Elyndra and the juggernaut-type Project X-002 prepared to clash head-on across the ruined battlefield.
Her grimoire instantly moved beside her, pages flipping rapidly as glowing symbols illuminated across the paper. Wind spiraled around her position while loose debris lifted from the ground under the pressure of concentrated mana.
Elyndra raised her hand outward calmly, preparing another spell.
But Project X-002 moved first.
The giant suddenly sprinted forward at superhuman speed, the ground exploding beneath each step as his massive body surged directly toward her like a charging fortress.
Nearby soldiers turned in shock.
"He's fast!"
Elyndra's eyes widened slightly at the sudden acceleration.
Without hesitation, she cast another spell.
A glowing mark appeared at the center of her forehead before opening into a radiant third eye formed entirely from concentrated magic.
Spell was activated instantly.
Her neural processing accelerated violently, causing the battlefield around her to slow to a crawl for the next five seconds.
Dust drifted slowly through the air.
Falling debris became visible piece by piece.
Every muscle movement from Project X-002 became painfully clear to her sight.
Giant threw a straight punch directly toward her torso.
The coming impact alone distorted the air before the fist even connected but Elyndra reacted in time.
She weaved sharply to the right, narrowly avoiding the punch as it blasted past her body and shattered the ground behind her in a violent explosion of stone and dirt.
Two seconds passed inside her accelerated perception.
Her grimoire flipped another page.
Elyndra extended two fingers toward the giant and calmly spoke.
"Plasma Bead."
A tiny sphere of white-hot light formed at her fingertips at first glance, it looked harmless.
Small and compact it almost insignificant.
But the heat radiating from it immediately distorted the surrounding air.
The bead moved slowly through the battlefield toward Project X-002, drifting with terrifying precision as its surface glowed brighter and brighter.
One nearby Pandemonium soldier looked at it nervously.
"What the hell is that...?"
The spell carried immense thermal energy compressed into a single point capable of melting through reinforced iron plates, vaporizing incoming projectiles, and inflicting precise structural destruction upon impact.
And Project X-002 was close enough that dodging it would not be easy.
Project X-002 was struck directly in the left shoulder by the Plasma Bead moment it connected, white-hot heat erupted across his armored like flesh, burning through layers of skin and tearing into muscle as steam burst violently from the wound.
The smell of scorched flesh spread across the battlefield. One nearby Pandemonium soldier stepped back slightly.
"It actually damaged him..."
But Project X-002 didn't stop moving. The giant forced himself through the pain and continued forward despite the burn eating into his shoulder.
Then he swung, a brutal right hook tore across the battlefield toward Elyndra's face with monstrous force behind it.
Elyndra barely had time to react then the punch connected, shockwave exploded outward the instant his fist struck her, launching Elyndra violently across the battlefield.
Her body crashed through soldiers from both sides, Spartans and Pandemonium troops alike getting thrown aside as she tore across the war zone uncontrollably.
Stone shattered and armor bent.
Dust erupted behind her path. Before she could hit the ground again—a large armored arm caught her securely.
Grimwatch.
Elyndra looked upward slightly, breathing unevenly as Grimwatch held her in his arms after stopping her momentum completely.
The black knight slowly lifted his gaze toward Project X-002 standing in the distance.
Even from here, the giant monster still radiated terrifying pressure.
Grimwatch's grip tightened slightly around the hilt of his sword then he carefully placed Elyndra back onto her feet.
"Are you alright, Elyndra?" Grimwatch asked, his deep voice calm despite the chaos around them.
Elyndra shook her head once, though she clearly wasn't fine.
Pain lingered across her expression for only a brief moment before she forced it away, refusing to let Grimwatch worry about her during the middle of a war.
"I'm fine..." she said quietly.
Blood trickled slightly from the side of her face where the punch had connected, without wasting another second, Elyndra raised her hand toward the injury and cast a healing spell over herself.
Soft blue light spread across her cheek as the damaged skin slowly repaired itself, bruising fading little by little beneath the magic.
Grimwatch continued staring toward Project X-002.
"That thing..." he muttered lowly. "It hits harder than the one at the outpost."
Far ahead, Project X-002 slowly rolled his damaged shoulder while smoke still rose from the burn left by Elyndra's spell.
Then the giant looked directly back at them, and started walking forward again...
Something felt wrong about this war.
Not the bloodshed, not the screaming.
Not even the monsters the Pandemonium Legion had unleashed onto the battlefield, it was something far deeper than that, something hidden beneath the chaos itself.
Because despite the scale of the battle outside the kingdom walls, the numbers still didn't make sense.
The Pandemonium Legion had only deployed one thousand soldiers onto the battlefield alongside four Project X units and two elite enhanced soldiers.
That was far too small for an organization preparing for full-scale war.
So where were the other one thousand five hundred soldiers?
Where had the rest of their army gone?
The answer had already happened.
Go back to where it all started, back to the moment the kingdom walls exploded outward in flames.
At the time, everyone believed the blast was meant to intimidate the defenders before the clash began.
But that had never been the purpose.The explosion had only been a distraction.
Because while the kingdom's forces focused entirely on the battlefield outside the walls, one thousand five hundred Pandemonium Legion soldiers had already entered the capital.
The destroyed wall had become an entrance.
The moment the explosion happened, black-armored troops stormed through the breach without hesitation, flooding directly into the kingdom streets while the main army advanced from the front.
It had been planned from the very beginning.
A two-sided attack.
Inside the capital, panic spread immediately.
Civilians screamed as soldiers wearing black, white, and yellow surged through the streets with ruthless precision, their boots thundered heavily across the stone roads while smoke and fire spread behind them.
Royal guards attempted to respond, but the Pandemonium Legion moved too quickly.
They weren't charging recklessly.
They're were organize and disciplined.
"Move!"
"Push into the lower districts!"
"Secure the inner streets before the royal forces regroup!"
Orders echoed throughout the burning city as Pandemonium soldiers advanced deeper into the capital, cutting through resistance with brutal efficiency.
Buildings were smashed apart during the fighting, shattered debris crashed across the streets while flames spread rapidly from destroyed homes and overturned market stalls.
The peaceful kingdom streets transformed into another battlefield entirely separate from the war outside the walls.
Royal knights rushed civilians away from the breach, desperately trying to maintain order as fear spread through the capital.
"Get the children out first!"
"Keep moving!"
"Don't stop running!"
But even the evacuation routes became dangerous.
Pandemonium archers had already positioned themselves atop nearby rooftops, firing arrows down into the streets below while elite units hunted down resisting guards without hesitation, the invasion had never been about overwhelming the kingdom from one direction.
It was about tearing it apart from both sides at once.
And outside the walls, the kingdom army still didn't realize the capital behind them was already under attack.
But two figures were already inside the capital.
Alaric and Shay, two of the Four Pillars, had already moved into the city to calm the royal forces and guide civilians toward safer areas before the situation completely collapsed into chaos.
Alaric known this would happen but never thought it would be one thousand five hundred of them would come rushing in.
Shay moved quickly through the crowded streets where terrified civilians were running in every direction, his voice carrying above the screaming and the sounds of destruction around them.
"This way!" Shay shouted while pointing toward a secured route guarded by royal soldiers. "Stay together and keep moving!"
Families rushed past him as smoke drifted heavily through the burning streets, somewhere nearby another building partially collapsed while the sounds of fighting echoed deeper throughout the capital.
Meanwhile, deeper within the damaged district, Alaric stood calmly amidst the destruction with his cane resting firmly against the ground.
Three massive rock golems towered around him.
The stone constructs moved through the ruined streets under Alaric's command, lifting collapsed debris away from trapped civilians while fighting off advancing Pandemonium troops whenever they got too close.
One golem caught a falling section of a shattered building before it could crush several civilians beneath it, while another slammed its massive stone fist directly into a Pandemonium soldier, sending the armored warrior crashing violently through a nearby wall.
Shay was busy leading civilians through one of the safer paths within the capital when suddenly, movement from above caught his attention.
A figure dropped down from the rooftop of a damaged building with unnatural ease, landing silently in the middle of the street ahead of him.
Shay immediately recognized him.
The elite enhanced soldier from the outpost.
The same one who had shattered his previous mask and try to kill a child.
"You..." Shay muttered quietly, his fist clenching instinctively at his side before he slowly relaxed it again.
The civilians behind him continued moving while firelight reflected across his new mask, then slowly, a grin formed beneath it.
"Come on," Shay said lightly while rolling his shoulder back. "Let's finish what we started."
The elite soldier didn't answer.
He simply lowered his stance.
Then both of them moved at the exact same time.
The street beneath their feet cracked apart as they dashed forward toward each other, magic surged violently through their bodies, reinforcing muscle, speed, and impact like living weapons forged for combat.
Steel-like strikes collided instantly.
Shay twisted his body sideways as the elite soldier's fist shot past his face before countering with a magic-infused punch toward the ribs, the elite soldier blocked it with his forearm before driving a knee upward toward Shay's stomach.
Shay barely caught the attack with his arm before spinning away across the ruined street.
The fight exploded into close-quarters combat almost immediately...
They moved at the exact same time almost like reflections of each other, and for a brief second, something about it felt strange to Shay.
Both of them stepped forward simultaneously, magic flowing violently through their bodies as the distance between them disappeared instantly.
Then they struck.
Shay drove a punch toward the elite soldier's face at the exact same moment the enhanced soldier threw one toward his.
Both fists connected cleanly.
The impact cracked through the street like a gunshot.
Shay's head snapped sideways beneath the force while the elite soldier staggered back a single step, both of them sliding across the ground at the same time before regaining their balance almost perfectly in sync.
For a moment, neither moved.
Shay slowly lifted his head, adjusting the edge of his mask with one hand while staring directly at the elite soldier standing across from him.
"...Now that's creepy," Shay muttered underneath the mask, rolling his shoulder slightly as magic continued flowing around his fists.
The elite soldier said nothing.
Then both of them dashed forward again without hesitation, their movements colliding once more in a violent blur of hand-to-hand combat infused entirely with magic...
Their magical auras collided once again, Shay's dark green mixed with crimson-red crashing violently against the elite enhanced soldier's light blue and dark black energy, the pressure between them spreading outward hard enough to crack the stone beneath their feet.
"Heh…" Shay let out a low laugh beneath his mask while sliding one foot back across the ground. "Never thought I'd run into another assassin-type fighter."
The elite soldier said nothing, but the way he moved answered enough.
The two of them shared the same kind of build within their bodies speed-focused, precision-based, movements sharpened for killing rather than brute force.
Their speed was nearly identical, both disappearing and reappearing through the battlefield in rapid bursts that normal soldiers couldn't even follow properly.
But their physical strength was different.
Shay already felt that much.
The elite enhanced soldier stepped forward again, dark energy pulsing around his arms as the air distorted slightly beneath the pressure coming off his body.
Shay immediately moved back.
Then with a quick flick of both hands, he threw several steel balls outward in multiple directions, the small spheres striking walls, debris, and broken stone across the battlefield before ricocheting violently back toward the elite soldier at impossible angles.
Each one was infused with magic and each one moved at terrifying speed.
The elite soldier's eyes narrowed behind his mask as the steel balls came rushing toward him from every direction at once.