The Northern Wall of Fontaniska was a monumental barrier of gray granite and reinforced ironwood, stretching twenty miles across the jagged mountain pass. For two centuries, it had stood as the realm’s unbreakable shield.
Today, however, a thick, unnatural violet haze blanketed the valley below, suffocating the treeline in darkness.
Standing atop the battlements, General Garin—a scarred veteran with a single eye—adjusted his leather spyglass. His hands twitched slightly.
The earth beneath the fortress vibrated with a rhythmic, thunderous rumble.
"Sir!" a frantic scout yelled, tumbling onto the stone rampart. "The treeline... it's completely cleared! The vanguard has entered the kill zone!"
Garin pressed his spyglass back to his good eye. What he saw made the blood drain from his face.
Ten thousand beasts—a terrifying, unnatural legion of Cave Stalkers, armored Dire Boars, feral Goblins, and towering twelve-foot Mountain Ogres—were surging across the snow-dusted valley like an unstoppable black tide. They did not fight each other. They moved with a single, hive-minded frenzy, driven insane by the crimson mana burning in their eyes.
"Load the beam cannons!" Garin bellowed, his voice echoing over the wind. "Aim for the Ogres in the center! Fire at will!"
Along the top of the wall, twelve massive brass cannons—marvels of human beam-artillery—pivoted toward the valley. The engineers frantically slotted raw mana-stones into the breech chambers and pulled the firing levers.
Hiss... sput...
Instead of the deafening roar of compressed thermal beams, the cannons emitted only thin wisps of smoke and faint sparks.
The engineer lead turned toward Garin, his face pale with horror.
"General! The mana-stone shipment from the capital... forty percent of the stones are diluted chalk-and-glass fakes! The cannons don't have enough power to charge the main lenses!"
Garin slammed his gauntleted fist against the stone battlements, cracking the masonry.
"Curse those soft-bellied ministers in the capital!" Garin roared. "Draw swords! Ready the boiling pitch and archers! Prepare for close-quarters impact!"
Below, the horde surged into the valley basin. The sheer momentum of ten thousand beasts threatened to tear the heavy ironwood gates right off their iron hinges.
Suddenly, two figures emerged from the dense snowstorm on the outer ridge of the valley path, walking calmly toward the oncoming wall of monsters.
One was an elderly man wearing a faded tunic, carrying an ancient iron-capped wooden staff over his shoulder.
The other was a short, dark-haired boy clad in simple leather armor, a heavy iron broadsword strapped across his back. He was calmly eating a cold piece of salted pork.
"Master," Anwan spoke quietly, his dark eyes locked on the raging tide of monsters five hundred yards ahead. "There are a lot of them."
Sir Rodas, the former Grand Knight Commander, grunted and spat into the snow.
"Aye. Corrupt nobles slack off on cannon fuel, and soldiers have to clean up the mess with cold steel. Just like forty years ago."
The old man lowered his staff, his weathered face hardening into a look of absolute authority.
"Remember your footing, Anwan. When the horde hits, don't look at the whole army. Look at the balance of the three beasts right in front of you."
Anwan swallowed his food, tucked his leather pouch into his coat, and gripped the leather-wrapped hilt of his broadsword with both hands.
"Yes, Master."
In a flash, Anwan's absolute vision expanded, taking in the micro-vectors of the entire frontline.
He saw the subtle shift in weight of thirty Dire Boars charging on the left. He saw the shoulder flex of two Ogres preparing to fling boulders. He saw the exact gap in the beast formation where their momentum was weakest.
Anwan stepped forward, his body moving like a released steel spring.
Swish!
He met the front line of the horde head-on.
Three Dire Boars lunged at him simultaneously, their yellowed tusks gleaming with toxic saliva.
Anwan didn't dodge away. He ducked beneath the lead boar's leap, angled his body by twenty degrees, and drove his iron broadsword cleanly through the creature's lower throat.
Without pausing his momentum, he used the boar's falling mass as a stepping stone, launching himself eight feet into the air.
Slice! Slice!
His broadsword carved two clean, circular arcs through the cold air. The heads of four leaping Cave Stalkers detached from their necks before their bodies even hit the snow.
On the ramparts above, General Garin stared down at the valley floor, his jaw dropping in sheer disbelief.
"Who... who in the world is that child?!" Garin shouted. "Is he a High Knight from the Royal Academy?!"
Beside him, the old Commander, Sir Rodas, stepped up to the main gate below, holding Princess Feodia’s official royal scroll in his hand.
"Open the gate, Garin, you half-blind old fool!" Rodas roared up at the battlements. "And tell your infantry to get off their rear ends and back us up!"
Garin blinked his good eye, recognizing the voice instantly.
"Sir... Sir Rodas?! The Grand Commander?!" Garin gasped, turning frantically to his guards. "Open the main gates! Infantry vanguard, form up behind the Grand Commander! Double time!"
The heavy ironwood gates ground open, and two hundred heavily armored Fontaniska foot soldiers surged out into the snow, shouting their battle cries as they joined the fray.
Meanwhile, at the center of the battle, an enormous twelve-foot Mountain Ogre swung a spiked tree trunk horizontally at Anwan's flank. The sheer air displacement created a howling wind that flattened the snow around them.
To normal eyes, the strike covered an entire twenty-foot radius—unavoidable for a ground fighter.
To Anwan's eyes, the Ogre's movement was painfully telegraphed.
He saw the beast's left heel slip two inches into the mud under its immense weight. He saw the wrist turn three milliseconds before the trunk swung.
Anwan didn't leap back. He sprinted toward the Ogre, stepping directly inside the inner radius of the swing.
The massive tree trunk passed two inches over his dark hair.
Anwan planted his boots into the dirt, bent his knees, and drove the point of his iron broadsword straight up into the Ogre's knee joint.
CRACK!
The heavy iron blade shattered the thick cartilage. The Ogre let out a deafening roar of agony as its leg buckled beneath it, forcing the giant monster down onto one knee.
Anwan ran up the Ogre's bent leg, leaped onto its broad shoulder, and brought his broadsword down in a clean, vertical execution strike directly into the back of the beast's skull.
Thwack!
The massive Ogre collapsed forward into the mud, lifeless.
High above the battlefield, perched on the edge of a snow-covered cliff overlooking the valley, Eos-3 watched the boy through a magical scrying glass.
His sharp demon face twisted in dark frustration.
"That boy again..." Eos-3 muttered, his dark runes flaring with purple magic. "Lord Araw was right. His perception is abnormal. He is cutting through the horde's vanguard without taking a single scratch!"
Eos-3 raised his staff, chanting an ancient spell in the forbidden Eos tongue.
On the valley floor, three pulsating Catalysts of Abaddon buried beneath the snow suddenly erupted with violent purple light.
The surrounding air grew heavy with sulfur. The blood of the fallen beasts pooled together on the ground, bubbling frantically as it was drawn toward the center of the valley.
Anwan landed cleanly on top of a fallen rock, his broadsword dripping with dark beast blood. He suddenly stopped, his dark eyes narrowing as he turned toward the cliffside.
"Master," Anwan called out calmly, pointing his blade toward the glowing purple light in the distance. "The air over there smells like the demon in the cave."
Sir Rodas knocked two Goblins aside with a single sweep of his staff and stepped up beside his student, his eyes scanning the ridgeline.
"Aye. The strategist controlling this mess is hiding on that ridge," Rodas grunted, wiping sweat from his scarred forehead. "If we don't break those glowing purple stones, the beasts will keep rising no matter how many we slice."
"I'll go," Anwan said simply.
"Can you make it through two hundred yards of monsters alone, boy?" Rodas asked, a proud grin touching his weathered lips.
Anwan adjusted his grip on his broadsword, his absolute vision locking onto the exact path through the sea of crimson eyes ahead.
"They're moving slow today, Master. I'll be back before the meat gets cold."
With a single explosive step, Anwan blurred forward into the shadow of the horde, leaving a trail of displaced snow in his wake as he charged straight for the demon on the cliff.
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