Chapter 184
The first Anchor broke through the swarm like a boulder smashing through fragile driftwood, its massive limbs tearing a path for itself as the lesser undead scattered in its wake. Each of its weapons shrieked against the ground, sparks bursting as steel and rust carved into the stone with every dragging step. What had once been a killing field of mindless ghouls and skeletal fodder now transformed into something far more dire—a battlefield where every swing threatened to shatter the line.
Daniel did not retreat. He stepped forward, unflinching, blade raised high as the glow of violent sigils ran across its length like living veins of fire. His aura burned hotter than the torches overhead, cutting through the manufactured daylight of the guild's floating artifacts. The Anchor's roar tore through the air, a sound so heavy it rattled the bones of the dead still crawling from the gates.
Then steel met bone.
The collision was deafening, like a forge hammer slamming into iron. Sparks scattered in blinding cascades, falling between them like molten glass, each flare briefly revealing the monstrous detail of his foe's body. The Anchor's jagged skull loomed above him, jaws clacking open as if it sought to swallow Daniel whole. Four arms struck in unison, weapons descending from every angle, each swing strong enough to crush a lesser warrior in an instant.
Daniel twisted and carved through the assault, parrying the first strike, sidestepping the second, sparks flaring again as his blade clashed with the third. The fourth arm came too fast—he braced, sigils along his weapon igniting in a violent pulse, and the shockwave cracked the earth at his feet.
Around them, players shouted warnings and scrambled to regroup. The presence of the Anchor was warping the battlefield itself; the lesser undead no longer moved aimlessly but surged with purpose, rushing to choke off reinforcements and drag the guild lines into chaos. The artifact lights shimmered against the unnatural aura that bled from the creature, shadows twisting unnaturally across the stones.
This was no longer a war of attrition. It was a duel between anchors, one living, one dead, and the outcome would decide whether the line held or shattered.
Charlotte Lazarus was a red blaze at his side, her twin fire-blades weaving arcs of heat and steel, every strike cleaving deep into joints and forcing back the giant's swipes. When one of the Anchor's blades came down like a guillotine, Daniel caught it, sliding to his left with brute precision while Charlotte slipped inside its guard, her fire-dagger plunged into exposed sinew, sizzling and burning through rotten muscle. The Anchor reeled, but instead of retreating, it slammed two more arms down, the impact sending cracks through the floor and forcing everyone back in a wave of debris and dust.
That was when the other nineteen Anchors emerged, each lumbering from the shadows of the gate like executioners summoned from hell. The courtyard shook with their arrival, lesser undead shrieking and scattering as their armored betters cut them down in careless swaths. The united guild force tightened, shields locking, spells rising into arcs of light as if a wall of mortals stood against a storm of gods. Addison Lazarus, roaring in the rear vanguard, spun his halberd like a blazing windmill of steel, cutting down any undead that slipped past the spearhead. His voice was thunder: "Hold the line! Hold the godsdamn line!"
To Daniel's left, Jacob Lazarus raised his arms, magma veins crawling up his skin as molten rock poured from his palms. His Magna Lava skill erupted into a tide of searing flame that melted through three charging Anchors, slowing their advance under rivers of molten death. Oliver Lazarus worked the gaps Jacob created, his poison darts hissing through the smoky air, each bolt of venom aimed at the chinks of armor where obsidian plates met rotting flesh, weakening the titans second by second. Farrah Lazarus spread her arms wide, roots bursting from the ground like serpents, vines thick as a man's body wrapping one Anchor's legs, while walls of bramble rose to stall the flood of lesser undead. Beside her, Rainey Lazarus whistled sharply, summoning a cyclone of wings—millions of venomous insects clouded the battlefield, swarming Anchors in black clouds that blinded and ate through flesh.
Sabine Lazarus was a streak of muscle and claw, her shapeshifter form erupting into a tiger-humanoid beast. She tore into one Anchor's knee with claws like sabers, every strike echoing with bone-splintering force. Noah Lazarus charged through the chaos like a living bulwark, his skin turned to gleaming steel, each step shaking the ground. When the Anchor's scythes came down, Noah caught them on his metal shoulders, straining with the strength of iron to hold them just long enough for Daniel's blade to sever the limb at its root.
The White Devil guild flanked the east Lazarus guild with brutal precision. Natasha Sokolov fired frost-laced bolts from her crossbow, freezing joints in the Anchors' armor while Fedorova's wind magic whipped the icy shards into storms of razors. Radinka's axe split through one undead anchor's shin, sparks flying with every swing, while Kuzmina's beast-shapeshifter form snarled beside her, claws rending flesh. Nataliya's blade was a blur of silver arcs, every strike aimed at tendons, while Aleksandrova's arrows found soft spots through helmets and necks. Irinushka's musket roared with rune-charged shots, arcane blasts bursting like grenades against armored hides.
And from the heart of the chaos came the High Strategy guild. Mary Kaye Lazarus wielded her shovel like a warhammer, the earth itself splitting at her command, jagged stone pillars stabbing upward into Anchors' bellies. Cody Lazarus lifted both arms, a shockwave bursting from his core that scattered undead in every direction, bodies and armor crushed under the invisible weight. Bonnie Lazarus whispered runes of gravity, forcing one Anchor to its knees as its own immense bulk dragged it into the stone, and then snapping the pull away so others could leap in and strike. Emma Lazarus, calm amid the storm, activated her Assessment Scan, her eyes glowing with glyphs as she shouted enemy weaknesses to the frontline: "Joints, left shoulder! Spine under the second plate! The chest core is hollow aim for it!"
For every Anchor that charged, a Lazarus or allied guild member met it with equal fury. The courtyard became a meat-grinder of magic and steel—roots constricted, insects swarmed, frost storms raged, lava boiled across the stone. And still the Anchors did not falter. Their red eyes burned brighter as they bled, their scythe-arms cutting down guild players by the dozens. Yet the united guilds stood, their spearhead unbroken, every member forced into perfect synergy not by choice but by survival.
At the very center of it all, Daniel moved not like a berserker, not like a desperate man fighting for survival, but like a predator who had already won. Each step he took was measured, each breath controlled. His blade did not waste motion; it whispered through the air with quiet certainty, and wherever it went, flesh and armor parted.
An Anchor lunged, obsidian claws reaching to crush him, but Daniel did not retreat, he pivoted, the turn as fluid as water, his sword flashing in a narrow arc that severed the beast's wrist at the joint. Before its howl could form, his blade reversed, a cold backhand slash across its throat, efficient and final.
The Anchor loomed over him, a hulking tower of obsidian plates stitched together by sinew that smoked with foul energy. Its maw split wide, dripping black ichor, claws curling like hooked scythes. It charged.
Daniel did not.
He stepped forward instead, shoulders relaxed, sword angled low. The Anchor's first swipe,fast as an avalanche, whistled down. Daniel's eyes didn't even blink. He shifted one foot back, hips twisting, and let the claw pass inches from his chest. His sword snapped up in a tight diagonal, not slashing but cutting just deep enough across the wrist joint to sever tendons. A spray of tar-black fluid hissed through the air.
The beast reeled, roaring. Daniel was already moving. He slid under its second strike, rolling his weight into his legs, and drove his elbow into its ribs with martial precision. The shock stunned the Anchor, staggered it just enough. His free palm rose, fingers flaring. Ignis. A bolt of flame burst point-blank into the open wound he had carved, roasting the exposed sinew. The monster howled, thrashing in panic.
It swung wildly. Daniel countered, calm as still water. A twist of his wrist caught the descending claw with the flat of his blade. His other hand flickered with a spark, arcane syllables whispered under his breath, plasma burst. Lightning with fire surged from his palm, lancing up the beast's arm and into its chest, searing through bone and plate.
The Anchor stumbled back, spasms rippling through its frame. Daniel advanced. His steps were silent, deliberate, his breathing steady as if he were in meditation. The Anchor tried to reset its footing, lunging with desperate fury. Daniel pivoted, sidestepped, and struck low, shin to shin, his boot cracking against the creature's knee. The joint buckled, dropping it down onto one side.
Before it could rise, Daniel's blade was already moving. A precise thrust pierced the weak seam under its jaw. He twisted, steel grinding through cartilage and skull. Black ichor sprayed, sizzling as it hit the lightning still crackling around his gauntlet.
The Anchor shuddered, collapsing forward in a convulsion of smoke and blood. Daniel held his blade steady until its body finally went limp.
Only then did he pull free, shaking the blade clean with a practiced flick. His posture hadn't changed. Calm. Relaxed. Exact.
And when the other Anchors roared in fury, Daniel only lifted his sword again, his eyes cold, the sparks of fire and lightning still dancing between his fingers, ready to dismantle the next one, piece by piece.
The next Anchor thundered forward before the corpse of its kin had even cooled. Its roar rattled the walls, and with it came a clutch of shambling soldiers, half-rotted, their armor fused into their flesh. They poured across the floor like carrion hounds, screeching, weapons raised in mindless hunger.
Daniel did not step back.
The first undead lunged, sword raised overhead. Daniel's blade flicked up in a short arc—no flourish, no wasted power, shearing clean through wrist and weapon both. Before the creature realized its arm was gone, Daniel shifted, pivoting on his heel, and snapped his boot into its chest. Bone cracked, the corpse hurled backward into its brethren.
Another rushed him from the left. Daniel's off-hand caught its throat. His grip tightened like iron, fire with swirling electricity fused together sparking along his palm. plasma bullet . The corpse convulsed violently, smoke leaking from its eyes and mouth before collapsing in a charred heap.
The Anchor arrived in the same breath, claws scything down to smash him into the stone. Daniel crouched low, angling his blade up. Steel met obsidian clang!, and for a moment, the weight of the beast pressed down like a collapsing mountain. His knees bent, but his breathing stayed calm. Then he shifted just a fraction. A turn of his hips, a slide of his foot, and the Anchor's strength crashed into empty air.
Daniel's sword darted forward, a precise thrust into the joint beneath its arm. He twisted, ripping metal and flesh alike. Black ichor burst, the beast reeling back.
An undead shrieked behind him, spear stabbing for his spine. Daniel spun, cloak snapping like a banner, and his free hand opened in a blaze of fire. Ignis. A cone of flame roared out, swallowing the soldier whole. The corpse staggered forward burning, collapsing in ash before it reached him.
The Anchor tried again, furious now, its claw arcing wide. Daniel ducked, rolling beneath the blow, and came up inside its guard. His knee drove upward, smashing into the creature's chin, snapping its head back. In the same breath, his blade carved across its throat, a clean, horizontal line.
Black ichor sprayed in an arc. The Anchor staggered, choking on its own fluids, and Daniel finished it with one last strike, a downward plunge, the point of his sword splitting skull and spine with brutal efficiency.
The monster fell still.
Daniel stood over its corpse, calm as if nothing had happened, sparks of fire and lightning flickering along his fingers, his eyes already shifting toward the next cluster of enemies gathering in the shadows.
Another chapter was about to begin, The third Anchor lurched forward, dragging chains of bone that clattered like funeral bells. Behind it swarmed a half-dozen undead soldiers, their hollow eyes burning with sickly green light, armor hanging from their frames like rusted shells.
Daniel advanced into them as though entering a kata, his movements calm, purposeful.
The first corpse stabbed a jagged spear toward his ribs. Daniel didn't block he angled his torso, letting the tip skim past his coat, and cut the soldier's throat in the same motion. His blade did not pause. He twisted, elbow rising, and struck another undead across the temple with a hammering crack. It collapsed, skull caved in, before its weapon could fall.
Two more came at once, snarling, blades flailing. Daniel stepped between them, sliding his sword low in a swift crescent. One spine severed, one gut split—both collapsed in the same breath. His boot pressed forward, crushing another skull into the stone.
The Anchor roared, its chain whipping down like a spiked serpent. Daniel met it head-on. His sword flashed, not cleaving but redirecting, edge sliding along the chain to deflect its crushing weight into the floor. Sparks burst from the stone. Daniel's off-hand snapped upward, fingers glowing. Fulmen. Lightning arced along the chain, racing straight into the Anchor's arm. The beast howled, spasms tearing through its frame.
It staggered. Daniel seized the moment. His body flowed forward—strike, pivot, thrust—his sword finding the joint behind its knee. The blade sank deep, carving through the tendon. The Anchor dropped to one side with a guttural roar, forced to kneel before him.
Undead hands clawed at his back. Without even turning, Daniel whispered Ignis. Fire burst from his shoulders in a short, violent wave, incinerating the clutch of corpses. Their screams became ash on the air.
The Anchor swiped blindly, desperate to crush him. Daniel sidestepped, calm as always, and drove his sword upward in a final, merciless stroke. Steel pierced under its jaw, through skull and brain, bursting out in a spray of ichor from the crown of its head.
The beast twitched once, then slumped, chains rattling against the ground as its carcass collapsed in a heap.
Daniel pulled his sword free with one sharp motion, shaking black blood from the blade. His breathing never faltered. His posture never shifted. Only his eyes moved, calm and unyielding, locking onto the next Anchor that thundered forward with another wave of the dead at its heels.
The battlefield roared like the inside of a collapsing mountain, Anchors bellowing, undead screaming, and steel striking against stone. Daniel had just pulled his blade free from the third Anchor when the chaos fractured into many fronts.
Charlotte Lazarus surged into the fray, twin blades aflame, one long, one short, her style a hurricane of arcs and spinning strikes. Where Daniel's sword whispered, hers screamed—a storm of fire carving through the undead tide. A dagger stabbed upward into a soldier's chin, bursting flames from within its skull. In the same breath, her sword swept wide, leaving a smoking crescent that decapitated three corpses in a single swing. The Anchor she faced swung its arm like a siege engine, but Charlotte's answer was speed, sliding low, blades blazing in an "X" that cleaved molten lines across its knee, forcing the monster to drop as she finished it with a dagger through its eye.
At her side, Jacob Lazarus, vice leader of the East Guild, moved like the earth itself breaking open. Lava bled from his hands, dripping into pools that hardened and shattered beneath his control. An Anchor barreled toward him, but Jacob's fists slammed into the ground—magma pillars erupted, wrapping the creature in liquid stone, hardening in an instant before exploding outward like shrapnel. Undead soldiers burned alive, their bodies turned into torches as his molten strikes melted steel and bone alike.
Further down the field, Oliver Lazarus stalked like a shadow, crossbow in hand, the tips of his darts shimmering green. He never rushed. He fired once, twice, silent, precise. Each dart found its mark: neck, eye, joint. Anchors stumbled, their massive bodies poisoned from within, ichor bubbling as the venom corroded them from the inside. One Anchor thrashed, roaring in fury, but Oliver was already gone, slipping behind rubble, his next shot already lining up to finish it.
Farrah Lazarus's power rose like a second battlefield. The ground trembled, vines ripping through the cracked stone floor, weaving into towering walls and snapping whips. A wave of undead crashed against her barriers and were crushed instantly, bones grinding as green tendrils squeezed the life from them. Her hands rose, and roots speared upward beneath an Anchor, skewering its body and holding it aloft as she drew the vines tight until it cracked apart. Around her, allies fought under her shield of leaves and bark, her domain a fortress of living wood.
A low hum filled the air. Rainey Lazarus stood with arms outstretched, a black storm erupting around her. Millions of insects beetles, hornets, flies swarmed in a spiraling vortex, blotting out the light. Undead soldiers shrieked as flesh was stripped from their bones in seconds. Even Anchors flailed, blinded and overwhelmed as wings and stingers burrowed into their joints. Rainey's face was calm, almost serene, as the tide of living blades devoured everything in its path.
Then Sabine roared, her form twisting and tearing. Bone cracked, muscle swelled, fur burst through her skin until she towered as a tiger-humanoid beast, fangs gleaming, claws like knives. She tore into the Anchors with raw savagery, ripping chunks of armor with her bare hands, shredding undead with each swipe. Her speed was terrifying—leaping from one enemy to the next, crushing a skull beneath her heel before lunging to sink her fangs into another's throat.
Noah Lazarus planted himself at the front like an iron bulwark. His skin shimmered into living metal, each muscle turning into steel. An Anchor slammed into him, and he did not move. Its claws raked across his chest, sparks flying harmlessly. With a roar, Noah's fist, metal wrapped in more metal smashed into its jaw, shattering bone and snapping its head back. Undead swarmed, but their blades bent on his skin as he tore through them like paper, his strength absolute, his durability unmatched.
At the rear stood Mary Kaye Lazarus, shovel in hand, her eyes sharp with command. The ground heeded her call, walls of stone rose at her gesture, collapsing again to crush entire squads of undead. Her shovel spun like a halberd, striking the ground to summon earthen spikes that skewered Anchors through their underbellies. She was calm, calculating, a commander as much as a fighter, her guild moving like pieces on her battlefield of earth.
Cody Lazarus stood beside her, both hands raised, body trembling with raw power. A wave burst outward pure shockwave energy. Stone shattered, undead were hurled screaming into walls, and even Anchors staggered under the blast. His next strike followed instantly, another pulse ripping through the air, wide, relentless, impossible to ignore. His role was control breaking the swarm apart so the others could kill.
Then, from the allied White Devil Guild, Natasha Sokolov stood like a silver sentinel. Her crossbow gleamed, each bolt infused with ice and water. She fired in perfect rhythm, one bolt freezing an Anchor's leg to the ground, another exploding into a jagged ice storm that skewered the corpses swarming Daniel's flank. Calm, deadly, her magic turned the battlefield into shards of frozen death.
His presence was nothing like Daniel's blazing defiance. Where Daniel clashed head-on with bone and steel, Borislav was a storm of rot and silence. His hands dripped with black mist, tendrils of poison curling and writhing around him like the breath of a plague god. Every gesture was deliberate, slow and precise, as if he were conducting the battlefield rather than fighting upon it.
The mist thickened, rolling outward in choking waves. It did not explode in fury—it seeped, crawled, and spread, a creeping tide of corruption that devoured everything it touched. Death Knights and armored undead soldiers who strayed too close found their weapons blackening, their armor hissing as if acid gnawed through steel. Beneath their plates, rotting flesh turned to sludge, bones cracked and softened, and yet Borislav's expression did not shift. His gaze was cold, watchful, a predator's calm as his enemies fell apart under his aura.
Unlike the Anchor's brutal charge, Borislav did not rush. He let the battlefield come to him. The tide of the horde broke against his expanding cloud, corpses collapsing in grotesque heaps as their bodies dissolved from within. Screams, once shrill and constant, grew guttural and broken, until only gurgles and wet snapping echoed from the mist. The very ground beneath him blackened and pitted, each step leaving behind stains that spread like an infection.
What had begun as mist poison was no longer merely venom, it had become acidic decay itself, a magic that did not simply kill but unmade. Armor dissolved, flesh sloughed away, and even bone began to soften into brittle fragments. The mist clung to the air, heavy and inescapable, like a disease that would never end.
The battlefield had become a living nightmare of steel, fire, and shadow. The Anchors roared like collapsing mountains, their guttural voices rattling through the broken earth, while waves of undead soldiers surged in endless ranks, drowning the field in their numbers. Each roar was followed by the crash of weapons and the splintering of shields, as though the land itself threatened to shatter beneath the weight of the dead.
And yet, within this storm of carnage, the battle moved with a grim rhythm. Every fighter seemed drawn into its cadence, swords clashed, spells flared, shields shattered, all in a violent harmony. It was not chaos, but a symphony of brutality, where each note was written in blood.
Others joined in this deadly orchestra. Mages at the rear flung bolts of fire and spears of ice that rose like the piercing cries of horns, their explosions flashing across the undead ranks in bursts of color against the endless gray. Archers loosed arrows in unbroken volleys, a rain of percussion that thudded into rotting bodies. Warriors shouted as they struck, their voices the choir that defied despair.
And still the Anchors pressed forward, their colossal forms striking like the crash of anvils, each swing threatening to silence the music altogether. Their presence distorted the rhythm, threatening to turn harmony into ruin.
But the fighters did not break. They moved as one, driven not by command alone, but by survival, by fury, by the unshakable need to resist. The field itself seemed alive, trembling with the force of clashing wills, the song of life battling against the anthem of death.
The nightmare raged on, and the symphony played louder still.
At the forefront, Daniel was the calm conductor of death. His blade never wasted a motion—each strike dismantled an enemy piece by piece. Against the fourth Anchor he moved like water: sliding past its hammer-blow, carving deep into its ribs, then countering with a burst of lightning that locked the beast mid-swing before his sword severed its head in a single, merciless stroke. His duels were chapters of precision, and every Anchor that fell to him collapsed with inevitability, as if they had never stood a chance.
To his left, Charlotte Lazarus was fire incarnate. Her twin blades blazed through the enemy tide, each swing painting the night in arcs of flame. She fought like a storm loosed from heaven, her dagger darting like a viper while her sword struck like a burning scythe. An Anchor lunged at her with crushing claws, but Charlotte spun low, her blades crossing in an "X" of molten fire that tore its knees apart before she vaulted upward, driving her dagger through its eye. The monster toppled, aflame from within.
Behind them, the battlefield stretched wide and brutal, yet carefully ordered. Three massive battle wagons rolled slowly across the corpse-littered path, each pulled by a war bull golem whose stone muscles strained against the weight. Within, healers and support units worked desperately to stabilize the wounded, binding limbs and pouring potions while the air shook with the clash of steel. Archers lined the wagons, their bows singing with every release, feathered shafts skewering stragglers that tried to crawl back to life.
Inside the second wagon, Aleksei Sokolov sat silently in his wheeled chair, his posture straight, his hands clasped in quiet concentration. The battlefield around him was chaos, but he was stillness incarnate, his focus never wavering. Around the second battle, marched ten humanoid golems in perfect formation, towering figures of stone and rune. Their bodies glowed faintly with etched sigils, each line pulsing like the steady beat of a heart. Heavy shields braced their fronts, long blades gripped in their hands, and their every movement carried the weight of inevitability, while Aleksei Sokolov saw what what creation was looking, as they were connected with his Hive skill.
They fought without hesitation, without fear , statues given life and purpose. Undead that slipped past the frontline were met with cold steel and unyielding stone. Claws shattered against their shields, weapons glanced harmlessly from their rune-carved bodies. They did not falter, did not retreat; every strike was delivered with mechanical precision, every step measured to preserve the wagons and those who sheltered behind them.
Aleksei's eyes never left his creations. Each flicker of thought extended into them like threads of command, weaving their movements together into a seamless dance of defense. Though he did not lift a blade himself, his presence was a fortress. Those near him, the frightened non-combatants and wounded carried in the wagon, felt the weight of his calm. His very stillness was an anchor amidst the storm, a quiet assurance that as long as he remained, no enemy would touch them.
The war raged around him, but Aleksei Sokolov sat unshaken, his stone sentinels carving order into chaos, his will etched into every strike they made.
Veteran Lazarus fighters guarded the flanks, men and women whose scars told the story of wars long past. They had seen too many campaigns to falter now, and their discipline was unshakable. Shoulder to shoulder, they formed a living wall around the support crews, shields braced, steel drawn, every step forward measured and purposeful. The wagons behind them rumbled steadily onward, wheels creaking under the weight of their burden, yet not once did the line bend.
Every inch of ground claimed was earned in blood. The path they left behind was a grim testament corpses piled in broken heaps, some charred black from flame, others cleaved apart or crushed into the earth. The battlefield became their trail of survival, marked not by banners but by ruin, a scar cut through the endless tide of the dead.
Behind the main convoy, five other wagons rolled in silence, hidden from prying eyes by the lay of the land. They hugged ridges, sank into hollows, and kept to the shadows of ruined stone. Their loads were not weapons nor relics, but sacks of grain, crates of dried meat, barrels of clean water, the lifeblood of the army. Their value was measured not in steel but in time, for without them, no blade could be lifted, no spell could be cast.
To protect them was as vital as any clash against the Anchors themselves. Their secrecy was their shield; their survival was the promise that the army would endure another day. Veterans knew this truth well, and so they fought not only for glory or for the line, but for the unseen lifeline trailing behind them, hidden yet as critical as the brightest weapon raised on the field.
And as the night deepened, the weight of this burden grew heavier. Every fighter knew, the army's strength did not end at the edge of a blade. It lived also in the rumbling wheels that carried sustenance through the jaws of death.
The clash of champions erupted ahead once more. Jacob Lazarus struck like a volcano unleashed, his fists erupting with molten energy. He slammed his palms into the earth, summoning rivers of magma that coiled around an Anchor's legs, trapping it in burning chains before exploding outward in a shower of molten stone. Corpses ignited, their shrieks drowned in the roar of liquid fire. Jacob stood amidst the inferno, sweat steaming off his body, every blow a hammer of living lava.
Oliver Lazarus hunted in the shadows. He was not fire like Daniel, nor plague like Borislav, he was the silence between heartbeats, the whisper of death unnoticed until it struck. His crossbow sang in hushed intervals, each bolt tipped with venom that glistened like oil in the dim light. The darts hissed as they flew, vanishing into flesh and bone before a scream could even form.
An Undead Anchor staggered, its monstrous frame slowing as the venom laced through its rotted veins. The joints of its four arms stiffened, movements grinding and faltering, as though rust itself had seeped into its marrow. A squad of undead soldiers rushed forward to cover its faltering steps, but Oliver's next volley cut them down mid-charge. Their veins blackened, flesh shriveling before they even hit the dirt, their bodies collapsing like marionettes with their strings cut.
He never broke cover. His silhouette was a ghost, vanishing into broken stone, smoke, and ruin. To chase him was folly every step taken toward where he had been was met with another silent shot from where he had already moved. His precision was a scalpel on the battlefield, deliberate and merciless, each strike chosen as carefully as Daniel's furious blade.
Where Daniel's duel drew the eye, Oliver thrived in the blind spots. His presence was not felt until the enemy was already weakening, their formation sagging under invisible pressure. The undead ranks, once endless in their momentum, began to falter in uneven pockets, crumbling in places where Oliver's shadow lingered.
For every undead that roared, there was Oliver's venom hissing in its veins. For every charge that threatened to break the line, there was a ghostly hand guiding death into the hollow hearts of the horde. He was not the loudest note in the war symphony, but he was the one that made the silence terrifying.
Farrah Lazarus's power reshaped the battlefield into a garden of war. Where others wielded steel or flame, she commanded the earth itself, coaxing life from death's soil. Thick vines erupted from the cracked ground, their thorned coils snapping like whips as they seized rotting soldiers by the dozens. The strength of ten men pulsed through every tendril, crushing bones, splintering armor, and grinding the undead to pulp within their grasp.
Her hands rose high, and the earth answered. A wall of greenery surged upward, a living barricade that intercepted a hail of cursed spears, the weapons embedding harmlessly into woven bark and sinew. The wagons rolled onward, untouched, shielded beneath her sudden bastion.
But Farrah was no mere defender. Her vines lashed outward with predatory precision, seizing an Undead Anchor that dared to advance too close. The massive creature roared, four weapons thrashing, but the greenery constricted tighter, spikes driving into its body as it was lifted screaming into the air. With a final heave, her living fortress tore the Anchor apart, rending it as easily as kindling. Bloodless chunks rained down, black ichor soaking into the dirt.
Around her, her guild moved with renewed confidence. Warriors struck boldly, knowing her vines would catch what their shields could not. Mages unleashed their spells with reckless fire, certain her walls would rise to cover them from counterattack. Even the healers, often the most vulnerable, found themselves standing firm, protected by the living fortress that Farrah wove around them with every gesture.
Where Daniel carved fire into the darkness, Borislav spread decay, and Oliver hunted in silence, Farrah transformed despair into sanctuary. She was the fortress, the rampart in the storm, the unyielding bulwark of green in a sea of black. And wherever her vines reached, death itself faltered, swallowed whole by the relentless will of life.
The battlefield groaned under her presence as the sky itself seemed to recoil. The pale moonlight vanished beneath a swirling vortex of wings, the heavens blotted out by a tide of black forms. Her call had summoned them, a living storm of insects that choked the air, their countless wings beating in unison, a sound like rattling chains across the night.
They poured forward in a ceaseless flood, a tide of stingers and mandibles that glittered like a thousand blades in the light of the floating artifacts. The swarm struck as one, descending upon the Anchors with merciless hunger. Beetles and hornets burrowed into gaps in armor, mandibles carving through flesh, venom pumping into marrow. The massive undead shrieked, their monstrous frames thrashing violently as insects hollowed them from within, leaving only broken husks.
The lesser soldiers fared no better. Undead squads collapsed under the black tide, bones rattling as their bodies were stripped bare. Within moments they were reduced to skeletons, glistening and wet, picked clean before they even hit the ground. The swarm flowed over them like water, leaving behind nothing but silence and ruin.
At the heart of this living nightmare stood Rainey herself, serene and untouchable, the eye of the storm. Her arms moved with a dancer's grace, each gesture commanding the swarm as though it were an extension of her own will. Where she pointed, the black tide crashed; where she clenched her fist, enemies dissolved in writhing agony. Her expression never wavered, cold, composed, as if this orchestra of terror was nothing more than the natural order of the world.
To the guild, she was salvation cloaked in horror; to the undead, she was an apocalypse given form. Where Daniel struck with fire, Borislav with decay, Oliver with silence, and Farrah with life, Rainey wielded the raw, primal terror of nature's smallest killers. Together, her swarm and her will turned the night into a storm of wings and screams.
Sabine Lazarus roared into the fray, her cry splitting through the battlefield like a war drum's thunder. Her body twisted violently, bones snapping and reforming with a sickening crack, muscles surging as her frame stretched beyond human limits. In the space of a heartbeat, flesh became fur, hands became claws, and from the chaos emerged a tiger-humanoid beast of pure carnage.
Her claws gleamed under the false daylight cast by the floating artifacts, each swipe carving through the night like a scythe. She moved with terrifying speed, blurring across the battlefield in a dance of slaughter that no mortal eye could follow. An Anchor's throat was torn out in one brutal strike, its gargled roar silenced as black ichor sprayed in a fountain across the stones. Another undead soldier, caught in her grip, was hurled fifty paces through the air, its broken body smashing into a wall of its kin, crushing them beneath its weight.
Armor meant nothing to her. Her fangs sank deep into plated steel, shredding metal as though it were no more than cloth, jaws closing with the force of a siege weapon. Blood and rust alike dripped from her maw as she tore through squads of soldiers, leaving them in mangled heaps.
She was not precision like Oliver, nor fortress like Farrah, nor the orchestrator of swarms like Rainey. Sabine was wrath made flesh, unstoppable, untamed, unrelenting. Wherever she ran, the battlefield buckled under her ferocity, her path marked by ruin and silence where once there had been ranks of the dead.
Noah Lazarus stood at the center of the line, not as a man, but as a fortress incarnate. His flesh shimmered as it hardened into glistening steel, veins glowing faintly beneath the armor of living metal. Every movement carried weight, each step pounding the ground until the earth itself seemed to tremble beneath him.
The horde struck him in waves, but their efforts were meaningless. Rusted blades bent like tin upon his skin, snapping uselessly against the iron sheen of his body. Claws raked across him, screeching like nails against a forge, only to shatter in bloody fragments. Where others ducked or weaved, Noah stood tall, unflinching, a living wall of steel that no weapon could pierce.
He advanced like a battering ram, fists the size of hammers smashing through the undead. Every punch was a death knell, breaking bone to powder, caving skulls with thunderous cracks. His shoulders drove into the swarm, scattering bodies like brittle branches in a storm. Behind him, the line did not falter, for Noah was the shield, the anchor of their defense, the immovable bulwark upon which the tide broke.
Even the Anchors, massive and relentless, found themselves shaken before his wrath. One charged, its four arms swinging in a storm of steel and bone, weapons crashing down with enough force to flatten stone. Noah met it head-on. The blows glanced harmlessly from his metallic body, sparks flashing in futile defiance. He seized its arm, bones crunching under his grip, then drove his fists forward in a relentless barrage. Each strike rang like a hammer against an anvil, until finally the Anchor's skull split open like glass, shards of bone and ichor raining down in defeat.
At the rear of the formation stood Mary Kaye Lazarus, the quiet mind behind the storm. Where others fought with fury and raw power, she wielded the battlefield itself as her weapon. Her shovel struck the ground with measured precision, and the earth obeyed. Massive stone walls surged upward to intercept a sudden flank of undead, their cursed blades clanging uselessly against unyielding rock. With a flick of her wrist, those same barriers crumbled into jagged spikes that shot outward, impaling entire ranks in an instant, the ground itself becoming a killing field.
She was calm, her face unreadable even as chaos raged ahead. Every gesture, every command was calculated, she saw the flow of the battle not as chaos, but as a puzzle waiting to be solved. Her eyes never lingered on one fight for long, always searching, always anticipating, three steps ahead of the enemy's movements. Where others fought to survive, Mary Kaye fought to control, bending the field of war until it moved to her design.
Beside her stood Cody Lazarus, her counterpoint, less measured, more forceful, a storm to match her stone. His arms rose high, crackling energy coursing along them before erupting outward in devastating shockwaves. The blasts tore through the battlefield like thunder made flesh, shattering stone, armor, and bone alike. Each wave cleared swaths of the enemy, scattering undead ranks that pressed too close to the support lines. The air boomed with each strike, reverberating like cannon fire, a constant rhythm that kept the line breathing, kept the wagons moving.
Together, they formed a rear guard unlike any other. Mary Kaye shaped the terrain, controlling the flow of battle with walls and spikes, while Cody's shockwaves carved space when the enemy pressed in suffocating numbers. Their synergy was seamless: where her defenses forced the enemy into bottlenecks, his blasts obliterated them; where his raw power risked overextension, her precision reined it back into order.
The White Devil guild fought alongside them with grim precision, their coordination as sharp as the Lazarus bloodline's fury. Natasha Sokolov's crossbow bolts struck like falling stars, each one detonating into frozen storms that tore through entire squads. Shards of ice whirled outward, skewering undead in waves, encasing Anchors in glacial prisons before shattering them into fragments. Her volleys never ceased, a rhythm of destruction that kept pressure constant, forcing the horde into disarray.
Beside her, Borislav moved like a shadowed reaper, his poison magic weaving unseen until it bloomed across the battlefield in a grotesque harvest. A single incantation sent black fumes spilling into the ranks of the undead; where it touched, flesh bubbled and sloughed off, armor corroded, weapons crumbled. Even Anchors, proud in their size and weight, stumbled as his toxins seeped into their bones, rotting them from within until they collapsed into husks.
But their strength was not in isolation—it was in unity. Natasha's frozen storms drove enemies into Borislav's poisonous fogs, trapping them in a cycle of freezing, choking, and decay. Together, they formed a killing ground where no undead could cross without being shredded, frozen, or dissolved. Around them, the other members of White Devil lent their weight: shield-bearers intercepting strays that slipped past, dagger-users finishing off weakened foes, spellcasters bolstering barriers and keeping momentum alive.
They were not just another guild, they were a crucial cog in the greater machine of survival. Every spell, every strike, every shout carried the discipline of veterans who had faced too many nights like this and lived to fight again. While the Lazarus line brought overwhelming power that tore the battlefield open, the White Devil guild stitched those openings into victories, ensuring no breach went unanswered, no enemy slipped through unnoticed.
Together, they did not merely hold the tide at bay. They shaped it, bent it, broke it, forcing chaos to obey their will.
And still, at the heart of it all, Daniel moved, calm, precise, dismantling every Anchor that dared stand before him. His blade and magic flowed in perfect unity, every strike a measured conclusion, every spell a seamless extension of his will. He did not waste motion. He did not falter. Where others unleashed storms and fury, Daniel was inevitability itself, the quiet hand of death that could not be escaped. Anchors that towered like monsters, armored in darkness and cursed steel, fell to pieces beneath his relentless rhythm. Their roars ended in silence, their hulking corpses crumbling into the road that already belonged to him.
The three wagons rolled forward, pulled by war bull golems whose strength seemed endless, hooves striking against the stones like war drums. They moved through a road paved with corpses undead stacked and broken, Anchors split apart, the stench of rot trailing in their wake. Yet still, the caravan did not stop. It could not.
Behind them lay ruin, a battlefield turned graveyard. The air was thick with smoke, ash, and the memory of screams. And ahead, the path only promised more. The enemy did not relent; this was but the first of many gauntlets. The next three battles awaited greater walls of steel and bone, defenses raised by the dead to choke out any who dared press deeper. Each step forward would be harder than the last, each fight more desperate, each wave of the horde stronger, angrier, more determined to bury them.
And yet the Lazarus line, the White Devil guild, and every soul that fought beside them pressed on, a living spearpoint thrust into the endless dark. The road was narrow, but it was theirs. The wagons creaked forward, steady and unbroken, dragging the weight of survival with them into the unknown.