Eirwen crashed onto the stairs with the back of his head, hard enough for something in his neck to crack.
Before he could recover, another Nightmare Creature landed on his side and bit into his face.
Its teeth sank through his cheek, tore into the flesh near his mouth, and pulled hard enough for the skin to split toward his ear. Eirwen let out a muffled growl, from both pain and fury, then drove the blade on his knee upward into the creature's stomach. He felt the edge slide through soft organs and scrape against bone.
The Skreel released his face to screech.
He used the moment to grab its open mouth with both hands and pull in opposite directions until the jaw split apart.
His eyes burned with anger as the Spell whispered into his ear.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more!]
The one that had gone for Seraphiel had already reached him.
Seraphiel's short sword met it at the last possible second. The blade pierced its shoulder instead of its throat, so the Skreel's momentum carried it forward anyway. It slammed into him, forcing him back against the wall, its teeth snapping an inch from his face.
Seraphiel's pale eyes widened slightly, not with panic, but strain. He tried to raise his knee, but the creature's weight pressed him down.
Then, just a second later, Eirwen's clawed hand appeared over its head and sank into its skull from behind.
He pulled the creature off Seraphiel and held it by the neck. Its limbs twitched, but it was not dead yet.
"Come here," Eirwen growled before opening his mouth.
His lips split wider, cheeks tearing in wet lines as the old, disgusting hunger opened somewhere deeper than his stomach. The Skreel's body folded toward him as if dragged by an invisible, ancient force.
It vanished into the gaping darkness of his mouth, swallowed by something deep inside the Sleeper.
He snapped his mouth shut with a groan, blood and black slime running down his chin while the tears in his cheeks closed.
[You have Devoured an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You grow stronger!]
Alien Essence immediately rushed through his Cores.
Eirwen breathed in, and the burning weakness inside him eased.
Seraphiel stared at him for a moment, his chest rising and falling hard. His face was covered in sweat, and a smear of black blood ran along his jaw. He said nothing, simply tightened his grip on the chain, and turned back toward the swarm.
The Skreels screamed again, like a thousand sharp whistles echoing together.
Eirwen bared his sharp fangs as he launched himself forward, the extended edges of Steel Shroud glinting through the snow and blood.
He drove into the next group like a storm of blades.
His claws opened throats. His elbows split skulls. His knees tore through stomachs and organs. He twisted between bodies, low and fast. When one leapt from the wall, he leapt with it and met it midair. When another crawled beneath him, he dropped onto all fours and bit into the back of its neck. When a third tried to escape toward the breach, he hooked a claw into its ankle and dragged it back across the stone until its nails snapped from trying to hold on.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more!]
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more!]
The Spell's voice kept coming, but Eirwen barely heard it anymore.
Every detail entered his mind and became either useful or irrelevant.
Nothing else existed.
A Skreel tore a chunk from his forearm, and he immediately killed it. Another opened his back from shoulder to waist, and he crushed its skull with his elbow without wasting a second. A third bit into his hand and almost tore off two fingers, but he simply shoved the whole hand deeper into its mouth, letting it bite down while his claws emerged from the back of its neck.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You have consumed a Soul!]
[Devour the Flesh for more!]
And just like that, his Essence dropped again.
The healing was becoming expensive. The Steel Shroud's Enchantment also consumed Essence, [Echoes of the Drowned], which he used to create smokescreens with the snow, drained even more, and his constant regeneration kept eating from the same place.
Eirwen grabbed the nearest corpse before it could slide down the stairs.
His mouth opened wide again, cheeks tearing, jaw stretching far too much as the dead Skreel vanished into him.
[You have Devoured an Awakened Monster: Frostbitten Skreel.]
[You grow stronger!]
A surge of alien Essence flooded him again, and he moved before the taste even managed to fade.
'This is dragging on for way too long! Where is everybody?!' Eirwen cursed in his mind.
Seconds stretched endlessly.
The bodies piled higher near the breach, but the Nightmare Creatures crawled over them. Snow fell into the tower and stuck to the dead. Blood ran down the steps in uneven streams, freezing at the edges and staying warm in the center where more kept spilling. The tower groaned again and again, walls creaking above them as if the whole section was about to give up.
Seraphiel's sword arm started to slow.
Eirwen's body kept repairing itself, but his breathing had grown harsher. His body was always at peak condition, but his mind was slowly becoming tired.
Then many heavy, organized footsteps came from below.
Eirwen heard them through the shrieks and the wind a heartbeat before the first Awakened appeared around the bend below, covered in dust and blood, his shield raised high. Behind him came more soldiers, then a woman with glowing red lines running across both hands, then a tall man in dark armour who looked more like a Nightmare Creature than a human.
The first Awakened slammed his shield into the stairs, and a broad wave of pale force rushed upward, knocking several Skreels off their feet. The woman with red lines stretched both hands forward, and thin threads of fire shot between the creatures like needles, piercing eyes and other openings before exploding into sparks inside their bodies. The giant man stepped past her, manifested an axe Memory, and swung once.
The air in front of him split, and three Nightmare Creatures immediately came apart in two, their bodies sliding into pieces before they even realized they had been cut.
The swarm finally faltered for just a fraction of a second, unsure of who to target.
The new enemies, or the two nearly dead Sleepers?
Eirwen did not hesitate much though.
He used the moment and lunged into the gap created by the Awakened, caught a Nightmare Creature trying to retreat through the breach, and drove both elbow blades into its back. The creature folded around the impact, spine snapping beneath the Steel Shroud's edges.
He kicked it away and turned to another, but the Master's axe flashed past him and removed its head before he reached it.
Eirwen nearly snapped at him, but the Master did not look at him.
None of the soldiers did for more than a second.
They moved like a single being, pushing up the stairwell, clearing the creatures from the breach, cutting them down faster than Eirwen and Seraphiel could have ever managed alone.
Another Master came behind them, shorter and wrapped in a thick cloak. He placed both hands on the inner wall near the breach and closed his eyes. The black stone around the opening trembled.
Metal reinforcement bent back into place with a grinding scream. New stone grew from the edges, crawling across the hole while frost snapped and fell away in chunks.
The howling wind weakened, and the snow slowed its frantic movement.
Then the breach sealed with a final, heavy crack.
But there was no sudden silence.
The fortress, after all, was still under attack. The tower was still shaking while men shouted above and below.
The snow already inside the stairwell drifted down slowly and came to rest on the stairs, mixing with blood, guts, and black stone debris. It landed on corpses, on broken claws, on shredded limbs, on Eirwen's shoulders and in Seraphiel's pale hair.
Without the wind, the scene looked even worse.
The stairs were almost unrecognizable beneath the bodies. Black blood filled the grooves between steps. Steam rose faintly where warm organs met the cold air. The walls were painted with smears, handprints, and sprays of gore.
Eirwen stood in the middle of it all, chest rising and falling, claws dripping with blood, the edges of the Steel Shroud still extended from his elbows and knees and painted with black liquid.
Black blood coated his mouth and chin, and one side of his neck was still closing where teeth had torn through him a few moments earlier.
Seraphiel leaned slightly against the wall behind him, sword lowered, chain hanging from his wrist. Sweat ran down his face, and his skin still had that faint bluish tint. His white attire was no longer white in many places.
The Master with the axe finally glanced between them, and his gaze lingered on Eirwen this time.
'What are you staring at?' Eirwen raised a brow as he slowly came down from the high of the battle with deep breaths.
The stone-shaping Master opened his eyes and looked toward the sealed breach, his face pale from effort. "It will hold for a few minutes. Maybe less if something bigger hits it."
That was when Miro appeared behind everyone, stepping over a corpse with his hands clasped behind his back. His bald head and tattooed arms were streaked with dust, and some of the markings on his skin still glowed faintly.
He looked at the sealed breach, then at the collapsed upper stairs, then finally at the two Sleepers trapped between the mess.
His eyes paused on Seraphiel first and then on Eirwen.
Whatever he thought, his expression barely changed.
"Fall back," Miro said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "This section is compromised. Take the wounded and anything still useful. Leave the dead. We have no time to bury them."
Eirwen flexed his claws before retracting them, the black, inky liquid flowing back into his body.
For a second, he looked back at the sealed breach and the bodies piled around it.
But when the tower groaned again and a crack spread through the ceiling above them, Eirwen clicked his tongue.
He recalled the extended edges of the Steel Shroud too, the blades sliding back into place along his elbows and knees, then turned away from the breach with black blood still dripping from his armour and body.
'There's nothing to do but follow,' the Sleeper thought, letting out an annoyed sigh as he walked after everyone.
Leviathan's voice stirred in the back of his mind alongside countless more, calm and amused despite the carnage around them. 'A fortress is not lost when its walls crack, boy. It is lost when the people inside stop moving. So keep walking.'