The fortress was dying.
Not all at once. Not in some dramatic collapse. It was worse than that—slower, uneven, a series of failures cascading out of control. Walls cracked. Towers leaned. Entire sections of the defensive formation simply ceased to exist as the battlefield shifted further and further in favour of the enemy.
Kain stood near the Northern bastion, boots planted, shoulders tight, his attention split between the chaos outside, the mess inside, and the System panel hovering at the edge of his vision.
But despite the seemingly hopeless situation, he had not given up all hope of turning things around.
What he needed was time.
Chewy hovered near his shoulder, its soft body pulsing faintly as it absorbed stray abyssal energy from the air. The battlefield was saturated with it—leakage from the clashing domains, turned soldiers, and their corrupted contracts.
