The war had begun in full. The dead from the rear lines were surging forward now, a tide of rotting flesh and rusted armor. The enemy generals, massive hulking figures, moved slowly, their presence alone enough to freeze the advance of any who dared approach. Soon they stopped altogether, standing like towering sentinels in the middle of the battlefield. They weren't meant to fight yet. They were a wall, an unbreakable line meant to keep anyone from reaching the castle.

Princess Charlie fought beside Luke, the two of them moving in sync, weaving through the chaos and exploiting the gaps opened by the survivors ahead.

[Estimated Time Until End: 05 hours : 47 minutes : 13 seconds]

A small group of undead broke through the defensive line, charging straight toward them. Charlie spun her sword in a graceful arc, cutting through them before their claws even reached her armor. Luke raised his bow and loosed a quick volley.

[You have slain a…] [You have slain a…] [You have slain a…]

Three corpses hit the dirt, this time staying down for good.

Luke reached for another arrow from his quiver, twenty in total, prepared before the battle began. The Meditation skill had already restored what he'd spent, leaving him with a full mana pool and enough ammunition to last through the early waves.

"Hey, human, you move too much," Franky hissed from under his shirt.

"That's the least of our problems," Luke muttered, sprinting to catch up to Charlie. He crouched quickly, plucking reusable arrows from fallen corpses, and drew the string again in one fluid motion. The next shot pierced through an undead's chest, dropping it mid-charge.

"I can't believe I'm a rat," Franky grumbled.

Luke's eyes caught the red glow in the distance, dozens of them. Midnight Wardens. He drew another arrow, aimed for one of their helmets, and fired. The impact cracked through the metal, piercing cleanly and killing the creature instantly.

"Their damned helmets ruin the arrows," he said, inspecting the broken tip before tossing it aside.

"Let me help, human," Franky said, poking his small serpent head out from Luke's collar.

"Sure, I'll ask the armored zombie to politely die to your acid next time."

"Thanks."

"No, idiot, that was sarcasm."

"What's sarcasm?"

"Forget it. I already explained that once."

They pressed forward through the chaos. The group's formation was an inverted V, cutting through the undead horde like the point of an arrow. Luke held the center, shielded on both sides, with Princess Charlie leading the charge at the front. The full lineup was tight and disciplined: Luke, Charlie, Allison, Evangeline, Jack, Anne, Mason, and a squad of Erza's maids led by Christine, Ronan's fiancée.

Charlie shifted her blade into a shield, deflecting a Warden's spear before smashing its skull with brutal precision. The shield morphed back into a sword as she rammed it through another Warden's chest, then struck the creature's jaw with her free hand, shattering bone.

Ahead of them, the maids fought in formation with their spears, holding back waves of weaker undead that came in overwhelming numbers. Their discipline kept the flank secure, their movements precise and unbroken. Luke's gaze darted across the battlefield. He could see where a single Acid Blood Arrow might open a path through the swarm, but it wasn't worth it yet. With his total mana pool sitting at five thousand, one shot would drain a full thousand. Too costly for the opening hours of the war.

Jack moved up beside him, keeping his wand ready The team had two main healers, Jack and Anne, and Christine as a backup. And they were going to need every bit of healing they could spare. Luke stowed his bow and pulled the kukri from his inventory. Gripping both tightly, he hurled them forward—each blade finding its mark.

Above, arrows streaked across the dark sky, leaving trails of fire that rained down ahead, setting the field ablaze. The thunder of cannons never ceased; the survivors were using every trick they had left, triggering the traps they'd prepared in the days before the war.

Then something strange began to happen. Snowflakes started to fall.

"I thought the rule was to save mana," Erza said, dodging a warden as the maids finished the creature off with quick precision.

"It's not me," Allison replied as they ran forward.

Luke looked up, stunned. Snow was drifting down through the dark sky, settling over the chaos of battle.

Snow? Already? The timer still had hours left. They were deep within the heart of the kingdom, far from the walls that held back the winter. Twenty minutes—was that really all it took for the cold to reach them? Unlike the outer strongholds, this fortress was supposed to be safe from the frost. The snow shouldn't be falling yet.

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The same realization hit everyone at once. Don't tell me… during the war, we'll be caught in a blizzard?

The thought vanished as something darted toward them—a massive zombie mantis. Erza spun gracefully, releasing razor-thin threads that bound the creature's limbs. Anne surged forward, leaping high, and in a blink the monster's head rolled across the ground.

"Don't waste a single drop of mana," Erza said, glancing at Luke.

"I know," he answered.

Ahead, soldiers were clearing the path. Fire bursts lit the air; mages unleashed bolts of lightning and jets of water. Arrows floated in midair, loosed by unseen hands. Pushing through the ranks, they reached the archer towers positioned ahead. Luke caught sight of a team manning a catapult, launching stones into the distance.

"Jerry said he hasn't seen anything strong yet, aside from the generals," Evangeline said beside him.

A group came running toward them. The maids raised their spears.

"It's us!" Quinn shouted.

"Well? Out with it!" Erza demanded.

"We haven't seen the Midnight Lord," Miriam replied.

Everyone exchanged uneasy looks. They needed to find the creature amid the chaos—the one that could turn the tide of everything.

Plan one was simple: Erza and the maids would face the Lord head-on, supported by catapults, cannons, and ballistae, while the rest of the team pressed forward.

Plan two was the nightmare scenario—the one where the Midnight Lord refused to take the field. That was the real problem. The monster didn't care about time; it was already doomed to die. But they weren't. They'd have to cut through the enemy army, find the creature themselves… and pray the Midnight King didn't join forces with it.

The wind had turned razor-cold, slicing through the chaos. Luke could feel it against his skin, sharp and biting, carrying with it the scent of blood and steel. Far across the battlefield, beyond the smoke and the blizzard's veil, he spotted them: three enemy generals standing motionless, holding halberds. A few arrows struck their armor but clattered off uselessly. They didn't flinch. They didn't move. Their cloaks rippled in the icy gusts like war banners, as if they were part of the landscape itself—monuments of death waiting to be challenged.

"We're heading toward those things," Luke said, his voice low and steady.

Distant screams echoed through the storm. Somewhere ahead, bodies were being thrown like rag dolls. The snowfall thickened, blurring shapes into shadows.

Erza suddenly snapped her wrist, releasing a flurry of wire threads that shimmered faintly in the light. The strands went taut, catching something unseen.

"They're Warden Captains," Luke said.

"Invisible!" Allison shouted.

Another step crunched close by. Then another—too heavy, too deliberate. More of them. Charlie raised her spectral barrier just in time. A distorted shape slammed into it, shattering the shield with a deafening crack. She retaliated instantly, her blade slicing into the blur.

Luke charged in, dual kukris flashing in his hands. He leapt, twisting midair before striking one of the invisible enemies hard enough to stagger it. Without breaking momentum, he hurled both blades into the unseen form. The impact sent a ripple through the air, revealing the outline of the creature.

Charlie's fist ignited, flames surging around her arm as she channeled her stamina. She drove it forward with brutal precision, smashing into the enemy's chest. The creature was launched backward, crashing to the ground—and for the first time, its body became visible.

Luke summoned his kukris back with a pulse of magnetic energy. Sliding across the snow, he drove one blade straight through the gap in the monster's helmet.

[You have slain a…]

***

Eleanor stood atop one of the archer towers, the roar of cannons shaking the air. The camp below, once just a base of operations, was quickly becoming the center of undead attention.

"Stick to the plan!" Gilbert shouted to the archers. Crates filled with thousands of arrows surrounded them.

The rule was brutal but clear: no one could store large amounts of ammunition in their storage item. Only quivers could be refilled. Everyone knew why. If someone died, everything inside their storage died with them. Cannonballs, explosives, anything critical was forbidden from being kept there. Not that it mattered much; barely half the people in the tutorial even had a storage item, and most of those could barely hold a pouch's worth of gear.

Eleanor glanced at the timer glowing faintly on her system interface.

[Estimated Time Until End: 05 hours : 24 minutes : 47 seconds]

A visible death sentence. Somehow, seeing the countdown made it all feel worse.

"Fire arrows!" she shouted.

She drew a special arrow from her quiver.

[Flame Arrow (Uncommon)]: An arrow tipped with the fang of a Flame Salamander, retaining its living fire magic. On impact, the tip ignites, dealing direct fire damage and potentially setting the area ablaze. Effective for both combat and controlled burns.

Eleanor exhaled and aimed high. The motion was instinctive, drilled into her muscle memory. Weeks of training had carved it into her, firing in rain, wind, pitch darkness, daylight, blindfolded, one-handed, missing fingers, even using her teeth.

The arrow flew, slicing through the sky in a brilliant streak of flame before plunging into the battlefield. A blast of fire erupted where it struck. Across the field, countless other archers loosed their own shots. Some carried vials of volatile liquid that shattered and spread, catching fire and setting the undead ranks ablaze.

Groans rose from the horde. Even dead, some of them seemed to feel pain. Through the wall of fire, faint silhouettes flickered in and out of sight, shapes phasing, disappearing, and reappearing. The flames weren't burning empty air; they were revealing the Wardens Captains. Their invisibility was breaking.

A cannon beside Eleanor thundered, its shot tearing through the air. The cannonball hit a Captain square in the chest, blowing off one arm and sending its sword spinning away. Soldiers surged forward, striking while the creatures reeled.

She hadn't yet maxed her class, but now… now they could.

"No sign of the Midnight Lord," said Thomas, the archer who had once tried to hand her a flower before the war began.

The cannons kept roaring, shaking the ground. In the distance, a line of Warden Generals stood motionless, silent, unmoving statues in the fog of battle. Then, all at once, every one of them shifted. Their posture straightened. Their heads turned in eerie unison.

They looked upward. No, not upward—toward them. Eleanor's pulse quickened as the realization hit.

"It's coming this way."

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