The world was a storm of grief and fire.
Erica's desperate plasma blast had saved Dante, but the cost was huge.
Neil, their brilliant archivist, lay dead.
Juno, their soul-seer, knelt in the dirt, clutching a shattered arm. His face was a mask of unbearable pain from the curse that linked his wounds to Eric's.
They were crippled, grieving, and standing on the very edge of destruction. The brief quiet after Erica's attack was heavy with the promise of their coming deaths.
Derek's laughter, harsh and ugly, cut through the silence. "Is that all you've got? One last firework before the end?" He got back on his feet, his smirk returning. "Your little strategist is useless, your healer is overwhelmed, and your strongest fighters are being bled dry. It's over."
He was right. Dante's mind felt like it was wading through tar. The curse from the Maleficium user was a constant, heavy pressure that made every strategic thought a huge effort. His plan had failed. His team was being taken apart piece by piece. They couldn't win this fight. Not like this.
It was in that moment of despair that he saw it. In the middle of the chaos, Juno looked at him. His face was pale, streaked with tears and dirt, his body trembling from the shared pain of Eric's wounds. But his eyes… his eyes were sharp, clear, and filled with a terrifying, final determination.
He wasn't just looking at Dante; he was trying to tell him something. His gaze flickered from Dante to the cackling curse user, then down to the ground beside him where a sharp, jagged rock lay.
And then Dante understood. Juno's skill, Soul Etching, didn't just see weakness; it saw connections. He had seen how the curse that bound him worked. It wasn't just a one-way street. He was going to cut the connection himself.
It was a sacrifice. A final, desperate move.
"Juno, no," Dante breathed, the words lost in the noise of the battle.
Juno gave him a faint, heartbreaking smile. It was a final farewell. Before anyone could react, he grabbed the sharp rock with his good hand. There was no hesitation.
With a final, pained cry that was half-grief for Neil and half-defiance, he plunged the stone deep into his own chest, directly over his heart.
Shunk.
The effect was instant and horrible.
The Maleficium user, who had been preparing another hex, suddenly screamed. It was not a cry of victory, but of pure, unfiltered agony.
He collapsed to his knees, clutching his own chest, his eyes wide with the ghost pain of a fatal wound.
The "Hex of Shared Pain" had become a double-edged sword. He was feeling the full, overwhelming pain of Juno's final moments. He wasn't dead, but his mind was broken by the echo of a deathblow, leaving him completely paralyzed.
The mental fog that had clouded Dante's mind vanished as if it had never been there. The world snapped back into sharp, brutal focus. Grief would come later. Now was the time for vengeance.
"MASHA!" His voice was like a whip crack. "THE ILLUSIONIST! HE'S WIDE OPEN! ICE COFFIN!"
The Phantasm user, shocked by his teammate's sudden collapse, was a half-second too slow to react. Masha, her face a mask of cold fury, didn't need to be told twice. She poured her grief and rage into a single, focused point of absolute cold.
CRACKLE!
The ground around the illusionist erupted. A tomb of thick, solid ice instantly encased him, freezing him solid in a silent, eternal scream.
Two down.
"PUPPET!" Dante commanded, turning his will to the other side of the battlefield. "THROUGH THE SHIELD!"
His shadow creature, still scraping at the Wardcraft user's barrier, obeyed. The shield flickered as its caster stared in horror at the frozen tomb of his ally. In that moment of distraction, the puppet's form dissolved into a formless shadow, passing through the magical barrier. It became solid again on the other side.
Shnk!
Its shadowy hand plunged deep into the Wardcraft user's chest, snuffing out his life before he could even turn around.
Three down.
The tide had not just turned; it had become a tidal wave.
"Talia!" Dante yelled. "The Graviton user is yours!"
Talia, freed from the chaos of the illusions, was a silver ghost. The injured gravity mage, seeing his support crumble around him, tried to flee. He never had a chance. Talia closed the distance in the blink of an eye, her rapier a blur. A single, precise thrust to the back of his neck, and he crumpled to the ground.
Four down.
In less than thirty seconds, their entire backline had been wiped out. All that remained was Derek and his four brawling friends, who were still locked in a desperate struggle with Eric.
Derek roared in fury, seeing his team collapse. "You'll all die for this!" He activated the full power of the artifact on his sword. A violent, crimson aura erupted around him as he charged, no longer at Dante, but at the nearest threat—Talia.
But the team was no longer scattered and broken.
"Eric, with her!" Dante commanded.
Eric, bloodied but unyielding, met Derek's charge, his shield taking the brunt of the artifact-powered blow. The impact sent shockwaves through the ground, but he held his ground. Talia was already there, her rapier darting in, forcing Derek to defend, her speed a perfect counter to his overwhelming power. They locked him down, a two-person wall of defense and precision.
"Edgar, keep talking!"
"His right side is wide open after a downward swing! The artifact is making him reckless!" Edgar shouted, his voice clear and confident now that the immediate threat to him was gone.
Masha and Erica, her mana slowly returning, became their crowd control. Masha coated the ground around the four remaining brawlers in slick ice, making their footing dangerous. Erica, saving her strength, launched small, stinging firebolts, forcing them to dodge and breaking their rhythm.
And then, Dante brought forth the true horror. He reached out his hand, not to one corpse, but to three. The fallen Phantasmist, Wardcrafter, and Graviton user.
"Serve me," he commanded, pouring his power into their fresh corpses.
Three new shadow puppets, their forms twisted silhouettes of the boys they once were, rose from the ground. Their violet eyes opened at the same time. They were an army of ghosts, a testament to their brutal victory.
He pointed at the four brawlers, who were slipping and sliding on Masha's ice, trying desperately to fight Eric's remaining opponent. "Overwhelm them."
His three new puppets surged forward, a silent, terrifying wave of darkness. They fell upon the brawlers, who screamed in terror as they were swarmed by the shadowy faces of their dead friends.
The battle was won. It was a brutal, bloody, and costly victory. Dante looked over at Juno's still form, the sharp rock still embedded in his chest. His final, desperate act had saved them all. He had seen the path to victory when Dante's own cursed mind could not.
Grief was a cold, heavy stone in his gut. But as he watched Derek being systematically dismantled by Eric and Talia, and his last men being torn apart by the ghosts of their comrades, he knew one thing for certain. They would not let Juno's sacrifice be in vain.