The rift in the sky was bleeding.
Out of those wounds in the physical world came even more enemies howling shadow creatures, radiant wraiths, and colossus armor constructs that advanced like walking fortresses.
Team 13 didn't have a chance to recover their breath after the first wave.
Lucifer's undeads serrated out before him in a line, holding back a whole flank. Each soldier was a smoldering carcass from the previous battles, kept alive only by the cold grip of his magical energy. The air reeked of charred meat.
"Left wing disintegrating!" some other squad members shouted across the comms.
"Velra, cut it!" Lucifer barked.
Velra's eyes were burning. With a circle of a single sweep, a space-lock ripped wide like shattered glass in the air, slicing through charging shadow beasts. They fell to the ground in two shattered halves, dark ichor spilling into the crevices of the battlefield.
Mira stepped back, whirling a vortex of death-fire around herself. Her magic burned in a cold red, consuming the armor of the enemy like acid. She wasn't even aware of the blood dripping from her own temple.
And at its center, Neron moved.
The time mage was here and there, burning through distorted moments. His magic was sharp, precision, freezing seconds at jagged instants so that their squadron could advance into place or avoid deadly blows. Each use drained him, but he continued.
The Union's lines closed in, pushing the Rift-born soldiers back toward the unstable portal. They might even take this front.
And then the ground trembled.
Something colossal began struggling out of the rift. Four legs encased in black crystal, a horn-crown on its head that raked the bloody sky. A Rift-born warbeast. Its roar vibrated the bones in Lucifer's ears.
"Fall back and reform!" the Dark Unification commander bellowed across the battlefield.
But the beast plunged forward, leaving squads sprawled in one sweep of its tail.
Lucifer's undeads charged forward to meet it, and Velra's space slicer ripped deep into its jointed armor, but the monster did not waver. One of its claws raked the ground near them, creating shockwaves which shattered armor and flung soldiers around like ragdolls.
Lucifer was knocked to the ground, wind robbed from his chest. His undead front collapsed in a trice, bone chips showering.
When he did look up, he spotted Neron; not running, not escaping but approaching the monster.
"Neron! Don't you….!"
Lucifer's voice devolved into static as a shock of power wobbled the air.
Neron didn't even look back. His hands were already moving in that strange, deliberative progression. The one he never did except in extremity. The seconds around him crawled at snail's pace, the warbeast's massive claws extending like honey through air.
"Get them out!" Neron's voice echoed oddly, spanning decades. "This thing… is mine!"
Lucifer's eyes widened. "You're not going to—"
But Neron smiled. For the first time since they'd met, it wasn't his usual half-smirk. It was. warm. "You'll hate me less if you live."
The spell blazed.
Time splintered, shattering into glass shards around Neron as he let loose a field full-stop. Something only a mad time mage would dare attempt. The Rift-born warbeast stalled in mid-lunge, caught in a cage of expiring seconds.
The pressure hit him at once. Neron's eyes, ears, and mouth hemorrhaged. His veins ran with unstable energy, as with cracks in delicate porcelain.
"Go away from here!" Velra tugged on Lucifer's arm, pulling him back to the rally point. Mira followed behind her, eyes wide and fixed.
Neron's body behind them went up from the inside out as the field collapsed inward.
They saw him looking at them. His face was calm, as if the violence and slaughter going on around him no longer mattered.
Then the field collapsed inward.
The warbeast and Neron vanished in a single burst of white, the shockwave whipping dirt, ash, and broken stone through the air across the battlefield. The blast was ear-shattering, then soundlessly menacing.
When the dust had cleared, nothing remained but a crater where they had been.
The surviving squads of the Dark Unification Army staggered together, sealing the rift with brute force and layered spells. Zone 28 was secure. But there were no cheers, no victory roars. Only silence.
Lucifer stood at the edge of the crater, fists clenched so tightly blood dripped from his palms.
They survived the Crimson March… but not all had returned. Not all of them will be remembered as death is the most normal thing than anything in the Dimensional Battlefield. They lost countless fellow soldiers before. But, it hurts more when your fellow team members die. Creatures with feelings are selfish.