Watching Lia at work in front of Anchorfall wasn't like watching a fight.

It was like watching something generals study later in quiet rooms in a 'how to avoid a massacre' kind of way.

The Dark Wren didn't just hold the gate against any and all assaults; she owned it.

I've seen her fight before. Sparring, skirmishing, and in a memorable Dungeon crawl. But each of those paled into insignificance in comparison to 'Battlefield Lia.' This is what I reckoned happened when you handed the right person the right tools and pointed them at very much the wrong crowd.

Triggering Abilities I didn't even know she had, she moved with a speed and a grace that suggested the physics of Bayteran simply didn't apply to her. No matter what the attackers tried, she was always where she needed to be a second before anyone else realised it. Her sword flashed, her fist punched, and not a single opportunity for violent death was wasted. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't especially pretty sword work, but it was very, very effective.

The Imperials – and a bunch of stray Rebels and Crusaders who accurately read the runes that they were going to be next - tried to swarm her in a standard mass-break manoeuvre. They moved to surround her in a deep half-circle with anyone with a long-reach weapon leading, but any attack they tried broke against her like waves on concrete, any and all cohesion dying in spray upon spray of blood.

Bless their hearts, they obviously thought they had a chance.

And, I imagine in other circumstances, a single woman against this many would probably become a cautionary, albeit heroic tale, of how numbers eventually tell.

Watching them each realise these weren't those circumstances was some good times.

Not that I thought she needed the help, but every passive I was throwing out during my own scrapes, dodges, and spats was making her even sharper. She didn't acknowledge me at all, but the buffs landed all the same. It felt a little like I was playing the background track while she soloed the main campaign: she was moving faster and hitting harder, like the System itself was backing her up just because I said so. I appeared to be getting a share of the XP from her kills, too, so I couldn't complain.

One soldier swung with textbook form, but she simply stepped inside it and cut diagonally, hip to clavicle, like he was made of crepe paper. Blood spattered the stone at her feet as she switched up mid-step and lunged to run another knight through, shish-kabobing him to the guy directly behind. Lia ducked a spear, seized the shaft, and yanked a soldier forward so she could drive her knee up into his face. He went down like a sack of the proverbial as she stepped over him without a second glance, already moving on to the next fool with a weapon in hand and a complete lack of survival instincts.

However, for all her ferocity, they still kept charging into the meat grinder.

And then Katya shadowstepped to Lia's side, twin daggers flicking out to bury into Lia's flank.

"Dark Wren," Katya said. "You end here."

I watched Lia falter, just half a step long enough to see the blade coming for her throat, and then flared Unwelcome Mat. The ability snapped active with a sick lurch in my gut, and the world jolted sideways.

Katya's strike buried into Lia's side, but all the damage came to me instead. Half my remaining health vanished in a single heartbeat, and though the 15% backwash of recovery was welcome, it didn't stop my vision swarming and the breath being punched from my lungs. However, it got the job done.

Lia coiled away from the impact of the sneak attack, turned and then landed her left fist flush against Katya's cheek.

This was not a subtle blow.

The punch connected, and Katya went airborne, snapping sideways out of the encircling Imperials like a kite caught in a crosswind. Her boots scuffed stone, her blades spiralled from her hands, and she hit the ground hard enough to bounce once, twice and then to settle directly in front of me.

The mass of figures pressing against Anchorfall's gate linked, one, two, maybe three seconds too long. Which was three more than Lia needed. Freshly healed and absolutely livid, she went to town on them. They weren't even reacting now, just dying in place.

Meanwhile, Katya was looking up at me, flat on her back and wide-eyed. I loomed over her, grinning like I'd just found a fiver in a coat I hadn't worn since Christmas. It was payback time.

"You," she spat

"Nice to see you again."

Aggro Magnetism pulsed off me, but annoyingly, bounced off Katya. Taunt Echo, though, didn't discriminate, and it snagged every Imperial within a few metres, like a hand clamping down on the back of their necks and yanking them my way. The Rage debuff landed clean on each of them, and the effect was immediate. A cluster of them turned on a dime and sprinted toward me, and in their haste, they didn't see Katya.

She got trampled some.

To her credit, she did her best to try and roll out of the way. To her detriment, a misfired Lighting Blast that one of the attackers had clearly been aiming at me went wide, sparked off the edge of someone's sword, and detonated across her chest instead.

The Harbinger convulsed.

Then a swing intended for my head, thanks to the Accuracy debuff, buried itself in the ground an inch from her ear. A second one, less fortunately for her, clipped Katya's hip and drew blood.

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I didn't laugh. That would've been unprofessional. But I did adjust my stance, activated Weighted Argument, and welcomed the mob with open arms. I picked the biggest one I could see - a hulking Knight easily a head taller than me - and aimed straight for his centre mass. Crash Tackle went ping, and I hit him like a freight train.

The poor guy didn't so much fall as fold, his legs sweeping up from beneath him in a crunch of armour. The Momentum Break effect triggered mid-impact, and Bayteran gravity took care of the rest. He toppled backwards and landed square on top of Katya with a wet, heavy crump that felt more satisfying than it should have.

Then Reposition Chain kicked in, feeding me a neat little buffet of bonuses—10% speed boost, impact resistance, stagger null, and just enough stamina regen to keep the pain at bay. I moved faster now, looser, cutting sharp angles between targets as the rest of those I'd grabbed via Taunt Echo's closed in.

They'd come running because I'd told them to. Now they paid the cover charge.

Full disclosure, my morningstar work here was not elegant. It didn't whisper through the air like Lia's blade, and it didn't flash or dance in any sort of pretty little display. But what it did do was bludgeon. It crushed. It broke arms and legs with a finality that didn't win style points but was absolutely winning this fight.

One got it on the side of the knee. Another in the throat. I reversed grip, caught a third in the shoulder so hard their entire right side collapsed like a folding chair. The Resistance buffs soaked the return blows; I felt them land, but they glanced off, dulled by force mitigation and their own miscalculated rage.

If Lia was all elegance and form, then I was the blunt instrument you used when subtlety stopped being useful.

And honestly?

It felt pretty damn good.

The last one of that taunted group dropped just as Katya refound her feet and, with a scream that was part pain and mostly rage, came for my throat.

Let me say right up front that knife fighting, despite what films might have you believe, is no fun whatsoever. It's less beautiful art form and more horrific catastrophe in a hurry. There's no cinematic choreography, and absolutely no little back-and-forth dance where blades clash and there's a nice little bit of mutual appreciation during the slashing.

Fighting with knives is painful, panic-ridden, and – even if you win – will lead to the rapid onset of blood loss and far more stitches and tetanus shots than anyone ever wants in their life. Griff had taught me all of this very well, and – as I rapidly backed up - the key takeaway of all those lessons was this.

In a knife fight, no one gets away clean.

Katya, clearly activating an Ability, blurred, and suddenly I wasn't fighting one person. I was defending myself from a knife storm given form. Slashes bloomed across my arms, my side, my shoulder. My morningstar clattered from my grip - dead weight now, too long and too slow to be much use. I tried to get some distance, but Katya kept closing in, smiling like it was personal, which, to be fair, it probably was.

She must have hit me ten or twenty times, my attempts to deflect the hacks and slashes just earning me more wounds on my hands and forearms, when Anvil Break went ping.

Which is a good news, bad news thing. The bad news was that it must've meant I'd dropped to below 10% HP. Awesome. However, on the plus side, it released a force pulse from me like a last-ditch scream. Katya staggered, her expression briefly shocked as she missed her next strike. As she'd carefully charged up some sort of Ability here to do something horrible to me, I was pretty glad it didn't land. And I was also pretty glad because that miss meant Opportunistic Counter triggered.

My fist moved like it was on a pulley. I struck low, hard, across her gut with the kind of weight behind it that makes medical professionals shake their heads. I might have hit harder than that once or twice in my life. But never against someone who must've weighed a quarter of me. I was amazed my fist didn't go straight through her.

As she still didn't drop.

Instead, she jabbed her blades forward, and they weren't steel now, but a ribbon of black mana pouring from their edge like mist. I reckoned that was probably something pretty toxic. Paralyzing. Soul-corroding, probably. Fortunately, it didn't matter.

Shadow Marked went off, and the first venom attack of this encounter was nullified. I took the hit and nothing happened. Which didn't please Katya much.

Somewhere in the noise of memory and bleeding and adrenaline, Griff's voice surfaced. Not kind. Not gentle. But sharp and clear. "You're a stupidly big target, Eli. You're going to get hit with all sorts of damage the longer a fight goes on. So make 'big' mean something. Use the reach. Use the weight. Let 'em come close—and then end it."

Seemed rude not to.

I reached out and grabbed her wrists. Katya's eyes widened, and she fought to twist free. But I held tight and twisted. Lock and Break activated, and her Stamina regen dropped instantly as both of her blades clattered free, and I yanked her in close. Submission Loop triggered—probably because she was already below 30% HP. I felt her go rigid. She couldn't cast, and she couldn't run.

Unfortunately for her, she couldn't do a damn thing.

She flailed. Scratched. Bit. But her knives were gone, and any Rogue magic Abilities she had fizzled away. She was mine now. And I was done bleeding.

I pinned her wrists in one hand and moved the other one to her throat, lifting her off the ground until both of her feet were dangling in the air. There was a pause when we made eye contact. Hers panicked, mine… well, let's say I was having a very clear memory of turning around in Aunt M's attic and seeing this woman shoot me twice in the chest.

Turnabout is fair play.

I slammed her down.

Straight into, and through, the earth before Anchorfall. She hit the ground like a meteor, and the crater she left was six feet deep. Her body didn't even twitch as I reckon I broke every single bone she possessed.

Funnily enough, she didn't get up.

The Imperial forces nearby froze, horror etched across their faces. Leaders don't die in their world, at least not properly. They're supposed to be defeated, humiliated, knocked down a peg or two and then whisked off by some divine intervention.

They're not supposed to be outright Chokeslammed out of existence.

For a moment, there was a complete, stunned silence as the soldiers stared at the spot where the Empire's Harbinger had vanished through the dirt. And then, like a tidal wave of panic, the reality of what they've just witnessed sets in. They staggered back, several of them looking at each other as if they were suddenly not so sure about this whole 'attack Anchorfall' plan.

And right on cue, both Lia and I started to glow. A brilliant, golden aura surrounded both of us, our entire forms lighting up like we'd just won the world's bloodiest lottery. Level Up pulsed above our heads in massive, shimmering letters.

The attacking forces stare at us both, wide-eyed, as if watching a pair of gods descend to rain terror on these poor mortals.

So, no one was in a particularly punchy state of mind when Scar worked out how to switch the Steam Cannon on.

I'm going to say this was probably overkill at this stage of the proceedings.

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