The battlefield burned with the screams of the dying. Ash blanketed the ruined landscape like falling snow, blotting out the moonlight and choking the wind. Towers once gilded with divine crystal lay broken, shattered. Rivers ran red. The remnants of Valerian's elite vanguard—mages, oath-sworn knights, spectral beasts bound by blood contracts—were scattered and failing. All around them, the Dread-Touched continued to surge.
Kael stood amid the chaos, his sword streaked with silver blood, steam rising from its edges. He panted heavily over the body of a Dread-Touched Warlord, its limbs twisted in death. His aura flickered—unstable, jagged, draining fast. He had no potions left. No tricks. Just willpower and rage.
And still… his eyes drifted toward Valerian.
