On the main northwestern defense line of Khagurem, the battle had reached a fever pitch.

  Lord Eric swung his massive war hammer, "Heart of the Mountain." Every strike felt like a localized earthquake. The hammerhead slammed squarely into the skull of an ogre that had just scrambled onto the battlements, pulverizing both the thick helmet and the cranium instantly. Plasma and bone fragments splattered everywhere.

  "Hold the battlements! Push every last one of these bastards back down!" Eric shrieked, his voice so loud it numbed the eardrums.

  Behind him, dozens of "Anvil Guards"—the Lord’s most elite personal retinue—formed a small but unyielding defensive line. They raised their shields, ramming back lunging gnolls and severing the limbs of ghouls with their battle-axes. Every man was covered in wounds; their armor was riddled with claw marks and deep dents, blood long since mingled with sweat.

  Yet, no matter how formidable they were, they still appeared insignificant. High above, gargoyles continuously dived, dragging soldiers away from the ramparts. In the rear, the mage units fell one by one, their mana long since exhausted.

  This section of the defense was crumbling inch by inch.

  Simultaneously, on the right-wing defense line.

  The wind howled, and the night sky was stained red by firelight. This place, too, had long since turned into a purgatory. Shattered stone slabs, charred remains, and mud soaked in blood—every inch of earth was a cocktail of death and despair.

  "The monsters are coming up again! Fall back! Fall back!"

  A soldier screamed at the top of his lungs, his hands trembling and his weapon coated in gore.

  Along the collapsed siege ladders and slopes piled high with corpses, wave after wave of monsters surged up frantically. Terror was tearing through the soldiers' will, and the ranks had long since dissolved into a scattered mess. Everyone was struggling desperately to survive amidst the panic.

  In the middle of this chaos, Yggdrasil stood at the edge of the city wall.

  He did not move.

  His stout, burly frame was like a monolith rooted deep within the earth. He allowed the gale to whip through his long brown hair and silver-white beard, remaining utterly motionless. His rounded belly rose and fell with deep breaths, as if drawing power from heaven and earth itself.

  Under the terrified gazes of the surrounding soldiers, he slowly drove his great-axe into the battlement. He opened his right hand, and a pulsing, crimson mana manifested in his palm.

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  His gaze was frigid, his voice low, like awakening a slumbering abyss:

  "—Purgatory Fire Ring."

  BOOM!

  Accompanying the incantation, a blinding red light erupted from Yggdrasil’s palm. In the next instant, with him as the epicenter, a ring of roaring flames exploded outward, like a god opening an eye of fury.

  A ring of fire nearly a hundred meters in diameter swept across the entire rampart.

  The dwarven soldiers closed their eyes in terror, awaiting the inevitable incineration. But in the next moment, they found the flames flowing around them like a gentle tide, merely brushing past their faces without leaving a trace of heat.

  But the monsters... were not so lucky.

  The moment the fire ring touched them, incineration turned into total decomposition.

  Gnolls, ghouls, orcs... none were spared. Their roars didn't even have time to form complete syllables before their bodies peeled away layer by layer, disintegrating into black dust. Not even a skeleton remained.

  In a few short seconds, the monster-filled defense line was cleared, leaving only glowing red stone bricks that had begun to melt, radiating a terrifying heat into the night air.

  "...This..."

  A young soldier, Bronn, stood frozen in place.

  Just moments ago, he had been swinging his axe against an orc, watching the beast pounce toward him. Then, in a flash, that massive body had disintegrated into ash that drifted lightly onto his armor—cold, yet feeling like something out of a dream.

  His breath was shallow, his voice trembling as a broken whisper escaped his throat:

  "No... impossible... it was... it was just there..."

  Then, his knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, his battle-axe nearly slipping from his hand.

  More soldiers were similarly dazed.

  Some retreated with trembling steps, bumping into comrades without even noticing; some stood with mouths agape, unable to make a sound; others simply broke down and wept.

  No one was physically injured, yet not a single person could claim to be unscathed.

  For they all understood—what had happened in that moment transcended the boundaries of "war." This was not a power mortal men could comprehend, but a presence that was rewriting reality itself.

  At the center of the fire ring, Yggdrasil’s chest heaved violently. His forehead was slick with cold sweat, and his face was pale. He stood upon the molten stone bricks, his back broad and heavy, yet looking like a cold star hanging high in the night—solitary and distant.

  Behind him, Balin stared in a daze. He watched the stout, burly body of his lover, the rounded belly rising and falling with gasps for air, the silver-white beard reflecting the firelight—the silhouette was both familiar and yet so strange it bordered on the divine.

  A violent throb shook Balin’s chest, and his eyes grew warm.

  "...This is the kind of person I fell in love with..." he murmured, his tone a mix of reverence and adoration.

  Hundreds of meters away on the main northwestern defense line, Eric and his guards were equally stunned.

  His mouth hung open as he looked at the right-wing wall. What had been submerged by monsters was now empty, leaving only embers and molten stone.

  "What was that..." The guard captain's voice was strained, as if something were choking him.

  Eric did not answer. He knew that was no spell the guild’s mage units could cast. That level of precision and terror far surpassed the mundane.

  He only stared fixedly at the dwarf standing in the center of the fire ring, bathed in the light of the flames.

  A foreign emotion crept into his heart for the first time—in this war that had already felt hopeless, a tremor of mixed reverence and confusion began to take root.

  The tide of battle is shifting, but not in a way anyone expected. Yggdrasil has unleashed a power that blurs the line between mortal and divine. For the soldiers of Khagurem, hope is returning, but it comes wrapped in a terrifying mystery.

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