The battle finally broke into full slaughter.
Under the support of the two towering Bone Towers, hundreds of Twin-headed Skeletal Swordsmen poured through the shattered breach in Mirekeep's wall like black floodwater. Their broad-bladed greatswords rose and fell in savage arcs, cutting apart every living thing that stood before them.
The soldiers of the Iron Maw Legion locked shoulder to shoulder behind heavy shields, throwing themselves into the gap with desperate courage. Terror filled every face. Every man knew what waited if the undead took the city. There would be no mercy. No surrender. No escape.
Only dying with steel in hand.
Then the skeletal sorcerers moved into range.
Behind the armored swordsmen, ranks of black-robed undead raised twisted staves and began channeling foul rites. A heartbeat later, hundreds of thick black streams erupted through the air like liquid smoke.
The front ranks of the defenders exploded backward.
Men screamed as dark force smashed through shields and armor alike. Bodies cartwheeled through the air. The line broke apart for a single fatal instant.
The skeletons surged through.
The slaughter inside the city began immediately.
The scene was so brutal that even the defenders still fighting atop the walls froze in horror. Men stared wide-eyed as the breach became a grinding pit of blood, bones, and severed limbs.
Rovan Ashford's eyes turned bloodshot.
"MOVE AWAY FROM THE EDGE!" he roared.
The officers and soldiers crowded near the broken wall instantly obeyed, stumbling backward while looking toward him with desperate hope.
To them, Rovan was no ordinary governor. They had already seen him summon impossible beasts and miraculous wards during the siege. They believed he possessed limitless power like some wandering magister from the old legends.
None of them knew the truth.
Everything Rovan wielded came from the wards his master had left behind.
And each one spent was gone forever.
Rovan reached into his satchel and withdrew a brilliantly colored ward-script. His fingers tightened around it. Then he bowed his head slightly and began murmuring old command-speech beneath his breath.
A red glow exploded at the edge of the shattered battlement.
Space twisted.
Something huge began to emerge.
At first it was only a silhouette—a beast-shaped shadow pushing through rippling crimson light. Then the form sharpened.
It resembled a leopard.
But monstrously enlarged.
Seven or eight times larger than any natural beast, with a thick horn jutting from its forehead and five heavy tails lashing behind it. Its body radiated raw violence. Every muscle beneath its hide looked forged from iron.
The soldiers stared in shock.
Only Auryn Gale recognized the creature.
Her heart tightened.
A Razorfang Chimera.
An ancient spirit beast from forgotten ages.
Even obtaining the materials needed to create a summoning ward for such a creature should have been impossible for a Wayfarer-tier inscriber.
Aldric Greyward truly was terrifying.
The beast finished materializing—
—and the weakened wall beneath it collapsed instantly.
Stone and mortar exploded apart.
The massive creature dropped straight through the breach together with tons of shattered rubble.
A deafening crash followed.
The Razorfang Chimera landed directly atop the undead ranks below, crushing several skeletal sorcerers flat beneath its weight. Then it erupted upward in fury.
The beast became a storm of claws and fangs.
Skeletons shattered everywhere it moved.
Several skeletal halberdiers rushed it together, thrusting long blades deep into its body—
—but the razor-sharp halberds barely pierced an inch into the beast's hide.
The undead soldiers hesitated in stunned confusion.
The chimera tore through them.
One swipe of its massive claws sent skeletal bodies spinning through the air. A Twin-headed Skeletal Swordsman shoved forward through the chaos, raising its greatblade—
The beast pounced before the strike fell.
Its jaws snapped shut around one of the creature's two skulls and ripped the head clean off. The empowered bone-frame beneath collapsed under the creature's crushing weight with a thunder of snapping bones.
Fear spread through the skeletal sorcerers.
Actual fear.
The black-robed undead began retreating backward in panic, throwing the formation into confusion. The breach clogged instantly. The skeletons already inside the city lost support from behind.
The defenders counterattacked with renewed desperation.
Within moments, the undead that had broken through were surrounded and annihilated.
Meanwhile the Razorfang Chimera rampaged unchecked among the enemy.
Every bite tore half a skeleton apart.
Every claw strike crushed skulls into powder.
The beast carved through the undead like a wildfire through dry grass.
Several surviving skeletal sorcerers finally regrouped farther back and began channeling together. Thick black streams shot toward the chimera once more.
This time the foul magic worked.
The black smoke hissed against the beast's iron-like flesh, corroding chunks of hide and muscle away in steaming pits.
The creature roared.
The sound shook the battlefield.
Then it launched itself forward like thunder.
The skeletal sorcerers barely had time to scream before the beast reached them. Claws tore through robes, bones, and blackened organs in sprays of shredded remains.
After that, the chimera hunted the robed undead specifically.
Every skeletal sorcerer it saw died horribly.
For a brief moment, it seemed the pressure on Mirekeep might finally ease.
Then the Earthrend Arbalests atop the walls fell silent.
Rovan turned sharply.
"What happened?" he barked.
One officer answered in a hoarse voice.
"We're out of bolts. Every last one."
Rovan's heart sank.
The two heavily damaged Bone Towers still lurched toward the breach step by step, towering over the battlefield like walking mountains of bone. Skeleton soldiers clung to every surface of the giant structures, shrieking and rattling weapons.
The Razorfang Chimera was powerful.
But it could not stop the Bone Towers.
Not alone.
Rovan's hand moved slowly toward the satchel at his waist. He searched desperately among the remaining wards.
Nothing.
Nothing capable of stopping those monsters.
The Bone Towers drew closer.
Every soldier atop the wall felt the same crushing pressure. It was like watching two mountains walk toward them.
Then white robes fluttered into the air.
A slender figure leapt from the battlements.
Golden light burst around her body.
Auryn Gale shot across the battlefield like a blazing comet.
Most of the soldiers failed to recognize who had moved.
Rovan knew immediately.
Relief and dread struck him at the same time.
Relief because Auryn had already proven earlier in the siege that she could cripple a Bone Tower.
Dread because she had nearly exhausted herself doing it.
Auryn crossed the sky with The Gilded Stride, transforming into a streak of golden radiance. She shot directly into the left eye socket of the nearest Bone Tower.
The skeletal sorcerers inside barely had time to react.
Her Auric Manacle unfolded instantly.
A gigantic radiant shield exploded outward from the bracelet around her arm, nearly filling the entire eye chamber. Two skeletal sorcerers died before they even understood what had happened, their heads severed cleanly from their bodies.
The last sorcerer jerked up its staff frantically.
A cloud of black smoke rolled from the skull mounted atop the weapon—
The golden shield rotated sideways.
The sorcerer split apart from shoulder to hip.
Auryn immediately leapt toward the opposite eye socket—
—but several streams of black smoke crossed toward her at once.
She had no choice but to block.
The delay cost her momentum.
Her body dropped downward onto the giant ribcage of the Bone Tower instead.
The undead soldiers crawling across the creature's body immediately swarmed her from every direction, screeching and hacking wildly with blades and axes.
Golden light exploded across the battlefield.
Auryn's radiant shield shifted angles endlessly, transforming from barrier to crescent blade in flashing arcs. Several axe-wielding guards rushing her were cut clean across the waist before they could even touch her.
Despite standing atop jagged moving bone dozens of feet above the ground, she moved as though dancing across level stone.
Fear never touched her face.
She fought with cold focus.
Her white robes flashed among the skeletons like moonlight through storm clouds. Bodies toppled from the Bone Tower in waves, smashing apart against the earth far below.
The defenders on the walls stared upward in stunned silence.
For a moment, even the terror of the siege faded beneath the sheer brilliance of her combat.
"Who is she?" someone breathed. "What kind of woman fights like that?"
The gathered defenders came from countless factions and distant regions. Several immediately recognized the golden artifact in her hand.
"That shield..."
"Could it be—?"
"The Auric Manacle..."
"Then she must be Auryn Gale! The Golden-Glow Soror!"
Auryn continued cutting a bloody path through the undead ranks atop the Bone Tower. Everywhere she moved, the packed skeletons split apart before her like waves breaking around the prow of a ship.
But there were simply too many.
No matter how many she killed, more crawled forward.
She still could not reach the right eye socket.
Inside it, three skeletal sorcerers regained control of the staggering Bone Tower and forced the giant construct onward toward the wall.
At the same time, the second Bone Tower finally reached the city from another direction.
Its colossal arm crashed down.
The wall exploded apart again.
Another breach opened.
Skeletons flooded through immediately.
Rovan's eyes turned crimson with desperation.
He reached into his satchel once more and pulled out another ward-script.
This one was different.
Even through the grime and blood coating his fingers, faint murderous power leaked from the folded ward.
The Warlord's Dragonbane.
It was not among Aldric Greyward's greatest creations, but it had been left specifically for Rovan's protection. According to his master, the summoned blade could slay wyrms and sever dragons from the sky.
Maybe—
Maybe it could destroy a Bone Tower.
Rovan gritted his teeth and forced more Aether through his exhausted channels.
He began chanting.
The ward vanished from between his fingers.
Above his head, a gigantic black blade slowly emerged from empty air.
Five or six yards long.
The mere sight of it shook the surrounding soldiers.
Hope surged through the defenders again.
Then Rovan's body convulsed violently.
Blood burst from his mouth.
He collapsed to one knee.
The enormous blade above him flickered once—
—and vanished.
Rovan coughed more blood onto the stones.
The problem had never been the ward itself.
Activating powerful wards required far less energy than casting the same miracles directly.
But Rovan's own cultivation was shallow. He had already exhausted himself activating one high-tier ward after another throughout the siege.
Now, forcing more power through nearly depleted channels had damaged him internally.
The Warlord's Dragonbane failed before it could fully manifest.
The nearby officers rushed forward to catch him.
Their governor's face had gone gray. Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth.
Every man there understood what it meant.
They were out of miracles.
Then monstrous roars erupted from below.
Rovan shoved the soldiers aside and staggered toward the breach, looking down into the chaos beneath the wall.
His heart clenched.
The Razorfang Chimera was locked in combat with a towering skeletal general wielding a massive twin-pronged spear.
Blue-green scale armor covered the undead monster's enormous body.
General Longbone.
Rovan recognized it instantly from the battle at Lakeheart Isle.
He knew exactly how dangerous the creature was.
Before he could even recover from the shock, another figure emerged from the undead ranks.
A second skeletal commander.
One head was human.
The other was a snarling tiger skull.
Heavy armor covered its body while a gigantic blade dragged sparks from the ground behind it.
The Two-headed Commander.
Rovan's face darkened completely.
The Razorfang Chimera was ferocious, but against two undead generals at once, even it began losing ground. Wounds opened across its body one after another beneath the combined assault.
Then the tiger-headed commander struck.
Its enormous blade cleaved the spirit beast cleanly in half.
The Razorfang Chimera vanished into dissolving red light.
The two undead generals threw back their heads and roared with cruel laughter.
Behind them, the skeleton horde surged into Mirekeep once more.
Now, with two breaches torn open in the walls, the city's defenses were finally beginning to collapse.
The battle turned in a single brutal breath.
Hope broke first among the mercenaries and hedge-orders who had come to aid Mirekeep. Men who had swaggered through taverns boasting about slaying undead now fled screaming through smoke-filled streets, shoving past wounded soldiers and terrified civilians alike. Some leapt from the walls outright. Others abandoned comrades to die beneath the tide of skeletons pouring through the breaches.
The city was collapsing.
Blood ran down the stone stairs of the southern wall in rivers thick enough to splash beneath boots.
Rovan Ashford stood amid the carnage with his face tilted toward the dark sky. Around him, Iron Maw soldiers fought and died in clotted masses while arrows hissed overhead like swarms of insects.
For several long moments, he said nothing.
An officer leaned close beside him, voice low and hoarse.
"My lord... we should withdraw. The eastern gate is still open. If we break out now, some of us might survive."
Rovan remained silent.
Then he extended one hand calmly.
"Club."
The officer froze before quickly passing him a black iron war-club slick with blood.
Rovan took it without hurry.
His once-noble robes hung torn and burned around his body. He calmly tucked the shredded lower half into his belt, exposing battered armor beneath. His movements carried none of the desperation spreading through the city.
Only exhaustion.
Only resolve.
"Any man who flees today bears no shame," he said evenly. "Any man willing to die... follow me."
Silence answered him.
Then armor buckles tightened.
Helmets were straightened.
Fresh blades slid from scabbards.
Not one Iron Maw soldier stepped away.
Rovan's eyes reddened faintly.
Then he roared.
The sound thundered across the wall like a wounded beast.
A moment later he leapt from the battlements, crashing directly into the skeletal hordes flooding through the breach below. His war-club exploded through skulls and ribcages in sprays of shattered bone while Iron Maw soldiers charged after him with suicidal fury.
Elsewhere above the battlefield, Auryn Gale fought for her life.
The Skybreaker General pursued her relentlessly through the smoke-filled sky.
The winged undead commander wore silver chain armor wrapped over yellowed bones. Vast skeletal wings beat behind his back while a skull-headed flail whistled murderously through the air again and again.
He never stopped chasing her.
Never stopped testing her defenses.
Every strike came viciously angled toward blind spots and openings. The monster fought with cunning instead of rage.
Auryn's expression remained cold and composed, but inside she burned with growing alarm.
Her Vitae was nearly gone.
Her Aether reserves were dry.
Every movement now felt heavier than the last.
If the battle dragged on much longer, she would die.
The Skybreaker General had been among Lord Ossian's deadliest commanders during the fighting at Lakeheart Isle. He had been the first undead monster to breach the Great Hall there, and Auryn remembered well how dangerous he truly was.
Worse still, the creature was patient.
Though Auryn was isolated and exhausted, the general refused to approach recklessly. He merely shadowed her from the air, forcing her to spend more strength while he waited for weakness to claim her.
Far below, Mirekeep burned.
Auryn glanced toward the breached walls.
Her heart twisted.
Then suddenly—
Her chest clenched violently.
Her heartbeat accelerated without warning.
Not only hers.
Across the battlefield, both human soldiers and undead alike slowed in confusion.
Weapons lowered.
Even the skeletons seemed to hesitate.
One after another, faces turned upward toward the sky.
The blood-red clouds above Mirekeep had thickened into something hideous. They churned like oceans of raw gore. Strange pressure leaked from them in waves—evil, ancient, suffocating.
A dreadful aura descended upon the battlefield.
It swallowed everything.
Men trembled uncontrollably.
Veteran soldiers collapsed to one knee.
Even undead commanders faltered.
Then something emerged from the crimson clouds.
A gigantic skull.
Hideous.
Dragon-shaped.
An enormous skeletal body followed after it, coiling through the sky in endless lengths of blood-colored bone.
Thirty yards long at least.
No scales.
No flesh.
No hide.
Only crimson bone gleaming wetly beneath the blood-clouds.
A skeletal dragon.
The sight shattered what remained of Mirekeep's morale.
Despair swept the city instantly.
The Bone Legion already seemed impossible to stop, yet now a dragon had appeared above them like the herald of the world's end itself.
Citizens screamed openly in the streets below.
Some dropped to their knees praying.
Others simply wept.
Rovan Ashford stared upward blankly.
For the first time since the siege began, true fatigue entered his bones.
Until now, he had still carried one final hidden card—two thousand elite Iron Maw reserves waiting within the inner district.
But this...
This erased everything.
His lips moved faintly.
"That dragon..."
He remembered Lyra Farrow driving the Violet Aurochs Pin through the creature during the battle at Lakeheart Isle. The strike had ruined the dragon's core.
It should have remained crippled for years.
"How is it already restored...?"
High above, Auryn's face turned pale as death.
Lord Ossian had come personally.
Against such a monster...
What hope remained?
Suddenly, thoughts of her Master and fellow disciples flooded her mind with painful intensity.
Were they safe?
Alive?
She gritted her teeth hard enough to taste blood.
Then she abruptly turned and shot away from the Bone Tower beneath her, fleeing across the sky.
The move caught the Skybreaker General entirely off guard.
Delight flashed in the undead monster's empty sockets.
He immediately pursued.
The two clashed repeatedly in midair.
Ten exchanges.
Twelve.
Fifteen.
Auryn's skill far surpassed the creature's. Her movements remained swift and precise despite her exhaustion. The Auric Manacle unfolded into blazing crescents of golden light that carved through the darkness around her.
Suddenly—
One golden arc sliced across the Skybreaker General's shoulder.
Bone and silver armor separated cleanly from the undead body without resistance.
The creature spun backward as an entire section of shoulder blade broke away and tumbled into the void.
But the general only laughed.
Undead flesh could be repaired.
As long as his core remained intact, such damage meant little.
More importantly—
He had successfully lured Auryn far away from the Bone Tower.
The Skybreaker General screeched triumphantly and abruptly retreated backward through the air.
Auryn immediately began to fall.
Without footing or support, her body dropped rapidly toward the battlefield below.
Her hands formed swift sigils.
The Skybreaker General instantly surged forward again, convinced she was trying to gather strength to return to the tower.
"You want to flee?" the undead commander shrieked. "Then let this general send you on your way!"
The skull-headed flail whipped upward—
Auryn smiled coldly.
Then she raised one pale wrist.
Golden light exploded across the heavens.
Hundreds—
No, thousands—
of radiant golden blades descended spinning from above like a divine storm.
The Skybreaker General's triumph vanished instantly.
Terror replaced it.
He tried to flee.
Too late.
The swirling gold engulfed him completely.
A shrill howl tore from the undead monster as the storm shredded his skeletal body apart piece by piece. Bone fragments spiraled through the air while hideous grinding sounds echoed endlessly.
Auryn had never intended to flee.
She had been preparing the Auric Manacle.
One of the Ascendant Covenant's most feared treasures.
The Skybreaker General managed only a final broken scream before his body completely disintegrated.
Auryn stepped lightly atop the falling wreckage and launched herself back toward the Bone Tower.
Almost there—
Then black smoke erupted from the tower's massive eye sockets.
Several streams of foul darkness slammed directly into her body.
Under normal circumstances, she could easily have dodged or blocked the attack.
But now she had nothing left.
No Vitae.
No Aether.
Nothing.
The black smoke struck her full-force.
Auryn landed atop the Bone Tower unsteadily.
Instant nausea surged through her body.
Her limbs turned weak.
Dark energy spread beneath her skin.
Then she collapsed backward from the tower entirely.
The ground waited more than a hundred feet below.
Above her, the skeletal dragon approached with jaws spread wide.
Auryn closed her eyes slowly.
So this was the end.
Wind roared against her body.
Then suddenly—
Strong arms wrapped around her waist.
Auryn's eyes snapped open.
A masked man held her tightly against his chest.
The black mask covering his face bore several twisted horn-like protrusions rising from the forehead. His presence radiated something strange—something dark and oppressive enough to rival the undead around them.
Auryn immediately struggled.
"Let go—!"
But she had no strength left.
Pain exploded through her body.
Blood spilled from her lips.
Her consciousness blurred almost instantly.
"Elder Soror! Elder Soror Auryn!" the masked man shouted anxiously.
Auryn groaned weakly.
"Release me... let me go..."
"It's me!" he yelled.
But her mind had already begun sinking into darkness.
Kael Ashvane tightened his hold instinctively.
The moment he had entered the battlefield riding the skeletal dragon, he had seen Auryn falling from the Bone Tower.
The sight nearly stopped his heart.
He had forced the dragon into a mad dive and barely caught her in time.
Now she struggled weakly against him despite barely remaining conscious.
"L-let go..." she murmured faintly. "Or I'll kill... you..."
Kael swallowed hard.
Maybe it was the Sevenfold Shroud.
Maybe it was the demonic pressure pouring through his veins.
But holding Auryn's soft body against his chest made his pulse hammer wildly. Her warmth seeped through bloodstained robes. Even exhausted and filthy from battle, she remained devastatingly beautiful.
The mask fed those thoughts eagerly.
Dark impulses twisted inside him.
He forced them down violently.
"Elder Soror's temper really is fierce..." he muttered shakily.
He quickly laid her beside the unconscious Lyra atop the skeletal dragon's back.
Black wisps surfaced intermittently beneath Auryn's pale skin.
Kael's heart tightened.
Some kind of dark rite.
Without hesitation he pulled several healing preparations from the Wardian Satchel and fed them carefully into Auryn's mouth.
Then he leaned close beside Lyra's ear.
"Where's Master Isara?" he demanded urgently. "Where are the others?"
No response.
Lyra remained unconscious.
Kael cursed under his breath.
Panic clawed through him.
He scanned the battlefield rapidly.
Two enormous breaches had already opened in Mirekeep's southern wall. Endless waves of skeletons poured inward while the defenders crumbled under the assault.
Rage ignited in his chest.
He turned toward the nearest Bone Tower.
"Destroy it."
The skeletal dragon answered instantly.
The undead sorcerers controlling the tower never imagined the dragon would attack them. They continued bombarding the walls below until suddenly the colossal skeletal beast slammed headfirst into the tower.
The impact shook the battlefield.
Half the Bone Tower's skull-shaped head exploded apart in a deafening crash.
The sorcerers froze stupidly in disbelief.
Kael's thoughts sharpened.
"Tear it apart."
The dragon wheeled back around obediently.
Then it descended upon the crippled tower savagely.
Bone claws ripped.
Massive jaws tore.
The dragon circled the structure repeatedly like a starving predator stripping meat from prey. Huge chunks of blackened bone and stone crashed downward one after another.
Already heavily damaged from the siege, the Bone Tower could no longer withstand such punishment.
With a chain of thunderous explosions, the gigantic structure finally collapsed completely.
Dust and shattered debris engulfed entire sections of the battlefield below, crushing countless skeletons beneath the ruin.
The sudden reversal stunned everyone.
Even many undead creatures recoiled instinctively in terror.
Only the lowest skeleton foot soldiers continued mindlessly charging.
Kael trembled violently atop the dragon.
Ever since entering the battlefield, he had sensed strange invisible currents flooding toward him from every direction.
Hatred.
Fear.
Death.
Despair.
They poured into his body endlessly.
The Sevenfold Shroud magnified every sensation tenfold.
When the Bone Tower collapsed, the feeling exploded inside him.
His heart pounded like war drums.
Blood boiled through his veins.
Every muscle tightened painfully.
For one terrifying moment, Kael felt as though he possessed enough power to devour heaven and earth alike.
A low growl escaped his throat.
Then he drove the dragon toward another Bone Tower.
This time the skeletal sorcerers panicked immediately.
Yet they realized the truth too late.
The dragon opened its jaws.
A torrent of blood-colored breath erupted forward.
Wherever the corrosive mist touched, the Bone Tower began dissolving instantly. Skeletons melted from the walls screaming soundlessly as their bodies liquefied into black sludge.
The skeletal dragon shot past the structure.
Its hard crimson bones scraped against the weakened sections, ripping away enormous chunks.
Kael had fought these towers before.
He knew their weaknesses.
An idea flashed through his mind.
The dragon climbed sharply into the sky.
Higher.
Higher.
Then, from far above the tower, it inverted violently and plunged downward headfirst like a falling star.
Straight toward the tower's crown.
The sudden maneuver nearly overturned the dragon entirely.
Behind Kael, both unconscious women were hurled from their positions instantly.
Kael himself noticed nothing.
His eyes had gone wild beneath the mask.
At the last possible moment, Lyra Farrow stirred awake.
One arm snapped around the front rail of the dragon's back.
Then she saw Auryn tumbling beside her.
Without hesitation Lyra lashed out and caught Auryn's wrist.
The violent jerk woke Auryn instantly.
Her eyes opened—
And she found herself upside down, plunging from more than a hundred feet above the earth while the skeletal dragon screamed downward toward the battlefield below.
Auryn's face lost all color.
A startled cry tore from her throat.