The first wave broke against her like water against stone.
The second hit harder.
Hobgoblins roared as they charged in a wall of muscle and iron, shields raised and spears leveled. Shamans shrieked from behind them, their hands weaving ugly, twitching patterns in the air. The sky itself seemed to shudder as they spat curses and hurled jagged bolts of sickly green fire.
Beatriz stood unmoving until the moment before impact.
Then—movement.
Her spear blurred forward, the blade blooming to twice its length in the span of a heartbeat. The front rank of hobgoblins fell in unison, their torsos parting cleanly from their legs, their weapons clattering uselessly in twitching hands. Blood fanned across her armor and hissed where it touched the gold.
A goblin shaman's firebolt tore through the space where she had stood—but she had already moved, the attack passing harmlessly through empty air. She appeared beside him as though the world had blinked, the butt of her spear crushing his skull with the sound of a melon splitting. She stepped away without looking back, boots leaving red prints in the mud.
The camp dissolved into chaos.
Some goblins and hobgoblins threw themselves at her with suicidal fury, hacking and stabbing. Others, eyes wide with terror, fled toward the crude gates, shoving each other down in the mud to get through first. Screams mingled with the wet crunch of breaking bone and the gurgle of drowning men in the corpse pits.
From the central hut, the chieftain bellowed over the din.
"All of you! On her! NOW!"
His voice cracked—not with rage, but with desperation.
They obeyed, more out of fear of him than hope against her. Dozens swarmed from every angle, spears thrusting, axes swinging, blades stabbing. She slid between the strikes like water through reeds, her movements sharp yet fluid, each attack brushing so close it could graze her armor—yet never touching.
A hobgoblin swung an axe heavy enough to fell a horse. She turned her head slightly, letting it whistle past her helm, and skewered him through the throat before he could recover.
Another tried to grab her spear haft to hold her in place. She spun the weapon in her grip, shattering his wrist, then drove the blade into his chest with such force the tip burst from his back and skewered two more goblins behind him.
Every strike was final.
Every motion precise.
The air was thick with copper and smoke.
Shamans chanted louder, desperate to break her focus. Lightning cracked from their palms, jagged and bright—only for her to vanish again, reappearing behind them, the spear's blade sweeping in a golden arc that tore through them in a single, fluid strike.
The ground became a slaughter pit. Goblin corpses stacked at her feet in heaps, hobgoblins lay where they fell, limbs twisted in wrong directions. The blood pooled deep enough to reflect the dim light, rippling as her boots passed through.
She did not speak. She did not breathe heavy. Her helm never turned toward Elrick, though she knew he watched from the ridge.
Somewhere beyond the carnage, the chieftain ducked back into his hut. His voice still barked orders, but his hands were already busy—shoving gold coins, gem-studded trinkets, and silver-etched blades into a bulging sack. The glow of the firelight danced off the treasure, spilling over his greedy hands.
Outside, the few remaining warriors threw themselves at Beatriz, not to kill her—but to buy him seconds. She cut them down without slowing, stepping over the fallen as though walking across uneven stones.
The chieftain slipped through a rear slit in the hut's wall, vanishing into the treeline. The sack clinked with every hurried step.
Behind him, the screams had already begun to fade, replaced by the steady sound of Beatriz's boots in the mud.
She was not chasing him.
Not yet.