The main bridge of Arcanum Bellator had become a slaughterhouse.
Phantsin Dawnfire was a meat grinder forged in fire and purple metal. His Overwhelming Strength knew no bounds under the effect of cellular overload.
He caught an abyssal hound mid-leap by its jaws, forcing them apart until they dislocated with a wet crunch, before unleashing a point-blank thermal shockwave.
The purple fire burned so hot it vaporized the demons' blood before the beast even touched the ground, reducing it to floating ashes.
But the massacre wasn't turning the tide. For every monster he incinerated, three more leapt from the vibrating darkness of the Rift.
[COUNTDOWN: 20...]
[AEGIS INTEGRITY: 40% AND DROPPING]
[WARNING: FRONTAL PLATE BREACH]
A skeletal, lanky demon—four of its arms ending in obsidian blades—managed to slip past Phantsin's curtain of fire, twitching with unnatural spasms.
It delivered a vicious cross-slash straight to the Purple Knight's chest.
The armor's hexagonal plates crunched, giving way to the corrupted edge, splintering and spilling violet sparks mixed with human blood.
Phantsin let out a stifled cry.
Ignoring the pain, he seized the demon by its scaly neck and, with a brutal yank, decapitated it with his bare hands.
Yet the overexertion and blood loss took their toll; he faltered, dropping heavily onto one knee. He was reaching his human limit. The entropic fire enveloping him began to flicker, threatening to die out.
The bridge was covered in smoldering corpses, but the horde kept advancing in a blind avalanche, crushing their own dead just to get to him.
There were too many. They were going to overrun him.
Then, a wave of black flames swept across the right flank of the bridge.
Flames that, instead of heat, radiated an illogical cold.
The spectral fire touched a dozen hounds, and rather than burning, the light in their eyes flickered out. Their bodies were instantly covered in black frost, disintegrating into freezing dust a second later as they collapsed under their own weight.
Phantsin looked up through his shattered visor.
Walking with the lethal elegance of a master fencer, Vlad Blackthorn approached. The Solarian prince wore his uniform unbuttoned and stained with soot. In his right hand, an intricately designed rapier burned with his Shadow Fire.
"Did you think I was going to let a commoner take all the glory for the history books?" Vlad asked, gliding across the battlefield like a ghost and standing back-to-back with Phantsin.
"Vlad... this is suicide," Phantsin panted, standing up heavily, his metallic joints squealing.
"You're the last person who should be telling me that, Dawnfire," the noble replied, raising his dark blade. With a subtle flick of his wrist, he deflected the thrust of a lesser demon and, in a counterattack rendered invisible by its sheer speed, pierced its heart. The demon froze in black flames and dropped dead.
"Besides, House Blackthorn does not retreat from the shadows. Let's finish these bastards!"
Phantsin felt a tug at the corners of his lips beneath his helmet. Together, the two faces of the Ignis faction threw themselves against the horde.
Blinding purple fire and spectral black fire.
Phantsin acted as an unstoppable battering ram; his fists cratered the enemy lines, disintegrating the center of the formation with pure kinetic and thermal force.
Vlad, meanwhile, was a surgeon. He used the deadly precision of his bloodline to cover Phantsin's blind spots. Whenever a demon tried to flank them, Vlad's rapier found its throat or its eyes, freezing its vital fluids in an instant. His sharp tactical mind guided the chaos:
"Three on your left, Dawnfire! I've got the right, break their advance!"
But even together, with impeccable coordination, the math of war was against them. The horde was endless.
[COUNTDOWN: 14...]
[ALLY MANA LEVELS: 25%]
Vlad stumbled, breathing heavily, the shadow fire of his blade flickering and shortening from a lack of energy.
A large gargoyle, which had been lurking in the darkness, dive-bombed from the shattered sky, its claws already extended and aimed directly at the noble's exposed back. Phantsin tried to intercept it, but he was busy struggling with three hounds biting at his armored legs.
Then, a sharp whistle cut through the wind.
Three arrows, propelled by wind magic, descended from the sky. They curved in the air, evading the gargoyle's wing, to impact directly on its bare chest. Upon impact, the arrows detonated. They were spheres of hyper-compressed air that exploded with the force of a cannon, shattering the beast's torso mid-air and sending a rain of black blood down into the subterranean river.
Almost simultaneously, the stone of the bridge trembled with tectonic violence.
"Get down!" roared a deep voice.
A solid wall of granite and intertwined roots erupted violently from the ground in front of Vlad and Phantsin. The barrier acted as a perfect breakwater, blocking the charge of a new wave of massive demons, which crashed against the rock and crushed themselves under the momentum of their own sprint.
Phantsin and Vlad blinked, surprised under the rain of stone dust.
From the dark sky, a winged blur descended, exhibiting the absolute mobility of Caelum.
Zephyr.
The Avariel landed softly on top of the newly created stone wall. He wore the light leather and silver armor of the military scouts. His hawk-like eyes, shining with magic, scanned the battlefield with telescopic precision.
And from behind the wall, stepping out of a cloud of smoke with a heavy warhammer resting on his shoulder, appeared Korbin Ironfoot.
The Terra dwarf sported a thick beard adorned with steel rings and a sturdy breastplate of Valoria's heavy infantry, etched with glowing runes he had forged himself.
Both of them, who months ago had survived the lethal "Rite of Bellator", were now full-fledged Mage Knights.
"By the beards of my ancestors!" roared Korbin, letting out a deep laugh that echoed above the din of battle.
"We leave you alone for a few months and you nearly destroy the Academy!"
"We heard there was an early graduation party and couldn't miss it," Zephyr added.
Without missing a beat, the hawk-boy dropped backward off the wall, spread his wings to glide just above the ground, and fired two arrows at blinding speed that pierced the skulls of the demons peeking over the edge of the bridge.
"How have you been, Phantsin?" Zephyr greeted as he landed. "Purple isn't my favorite color, but it makes you look intimidating."
Phantsin's heart skipped a beat.
The relief, brotherhood, and joy were so intense that the HUD in his eye registered a massive spike in endorphins, momentarily counteracting the destruction the armor was wreaking on his cells.
[EMOTIONAL STABILIZATION DETECTED]
[LIFE SUPPORT TEMPORARILY EXTENDED]
"Korb! Zephyr!" Phantsin's voice cracked slightly with gratitude behind the metallic filter. "I thought you were at the borders!"
"We saw the light in the sky from leagues away," Korbin replied.
A heavy demon, the size of a bear, leapt over the wall and delivered a direct claw swipe to Korbin's chest—a blow that would have split a human in two. The dwarf barely took half a step back; his defensive runes flashed, absorbing the impact. With a fierce grin, Korbin pivoted on his heel and smashed his warhammer into the monster's ribs, sending it flying off the bridge like a ragdoll.
"If the sky is going to fall, Squad Seven will hold it up!" roared Korbin, taking his place next to Vlad. "Shoulder to shoulder, boys! Tunnel formation, don't let them surround us!"
The bridge finally became an impassable bottleneck.
They worked like a perfect machine.
Korbin was the immovable anchor, withstanding colossal blows and shaping the terrain to force the enemies to bunch up.
Zephyr dominated the air, manipulating gusts of wind to destabilize flying monsters and firing with lethal precision to decimate the enemy rearguard before they could reach his friends.
Vlad executed the survivors of the crowd control with slashes of Shadow Fire, and Phantsin unleashed his heavy artillery on the largest monstrosities.
Phantsin's morale skyrocketed. They were gaining ground. They were proving that the light of Arcanum Bellator, the strength of the bonds forged in its halls, would not be extinguished tonight.
But the Void knew no honor, nor did it care about moral victories.
[COUNTDOWN: 06...]
[OMEGA LEVEL THREAT DETECTED!]
[IMPACT TRAJECTORY: BYPASSING THE BRIDGE]
The Rift in the sky expanded with a sickening sound, like tearing flesh, and a violet lightning bolt blinded everyone present.
The air suddenly became so dense and heavy from the sheer gravitational pressure of dark magic that Zephyr lost his lift mid-flight, dropping heavily onto his knees on the bridge.
A roar that sounded like tectonic plates tearing apart shook the entire world.
Then, a gargantuan mass fell from the wound in the sky. It completely bypassed the bridge and the defensive line, tracing a dark, flaming arc over the rooftops of the Academy.
Phantsin turned slowly. Horror froze the boiling blood in his veins.
The black meteor slammed dead center into the Academy's central courtyard.
The shockwave shattered the ancient stained-glass windows of the Great Hall and brought down the most fragile parts of three lesser towers in a shower of debris.
The immense, solid blue dome of Aether that Eliana Dawnshield had been maintaining with such effort and precision flickered violently and then shattered into a million arcane fragments, like a soap bubble under the pressure of an iron boot.
Through the dense black smoke and stone dust kicked up in the very heart of the Academy, an Abyssal Spawn rose to its feet.
The creature was over twenty feet tall.
Its body was a sanity-defying aberration: composed of thick plates of molten obsidian, amalgamated corpses writhing inside it, and pure entropic energy bubbling at its joints. It had no eyes, only a massive, asymmetrical maw lined with hundreds of jagged teeth, dripping a corrosive, liquid darkness.
And it had landed exactly in the evacuation zone.
Exactly where Lyla was healing the wounded cadets.
Where Eliana was leading the exhausted defensive line.
Where Rikka was fighting like a wild animal to protect her pack.
Where Ellie was keeping Flower and her shining beacon, the Staff of the Green Heart, safe.
"NO!" Phantsin's scream tore through the air, ringing with pure terror and magical static.
[COUNTDOWN: 05...]
The Purple Knight didn't think twice. He didn't even consult his comrades or calculate his odds.
He left Korbin, Zephyr, and Vlad holding back the waning horde on the bridge, and broke into a mad dash back toward the interior of Arcanum Bellator.
He knew with absolute certainty that if he didn't make it in time, the Abyssal Spawn would turn the heroic victory on the bridge into a mass grave for everything he loved.