The frigid winds howled louder than any warhorn.
In the great northern trench of Sanctum, all stood ready—or as ready as the living and the dead could be for what had never been witnessed before.
The Beast Tide had come in waves. Each wave worse than the last.
But now… they were no longer beasts.
They were something else.
"Double-layer the east rampart. Recalibrate the inferno towers to draw from the core directly," Iden commanded.
Arlen and Kael were already in motion.
Rael coordinated civilian support and buff-giving clerics, while Nyra's elite scouts moved through the snow like phantoms—leaving traps, sigils, and mana sensors in the wake of their path.
The Relay Towers crackled, covering the entire Sanctum grid.
The undead soldiers—numbering in the thousands—trained endlessly in waves, preparing to execute synchronized formations against an enemy no one truly understood.
Iden stood above it all, eyes locked on the frozen horizon.
In the deepest level of the bunker beneath Sanctum, Iden and Arlen stood before their final ace: the Arcflare Genesis Engine.
It was supposed to be the final defensive measure—a pressure-triggered, mana-amplified seismic weapon, detonating a controlled fissure of compressed fire-energy. The prototype, codenamed:
"Eidolon Maw"
A deep-buried kill field, meant to activate once the monsters reached the courtyard.
Everything was perfect.
Until the scans came in.
Kael's familiar dropped the shattered carcass of the last frontline creature—impaled, frozen, and burnt.
But when Icaros sliced its core open, there was nothing.
No soul. No flow of normal mana.
Instead, a twisted spiral of essence so dense, it cracked the surrounding mana into null voids.
"Mutation confirmed," Arlen muttered, voice grim. "They're transitioning… to Omega-tier."
Rael's eyes widened.
"Omega-tier monsters are theoretical—manifestations of catastrophic evolutions. They aren't living. They're adaptations."
Nyra clenched her fists. "What the hell are they adapting to?"
Iden's voice was cold.
"Us."
The sky dimmed.
As the first Omega-bound Tier A monstrosity stepped forward, the earth trembled. Iden triggered the Eidolon Maw.
A massive wave of lava-light and crushing pressure exploded beneath the beast's path.
Silence.
Then… nothing.
Not even a burn mark.
The beast looked up toward the walls and let out a shriek—so sharp, it fractured the nearest tower's mana shields.
Weapon effectiveness: 0%
Even Fallout, still under construction, might not be enough.
That night, deep beneath the heart of the village, Iden walked alone.
Past the sleeping civilians. Past the vaults. Past the core chambers.
He entered a sealed room lit only by pale green soul-fire.
Inside sat a throne—not a seat for kings, but a node directly connected to the mana grid, capable of converting a soul's focus into world-shaping force.
This was Project Resonance.
Something Iden had quietly prepared: a domain anchor.
Not a weapon in itself—but a ritual engine.
One capable of one thing:
Creating a domain where no foreign evolution could survive.
A counter-evolution field.
But he had never tested it.
"Only one shot," he whispered.
Then he turned and activated the first phase of sanctum's Oblivion Wake.