The inner perimeter was a wall of nightmare. Corvus had played his hand with cold, calculated cruelty, positioning the five elder dragons not as frontline combatants but as living, breathing siege engines.
They were too massive, too conspicuous to weave into the chaotic melee of the infantry, but as Lucian crested the final ridge of the plateau, he saw their true purpose: they were the ultimate gatekeepers.
They sat like gods of ruin, their massive, scaled bodies coiled to unleash hell upon anyone attempting to breach the final distance to the ritual circle.
Lucian's mind, expanded by the synchronization, didn't just see five dragons; he saw five vectors of impending annihilation. In the heartbeat before the first roar tore the sky asunder, he made the allocations.
"Glacielle! The left flank! Take the first one!" he commanded, his voice carrying through the synchronization channels with the weight of an iron decree.
