Justinian felt like he had been hollowed out. He was exhausted to such a degree that he knew if he closed his eyes and allowed himself to collapse, he would be asleep in seconds. The only reason he hadn't succumbed to the desire was through sheer force of will... That, and the certain knowledge that a couple of seconds after he fell asleep, he would be awakened from the pain of having his throat ripped out.

It was a motivator if there ever was one. It was also, in Justinian's addled state, starting to not look like such a horrible fate. Why was he still fighting? Why form another casting when there were always more to take the place of those he killed, and he was only buying time as some form of penance for his own failures?

After all, death was also a form of penance. But it was fleeting. Only in life could you suffer and make the greatest atonement for your actions. And it wasn't like he had utterly failed. He had held the breach for… how long had he been here again? Basically, since his trap triggered. At the thought, his mind began to drift as killing dozens every second had become a habit at this point.

Collapsing the city, a strategy that he thought would kill thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of beastkins, had only killed a single creature. Or so he thought at first. Reality wasn't so kind. The monstrosity was trapped, but from how the unsteady ground periodically shifted, it was far from dead.

For now, however, it was out of the fight, and that was all he could wish for. Because the battle was far from over. The northern walls of Ironhold were broken, its defenders were scattered, and the hoards of beastkin were charging for the gap moments after the ground stopped shaking from the avalanche.

Not that their rapid advance mattered, as the beastkins ruling the air were already securing the breach and swooping deeper into the city before the wolves made it halfway to the walls. At that moment, Justinian knew one fact with his whole being. The city would be taken in a matter of hours. No matter what he did, that fact would not change.

The heroic defenses of strongholds spanning months and sometimes years that he had read about so many times growing up would never happen against this force, not with the troops he had, or perhaps, not with Justinian in command. As soon as the behemoth was uncovered, the citadel would be smashed like a child kicking over a sandcastle. And everyone knew it.

It was too much in too short a time. The militia Justinian had thrown together and trained for weeks was scattered, their training forgotten in unending tides of fear. But where could they go? The streets were increasingly riddled with fighting as those from above attacked, stalling the defenders while those charging along the ground advanced.

"To the southern gate!" Screamed Justinian, his voice thrumming as it tore at his throat, "Gather at the southern gate!" Over and over, he shouted the message and sent out pulse messages to ensure the order spread.

But he did not flee. No, because if the beastkins were allowed to pour into the town unchecked, no one would escape. So he raced to the breach in the walls. The birdkins saw his advance and moved to intercept him, but they might as well not have bothered. This was not a situation where they could harass him, probe his defenses, and wear him down.

This was a straight-up fight where he could exert his full might against them. In the middle of his bounding leaps, he gathered water from the wells specifically constructed next to the wall to support his family's castings when the town was built, compressing it and gathering it around him.

With that handled, he pulsed his psy, collecting and throwing dozens, then hundreds, of the newly made stone projectiles at the beastkins rushing to confront him. In an outwardly moving wave, the bodies of the beastkins were torn and battered into a bloody mess. Some of the beastkin managed to block, deflect, or dodge the attacks for a few moments, but only a few. In a couple of seconds, hundreds of birdkins were dead, and Justinian was standing in the center of the breach, watching the onrushing hoard of wolfkins.

While it might have appeared that the high noble was overwhelmed with fear at the sight of the charging beastkins howling with bloodlust, he was not. Justinian was expelling an eighth of his psy and packing it into the lake of compressed water flowing around him. With a shout of his own, the man forced the water downward into the ground and then to the sides before he started freezing it.

In three seconds, a roughly thirty-foot ice wall had risen beneath Justinian, plugging the gap in the defenses. Exposed to the warm night air, a steady stream of fog began wafting off the structure's sides, as if it wanted to compete with the blood mist. Mildly intimidating it might appear, but it was an illusion more than anything else. Really, the ice wall was a feeble thing compared to what had existed in the same place minutes ago, barely even reaching up to a third of the height of the stone walls to either side.

However, it was more than enough to stop the first wave of charging beastkins. Sure, they struggled to break it. They beat their clubs, stabbed their spears, and swung their axes at the wall, knocking off chunks of ice with the impacts. Some even leaped over the heads of their comrades in an attempt to claw their way up the side of the sheer face.

Given enough time, a matter of minutes, really, they would have shattered his creation and continued charging forward, but he wasn't going to provide them with it. With a flex of his will, his ice wall, infused with his psy and willpower, exploded outward. It wasn't much, just an inch-thick sheet of ice, but the result could not have been more devastating for those gathered below him.

It was funny for Justinian… he never understood people struggling to control their psy. Not the way they meant it, at least. Even as a child, from the first time he consciously took control of his powers, it wasn't that he couldn't control it. The problem was that he could not consistently impart the required focus for it to do anything he wanted. It might not sound like it, but there was a big difference between the two.

As Justinian thought of it, his psy reservoir was like a dam, and his willpower was like the blocked river. He needed a certain level of understanding and life experience before the river would start flowing again… Although that may not be the best metaphor. The point was that the larger the reserves, the greater the baseline of willpower you needed. However, once you reached that point, there was a depth and weight to his castings that no one who wasn't at a similar level could imagine.

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While he was manipulating psy, if he wanted something to happen and could imagine it, there would be a drop in his psy, and a moment later, it was as if his psy took on a mind of its own and performed what he wanted without his direct manipulation. There were a whole host of limitations and stipulations, such as the fact that the better his imagination, the less psy the auxiliary casting cost.

Another vital factor was the difference between his level of control and what he wanted. Justinian had long realized that if he could at least perform what he desired with his own skills, the cost of his auxiliary casting would also decrease. And then there was the fact that he could not fundamentally alter the rules of the world, simply bend some of them slightly.

So when he wanted the entire front of the ice wall to explode outward in small, star-shaped projectiles… well, it happened. And it was ice that was closer to steel than ice in strength, as it was being reinforced with his psy. The result was that the front twenty feet of beastkins along the length of the wall turned into paste in a fraction of a second.

Hundreds of beastkins were killed, and Justinian stood impassively, staring down at those lucky enough to be at the edge of the attack, their faces paling with fear, and their enthusiasm vanishing. Then those behind forced them to move forward due to the press of bodies, and they marched over the chunks of the dead.

Justinian saw the new front rank of beastkins come to a realization that drove them headlong into a frenzied attack. Either they would break through, or he would kill them.

Nearly as one, the beastkins leapt forward over the bloody mash of those who were still alive seconds before, and Justinian's hand flicked out. There was no need for him to get fancy, so hundreds of ice spikes formed from his ice wall, and the beastkins own momentum caused them to be skewered along their lengths.

Sweeping his hand out behind him, Justinian sent out a wave of psy and a flicker of will, gathering up all of the conveniently placed projectiles. Dozens of small head-sized stones shot into the air, and screeches of protest filled the sky moments later.

Some of those cries were short-lived as the birdkins diving at him had their chests and heads caved in, but others were able to swoop to the side, avoiding the attack. Small as their chance at success was with his ever-present domain stretching fifty yards in every direction, it was the only one Justinian was willing to give them so easily.

A handful, then dozens, and finally hundreds of stones, ranging from torso to house-sized, were lifted into the air and positioned around him in a shield for thirty feet. Not satisfied with that, the high noble started rotating the rocks around him.

Upon closely examining the stones, they would believe that they saw a pattern. That if they were fast and skilled enough, they could slip through with an attack, or, if they were being particularly bold, themselves.

Of course, it was a trap. A cruel smile twitched onto Justinian's lips as two large stones leaped out of the organized pattern and smashed into three foolhardy birdkin attempting to dive through the floating maze. He didn't smash the rocks together with the beastkins in the center, no, that would be wasteful. The noble just moved the boulders into new positions so that it became impossible for them to be dodged, and moved on to his next concern as the broken bodies fell to the earth.

Tapping into the water Justinian had been steadily collecting from the wells, he began firing off ice spikes to either flank, knocking off some of the beastkin climbing the broken wall. It was the best he could do. The wall was too broad, and even with his domain spread out around him, allowing him to watch the beastkins as they climbed, he did not have the power to stop them all.

And he didn't want to. He was here to slow them, and he was doing that. Instead of a torrent of beastkins entering the city, it was a trickle. Still, soon enough, smoke filled the air, and he could swear he could hear the screams of women and children over the howls and snarls of rage bubbling up from below.

Whether he really heard them or not, he knew they would be happening somewhere in the city as citizens were trapped and killed. However, that wasn't his fight, and he did not turn away. Even while he sent out one casting after another, he was sending and receiving pulse messages. The couple of centuries of legionaries that survived from Basetown were reasserting control over the militia, and surprisingly, the mercenaries were actively and effectively working with the Fridgian Knights.

The high noble didn't know if it was out of professionalism, patriotism, or because they knew their best odds of getting out of this alive would be working together, and he didn't care. He would remember their actions if they ever got out of this, but for now, he was just grateful that his people still had a chance.

So he stood in place and refused to move. He burned his energy like he was pouring a barrel of oil onto a fire, and he did not care. The noble performed one casting after another, killing scores of the beastkin indiscriminately. After a while, those commanding the beastkin decided that they didn't want to waste unnecessary life, and Justinian had to start blocking all kinds of elemental attacks.

Fireballs and wind blades fell from the sky to break against his stones. Blood and earthen spikes shot up from the ground, but they were fragile things. Barely worth the time it took to focus his attention on them, as with a simple flex of his willpower, his domain suppressed the castings, causing them to fall apart almost instantly. The only parts that actually concerned him were the solid blocks of stone, but blocking those was no different than stopping a spear.

Pathetic as the attacks were, each one sapped some of his psy. Psy, which had to be replaced from his rapidly shrinking pool. But that was a thought for later, or so he told himself… he didn't know how long ago or how many times. It was a blur of attacks and defenses, one after another after another. And now it was later… but—

Whipping around to face the hand clamped onto his shoulder, Justinian was shocked to see Terrance, covered in blood and standing at the front of a dozen knights, one of which he recognized as Gilbert from the arcs of lighting lashing off him. A look of determination was on the older knight's face as he leaned close and shouted over the battle, "It's time to go!"

Before his clouded mind could think of a reason he had to stay and fight, to hold until he was relieved, Terrance spoke again, "It's okay, Justinian. I was with your father when he was forced to retreat… This is no different. He will understand the necessity. There is nothing more to do here, nothing more that can be done. It's time to live to fight another day!"

At the words, Justinian had a moment of clarity. Not just his oldest friend, but all these other knights would stand with him until the end, no matter what he chose. The noble was fine fighting to the death. The outcome of his situation was his burden to bear, after all, but he wasn't willing to purposely throw away the lives of those under his command.

"Fine." Wheezed Justinian at the realization, something within him loosening. A dozen castings froze and dropped from the air, but the high noble was only distantly aware of it.

The world around him was fading as he slumped forward. A fall that was abruptly stopped as a tendril wrapped around him, lifting him as the knights started to cross the burning city to reach those preparing to make a fighting retreat south.

He knew all that. He knew that he should be helping. It was his responsibility to lead them… but he was so exhausted… And it was…

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