(Astoria's POV)
The eyes I had kept steady snapped wide as three explosions tore through the night.
The ground shook under my boots while the air split with dust as the shrieks of monsters grew louder.
I vaulted onto the roof of a half-cracked watchpost, my gaze locking on the two fresh gaps torn into Cardella's wall.
From both breaches, fresh tides of monsters poured through with foaming jaws as they charged straight for us.
[Liora's pinkie toe! That's the last thing we needed.]
My chest hammered like it wanted to rip out of its armor, yet my face stayed carved from ice.
The captain of the Knight's Order could not be seen losing her sh- composure.
The horde now rushed at us from three directions, aiming to crush us in a pincer with the wave already slamming the western gate.
"Formation C!" I commanded, the order ringing sharp even though my gut wanted to fold in on itself.
And the knights moved without hesitation.
Shields locked as they curved into a semi-circle, spears bracing outward like the teeth of some great beast while they stole glances at me, eyes lit with that reverence.
[Worship me later, boys—or better yet, don't worship me at all, you lot are creepy enough already… And saints above, please… please don't let any of you be a mind-reading esper.]
The ground rumbled harder as the charge drew closer, the tide of monsters screaming straight for the line.
"Serenya! You take the western front! Faris, the northern one!" My voice rang sharp and steady, cutting through the chaos like I knew exactly what I was doing.
"Yes, Captain!" Faris shot back without hesitation, his halberd already covered in frost as he dashed for the breach.
Serenya gave a single nod, vaporizing another kobold with her mace before sprinting into the madness with her elite knights at her back.
That left me with the southern tide.
Wonderful.
[Oh great, Astoria, just fantastic. Let's go solo an entire front. Who even comes up with strategies like these? Oh, right, me.]
I broke into a dash, boots hammering across cracked tiles as I vaulted from rooftop to rooftop.
My blades thrummed in my grip, runes flickering awake as one flared in fire and the other bled frost into the night.
"First Sequence—Emberstride."
Mana surged into my veins, burning and freezing all at once as I slammed into the horde.
Each stroke tore open a monster while the six phantom blades followed - three fire, three frost - all slashing in perfect unison with mine.
Each swing of the two swords split into a storm of phantom blades that tore something apart until corpses piled faster than my eyes could even follow
Every swing left another knot of monsters screaming.
[Keep swinging. Don't stop… Don't you dare stop. If you stop, they'll break through, and then it's not just you...]
I spun through them, violet eyes locked, my face like carved like marble even as my lungs burned and my arms shook.
To the knights behind me, I must have looked like some death-dancing saint.
A saint of the sword… some fairy of frost and fire.
[Let's hope none of them realise that I'm basically running on fumes…]
That was when a shadow slipped through the nearest tear in the dome.
A winged thin with claws stretched wide, screaming straight for my skull.
I did not look up.
I only felt the rush of air before I raised my frost blade and met it by feel.
Steel bit through bone, and the thing folded in two.
Feathers slapped my face as hot blood streaked my cheek.
I blinked against the sting and looked up.
The dome shimmered like glass, ready to break, while dozens of winged monsters clawed and spat against it.
Bolts of fire and ice cracked against the golden ward, some bleeding through and hammering down into the streets.
The priests still held, but their light shook.
And the shaman?
Still there.
Still atop his drake.
Still lobbing fireballs like he had nothing better to do.
[Perfect. Just perfect... Flying nightmares. Exactly what we were missing.]
I grimaced through ragged breaths, yet the blades still flared with frost and flame in my hands.
The dance began again.
One swing of the swords, and six more blades flared out.
They cut whatever dared close.
A goblin lunged from my flank, and its head spun away.
An orc raised a maul and the phantom blades took his arms and chest in the same instant.
I moved as if someone else carried my body while my own mind spun in circles.
[That's the forty-fourth knight this minute… no, stop counting Astoria—no, no, no. This isn't a numbers game. You're the captain. Hold steady just... hold steady.]
I slashed again, and the phantom storm answered.
A kobold tried to leap past me, and the fire-phantoms shredded it midair while the frost ones froze its corpse solid before it even hit the ground.
The knights behind me cheered, their voices breaking with awe as though this wasn't just me swinging in blind desperation.
"That's our captain!"
I heard them.
And for their sake, I kept the mask steady.
On the outside, I was a saint of the sword.
On the inside -
[I'm winging it… Saints above, I'm winging it so hard.]
Another harpy clawed through the cracks overhead, shrieking straight for me.
And before I could even think, my fire blade rose by instinct alone and split it in one stroke while feathers scattered across my boots.
While I kept moving.
Because if I stopped, even for a breath, the tide would swallow us whole.
My arms ached while my legs screamed with every step, and my whole body was drenched in monster blood mixed with my own.
I leapt up to a roof, not to fight this time but to breathe.
Below, Faris's halberd swept arcs of frost wide enough to keep the tide at bay for a breath.
While I yanked a potion open with shaking fingers and poured it down in a single gulp.
Its bitter taste burned down my throat, filling me just enough to keep me from dropping dead mid-swing.
A healing draught after that, closing the three ugly slits a kobold had left before I cut its head off.
I sighed, long and heavy, hoping for calm and finding none.
My chest heaved like a forge bellows while my arms trembled like twigs in the wind.
My eyes lifted to the moon, to the calm above this madness.
But even that was broken.
The sky writhed with wings and fangs as monsters battered the dome.
Some clawed straight through, shrieking as they dove at us.
The priests still chanted, but their voices came out cracked.
Hours of prayer had left them hoarse.
Faith may have no bottom, but flesh does.
That's when I saw it.
A silhouette cutting sharply against the moon.
At first, I thought it was just another monster.
Then my ears picked it up, the voice cutting clear through the clash in a spell I knew, chant in a voice I knew.
[No. No. No. That voice. That can't... don't you dare be some undead, I swear if you came back as some cursed thing I'll- ]
She fell like a star, hair whipping, eyes blazing as if she had stolen a treasure out of heaven.
And in her arms…
Not some divine sword, or a relic.
But a man.
A grown man in a red cloak, flailing like a cat dumped in a bath.
His voice cracked as he shrieked, "LET ME GO!"
He kicked and writhed, but Lyra didn't budge.
She touched down right in front of me with a tap softer than a stair step, wind curling around her boots as the spell died.
While the man thrashed in her arms, his face red as a beet.
Yet she held him like nothing.
And she - still cradling him like a bride on her wedding night - grinned at me.
"You live," I whispered, lips trembling though my face stayed cold.
[By the saints, she's actually alive!]
"And I brought victory," she said, grinning like a fool.
My eyes dropped to the man.
Strange clothes.
Red cloak.
Yelling like a child.
My head dipped before I could stop it, "Greetings… Mister Victory."
The man groaned so hard that it seemed his soul was about to leap out of his body.