The battlefield screamed.
Steel clashed, arcane sigils burned across the earth, and the unnatural wail of twisted creatures echoed through the trees. The camp was a warzone lit in pulses of red and blue light, streaked with silver fire and the black smoke of exploded traps.
Sarissa ducked beneath the swipe of a metal-stitched limb, countering with a strike to its exposed core. Her gauntlet cracked the plating, then detonated a burst of kinetic force that sent the creature crumpling into a pile of slag. Behind her, a group of Shooting Star mages poured sustained fire into a knot of advancing monsters.
Miles moved like a shadow through the chaos, cutting through with brutal precision. Each swing of his katana severed limbs or heads, and his coat swirled behind him, tattered at the hem but untouched by blood. He was looking, always looking, for the thread in the madness. The hand pulling the strings.
