While Prince Azeal took his first heavy steps toward the summit, the battlefield below dissolved into absolute chaos. Princess Vaelora was forcing her Luminar horse up the lower steep cliffs, but the shadow-guards she left behind were closing in to cut off her retreat. Lady Seraphine's desperate battle cries still echoed through the heavy fog, her silver glaive clashing against a wall of iron shields to buy every second she could.
But then, a shift occurred across the northern flank.
The elite vanguard of Lysvaen—the kingdom of Vaelora's late mother, Queen Lysara Vaeltheron—had finally penetrated the outer defense rings of the Tharzakir infantry. Clad in midnight-blue armor with silver crests shaped like crying swans, they fought with a cold, disciplined fury. At the head of the vanguard was Grand Commander Varis, a veteran who had once sworn his blade to Queen Lysara herself.
Through the heavy rain of black soot and blood, Varis's eyes locked onto the glowing crown climbing the lower ridge. He saw the dragon-scale silver-and-gold battle armor. He saw the dual Midnight Daggers cutting through the dark magic.
His heart stopped. For a second, he thought he was looking at a ghost.
"By the stars..." Varis whispered, his voice cracking beneath his heavy steel visor. "It is her. The blood of Lysara lives."
The rumor spread through the Lysvaen lines like wildfire. The soldiers didn't just see a tactical asset; they saw the living image of the beloved queen they had mourned for decades. They saw her daughter, Princess Vaelora, fighting like a sovereign goddess in the middle of a slaughterhouse.
"The Princess is on the field!" Varis roared, raising his glowing silver claymore high into the bleeding sky. "The daughter of Lysvaen is being surrounded! Iron vanguards, alter the formation! Break their lines! Leave no stone unturned!
FOR QUEEN LYSARA!
FOR PRINCESS VAELORA!"
"FOR THE TRUE CROWN!"
a thousand Lysvaen voices screamed back in a deafening, unified roar that drowned out the Tharzakir war drums.
The Lysvaen legions executed a flawless, brutal flanking strategy. Abandoning their defensive lines, they formed a massive, forward-driving wedge of heavy steel shields and long spears. They moved like an unstoppable avalanche of blue and silver, slamming directly into the rear flanks of the Mordaen and Zhalver armies that were trying to swarm Vaelora and lady Seraphine.
The impact was cataclysmic. The treacherous Mordaen foot soldiers, caught completely off guard by the sheer ferocity of the Lysvaen charge, were crushed beneath the heavy shields. Silver spears pierced through dark armor, and the disciplined lines of Lysvaen cut a wide, bloody path right through the center of the enemy's combined sena.
This massive distraction gave the remaining Soltheran Drazhin soldiers a desperate second wind. Seeing the legendary iron legions of Lysvaen tearing the enemy apart to protect their new Queen, the entire battlefield erupted into a frenzy of red and blue light.
Vaelora felt the sudden shift in the ground's energy. She looked back from the rocky incline and saw the midnight-blue banners of her mother's kingdom carving a protective wall of steel between her and the raging army below. Tears pricked her eyes as she realized the sacrifice and loyalty of her people. The path behind her was secured, but the mountain ahead was still screaming with Draeven's dark magic.