I’m breathing hard. Too hard. Each inhale rasps; each exhale burns, and it feels like my lungs are shrinking by the second.

  Every gulp of air is shallow, half-filling me before my chest locks again.

  I can’t move. Not a twitch. My body’s locked, welded to the spot, staring death right in his disdainful eyes.

  He walks toward me—slow, deliberate—each step a judgment. The space between us might be a few paces, but it stretches into miles.

  This fear… I haven’t felt it in what feels like years. Not like this. Not this sharp. Something is wrong.

  Koln is stronger, but this man carries something worse than strength. His killing intent rolls off him like smoke—cold, suffocating.

  Maybe that’s why I can’t move. Maybe that’s why my chest is ice and my pulse is a drum.

  I smell it—death.

  It’s already here, brushing against me like a shadow.

  His boots crunch over scorched earth, and each sound is its own countdown: one step closer, one breath shorter.

  I tell my body to move. Do something. Anything.

  My mind shouts. My muscles ignore me.

  I push mana through my veins, force it into my legs, try to make them obey.

  I try to calm my breathing.

  Nothing works.

  He’s almost on me now.

  He looks down at me like a man about to squash a bug.

  And then he stops—right in front of me.

  My heart hammers so hard it shakes my ribs. My breath is a rope tightening around my throat. My veins run cold. Death isn’t coming anymore—it’s here, and I can’t lift a finger to meet it.

  He lifts his right hand—open-palmed, slow. The motion feels like it takes hours, the world shrinking until there’s nothing but his arm rising.

  It reaches its apex, palm aimed straight at my head. Mana swells in the center—faint at first, then swelling, then almost bursting.

  It’s air, drawn in tighter and tighter, drinking in everything around us. The pressure builds until it feels like the ground itself is holding its breath.

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  Something in me snaps.

  Instinct takes over. Lightning flares through me and my body moves before I know it.

  The strike misses—but not cleanly. Pain detonates along my shoulder as my right arm is torn away.

  He collapses the air inward, the vacuum pulling at everything. My body had acted on its own, without me.

  Only now does my mind catch up. I have control again—but my mana… after Riez, I can already feel the edge of my limit pressing in.

  My breath is ragged—full of fear and exhaustion. My arm is gone. My body’s riddled with other wounds that should already have killed me.

  I don’t have long. My mana is, for the first time, scraping its bottom.

  And I still have a monster to defeat.

  Fleeing won’t help. He’ll catch me. I can feel it.

  I lower into a stance.

  I won’t go out as a coward.

  Even if I’m afraid. Even if I’m dying. I won’t. I refuse.

  My body shakes—not just from fear, but from the effort it takes to steel myself.

  He glances over, and more disdain floods his eyes, as if my attempt to live is an insult to his time.

  I grip my zweihander in my left hand—wrong hand for a weapon that demands two. It will have to do.

  Lightning flares along my limbs, burning the fear out of me for a heartbeat. The blade shines blue-hot with what mana I have left.

  This has to be quick—not that I have a chance.

  I crouch. I launch.

  The earth craters beneath me. My blade flashes with me.

  I’m on him—close enough to see the calm stare looking straight through me.

  He lifts his palm with the same slowness as before, as if I don’t deserve urgency.

  My blade comes down, a killing arc meant to take his head.

  A flare—his shield blinds me for a moment.

  When my vision clears, there’s not a crack in it. My blade slides off, harmless.

  His palm is already up. I pivot, trying to lessen the blow.

  The air collapses.

  My blade—and my left hand—vanish in the blast. Pain roars through me, nearly sending me under. Too much blood is gone already. My body starts to fall—

  He catches me by the neck, one hand. My vision is swimming, the world tilting.

  He throws me.

  Flying—too fast—mana flaring on instinct to shield me.

  Then the fort wall is there, and I’m through it.

  Stone shatters. My shield breaks. Bones break with it.

  I land on a heap of debris. There’s a gaping hole where the wall was.

  The squads at the gate scatter, then rush over, shouting orders, forming a defense. They find me in the wreckage.

  Through the hole I left, I see him—walking away—and behind him, a sea of soldiers charging from the treeline.

  “Shit,” I try to say.

  Only gurgles come out.

  They haul me toward the steps of the main hall and leave me there.

  Since I can’t get words out, I use the Hein method—letters of light, no finger tracing—telling them to focus on the defense and leave me.

  I’m left on the steps, bleeding out, death already pressing close. The last of my mana goes into slowing the blood loss.

  They’re charging the fort.

  With a man-sized hole in the wall, they’ll pour through soon enough. No more attack mages—just regular soldiers.

  We won’t go out without a fight.

  But hope’s already gone.

  Gun traps go off. My soldiers pelt the rushing tide from above. Squads rush down the wall to meet them.

  I see Alfrick—barely holding himself together—barking orders between shots, rifle bucking against his shoulder.

  My consciousness clings by a thread. My body’s wrecked, cold creeping in as the last of my warmth drains away.

  Above, my soldiers keep firing until most—except two squads—drop to reinforce the breach.

  They look desperate, but there’s steel in them still. Proper soldiers.

  The fanatics pour through the gap. The first climbs over the debris like it’s nothing—only to be cut down instantly, riddled with bullets. My machine guns roar, line after line chewing through them.

  But the enemy is relentless. Even with the chokepoint, they keep coming—bodies over bodies, until they’re on us.

  Bayonets flash. Bullet casings rain. Smoke chokes the air. Screams rise under the hammering of rifles. Blood soaks everything.

  My soldiers fight like devils—matching fanatic with fanatic—killing countless and dying just as many.

  Alfrick is in the vanguard, feverish, saber flashing as he cuts a path through them.

  A spade slams into his side. Its wielder dies in the same breath, split in two—

  but bayonets follow. One. Two. Three more.

  Blades flash, and Alfrick drops on top of a mound of the dead.

  Headless, leaderless, my soldiers still fight—swinging, firing, clawing—until they’re all gone.

  I’m alone.

  The enemy approaches but doesn’t bother with me. I’m already dead in their eyes.

  My vision narrows. The noise fades.

  And then, finally, I follow my men.