The teleportation light faded, and the screams hit us immediately.
We appeared on a scorched field littered with broken trees, ruined carts, and the corpses of soldiers—some fresh, some burned to ash. Black smoke rolled over everything, thick enough to choke on.
The air smelled like fire, blood, and something wrong. Like rotting metal and sulfur fused together.
We were the first wave.
My squad and ten others—around fifty academy mages, barely trained—stood behind the front line of 2,000 knights. They were already in formation, shields up, spears grounded, eyes locked on the valley ahead.
Some were shaking. Others were praying.
And then the earth trembled.
We heard the hooves first.
But what emerged from the smoke wasn't a beast.
It was a Rank 6 Demon—and it towered above the battlefield like a nightmare made of flesh, shadow, and bone.
Its body was malformed—part centaur, part burning skeleton, with ribs that pulsed like a second heart and smoke pouring endlessly from its jaw. Its eyes glowed with a yellow, hunger-starved light, and behind it, dozens of lesser demonic beasts stalked the battlefield like hunting dogs.
The pressure alone nearly knocked me to the ground.
> "Don't freeze," barked our squad leader, drawing her blade. "We hold this line!"
The knights charged.
The demon stepped forward, and reality bent around it.
---
The first clash was chaos.
Knights were flung like dolls. Swords shattered against its hide. Spells exploded harmlessly against the demon's aura.
I stayed low, behind the front ranks, observing—thinking.
> "Its left leg drags slightly. The smoke from its ribs weakens when it prepares a spell…"
I passed the pattern to the squad leader, who relayed it. Our counterattack landed—barely enough to stagger the demon for a heartbeat. But that heartbeat saved lives.
Still, I could feel it—I was reaching my limit.
The mana in my body flickered. My lungs burned. My blood felt like it was boiling.
And then, in the middle of the chaos—
I broke through.
The pressure. The desperation. The death.
It all compressed my mind into one unshakable truth: I refused to die weak again.
My soul surged. Mana flowed like a storm.
A circle began to form inside me—slow at first, then stabilizing like a spinning gear, locking into place.
> The First Circle.
My vision sharpened. I could feel the battlefield, the spells, the rhythms of energy around me.
I reached into my satchel and grabbed the three enhancement pills I'd bought months ago—scraped together from potion shop wages and leftover ingredients.
I crushed them in my mouth.
Pain tore through me. Mana exploded.
Suddenly, I could match the output of a Second Circle Mage—if only for a while.
I didn't hesitate.
I fired off a layered spell—a triple-pulse mana blast targeting the demon's right knee. My timing was perfect. It staggered again, long enough for a squad of knights to strike.
The captain looked at me for the first time. Not as a burden.
But as a mage.
---
Then it turned.
The demon shrieked, and its body began to change—growing larger, splitting open, revealing molten cores of corrupted mana. It swiped its whip again—
And over half the army vanished.
Burned.
Crushed.
Devoured.
We were losing.
I activated the teleportation rune I had carved into my bracer weeks ago—my emergency escape. I watched the light begin to gather.
> "I'll survive," I told myself. "I'll live to fight another day."
And then—
A horn.
From the ridge.
The main army had arrived.
Thousands of elite mages. High-circle warriors. Siege beasts. The sky itself cracked open as spell-fire rained down onto the battlefield.
The teleportation light flickered... and stopped.
I looked up at the descending banners of Veldoria's real forces.
And I clenched my fists.
> "No more running."