Xanor and Shadow Eyes recoiled as a nearby wendigo, one of their own former soldiers, slowly turned its head. Its eyes were a chilling, vacant white.

​"This?" Xanor's voice was a low growl, a mixture of disbelief and building rage.

​"GRAAAAAAAAA!!!"

​The lead wendigo lunged, a ghastly silhouette of betrayal. Shadow Eyes moved with inhuman speed—a flash of polished steel—and the creature's head tumbled to the blood-soaked ground, its body following a second later. Her movement was efficient, yet in its abrupt finality, there was a faint tremor of regret for the life she'd just extinguished, a comrade turned puppet.

​"She!" Shadow Eyes spun, turning to Josephine, who stood atop a massive, winged wendigo, its obsidian wings spreading wide before it launched into the air. Behind her, a terrifying horde of thousands of wendigos, following behind.

​"We need to get out of here..." Shadow eyes hissed, as Xanor bisected another attacker.

​Xanor planted his war axe, took a breath, and turned to face Josephine. He saw the cold, self-satisfied smirk on her lips, and a deeper problem solidified in his mind.

​"Something isn't right," he stated, his voice calm despite the surrounding chaos.

"No matter how powerful she is, God Wolf wouldn't let her come here alone. Not only that, she said he is in range. Meaning, he's either hiding outside, or..." He glanced at the city, where the flood of corrupted soldiers surged.

​"He is inside the dungeon, right inside the prison." His face became a mask of grim realization.

As the assigned leader, this breach, was a personal failure.

​"How did he get there?" Shadow Eyes asked, her gaze flicking down to the wendigos beginning to scale the towering wall.

​"God Wolf isn't a simple enemy. I made that clear in my description. By now, all the captives..." He exhaled a ragged breath, pushing the guilt aside.

"Forget all that." He raised his axe and brought it down, smashing the head of the first wendigo to reached the top of the wall.

​"I can't believe we are being besieged by our own soldiers," he added, yanking his axe free. He hated this—the necessary brutality against the soldiers he'd sworn to fight with.

​Shadow Eyes turned to Josephine, who was rapidly closing the distance:

"If those wendigos reach here, we are finished. If only I was at my peak." She muttered, her frustration evident. With a desperate downward slash, the space beside her tore opened and a shimmering gateway appeared.

​"Let's go, this Base is gone." She turned to step through, but her horror mounted as the portal shook violently, then dissolved as if it had never been.

"....???"

​"Trying to escape in the presence of a Space Master... How naive of you."

​"That voice!" Xanor and Shadow Eyes exchanged a look of dread.

​Xanor's gaze snapped down to the ground. There, casually seated on a makeshift throne of stone and debris, was Sunny. Behind him stood Eve, and around them, the main horde of wendigos parted, rushing towards the besieged pair.

​"God Wolf." Xanor's hiss was laced with pure, focused killing intent.

​"So that is God Wolf," Shadow Eyes murmured, staring intently at Sunny. A flicker of respect, quickly suppressed, crossed her eyes.

"You didn't say he's a Peak Stage God Rank Warrior!" Her tone, however, remained unnervingly calm, masking a whirlwind of shock.

​"No way... I was only gone for a week and... How did he enter such a rank?" Xanor exclaimed.

​BAM!!

BAM!

BAM!!

The drumming sound of the wendigo horde was the only answer.

​"It seems we are fighting." Shadow Eyes's calm dissolved into resolve.

​She snapped her fingers. A sleek, midnight-black God-Rank Armor shimmered into existence over her ninja outfit, enclosing her face behind a visor of polished shadow.

​'Huh? I thought her ninja outfit was her armor?' Xanor thought, briefly distracted.

​"I won't stand here and get myself killed!!!" Shadow Eyes yelled, a primal release of pressure. She leaped down from the wall, her dagger a deadly blur, slicing through every wendigo in her path with cold, surgical precision.

​BAM!!

She landed, a silent engine of destruction, and shot toward Sunny's direction, her new armor quickly soaking in the blood of her fallen soldiers.

​"Worthy of a peak god rank warrior, but... she is planning on attacking me?" Sunny muttered with a theatrical grin, resting his cheek on his fist. He wasn't threatened; he was amused.

​"I also want a slice of him!!" Xanor roared.

He jumped down, landing hard, and gripping his axe, he followed Shadow Eyes, clearing the attackers rushing at her from behind.

​"Hey! Don't you have a skill that can easily kill these things?!" he yelled.

​"I have... but that consumes a lot of energy! I won't have sufficient energy to face him!" Shadow Eyes answered, her gaze fixed on the grinning Sunny. Her strategic mind was working overtime, balancing risk and reward.

​"And her!" she added, a nod toward Josephine, who now stood on the Wall with all the winged, elite wendigos flanking her, effectively closing any escape route.

​"So no going back!" Xanor smashed his axe down on a lunging wendigo.

"Once they got into her control, they lost all reasoning... Just attacking blindly." He was frustrated—it was a fight against automatons, not true enemies.

​"Doesn't this skill have a cool down?!" he yelled, watching the relentless flow of corrupted soldiers.

​"Bloodlines skills are consuming, and very dangerous," Shadow Eyes explained, turning momentarily to face him.

"If I use my bloodline skill, I can wipe out 70% of these puppets. But my energy will be drained. Can you protect me after?"

​Xanor looked at Sunny, then at Josephine, and the truth was a heavy burden:

"I can't." He said truthfully, his grim honesty a testament of his respect.

​"Thanks." Shadow Eyes accepted his answer without judgment. She brought out a small, red card with a skull embedded on it—an artifact of last resort, a secret she had hoped never to use.

"Plan B then. I just hope she will get my message." She infused her energy into the card.

​"Who is she?" Xanor asked, confused.

​"The First Pillar... She should be in a secret realm now. I just hope she sees this!" Shadow Eyes said as the card vanished.

​"What was that?" Sunny raised an eyebrow, a slight crack in his facade of boredom. He snapped his fingers, and a gateway opened behind his throne.

​"Go back... Don't worry, once the time is right, you will have your revenge." he told Eve.

​Eve stared at the battle, nodding with a sense of relieved compliance. The air, thick with the power of God-Ranks, was heavy and suffocating to her.

'A Battle involving God Rank warriors is dangerous,' she thought, acknowledging her own limitations and trusting her king's judgment.

She turned and entered the gateway, which closed soundlessly.

​"She left? Does he know what we are planning?" Xanor's confusion was a brief lapse in his focus.

​"Maybe! Forget that! Now, we just need to hold our ground, back-to-back." Shadow Eyes hissed.

​Xanor quickly took his position behind her, his axe ready. His mind was clear now: a shield for a cornered ally.

​"How long do you think we can hold them back?" he asked.

​"Without using any skill, I will say twenty minutes... But using skills, we will stand for ten minutes... At least, we will kill more of these puppets." She looked up at Josephine, her voice flat.

"Of course, this calculation is only possible if she doesn't order the elite Wendigos to attack."

​As if her words were a command, Josephine pointed a single, dismissive finger at the two.

​"Kill."

​WHOOSH!!!!!!

​The five thousand elite, winged wendigos peeled off from the wall, shooting into the air, and diving towards Xanor and Shadow Eyes. Their silent, swift descent was more terrifying than the mindless horde.

​The realization settled on Xanor: they weren't buying time; they were fighting a delaying action for a hope—a red card sent to a long distance ally. This was it.

​"Well," Xanor muttered, a grim smile touching his lips.

"Let's make this a memorable last stand." He gripped his axe, ready to swing.

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