5 Hours Later

Elena stood in full military attire, katana strapped at her side, as she inspected the soldiers placed under her command. Since Ezra held no rank in the army, authority had naturally shifted to her. He was not part of the chain of command. His role was simple—fight, but without orders. A lone sword at the edge of the formation.

This was no routine mobilization. Bloodfort was under emergency decree. Every awakener above Rank-2 had been summoned to the walls. The Human Council had promised survivors rare resources—fuel for their next breakthrough—but everyone understood the truth: those rewards were bait dangling above a killing field.

Her gaze drifted toward Ezra. He sat on a bench, polishing his sword with calm, deliberate strokes. The blade gleamed silver in the lamplight, as though he believed clarity could be found in its reflection.

"Ezra…" Elena's voice softened. "I'm sorry about all this."

He rose and stepped closer, his eyes steady on hers, sharp as the steel in his hands.

"What are you saying? We finish this mission first. Regret can wait."

She searched his face, unsettled by his calm. "You know you don't have to fight. Civilians are already in the bunkers. Families, tourists… you could be down there with them. Why choose this?"

Ezra turned toward the window. Outside, the evacuation line stretched endlessly—mothers clutching children, fathers hauling bags with shaking hands, soldiers urging them along with rifles slung tight.

His voice came steady, without hesitation.

"As an awakener, war will find me whether I want it or not. That's inevitable. So why not now? If I can't stand here, then I have no right to carry this sword."

Elena's grip tightened on her katana. "The jammers are Rank-9 class. All communications are dead. The warp gate is already in enemy hands. In less than an hour it'll finish linking. When it does… Bloodfort becomes a cage. No one gets out."

Ezra's reflection lingered faint in the glass, his expression unreadable.

This isn't how it happened, he thought. None of this was in the story I remember. The future… it's slipping further from my hands.

Elena exhaled and said quietly, "If we survive this—let's go on a date again."

He watched her walk away, a small smile pulling at his lips. "Then I'll survive," he whispered. "Because I like our dates."

She didn't hear him.

Ten minutes later, the last civilians vanished underground. The soldiers assembled. Twenty thousand men stood in flawless lines, armor gleaming, rifles clutched. With reserves, Bloodfort's strength swelled to fifty thousand.

Marshal Chu Kuangren loomed over them from the platform, his voice carrying like a war drum.

"Major Elena—effective immediately, you'll assist General Sergei and Colonel Mustafa in retaking the warp gate. Depart now!"

Elena saluted and led her squad forward. Trucks growled to life, engines spitting black smoke.

Inside one of the troop carriers, Elena and Ezra sat shoulder to shoulder. Across from them the Sono twins, Shawn and Charlie—both Rank-6—studied the battle map. Shawn glanced up.

"Major, is this a straight push? Frontal assault?"

Elena spread the map flat with her palm. "Yun Hao is engaged with General Sergei on the ridge. He brought four Rank-6s and about a thousand men—mostly fodder, Rank-1s and 2s. Our goal isn't to slaughter them. It's the gate. We get inside, change the coordinates, and cut the connection before it completes."

The truck lurched forward, rattling across broken earth. Through the flap they glimpsed distant flashes of mana—Sergei and Yun Hao carving trenches across the mountain, every strike heavy but restrained. Neither could risk shattering the gate.

At the crest, Colonel Mustafa stood outside his planning tent, his eyes locked on the distant clash. He turned as the truck screeched to a halt. "You again," he said, recognition in his tone.

Elena inclined her head. Shawn leaned forward. "Colonel, situation?"

Mustafa pointed toward the ridge. "Three Rank-5s hold the outer approach. My tanks are firing but their defensive formations are holding. Too many Rank-4s bogging the line. And my read? More Rank-5s are inside the gate itself."

Charlie tapped his chin. "So if we rush, we'll be ground down. Best play is infiltration. Major Elena, you and Lord Ezra slip inside and secure the interior. Mirella's there with about a hundred men. Can you handle it?"

Mustafa folded his arms. "Meanwhile, my forces—five hundred and fifty strong—will keep the outside burning. The twins hold with me. Elena, Ezra, you go straight for the core. Change the coordinates. Quick in, quick out."

Elena's jaw tightened. "Mirella is mine," she said, her voice edged with a promise sharper than steel.

Ezra rose, adjusting his sword belt. His answer was simple. "Let's go."

Mustafa's voice dropped to command pitch. "We'll breach with artillery. Climb the wall, clear the parapets, and punch through. You two—use the chaos. Get to the gate before the hour ends."

Engines roared. Tank treads ground over stone.

Ezra's hand closed around his sword. Elena's katana whispered as it left its sheath an inch.

Outside, the plain stirred with movement—men flowing forward like a dark tide, the air thick with oil and iron. The ground shook with the thunder of engines, the boom of distant cannons.

—————————

The battlefield looked like a hybrid of machine and sorcery.

Tanks roared forward, exhaust hissing with enchanted smoke, their armor plates carved with runes that made every shell burst with a halo of mana on impact. Artillery pieces hammered rhythm into the earth, their rounds wrapped in flame-glyphs that left trails of blue fire across the sky before exploding in concussive shockwaves. Above, scout constructs in the shape of gargoyles circled—bone and steel drones bound to Rank-3 magicians—dropping sensor wards that sank into the ground and projected grids of light across the command map.

The enemy's defenses were layered in brilliant geometry: hundreds of shield-mages linked in a vast formation, barriers overlapping like scales of a single armored beast. From the outside, it looked impenetrable. Mana shells struck and scattered; artillery bursts dispersed across the wards like pebbles against glass. But Mustafa knew the truth.

"The stronger a formation is on the outside," he said, watching the glow ripple, "the weaker it becomes on the inside. Every node is pointed outward. Inside, it's nothing but casters chained together. Once someone strikes at the heart, the whole thing falters."

Charlie's lips curled into a thin smile. "Then we don't break the wall—we cut the threads holding it up."

The signal came. Mustafa unleashed a frontal barrage: tanks belching runed shells, infantry magicians lancing bolts into the outer wards. Charlie's unit surged at the flank, driving pressure into one corner. The enemy poured their strength outward, reinforcing the barriers against this flood.

That was when Shawn moved.

He slipped through a seam where the defense lines were thinnest. To the outer eye, the formation was whole; inside, the casters were overextended, attention split a dozen ways. Shawn wove through the cracks, striking the nodes that were never meant to withstand internal assault.

For an instant, the outer wall flickered.

Mustafa and Charlie seized it. Together, their strikes collided—tanks ramming into the shuddering barrier, rune cannons exploding at point-blank, Charlie's own blade humming with pure force as he carved through the wavering lattice. The formation groaned like a ship taking water.

Then Shawn struck from within. His blade cut down Rank-4 casters before they even realized he was among them. Their spells were tuned outward, their barriers shaped for external resistance. From inside they were defenseless. One by one their nodes snapped—mana links severed, resonance shattered. The casters collapsed, unconscious, eyes glassy as their circuits overloaded.

The great shield fractured.

For the first time the battlefield saw the truth: formations that looked invincible outside were glass within.

Mustafa and Charlie pushed in deeper, widening the breach. Shawn's slaughter spread like fire across dry grass, collapsing more nodes. The formation broke apart completely; hundreds of magicians slumped in heaps as the light-web dissolved around them.

Three enemy Rank-6s rushed to stabilize the wall, meeting Mustafa, Charlie, and Shawn in brutal combat. The clash shook the parapet—sword against sword, spell against spell—six titans colliding in sprays of light and shockwaves that bent the very air.

Below them, chaos bloomed.

The enemy's soldiers, stripped of their shield wall, stumbled as Bloodfort's troops surged forward. Elena stepped through the breach without wasting a single motion. Her katana flickered once, clean and efficient, carving down a defender and moving on. She conserved her strength, advancing with a commander's focus.

Ezra was the opposite.

He moved into the melee like a storm, dual swords flashing with merciless precision. A Rank-3 lunged at him with a spear crackling in lightning—Ezra cut through both weapon and man in a single sweep. A Rank-4 erected a barrier and hurled a volley of shards—Ezra stepped through the storm, his blades shredding the shield and opening the caster's throat in one clean motion.

Where others used mana explosions, he relied on geometry and timing. His twin blades moved like clockwork: one intercepting, the other killing. A Rank-5 poured his strength into a spear of compressed mana; Ezra parried it with one sword and drove the second straight through the man's chest. Another Rank-4 tried to flank—Ezra's off-hand blade took his head before the spell finished forming.

He left no wasted movement, no grand displays—only a trail of bodies and the metallic tang of blood in the air.

"Elena!" he heard her call once, but his answer was only more steel, more death.

She advanced; he cleared. Together they carved a path.

Behind them, the breach had become an inferno. The twins and Mustafa clashed with enemy elites atop the wall, the roar of artillery thundered over broken ground, and hundreds of unconscious magicians lay strewn across the dirt where the formation had collapsed.

Ahead, the warp gate pulsed—a vast circle of energy growing brighter with every heartbeat, the countdown to a cage snapping shut.

The slaughter had only just begun.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.