Time slowed.
Not gently—violently.
It thickened, stretched, turned into something suffocating. Every second dragged like a blade across nerves already worn raw.
At the South Gate, the storm raged on.
War drums. Shouting. Steel against steel.
Endless.
To the defenders, it was torture.
To those waiting in chains, it was worse.
A promise that hadn't come yet.
A blade hovering over the throat.
In the shantytown, thousands waited.
Hearts beat in time with the drums.
Blood surged with every distant roar.
Hands gripped stones—tight enough to hurt, tight enough to forget the cold creeping into their bones.
How much longer?
When?
Hope and dread coiled together, tearing at what little sanity remained.
Then—
the moment came.
At the forest's edge, Anna's eyes caught the shift.
The faint gray on the horizon dimmed.
The last breath before dawn.
She raised her arm.
Cut it down.
"Whoosh—!"
Three sounds.
Soft.
Sharp.
Gone in an instant.
Lost beneath the thunder of the South Gate.
Unnoticed.
Unheard.
Except by those who were waiting.
To them—
it was everything.
Three streaks of fire rose from the darkness.
Silent.
Deadly.
They arced through the sky like reversed stars—perfect, precise, inevitable.
Over the wall.
Past the blind sentries.
Into the highest tower.
Time stopped.
Broken Tooth stared.
Hask's hand froze on his mount.
In the shadows—
Colin smiled.
Then—
the world broke.
BOOM.
Fire erupted.
Not a flame—
a beast.
Orange-red fury exploded from the tower's crown, devouring it whole in a single breath. The roof vanished, swallowed by a roaring inferno that tore upward into the sky.
It screamed.
Wood cracked like bones in a furnace.
Sparks rained down like burning snow.
The tower became a torch.
No—
a signal.
Bright enough to burn the night itself.
For one instant—
everything was lit.
Every face.
Every eye.
Every soul.
And then—
the roar came.
"ROAR—!!!"
It split the world open.
Broken Tooth.
His voice—aged, broken, unstoppable—rose like thunder from the depths of hell itself.
"Chains—!!"
Every nerve snapped to attention.
"SMASH THEM OPEN!!!"
Silence died.
"FOR FREEDOM!!!"
"FOR THE FUTURE!!!"
"KILL THEM ALL!!!"
It began.
The fire above ignited the fire below.
Thousands roared.
Not voices—
a wave.
A living, screaming force that crashed outward, drowning even the war at the South Gate.
They were no longer slaves.
They were not victims.
They were hunger.
They were vengeance.
They were everything the mine had tried to crush—returned tenfold.
"BANG! BANG! BANG!"
Stone met iron.
Again.
Again.
Again.
They weren't breaking chains.
They were breaking fate.
Metal screamed.
Rivets snapped.
Sparks burst in the darkness like ghost-fire.
A young werewolf struck wrong—
his own bone cracked.
He didn't stop.
Didn't feel it.
Didn't care.
Again—
"BANG!"
The chain shattered.
He rose, howling, broken and free.
Others followed.
"Snap!"
"Snap!"
"Snap!"
Freedom spread like infection.
Unstoppable.
Broken Tooth surged forward first.
Weaponless.
So he made one.
A length of chain. Iron ring still attached.
He swung it once.
It howled through the air.
"Follow the plan!"
His eye burned red in the firelight.
"First—armory!"
"Second—burn them!"
"Third—open everything!"
"Kill!!!"
"KILL!!!"
They surged.
A black tide pouring from rot and filth into open ground.
The West Camp didn't understand.
One moment—watching the distant battle.
The next—
fire behind them.
Noise where there should be silence.
They turned.
And saw it.
Eyes.
Thousands.
Burning.
Not empty anymore.
Not afraid.
Hungry.
"The slaves—!"
Too late.
A body slammed into an overseer, driving him to the ground.
Teeth tore into his throat.
Blood sprayed.
Hot.
Thick.
Real.
The werewolf didn't stop.
Didn't hesitate.
Didn't think.
This wasn't killing.
This was release.
Elsewhere—
a whip cracked once.
Then vanished beneath bodies.
Hands. Teeth. Weight.
The overseer disappeared.
Gone.
Broken Tooth moved like a storm.
His chain rose—
fell—
and skulls broke open like rotten fruit.
At the armory, guards formed a line.
Desperate.
"Shoot! Shoot!"
Too slow.
Too late.
Stones came first.
Wood.
Anything.
Everything.
The formation shattered.
"Break it!"
Bodies slammed into the door.
Once.
Twice.
Boom.
It gave.
Inside—
weapons.
Real weapons.
Rusty.
Crude.
Perfect.
The first blade was lifted.
And in that moment—
the mine was doomed.
Hell had opened.
And nothing inside it was staying buried.