Alea Triscan
The final thrust wasn't elegant; it was a desperate lunge born of searing pain and grim necessity. Roseguard, its silver blade veined with crimson now slick with dark, viscous blood, punched through the base of Jagrette Vritra's neck with a sickening crunch.
The Retainer's eyes, wide with shock behind the cracked remnants of her ceramic mask, glazed over instantly.
Her body convulsed once, a puppet with severed strings, then collapsed onto the scorched, acid-pitted earth, joining the grotesque, half-melted forms of her own ushers—victims of her final, impotent rage when I'd shattered her mask and her composure.
A ragged gasp tore from my own throat. The victory tasted like ash and copper. My left arm screamed, the flesh from elbow to wrist a ruin of angry red blisters and weeping burns where her corrosive magic had seared through my uniform's enchantments.
The acrid stench of dissolved flesh—hers, mine, her servants—hung thick in the air, mingling nauseatingly with the ozone tang of expended mana and the underlying rot of the Beast Glades.
Disgust, cold and profound, washed over me, deeper than the physical agony. Disgusting. The word was a mere whisper against the horror witnessed, the casual cruelty of a monster turning on her own.
With trembling fingers slick with sweat and blood—Jagrette's, not mine, thankfully—I wrenched Roseguard free. The familiar weight in my hand was a comfort, a lifeline back to purpose. Prince Corvis's trust, forged in steel, had held true.
I wiped the blade clean on the less corrupted grass nearby, the simple act a grounding ritual, before sliding it back into its sheath with a soft snick. The rose on the guard seemed to gleam dully in the fading light.
Gritting my teeth against the throbbing fire in my arm, I fumbled for the small radio unit sewn onto my uniform's shoulder. My voice, when I keyed the mic, was tighter, rougher than I intended, betraying the strain.
"Lance Varay, this is Lance Alea. Target neutralized. Retainer Jagrette Vritra confirmed eliminated. The northern area is secure." I released the button, waiting, hoping for the clipped, calm acknowledgment, the next set of orders.
Only static answered. A harsh, empty hiss that seemed to amplify the sudden silence of the battlefield. Not the blessed quiet of peace, but the hollow aftermath of localized slaughter.
My gut clenched. If our enhanced mana couldn't bridge the communication gap, it meant Varay, Bairon, Mica the others… they were either impossibly far, embroiled in chaos I couldn't fathom, or buried under a tidal wave of enemy power signatures. Or worse. The Wall loomed in the distance, a dark silhouette against the bruised twilight sky, suddenly feeling terrifyingly isolated.
Click. The sound of my tongue against my teeth was sharp in the stillness. His Highness's orders had been followed—the Bulwark troops had retreated. The Alacryan flanking force, leaderless, had likely melted back into the corrupted woods. My duty here was done. But the silence on the radio was a gaping wound, a siren call of dread.
Ignoring the protests of my burnt arm, the deep ache in my muscles, the bone-deep weariness that threatened to pull me under, I pushed mana into my core. It flared, white-hot and demanding. The ground fell away as I launched myself skyward. The wind whipped at my face, stinging my eyes, but I welcomed it.
Below, the scarred hills and the small, terrible clearing where Jagrette laid dead shrank rapidly. My gaze was locked ahead, on the distant, embattled Wall. Pain was irrelevant. Exhaustion was a luxury.
The Lances needed my support. Grey faced a Scythe.
With a surge of will that felt like tearing my own spirit apart, I shaped the wind behind me, not just for flight, but for speed. The air cracked like a whip as I became a silver and crimson streak hurtling south, Roseguard a comforting weight at my hip, the silent radio a leaden weight on my shoulder.
Tessia Eralith
The acrid tang of burnt flesh and spilled viscera hung thick in my throat, a constant companion to the screams that were the war's true anthem.
"Stannard!" My voice, hoarse from hours of shouted commands and inhaled dust, sliced through the din. "Shoot at the enemies' Shields!" The order felt heavy, a stone dropped into the churning chaos.
Stannard Berwick, his youthful face smeared with grime beneath his helm, gave a sharp nod. He was more than a team member; he was a comrade forged in the crucible of this relentless war, his crossbow—Master Gideon's intricate design made lethally efficient by my brother's genius—already tracking the shimmering barriers protecting the Alacryan ranks.
"Darvus! Caria!" I pivoted, my boots slipping slightly on blood-slicked earth. "You two take care of the Strikers while I take out their Casters!"
Caria Rede met my gaze, her eyes fierce behind her gauntleted fists, a flicker of concern momentarily visible. Darvus Clarell merely grunted, hefting his double axes, his rugged face set in a familiar mask of grim focus. They were my anchors, my blades in the storm.
We have been fighting for hours. However it felt like days. The Wall loomed behind us, a scarred sentinel, while before us stretched the seething mass of the Alacryan army, a tide that had first been mana beasts, now hardened soldiers.
We were the Trailblazer Division, Captain Jesmiya Cruwer's vanguard, tasked with holding this bleeding edge of Dicathen.
My Beast Will surged, a familiar, primal thrum beneath my skin. I reached deep into the ravaged earth, past the scorched grass and shattered stone, feeling the faint, desperate pulse of life buried beneath the carnage.
Thick, gnarled roots erupted from the ground, snaking with unnatural speed to ensnare the enemy's back lines. A desperate gamble, buying precious seconds for Stannard's shot, for Darvus and Caria to hold the brutal Strikers at bay.
My gaze flickered, unbidden, towards the distant, roiling heart of the enemy formation where earth-shattering spells still bloomed like poisonous flowers. The Lances had plunged in there long ago. And with them… Grey.
My Grey. A warmth, utterly alien and terrifyingly dangerous amidst the icy dread of battle, flooded my cheeks. The memory of his hand in mine, the confession hanging fragile in the air before the storm of my brother declaring the emergency, surged through me. It was a vulnerability, a crack in the armor I desperately needed now.
"Tessia!" Caria's shout was a physical blow, snapping me back. A blur of movement—an Alacryan Striker, seizing my fatal distraction, lunged for my exposed flank. Caria's gauntleted fist connected with a sickening crunch, sending the soldier sprawling.
"What's going on in your mind?!" Her voice was sharp, laced with fear—not for herself, but for me, for the line I commanded.
Shame, hot and prickling, washed over me. "Sorry!" The apology felt pitifully inadequate. My lapse could have cost Caria, cost us all.
Focus, Tessia! The reprimand screamed internally. They need you present, not lost in dreams. Gritting my teeth, I raised my wand-sword, its familiar weight a small comfort. The battlefield's devastation spread before me—charred stumps, trampled foliage, the broken skeletons of once-proud trees.
Drawing deep on both my magic and the lingering life-force within the scorched earth, I poured my will outward. Not destruction, but desperate, defiant renewal.
Tendrils of vibrant green snaked through the ash, vines thickened with unnatural speed, thorny brambles erupted where death had reigned. The very ground the Alacryans stood on became a living, snapping trap, roots coiling around ankles, vines lashing like whips.
A collective gasp, half terror, half awe, rippled through our ranks. "It's our opportunity!" My voice rang out, clearer now, pushing past the lingering embarrassment, forcing strength into every syllable.
I wasn't Grey, whose brilliance and power seemed effortless; I wasn't Corvis, whose charisma could rally legions with a glance.
I was Tessia Eralith, flawed, frightened, perpetually feeling one step behind the people she loved most. But in this moment, for these soldiers watching me with desperate hope, I had to be a monolith. Unyielding.
"Counterattack!" The word wasn't just a command; it was a promise, a defiance hurled at the invaders.
Corvis's weary face swam in my memory, returning from some unnamed battlefront before I truly understood the cost and joined the war. He'd vomited in private, his eyes haunted by the lives he'd extinguished. Yet publicly, he was Prince Corvis, Vice Commander, the unwavering pillar.
And Grampa… Commander Virion, trusted even by Master Aldir, an Asura, a symbol of strength holding a fracturing continent together. That was the legacy I bore.
My people didn't need the girl trembling inside, terrified for her brother lost in the fray, terrified for Grey swallowed by the distant maelstrom. They needed Princess Tessia Eralith, leader of this team, one of the military heads of the Trailblazers. The scared Tessia had to be buried deep, locked away behind a mask of regal resolve.
Every life lost under my command was a weight on my soul, but I forced my expression blank, a canvas of stoic determination, a beacon for Stannard's wide eyes, for Darvus's fierce grin, for Caria's unwavering trust.
The charge ignited like wildfire. My call was echoed, amplified by the other team leaders nearby. Through the chaos, I recognized Drogo Lambert, his auburn hair matted with sweat, roaring orders.
And Reynolds Leywin, an acquaintance of my brother it seemed—a pang of unexpected connection shot through me at the sight of his charismatic presence shouting encouragement.
We surged forward, a wave of desperate fury crashing against the stunned Alacryan line. The cacophony was overwhelming—the clang of steel on steel, the guttural screams of the dying, the wet thud of impacts, the sizzle of spells meeting shields.
Dicathian cries of pain mingled horribly with Alacryan death rattles. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, focusing only on the push, on maintaining the living barrier protecting our flanks, on being that unbreakable figurehead.
"Now, Stannard!" I shouted. Stannard, anticipating the moment, fired. The beast core cartridge screamed from Gideon's enhanced crossbow. It wasn't just wind; it was a deviant tempest, concentrated fury unleashed. It struck the heart of the Shield formation.
Their shimmering barriers didn't just waver; they shattered, exploding outwards in a cascade of dissolving mana and concussive force, throwing bodies aside like ragdolls.
The gap yawned open. "Darvus! Go!" I yelled. Darvus needed no urging. With a bellow that shook the air around him, he was a whirlwind of gleaming axes, cleaving through the disoriented front line. Caria moved like his shadow, her gauntlets crushing armor and bone, covering his advance.
Instinctively, mimicking techniques we'd seen Alacryan Shields use against us, I wove intricate barriers of compressed wind around them both. They shimmered like heat haze, deflecting stray arrows and glancing blows, allowing them to push deeper, harder.
Learn from your enemies, Tessia. Corvis's voice, a constant lesson in my mind. Survival demanded adaptation, demanded turning their strengths against them.
Meter by brutal meter, we pushed them back. The trampled earth of the battlefield gave way to the encroaching wildness of the Beast Glades. Our objective burned in my mind: retake the outposts, reclaim the stolen ground.
This wasn't just holding the line; this was the first tangible push back in over a year of grim defense, a flicker of hope against the suffocating darkness of the war. The distant roars of the Lances' spells, titanic clashes that shook the very air, seemed to falter, then cease abruptly.
A disbelieving cry rose from our right flank. "They are retreating!" The shout was picked up, spreading like a shockwave. We slowed, then halted, weapons still raised, breath ragged in our chests. It was true.
Across the chaotic field, the Alacryan ranks were dissolving, not just falling back in order, but retreating in earnest, a dark tide receding from the shore.
"Follow them!" A voice, raw with battle-lust and vengeance, bellowed from the ranks. A surge of agreement rippled through the weary soldiers. The temptation was visceral, intoxicating—to chase, to punish, to reclaim more.
But a clear, powerful voice, amplified by an artifact, cut through the rising fervor. "The orders of the Council are to defend the Wall!" Captain Cruwer stood atop a slight rise, her armor dented but her bearing unwavering.
"And so we did! I share your fire! I burn with the same desire to chase these invaders from our soil, to make them pay! But that is not our objective today! We hold! We secure!" Her words were a cold douse of reality, a reminder of strategy, of the bigger, bloodier picture.
The thunderous spells in the distance had fallen silent. An unnatural, heavy stillness began to settle over the battlefield, broken only by the moans of the wounded and the crackle of dying fires.
Stannard lowered his crossbow slowly, his youthful face slack with disbelief beneath the grime. He looked around, blinking as if seeing the carnage for the first time. "Is... is it over?" His voice was small, lost.
Caria let out a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. She punched Darvus's armored shoulder, the clang echoing strangely in the sudden quiet. "We have won!" Her voice trembled with exhaustion and burgeoning elation.
Darvus wiped sweat and blood from his brow with the back of his hand, a weary but unmistakable smirk spreading across his rugged face. He turned his gaze to me, the playful glint back in his eyes despite the fatigue. "Well, Princess?" His voice was rough but held a teasing note. "Are you going to declare it? Seems fitting."
The weight of the moment pressed down on me—the exhaustion, the horror, the staggering loss, but also the fragile, unbelievable bloom of victory. Not a skirmish survived, not a dungeon outbreak contained, but a battle won. Against the full might of Alacrya.
For Dicathen. For every life extinguished on this field. For Arthur, fighting somewhere unknown. For Grey, who had to be alive, had to be. For Corvis. For Grampa. The scared girl inside trembled, but the Princess, the leader they needed, drew herself up. A surge of fierce, defiant pride, hard-won and tempered in blood, rose within me.
I raised my weapon high, the wand-sword catching the hazy light filtering through the smoke. The gesture felt monumental. Every eye on the battered, bloodied survivors turned towards me. My voice, when it came, didn't shout. It rang out, clear and strong, carrying across the reclaimed ground, a promise etched in the silence:
"For Dicathen!"
The roar that answered wasn't just sound; it was the release of a year's worth of pent-up despair, the birth cry of fragile hope. It was the sound of the first dawn after an endless night.
For this single, shattering moment, amidst the ashes and the agony, we were not just survivors. We were victors.
The first real victory. And the weight of it, the terrifying, exhilarating responsibility of it, settled onto my shoulders as the echoes of our defiant cry faded into the wounded land.