Looking out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw Effie raise her shield to receive the impact of a carapace centurion. Moments after withstanding the blow, she lifted her spear from behind the shield and, in one swift motion, drove it into the centurion's body, damaging its spine. With a brutal bash of her shield, she sent the corpse flying several meters back.
After that, Arthur couldn't see anything else, because he found himself face to face with a descending pincer intent on crushing him.
The carapace centurion fell upon him with all its weight. Arthur stepped to the side, and the pincer shattered the coral where he had stood an instant before. Without slowing, Dawn's Ballad rose diagonally and sank into its chest. The monster shrieked and tried to close its other pincer, but Arthur was already inside its guard. A second blow, deeper, reached the core. The centurion collapsed.
There was no pause.
Two scavengers leapt at the same time, one low, the other straight at his chest. Arthur stepped back half a pace and jumped, avoiding the pincers. In one swift motion, he drove the sword into the weak point of the scavenger. The second struck him immediately, making him stumble, but after evading another attack and raising Dawn's Ballad, the blade shattered its spine. Both bodies fell almost together, immediately trampled by the tide surging behind them.
A giant centipede undulated toward him while a scavenger lunged from the side and a creeping vine sought his ankle. Arthur spun. The sword descended, piercing the scavenger's body. Then he cut the vine with a dry slash and, before the centipede could wrap around him, drove Dawn's Ballad into its front segment. The long body convulsed violently before going still.
He had no time to regain his balance.
All around Arthur, the bodies of humans and Nightmare Creatures were entangled into an undulating, bleeding, roaring mess. Claws and steel weapons rose and fell, sending streams of blood, splinters of bone, and chunks of flesh to the ground. Screams of fear, pain, and fury mixed with the indescribable howling of the nightmare horde into a cacophonous litany of death.
In that split second, he noticed one of his fellow Sleepers throwing the body of an iron spider that had jumped onto him back with a thunderous strike of his shield; a stone golem biting into someone's head with its terrible jagged fangs; a giant centipede wrapping its long segmented body around a screaming human and sinking its hundred legs into his melting armor.
A carapace demon advanced head-on while two scavengers tried to flank him and a mass of carnivorous worms crawled toward his legs.
Arthur stepped forward instead of retreating.
The demon attacked first. Arthur deflected the pincer and responded with a direct thrust to the torso. The impact didn't stop it, but it slowed it. One of the scavengers managed to claw his side. Arthur spun and decapitated it with a short cut.
The worms began to climb his boot. He activated Static Void, freezing the worms, and brought the sword down repeatedly, crushing and splitting the living mass while the demon attacked again. This time, Dawn's Ballad penetrated deep enough, and its spine was destroyed. The demon fell. The second scavenger barely had time to react before being skewered by the blade.
Arthur severed the vine with a violent slash and rolled beneath the next descending pincer. From the ground, he launched an upward thrust that pierced the abdomen of the nearest centurion. He rose in one fluid motion and unleashed a horizontal cut that destroyed the demon's leg joint.
The battlefield roared.
Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur caught sight of Effie thrusting her spear forward… but at the last instant she stopped herself. She retracted the motion with abrupt force, and the bronze tip halted mere inches from another Sleeper's face.
For a fraction of a second, they stared at each other, Effie with surprise and irritation, the young man with a belated fear just beginning to form in his eyes. Then, a colossal shadow rose behind him. There was a clean, precise metallic flash. The boy's head separated from his shoulders in a perfect red line, severed in a single stroke by the blade of a carapace demon.
"...D—damn!"
Effie looked up at the creature, teeth clenched. She had no time to react. Something rammed into her from the side with brutal force, knocking the air from her lungs and sending a wave of pain through her body. Grunting, she slid over the blood-soaked coral and twisted her torso in time to interpose Dusk Shard between herself and the next attack.
Blood ran down her neck from an open wound as she dodged a descending claw and let out a harsh laugh.
"Bastards… are you trying to… eat me?! Ha-ha-ha…! Let's see who eats who, idiots!"
Around her, the first line of the Dreamer Army was beginning to give in under the unbearable pressure of the horde. Too many had already died, and more fell with each heartbeat. Their bodies were torn apart and dragged into the mass of monsters, disappearing between teeth and claws as if they had never existed. It was a sight so atrocious that the mind refused to fully accept it.
And yet, the Sleepers of the first line — those who possessed the most lethal Aspects and the most powerful Memories — had achieved the impossible. They had halted the devastating impact of the tide of abominations. They had stopped it with steel, with blood, with their own lives.
The horde did not sweep away the human army in a single blow nor crush it without resistance.
Moreover, the carnage was not one-sided. For every human who fell, several Nightmare Creatures were pierced, shattered, or reduced to fragments. With terrible effort and unbearable cost, the first line began to reorganize. Survivors of the initial clash gathered around four figures who stood like bastions in the midst of chaos.
Effie, Gemma, Caster, and Arthur.
With his armor covered in blood and Dawn's Ballad firm in his hand, Arthur advanced once more.
The horde was still endless.
With each of them turning into a bastion in the sea of monsters and gathering fighters around them, the advance of the horde stalled. Whatever creatures managed to get past were met and eviscerated by the Sleepers of the second line, led by Seishan, and throughout all of that, the archers and the siege engines of the third line never stopped firing.
Watching from the elevated position of the third line, Kai couldn't help but grow nervous as he saw the avalanche of monsters the first and second lines were facing.
While his objective was to loose as many arrows as possible and kill as many Nightmare Creatures as he could, he also had to watch the skies. The Crimson Terror did not command only land creatures, it also had Spire Messengers.
Even with those two objectives, his gaze couldn't stray from the four figures that stood out in the front line. Kai knew Gemma was a great fighter, thanks to his time in the castle. He also recognized that Caster was formidable from their time together in the cohort.
But it was the other two who captured what little attention he had left. Effie was a killing machine, wherever her spear pointed, monsters fell.
Kai had to take a breath to steady himself. Arthur was facing a creature he didn't even want to describe because of how disgusting it was, but it was definitely of the Fallen rank, and as if that weren't enough, he was surrounded by others of the Awakened rank.
Those latter ones seemed unable to approach him. It was as if reality itself forced them to remain still, and meanwhile, the vile Fallen creature ended with its head separating from its body.
Kai swallowed.
But he couldn't continue analyzing the fight below, because at that moment something happened that frightened him even more than the massacre between Nightmare Creatures and humans unfolding on the ground.
At some point, five black dots appeared high above the battlefield, flying in an eerily perfect circle above it. A cold chill ran down Kai's back.
"Messengers…"
Five Fallen Monsters were observing the massacre below with vile indifference. Even though he could not see their harrowing shapes too clearly, Kai could somehow feel their gaze.
'...Why aren't they attacking?'
As if to answer his question, a smaller dot emerged from the clouds and fell through the circle formed by the Messengers. Then another. And another…
Just a second later, countless Nightmare Creatures poured from the grey skies and dove downward, swiftly approaching the ground. There were so many that their mass resembled a swirling black column of a colossal tornado.
Kai trembled… however, he did not allow fear to prevent him from fulfilling his duty.
"Skyward squads! Aim high!"
At this point, about half of the Sleepers in the third line were supposed to shift their attention and repel the aerial threat. However, engrossed in the battle below, most of them didn't hear or understand his words.
Kai grimaced.
Then his clear, enchanting voice rolled over the entire battlefield once more, easily piercing through the clangor and havoc of the terrible strife:
"Skyward! Squads! Aim high!"
Brought back to reality by his voice, the archers quickly aimed at the sky.
Just in time.
Kai loosed the Blood Arrow and watched it fly upward, striking one of the winged abominations in the chest. The monster convulsed and dropped vertically, hitting the sharp wires of the iron net with a sickening sound.
The wire for the net had been collected in the Labyrinth, from areas where iron spiders were known to nest, and fashioned into the aerial barrier by the Artisans.
It was meant to protect them from the terrifying creatures that could fall at any moment from the skies.
A tremor ran through the entire net, and drops of black blood fell to the ground. For a moment, his heart was squeezed by despair.
There were so many flying Nightmare Creatures that it was impossible to count them. Among the swarm were giant locusts he had fought before, massive abominations with hungry maws and bat-like wings, repulsive birds with fleshy tentacles growing beneath their pale feathers, and many more horrors he had never seen nor imagined.
Above them, five black dots continued to circle in the sky.
Placing another arrow on the string of his bow, Kai banished fear and doubt from his heart and drew it back. Then he aimed at the closest abomination and willed it to die.
A moment later, his arrow struck the creature straight in the eye. It lost control of its flight, and seconds later crashed into the net, the impact sending blood and severed limbs down toward the first line.
They continued holding back the avalanche of creatures in an incredible display of resilience.
Many Sleepers died, but all ensured they took more creatures with them to their deaths. For every human who fell, two creatures did the same.
This was largely thanks to the two figures who stood out the most. And in truth, both were enjoying the moment.
Effie had long forgotten about anything but bloodshed. The scope of the world had narrowed to the suffocating confines of furious battle, consuming both past and future.
This was only the present and the present consisted of nothing but violence, death, and killing.
With a mad grin on her face, she faced one abomination after another, crushing, breaking, and tearing them apart. Her tall body had turned into a lethal battle machine, moving with ferocious speed and devastating power, deadly precision and murderous will. Both Zenith and Dusk behaved like natural extensions of her limbs, alternating between attack and defense to reap one profane life after another.
Her armor had been pierced several times, but she paid it no attention. It didn't matter. All that mattered was killing as many Nightmare Creatures as possible, obliterating as many monsters as she could. Their corpses piled up, carpeting the crimson coral with an uninterrupted bleeding mass of broken flesh. After a while, Effie had to start watching her step carefully.
Despite that, the number of abominations showed no sign of diminishing. It was as though the horde was endless and boundless. But she wasn't afraid…
In fact, Effie was enjoying herself.
'Oh, this was so exhilarating!' she thought.
Arthur, for his part, was not so different.
If Effie was an unleashed storm, he was a constant blade carving a path through it. He did not laugh madly, but a firm smile was drawn across his face as he advanced among the creatures. He wasn't as covered in blood; his armor was still recognizable beneath the dark stains, and his movements were restrained, more calculated.
Dawn's Ballad danced in his hand like a natural extension of his will. Each cut was precise, each thrust measured. He did not waste energy. He did not shout. He did not let himself be dragged into a frenzy.
But that did not mean he didn't feel it.
The world had narrowed for him as well. The past — his family, the Labyrinth, the months of isolation — had faded. The future — the Spire, Cassie's vision, what would come after — did not exist either. Only now remains. The clash of steel against carapace. The dull thud of a body falling. The next enemy advancing.
There was something intoxicating in it.
High on the freedom to wreak havoc, fighting countless beasts slowly turned men into monsters themselves… but it was also true that he enjoyed it.
Not in the same way as Effie. Not with wild laughter or total abandon.
He enjoyed it with clarity.
With the cold certainty of someone who understood exactly what he was doing and still chose to continue. Each creature that fell beneath Dawn's Ballad was an affirmation. Each corpse striking the ground, proof that he could endure.
***
On the high mound of crimson coral stood three figures watching the battle. One was Cassie, her delicate hand resting on her rapier.
The other two were Nephis and Sunny.
At that moment, she turned her face and looked at Sunny.
"It's time," she said.
Sunny simply nodded, then looked at Cassie. He hesitated for a few seconds and then smiled.
"Hey, Cas. I'll see you… on the other side, I guess."
He lingered a moment, nodded slowly, and turned away.
"Don't die."
He sighed.
"I guess that's my cue."
Together, he and Nephis walked to the edge of the coral mound and jumped, leaving the blind girl alone at the summit.
Landing softly on the ground, Sunny nodded to Neph and said in a calm voice:
"I'll go first. Good luck."
With that, he turned toward the battlefield and inhaled deeply.
The battlefield was filled with bodies, blood… and shadows.
The corpses caught in the net above made the shadows darker and darker. It was the perfect moment for him.
As he stepped into the darkness, he suddenly became almost invisible. The shadows embraced him as one of their own, concealing his figure and movements. Wrapped in their grasp, he gathered his resolve and plunged into the battlefield.
Running forward, he found himself in the midst of the third line of archers. They continued firing, desperately trying to find clear openings between the numerous corpses piled atop the iron net. He spotted Kai, who wore an expression of confusion and strain, and curiously saw Sylvie approach the charming archer to shout something at him.
Sunny couldn't hear what she said, but it seemed to work, because Kai's expression changed and he resumed firing arrow after arrow. Meanwhile, Sylvie switched to a bow and began shooting as well, propelling her arrows with Mana to make them fly even faster.
Tearing his gaze away and slipping unseen among them, Sunny left the third line and ran toward the second.
Here, remaining invisible became more difficult.
The second line was losing nearly all semblance of order, but it still held. With the warriors under Arthur and Effie continuing to bear the weight of the horde and withstand its pressure, Seishan had managed to prevent the abominations from reaching the archers.
At least for now.
Moving unseen, he avoided several brutal skirmishes. At one point, he saw Seishan herself.
The breathtakingly beautiful woman fought with a mysterious, mesmerizing grace. Sunlight Shard rose and fell, guided by her slender hand. Yet the power unleashed by each blow was terrifying.
Every time the warhammer struck, a Nightmare Creature disintegrated, fragments of scales, bone, and jets of blood flying through the air.
Leaving that scene behind, Sunny slipped into another layer of shadow and ran toward the first line.
Moving among the endless horde of monsters, he dodged and avoided their bodies, keeping to the shadows. If anyone saw him, he would be torn apart in seconds. If he slowed, he would be crushed and annihilated.
Along the way, he saw Effie. The huntress had lost or discarded her shield and now spun her spear, using it to deliver both piercing and slashing attacks, drawing wide arcs in the air. Her body was covered in blood, and her armor bore perforations that, if she kept this pace, would soon shatter and break apart.
But a wide, joyful smile was drawn across her face.
He also encountered Arthur. Noticing him, Arthur winked as he took another Nightmare Creature's life with his sword. What unsettled Sunny most was that around Arthur there were nearly twice as many corpses compared to Effie — and he bore no wounds, though there were bloodstains on his body.
There was a perimeter of nearly two meters around him in which creatures would completely freeze or stand still in intervals while he moved with frightening precision, killing the most dangerous ones before dealing with the weaker.
Leaving everything behind, Sunny plunged deeper into the horde. At times, he thought they would notice him. But in the end, the shadows kept him safe, and after some time… an eternity, perhaps… he finally broke free from the endless mass of Nightmare Creatures.
Now, there was nothing before him except the vast expanse of the cursed black waters and the mass of the Crimson Spire stretching infinitely into the skies.