm on the horizon dimmed.
And the wave was over.
Leo stood, bloodied, breath ragged—but upright. His spear, slick and trembling in his grip, was steady now.