"Get the town people to safety!" Drugo yelled.
"I have them," Ms. Vice said calmly. She snapped her fingers.
In a show of huge, easy magic power, the broken stone paths of the village square fiercely tore themselves from the ground, making a huge, unbreakable roof over the running people, hiding them fully from the fighting ground.
Four Slayers, a mix of Fire and Lightning specialists, broke off from the pack, rushing directly at Drugo.
"Burn the big one!" a weeping Pyromancer screamed against his will, unleashing a massive torrent of white-hot fire.
When Krad had first met Drugo, the Elf's magic was straightforward, summoning thick roots to bind or crush his targets. But Drugo had not been idle since the boy left. The fire of the impending war had reawakened the retired warrior.
"You think a few sparks can burn the forest?!" Drugo bellowed, his emerald eyes glowing like polished jade.
He slammed his massive, muscular hands into the earth. "Ironwood Domain: World Tree's Wrath!"
This wasn't just summoning roots. The entire village square erupted. Massive, ancient trunks of black Ironwood tore out of the ground like striking dragons. The wood was as hard as tempered steel. The roots sharpened into massive, bladed spears, moving with fluid, snake-like agility.
The Pyromancer's fire washed harmlessly over the Ironwood shield Drugo erected. With a flick of his wrist, Drugo sent a massive, bladed root whipping through the air. It slammed into the Pyromancer's chest with the force of a battering ram, launching the revived Slayer through three empty houses before pinning him non-lethally to a cliffside.
"I will not kill you!" Drugo yelled to the weeping Slayers, effortlessly dodging a lightning strike from the second attacker. "But I will break every bone in your puppet bodies until you stop moving!"
Meanwhile, four speed-type Assassins converged on Hanan. They moved like blurs, their daggers glinting with lethal poison.
"Forgive us!" one of the assassins cried out, materializing directly behind Hanan, his dagger plunging toward her neck.
In the past, Hanan would have used her magic to summon a pink portal to teleport herself far away, running from the danger. Not today.
Hanan didn't move her feet. She spoke a single, harsh syllable in the ancient, unrecognizable language of her ancestors.
A swirling pink portal snapped into existence, not beneath her feet, but mere inches behind her neck.
The assassin's dagger plunged into the portal. Simultaneously, a second pink portal opened directly above the assassin's own head. His own dagger shot out of the upper portal, stabbing him cleanly through his own shoulder.
"Gah!" the assassin screamed, dropping his weapon as his body forcefully collapsed.
The other three assassins paused in shock.
"My portals are not just doors," Hanan said, her white robes fluttering as her silver eyes glowed with fierce, tactical brilliance. "They are mirrors. They are shields. And they are weapons."
The three assassins lunged in unison. Hanan moved her hands like a conductor leading a symphony.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
Dozens of small, swirling pink portals bloomed across the battlefield. When an assassin threw a barrage of throwing knives, Hanan opened a portal that swallowed them, immediately opening an exit portal aimed at the second assassin's legs, sweeping him off his feet. When the third assassin tried to leap over her, she opened a portal beneath his feet that dropped him three hundred feet into the air, instantly opening another portal near the ground to safely, but violently slam him into Drugo's Ironwood roots.
She was redirecting their own lethal momentum against them, a flawless display of spatial manipulation. Krad's bravery had taught her that running was a choice, and today, Princess Hanan chose to stand her ground.
While Drugo and Hanan handled their opponents, the remaining four Slayers, the heavily armored Vanguard veterans charged straight at the woman sitting calmly near the tavern's entrance.
Ms. Vice sighed, her amethyst eyes reflecting the chaotic battle.
"A flawless, painless world," she mused, delicately dusting off her pristine sleeves. "What a terribly boring concept."
A massive Slayer wielding a warhammer the size of a boulder leaped high into the air, bringing the weapon down toward Ms. Vice's head with enough force to level a mountain.
"I'm sorry, lady!" the man sobbed.
Ms. Vice simply raised one slender, elegant hand.
CLANG!
The warhammer struck her bare palm. The shockwave of the impact shattered the remaining windows in the village, but Ms. Vice's arm didn't even tremble. She held the massive weapon effortlessly, as if it weighed no more than a feather. The weeping Slayer stared at her in absolute, mind-breaking shock.
"You are forgiven," Ms. Vice said calmly.
She let go of the hammer, stepped forward with terrifying, imperceptible speed, and delivered a punch to the man's armored stomach.
It was not the light version she had used on Mist.
The sheer physical force of the blow inverted the air pressure around them. The Slayer's heavy chest plate caved inward like wet paper. The man was launched like a cannonball, skipping across the earth, tearing a trench through the dirt before crashing into the village boundary wall, instantly unconscious.
The remaining three Vanguard Slayers froze, their living minds terrified, though their cursed bodies forced them to raise their weapons.
"Your master," Ms. Vice said, taking a slow, graceful step forward, her amethyst eyes flashing with an ancient, dangerous authority. "Made a severe miscalculation regarding the residents of this village---"
A swordsman swung at her neck. She sidestepped with fluid grace, catching his wrist and effortlessly tossing him over her shoulder into the solid ironwood trunk Drugo had summoned. A spearman lunged. She snapped her fingers. The stone beneath the spearman's feet instantly liquefied, swallowing him up to his neck before hardening back into solid rock, trapping him completely.
In less than five minutes, the battle was over.
The village square was a mess of shattered stone, massive ironwood trunks, and the groaning, incapacitated bodies of twelve elite Slayers.
Drugo stood panting, his muscular chest heaving as he retracted the massive Ironwood roots.
Hanan closed her final portal, her silver hair slightly messy, but her eyes bright with victory. She rushed over to Drugo, checking him for injuries.
Ms. Vice stood perfectly composed in the center of the square. She clapped her hands together once.
A wave of pure, restorative amethyst magic washed over the village. The shattered cobblestones knit themselves back together. The broken windows reformed. The massive defensive dome covering the villagers dissolved back into the earth. It was a display of effortless, high-tier spatial and material repair that defied conventional magic.
"Is everyone alright?" Hanan called out to the emerging, terrified villagers.
"We are safe, Princess," the village elder bowed deeply, looking at the three defenders with sheer awe.
Drugo walked over to one of the unconscious, weeping Slayers, his gruff face softening slightly.
"What do we do with them? They are victims in their own bodies."
"We bind them," Ms. Vice instructed, her tone returning to its usual regal calm. "Xerxes's control requires a steady flow of his unique dark mana. Over time, cut off from his direct presence, the curse will weaken. They can be saved."
Hanan looked toward the horizon, the sickly crimson sky beginning to clear as Xerxes's presence faded from the region.
"He underestimated us," Hanan said softly. "He thought because we were hiding, we were weak."
"He will not make that mistake again," Drugo grunted, crossing his massive arms.
Miles away, hidden deep within the treacherous, jagged peaks of the Bloodstone Mountains, sat a dark, gothic fortress carved directly into the obsidian rock.
Inside the central chamber, illuminated only by the eerie, pulsing red light of the massive, unformed Earth Shift ritual circle, Xerxes sat upon a throne of fused bone and iron.
He was sipping wine from a crystal goblet, waiting for the feeling of the Shift Stone to enter his domain.
Suddenly, the Corrupted Mage paused.
He closed his eyes. In his mind's eye, the twelve distinct crimson threads of mana that connected him to his revived Slayers in Kubo Village snapped. Not one by one... all at once.
Xerxes's hand paused in mid-air. The crystal goblet cracked slightly under the sudden, unconscious pressure of his grip.
He opened his crimson eyes. They did not burn with rage. They narrowed with profound, calculating intrigue.
"Fascinating," Xerxes whispered, his cultured voice echoing in the empty, cavernous throne room.
He set the goblet down, lacing his pale fingers together beneath his chin. He had sent twelve elite, unfeeling, perfectly coordinated killing machines to slaughter a retired gardener, a weeping princess, and an unknown woman. They had been wiped out in mere minutes.
"It seems the Green Kingdom's remnants have grown teeth," Xerxes murmured, a slow, genuine smile spreading across his face. "And Princess Hanan has finally decided to embrace her royal blood."
Xerxes stood up, the long train of his deep red robes dragging across the ritual floor.
"No matter," the Corrupted Mage said, his composure returning instantly. A master tactician never mourned the loss of pawns, they simply rearranged the board. "The Shift Stone would have expedited the process, but it is not the only key."
He walked over to a massive, magical viewing crystal hovering in the center of the room. He waved his hand, and the crystal flared to life, displaying a live feed of the Rage Tournament Colosseum in Sorsogon City.
The image zoomed in, bypassing the grandstands, bypassing the arena floor, and focusing entirely on a young, golden-eyed boy being wheeled into a medical ward, his body battered, wrapped in bandages, but his spirit burning brighter than ever.
Xerxes smiled, his crimson eyes reflecting the image of the Moon Eater's Vessel.
"The boy is strong. Stronger than anticipated," Xerxes noted, remembering his spy, Jace, who was currently embedded in the Sorsogon crowds, waiting for the perfect moment. "But physical strength cannot stop a god's design. Let Mist and Kashima train him. Let them build him into a champion. It will only make the Moon Eater sweeter when I rip it from his chest."
Xerxes turned his back to the crystal, staring up at the pulsing red light of his incomplete ritual.
"Enjoy your little victory, Princess Hanan," Xerxes whispered into the dark. "Because when the Earth Shift begins... your courage will not save you."