I tore the cork off another vial and downed it. A bitter mix of iron and dried leaves assaulted my tongue, but I forced it down.
Warmth spread through my limbs. Nutrients. Mana supplements. My muscles felt less like torn ropes, my bones slightly less shattered. Emphasis on slightly.
I wasn't watching a fight anymore. I was watching a storm.
Clara and Commander Varnen danced against a whirlwind named Varkis. A mountain of a man, half-naked with corded muscles, wild eyes, and a grin so wide it looked like pain. Yet there was no pain in him. No strain. He was enjoying this.
Each of Clara's attacks was surgical, measured lunges, controlled slashes, precise footwork. Not a single wasted movement. She wasn't trying to win; she was trying not to lose.
Commander Varnen, though, was starting to fall behind. His swings, once crisp and forceful, were becoming slower, each motion just a beat behind Clara's rhythm.
His shoulders twitched from delayed reactions, and he took longer pauses. Subtle, but deadly in a fight like this.
I exhaled sharply.
"Come on, Commander," I muttered.
He was stronger than Juliette, or maybe at her level, but his edge was experience. That's what let him keep up so far.
Every block, every step, every pivot came from muscle memory forged in blood. But even muscle memory has a limit, and his was approaching fast.
I could see it in his stance. He braced more than he dodged now, relying on armor that was beginning to fall apart.
Cracks down his breastplate, a tear in one of his gauntlets, a shoulder guard that hung by a thread. His sword strikes were getting parried more often than they landed, and the aftershock of Varkis's blows staggered him each time.
And Varkis?
He looked like he was just getting warmed up.
The bastard was smiling.
His fists tore through air with enough force to generate shockwaves, his movements erratic yet brutally efficient.
His eyes glowed with a kind of wild joy, a symptom of his innate skill, Berserk. That damned skill didn't just amplify his strength and reflexes. It rewired his brain. Made him feel pleasure in battle.
Pleasure.
If he were in his right mind, I'd be dead. No hesitation, no taunting, just a snapped neck or a crushed chest. But instead, the monster had enjoyed playing with me. His arrogance bought Clara and Commander Varnen time.
And now… that arrogance was the only reason they were still alive.
I clenched the empty vial in my hand.
I underestimated him. Grossly. I thought he'd be a heavy-hitter with more brawn than brain. But who sends someone like this, a walking disaster zone, after a seventeen year old kid?
The Ashen weren't just serious. They were terrified. Of falcons.
I glanced at the horizon. Still light. At least an hour, maybe two until nightfall. I prayed they could hold out until then.
I knew they couldn't.
Varnen was slowing, and Clara was picking up more of the slack.
She wasn't reckless, not in the least. She avoided flashy finishers or overcommitments. Her strikes were all shallow, quick enough to test Varkis's reactions or force him to turn. Always keeping space between them. Always calculating. Always preparing an exit.
But she couldn't cover for two.
And Varkis was beginning to notice.
He adjusted his rhythm, subtle, almost instinctual. More pressure on Varnen. More feints. More jabs aimed to stagger rather than kill.
Clara tried to intercept them, but the impact trails Varkis left with his fists made that near impossible.
Each of his punches warped the air. Even if Clara blocked or redirected them, the aftershock still hit Varnen. The man was fighting through concussions.
His armor wouldn't last. And Clara, no matter how skilled, couldn't fight this monster alone.
I stood.
The guards flinched, startled as I stepped forward.
"Hoist a red flag here," I said, pointing to the rocky ledge behind us. "Then take out your ranged weapons. Don't shoot unless you're sure you won't hit Clara or the Commander."
They blinked. Confused.
"The flag, my lord?" one of them asked hesitantly. "What does it—"
"Just do it. No time."
They didn't argue further, though the nervous glances they exchanged weren't exactly comforting. I pulled the last of my mana recovery vials from my belt and downed it.
"You're not planning to go in there," another guard said. A statement, not a question. His face was pale.
"I am."
"But it's not safe—"
"It's necessary," I snapped, my tone sharper than intended. I softened it with a sigh. "Don't worry. I'm not trying to win. Just… buy time."
They didn't like it. I didn't either.
But I stepped past them anyway.
My boots crunched against gravel as I got down the cliff. Wind from the clash ahead hit me in the face like a slap. I walked toward it, not with the recklessness of a warrior, but the resignation of someone stepping into a storm with nothing but a half-broken umbrella.
Varkis's gaze snapped to me the moment I got down the cliff.
At first, there was only a flicker of surprise in his eyes, as though unsure whether what he saw was real or just a fading afterimage from the haze of combat. But then, in the next heartbeat, his grin spread like a crack splitting open a statue. Wicked, delighted, unholy.
He looked like a devil who'd just been gifted a fresh soul to torment.
Clara noticed.
Her blade disengaged, her boots skidding against scorched dirt as she twisted to follow his gaze, and when she saw me, her eyes widened. A flash of disbelief, followed by fury, then something softer I couldn't place.
"Why are you here?" she hissed, lunging toward me and intercepting me halfway. "If he targets you again, all three of us will be stuck defending! We'll be cornered—!"
"Clara," I interrupted, locking eyes with her. "We have an hour. At best."
She flinched.
"Forget defense. Forget covering others. From this moment on, your only job is to damage. Don't take any decisive hits, don't show off. Just wear him down. Hit him when you can, fall back when you must. But keep him bleeding."
I turned to the weathered figure standing beside me.
"Commander," I said. "We'll support her. Every second she keeps him moving, we find more windows to strike."
Clara opened her mouth to protest, and so did the commander, but I didn't let them.
"If we miss the chance to kill him here, we'll lose him forever. And I don't think I need to remind either of you what a game of hide and seek with this beast will cost us over the years. Just one hour. That's all I ask."
Clara stared at me for a beat. Then, reluctantly, she gave a single, tight nod.
She turned away and charged, her blade gleaming under the sinking sun.
Commander Varnen gave me a look that said You better be right about this, and followed.
"Focus on his legs," I told the commander quickly, keeping pace. "Throw feints. He's too far into his berserk state to notice tricks like that. His instincts will rule him, not logic."
Arrows and spell projectiles flew through the air from behind us, the guards had begun suppressive fire. They shot only when Clara or I disengaged, creating a staccato rhythm of ranged pressure that forced Varkis to recalculate even in his maddened state.
And for the first time since the fight began, he actually stepped back.
Clara darted in, spinning low, and delivered a sharp cut to Varkis's shoulder. It wasn't deep, but it sliced clean through his reinforced cloth. He roared...whether in pain or pleasure, I couldn't tell...and slammed a fist toward her.
Too late.
I surged in from the side, swinging my blade just enough to nudge his elbow. Not a proper strike, just enough to knock the angle of his punch off.
Clara twirled behind him and landed another strike across his back.
The synergy between us is better than I expected; our instincts must have picked up patterns from all those training sessions.
She was moving with perfect calculation now. Clean, efficient movements, no flair, no unnecessary risks.
Commander Varnen circled around, and with every few steps, he slashed toward Varkis's calves. Twice, Varkis stumbled. Not out of injury, but from sudden shifts in footing he hadn't anticipated. His instincts could only track so many inputs at once.
Then the guards' arrows rained again.
One projectile grazed Varkis's neck. Another lodged into his thigh.
Poor guy couldn't sense projectiles well because of the dim dusk light and Clara's random moves around.
They didnot stop him. But they did make him pause.
And that pause gave Clara another window.
She lunged, feinted left, then twisted midair to strike right.
I followed just behind her, when Varkis turned to retaliate, I was already there, intercepting his swing with my blade's flat. The impact jolted through my arm like I'd caught a falling tree, but it gave Clara just enough time to slip past.
Varnen, exhausted as he was, managed to land another quick slash behind the knee.
For the first time since he'd arrived, Varkis let out a genuine growl. Not a pleased one. Not one of ecstasy or exhilaration. Just… irritation.
His grin was still there, but it had begun to crack.
"You're stalling me," he rasped.
His voice sounded like steel dragging across bone.
Wow, this dumbass finally figured that out.
Clara didn't answer. She just ducked under his sweeping arm, her eyes sharper than they'd ever been.
I could see it...this time, for once, we were pushing him.
He wasn't invincible. Just terrifyingly persistent.
Each second, his smile thinned.
We had him dancing, and he didn't like it.
"That berserk state of yours," I murmured under my breath, ducking another blow and circling around his right, "is what's going to bury you today."
And we had just begun.
It had been an hour.
Now, I had started counting in minutes.
Every strike, every breath, every second was a thread unraveling the battle.
Varkis...that mad beast, the mountain of muscle and bloodlust, was finally beginning to slow. And it wasn't because he was getting tired. No, the bastard probably didn't even understand what fatigue meant.
It was the damage. The cumulative, relentless, surgical destruction of his legs and joints by Commander Varnen. Each time the commander struck low, fainted, struck again, he carved another crack in the monster's foundation.
And Clara, she had been moving nonstop for six hours. Since the ambush. Dodging, leaping, striking, bleeding. She was a blur of steel and grace, but her movements now carried a weight.
Her footfalls dug deeper into the ground. Her breaths were short, ragged. Her strikes, still deadly, had lost a sliver of their crispness.
Because of all that, I was now intercepting Varkis more than ever before.
And that… was a nightmare.
Every time I parried, I felt my bones scream. My wrists vibrated. My arms felt like splinters barely holding together. It wasn't a contest of skill, it was suicide masked as timing.
The difference in stats between us was insane. Just keeping him from landing a blow on Clara or Varnen was costing me more than I had to give.
The guards, brave as they were, had stopped firing. The light had dimmed. Shadows now played tricks on the battlefield. Between the smoke, the dust, and the chaos, distinguishing Varkis from the rest of us had become a gamble.
But we had bought time. And blood. Gods, so much blood.
Varkis was bleeding from multiple wounds now, slashes Clara carved, arrows from earlier volleys, and the brutal targeting of his legs. And still he moved.
Still he laughed. But now, that grin of his was twitching. There was a flicker of something other than pleasure in his eyes.
Frustration.
His hits were getting more erratic, less calculated. He had expected to decimate us. But I had stolen crucial blows. Parried strikes that should've broken bones. Blocked with timing I didn't know I had. And I could feel it, his instincts, enhanced by his berserk state, were getting tangled.
The terrain around us, once a jagged mess of boulders and broken ground, had been flattened. Smashed. Pulverized by his rage and our efforts to dodge or redirect his wrath. There was no more cover. Only cracked earth and grit.
It was still a race against time.
I could feel it slipping. Clara's footwork staggered for just a heartbeat. Varnen's strike missed a beat. My knees buckled slightly on a block. And then—
A horn.
A loud, bellowing horn that tore across the valley like the roar of some divine beast.
All three of us, me, Clara, and Commander Varnen, reacted like puppets yanked by fate. We jumped back in unison, a desperate retreat that put a good dozen meters between us and Varkis.
Varkis paused. Just as the confusion flashed in his eyes, a burning carpet flew over our heads.
It blazed through the air like a comet, tied to something metallic, a cannonball-like structure. It struck the ground between me and Varkis with a deafening impact. Flames erupted, rising into a wall of fire that split the battlefield in two.
Then another.
And another.
Left. Right. Behind him.
Varkis was surrounded.
The flame carpets hissed and howled, encircling him in a square of burning fury. For the first time, Varkis froze.
And then the cliffs.
Where there had once been twenty or thirty guards, now, there were hundreds.
Two hundred? Three hundred? I couldn't count fast enough.
Banners rose above them. Crimson and gold.
A lion, its mane ablaze.
The Leon's symbol.
Varkis turned slowly, his body stained in his own blood, burns now glowing from the carpet fire. He finally understood.
The flames are to ignite his surroundings, making his presence elaborate for rangers to target, and the flames contain his area of activity.
This wasn't a battle anymore. It was an execution.
"FIRE!!"
A deep, thunderous voice boomed from the cliffs. A commander, taller than most, his armor slick with oils that reflected the flame, barked the order.
"The man in the center of the flames! Make him a pincushion! Poisoned arrows! GO!"
And then—
Hell.
A valley of arrows, bolts, and all manner of sharpened death rained from above. Drenched in poisons, wrapped in fire, shot with such force the very wind howled in pain.
Varkis leapt.
He tried to twist through them, arms spinning, legs kicking up gusts. But he had no weapon, nothing to create the full force winds he'd used earlier to swat away our attacks.
This exact moment, time fractured and the world stilled. everything fell silent, and all I could hear was the ragged sound of my own breath clawing its way out of my lungs.
Six relentless hours, a battle-hardened powerhouse, a division commander on his last legs, and over thirty ranged guards...it took every ounce of strength, every drop of blood, just to hold this monster back for this very exact moment.
Projectiles hit.
One after another.
His movements slowed. Poison seeped in. Blood splattered. And even through all that pain, all that fire, he didn't scream.
He just glared.
The barrage didn't stop.
For twenty straight minutes, the sky rained death upon him.
I felt the world spin. I had adrenaline still pumping through my veins, but nausea built in my gut. I couldn't believe it. The strategy worked. But to witness it...to see Varkis, the nightmare we'd fought tooth and nail to just stall, brought to his knees by sheer, unrelenting force…
It felt… frustating...for the reasons I couldn't figure out.
The flames, fed by the dry sand and wind, slowly began to die. But enough remained to flicker in the shadows and bathe the battlefield in an orange glow.
We stood at the base of the cliff, Clara, Commander Varnen, and me. Our chests rose and fell like we had forgotten how to breathe properly.
And Varkis…
He knelt.
His body scorched, riddled with arrows, skin torn open in half a dozen places.
He looked at me. Just me.
And even in that state, he managed a sneer. A bloody cough escaped him, followed by a wet laugh. Then—
"Spine—less… little…" He choked, spit blood, and smiled like a madman. "Cowardly… bitch."
I didn't respond.
I couldn't.
He finally collapsed, face-first, into the scorched dirt.
Unconscious.
The beast had fallen....
Commander Vernin was the first to crumble.
He stumbled backward, his sword dragging against the ground like it weighed a hundred tons. Then, with a groan, he slid down the cliff wall behind him and landed on the coarse dirt, legs splayed, head tilted up to the stars we hadn't seen in hours.
He let out a laugh.
Rough, cracked, and completely unbecoming of the stoic division commander. It echoed through the rocky basin like the sound of a man who had seen hell, survived it, and couldn't decide whether to cry or cackle.
Clara followed a second later, her steps as slow and silent as ash falling on snow. She leaned against the cliff beside him, wiped the sweat and blood from her brow, and chuckled faintly. Just once. As if that single breath of mirth was all she could afford to give the world before collapsing.
I stood there, staring at them both, who bled, fought, and endured more than I ever could have asked of anyone.
I was still in a daze.
The flames flickered in the distance, dying out over sand and scorched rock. Varkis lay motionless, an enormous, broken figure half-buried in smoke and ruin.
Everything we did, every second we stalled, every blow we deflected, every scream I swallowed, it all led to this.
My legs finally gave in, just a little. I leaned my hand against the cliff wall to keep steady.
Ding!
Inspect's usual sound.
For a second I thougt an arc for an incoming attack was spawned, but it's just a square window displaying my stats.
My brow twitched. Wondering why it decided to show up.
I blinked once. Twice. And found it..
53 D....a breakthrough..!
I closed my eyes, let my head thump against the rock behind me, and sighed.
…What the hell's the point of a... breakthrough after the ...fight, bitch?
"Y'mas… y'nglor…"
THUD.