Dawn came thin and gray, the sky a bruise over the western approaches. Smoke from last night's raids still clung to the hollows, and the air tasted of iron and singed sigils. Sam stood on the wall with Indra curled at his feet and Baloo planted like a living rampart beside him. Helios hovered above, a small sun against the low clouds, wings beating a steady rhythm. Below, the city moved with the practiced calm of people who had learned to make war into routine: golems shifted into place, Moon Mages checked ward lattices, Nature Mages led their Stone Skill Bulls into position, and the Moonlight and Sunrise Cavalries readied their wolves and slimes.
Sam did two things before the first horn sounded. He used his free daily troop summon and called a fresh squad of Moon Mages into being—robes flickering with lunar light, hands already shaping wards. Then he slipped the Shadow King's Ring onto his finger and felt the familiar, cold tug as Shade Assassins answered the call. They arrived like shadows uncoiling, blades sheathed, faces set. The ring's summons were not flashy; they were efficient, and efficiency was what Twilight needed.
From the battlements Sam watched the field and felt the domain settle into a single, focused organism. Citizens watched from behind repaired parapets. Children clung to parents' cloaks. The city held its breath and waited for the first clash.
Tide's team moved like a dark tide under Dionysus' smoke veil. The Nightmare Bear—still raw, still learning the shape of freedom—walked at the center of their column, chains loosened but not yet gone. Shade Assassins slipped ahead to cut patrols; slimes rode the wolves' haunches and spat corrosive globes into sentry lines; Moonlight scouts marked the patrol patterns and fed them back in whispers.
Dionysus braided sin‑webbing into the undergrowth and let black smoke pool low, a curtain that swallowed sight and muddled sound. The hub's outer ring was a ring of talismans and dead wards; Moon Mages could not reach through it. Tide worked blind, guided by Tide's hands and Tide's instruments, by the feel of rune‑stone under his fingers and the small, precise counter‑runes he set like stitches. The Shade Assassins held the perimeter with a discipline that tasted of iron.
When Tide struck the anchor the hub answered with a pulse that rolled through the earth like a struck drum. Nearby brush shuddered; distant packs of predators answered with sudden, violent growth. Dionysus' smoke thickened and the Nightmare Bear charged, a living battering ram that smashed through rune‑guardians while Tide and the rune‑breakers finished the cut. For a breath the world teetered on the edge of chaos; then the anchor cracked and the hub began to die.
Vlad's column hit the field like a spear. Sunrise Cavalry wolves slammed into goblin and troll ranks, slimes spat and blinded, and Moonlight riders circled to cut off retreat. One rode with Vlad as rune specialist, a steady presence who kept the feint from becoming a rout.
Borto was a knot of ritual and spite, a shaman who had learned to make sigils into teeth. He fought from behind a ring of goblins and crude rune‑engines, his voice a rasping chant that fed the mortar and the hub. Vlad fought through the ranks with the terrible, disciplined force of a man who had made iron obey. He moved like a battering ram and a surgeon at once—closing, breaking, finishing.
When Vlad reached Borto the duel was close and ugly. Borto's tricks were vicious: sigil‑spikes that burst from the earth, illusions that tried to tear a man's mind apart. Vlad answered with a single, brutal economy. He closed the distance, took the shaman's throat with a hand that did not tremble, and ended the ritual with a blade that did not sing but simply did its work. Borto fell, and the rune core he tended lay exposed like a wound.
The feint had done its work. Girlock's attention shifted. Reinforcements that might have rushed the hub were pulled toward Vlad's column. The battlefield tilted in Twilight's favor.
Tide and One synchronized their strikes. Where Tide had cut, One's Shade Assassins struck the stabilizers; where Tide's counter‑runes held, One's blades severed the last anchors. The hub screamed in a language of broken sigils and then began to unravel.
The collapse was not graceful. Runes flared and snapped like lightning across stone. Guardians—stitched constructs and rune‑armored beasts—shuddered and fell. A cascading backlash tore through the lattice and the pulse that had been feeding nearby monsters died like a snuffed candle. Enhanced predators collapsed back into ordinary ferocity or lay still where they had been pushed too far.
When the dust settled Tide and One stood with their hands stained in rune‑ash. The hub's core lay in pieces, and from the wreckage two raw, humming artifacts rose like terrible fruit: Overlord cores, pulsing with tier energy and the smell of power. Tide held his core with a hand that trembled; One's face was unreadable, the kind of calm that had seen too much.
The cores were not trophies. They were questions. They were weight. They were a new axis on which the future might turn.
On the main field Girlock gathered what remained of his force and hurled it at Twilight in a last, furious push. Trolls surged like a black tide; goblins swarmed in the gaps. The Moonlight and Sunrise Cavalries met them with wolfback and blade; golems held the center like iron teeth. Nature Mages sent Iron Hide Bulls to anchor flanks; Moon Mages loosed Earth Serpents and Blood Bats to harry the rear.
Helios fought in the air. He was not a perch for Sam now but a living spear—blazing arcs of Solar Halo that strafed enemy ranks, small flares that drew attention and left holes for cavalry to exploit. He dove and rose, a comet of molten brass, and his light made the shadows sharp and the enemy's faces visible.
Gabriel and Indra were the heart of the defense. Gabriel moved like a blade that had learned to think. Light and dark braided through his strikes; his claymore sang with a sound that was not music but inevitability. Indra was the opposite: a mountain of disciplined force, each strike a calculation of weight and balance. They met Girlock in the center, and the duel was a storm.
Girlock was brutal and enormous, a creature of bone and chain and rage. He fought like a man who had never known mercy. Gabriel answered with the Sword God's microbursts—small invocations that let him read motion and redirect it. He parried a crushing blow and turned it into a counter that opened Girlock's side. Indra struck with the force of a battering ram and kept the trolls from swarming.
When Gabriel's blade found its mark Girlock fell like a felled tree. The field went still for a heartbeat, then broke into a roar. From Girlock's body, as if the world itself acknowledged the end of a terror, a Champion Token clinked and rolled into the mud—black and white braided metal that promised a new, terrible possibility.
Girlock's death shattered the enemy's cohesion. Trolls and goblins broke and fled; those who did not were cut down by cavalry and golems. The rout became a cleanup. Twilight's forces moved through the field with grim efficiency, leaving no room for the enemy to regroup.
Sam fought in the thick of it. Indra appeared at his side, a blur of wind and teeth, striking with lightning and slipping away before a counter could land. Baloo was a living anchor—mass and fury—battering through ranks and holding ground where needed. Helios strafed above, a small sun that made the battlefield readable. Sam moved between them, a conductor of violence and protection: a blade here, a ward there, a shouted order that turned a charge into a trap.
The Nature Mages and Moon Mages wove their familiars into the fight. Stone Bulls shoved and pinned; Earth Serpents rose and constricted; Blood Bats harried and bled the enemy's edges. Wolves and slimes rode with the cavalry, a tangle of teeth and corrosive spit that made the ground a hazard for anyone who tried to stand.
Then the sky changed. Vasuki arrived like a slow, patient storm, scales catching the morning and turning it into a slow, patient light. He did not come alone. Kong and Titus followed—Steel Fist Gorillas now towering near 4 meters tall, muscles like coiled iron, fists that could crush a golem's head. They moved with the terrible grace of apex predators and the discipline of soldiers. Where they struck the enemy line folded like paper. Trolls that had been pressing forward were thrown aside; goblin ranks collapsed under the gorillas' onslaught.
Their impact was immediate and absolute. The gorillas smashed through the last organized pockets of resistance and turned rout into annihilation. Vasuki's coils moved through the field, a living tide that gathered stragglers and sent them fleeing. The combined force—Gabriel, Sam and his bonds, Vasuki and the gorillas—closed the net. By midday the field was quiet except for the groans of the wounded and the crackle of small fires.
The work after the fighting was ugly and necessary. Survivors were rounded up and bound; the wounded were triaged and carried back to the city. Nature and Moon Mages moved through the scarred earth, stabilizing soil and sealing broken sigils. The hub's backlash had left places where the land had been burned raw; those places were purified and reseeded.
Sam ordered the enemy corpses burned in controlled pyres. It was a grim ritual—fire to cleanse, smoke to carry away the last of the ritual residue. The city watched the flames and felt something like closure. Loot was gathered from the field: a Champion Token from Girlock, piles of troop tokens, beast cores, low‑tier weapons, and the two Overlord cores that Tide and One had brought back. The Shadow King's Ring and the Daily Gift Roulette's yield were accounted for. The spoils were heavy with consequence.
Tide and One stood before Sam with the Overlord cores in their hands. The artifacts pulsed with a dangerous light. Tide's face was drawn; One's expression was the same unreadable mask he wore in victory and in loss. Sam felt the weight of the cores like a physical thing. They were power and question in equal measure. Who could wield them? Why could they be used in a ritual? What else could they be used for? The answers were not simple, and the first Overlord test waited at the edge of the horizon.
Sam gave the city two days. They were not days of rest so much as days of repair and ritual closure. Walls were mended; golem parts were replaced; ward lattices were recalibrated. Sam used the System to build a new Colosseum—stone and timber raised with the same efficiency he used in battle—and he provisioned food and drink for the city and the troops. The Nature Mages reseeded the scarred earth where the hub had burned; Moon Mages stabilized lingering sigils. The city burned the last of the enemy remains and purified the hub site.
When the work was done Sam opened the gates and let the city breathe. There was a celebration—simple, loud, human. Food and drink were shared. The Colosseum hosted matches that were more theater than blood, a place to let the city laugh and shout and remember that they were more than a fortress. Soldiers drank and told stories; children chased slimes in the yard; healers walked among the wounded and offered bandages and small comforts.
It was a fragile, necessary joy. Sam watched it all with a tired, private smile. The victory had cost them much. The celebration was a way to pay the debt of the living to the dead.
In the throne room Sam and his bonds sorted the spoils. Piles of troop tokens were stacked and cataloged. Beast cores were set aside for storage. Low‑tier weapons were melted down or reforged. The Champion Token from Girlock sat on the table like a small, dangerous sun. The Overlord cores were locked in a rune‑sealed chest and watched by Shade Assassins.
Sam moved through the room and felt the weight of the coming day. He knew, with a cold certainty that settled into his bones, that the following morning would be the first Overlord test. The celebration was a thin, anxious pause before a trial that would demand everything they had.
He found the Nightmare Bear and Baloo lying together in a quiet corner of the yard, exhausted and watchful. The bear's eyes followed him with a wary intelligence. Sam realized, with a small, private start, that the bear had never been named. He called her over and she rose, lumbering and cautious, and padded to his side.
He studied her—her scars, the way she breathed, the small, fierce light that remained in her eyes. He reached out and ran a hand along her flank. The bear leaned into the touch, a small, grateful sound rumbling in her chest.
"You'll be Artemis," Sam said, and the name felt right in his mouth. Artemis blinked, then settled down with a soft grunt, as if she accepted the promise.
Around the throne room the bonds formed a ring of watchful presence. Gabriel and Vlad stood guard like two pillars of different stone—one winged and terrible, the other iron and steady. Helios and Indra perched and padded, Dionysus coiled and silent, Vasuki's shadow a slow, patient presence, Kong and Titus towering like living ramparts, Baloo a warm, breathing anchor. King's Guard Golems lined the walls, their metal faces unreadable.
Sam looked at them all—the bonds, the troops, the city—and felt the thin, bright edge of hope sharpen into something harder: responsibility. The Overlord cores hummed in their chest like a promise and a threat. The Champion Token sat on the table like a question.
He petted Artemis once more and let the quiet settle. Tomorrow would demand everything. Tonight they had a moment of peace, a small, human island in a sea of consequence.
The night closed on that quiet: a city breathing, a ring of guardians around a throne, and a man who had won a battle and now had to decide what to do with the power it had given him.