The western wound in Cardella's wall gaped like a broken maw.
Beyond it, the pitch-black forest surged with a darkness deeper than the night itself.
Not with maddened charge of bodies toppling over each other, but with an ugly cadence of chaotic and thundering march of thousands of feet.
The monsters that came out of it paused just behind their shaman, moonlight tinting them silver.
While the Orc Shaman atop his drake stood, the commander of this chaos.
But he did not come closer.
He did not need to.
The staff clutched in his hand - Lyra's staff - kindled, dimmed, then kindled again in red hues as he worked the cruel rhythm of his spell.
The staff then flared with flames, before bursting out another fireball and—
-BOOM!
And smashed into the dome, sending ripples across the entirety of it, coming too close to shattering it.
Mages tried their best to hurl spells back, but the ward he conjured deflected them all, though cracks still formed across its surface with each impact.
While his staff once again glowed red, letting loose another fireball-
-BOOM!
This one rattled the walls with enough power that it toppled a few defenders to their deaths below
And through it all, Astoria stood unshaken through the tremors running beneath her boots.
Her jaw clenched tight while the knights and adventurers alike stood agape at the monstrosities below.
"How are we going to survive this?" one muttered under his breath, catching the glares of others.
"Where's your valour, coward!" another snapped, at both him and himself.
"For Cardella!" Someone bellowed from behind.
"For Cardella!" Came another before one after the other thousands of knights and adventures shouted in unison.
Their boots banging the ground in a thunderous sync that overwhelmed the shrieks of monster below.
The walls of Cardella no longer shook from roars of the monsters below, but from the men above who refused to yield.
Even the horde faltered for a heartbeat, their shrieks dimming beneath the thunder of roars from above.
Yet the Shaman's growl drove them to roars of their own as his staff pulsed with hateful light.
Some veterans who had fought a dozen battles felt their chests tighten, not from the fear of death but from awe — this was no longer a defence, it was valour crystallised.
With her sword raised high, Astoria's command resounded in the ears of everyone, "All arms, to the streets below! Prepare for close combat! FOR CARDELLA!!"
The words struck like lightning, burning away the last shreds of doubt.
The fear, though it didn't vanish, it hardned into resolve, into the kind of valour Liora herself would be proud of.
One knight's fingers trembled around his bow, knuckles whitening before he forced them still, remembering the faces of his family.
And with the sheer discipline cultivated through the years…
Thousands of knights abandoned their bows, their armor clattering as they turned for the stairs, while stronger ones like Faris vaulted over the wall and dropped straight below.
Faris landed with a crash that cracked the stone pavement beneath.
His eyes gleaming colder than the frost on his halberd.
While the shaman's third fireball came, a beat later - larger, brighter, and heavier - timed to shatter any rhythm the priests could cling to as the dome shuddered under the blast of flames.
In the watchtowers, robed priests knelt before silver flames, their voices rasping as their hymns strained under hours of constant barrages from the monsters and the Shaman.
While faith alone drove sound through throats gone hoarse and trembling.
They could not stop.
If they faltered, even for a moment, hell itself would fall on Cardella.
Noticing the movements on the walls, the shaman raised his staff with a low growl as the drake beneath him bellowed fire, and like a tsunami the tide rushed.
The horde broke into a maddened charge, thousands of twisted bodies crashing forward in reckless abandon as they poured toward the gaping wound that was the western wall.
Serenya raised her mace as she turned to her clergy, her voice ringing with fury as she leapt from the battlements to join her knights. "Priests! Hold the dome against that orc's fire. Leave the streets to us!"
Following Serenya's command, the clergy pulled the dome back from the walls and focused it toward the skies again.
Golden light thickened above the battlements as the shield reformed, bracing against the fire that rained down.
The priests fought a war of their own.
Each strike of the shaman's fireball was a strike at their faith, at the trust that their goddess's hand still held firm above them.
Tremors ran through some clasped hands, some coughed mid-hymn, but still their voices rose, cracked yet unbroken.
For they knew if that trust broke even for a moment, the dome would break with it.
Below, the knights lined in rows just before the shattered gate.
Shields raised and spears braced with the three captains at the front.
Their faces showed no triumph, only fatigue and a weight that pulled them toward hopelessness, yet they forced it down.
For they were the thread holding the knights' sanity intact.
By the wall, mages and archers remained, their staves and bows glowing with runes and spells alike.
Every shot they loosed was aimed toward the funnel that the western gate had become, thinning the tide before it crashed against the shield wall of men.
Monsters still aflame with fire, caked in frost, or convulsing from the last threads of lightning, barrelled at the knights like a tide of burning and broken flesh.
And a beat later, the tide smashed in.