I groaned, a low, guttural sound of pure agony. The world was a swirling vortex of heat and pain. Around me, the forest I had commanded my team to burn was a raging inferno, the air thick with the choking smell of ash and cooked earth. Beside me stood Kael, the Mimic, his face a pale mask of shock and awe, his body trembling from the aftershocks of Erica's apocalyptic power. He had saved me from the blast, but my own weakness was a prison. The gash in my side was a searing fire, and the psychic backlash from losing my puppets had left my mind feeling raw and exposed. My vision was blurry, dark spots dancing at the edges.
And then, a new sound cut through the roar of the flames. It was not the crackle of burning wood or the hiss of melting rock. It was a roar. A deep, guttural, earth-shaking roar of such profound power and dominance that it made the goblin shrieks and human screams of our past battles sound like the chirping of insects. It was the sound of a true predator announcing its arrival. It was the sound of a king claiming his territory.
We had crossed a line. Erica's blast, in its indiscriminate destruction, had not just cleared the battlefield; it had torn a hole through the very fabric of the forest's zones. The faint, invisible barrier that separated the nursery of Zone E from the next level of hell had been obliterated. We were now standing on the savage frontier of Zone D.
And the first monster I saw terrified me to my very soul.
It stepped out from behind a curtain of flame, its massive form seemingly impervious to the heat. It was an orc. But this was not the simple, brutish creature of fantasy novels. It stood nearly seven feet tall, its body a terrifying landscape of corded muscle and thick, scarred, olive-green hide. Two massive tusks, yellowed and sharp as daggers, jutted from its powerful underjaw. It wore crude, heavy armor of blackened iron plates bolted directly into its flesh, and in one massive, three-fingered hand, it held a war axe that looked more like a sharpened anvil. But the true terror was in its eyes. They were small, red, and burned with a malevolent, cunning intelligence. This was not a mindless beast. This was a warrior.
But then, what terrified me more was what came next. It wasn't alone.
From the inferno behind him, more figures emerged. Dozens of them. A horde of orcs, each one a monster in its own right. There were hulking brutes with massive clubs, leaner hunters with cruel-looking spears, and even smaller, wiry orcs with jagged, wicked-looking daggers. Their sizes and muscles varied, but they all shared the same brutish strength and the same intelligent, hateful glare.
I gulped, the simple act of swallowing a painful effort. I looked at Kael. His face was ashen, his eyes locked on the approaching horde. The casual confidence of the goblins, the reckless fury of Rhonda's pack—none of it compared to this. This was a disciplined, silent army of monsters. This was the difference between Zone E and Zone D. And I was feeling it in every fiber of my being.
They walked toward us, their heavy, armored footsteps slow and deliberate. They weren't charging. They weren't rushing. It was the casual, unhurried walk of a pride of lions approaching a wounded gazelle. They knew we were helpless. They knew we were their prey.
And it wasn't over. From the burning woods to our left and right, more of them appeared, their massive forms silhouetted against the flames. They were cutting off every escape route, forming a perfect, closing circle of death. There was no way we could survive this. We were two broken boys in the center of an army of monsters.
Just as the lead orc, the tusked champion, raised its massive axe, a streak of silver light shot from the trees. It was Talia. She landed like a phantom, her rapier a blur as she struck at the champion's exposed knee joint. Her blade, which had pierced goblin flesh with ease, scraped against the orc's thick hide with a screech of metal on stone, leaving only a shallow, bleeding scratch. The orc grunted, more in annoyance than in pain, and swatted at her as one would a fly.
Talia danced back, her eyes wide with shock at the creature's resilience. But she had bought the time they needed.
"Get to him!" Masha's voice commanded. A shimmering wall of thick, opaque ice erupted from the ground, a massive barrier that momentarily halted the horde's advance. It was a heroic, defiant gesture.
From behind the wall, the rest of my team charged, their faces set in grim, determined lines. Eric, his shield raised, planted himself in front of me and Kael, a living mountain between us and the enemy. Jin stood beside him, his sword held in a ready stance, his eyes narrowed as he assessed the new threat. Rina and Edgar rushed to our side, Rina immediately kneeling, her hands glowing as she tried to stabilize my wound.
And then came Erica. She strode through the flames, her own fire magic making her immune to the heat. The rage was still there, a cold, hard fury in her eyes, but it was now tempered by a desperate need to protect. She stood in front of Eric, her hands already gathering the ambient heat into swirling orbs of fire.
The orcs did not seem impressed. The champion slammed its massive axe against Masha's ice wall. The entire structure shuddered, deep cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.
"Edgar!" I rasped, clutching my side. "Analysis!"
"Orc Warriors!" Edgar yelled, his voice tight with fear. "Rank D! High health, high physical attack and defense! They're resistant to low-level magic! Their weak points are their joints and their eyes, but their armor plating is thick!"
The ice wall exploded into a shower of frozen shards as the champion and two other brutes smashed through it. The fight began.
It was a battle unlike any we had ever faced. Eric met the champion's charge. His tower shield, which had held against Derek's artifact-fueled fury, groaned and buckled as the orc's axe slammed into it. The sheer, brute force of the blow sent Eric sliding back several feet, his boots carving furrows in the scorched earth. He held, but only just.
Jin and Talia became a whirlwind of coordinated strikes, a dance of precision against power. They fought together, their movements a testament to their training. Talia would use her Kinetic Eye to spot an opening, her rapier darting in to create a shallow wound that made an orc flinch. In that split second of distraction, Jin would follow up with a powerful, targeted strike. They managed to bring one of the spear-wielding orcs down, but it took more than a dozen combined hits, each one perfectly placed, to finally fell the beast. And for their trouble, they now had the attention of three more.
Masha and Erica were our artillery, but their magic was struggling. Masha launched a volley of ice spears, but they shattered harmlessly against the iron plating of the larger brutes. She was forced to focus on the smaller, unarmored orcs, using her ice to slow them, to make the ground treacherous, to control the battlefield rather than deal direct damage.
Erica's fireballs, which had incinerated goblins and terrified humans, were less effective here. She launched a massive orb of fire that struck an orc warrior square in the chest. The orc roared in pain and anger, its armor glowing red-hot and its skin blistering, but it didn't stop. It charged right through the flames, wounded but very much alive, its eyes burning with hatred.
This was a war of attrition we could not win. Rina was a blur, her hands glowing as she darted between Eric and Jin, mending the deep cuts and crushing bruises they were sustaining. But for every wound she healed, two more appeared. The force of the orcs' blows was monstrous; even blocked hits were causing internal damage.
From my position on the ground, I could only watch, helpless. My mind, free from the strain of command, could see the battle with a terrifying clarity. I saw the patterns, the weaknesses, the impending doom. My team was fighting with more courage and power than I had ever seen from them. They were fighting like heroes.
But they were losing.
They had managed to kill three of the smaller orcs, at a great cost of stamina and mana. But there were still more than thirty left. And the champion, the tusked monster leading them, had just broken past Eric's guard, its massive axe raised high, ready to bring it down and crush our frontline defender once and for all. My team, my precious, powerful assets, were about to be systematically slaughtered. And there was nothing I could do but watch.