Chapter 69 #2
“To the Offensives of Coastal, Alliance, and Sisu: answer your Chiefs.”
Then the sky split.
Thousands of portals ignited at once, forming a tight perimeter around the square like a noose. Offensives surged through in wave after wave, uniforms sharp, formation flawless, their translation already charging.
They came with order.
With power.
And with numbers.
Coastal Offensives, dressed in red attire, lined the edge of the square, hands raised, conjuring sparks that danced like starlight between their fingers.
Alliance Offensives, dressed in green, stepped forward with fork-tipped blades humming with embedded magic, edges parting like an open serpent’s jaw, meant to tear more than only flesh.
Sisu’s soldiers, dressed in white, were the quietest. They moved like ghosts, silently, faces painted in pale ash, unreadable and inhuman. Every motion promised death.
There was no doubt: with three other Collectives by his side, the Chiefs had won the numbers game.
But we came loaded with a few surprises of our own.
“Emma!” Caden’s voice rang out through the square. “Now!”
I didn’t hesitate, and stomped my right foot into the ground, as my scarlet magic surged, roared to the surface like it had been waiting for cycles to break free.
Pressure climbed my spine and bloomed across my shoulders, vibrating in my teeth and fingertips. The red energy bled from my skin like fire leaking from its core, moving with purpose. With rage.
I dropped to one knee and slammed my fist into the cracked stone, hard enough to send a jolt up my arm. Then I pressed my other hand down beside it.
And pushed. Until the earth screamed.
A deep, wrenching sound split through the square as the ground beneath us buckled and tore. A jagged fault line ripped through the courtyard from my hands, carving a massive fissure straight through the enemy's formation.
Offensives yelled at each other as they stumbled back, while their perfect ring splintered like glass under pressure. Chunks of rock collapsed into the rift. Lines were broken. Coordination vanished.
The enemy’s setup fractured—not broken, not yet—but the seams were there. They were still many. But now, they were scattered.
Before they could recover from the canyon I’d sliced into the heart of the forum, the fabric of space tore open. A dozen jagged portals ripped along the edge of the square, claws raking through reality itself.
Cara Sinclair stepped through the first one, lips curled into a grin that didn’t belong to a strategist, but to a predator.
The grin reminded me of James. Was she really his sister?
Focus Emma.
Then her Radicals came through.
They didn’t move like soldiers. They surged, pouring out of the portals like a natural disaster, like vengeance given form.
Hundreds of them.
Dust-caked. Bloodstained. Scarred from the inside out.
No polished armor. No uniformed colors. Just mismatched gear and haze-soaked weapons, and eyes that said they had nothing to lose.
They exploded into the fray, scattering like fire across dry grass. Sprinting to the perimeter, weaving between broken bodies and burning magic, and slicing through Offensives like they were swords tearing through paper.
Blood sprayed the air.
Screams followed.
It was brutal: bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed.
Charming folk.
And then all hell broke loose.
Energy tore through from every direction. Coastal magi lit the air on fire, the sharp scent of ozone burning my lungs. Sisu moved through the chaos like shadows with knives, appearing, disappearing, bodies dropping in their wake.
Our own Offensives hit back just as hard. Concussive blasts rattled the ground under my feet. Smoke burst into the air. Magic-laced sound disruptors cracked through the noise like thunder.
On my right, a pulse of power slammed into three Alliance magi and sent them flying. One of them didn’t get back up.
Somewhere to my left, a Radical tackled an Alliance Offensive mid-cast and drove him straight into the cobblestones. The sound of bone breaking cut through everything else, loud enough to make my stomach twist.
And suddenly everyone was screaming.
People were running. Falling. Bleeding.
There were no sides anymore. No clear battle lines. Only bodies colliding, magic colliding, everyone fighting the person right in front of them and hoping they were faster.
I ducked a bolt of flame that scorched the air above my head, my pulse hammering so hard it drowned out half the noise around me.
“James!” I shouted, turning mid-motion. “We need to push them into the split. If they stay coordinated, we’ll lose ground fast.”
“Working on it,” he shouted back, already in motion. I saw him across the platform, blood streaking down the side of his face, shouting orders, running faster than most people could think.
“Flank the east side.”
“Separate Coastal from Alliance.”
“Fracture the ring. Now.”
An Offensive came at me from the left. Coastal colors.
Quick, brutal, translation coiling around his fists like he thought that made him special. I barely managed to sidestep as he lunged, a compact blast clipping my ribs and sending me spinning into the cold stone.
Pain detonated, but I swallowed the scream. No time for that.
I twisted, drove my palm into the ground, and sent a shockwave of crimson energy ripping outward. It launched him off his feet and slammed him into the base of a stone column hard enough to make the structure complain.
Next.
Sisu this time: fast, quiet, and irritatingly graceful. Her sickle flashed silver as she swung. She was already mid-strike when I caught her wrist with both hands, yanked her off balance, and drove my knee into her gut.
She gasped.
I didn’t.
I slammed her into the ground and finished her with my Skindo.
My scarlet haze snapped tighter around me, like it was just as done with everyone’s bullshit as I was.
Across the battlefield, bodies moved like smoke: James, Caden, Cara, Radicals and Offensives colliding in bursts of light and blood, when another surge of light split the air, and then… Jackson portaled in, boots slamming down hard on the cracked stone, eyes blazing with fury.
Sean spun as panic flashed across his face. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
Jackson didn’t flinch. “You think I’m gonna sit this one out?”
“You’re not an Offensive!”
“So what?” Jackson snapped, already drawing his blade. “I can fight.”
Sean left his position and ran forward. “Jackson, this isn’t some street brawl, this is a war zone. You’re not trained for—”
“Don’t you dare talk to me about what I can’t handle.” Jackson straightened his back with raw defiance. “Ask Emma. She was there when the Radicals breached Cyclos’s Layers. She knows what I do when my Collective is under attack. She knows I don’t run.”
His eyes flicked to me, and I saw it. The determination. The desperate need not to be useless. I knew he was here because he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t come.
But I didn’t have time to interfere. Not when another Alliance Offensive burst out of the smoke on my left, screaming like enthusiasm was a viable combat strategy.
Great.
Instinct took over. I spun and snapped a shield into place in time to deflect the strike, the impact rattling through my arms and straight down my spine.
I answered with a burst of flame to the chest. He went down hard, and I turned again, magic flickering at my fingertips in a way that suggested it was also getting tired.
It was all chaos. Absolute, unfiltered chaos.
Something cut through the air toward my blind side.
Steel rang out.
A blade was knocked violently off course, sparks skidding across the stone as it spun away.
Petru Stoyan stepped in at my shoulder, weapon raised, body angled just enough to block the next strike meant for me.
“Try not to die,” Slava’s Leader said flatly. “It’s bad for morale.”
I glanced at the blade still scraping along the ground. “Working through my options.”
He shifted his stance, covering my flank without looking at me. “Maybe start with not standing in the way of incoming death.”
“Bold strategy,” I said, scarlet haze flaring as I turned back into the fight. “I’ll add it to the list.”
“Can you add it quicker?”
I let out a chuckle as I beheaded another Alliance Offensive. “Don’t worry. If I die, I’ll make sure I take all of these assholes with me.”
“Comforting,” he muttered. “And who’s gonna save my ass from Colt if I let you die?”
I snorted, then caught a glimpse of Rachel through the smoke and rubble. She raised both arms and hurled a towering wall of water into a cluster of Sisu, slamming them against the base of a broken statue with bone-snapping force.
My gaze followed her all the way to…Caden.
Caden—gods, Caden—was precision.
As if every move had been calculated three steps ahead of the rest of us. He didn’t waste energy. Didn’t show emotion. Simply moved through the fight like it was a game he’d already won.
His Chela in hand, only one punch took out three Coastal magi. A blink later, sparring with two others like he had nothing to lose and no intention of letting them walk away.
For a second, I couldn’t look away.
He was still at the far edge of the square, surrounded by at least twenty Offensives hammering at him from all sides, but he was holding his own.
And then everything changed.
A chill rushed through the air like something ancient had stirred. My blood ran cold.
I saw it too late.
One of the Chiefs stepped through the smoke, cloaked in obsidian armor. His face was half-shadowed beneath the hood, but his eyes burned. Not with power.
With intent.
And his arm was already raised.
His haze moved like an invisible whirlwind, like something that didn’t obey the rules of this world.
Headed straight for Caden.
Time didn’t slow, it fractured.
“Caden!” I screamed; the sound ripped from my lungs like it cost me something vital.
I reached for my energy, about to throw up a shield, when Stephen barreled in from the left, a streak of gray across the blood-soaked battlefield, cloak billowing like wings caught in a hurricane.
His body collided with Caden’s, one hand slamming into his chest to push him out of the way.
“Don’t you fucking touch my son!” he roared, like thunder through the square.
And then the Chief’s haze struck.
It hit Stephen full-on—head, chest, heart.
The sound wasn’t loud.
It was soft.
Final.
Like a breath being stolen from the world.
Stephen didn’t scream. He didn’t even flinch.
He just…stopped.
His body seized for a single, unbearable heartbeat, arms still outstretched.
Then he dropped. Like gravity remembered him all at once.
Stone met bone in a sickening crack as he hit the ground hard, cloak folding around him like a shroud.
I stood there frozen, the scream lodged somewhere between my chest and throat, trapped by the sheer impossibility of what I'd just seen.
Stephen Stone—the first magus I’d ever met, the man who’d shaped more of my life than I liked to admit—was gone.