The shamans lifted their staves again, their voices rising into a chant even more dreadful than before. Mana thickened, flames coiling overhead like serpents ready to strike. Soldiers braced, their bodies trembling, knowing the next wave might end them.

Then it happened.

One shaman lurched suddenly, choking on his own words. His staff clattered against the wall as his body stiffened, then collapsed. Another stumbled, clutching his throat, blood spraying as he fell over the parapet. Then another. And another.

Confusion rippled across the battlefield. Soldiers stared, wide-eyed, as the chant began to break apart. The shamans were falling one by one, their throats pierced by something too small and fast to see.

Ludger caught a glimpse—tiny, dark projectiles, no bigger than a thumb, darting through the air like vipers. They struck necks and temples with surgical precision, dropping their targets instantly.

His eyes narrowed. He turned toward the source.

At the far edge of the chaos, perched atop a pile of corpses and rubble, stood a small figure half-hidden by gear. Dark leather straps, padded armor, a cloak ragged with soot and blood. Her face was obscured beneath a hood and mask, but Ludger didn’t need to see her eyes. The compact frame, the posture, the eerie stillness between movements—he knew.

“...Luna,” he whispered.

She moved like a shadow, her arm flicking in precise motions. Each gesture released another dart—black, glinting faintly with mana—that streaked across the battlefield and found its mark in a shaman’s neck. No wasted effort, no hesitation. Just clean, efficient death.

The shamans wavered, their firestorms sputtering out as their ranks collapsed. Soldiers in the wedge roared in confusion, then triumph, surging forward with renewed fury.

Arslan laughed, savage and raw. “Keep it up! We’re taking the walls!”

Ludger’s chest tightened as he watched Luna reload with eerie calm. She was supposed to be guarding Viola, keeping her away from the worst of the battlefield. But here she was, alone, shrouded in shadows, executing shamans like it was nothing.

And as the last of the enemy flames guttered out, Ludger realized something else. The wedge wasn’t just surviving anymore—it was rallying. The real push had begun.

A few shamans tried to rally, raising their staves again, but before they could form another chant the soldiers surged forward, screaming like a beast unchained.

The front ranks slammed against the ruined town walls, shields battering against stone, spears stabbing up to keep the defenders from leaning too far over the edge. At the center, the vanguard crashed into the gate—an ancient slab of timber bound in iron, already scarred from years of neglect.

“Bring it down!” captains roared.

Axes bit into wood. Spears jammed between hinges. Men smashed with maces and the flat of their swords, hacking and pounding with everything they had. Each strike sent splinters flying, each impact rattled the earth beneath their boots.

The gate groaned under the assault, dust shaking loose from the stone arch. The sound of steel biting into wood was relentless, a pounding rhythm that echoed through the streets beyond.

The barbarians on the walls howled in fury, some scrambling to hurl spears and rocks down, but their coordination was gone. Too many were still crazed, their eyes glassy, fighting in blind rage instead of discipline. The shamans’ collapse had cut the mind from the body, and the warriors were left thrashing without sense.

They could have flanked. They could have poured out from the alleys to bleed the wedge from the sides. But instead they stayed where they were, roaring, throwing themselves uselessly against shields or leaning too far over the walls and dying for it.

Ludger, panting hard, pressed his palms against a soldier’s charred shoulder, knitting flesh shut just enough to keep the man on his feet. His eyes flicked upward—splinter after splinter breaking free from the gate, the wedge hammering harder, the roar of his father and his party leading the charge.

They’ll break it. It’s only a matter of time.

And when they did, the real storm would spill into the streets of the barbarian-held town.

The pounding on the gate grew into a frenzy. Steel rang against iron, axes buried deep in wood and pried free only to strike again. Soldiers rammed with shoulders, cursed, and howled as sweat and blood poured down their faces. The gate groaned, timbers splitting wider with every strike.

Above them, the surviving shamans tried to rally once more to attack the soldiers entering the town. They raised their staves, fire sputtering to life, smoke twisting into the sky—but this time their chants cracked under pressure. A hidden unit of archers suddenly was revealed in the middle of the formation.

“Archers! Loose!”

Dozens of bowstrings snapped at once. Arrows hissed upward in long, dark arcs, then rained down on the shamans. Screams split the air as shafts tore through throats and eyes, puncturing tattoos and breaking chants mid-word. For the first time in the battle, Torvares’s archers weren’t pinned by fire—they had free reign, and they cut into the enemy ranks with brutal precision.

Without the attacks coming from above, the wedge pressed harder. The soldiers hacking at the gate snarled like mad dogs, tearing splinters wide enough to see daylight through.

Then Arslan roared, voice booming over the chaos. He swung his sword overhead and brought it down with all the weight of his body. The gate shuddered, iron bands screaming, and with a final thunderous crack, it broke.

The barricade collapsed inward in an explosion of splinters and dust. The wedge surged through the breach with a roar that shook the battlefield. Barbarians inside the town shrieked in rage, their madness driving them to meet the charge head-on. But their advantage was gone, their shamans crippled, their walls broken.

Ludger stumbled forward with the rest, barely able to breathe through the smoke and ash. His mana flickered dangerously low, every spell a risk, but he stayed close behind his father and the party. His role hadn’t changed: keep them standing, or the wedge would fall.

The streets of the barbarian-held town yawned before them, narrow alleys and ruined houses now the new battlefield. The real slaughter was about to begin.

The gate was in ruins, smoke curling from its splintered carcass. With a roar that shook the sky, the wedge poured through, iron and flesh surging into the narrow streets.

The barbarians came at them like beasts loosed from a cage. They poured out of alleys, tumbled from rooftops, their weapons wild and their throats raw with howls. But without the shamans’ fire above them, their madness was just steel and blood. Dangerous, yes—but no longer overwhelming.

Arslan was the first through the breach, sword cleaving a path wide enough for ten men. He fought like a storm given flesh, every swing breaking shields, every roar splitting through the clash. “Forward! Break their damned spines!”

Selene followed at his side, her gauntlets crushing ribcages and skulls alike, each blow flowing into the next with terrifying rhythm. She drove a man through a wall with a single punch, then spun to shatter another’s knee before finishing him with an elbow.

Harold bellowed like a war beast, hacking through a pair of berserkers who tried to pin him. His axe split them both, and he howled with laughter as the blood drenched his chest. “Is that all you’ve got?! More!”

Aleia’s bow sang in quick rhythm, arrows darting into eyes and throats, her movements sharp and unyielding. She barely seemed to breathe as she loosed shaft after shaft, cutting down attackers before they could reach the shield wall.

Cor’s hands danced with magic , precise bursts of light scattering groups of foes, his wards absorbing surprise spear thrusts from the alleys. His voice was steady, calm, unshaken—every spell just enough to give the wedge another step forward.

Behind them, Ludger darted like a shadow, palms glowing faint green as he patched wounds in the press. A soldier with his ear half-melted; another staggering from a gut wound; Selene’s knuckles split from pounding too hard into iron. He healed what he could, conserving what little mana he had left.

The barbarians fought like madmen, ignoring wounds that should have dropped them, hurling themselves into the Torvares wedge with reckless abandon. But without the shamans raining fire from above, their frenzy was just meat for the grinder. The wedge carved into them street by street, a spear of iron driving through flesh.

Still, Ludger could see it in their eyes. The rage wasn’t natural. The glassy stares, the twitching limbs, the way they fought even when bones jutted from their skin. And somewhere deeper in the town, he knew—there had to be someone or something keeping that madness alive.

The wedge pressed deeper, the streets narrowing into broken channels of stone and ash. All around them, the town was nothing but ruins.

Houses leaned half-collapsed against each other, their beams blackened from fire. Roofs had caved in, spilling charred planks and broken tiles into the alleys. Some buildings were nothing more than skeletal frames, walls cracked and sagging, smoke still rising from embers that refused to die.

Everywhere, it looked less like a settlement under siege and more like a carcass.

The soldiers didn’t slow. They didn’t care. They hacked through doors, kicked aside rubble, carved through the barbarians pouring out of the wreckage. Their focus was only on the fight—every heartbeat another chance to survive.

But Ludger’s eyes lingered on the ruin.

This wasn’t just collateral damage. The destruction was too thorough, too precise. Entire streets had been burned, whole clusters of houses reduced to rubble before Torvares’s army had even arrived. Not a single home looked untouched.

This isn’t coincidence, he thought, chest tightening. This town wasn’t just captured. It was gutted.

The shamans’ magic, the madness infecting the barbarians, the way the settlement had been hollowed out—it was all connected. Whoever had orchestrated this hadn’t wanted a fortress to defend. They wanted a battlefield ready-made for slaughter.

Ludger clenched his fists as he followed in his father’s shadow, his mind cutting sharper than the blades around him. Someone wanted this place destroyed from the start. Not just by fire and steel—but by design. And now, the wedge was marching straight into the heart of it.

Once the wedge broke into the heart of the town, the rest was inevitable.

With the shamans dead or scattered, the barbarians’ frenzy cracked. They still fought like wild animals, but without fire raining down from the walls or chants binding them together, their madness was just desperation. One by one, the other gates collapsed under the pounding of Torvares steel. Reinforcements surged in, tightening the noose around the town.

The fighting dragged on, but it was no longer a storm—it was a cleanup. Soldiers moved street by street, cutting down the last howling stragglers. Some barbarians fought to the death, others collapsed where they stood, their bodies broken, their eyes still glazed.

An hour later, it was over.

When the last screams faded, the silence of victory settled over the town like smoke. The ground was blackened with ash and bodies, the ruined streets slick with blood. Soldiers stood among the wreckage with hollow eyes—some leaning on shattered shields, some laughing with relief, others too tired to even sheath their swords.

Then came the heavy clop of hooves.

Lord Torvares rode into the center square, his warhorse blackened with soot, its flanks steaming from the strain of battle. His red, silver-and-black banner trailed ragged behind him, but it still carried weight—like a shadow stretching over every man in sight.

He raised one gauntleted hand, and the noise died. Thousands of battered, bloodstained soldiers turned toward him. Even broken, his presence drew them straight.

“You fought like lions today,” Torvares said, his gravel voice echoing off the ruined walls. “You stood against fire, against madness, against numbers that would have crushed lesser men. And you did not yield. Look around you.”

He gestured to the corpses, the ruined barricades, the burned-out husks of houses. “The enemy thought this place theirs. They thought they could defile it, poison it, burn it to ash and keep it. But today, you showed them what happens when Torvares steel stands firm. Today, you broke them.”

A roar followed, soldiers slamming weapons to shields, their voices shaking the ash from collapsed beams. The sound rolled like thunder through the ruined square.

Torvares let it rise, then cut it with a sharp motion. His voice grew sharper, harsher. “But do not mistake victory for mercy. You’ve seen their madness—you know what they are. This was no army. This was a plague. And plagues are not beaten in a day. So sharpen your blades, bind your wounds, and remember your fallen. Because this war isn’t finished. It has only begun.”

The soldiers roared again, their throats raw, some crying, others laughing in grim defiance. They needed the words, needed the fire—and Torvares gave it to them.

But Ludger, standing just behind the front ranks, saw more.

Viola’s grandfather’s hand was tight on the reins. His jaw clenched between sentences. His eyes didn’t blaze with pride—they smoldered with something closer to frustration. The words were there, the rhythm, the strength, but the weight behind them wavered.

To the men, it was a triumph. To Ludger, it was a mask.

He’s not celebrating. He’s unsettled, Ludger thought, watching his grandfather’s gaze linger on the burned streets. He knows this wasn’t just another battle. The town wasn’t meant to be held. It was meant to be destroyed.

The soldiers couldn’t see it—but Ludger could. And the realization made his stomach twist.

Ludger wanted to talk. He wanted to pull someone aside—Arslan, maybe even Maurien if he could find him—and ask the question gnawing at his gut. Why was the town already destroyed? Why did it feel like the enemy never meant to hold it?

But he had no time.

The wounded came in waves, carried on stretchers or dragged by their comrades into what passed for a square. Men with half their faces burned, others with shattered legs, others still coughing blood as their bodies failed from smoke and fire. Hundreds had fallen in the two hours of fighting, perhaps more than a thousand across the whole army. And those who hadn’t died outright would if the healers stopped for even a moment.

Aronia was already kneeling in the muck, her hands glowing green, her voice raw as she whispered chant after chant. Sweat soaked her hair, her pale face lined with exhaustion. Still, she worked, refusing to pause even as her lips cracked and her mana burned low.

Ludger dropped beside her without a word, sleeves rolled up, his hands already glowing. He pressed into wounds, forced torn flesh together, cooled blistered skin. Healed just enough for soldiers to stand, not enough for comfort. They didn’t need comfort. They needed to keep breathing.

The air was thick with groans, with the rattle of dying men, with the stench of blood and charred leather. Soldiers screamed when wounds closed too fast, bit down on rags to keep from biting off their own tongues.

Aronia glanced at Ludger once, her eyes wide with surprise at the speed of his work, then returned to her patient. They didn’t have time for words.

Ludger clenched his jaw, sweat dripping into his eyes. His core burned, his mana pool flickering on the edge of collapse, but he forced it steady. Talk later. Think later. If I stop now, they’ll die for nothing.

He wanted to ask about the town, about the destruction, about what Torvares really thought. But surrounded by the broken and the dying, his questions felt distant, selfish even. For now, all he could do was heal—and pray his hands didn’t fail before the wounded stopped coming.

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