Jared acted as though the threats were wind; the Dragonslayer Sword blurred into a silver-gray storm, each rotation faster than the last. His eyes glowed crimson, chaotic force nearly bled dry, and fresh cuts mapped his arms and shoulders, yet the blade never paused.
Jared pulled his gaze from the blazing wreck of the nearest sky-skiff. Lucky hovered beside him, wings beating unevenly. Cracked crimson scales dulled the unicorn’s natural luster, and every breath sent out only a handful of weak sparks.
Heat that once rolled off the beast like a furnace now felt no warmer than late-autumn air. The change pinched Jared’s chest tighter than the corded bruises wrapping his ribs.
A raw roar rose over the clang of steel and the hiss of shattered spells. It came from the direction of Skyfiend Gorge—dozens, maybe hundreds, of throats driving one word ahead of them like a boulder: a pledge to kill. The sound bucked through the smoky air and slammed straight into Jared’s eardrums, jarring him out of the daze of exhaustion.
Through the drifting ash, a familiar voice carried above the rest. “Jared, we’re here!”
The shout rang bright, reckless, and utterly certain, as if the speaker had never doubted they would find him alive in this hurricane of light and gore. King Ironhide burst from the canyon mouth at a full charge.
The battered remnants of the Beastfolk Resistance poured in after him, weapons lifted high. Even after all their losses, the very thump of their boots hit the ground like a war drum that refused to die.
Less than twenty thousand fighters remained, and nearly every armor plate they wore had a crack or a bloodstain. Yet the force of their arrival felt like a mountainside breaking loose, momentum hungry to bury anything in its path.
“Beastfolk, today we avenge every river of blood they ever spilled!” King Ironhide’s roar shook dust from the shattered cliff face. He bulged outward, bones snapping into place as fur exploded across his frame. Then a black bear the size of a two-story hall thundered forward.
The ten-foot bear’s first swipe tore a trench through the celestials’ front rank. Dozens of armored bodies whirled into the air; more were smashed into the ground so hard their breastplates folded like tin.
Jared felt the shock wave rumble through his boots. Elder Hartcrest answered the charge, antlers gleaming. The white stag grew until his hooves hovered a man’s height above the dirt. Soft white radiance welled from the tines of his rack, spilling over nearby fighters. Torn flesh knit, broken bones slid back into place, and the wounded straightened with new breath on their tongues.
Luther became a streak of living night. Each time the shadow clarified into a figure, a celestial officer clutched at a suddenly empty chest cavity before crumpling. Jared tracked the motion only by the brief glints of steel sliding free of blackness.
A gasp slipped from a knot of celestials. They had not expected anyone else to throw themselves into this slaughter on Jared’s side. A hot pulse of gratitude flickered behind Jared’s sternum, but it broke apart just as fast. He cupped both hands around his mouth and roared, “Who told you to be here? Get back, now!”
The command cracked his raw throat. King Ironhide laughed, a deep, rolling sound that carried over clanging metal. “Jared, the beast race never abandons the one who saved us. If we die, we die together!”
“Together!” The word blasted from two thousand throats at once. The declaration pounded against the ruined sky like a second heartbeat, daring any listener to doubt it. Their arrival shoved the enemy tide back two steps. Blades stopped brushing Jared’s cloak for the first time in minutes. His chest expanded with a single, precious breath that did not taste of panic.
But the relief lasted a heartbeat and no more. Enemy banners still clogged the horizon, and every standard bristled with fresh spears marching toward them. The battlefield remained dire. Finger bones rattled as the Venerable flew through a rapid sequence of seals. Overhead, more than a hundred war barges flared to life, their hull runes spitting jagged golden light into the clouds.
“All vessels,” the Venerable hissed, “Unleash judgment!”
Gold engines howled. The air pressure dropped so sharply Jared’s ears popped, and sparks rained from the sky in wide arcs. Each barge fired a beam as thick as an ancient cedar. The hundred streams merged almost instantly, braiding into one colossal pillar of annihilation that plowed toward the patch of sky Jared and the beastfolk held. A hundred blazing beams fused into a single 100-foot column of destruction that thundered toward Jared and the beastfolk ranks.
The blood drained from Jared’s face. He knew his battered body would never hold against that strike, and the fighters behind him had even less hope.
“Chaos, guard the heavens!” The words left his teeth as a snarl. He dragged the last threads of chaotic force out of his core and rammed them upward, shaping a titanic gray shield above the army.
Lucky sensed the peril before the shout finished. Gold fire flared across every plate still clinging to the unicorn’s hide, then funneled into the forming barrier. The sudden brightness turned Lucky’s flame to a mere candle stub, but the shield swelled another several yards.
Thunder cracked. The annihilation beam slammed into gray light. The shield juddered so hard Jared’s bones echoed the vibration. Fractures spider-webbed across the surface like dry earth splitting under drought. Pain burst behind his eyes, but he refused to let his knees fold. Blood spilled from his nostrils, then from his ears. The taste of iron filled his mouth, yet he planted his boots and pushed harder against the collapsing heavens.
“Jared!” King Ironhide’s bellow tore through the blast’s roar. The bear tried to charge to him, only to be intercepted by King Silverserpent and King Ironhawk diving from opposite sides.
“Out of my way or die!” Ironhide’s rage flattened the ground where his paws landed, but the two enemy kings locked him in a deadly triangle of blades and fangs.
Elder Hartcrest poured every breath of healing light he held toward Jared, yet the cracks only widened. The stag’s flanks heaved, silver eyes desperate. Just as the barrier’s weave started to peel apart, Luther stepped out of shadow at Jared’s side. He slammed a pitch-black token fragment against the trembling surface. It was a shard of the Ghost King Token. Nether aura surged from the fragment, coiling with Jared’s chaotic force.
The cracks slowed, then, unbelievably, began to stitch themselves closed. Jared’s vision blurred from more than pain. “Luther, what are you doing?”
“Mr. Jared, this is all that’s left to me.” Luther’s voice barely carried over the shriek of colliding energies. His skin already blanched, veins darkening as the token leeched life from him.
Another bolt of terror tried to rip through Jared, but he shoved it down with raw will. “Hold the line! The beam’s weakening!” he roared, forcing the words past cracked lips.
A muffled tremor answered him. Somewhere inside the gold pillar, power faltered. Jared felt the moment like a loosened knot around his heart, the impossible strike finally beginning to run out of breath. The beam’s edge thinned, shafts of clear sky sneaking through the glare. Yet every second it lasted still pushed the shield toward its limit.
Jared braced, shoulders screaming. Lucky’s last embers flickered along the barrier rim, while Luther swayed, one hand locked around the token as if welded there. Light finally guttered out. The extinguished beam left ringing silence in its wake and a dozen floating motes of molten gold that fizzled into nothing.
The gray shield shattered the instant the threat vanished. Force from the break hurled Jared, Lucky, and Luther backward in three separate arcs. Blood fanned behind each of them like red banners. But lungs still sucked air, and hearts still beat.
The pillar of destruction flickered. Its once-solid core thinned, and the outer rings broke apart into sparks that drifted before they died. Weight that had been crushing Jared’s bones a heartbeat ago lifted just enough for him to straighten his neck and look up.
Across the sky, the runic conduits under every warship dimmed from blind white to a sullen gold. Even siege-class weapons needed time and spirit stone fuel to recharge. The fleet was panting, the way soldiers did after a sprint. When the final strand of light went out, night rushed back. The gray shield hanging over Jared’s head shattered with a single, echoing crack. Shards of dull light spun outward like broken glass before dissolving in the wind.
The backlash hit all three at once. Jared, Lucky, and Luther spat blood and tumbled through the air, bodies cartwheeling until they crashed against the churned ground thirty feet away. Yet their chests still rose and fell. They had lived through a blast meant to erase High Immortals.
Beast-Quelling Venerable’s face darkened until it looked carved from iron. He had bet everything on that one, perfect strike and could not accept that Jared still breathed.
“Kill! Leave no one alive!” His roar cut through the din like a sword.
The celestial ranks surged forward again, shields up, halberds leveled, eager to drown the battered defenders under sheer numbers. King Ironhide hurled King Silverserpent and King Ironhawk aside, then charged to Jared’s side. “Jared! Go! I’ll cover you!”
His bear-skin armor dripped with enemy blood as he spoke.
