The six cloaked figures descended from the centipede's back like falling shadows.

They landed in a perfect circle around the gathered fighters — Henry, the Prince, the Princess, Theo, the Heavy Knight, and the Swordsman — their boots hitting sand without a sound.

For one heartbeat, no one moved.

Then the world exploded into violence.

The first cultist threw back his hood.

His face was pale, skeletal, with veins so dark they looked like cracks in porcelain. He raised both hands, and the shadows beneath the fighters' feet came alive. Tendrils of pure darkness erupted upward, writhing like serpents, reaching for throats and limbs.

"SCATTER!" the Swordsman barked.

They moved.

The Heavy Knight didn't dodge — he couldn't, not with his bulk. Instead, he roared, slamming his massive warhammer into the ground. The impact cratered the earth, sending a shockwave that disrupted the shadow tendrils, causing them to recoil and hiss like burned snakes.

But the second cultist was already moving.

A woman, her cloak billowing as she sprinted forward with inhuman speed. Her hand slashed across her own palm — blood welling instantly — and she flung it forward. The droplets crystallized mid-air into crimson shards, each one sharp as glass, spinning toward the Heavy Knight like a swarm of ruby wasps.

The Princess stepped in front of him.

"AEGIS!"

A translucent barrier materialized, shimmering blue. The blood shards struck it and shattered, raining down in harmless red dust. But the barrier cracked under the assault, spiderwebbing across its surface.

The blood cultist smiled.

She bit her lip hard enough to draw more blood, then spat. The crimson spray transformed into a whip — solid, flexible, razor-edged — and she lashed it forward.

The whip wrapped around the Princess's barrier.

And squeezed.

The barrier shattered.

Shards of magical energy exploded outward. The Princess stumbled back, gasping, mana draining from her reserves like water through a sieve.

The Heavy Knight moved to protect her — but something grabbed his ankle.

He looked down.

A hand.

Growing out of the sand.

Then another.

Then six more.

The third cultist stood twenty meters away, his body convulsing grotesquely. His chest split open — not wounded, but opening — and additional arms erupted from the cavity, each one covered in slick, gray flesh. His legs elongated, joints bending backward, transforming him into something between human and spider.

The hands gripping the Heavy Knight's ankle pulled.

Hard.

The knight crashed down face-first, his warhammer flying from his grip. More hands erupted from the sand, crawling over his armor, pulling him deeper into the earth.

"GET OFF—"

The Swordsman was already there.

His blade moved like liquid light — three cuts, impossibly fast, severing the grasping arms at their wrists. Black ichor sprayed across the sand. The Heavy Knight rolled free, gasping, just as the Flesh Render lunged.

The cultist moved on all fours now, his extra limbs propelling him forward with terrifying speed. Claws extended from every finger — bone-white, serrated, dripping with something dark.

The Swordsman met the charge.

Steel rang against bone.

The Swordsman's blade deflected one claw, spun to parry another, but there were too many. A third claw raked across his shoulder, shredding fabric and flesh. Blood sprayed. The Swordsman grunted but didn't retreat. Instead, he stepped into the attack, his sword finding the gap between two arms and driving deep into the cultist's distorted torso.

The Flesh Render screamed — a wet, gurgling sound — and stumbled back, black blood pouring from the wound.

But it didn't fall.

Its chest wound grew more arms, smaller ones, trying to grab the blade still embedded in its flesh.

"These things don't die easily!" the Swordsman shouted, yanking his blade free.

Meanwhile, the Prince had engaged two cultists simultaneously.

One was a tall man whose hands constantly moved, sketching shapes in the air. Every gesture summoned a new weapon — swords, spears, axes — all manifesting from golden light and hurtling toward the Prince like a storm of steel.

The other was a woman who screamed.

Not words.

Just sound.

The scream hit like a physical wall, a wave of compressed air that distorted vision and shattered stone. The Prince's golden armor flared, absorbing the impact, but even he staggered, boots dragging through sand.

A summoned spear flew toward his face.

The Prince twisted, liquid gold rippling across his body. The spear glanced off his shoulder plate, sending sparks flying. He surged forward, closing the distance to the Arsenal cultist in three massive strides.

His fist — wreathed in golden energy — drove into the man's chest.

The impact sent the cultist flying backward, crashing through a broken pillar. Stone exploded. Dust billowed.

But the screaming woman inhaled again.

The Prince turned just as she unleashed another sonic blast — this one focused, concentrated, a spear of sound aimed directly at his head.

His armor flared brighter—

And cracked.

A hairline fracture appeared across his chest plate. The Prince's eyes widened. Blood trickled from his nose, his ears. The world spun.

Then Theo appeared behind the screaming woman.

A dimensional door snapped open, silver edges glowing. Theo's boot connected with the woman's spine, kicking her through the portal. It closed instantly, cutting off her scream mid-note.

Another portal opened ten meters above the sand.

The woman fell through, crashing down hard enough to crater the ground.

"Thanks," the Prince gasped, wiping blood from his face.

"Don't mention it," Theo replied, already opening another door as the Arsenal cultist emerged from the rubble, more weapons forming in his hands.

Henry stood apart from the main melee, his body wreathed in a light blue aura that pulsed like a heartbeat.

The sixth cultist faced him alone.

This one's hands were wrapped in rotting bandages, the flesh beneath black and weeping. Every step he took left footprints of withered, dead sand. Plants wilted. The air itself seemed to sour.

"You smell like death," Henry said quietly.

The Rot Hand cultist smiled, revealing teeth stained green.

He lunged.

Henry didn't dodge.

The light blue aura around him intensified, flaring bright enough to cast sharp shadows. When the cultist's hand reached for Henry's throat, the aura met it first.

The cultist screamed.

His hand sizzled, flesh burning away like paper in flame. The rot magic recoiled, unable to penetrate whatever energy Henry commanded. The cultist stumbled back, cradling his ruined hand.

Henry stepped forward.

The aura expanded, washing over the cultist like a wave. Everywhere it touched, the decay reversed. Blackened flesh turned gray, then pink. The cultist convulsed, his body rejecting the healing energy like poison.

"What— what are you?!" the cultist shrieked.

Henry's expression remained cold.

"Someone you shouldn't have fought."

The aura pulsed once more.

The cultist's body collapsed, skin sloughing off, bones crumbling into ash. Within seconds, nothing remained but a pile of gray powder.

But Henry's moment of victory cost them.

The Shadow Weaver — the first cultist — had been waiting.

Shadows erupted beneath the Princess.

She screamed as tendrils wrapped around her legs, her waist, her throat. They lifted her off the ground, squeezing, suffocating. Her hands sparked with magic, but the darkness drained it away, drinking her mana like a starving beast.

"Princess!" Theo shouted.

He opened a portal beneath her — but the shadows were faster. They yanked her sideways, slamming her into the ground. Her head cracked against stone. Blood pooled beneath her blonde hair.

She went limp.

"NO!" the Heavy Knight roared.

He charged the Shadow Weaver, warhammer raised. The cultist gestured lazily, and a wall of solid shadow materialized between them. The Heavy Knight's hammer struck it with enough force to shatter mountains.

The shadow held.

Then it exploded outward.

Shards of crystallized darkness pierced the Heavy Knight's armor — through gaps in the plating, into his shoulders, his thighs, his chest. He roared in pain but didn't stop. He swung again, and again, each impact cracking the shadow barrier further.

Blood poured down his armor.

He didn't care.

The barrier shattered.

The Heavy Knight's hammer connected with the Shadow Weaver's chest.

The cultist's ribs caved in with a sickening crunch. He flew backward, tumbling across the sand, and didn't get up.

The Heavy Knight swayed.

Looked down at the dozen shadow shards embedded in his body.

"Well," he muttered. "That's... not ideal."

He collapsed to one knee.

The Swordsman and the Prince stood back-to-back now, both breathing hard, both bleeding. The Flesh Render circled them, its multiple arms clicking and scraping. The Blood Thorn cultist approached from the other side, her crystallized whip coiling like a living thing.

Theo moved between portals, trying to flank, but the Arsenal cultist kept him pinned, summoning weapons faster than Theo could dodge.

Henry tried to reach the Princess, but the screaming cultist had recovered, her sonic blasts keeping him at bay.

They were losing.

Slowly.

Inevitably.

The Heavy Knight down. The Princess unconscious. Everyone wounded, exhausted, mana depleting.

And then, from across the battlefield, Robert's voice cut through the chaos.

"Having fun yet?"

He stood on the centipede's back, twirling his poisoned daggers, watching the slaughter with a smile.

"Because this is only the beginning."

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