Chapter 571: 571

Without missing a beat, a sharp ice pick, sharp as a surgeon’s blade, shot like a crystalline arrow towards Vorenza. But halfway across the warped space, it was violently torn asunder by a scaling red web, strands of crimson energy ripping through the frozen projectile with ease.

The other mage, leveraging the chaos, made a sharp, grabbing gesture. The very ’earth’ of the realm seemed to lurch and groan, a sudden, violent displacement of space yanking Vorenza forward. In the blink of an eye, she was pulled directly into the path of another colossal ice pick, this one manifesting directly before her, its tip gleaming with cold finality. It plunged through her form with gruesome efficiency.

The mages, a fleeting flicker of triumph in their eyes, swiftly distanced themselves. Yet, the pierced Vorenza didn’t bleed or collapse; instead, she fractured into a thousand shimmering pieces, like a mirror shattering in agonizing slow motion, each shard reflecting a distorted image of the mages themselves. The next dizzying moment, they instinctively looked up, only to see the true Vorenza. She hung suspended upside down directly above them, her chilling smile still intact, her four eyes glinting with malicious amusement.

Back at the tent where the mage had been left to recover, a jolt went through him as he sensed his colleagues charging into the space gap. His eyes snapped open, his mind still thrumming with residual static but clearing fast. He wasn’t at his peak, but he was certainly better than before, the immediate paralysis having lifted. A surge of concern, mingled with professional duty, propelled him. Without a moment’s hesitation, he shot out of the tent, covering the distance to the shimmering rift in seconds. Seeing his comrades already locked in what appeared to be combat within the swirling portal, he plunged in.

But contrary to his expectation, the moment he dove through, he found himself not in a chaotic battle, but abruptly in a claustrophobic chamber filled with dense, silvery webs, which pulsed with a faint, disturbing light. A sudden chill, not of temperature but of profound isolation, enveloped him. Where are they? This isn’t right! he thought, his eyes scanning the impossible confines.

Meanwhile, back in the realm where the two mages and Vorenza had been locked in their bizarre duel, they were met with the startling sound of glass shattering, sharp and impossibly loud. Both watched with wide eyes, their brief satisfaction turning to stark disbelief, as the very fabric of the web-realm around them fractured and broke apart, cracking like a fragile pane of ice. In an instant, they were no longer in the alien space but were instead re-welcomed by the familiar night sky of their own world, the sounds of battle now roaring clearly, terrifyingly, in the background. They looked around frantically, their hearts sinking; the gaping space gap was nowhere in sight, as if it had never existed.

The two mages stared at each other, their minds reeling from the abrupt shift. It took only moments for the horrifying realization to click into place, widening their eyes. They’d been played. A cold fury ignited within them as they spun and rushed back towards their tent, every frantic step feeling like an eternity under the surreal, dream-like battle. When they finally burst inside, panting, the tent was empty. Their teammate was nowhere to be seen.

Without a second thought, both mages shot skyward, tearing through the air with twin sonic booms that echoed across the chaotic battlefield. Kaelen, amidst his own frantic efforts to understand and counter Phantom’s influence, snapped his gaze towards them. His tech-core spun, churning through possibilities for what could make two sixth-tier mages react with such desperate urgency, their composure utterly shattered.

Their faces still etched with raw, simmering anger, the two mages now hovered before the colossal, churning portal to the Abyss. The anger, however, visibly dimmed once they stood before its yawning maw, replaced by a chilling dread. She’s in there, they both knew, waiting. Their instincts screamed at them to plunge in, to save their teammate, to exact revenge.

“It’s a trap, isn’t it?” the taller mage, Lyra, rasped, her voice tight with suppressed fury. “She wants us to follow.”

The other mage, Korvin, his jaw clenched, nodded slowly. “Of course she does. She lured us into that illusion, split us. She wants to divide and conquer, picking us off one by one.” His gaze hardened, fixing on the swirling vortex. “But our duty—”

“Our duty is to the Empire, not a foolish suicide mission,” Lyra cut him off, her own anger warring with pragmatic dread. “She wants us in there. If we both go, it plays right into her hands. And if only one returns… which one of us will it be, Korvin? Are you willing to gamble everything, our very existence, on a single reckless dive?”

Korvin let out a heavy sigh, the sound swallowed by the din of the distant battle and the unholy hum of the vortex. The image of their trapped comrade, mage Theron, flashed in his mind—arrogant, headstrong Theron, who had charged in without a second thought, now undoubtedly caught in the enemy’s web. Yet, even as he pictured Theron’s usual reckless grin.

Korvin couldn’t help but notice the subtle shift in Lyra’s gaze, the way her fingers had briefly, almost imperceptibly, tightened on her staff when Theron’s name was first mentioned. The cold logic of the situation, the almost certainty of defeat if they charged blindly, forced his hand. His fists clenched, then relaxed. “Inform Vellok of the new situation,” he commanded, his voice strained but firm, already turning away from the captivating threat. “I’ll head back to get the fortress under control. We need to secure our perimeter and prepare for a sustained assault, not throw ourselves into a meat grinder.”

Lyra watched him go, the broad back of his robes disappearing into the chaos of the besieged fortress. The moment he was out of sight, the carefully constructed facade of composure shattered. The staff slipped from her nerveless fingers, clattering on the blood-slicked stone. A raw, guttural whimper escaped her, a sound utterly unlike the commanding mage she had been moments before. Tears, hot and uncontrollable, streamed down her face, blurring the terrifying image of the vortex.

It wasn’t just the fear of the trap, or the duty to the Empire, that broke her. It was the crushing weight of leaving him behind, the silent, desperate hope she’d harbored for a future that now seemed impossibly distant. She sank to her knees, clutching her head, the icy tendrils of despair finally coiling around her heart. It was hard to believe this weeping, broken figure was the one who had so recently championed cold reason over reckless courage.

Meanwhile, Kaelen’s pursuit ground to a halt the instant the mage dove into the space gap; his constructs’ precise tracking of the anomalous energy signature was lost. Sensing his window had closed, Phantom knew it was time to withdraw. The dream-spun stage he had so artfully constructed shattered into countless invisible fragments, and those drawn into its surreal embrace were abruptly released, their minds jarringly snapping back to the brutal reality of the battlefield.

Kaelen’s constructs, mere blocks away from Rattan’s tent, dissipated the moment Phantom’s grip released everyone. Chaos, pure and unadulterated, washed over the camp as soldiers and mages alike reeled, blinking, clutching their heads, and slowly gaining control of their surroundings. Rattan, ever the opportunist, seamlessly blended into the recovering mages, mimicking their dazed confusion. Chief, his figure now entirely concealed within his robe, cast a long, unreadable glance at Rattan, his thoughts a dark enigma.

Kaelen construct who’s target vanished, hovered motionless for a brief moment before its form dissipated, drawn back to his tactical command. Kaelen received the diagnostic feedback from his constructs, but his mind was already pulled by a different, more urgent concern. He took up into the night sky, directly above the tent of the sixth-tier mages, his attention fixed on their strategic position.

As the sun began its slow ascent, painting the bruised sky with hues of bruised purple and angry orange, a truly bizarre scene unfolded across the ravaged battlefield. The Abyss demons, which had raged with such feral abandon just moments before, were now inexplicably falling back, a tide of retreat. No one pursued them, no victorious war cries spurred a chase—save for the solitary figure of Korvin. The sixth-tier mage, his face a mask of cold fury, seemed compelled to unleash his pent-up rage on anything that still moved.

From the heavens, a hail of razor-sharp ice spears began to relentlessly descend. No demon was safe from this merciless assault. They shrieked as they were either pierced through, their corrupted forms impaled, or instantly frozen solid, only to be shattered into countless glittering fragments by the panicked, stampeding forms of their comrades desperately rushing to find cover. Korvin’s silent, icy wrath carved a path of devastation through their retreat, a sign of his shattered composure.

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