The victory was a double-edged sword. In the command center, the silence left by the enemy summoner's assault was replaced by a cacophony of new, more urgent alarms. The displays, once a uniform red of magical attack, were now a complex and terrifying schematic of their own internal failures.
[Warning: Power Reserves at 30%. Critical.]
[Warning: Shield Integrity Compromised. Fluctuation at 70%.]
[Alert: Non-Essential Systems Offline. Hydroponics, Fabrication Unit – Power Rerouted.]
"We bought ourselves a few minutes, but we're crippled," Kara said, her voice tight with strain, her fingers a blur as she tried to stabilize the power grid. "The energy cannon took almost everything we had. The shield is weak and unstable."
Draven's mind was a cold, clear engine of logic, already moving past their victory and onto the next, more immediate problem. He watched the main tactical scanner. Voss's army, no longer cowering from their now-dead caster, was regrouping. They were forming into a single, massive assault column, their target clear: the main gate. They would use brute force, believing the shield was now too weak to stop them.
And they were right.
A standard defensive posture was a losing game. They didn't have the power to maintain the shield against a full-scale physical assault. They were outnumbered a hundred to one. A siege of attrition was a battle they would lose in a matter of hours. Therefore, the only logical option was to change the rules of the engagement.
"If a wall is about to break," Draven said, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper, "you don't waste your energy trying to hold it up. You choose exactly where it breaks, and you turn that breach into a meat grinder."
Kara looked at him, her eyes wide with a dawning, horrified understanding. "You're not serious. You want to lower the shield?"
"At a single point," he confirmed, his finger tracing a line on the schematic of the outpost's main courtyard. "Right here. At the main gate. We'll funnel them into a prepared killbox. We'll turn their charge into a suicide run."
It was an insane, high-risk gambit. It meant willingly letting the enemy into their fortress. But it was also their only chance.
"I need you here," he said to Kara. "You're the only one who can control the shield. On my signal, you drop the ward at the main gate for exactly ten seconds. Then you bring it back up, no matter what."
"What about you?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"I'll be on the front line," he replied, his face a mask of cold resolve. "Holding it."
He left her in the command center, a silent, profound trust passing between them. He raced to the main courtyard, his summons materializing around him as he ran. Kael, his armored vanguard. The Rune-Hound, a vicious tracker. Umbra, a silent predator. And the Thornling, a living minefield.
The courtyard before the main gate was a wide, open plaza of ancient stone. The Enclave's Stone Golem sentries, a dozen silent titans, were already moving into defensive positions, their programming recognizing the imminent threat. It wasn't enough.
Draven took his position on the parapet directly above the gate, the highest point of oversight. From here, he could see everything. He was the commander, the nerve center of the battle to come. He laid out his assets. Kael and the Rune-Hound at the sides of the gate, ready to flank. Umbra and the Thornling in the shadows of the upper levels, ready for ambush. He was the queen, and these were the pieces on his chessboard.
He watched Voss's army approach, a tide of iron and rage. They were bringing crude battering rams, siege ladders. They were preparing for a long, brutal assault on the shield. They had no idea he was about to open the door for them.
He opened his link to Kara. "On my mark."
He waited until the first wave of Voss's most elite, heavily armored soldiers was packed tight against the gate, their full force pressed against the shimmering blue ward.
"Now, Kara! Now!"
The section of the shield directly over the gate vanished.
For a heartbeat, there was a stunned silence. Then, a triumphant roar erupted from Voss's army. They surged forward, a crushing wave of bodies pouring into the courtyard, believing they had achieved a great victory. They had just walked into the trap.
The moment the first fifty men were inside, Draven gave the second order. "Bring it up!"
The shield snapped back into place with a deafening crack, cutting the invading force in half, trapping them inside with no hope of retreat or reinforcement.
And then, the slaughter began.
The Stone Golem sentries were a wall of unstoppable destruction, their massive fists turning armored soldiers into bloody piles of scrap metal. Kael and the Rune-Hound were a whirlwind of fangs and claws, a two-headed beast that tore through the enemy's disorganized ranks. From the rooftops, the Thornling's Thorn Barrages rained down, a shower of deadly, armor-piercing spikes. Umbra was a ghost, a shadow that dropped from the walls, its claws sinking into the necks of high-value targets—the lieutenants, the standard bearers—before melting back into the darkness.
From her own perch high in the central spire, Kara was a silent, avenging angel. Her arrows were precision strikes, each one finding a gap in a helmet, a weak point in a shield, a moment of exposed flesh.
Draven was the conductor of this symphony of violence. He was not a single fighter; he was the entire battlefield. He used his System Interface to direct his summons, to identify primary targets, to exploit every weakness in the enemy's panicked formation. When a section of the line wavered, he was there, his own axe a blur of motion, shoring up the defense.
The battle for the courtyard was brutal, bloody, and surprisingly short. The trapped soldiers, caught between the unyielding fury of the golems and the predatory tactics of Draven's pack, were annihilated.
But the victory was costly. Two of the priceless Enclave golems lay in shattered pieces. Kael was bleeding from a deep gash in his side. And the courtyard was a charnel house, a grim testament to the battle they had just won.
Draven stood on the wall, looking out at the rest of Voss's army, which had pulled back in stunned, horrified disarray. They had repelled the first wave. But the main army was still out there. And now, they knew the shield could be lowered.
He looked at Kara, a silent, exhausted acknowledgment passing between them. They had won the first engagement. But the siege was far from over.