The granite wall on the eastern border was forty feet high and solid. But to Velanor Banner, it felt like it was made of thin paper. The young earth mage stood on top of the wall, his boots stomped firmly on the stone. His hands were covered in dirt and dried blood. He pushed his internal core to its limit, constantly feeding his earth magic into the foundation of the wall to keep it from crumbling.

HISS!!

It wasn’t a physical battering ram breaking his wall. It was the air itself. The tall, hundred-foot tidal wave of toxic black mist was pressing against the granite. The dark magic hissed loudly, eating the stone. It sounded like acid pouring over hot iron.

"The stone is rotting," Velanor gritted his teeth. Sweat poured down his face, freezing in the cold wind. "I can’t hold the structural integrity forever. The mist is too dense."

Catherine Sylphyros stepped up beside him. The Princess of the Sylphyros didn’t look at the rotting stone. She looked past it, her silver blue eyes watching the massive clearing Luna had created with his gravity blast.

"You just have to hold the line until they break," Catherine said calmly. Her bare hands were covered in jagged gauntlets of sharp ice, "and they will break. They are getting impatient."

****

Down on the dead, ashen plains, the shadow army waited. Thousands of Black Mist Knights stood in rigid, terrifying formations. But they were stuck. They couldn’t march forward. Luna was the only reason the massive solaris army behind the wall wasn’t already slaughtered.

The Night Emperor stood a few feet in front of the granite wall. He didn’t hide behind the stone. His dark jacket whipped in the cold, howling wind. His right eye was a lazy gray, but his left eye burned with a swirling silver cosmic light.

Luna was projecting an invisible dome of pure, crushing gravity. The dome stretched for a full mile, shielding the human army from the dark aura of despair from the three warlords of the Black Mist. The King, the Queen, and the Jack.

"They are just staring at us," Velanor muttered, wiping the sweat from his eyes. "Why aren’t they attacking?"

"They are waiting for me to blink," Luna replied, his voice carrying the heavy, dual resonance over the howling wind. "They think my brain is going to melt from holding the cosmic pressure. They want the gravity dome to fall so their aura can make the soldiers drop their weapons."

Luna casually pulled his right hand out of his pocket. He wiped a thin line of dark red blood leaking from his left nostril.

"But I am entirely done sleeping," Luna smirked, his cosmic eye flaring brighter. "If they want to pass, they have to walk through me."

Out on the dead plains, the tall silhouette of the Black Mist King finally moved. The dark commander wore sleek, midnight black armor and a jagged iron crown. He slowly raised his double edged broadsword. He didn’t point it at the army. He pointed it at Luna.

The King didn’t speak a single word. He simply gave a subtle, silent nod. The hunched figure standing to his left vanished.

"He’s gone!" Velanor yelled, his eyes darting frantically across the empty plains.

"Above us!" Catherine screamed.

The Jack of the Black Mist did not run. He moved like a glitch in reality. He appeared out of thin air directly above the forty-foot granite wall, evading Luna’s horizontal gravity field.

Jack was terrifyingly fast. He fell toward Velanor, his body spasming wildly with erratic, lethal energy. In his hands, he held two wickedly curved, serrated daggers dripping with boiling black poison. He slashed downward, aiming to sever Velanor’s head from his shoulders. Velanor didn’t have time to cast a massive spell. He relied on his raw reflexes. He slammed his fists together, pulling stone from the wall itself to coat his forearms in dense, unbreakable granite.

He raised his arms in a desperate block.

CLANG!

The poisoned daggers struck the gauntlets. The impact was heavy, forcing Velanor to drop to one knee. But the real danger was the poison. The toxic black liquid from the daggers instantly sizzled, melting the solid granite armor like warm butter.

"The poison eats earth!" Velanor shouted, frantically trying to push Jack away as his stone armor rapidly disappeared.

Catherine stepped smoothly to Velanor’s side. She didn’t try to freeze Jack’s moving body. She aimed her hands at the poisoned daggers.

’Absolute Zero.’ A blast of intense cold erupted from her palms. The sheer drop in temperature was so pure that the boiling black poison froze solid, turning into brittle, harmless black ice.

Jack’s erratic twitching paused in sheer surprise. His weapons were neutralized. Velanor seized the opening. He dropped his melting granite armor, coated his right fist in fresh, jagged rock, and launched a brutal, raw uppercut into Jack’s dark leather chest plate.

The punch landed perfectly. The earth magic shattered the dark leather armor, throwing Jack backward. The Warlord tumbled out of the air, crashing into the dirt fifty yards away from the wall.

"Nice punch, dirt boy!" Luna called out from the ground, keeping his eyes locked on the King.

"Watch the flying one!" Velanor panted, shaking his bruised hand.

Out on the plains, the Queen of the Black Mist slowly raised her thin dark staff. She hovered a few inches off the dead earth, her faceless, porcelain white mask giving no hint of emotion. The glowing purple crystal at the top of her staff pulsed rigorously.

She simply cast a wide area curse. The red sky above the human army darkened. A sudden rain of thousands of thin, black magical needles fell from the clouds. They weren’t made of metal. They were made of rotting decay.

"Shields!" the human commanders screamed.

Ten thousand soldiers raised their iron and wooden shields. But the dark needles passed right through the solid wood and metal like ghosts. The needles struck the soldiers. They didn’t cause physical wounds. The moment a needle touched a human, their skin turned into a bruised purple. The soldiers dropped their weapons, screaming in agony as their internal magic and physical strength decayed.

"It is rotting their life force!" Soltheia yelled.

The younger Princess of Sylphyros stood behind the granite wall. She dropped her medical bag to the dirt. Soltheia pushed her internal core to its maximum. Her hands glowed with a brilliant, golden-green light. She slammed her hands into the ground.

A massive warm wave of purifying water magic erupted outward, washing over the entire Solaris infantry. It looked like a gentle, shimmering green rain falling upward. The moment the purifying water touched the cursed soldiers, the sick purple bruising vanished. The decay was cleansed. The soldiers gasped, their strength returning immediately. They quickly picked their iron spears back up.

"I can keep them clean!" Soltheia panted vehemently, her ocean-blue eyes fierce. "Focus on the commanders! Do not let them advance!"

On the plains, the Queen lowered her staff. Her wide-area curse had been neutralized by a single human girl. The King of the Black Mist finally lost his patience.

The towering Commander didn’t teleport like Jack. He didn’t cast curses from afar like the Queen. He simply gripped his massive, double-edged broadsword and walked forward. Every single time his sleek, black boots touched the ground, the gray ash turned to dark glass. The air around him warped from the power of his physical presence. He was aiming entirely for Luna. He knew the silver-haired boy was the only thing keeping the human army sane.

"Stay back," Luna ordered Velanor and Catherine, his voice dead serious. "This one is mine."

Luna took his left hand out of his pocket. He took a slow, deep breath. The tiny drop of infinite mana burning in his left eye flared. The King stepped into Luna’s invisible gravity dome. The dark warlord didn’t freeze. He didn’t collapse under the crushing weight. He simply grunted, his dark armor groaning loudly from the pressure. He slowly raised the massive broadsword with both hands and brought it slicing down toward Luna’s head.

Luna simply raised his left hand, pointing his palm upward. He caught the blade with an invisible wall of raw gravity.

BOOM!

The collision of the dark sword and the cosmic gravity created a devastating shockwave. The ground between them sank fifty feet straight down, creating a massive, round crater in the dirt.

Luna’s boots dug deeply into the ash. He gritted his teeth, his pale skin straining. A fresh drop of red blood leaked slowly from his silver eye. The King pressed down harder on the sword. The Warlord’s raw physical strength was monstrous, equaling the power of the Demon Warlords in the south.

"You hold the weight of the stars, tiny mortal," the King hissed, his voice sounding like a thousand echoing whispers. "But you are still made of fragile meat. Your brain will burst before my sword breaks."

"I have a thick skull," Luna replied back, a bloody grin breaking across his pale face.

Luna forcefully twisted his wrist, changing the direction of the gravity field. He pulled the King to the right. The sudden shift in gravitational gravity threw the massive Warlord off balance. The King stumbled heavily into the dirt. Luna didn’t hesitate. He dropped his hand and pushed a concentrated point of gravity into the King’s chest plate. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

The dark armor dented heavily inward with a loud crunch. The King was launched backward, sliding across the dead ash for thirty yards before digging his sword into the dirt to stop his momentum.

Luna let out a ragged breath, wiping the blood from his eye. He had successfully repelled the King’s first attack. Suddenly, a strange sensation entirely washed over the battlefield. It was a sudden, warm gust of wind blowing from the south. It carried the faint smell of burning ash and purified air.

The King of the Black Mist stopped. He slowly stood up straight. He didn’t look at Luna. He turned his horned, jagged head toward the southern horizon. The red sky in the distance suddenly flickered.

The King stood silent for three long seconds. The Warlord was connected to the ancient, dark magical ley lines of the continent. He could feel the massive changes in the world’s energy.

"The Rumbling Beast has fallen," the King stated slowly, his echoing voice carrying a hint of genuine surprise. "Malgreth has lost his favorite butcher."

Velanor and Catherine exchanged a wide, shocked look. Dyrroth was dead. Kairos had won his fight in the south. Luna’s arrogant smirk returned in full force. He shoved his right hand back into his pocket.

"I told you," Luna laughed, the sound carrying easily over the plains. "My friend is a good butcher. He knows how to chop meat. You are next, shadow."

The King of the Black Mist slowly turned his head back to face Luna. The Warlord’s aura did not shrink. It grew darker and colder.

"The silver splinter has entirely found its teeth," the King whispered. "The boy holds the law, but you do not have the law, little emperor. You just have a single eye. You cannot stop us."

The King slowly raised his broadsword into the air. The Queen levitated, and lunged forward, raising her dark crystal staff. Jack twitched expeditiously, rising from the dirt and crossing his poisoned daggers.

Behind them, the massive rigid army of thousands of Black Mist Knights raised their jagged greatswords. They were done waiting. The true slaughter was finally going to begin. Luna didn’t back down. The silver cosmic fire raging in his left eye burned brighter than ever.

"I don’t need the law to kill you," Luna declared, the gravity tearing the ground apart around his boots. "I have enough weight to crush your crown."

Velanor raised two massive pillars of solid granite. Catherine summoned a massive, blinding storm of sharp ice spears above her head. The ten thousand Solaris infantry braced their iron shields, roaring their battle cries into the dark sky. The two massive armies clashed, and the bloody nightmare of the Great War was unleashed on the Eastern Front.