The Old Market Sector was less a marketplace and more a killing floor.

The ancient stone walkways were slick with blood, black ichor from the monstrous Eclipse Beasts, and pulverized masonry.

The air was a cacophony of roaring beasts, cracking magical energy, and the metallic hiss of charged steel.

This was one of the fallen cities after the eclipse fall. A city which used to be bustling with the orc race, filled with laughter, and excited cries of the inhabitants, now reverberated with the roars of beasts and war cries of warriors.

The front line, dubbed the Meridian Line by the beleaguered commanders, was where the forces desperately held their ground.

And the old city, now transformed into a dungeon was being attacked by the forces of the unified races, hoping to get an edge and recover grounds in the frontlines.

Aura Warriors, their bodies clad in glowing, personalized armor of concentrated energy, formed the spear tip of the defense.

Beside them, rank after rank of Mages, their staffs and wands blazing, rained down elemental fury—cascades of fire, jagged shards of ice, and blinding bolts of lightning—into the swirling mass of beasts.

The Eclipse Beasts were a nightmarish enemy. Low-tier scourge, resembling oversized, vicious wolves coated in dark chitin, clawed at the shields.

Larger shadowhears and styngians, massive, four-legged or more, brutes with heads like obsidian battering rams, charged with reckless abandon, slamming into the Aura Warrior ranks with bone-shattering force.

A few yards behind the main shield wall stood Storm Ashborn. He was the focal point of the defense, a hero by necessity, clad not in heavy armor but in a dark, dust-coated trench coat and reinforced leather.

His presence was calm amidst the storm.

Storm was a Gunslinger, a rarity in a world dominated by magic and steel, yet his proficiency made him a legend.

In his hands, he held a pair of intricately carved, heavy-caliber revolvers, their barrels smoking from constant use.

He wasn't engaging the dense ranks yet; he was scanning the field, his sharp, steely-grey eyes cutting through the chaos, looking for the commanders, the breaches, the threats no one else saw.

He reserved his shots for the most critical moments—an officer being swarmed, a Mage losing concentration, or a Styngian or shadowheart finding a weak point.

A crack of thunder. Storm fired a single shot from his right revolver. The bullet, infused with a spiraling silver aura, passed clean through the heart of a Shadowheart that was about to flank a healing-focused Mage, dissolving the creature into mist.

"Hold the line! Second squad, recast the Earth Wall!" Storm yelled, his voice magically amplified to cut through the din.

Around Storm, his most trusted associates were engaged in a swirling, close-quarters melee, a brutal dance of death designed to keep the most agile Shadowhearts and styngians from reaching the Mages.

Kane, Storm's long-time shadow and master of the blade, moved like liquid mercury.

He wielded a shining bastard sword, its edge singing with an incessant blue aura.

He didn't hack; he sliced, finding the joints and weak points of the chitin armor, his movements economical and deadly.

Seraphina, the imposing veteran with the scarred face, fought with a heavy halberd. Her technique was pure destructive power.

Every sweep of the polearm was charged with raw, crushing yellow aura, not only cleaving beasts in half but also creating shockwaves that momentarily stunned nearby enemies, giving the Aura Warriors time to reset their formations.

Near them, Rhys, the youngest but most ferocious of the group, spun his great battle-axe in a deadly blur.

His movements were wide and savage, and every time the axe bit into flesh, a brief burst of savage red aura erupted, scorching the wound and preventing regeneration.

The battlefield was a horrifying spectacle of exertion and bloodshed.

They were quite confident in being able to deal with this dungeon since the highest class of enemy seemed to be the Styngian, a beast of the fourth realm, that was not troublesome for these heroes who had experience fighting a Gloomweaver in the frontlines.

They were not that spent up and were dealing with the beasts effectively. But the numbers was causing them a slight headache.

Though they could deal with these beasts easily, but for the others it was not the case.

A trio of Shadowheart smashed into the center line, cracking shields and sending two Aura Warriors reeling back.

Kane plunged his sword deep into the chest segment of one beast, diverting its charge just as Seraphina brought her halberd down in a horizontal sweep, severing the legs of a second.

The Mages countered a push by unleashing a synchronized barrage of Fire Orbs, turning a patch of the battlefield into a momentary inferno, but the beasts were endless, pouring in from the shattered buildings like a black tide.

Rhys roared, pulling his axe from a Shadowheart's heart, the axe head sizzling.

"They just keep coming! How many of these filth are there?"

"As many as the Abyss will spit out, Rhys! Just keep cutting!" Seraphina shouted back, using the blunt end of her halberd to smash the skull of a charging beast.

Storm fired his left revolver, a penetrating green shot that chained through three targets before detonating the head of a fourth. His composure was the only thing keeping the line from shattering.

The battle had reached its zenith. The Aura Warriors were grunting with effort, their shields deeply scarred.

The Mages were panting, their incantations becoming rushed and weaker. Fatigue was setting in; the Meridian Line was beginning to buckle.

It was precisely at this peak moment, when exhaustion was the final enemy, that the atmosphere shifted.

A deep, bone-vibrating hiss traveled across the battlefield—a sound of metal grating on stone, but louder, more deliberate than any battle noise.

The Eclipse Beasts, seemingly recognizing a greater presence, momentarily parted their dense ranks, creating a clear, blood-soaked corridor leading to the front line.

From the swirling shadows emerged a figure that was undeniably human, yet utterly foreign to the battlefield.

It was a creature of unsettling design: skin the colour of dark, rich mahogany, heavily crisscrossed with numerous red, spiraling tattoos that seemed to pulse in the moonlight, and a long sword scar painted along his torso.

His hair, green and stiff like sharp, spiked blades, raked backward from his forehead.

Most unnervingly, his lips were extended into a grotesque, permanent rictus, stretching from ear to ear to expose rows of sharp, needle-like teeth.

His eyes were huge, circular orbs with vertical, reptilian pupils set within a blazing red iris.

He was dragging a sword of grotesque size and design. It was easily seven feet long, brutally thick, and covered in jagged, saw-like teeth along one edge.

He pulled it with one hand, letting the monstrous blade grind against the stone pavement, creating that sickening, scratching hiss.

He stopped at the edge of the corridor, surveying the desperate, bloodied defenders with a casual, bored expression, like a master looking at unruly cattle, since he was a figure who had dared to weild his sword against the sword saint, he was Halmu.

A sudden, intense chill, far colder than the night air, swept over the battlefield, causing even the most hardened Aura Warriors to shiver.

Halmu casually lifted the enormous, toothed sword. It weighed, by appearance, hundreds of pounds, yet he hoisted it with no visible strain.

He held it high above his head, and a deep, swirling vortex of pure black aura—an intensity that made the Eclipse Beasts look like weak imitations—coalesced around the blade.

He brought the sword down in a single, utterly nonchalant horizontal sweep.

The movement wasn't frantic or furious; it was smooth, effortless, and terrifyingly efficient.

The wave of concentrated black energy erupted from the sword and tore through the Meridian Line.

The effect was instantaneous and devastating.

The energy was not fire or ice; it was obliteration. It sliced through the heavily armored warriors as if they were made of damp paper, vaporizing them mid-charge.

It tore through the shield wall, shattering the powerful Aura defenses of dozens of warriors instantly.

Steel shields twisted and exploded. Mages caught in the wake collapsed, their life force visibly draining away, their auras extinguished like snuffed candles.

The entire left flank of the defense vanished.

Hundreds of students and warriors either died instantly, their bodies dissolving into dust, or were thrown back, crippled, bleeding from every orifice, their Aura systems catastrophically fractured.

Halmu lowered his sword, the toothed blade now dripping with black ichor and human blood.

He tilted his head, inspecting the devastating gap he had created—a gap through which the remaining Eclipse Beasts now charged, unopposed.

He looked directly across the ruins at the small knot of survivors around Storm Ashborn, a small, dark grin spreading slowly across his face.

"Well," Halmu drawled, his voice carrying clearly despite the roar of the resumed battle, carrying a strange, almost musical inflection. "Let's have some fun."

The smile widened into a wide, malicious smirk, revealing a flash of unnervingly perfect teeth, as he took his first steps toward the shattered line. The war had just gained a terrifying new participant.

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