The ten minutes of downtime before Round Three felt less like a break and more like sitting in the waiting room of an executioner.
The adrenaline from the second wave was slowly wearing off, leaving behind a deep, aching exhaustion that settled into the marrow of my bones. But we didn't have time to complain. We had a war chest of 4,000 coins, a mysterious Overclock Module, and a sky that was rapidly turning the color of a fresh bruise.
"Look up," Aria murmured, her obsidian eyes tracking the swirling, synthetic clouds above our fortress. "The fog isn't just gathering on the horizon anymore. It's accumulating vertically. The system isn't going to just march them to our front door this time."
'Flying monsters,' I thought, my stomach doing a slow, unpleasant flip.
'Of course. Because a grounded horde wasn't stressful enough.'
Serene stood by the glowing blue Fort Core, her fingers swiping rapidly across the Faction Shop interface.
"If they attack from the air, Trent's shield wall at the gate is effectively useless. The artificial archers can only track so many targets before they get overwhelmed."
"Ballistas," Trent suggested, wiping sweat and goblin blood from his forehead.
"Heavy anti-air."
"Done," Serene said, not missing a beat.
Bzzzzrt! Bzzzzrt!
Four massive, automated mana ballistas materialized on the four corner towers of our fortress. They looked like oversized crossbows forged from dark steel, humming with pre-loaded lightning bolts. That was 1,000 coins gone in a blink.
"I need barricades for the breached gate," Trent added.
"Spiked ones. If the ground wave is as big as I think it will be, I need physical choke points."
Bzzzzrt!
Another 500 coins vanished, and a series of vicious, interlocking iron barricades sprouted in front of the shattered main gate.
"Potions," I reminded her, leaning heavily on my rusty sword.
"Buy them now. We can't afford a mana drought."
Four crystal vials appeared on the pedestal. 200 coins.
Serene looked at the remaining balance. 2,300 Coins. She took the glowing [Core Overclock Module] from her pocket and pressed it directly against the Fort Core.
"I'm initiating the merge," Serene announced, her voice tightening with a mixture of anticipation and raw power.
"The system says it will take a few minutes to fully funnel the remaining 2,300 coins into my personal mana reserves. During the transfer, I'll be stationary. You all need to hold the line until I'm fully charged."
"We've got you," Lira said, her hands already glowing with golden support magic.
I grabbed one of the mana potions, popped the cork with my thumb, and chugged it. It tasted like heavily carbonated battery acid mixed with mint, but the effect was instantaneous. A freezing, electric shockwave blasted through my veins, refilling my depleted core and flushing the heavy fatigue from my limbs. I let out a long, shuddering exhale, feeling my senses sharpen to a razor's edge.
[Oh, look at you, getting all juiced up,] Nyxaris purred in my mind, her spiritual presence practically vibrating against my hip.
[I can feel the artificial mana rushing through your circuits. It's cheap, but it'll do. Are we going to cut the sky open now?]
'We're going to try not to die, Nyx,' I replied, rolling my shoulders.
'Keep your appetite in check. We need precision.'
[Precision is just a fancy word for boring!] she complained loudly.
⟨ATTENTION.⟩
The system's voice shattered the brief quiet, echoing down from the bruised sky.
⟨Ten-minute resting period has concluded.⟩
⟨Round Three will commence in 10 seconds.⟩
"Positions!" Trent roared, taking his place behind the new iron barricades. Lira stood firmly between him and Serene, who was currently bathed in a blinding column of blue light as the Fort Core transferred raw, unfiltered energy into her body.
I jogged back to the right flank wall, while Aria elegantly climbed the stairs to the left.
⟨5... 4... 3...⟩
The sky began to scream.
It wasn't a metaphor. A high-pitched, ear-splitting screech tore through the synthetic clouds, a sound so loud it physically hurt my eardrums.
⟨2... 1...⟩
⟨Wave Three: Engaged.⟩
The clouds ripped open, and the sky turned black.
Hundreds of Corrupted Wyverns dove from the fog. They were the size of small horses, covered in sickly gray scales, with leathery wings that beat the air with concussive force. Their tails ended in barbed, venomous spikes, and their eyes burned with that familiar, corrupted purple light.
And on the ground, the fog rolled back to reveal an army of massive, heavily armored Troll Vanguard. They carried tower shields of their own and massive siege hammers.
"Fire!" Aria commanded.
The four automated ballistas on our towers thundered to life. Massive bolts of crackling lightning shot into the sky, piercing through the Wyverns. KRA-KOOM! Three of the beasts exploded into ash and raining scales, but dozens more simply dodged the slow-moving bolts and plummeted toward our walls.
"They're too fast for the siege weapons!"
Lira shrieked as a Wyvern swooped down, its talons scraping against the magical barrier protecting the courtyard.
I didn't wait for them to land. I kicked off the parapet, launching myself into the air just as a Wyvern dove for the artificial archers on my wall.
Judgement of Heaven. First Form.
I brought Nyxaris around in a vicious, upward arc. The pale white Sword Aura hissed into existence.
Severing the Gale.
The aura sliced cleanly through the Wyvern's right wing, amputating it at the joint. The beast shrieked in agony, its flight path completely ruined, and it crashed into the dirt outside the walls with a bone-crunching thud.
Instantly, a stream of dark spiritual energy ripped from its dying body and funneled directly into my sword.
[DELICIOUS! MORE! GIMME MORE OF THE BIG LIZARDS!] Nyxaris cackled like a maniac.
I landed smoothly on the wall, but I barely had time to breathe. Three more Wyverns were diving straight at me, their jaws unhinged, spewing globs of corrosive green acid.
I rolled out of the way, the acid sizzling and melting the stone where I had just been standing.
Down on the ground, Trent was already taking a massive beating. The Troll Vanguard had reached the barricades, swinging their siege hammers with terrifying force. The iron spikes were bending, and Trent was gritting his teeth, his shield sparking under the heavy blows.
"There are too many of them!" Trent yelled, his voice straining.
"We can't hold the ground and the air!"
"Who said we were holding it alone?"
Aria's voice floated across the battlefield, calm, melodic, and chillingly dark.
I glanced over at the left wall. The Silver Rose wasn't weaving her usual shadow curses. She was standing with her arms outstretched, her eyes completely pitch black, bleeding a thick, suffocating aura of death.
"Waste not, want not," Aria smiled, a beautifully terrifying expression.
She slammed her hands down.
«Danse Macabre»
The ground outside the fortress trembled. The dirt began to shift and churn.
The corpses of the armored Hobgoblins and the shattered remnants of the Obsidian Golems from Wave Two didn't just fade away into pixels. Under Aria's terrifying necromantic authority, the dark, corrupted mana lingering in their remains violently reignited.
A collective gasp echoed from my team as dozens of dead Hobgoblins ripped themselves out of the dirt. Their eyes didn't glow yellow anymore; they burned with an eerie, hollow silver light. Thin, almost invisible strings of shadow connected their broken bodies directly to Aria's fingertips.
"Defend the gate," Aria commanded softly.
The undead Hobgoblins turned around and threw themselves violently at the incoming Troll Vanguard. It was absolute, gruesome chaos. The dead didn't feel pain. They didn't care about shattered bones. They piled onto the Trolls, stabbing, biting, and tearing at their armor, effectively stalling the entire ground assault.
'She is a literal horror movie villain,' I thought, watching her orchestrate the dead with the grace of a ballet dancer. 'I love having her on my team.'
But my relief was short-lived.
With the ground temporarily stalled, the system seemed to compensate. The Wyverns in the sky completely abandoned the left flank and converged on my side of the wall.
A shadow fell over me. I looked up to see six Wyverns diving in perfect, coordinated formation, their talons extended, acid bubbling in their throats.
"Rias! Get off the wall!" Lira screamed from below.
I couldn't. If I abandoned the right flank, they would pour into the courtyard and interrupt Serene's power transfer. She needed another two minutes.
'I have to hold them,' I thought, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I engaged the Rune of Mana Compression to its absolute maximum. My circuits burned, screaming in protest as I forced an absurd amount of mana into Nyxaris's hilt.
[Boy, what are you doing?!] Nyxaris yelled, sensing the instability.
[You're flooding me! You can't compress this much intent into a single strike! It's going to rupture!]
She was right. 'Judgement of Heaven' required absolute clarity. It required perfect alignment. But right now, surrounded by six diving monsters, there was no single line to cut. There was no clean vector.
If I used 'Sky Severance', I would kill two of them, and the other four would rip me to shreds.
'I don't need a clean cut,' I realized, my crimson eyes locked on the descending swarm.
'I don't need a perfect line. I just need a blender.'
I stopped trying to visualize the perfect, sovereign-level technique. I stopped trying to force my aura into a single, razor-sharp edge.
Instead, I gripped the hilt with both hands, planted my feet, and let the raw, violently compressed aura bleed.
"Come on, Nyx!" I roared.
"Stop whining and spin!"
I released the mental dam holding the aura back. The pale white light didn't form a neat blade extension. Instead, it erupted from the rusty steel like a localized hurricane. Raw, unrefined, and incredibly violent.
I spun my body, dragging the sword in a massive, chaotic circle above my head.
Raw Aura Release: Phantom Helix.
The resulting explosion of force wasn't elegant. It was a brutal, roaring tornado of slicing wind and pale light. The expanding shockwave of raw aura caught all six Wyverns mid-dive.
It didn't just cut them; it shredded them.
The sheer concussive force of the unrefined aura ripped through their scales, shattering wings and snapping bones. The sky rained black blood and severed limbs as the beasts were violently repelled, crashing into the courtyard and outside the walls in a heap of mangled flesh.
I dropped to one knee, panting heavily, my muscles screaming in absolute agony. The rusty sword in my hand was smoking, the raw aura having scorched the air around it.
[...You absolute lunatic,] Nyxaris whispered in my mind, sounding completely breathless and utterly amazed. [You just brute-forced an area-of-effect aura strike without blowing off your own arms. It was the ugliest, least refined thing I have ever seen...]
She paused, and I could feel the spiritual energy from the six dead Wyverns rushing into her core, bloating her with power.
[...Do it again.]
I let out a ragged, tired laugh, using the sword as a cane to push myself back up.
"Gladly."
I looked up at the bruised sky. There were dozens of Wyverns left, circling like vultures, ready for the next dive. Down below, Aria's undead army was starting to crumble under the heavy siege hammers of the Trolls.
The battle was reaching its boiling point. We were outnumbered, exhausted, and running out of time.
But as I looked back toward the Fort Core, the blinding blue light surrounding Serene finally began to recede.
The Overclock Module was done.
Serene stepped forward. Her eyes weren't emerald anymore; they were glowing like molten gold. The air around her didn't just warp with heat; it literally ignited, the stone beneath her boots turning black from her mere presence.
"You held the line, Leonhart," Serene said, her voice echoing with a terrifying, layered resonance of thousands of coins worth of raw, compressed mana. She raised a single hand toward the sky.
"Now," the future Flame Empress smiled, a look of pure, unadulterated destruction on her face.
"Let me show you how to clear a sky."