"Faster! They're gaining!"

The carriage violently shook as it tore down the dirt road, the four Spirit Stags foaming at the mouth as they galloped at magical speeds.

Their hooves struck the ground with the force of hammers, kicking up clouds of dust that choked the night air.

But the cloud rising behind them was bigger.

Illuminated by the harsh orange glow of torches, a stampede of forty elite riders was closing the distance. And at the front of that avalanche of steel and malice was a monster.

Baelor, the Slaver King, wasn't riding a horse. He was mounted atop a Steel-Scaled Rhino, a massive 4th-Order beast with armor plates thick enough to shrug off siege weaponry. The ground trembled with every step it took.

But the beast wasn't the scary part.

It was the pressure.

CLANK. CLANK.

Damien could hear it in his mind, the sound of phantom chains rattling. It wasn't a physical sound; it was a psychic weight pressing down on his soul.

"My body..." Isabelle gasped, clutching the window frame, her knuckles turning white. "It feels heavy... like I'm wearing iron cuffs. I can't... circulate my mana..."

Leona, usually fearless, was trembling. Her Berserk Aura flickered and died, suppressed by a higher power. "I... I can't move my arms. It feels like a master is ordering me to kneel."

Damien gritted his teeth. His vision swam.

Flashback.

[The Sacred Grove. Six months ago.]

"At the 4th Order, your mana takes on a Nature," Aelinor had said, crushing a leaf in her hand. "It becomes Intent."

"But what about the 5th Order?" Damien had asked.

"At the 5th Order," Aelinor's eyes had turned serious. "The Intent becomes tangible. It projects outward. If a Swordsman's intent is 'Sharpness', looking at him will cut your eyes. If a King's intent is 'Rule', standing before him will force you to bow."

Flashback End.

"Intent," Damien wheezed, blood leaking from his nose.

"That's 5th Order Intent. And his intent is... Submission."

He looked back. Baelor was only two hundred meters away. The Slaver King didn't look like a warrior; he looked like a jailer.

The brown aura radiating from him formed the faint, spectral image of a massive collar hanging over the carriage.

"You can run, little rat!" Baelor roared, his voice booming like a gavel striking a podium.

"But every slave returns to the master eventually! KNEEL!"

BOOM!

The pressure doubled. The Spirit Stags stumbled. The carriage slowed.

"Damn it!" Damien shouted internally. "We're going to get caught! The team is paralysed!"

He closed his eyes. He didn't reach for his mana. He reached for that strange, ethereal power sitting between his two cores.

His Will.

'I don't kneel. I am the Greedy King. I own, I am not owned!'

"WAKE UP!"

Damien roared. It wasn't a physical shout. It was a burst of Willpower.

CRACK.

A golden ripple exploded from his body, clashing against Baelor's brown suppression. For a second, the phantom chains shattered.

"Guh!" Damien coughed violently, blood dripping from the corner of his eyes. The strain of using his Will to block a 5th Order's Intent was tearing his mind apart.

But it worked.

"Gasps!" Isabelle and Leona sucked in air; the weight lifting was just enough for them to move.

"Don't stop!" Damien yelled, wiping the blood from his face. "Lyra! You're the only one with the range! Slow them down!"

Lyra, whose face was pale but focused, nodded. She leaned out the window. Her grey skin blended with the shadows.

"On it."

She raised her hand. A Phantom Bow formed—wind and shadow twisted together.

At this distance (200 meters), neither Damien nor Isabelle could effectively attack.

Their magic would dissipate before hitting. Even Leona was useless unless they got into melee range, which would be suicide against a 5th Order.

Only Lyra, the Sniper, had the reach.

Phwip.

She fired.

Behind Baelor, one of the 4th-Order elites suddenly jerked backwards. His aura shield didn't even flicker. A hole appeared in his throat, and he tumbled off his mount, dead before he hit the ground.

"Sniper!" Baelor screamed. "Shields up!"

The mercenaries raised their shields, creating a wall of light.

Phwip. Phwip.

Two more riders fell. The Phantom Arrows bypassed the shields entirely, striking through the gaps in their armor.

"They can't block what they can't see," Lyra whispered, her hands moving in a blur. "And they can't sense what has no killing intent until it hits."

She was the perfect counter to their formation.

"Annoying fly!" Baelor roared, his eyes bulging with rage. "You think tricks will save you?"

He stood up in his stirrups. He swung his massive war hammer.

He wasn't a mage. He didn't cast a spell. He just used pure, overwhelming Aura Strength.

"Slave Kings Hammer: Earth Shock!"

He slammed the hammer into the empty air.

BOOM!

The air compressed. A visible shockwave of brown aura blasted forward like a cannonball, tearing up the road as it raced toward the carriage.

"It's too fast!" Lyra shouted, ducking back inside.

"Leona! Deflect it!" Damien ordered.

"I... I can't stop it!" Leona yelled, her Berserk Aura flaring as she climbed to the roof. "It's too heavy!"

She didn't try to block it head-on. She slammed her gauntlets into the side of the shockwave, trying to parry the force.

CRASH!

The impact nearly flipped the carriage. Leona screamed as the bones in her arm cracked, but she managed to knock the blast slightly off course. It clipped the rear wheel, shattering the wood, but the carriage kept moving on three wheels, skidding sparks.

"We can't take another hit like that!" Leona yelled, clutching her arm.

"We don't have to," Damien said, pointing ahead.

The looming silhouette of the Red Rock Canyon appeared. The road narrowed into a deadly funnel between two cliffs.

"Isabelle," Damien gasped, his head pounding from the strain. "Get ready. The moment we pass the entrance... bring the roof down."

"But Baelor is too strong!" Isabelle cried. "Rocks won't kill him!"

"I don't want to kill him," Damien wiped blood from his eye. "I want to bury him. Even a 5th Order needs time to dig."

The carriage shot into the canyon. Baelor followed, laughing as he sensed his prey entering the trap.

"Now!"

Isabelle leaned out. Her horns burst forth.

"Gravity... COLLAPSE!"

She reversed the gravity on the cliff face.

RUMBLE.

As Baelor rode into the pass, the mountain above him simply... let go.

Thousands of tons of rock crashed down, sealing the path and burying the Slaver King in a tomb of red stone.

The carriage sped away into the darkness of the canyon, leaving the roar of the angry Warlord muffled behind a wall of rubble.

"We're alive," Damien whispered, slumping back in his seat.

"For now," Lyra said grimly, looking at the map. "But the Dwarf Kingdom is still weeks away. And he's going to be very angry when he digs himself out."

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