The forge's pulse dimmed beneath the scarlet sky, and Riku stood alone at the southern rampart as the Blood Moon broke free of the eastern horizon. It wasn't a slow rise; it tore upward like a wound opening across the world. The air shifted. Heat deepened. A hush fell so sudden that even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Then came the voice. Low, mechanical, undeniable.
"Blood Moon: Ascending. Mutation active. Zones destabilizing. Sovereign defenses will be ranked in seventy-two hours."
Riku lowered his head. They had no time to waste.
"Positions," he ordered, voice steady, and his captains moved like they had practiced this for weeks, not days. Kael took the western barricade, overseeing the new obsidian shard layers. Sira stood beneath the southeast watchlight, adjusting the newly strung glaive lines with her squadron.
The first creatures came before the moon had fully risen.
They poured from the volcanic mist like shadows given flesh—basalt hounds with cracked stone hides and molten veins seeping from their joints. They moved in packs, too fast for normal beasts, their howls splitting the night. The traps caught the first few—pressure plates bursting into pillars of flame, obsidian splinters slicing across the open plain.
But the packs kept coming.
Riku vaulted down from the rampart, his glaive humming in his hands. Beside him, a squadron of six spearmen advanced in staggered formation, their drake-hide armor glinting in the Blood Moon's light.
"Spears high. Engage as they break cover," Riku called.
The hounds struck like lightning. The front line braced. Impact. Metal rang against stone flesh. Sira's archers let fly from above, their arrows burning white from the heat-forged tips.
One of the southern traps triggered late. A hound broke through, lunging toward a wounded spearman.
Riku intercepted it mid-air, driving his glaive clean through its molten throat. The beast spasmed, then crumbled to slag.
But this was only the beginning.
From the eastern ridge, larger shadows emerged—ravagers, twice the size of the hounds, their obsidian hides plated like armor, claws leaving molten grooves in the earth as they ran.
Kael shouted from the barricade. "Ravagers incoming—three, maybe four!"
Riku grit his teeth. "Form the secondary line. Sira, hold the archers. I'll take the trench team."
He descended to the lower trench, where the newest glaive squad waited, some too green to hide their shaking.
"Stand firm," he said quietly. "If they breach, the forge falls."
The ravagers hit like falling stone. The first smashed through the outer spike traps but staggered as steam vents ignited beneath it. Spears struck low and fast, targeting the gaps in its legs. Another ravager broke through the flank, heading straight for the forge tunnels.
A system pulse whispered through Riku's mind as his hands gripped the glaive tighter.
[Crafted Weapon Quantity +1: Glaive Prototype Active.]
The glaive in his grip duplicated without a sound, the second materializing beside a downed warrior's outstretched hand. No time to question it.
"Take it!" Riku yelled, tossing the new weapon across the trench. The warrior caught it, rose, and drove it into the ravager's exposed flank. A shudder ran through the beast's body before it collapsed in molten fragments.
By dawn, the waves slowed. The hounds lay in molten heaps along the southern fields, and the ravagers' broken shells steamed in the cooling air. The ground was scarred, the traps cracked, but the forge still burned strong.
AshEdge had survived the first night.
Riku climbed the rampart again, surveying the wreckage. His warriors moved slowly but steady, retrieving broken weapons, tending to the wounded. Sira approached, wiping ash from her face.
"Casualties?" he asked.
"Minimal. One gone at the south tunnel. Two injured at the west. Nothing we can't recover from."
Riku nodded, though the loss weighed heavier than he showed.
The sky pulsed once more, faint text scrolling across the horizon for any who looked.
[Blood Moon Event: Interim Standings. Rank 12 – Unnamed Sovereign.]
No fanfare. No recognition. But they were climbing.
Riku turned from the sky, back toward the forge. They would repair, reinforce, and wait for the next night's assault. And when it came, they would be stronger still.
Because in this world, no sovereign survived by hiding.
They endured by fighting until the Blood Moon faded.
And by then, AshEdge would not be forgotten.