Back on the battlefield, the clash had settled into a merciless rhythm.
Illumi stood slightly apart from the thickest fighting, her boots planted in scorched earth littered with broken arrows and shattered weapons. An ornate grimoire hovered open before her, pages turning on their own as glowing runes bled softly from the parchment into the air. Her breathing was shallow now, her gentle voice thinning as she completed another spell.
"…Hold on," she whispered, not commanding, only asking.
The golden barrier she had woven flickered, its edges fraying like worn silk. Illumi's fingers trembled as she brushed them along the book's spine, feeling the strain pulling at her mana.
She reached into her satchel and produced a small blue vial. The liquid inside pulsed faintly. She hesitated just long enough to murmur a soft prayer, then drank.
Warmth spread through her chest, steady and calming. The pressure behind her eyes eased. Her shoulders relaxed as the grimoire brightened, pages snapping open to new sigils.
She lifted her hand, palm open.
The runes flared.
Soft golden light flowed outward in controlled waves, knitting flesh, sealing wounds, and easing pain. Soldiers gasped as strength returned to their limbs. Illumi turned pages with care, never raising her voice, her magic precise rather than overwhelming.
Not far away, Samantha was the opposite—motion without restraint.
Twin daggers flashed in her hands, thin blades catching firelight as she danced through the chaos. Her expression held a quiet smirk, eyes sharp, body loose, as if the battlefield were a familiar stage.
An orc nearly four times her size barreled toward her, swinging a massive sword down in a brutal arc.
Samantha stepped forward.
Then she was gone.
The blade struck empty ground with a thunderous crack. The orc barely had time to register the absence before something tapped its back.
It turned.
Samantha stood there, daggers already wet with blood.
Warmth spread across the orc's arm. It looked down just as the limb slid free, hitting the dirt with a heavy thud.
It roared, staggering, raising its remaining arm—
The world spun.
For a brief moment, the sky filled its vision.
Only then did it understand.
Its head fell a heartbeat later.
Samantha didn't look back. She flowed onward, blades flashing, cutting through flesh and armor alike with effortless precision. To her, this was not frenzy—it was routine.
Arnold's fight was far less elegant.
He stood amid crushed bodies and torn earth, hammer rising and falling in savage arcs, his shield absorbing blow after blow. Each impact rattled his bones. Each blocked strike left his arm heavier than before.
He was strong—undeniably so—but the swarm was taking its toll.
Bruises darkened beneath his armor. Blood seeped from cuts along his forearms. He spat to the side and crushed a goblin beneath his shield.
"Enough," he snarled. "I didn't come here to play gatekeeper."
He looked up.
The goblin king stood in the distance, unmoving, watching the slaughter as if it were entertainment.
Arnold grinned despite the ache burning through his muscles. "That's the one."
He ripped the shield from his arm, mana surging into its rim as he spun and hurled it forward.
"Shield boomerang!"
The shield tore through the battlefield like a screaming disc, spinning fast enough to shear through goblins, orcs, and even chunks of stone. Bodies split cleanly as it carved a straight path toward the goblin king.
Then something jumped into its way.
The orc commander reached out and caught the shield with one hand.
The impact cracked the ground beneath its feet, dust erupting outward, but the commander did not budge. Muscles flexed as it forced the spinning shield to a dead stop.
Silence rippled for a heartbeat.
The orc commander studied the shield, then lifted its gaze to Arnold, a slow grin spreading across its tusked face.
Arnold tightened his grip on the hammer, bloodied knuckles creaking.
"Good," he said, voice low and eager. "This is what I'm hoping. A worthy opponent."
Arnold's chest rose and fell heavily as he reached into the storage ring, fingers brushing cold metal before closing around a vial the color of fresh blood. He bit the cork free with his teeth and drank.
Heat flooded his veins.
Bruises tightened, then faded. Torn muscle knit itself together with a dull, grinding ache. The fatigue that had weighed on his arms burned away, replaced by a familiar, dangerous clarity.
He exhaled slowly and rolled his shoulders.
"Time to get serious."
Across the churned battlefield, the orc commander answered with a low, amused growl. With a flick of its arm, it hurled Arnold's shield back at him—not as a courtesy, but as a challenge.
Arnold stepped forward and caught it mid-spin. The impact drove his boots several inches into the ground, but he didn't yield. He locked the shield into place, mana humming along its surface, and broke into a charge.
He did not slow.
Goblins and lesser orcs swarmed to intercept him, shrieking as they lunged. Arnold swung his hammer in wide, brutal arcs, each strike pulverizing bone and armor alike. Bodies were flung aside like debris, but the swarm kept coming, clawing, biting, hacking at him from all directions.
Peonome stood atop the stone golem's shoulder, robes snapping violently in the heated wind. From her elevated perch, the battlefield unfolded like a living map—lines breaking, pressure points forming, lives ending in blurs of motion and magic.
Her eyes narrowed.
She lifted her staff and struck it once against the golem's shoulder.
The summon obeyed instantly.
It stomped its foot down, frost exploding outward in a circular wave. Jagged ice walls erupted around Arnold, freezing goblins mid-leap, locking snarling orcs in place, their expressions forever trapped between rage and terror.
The sudden stillness lasted a heartbeat.
Arnold's shield slammed into the ice wall, shattering the frozen barricade in a violent spray of shards.
The orc commander crashed into him.
Greatsword met shield with a thunderous impact. The force of the blow obliterated the remaining ice and sent frozen bodies flying. The ground cracked beneath them, and for a moment the world seemed to tilt.
Arnold gritted his teeth, boots skidding back, arms screaming as he absorbed the strike.