"Brother!" Kelvin's voice cut through the haze of rage like a blade through cloth. "Don't go alone! We're with you!"

Satou barely registered the words, his consciousness almost entirely consumed by berserker fury, but some part of his tactical mind understood. His companions were engaging the enemy too, taking advantage of the chaos he'd created by breaking their formation.

Grimnir charged into a cluster of robed figures that had been trying to flank Satou, his massive war axe cleaving through two of them in a single devastating swing that split them from shoulder to hip. He roared a battle cry that echoed across the battlefield like thunder, his eyes blazing with the same fury that drove Satou forward.

These enemies had hurt his Leader. Had tortured him in ways Grimnir couldn't even fully comprehend despite Kelvin's attempts to explain what nightmare realm torture entailed. For that crime against his blood, they would pay in screams and blood and broken bodies.

Three figures tried to flank him from different angles, their blades seeking his injured sides where the Crimson Scales had wounded him earlier. Grimnir spun with surprising grace for someone his size and build, his axe describing a horizontal arc that caught all three attackers simultaneously. Bodies fell in sprays of dark blood, and he pressed forward without pause, each step leaving bloody footprints on the black stone.

A robed figure conjured a nightmare construct—a twisted amalgamation of fear and shadow that lunged at Grimnir with claws extended. He met it head-on, his axe splitting it in half from crown to crotch in a single overhead chop. The construct dissolved into black smoke that stank of sulfur and rotting meat.

"For Lord Satou!" Grimnir bellowed, his voice carrying across the entire battlefield. "For what you did to him! For the torture! You all die today!"

Kelvin moved like liquid death through the battlefield, his twin daggers flashing in precise patterns born from decades of combat experience. He was smaller than the robed figures, faster, more agile. Where they relied on dark magic and brute force, he relied on speed and skill honed through countless battles.

A robed figure conjured nightmare-tendrils that lashed out to grab him, seeking to bind him in place for their companions to finish. Kelvin flowed around them like water around stones, his body moving with fluid grace that made the attacks seem clumsy by comparison. His daggers found gaps in the figure's defense—throat, under arm, behind the knee—opening arteries and severing tendons with surgical precision.

The figure collapsed in a growing pool of their own blood, and Kelvin was already moving to his next target without looking back to confirm the kill.

"For what you did to Lord Satou!" he shouted, his voice carrying absolute conviction. "For the torture! For the nightmares! For trying to break him! You die!"

Two figures tried to trap him between them, attacking simultaneously from front and back. Kelvin dropped to a slide that carried him between their legs, his daggers slashing upward as he passed. Both figures screamed and fell, hamstrung and bleeding.

Urgot fought despite his injuries, the young orc's determination overriding the pain from broken ribs and deep lacerations that had reopened from the violent movement. He'd taken a healing potion from the supplies before the fighting started, and while it hadn't fully healed him, it had restored enough strength to let him function in combat.

He faced two robed figures who seemed to think his youth and injuries made him an easy target to eliminate quickly. They learned their mistake when his weapon came down in a crushing overhead strike that shattered the first figure's skull like an overripe melon, bone fragments and brain matter spraying across the black stone.

The second one managed to score a hit across Urgot's already-injured shoulder, their blade cutting through bandages and drawing fresh blood from the wound. Pain exploded through his upper body, white-hot and intense.

Urgot roared in pain and fury combined, then brought his weapon around in a wide horizontal swing that caught his attacker in the ribs with bone-crushing force. He heard ribs crack like dry wood, saw the figure's eyes widen with shock and agony, then stomped on their head as they fell to finish the job with brutal efficiency.

"I fought Crimson Scales!" he bellowed at the remaining enemies around him, blood streaming from his reopened wound but his voice strong. "Elite warriors enhanced by dark magic! You think you scare me?! You're nothing!"

Freda, still weakened from her earlier magical exertion that had drained her reserves dangerously low, nevertheless contributed what she could from her position near the carriage. She couldn't cast any more master-level spells without risking permanent damage to her magical channels, but she could still manage the basics that any trained mage should know.

"[Flame Lance]!" she called out, her hands weaving the familiar pattern with practiced precision. A spear of fire materialized in the air before her and shot toward a robed figure who was preparing to cast something large and destructive aimed at Urgot's exposed back. The lance caught them in the chest with the force of a battering ram, the impact disrupting their spell mid-casting and setting their robes ablaze.

The figure stumbled backward screaming, flames consuming them rapidly as they tried desperately to extinguish themselves. They failed. Within seconds they were nothing but a charred corpse.

"[Stone Spike]!" Earth magic this time, one of the first spells Master Morgana had taught her. A jagged spike erupted from the ground beneath another figure's feet with explosive force, impaling them through the torso and lifting them off the ground before the magic dissipated and dropped their corpse.

She was breathing hard, sweat dripping down her face and soaking her green hair, but her emerald eyes blazed with determination that overrode the exhaustion. These were the kind of evil cultists Master Morgana had trained her to recognize and fight. Dark magic users who served nightmare demons and facilitated torture. She wouldn't fail now when people were depending on her.

"[Wind Blade]!" A crescent of compressed air that sliced through another robed figure's throat with the precision of a surgical scalpel.

Shadow moved through the battlefield like a ghost given temporary flesh, their mysterious nature making them nearly impossible to track even for experienced warriors.

Shadow would appear behind a robed figure as if materializing from their own shadow, their curved blade finding the gap between spine and skull with practiced precision, then vanish before the body hit the ground to reappear somewhere else entirely.

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