"Avenor, stand behind me!" Rodon shouted, slamming his massive shield into the ground and lowering his stance to anchor himself.

The bright outer edge of the mana wave closed in, ripping through tharuuns and skalvyrs alike, their bodies bursting apart under pressure too immense to endure. The spider mutants, however, were untouched. If anything, they welcomed it - shrieking, their heads raised high as if in praise of the overwhelming force.

Sweat ran down the faces of the Velmoryn. The frontline hunched low behind their shields, gripping steel with all they had, muscles tensed, as if believing the thin plates could hold back the end itself.

Rodon pressed harder into his shield, channeling his mana into it, activating its dormant enchantments. He prayed it would be enough against an attack from a monstrosity he had not yet even seen.

But the wave never reached them.

Barriers rose in frantic succession. The first, an ice dome, spread outward like freezing water, crystalline and gleaming. It shattered almost instantly, shards exploding outward before bouncing back against the next layer. More barriers followed, each flashing into life only to crumple under the crushing tide. The cavern air screamed with the pressure of it, dread hollowing the Velmoryn's eyes as they watched their defenses collapse one by one.

Then a new barrier appeared.

A scarlet dome surged into being, vast and pulsing like a living heart. It caught the torrent head-on, swelling and thinning until it grew nearly transparent. Yet it held.

The crimson shield was built for this one strike. Even after the brightness of the wave dimmed, the scarlet dome kept thinning, stretching itself to the very limit. And then, all at once, it was gone.

The Velmoryn stared at the ruin beyond. Mangled carcasses of the tharuuns and skalvyrs lay scattered across the cavern, their parts hissing and steaming as if torched. Hot air rolled over the survivors, the breath of death they had narrowly escaped.

"What was that spell?" "I've never seen anything like it…" "Was it our Vael who saved us?"

Murmurs reached Avenor from behind, but unlike them, he didn't need to see who had cast it to know. He had instinctively recognized the mana.

"Aria…" he whispered, eyes scanning until he found her.

She was on one knee, body trembling violently. The scarlet shield had drained her almost completely, and backlash wracked her now.

"Take this." A Green Tribe mage hurried forward, offering a vial of cyan liquid that sparkled in the dim light. Aria tried to take it, but her hand shook too hard, fingers slipping against the glass. The man steadied her wrist and raised the vial toward her lips himself.

"Avenor!" His head snapped up at Rodon's shout.

"They're charging us!" Rodon bellowed, teeth clenched, shield already raised.

The spider mutants had changed. Their sluggishness was gone, replaced by speed and frenzy. The mana wave had not only slaughtered a great number of tharuuns, it had invigorated the monsters.

Now hundreds of them swarmed forward, thundering across the cavern toward no more than twenty frontliners and the few beasts left standing.

Arrows hissed overhead. Some glowed white with frost, some burned red with fire, each one carrying mana into its flight. They struck the advancing spiders with bursts of ice and flame, detonations flaring across the swarm. A handful of beasts staggered, some collapsing outright, others slowed as frost spread across their limbs or fire gnawed into their hides. But the mass didn't break. Even with volleys coming again and again, the horde pressed on, its momentum barely checked.

That was when ten warriors of the Brown Tribe surged forward, breaking past the hunched frontliners who had been ordered to hold position.

Their leather armor was still clean, swords gleaming with reflections of fire and frostlight. However, contrary to their fresh-looking equipment, their expressions were a different story - their eyes were cold, steady, their movements carrying a contagious calm.

Every stride quickened, steps pounding harder as they closed the distance, and just before they met the wall of spider mutants, they screamed. Ten voices rose in high-pitched, savage unison, a cry that rang like steel striking stone. Battle-mad or simply veterans of too many wars.

As their cry ended, their blades gleamed with mana. All ten leapt, the monsters spat green projectiles toward them, the air hissing with toxic slime. The warriors twisted mid-air, evading sprays of acid by inches. They didn't aim for the beasts' backs; instead they flowed across the battlefield like dancers, vaulting from carapace to carapace, cutting through thick chitin with ease, their blades cleaving as if through butter.

Their strikes were not fatal, but each slash carved another wound, and as they leapt from beast to beast, the cuts multiplied. Gashes spread wider, green, slimy liquid dripping, until the weight of injuries finally brought the spider mutants down one by one.

But there were too many. Hundreds pressed in, and the Brown Tribe's ten warriors, no matter their skill, could not hope to thin the swarm alone. Their leaps slowed, shoulders sagged with each landing; fatigue would grind them down soon enough.

Then one of them screamed. An arm ripped off by the monster, the creature's mandibles still holding and munching on the limb.

They needed support. And they needed it urgently. Yet the mages were drained, waiting for potions to work and recover their mana. The archers dared not fire - one stray arrow loosed into that frenzy would bury itself in a comrade's back.

That left only the frontliners.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, shields braced, blades ready, watching the Browns fight with cold awe. They waited, every heartbeat stretched thin, for one of the Vaels to give the word.

And at last, the order came.

"Attack! Do you want the Browns to bleed alone?!" Shelya snarled from behind. The youthful vigor had drained from her; the runes had faded, her body once again hunched with age.

Avenor moved first.

Phantom Step.

Space folded, and he appeared beneath a spider mutant in a blur, blade already swinging. His strike carved deep into its underbelly, green liquid spraying across his arm as he warped again, reappearing beneath another and driving his sword upward.

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But the creature was not as slow as the others.

The instant he materialized beneath it, the beast lunged sideways. One of its legs came from the left, a massive limb striking with the force of a tree trunk whipped through the air.

Avenor barely had time to grit his teeth. He jerked his shield up, but his stance was poor - caught mid-step, weight still shifting from the teleport. The impact cracked against him with bone-jarring force.

The world spun.

He was lifted off his feet, shield jamming against his shoulder as he was hurled aside. He hit the ground hard, skidding across the dirt, rolling stones and smoldering fragments left from earlier spells. Each tumble stole his breath until he finally slammed to a stop.

His ribs burned, arms shaking as he forced himself up. All around, the battlefield roared - screeches of spiders, the clang of steel, warriors shouting. Firelight and frost clashed across the cavern walls, shadows stretching long as the swarm bore down on them.

Avenor's vision cleared as he forced himself to blink hard. He couldn't afford stillness here; a single pause meant death. So he moved, erratically at first, darting through gaps and weaving between legs - not striking, only evading until his mind caught up with his body.

"None of these things were ever this fast." His thoughts sharpened as he ducked into a patch of shadow where fewer spiders pressed close. "Either the nest itself buffs them, or that mana wave boosted their speed and their awareness. I need to be more careful. More than that, I need a weapon suited for this fight. My Sylvan Heritage is completely useless now…"

But he had no other weapon. His sword and shield was all he had, so he set his sights on the nearest mutant.

Phantom Step.

Space folded again, shadows dragging him at the creature's flank. Its head was fully obscured beneath the cavern's gloom.

Avenor prepared to strike the monster from the blind spot while its focus was elsewhere, but before he could, another mutant lunged from the side, covering its kin. Its shriek made Avenor's hair stand on end, mandibles snapping as its jaws came for his torso.

But this time, Avenor was ready. He sprang upward in a desperate leap, twisting over the lunge. The spider's fangs punched into the cavern floor where his legs had been a moment earlier, the ground splitting under the sheer force.

He landed atop its back, its neck stretched out, completely unguarded. It was an opening. He drove his blade down, the steel punched through chitin with a crunch that traveled up his arms. A shiver ran down his spine at the sound of bone snapping beneath the carapace. The monster convulsed once, then stopped.

But Avenor didn't get a breather.

Two more closed in from the flanks, not mindlessly but with coordination. One barreled straight at him, jaws wide, intent on tearing him apart. The other reared back and spat.

The web glistened with a green sheen as it spread wide, a net shimmering in the dim light. It filled the space in front of him, cutting off every straightforward escape.

Phantom Step.

The shimmer of the web itself cast new shadows. He vanished into one, reappearing behind the spitting spider - only to hear it.

"Krrrr…"

A guttural rasping sound - a dry, grinding noise that scraped at his nerves, half shriek, half hiss.

He turned, sword and shield raised, but the moment his eyes registered the creature, he gulped. Hard.

From the gloom crept a pale spider, smaller than the rest, barely larger than Avenor himself. The sound came from deep within its thorax, vibrating the air. Its many eyes, sickly white-green, fixed on him alone.

Avenor immediately pivoted, sliding sideways across and widening the distance between himself, the two spider mutants chasing him, and the pale gray one.

"I must not get close to this one until I know what it can do." He scanned the cavern with quick, darting glances. His heightened perception picked out every twitch and shadow, analyzing threats.

But what piqued his interest wasn't his escape route, it was the movement of the two monsters that had been pursuing him. Instead of barreling after him in a straight line, they curved wide, positioning themselves between him and the pale spider.

"Is it weak? Do they need to protect it?" He mused, though he had no way to confirm. He had no ranged weapon, no spell to test its defenses. "I can't just keep running. I need to regroup with the others…"

That was when he spotted a Brown Tribe warrior closing in on the gray creature.

"KRRRR…"

The pale spider shrieked again. At once, the two that had been chasing Avenor turned and charged back toward it.

"That confirms it. It needs protection." Relief sparked in his chest, and he shifted course, angling to assist the Brown warrior who was only a few dozen steps from the intercepting beasts. "But other than commanding them, what else can it do?"

The Brown's twin blades dripped with thick green liquid. His leather armor hung in tatters, splattered with scraps of flesh. Even his body was in ruin - half his face blackened and rotting, scalp eaten away until bald patches revealed.

Avenor's stomach tightened. "He's planning to die together with this one…"

But first, the man had to carve through the two living walls standing in his path.

Despite his injuries, the warrior moved like water over stone. He sidestepped a glob of toxic spit with inches to spare, then dropped low and slid beneath one spider's abdomen. The beast reacted, trying to drop its bulk on him, but the warrior rammed one sword into the dirt to brake, twisted, and rolled clear in the same motion.

Avenor couldn't look away. He had never seen anyone fight like that. Compared to this man, even my own elite squad seemed nothing more than brutes relying on raw strength.

The two spiders whirled, mandibles clacking, but the Brown ignored them, sprinting straight for the pale one.

That was Avenor's opening. He vanished into shadow.

Phantom Step.

He reappeared beside one of the interceptors, his blade driving deep into its hairy flank. Green blood gushed out, hot and pungent, showering across him in a toxic stream. It burned his eyes, seared his throat when he gasped, but he clenched his jaw and pressed forward.

The second spider paid him no mind. Instead, it angled away, racing not toward the pale one but toward the swarm group of monsters deeper in the cavern.

Avenor frowned. "Why would it retreat…?" But there was no time to figure it out. He melted into shadow again, eyes locked on the giant green form.

The Brown warrior also reached his target. His twin blades cut a crossing arc, an X gleaming in the dim light. For an instant the gray spider looked cornered, fragile.

Then it vanished.

Or rather, it was replaced by the giant green spider. Jaws snapped shut on the warrior's blades, wrenching them from his half rotten hands.

The creature bit down once more. The left half of the man's torso tore free in a spray of blood, painting its mandibles crimson. The body dropped in twitching pieces, pooling red beneath it. But the monster gave the kill no thought. Its legs hammered against the ground, propelling its enormous frame toward where Avenor stood.

The blade Avenor had swung to bury into the giant green monster instead drove deep into the pale gray chitin.

"KRRRRRR…"

The creature shrieked, its desperate scream invading Avenor's ears. Its body twisted violently, legs hammering the cavern floor. The sword was locked in place, wedged tight even as Avenor struggled to pull it.

Then, another shadow entered the edge of Avenor's vision - the giant green monster was closing in fast.

"If I waste any more time on this blade, I'm dead."

Phantom Step.

The world folded and he reappeared beside the body of the fallen Brown warrior. His shield slipped from his arm, hitting the ground. He didn't even look at it again.

His gaze was fixed on the twin swords lying across the corpse. For a moment, he hesitated, fingers flexing. Was it truly fine to pick up the sword of a fallen comrade?

He shook the thoughts away and reached down.

The moment his hands closed around both hilts, the Sylvan Heritage flared awake, flooding through his mind. Instincts not his own whispered into his muscles, telling him how to move, how to strike, how to flow with two blades instead of one. His grip adjusted without thought, his stance settling into balance as if it had always been there.

The awkwardness of sword-and-shield slipped from him like a discarded skin. In its place came precision, fluidity, the promise of speed and death in both hands.

Avenor exhaled, lungs still burning.

"Now… this is different."

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