It was as if the creature existed half a step outside our reality.
"Again!" I shouted, even as my voice tore raw. "Do not stop firing!"
They obeyed. Gods help them, they obeyed. And they died for it.
A tentacle slammed down with the sound of a collapsing fortress. Three knights vanished beneath it—armor, bodies, courage—all erased in a single heartbeat. Another sweep caught a mounted unit mid-charge, lifting horses and riders alike and hurling them screaming into the trees. I saw one man try to crawl, his legs crushed, his gauntlet reaching for nothing.
Sir Jin—my vice-captain, my brother-in-arms—charged beside me, sword blazing with oath-bound light. He struck deep, driving steel into the beast's flesh with a roar that tore from his soul.
The kraken answered by backhanding him through the air.
He hit the ground hard enough to crater it. When I reached him, blood soaked through his armor, his breathing ragged and wrong.
I did not have time to mourn.
