Chapter 170
Daniel did not waste time. His voice cut through the stillness like the edge of a drawn blade, calm but firm, carrying weight that none of the weary guild members could ignore. He turned from the gleaming walls of Drasklorn to face the 185, his expression unreadable yet steady, the kind of gaze that anchored those who looked into it.
"We'll need to carve a path," he said, gesturing toward the jagged glass causeways and the fog-thick shadows where the undead lurked unseen. "Not all of you. Only those who can strike from range, with speed and precision. No one engages directly. You strike, you move, you withdraw. The rest will follow once the ground is secure."
His eyes lingered on the faces of the crowd until the volunteers stepped forward. Karia was the first, her breath steaming faintly as she summoned sparks at her lips, her flame-breath ready to scour anything that blocked her path. Cody Lazarus followed, his hands clenched tight as if already feeling the reverberation of his shockwave bursts, a wide-range attack that could knock down swaths of enemies in a single strike. Mary Kaye Lazarus stepped up next, the leader of the High Strategy guild, her eyes sharp and calculating. She carried no pride in her stance, only resolve, and the weight of responsibility as she prepared to guide not only the strike team but the main force behind them.
Then came the stranger figure among them, an archaeologist who carried a plain iron shovel. Yet that shovel pulsed faintly with earthen energy, the man's mastery of soil and stone bending the ground itself to his will. Irinushka was next, a calm figure with her musket slung across her back, fingers brushing over the etched runes of her ammunition; she loaded bullets that crackled with unstable magic, each one promising an explosion sharper than glass. Last was Jacob Lazarus, the Magna Lava user, vice leader of the East Lazarus guild and Mary Kaye's kin. His presence was quiet but his power was molten an inferno bound beneath the skin, ready to spill at command.
Daniel surveyed them once more, then nodded. "Stay light, stay fast. The undead here won't hesitate to swarm. You strike wide, you clear the path, and you move. Mary Kaye, secure us ground for the camp. The rest of you keep their eyes off the main force. I'll hold the veil while you burn their numbers."
The plan set, they moved swiftly. The main guild force remained in tight formation behind the shielded wagons, conserving strength, their movements hidden. Ahead, Daniel and the chosen broke into a dash, their boots scattering dust and broken glass as they pressed toward the city's outer limits. The air grew heavier with each step, the fog curling low across the earth, twisting shapes of the undead that shuffled within it. Every shard of glass underfoot gleamed like a blade, reflecting fractured silhouettes that could have been ally or enemy.
Mary Kaye signaled quickly, her eyes scanning the terrain until she found it: a hollow at the base of a shattered kiln stack, half-protected by slanted walls of broken glass. "Here!" she barked, her voice cutting sharp through the march. "This will hold! Defensive line, here!" Already, the first ranks of the 185 peeled off toward her, readying the ground for camp, shields bracing in case the enemy struck too soon.
The strike team did not pause. Daniel led them forward, weaving between ridges and glass causeways, every sense alert. The flicker of fire at Karia's lips, the steady hum of Cody's shockwave energy building, the glow of molten light in Jacob's hands—all of it was a promise of devastation. Irinushka's musket gleamed faintly in the cursed fog, her aim steady, while the archaeologist's shovel dragged lightly across the ground, leaving behind trails of shifting soil as if the earth itself obeyed his stride.
The city loomed closer now, its glass walls fractured but unbroken, and the fog stirred unnaturally—as if aware. Daniel slowed, raising his hand. "This is it," he murmured. "Clear the vermin. We make space here, or none of us set foot in Drasklorn."
The silence before the strike was thick enough to feel, every breath measured, every heartbeat sharpened to a single purpose. Then, with a flicker of Daniel's hand, the first volley was unleashed, fire and thunder and molten fury tearing into the fog as the assault on Drasklorn truly began.
The moment Daniel raised his hand, the clash began in a blaze of fire, thunder, and molten stone. Karia opened first, her chest swelling as she exhaled a roaring stream of flame that rolled forward like a living tide, sweeping across the fog and setting the first ranks of undead ablaze. Their skeletal forms shrieked as the fire clung, eating through bone and cursed flesh alike. Cody followed, his palms slamming together before thrusting outward. A concussive shockwave burst from him, flattening the burning corpses and shattering glass shards into a hail that sliced into those behind.
Mary Kaye moved like a commander born, her voice sharp and commanding, directing the formation even within the strike team. Her shovel-wielding archaeologist swung his weapon like a battle-axe, but each strike drove deep into the earth instead of flesh, ridges of stone and walls of soil erupted to shield the others, blocking sudden flanks from the fog. Irinushka fired in rhythm behind him, each musket shot glowing red-hot before the bullet detonated, turning groups of undead into scorched fragments. And Jacob, steady and grim, raised his arms as molten cracks split open along his skin; with a bellow, he cast a wave of magma forward, spreading across the ground and forcing the undead to stumble into burning pits that consumed them whole.
Daniel stood behind them, his hands weaving signs, his voice low and clipped. Medium-tier spells flared from his fingertips arcs of chaos fire, bursts of compressed force, strikes precise enough to thin the enemy's ranks but never overextend. Each time he cast, there was weight in his movements, a restraint he did not bother to hide. His body still bore the memory of his duel with the archdemon; his mana, though vast, flowed like a river clogged with stone. Every cast took more than it should have, every strike left an ache behind.
But it wasn't his body that troubled him most. It was his mind.
As the fight pressed forward, Daniel's eyes flicked back to the battle wagons in the distance, to the artifact quietly pulsing within their wards. During the march, he had tested a dangerous thought. For hours, he had distanced himself, exposing his presence like bait. And nothing happened. No divine strike, no whisper of the six gods pressing against the veil, no flicker of their hateful attention. The conclusion had been inescapable.
"The artifact blocks them," he murmured under his breath as another spell left his hands, tearing through an undead's spine. "It must."
His reasoning was simple but solid. For months he had lived under the weight of their eyes, an endless, suffocating pressure like predators circling unseen. Yet within the battle wagon, that gaze had dulled, almost vanished. The artifact wasn't just for defense against curses or scrying—it was layered with something far older. A veil.
But veils required anchors, a power source woven into the lattice of its enchantments. And the runes, the language that shaped the artifact, were not familiar to him. That gnawed at Daniel more than the wounds left by the archdemon. If he could decipher the magic tongue, if he could trace the flow of mana to its source, he might unravel who forged the device, and more importantly, why.
His theory was precise: the artifact's enchantment wasn't merely suppressing energy but redirecting it. To the gods, the battlefield looked as though it had been scrubbed from reality itself, replaced by a false echo. If the veil was powered by an external core, something buried beneath the wagon or even beyond this plane, then whoever designed it had planned to counter divine sight itself.
And that truth unsettled Daniel as much as it steadied him, for there were only two clans in all the known realms capable of creating such an artifact the Highforge and their rivals, the Deepdelve. Both were masters of enchantment and metalwork, but only the Highforge had ever sworn themselves fully to the Cathedral Tower.
They were not free artisans but bound hands, their forges tied to faith, their craft dedicated to one deity above all others the God of Order, Aethe. Daniel's mind turned cold at the thought. Aethe was no minor spirit, no wandering divinity of chance or storm. He was the highest of the throned gods, seated above the circle where the Twelve watched from their gilded seats.
The six old gods who hated Daniel's blood sat below that order, their vanity gilded yet chained beneath Aethe's authority. For an artifact like this to exist one capable of blinding even those six it meant the Cathedral Tower itself had sanctioned its creation. And worse, it meant Aethe had given his blessing.
Why? That question pressed against Daniel's mind like a blade against bone. Why would the god of Order allow such a tool to fall into mortal hands? Why would he let a Netherborn, the very race his subordinates had spent ages erasing, carry it? Daniel replayed the moments in his memory the way the artifact hummed, not with defiance but with quiet precision, as though it served a greater balance he could not yet see. Was this protection? Or was it a test, a leash disguised as a gift? He could not tell. All he knew was that the artifact carried a language older than mortal spell craft, its runes too deliberate to be chance, its lattice too intricate to be the work of anyone but dwarves.
The implications cut deeper than the battlefield. If the Highforge had crafted it, then the Cathedral Tower knew of him. If the Cathedral knew, then Aethe himself knew. And if Aethe knew… then Daniel was no longer a secret anomaly. He was a piece placed upon the board by the highest throne of all. The thought was both a shield and a snare, for it meant he was alive only because Order itself allowed it
As undead bodies fell before the strike team and the fog briefly cleared, Daniel's gold-and-blue eyes flickered with thought, not triumph. The battle was only a distraction; the real war was being fought in the unseen spaces between veils, artifacts, and forgotten tongues of power.
Daniel moved with the strike team, each step crunching over shards of broken glass scattered across the cursed plain. Fire and shockwaves kept the horde thinned for now, but his mind never stopped circling back to the artifact. With one hand casting a medium-tier blast to scatter advancing ghouls, his other slippe
d briefly into the folds of his coat, brushing the faint thread of energy tied to the wagon wards.
The pulse was still there steady, rhythmic, a hidden current that answered to no god's will. He focused, threading his perception outward as though tugging on invisible string. The moment he pulled too far, the oppressive weight of the gods' presence pressed faintly against his mind again. He withdrew, and the pressure ebbed. His jaw tightened. So, the veil has a limit. A radius.
"Three hundred meters… maybe four," Daniel muttered to himself, loosing another spell that burst a cluster of undead into fragments. "Any farther, and their gaze begins to slip through." It wasn't perfect immunity. It was more like a lantern in darkness casting a sphere where their sight couldn't pierce, but beyond that, he was visible again. The fact that the six gods hadn't yet noticed the trick meant the artifact wasn't simply shielding him, but feeding them illusions. False echoes, carefully stitched into the Tower's fabric.
That level of craft was beyond mortal mages.
He needed to find the anchor. If he could trace the origin of the spell work, he could not only expand its range but perhaps bend it to his own will. But the language of the enchantments—the runes etched faintly into the battle wagon's inner walls—was written in a script he had only glimpsed once before, in the Tower's deepest archives. Not mortal. Not divine. Something in between.
A roar yanked him from his thoughts. Ahead, the undead lines shifted. The shambling, clumsy advance fractured as figures pushed forward with grim precision. Their armor was rusted but intact, crests still visible beneath the filth. Their movements were disciplined, their coordination brutal. These were no mere cursed husks; these were veterans. Once guild fighters, defenders of Drasklorn, warriors and mages who had died with blades in hand and spells on their lips. Now puppets of the curse, their skills twisted against the living.
"Karia, spread your fire wider!" Mary Kaye barked, already snapping orders as she saw the threat. "Cody, break their formation! Jacob, prepare lava walls, left flank!"
The strike team shifted immediately. Flames poured forward, shockwaves thundered, and molten barriers rose, but the undead veterans adapted. A shield-bearer braced against Cody's wave, absorbing the force before the mages behind him loosed a volley of blackened projectiles. A cursed knight charged through Jacob's molten line, armor sizzling but his blade still raised, forcing Borislav and Mikhaylov to pin him down with venom and paralysis.
"They're thinking," Irinushka hissed as she reloaded her musket, her eyes narrowing on a fallen healer raising corrupted wards among the dead. "These aren't beasts. They remember."
Daniel's eyes sharpened. His deduction about the artifact lingered at the back of his mind, but the present demanded blood and fire. He lifted his hands, chaos energy lashing out in precise bursts to intercept the corrupted mages before they could break the team's rhythm. His spells weren't grand, but each one struck where it mattered: an ankle shattered, a casting hand blown apart, and a cursed tongue silenced before its chant could complete.
And through it all, Daniel's thoughts threaded deeper. If the artifact feeds illusions to the gods… then who is feeding reality to me? It never mentions anything else other than the warning that the old gods were aware of his existence.
The clash ahead sharpened into chaos, the veterans pressing harder, their undead minds working like echoes of their former selves. And Daniel, caught between battle and theory, felt the truth pressing closer: if these were only the remnants of one cursed city, then the path to Drasklorn's heart would not just test their strength. It would test whether the living could outthink the dead.
The battlefield cracked open into chaos as the undead veterans pressed forward with terrifying precision. These were not the mindless husks the strike team had faced before these warriors moved with memory, with discipline carved into bone.
A rusted shield-bearer slammed into Cody's shockwave, his stance rooted so deeply that the concussive blast broke around him like water against stone. Behind him, three skeletal mages raised their hands in unison, unleashing a volley of cursed lances that hissed through the fog. The air itself seemed to burn with their black fire.
Karia answered with her flames, but the veterans adapted. A cursed knight raised his corroded blade and carved through the inferno with sheer will, pushing forward as embers clung to his armor. Her breath faltered for a moment, but then she remembered Daniel's words:
Do not pour your power into the surface. Shape it. Focus it where it hurts most. She shifted, narrowing her flames to a white-hot spear of fire that bored straight through the knight's visor, melting bone and helm together. The knight fell, his sword shattering against the glassy earth.
On the left flank, Borislav and Mikhaylov worked in tandem. The poison mage had always spread his venom wide, relying on slow clouds that suffocated weaker enemies. Now, under Daniel's teachings, he targeted with surgical precision. Each drop of venom laced onto his conjured darts found a joint, an exposed tendon, a chink in decayed armor.
The cursed warriors stiffened, their movements slowing as poison ate into their reanimated flesh. Mikhaylov followed, no longer casting paralysis in sweeping waves, but threading his magic like needles into their limbs. One by one, the veterans' legs buckled, their sword arms froze mid-swing, their coordination broken by pinprick precision.
Yet the enemy fought back just as fiercely. An undead archer loosed a cursed arrow that exploded on impact, throwing Mariya off her feet. She landed hard, breath knocked from her chest, but even as the world spun she forced her curse magic outward not the scattered hexes she once relied on, but focused strikes, as Daniel had taught. Her curse wrapped around the archer's bowstring like a chain of rot, and when the string snapped, the weapon crumbled into dust.
Irinushka stood near the center, her musket braced tight against her shoulder. Her bullets were devastating but slow to prepare, and she had always hesitated under pressure. Now she trusted the rhythm Daniel had drilled into her: aim, breathe, release. The first shot blew apart the skull of a charging undead captain; the second, enchanted with explosive force, scattered three cursed spearmen in a shower of bone. She whispered thanks under her breath, steady for the first time in months.
Jacob, the last line, was the hammer. His lava magic had once been wild and overwhelming, but now he held it in reserve until the moment was right. As the veterans regrouped, pushing toward Mary Kaye's position, he drove both fists into the ground. The earth split, glowing red, and a flood of molten stone surged upward, catching the enemy between walls of fire. Their discipline faltered as they were forced to retreat, their formation broken.
Mary Kaye herself moved among them like a conductor, her voice sharp and commanding. She wielded no overwhelming magic, but her shovel, infused with earthcraft struck the ground again and again, raising cover, shaping ridges, buying moments of survival. Every order she barked was an echo of Daniel's teaching:
Discipline turns chaos into rhythm. Rhythm wins wars. She saw the flow of battle as if reading a map, positioning each ally where their strengths cut deepest.
And then there was Daniel. He did not overwhelm. He did not dominate. Instead, his medium-tier spells landed with brutal efficiency, cutting down enemy casters before they could finish their chants, snapping tendons, blinding eyes, breaking focus. He was the invisible hand at their back, watching, guiding, ready to strike when the line wavered. The weight of the gods still pressed faintly at the edge of his awareness, but within the artifact's radius he held his ground.
The clash dragged on, glass shards scattering underfoot, fog twisting with the stink of burning flesh. Slowly, steadily, the strike team gained ground. Each member was forced beyond the limits of their old selves, not merely wielding their skills but reshaping them into sharper, deadlier tools. And as the last of the veteran undead collapsed into ash, silence fell, broken only by the crackle of fire and the slow, heavy breaths of the six.
They had won but the cost was written in exhaustion, in trembling limbs, in eyes that knew this was only the beginning. Ahead, Drasklorn's glass walls glimmered like a broken mirror, and from within its shadowed streets came the faint howl of more cursed warriors waiting.
Daniel stepped forward with a steady, commanding stride, the crackle of his medium-tier chaos spells tracing arcs around him like living threads. The five strike-team members fanned out under his subtle hand, each instinctively moving into positions he silently indicated, their movements precise, rehearsed, almost like a single organism taking shape. The remaining guild members stayed back, their eyes wide as they watched from behind the safety of Mary Kaye's temporary camp perimeter, awaiting her signal. Silence stretched like a taut rope, tension so thick it pressed against every shoulder.
The undead, sensing the ferocity of the prior strike, began to shift. Skeletal veterans, armored and cunning, adapted quickly, forming tight ranks to weather Karia's flame streams and Cody's shockwave bursts. A cursed knight, larger and more disciplined than the rest, surged forward, cutting through the scorched ground, his blade swinging with terrifying precision. Daniel's gaze locked onto him, reading each movement with surgical clarity, and he whispered to Brie through the telepathic link, "Alert the long-range archers. Fire arrows, three seconds. Now."
Brie's voice came back almost instantly in the mind of each archer stationed just beyond the plateau's treacherous edges. Tiny sparks of flame flitted along the bowstrings, and arrows hissed through the foggy air, bursting into fire as they struck the undead horde. Smoke and ash filled the air, momentarily blinding and scattering the enemy as Daniel twisted his hands in a tight, precise sequence.
Chaos energy lanced forward in jagged streaks, slamming into the knight's armor, shattering rusted plates and burning through enchanted bone. Jacob flanked him, his molten lava surging up from the fractured ground, splitting around the knight to trap him between molten channels while Daniel's strikes tore into the gaps exposed.
Emma Lazarus hovered nearby, assessing every twitch, every angle of movement in the enemy ranks. "Left shoulder joint weakness exposed. Skeleton mage vulnerable wrist. Undead knight right leg," she called, each target identification echoing to the strike team. Borislav's poison darts followed instantly, guided with surgical precision to where Emma indicated. Mikhaylov's paralysis struck like lightning at joint and tendon, freezing the most dangerous enemies mid-strike.
Karia's flame shifted, no longer a wide spray but a refined, concentrated beam, following Emma's scan, forcing the knight's attention upward while Irinushka's musket fired explosive rounds at the cursed mages who tried to support him. Mariya's curse magic wrapped around any soldier attempting to close the distance, slowing their advance and forcing them into open lines of fire. Jacob's lava pulsed in tandem with Daniel's chaos strikes, molten and magic energy weaving a deadly trap that the knight could not escape.
The battlefield became a symphony of destruction. Fire hissed against cursed flesh, molten rivers churned and cracked the earth, arrows seared through the fog, and every precise strike of poison and paralysis dismantled the undead's coordination. Daniel felt the pressure mounting—more undead were alerting to the noise, the chaos rippling through the plateau. Yet he stayed calm, guiding his team with a combination of raw power, strategic focus, and silent commands, turning each player's skill into a cog in the lethal machine he orchestrated.
As the fire arrows finished their brief but devastating bombardment, Daniel focused fully on the knight, pushing through his exhaustion, each medium-tier spell striking with exact timing and force. Jacob's lava surged to block escape routes, while the rest of the five adjusted in real time, amplifying every opportunity Daniel created. The undead knight staggered, his armor cracking, his movements slowed and faltering under the combined might of calculated magic, elemental assault, and chaos energy.
In that moment, the five strike-team members moved like extensions of Daniel's will. The guild watched, breath caught, as he wove them together into a single coordinated force. The battlefield was no longer chaos it was controlled destruction, a precise strike aimed at clearing the path toward Drasklorn. And through it all, Daniel's thoughts lingered on the artifact at the wagons, on the invisible eyes of the gods, on the threads of magic and power he had yet to unravel, all while his hand guided devastation with uncanny skill.
The battlefield reached its breaking point. The undead knight, though battered, still stood, his cursed blade dragging trenches into the glass-scarred earth as he staggered forward. Around him, the undead veterans regrouped, skeletal mages raising wards, fallen guild warriors attempting coordinated counters, their memories of combat etched into undeath. Yet Daniel saw the faltering in their rhythm, the cracks opening wider with every combined strike.
"Now," Daniel's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and commanding. His chaos energy surged outward in a spiraling burst, not to kill but to stagger and blind. In that instant, the strike team unleashed everything.
Karia roared as flame erupted from her mouth, not in a wild spray but in a narrow jet, focused exactly where Emma had pinpointed, straight into the knight's exposed leg joint. The cursed bone snapped with a sickening crack, forcing the knight to drop to one knee. Jacob immediately followed, lava surging into the opening, hardening into a molten prison that locked the knight's leg into the earth.
"Don't waste it, work with each other!" Daniel barked, even as he forced his tired body into casting again. His chaos blast ripped into the knight's upper chest, staggering him backward into Jacob's molten trap.
Emma's voice rang out: "Mage ward, left flank weak! Irinushka, now!" Her assessment was flawless. Irinushka's musket flared, her bullet splitting into three explosive shards mid-flight, tearing straight through the vulnerable barrier and scattering the skeletal casters. Mariya followed instantly, her curse magic binding the exposed casters in shadows that slowed their gestures, choking their spellcasting into silence.
Cody slammed his hands into the ground, a shockwave bursting outward in a controlled arc that caught the disoriented veterans off balance. Their formation cracked, leaving openings that Borislav's poisoned darts exploited with surgical precision, each strike hitting where Emma directed, spreading toxin through cursed bone and sinew. Mikhaylov layered his paralysis in the gaps, locking entire clusters of undead into immobility.
The knight roared, a hollow, ear-splitting bellow, raising his sword in a last desperate swing. But the strike team was ready, their synergy now undeniable. Karia's flames scorched the weapon mid-swing, softening its cursed steel. Irinushka's musket blast shattered its edge. Daniel and Jacob struck in perfect unison chaos energy tearing through the knight's core while molten rock burst upward from beneath. The knight collapsed in a heap of fire, ash, and shattered bone, his fall sending a shockwave through the field.
The lesser veterans, once fierce, began to falter, their coordination breaking apart under the relentless combined pressure. One by one they fell, not to single strikes, but to layered attacks, each member reinforcing the other. Fire with poison. Shockwave with paralysis. Bullets with curses. Each skill meshed seamlessly, their strength multiplied by unity.
When at last the battlefield stilled, the air was thick with smoke and scorched fog. Shattered bones lay scattered across the glass-strewn earth, and the molten prison hissed as it cooled around the knight's remains. The strike team stood breathing hard, but together. Not as individuals throwing power blindly but as a force.
Daniel's eyes swept across them, steady, unyielding. "Remember this," he said, his voice carrying even to the guild members watching from behind the line. "Your skill means nothing if you use it alone. Learn to see how another's power fits into yours. Don't wait for someone else to save you, know how to weave your strength into theirs. That is the only way you'll survive what's coming."
The five nodded, their exhaustion tempered by the realization of what they had just accomplished. The lesson was burned into them, as clear as the fire-scorched ground at their feet.
The smoke still drifted lazily across the battlefield, curling around the scorched shards of glass that jutted from the earth like jagged teeth. The reek of burnt bone and sulfur clung to the air, yet silence followed, a silence that spoke of victory. The strike team, though exhausted, stood tall amid the wreckage, breaths ragged but eyes sharpened with the weight of new understanding.
From a distance, a flare of pale-blue light arced upward Mary Kaye's signal. It burst in the sky like a flower of fire, scattering sparks that lingered long enough to be seen across the ridge. The waiting guild members stirred. Rows of disciplined warriors, archers, and spellcasters began their careful advance. The great wagons creaked forward, iron wheels grinding against the hardened earth.
Daniel wiped blood from his mouth, steadying himself as the main force poured in. His gaze never left Drasklorn. The Glass City loomed like a fractured jewel, its walls reflecting shards of light even through the curse-born fog.
Mary Kaye approached, armor scuffed but presence unshaken. "The perimeter is secure for now," she reported. Her voice was calm, steady. "We've found a shallow basin to the south ridge. It's defensible, and the ground is firm enough to anchor the camp."
Daniel's eyes flicked to the direction she indicated. "The basin," he murmured. "Describe it."
"A natural depression," Mary Kaye explained. "Sloping ridges on three sides. Narrow approaches. If we move the wagons there, we can control every angle of attack. The ground bears the scars of old industry sand piles, broken scaffolds, quarry pits but it'll hold."
Daniel studied the terrain, gaze sweeping the scarred plain of gray stone to the north. Shards of glass littered the surface, gleaming faintly like fractured mirrors. To the east stretched the broken glass causeway leading to the city's gates; to the west, a jagged ravine filled with stagnant, shimmering pools. And above it all, Drasklorn's towers gleamed, reflections shifting as though the city itself watched them.
"Hostile ground," Daniel said at last. "But workable. The basin will do."
He raised his voice, sharp and commanding. "Move the wagons into position! Fortify the basin. Barriers first. Watch squads will rotate every two hours. Archers and firecasters take the ridges. Dig in now; we won't hold long if the city wakes before we're ready."
Guild members saluted and broke into motion. Stakes were driven into the ground. Shards cleared. Wards set along the ridges. The clatter of shovels and armor echoed faintly, carrying across the plain.
Mary Kaye lingered beside him, her voice quieter. "You bought us the time we needed, Daniel. Without your strike, we wouldn't have made it this far."
Daniel didn't answer immediately. His eyes remained fixed on the shimmering walls of Drasklorn, where every reflection seemed to twist like a watchful eye. At last, he spoke, his words low but carrying.
"Do not mistake this quiet for safety. The next assault won't come as scattered waves, it will come in force, led by those who command the dead within those walls. What we fought here was only their scouts."
His hand brushed against his arm where faint burns of chaos energy lingered. He glanced at the strike team, their faces set with determination.
"Our true battle begins," he said, his voice steady as steel, "when Drasklorn awakens."
The guild moved like a living organism under the weight of his words. Camps rose, defenses bristled, and yet, above them all, the glass city loomed, glinting with fractured light. The night was coming, and none doubted it would be restless.
The night deepened, and the guild's camp settled into uneasy silence broken only by the distant groan of the restless dead. Scouts whispered of strange movements in Drasklorn—torches flickering in impossible patterns across the shattered city walls, shadows stretching against the moonlight though no form cast them. Sentries swore they heard glass cracking in the wind, as if the very bones of the Glass City were responding to their intrusion.
While the camp braced for whatever awaited them, Daniel moved alone, climbing higher into the spine of the land where the ridges met in a single jagged summit. The peak loomed at the very heart of the valley, a stone titan scarred by centuries of wind and rain, its shoulders streaked with veins of obsidian and pale quartz that caught the starlight like fractured mirrors.
To the west, Drasklorn smoldered beneath its veil of mist, its crystalline ruins glinting faintly under the moon. To the east, two days' march away, Feyrath the City of Petals lay hidden in the folds of forest and meadow, untouched by decay, its lanterns faintly visible as trembling fireflies at the edge of vision. Between them, Daniel stood on that narrow crown of rock, the highest place in the region, where the air thinned and the world spread out like a board beneath his feet. It was here he calculated the only path forward.
Daniel had already secured the knowledge he needed long before setting foot on the mountain. Inside his void space, in that timeless abyss where memories could be sifted and reassembled like fragments of broken glass, he had unraveled his father's maps in perfect clarity. Duke Aereth Rothchester's obsessive cartography, every ridge line, every river bend, every distance etched by candlelight and noble discipline was now imprinted on Daniel's mind as though he had walked the lands himself a thousand times. He did not guess; he did not hope. He knew. And now, standing atop the peak where the winds howled like unseen judges, Daniel began the work that only he could perform.
The calculations came first, precise and unrelenting. He marked the distance between Drasklorn's shattered glass towers and Feyrath's hidden lantern glow, measuring the two-day march not by miles alone but by the shifting layers of terrain that would bend the spell's trajectory. His hands moved as if conducting an unseen orchestra, fingers tracing glowing sigils into the air, each one anchoring a point of correction for the long-range casting. A lattice of light and shadow began to form above him, a constellation of runes that spread wider with every measured gesture, stretching across the night like a second sky.
The spell would need more than raw force it demanded stability, a framework capable of carrying destructive power across two hundred fifty miles without collapsing into the void. Daniel shaped the foundation slowly, layering arcane matrices like interlocking shields, forcing them into harmony with his own chaotic energy. The mountain itself seemed to respond, the stone beneath his boots humming faintly as though it recognized the strain being placed upon its crown. Far below, Drasklorn stirred glass clinking faintly in the darkness as if the city felt the birth of the storm aimed at its heart.
pressed deeper into the working, his focus narrowing until the world beyond the sigils faded. Chaos energy coursed through him like molten glass, beautiful and deadly, demanding release. He divided it carefully, channeling one stream into the rigid lattice of runes that carried his father's precision, the other into the raw framework of destruction meant to strike both cities. The balance was delicate too much weight on one side, and the spell would collapse inward; too much release, and the blast would detonate at his feet.
Sweat beaded along his brow as the mountain peak trembled faintly under the growing strain. The night sky lit with threads of violet fire that wove themselves into the network he had carved, arcs of unstable light stretching outward as if already testing the distance between Drasklorn and Feyrath. Daniel's jaw clenched. He had felt this before.
A wrongness, subtle but undeniable, crept along his senses. The same wrongness he had tasted when the two-headed undead troll collapsed beneath him hours ago an echo, a tremor, like something watching through the cracks in reality itself. His instincts whispered it wasn't just resistance from the land or backlash from chaos. This was interference.
For a heartbeat, the lattice of runes flickered, one strand unraveling before he forced it back into shape. His pulse hammered in his chest. "Not now," he muttered under his breath, pressing both palms outward, driving more of his will into the construct.
Below, in the basin, the guild had begun to feel the ripples. The air grew heavier, oppressive, as if a storm pressed down upon their lungs. Glass shards embedded in the ridges began to hum, vibrating with a resonance that came not from wind but from Daniel's shaping far above. Sentries on the ridge exchanged uneasy glances.
"Do you feel that?" one whispered. Mary Kaye's hand tightened on her weapon as she gazed toward Drasklorn. The Glass City was no longer silent its towers shimmered, bending faint light into strange shapes. To some eyes it looked like the walls themselves were shifting; to others, it seemed as though hundreds of mirrored faces stared back at them.
Drasklorn was responding.
And Daniel, atop the peak, knew his enemy was no longer waiting passively. The feeling in his chest confirmed it the inevitability he had long suspected had come slithering back into his path like a parasite. The name fell into his lap not by chance but by the weight of recognition, unbidden yet undeniable: Sigma. A name without form, without face.
It didn't matter to him. What infuriated him was not the interference itself, but the cowardice behind it. If Sigma intended to meddle, then let him stand before him, let him declare himself with steel or spell. To burrow unseen into his work was nothing but dishonor, the act of a ghost too afraid to bleed. Daniel's lips curled in quiet disdain.
He wasn't a hypocrite he knew the games of shadows, of deception, of striking unseen. He had played them, faced it , and wielded them when necessity demanded. But this was different. This was a hand clutching his arm at the height of a strike, trying to steer him from the path he had chosen. That, Daniel could not forgive.
His fingers pressed harder into the rune lattice, and the chaos light flared, forcing the interference back an inch. The mountain shuddered in protest, cracks racing across the glasslike stone as if the land itself wanted to break under the strain. Daniel narrowed his eyes at the horizon, where Drasklorn glimmered and Feyrath slept.
"Sigma," he breathed, his voice a promise more than a curse. "If you intend to stop me, then step into the open. Don't hide in echoes. Don't crawl through my spellwork like a worm."
The chaos lattice pulsed, unstable yet alive, and he forced his will into it again, harder, sharper, like a blade carving through obstruction. His body trembled from the exertion, but his eyes burned steady with the fury of one who had already chosen his war.
Down below, the guild saw the mountain crowned with a corona of violet flame. Some gasped in awe, others in fear, but Mary Kaye only tightened her grip on her weapon. She could feel it too that there was something in Daniel's way, something unseen but undeniably real.