Elven Lies II Chapter 157: When The Fortress Fall

CHAPTER 157

WHEN THE FORTRESS FALLS

Hans moved before the echoes of his own command faded.

Light burst from his wings as he charged forward, the ground cracking under the sudden force of his takeoff. The blade in his hand no longer pointed at Aelok. It pointed at the pale warlock standing before him.

Anfaleen did not retreat.

He watched.

That was all.

With a flick of a finger,

Seven concentric circles appeared.

Something pure black—an invisible field with unimaginable speed—slammed into Hans mid-flight.

Like a tight slap across the smug face.

“A boy who isn’t weaned off his mother. A mere grade sixty dared—”

Zilong arrived an instant later.

His presence registered instantly.

Anfaleen’s eyes shifted as if it was stalking Zilong from the beginning.

Instantly, Anfaleen stepped back six paces.

And the same black thing covered Zilong’s path.

The Red Demon Commander crashed into it like a falling siege tower. Six armoured arms tore through the field, each strike upheaving the stones that had survived centuries of siege, flying towards Anfaleen.

Yet the warlock stepped only the places where the debris didn’t pass.

But that gave him a fraction of a second.

And that was what Zilong needed.

One fist drove straight toward Anfaleen’s skull.

The warlock’s robe shifted.

He was no longer there.

The blow struck empty ground.

The impact split the ground in a spiderweb of fractures.

Zilong twisted immediately, two arms rising to guard while the others swung again, each movement carrying the weight of a collapsing wall.

“You are now unnecessary, foreigner.” Anfaleen said quietly.

Dark mana rippled outward.

The air around him thickened like ink poured into water.

Zilong’s next strike slowed.

Not stopped.

Slowed.

As if the world itself resisted the motion.

Hans cut through it.

The light aura around his blade surged brighter as he crossed the distance, cleaving downward through the invisible resistance.

The spell broke with a sharp crack.

Anfaleen finally moved.

His fingers traced a small arc through the air.

Dark sigils unfolded instantly—concentric circles stacking over one another like the rings of a closing eye.

The air hardened.

Hans’ descending blade struck it.

The impact rang like steel hitting a cathedral bell.

A barrier.

Not raised in panic.

Constructed with surgical precision.

Steel met shadow.

The courtyard exploded with light.

The main keep was collapsing. Yet across the wider field, the battle surged to life.

Bryan’s maces rose and fell like thunderheads collapsing into the earth. Each strike crushed bone and armour alike, sending fragments skidding across the fractured ground.

Adrian answered with his space-breaking attacks.

Forks of white fire ripped across the sky before slamming into the enemy ranks, turning entire formations into smoking silhouettes.

Xandor’s Krosh mirage scattered the battlefield, phantom soldiers charging through positions that no longer existed.

Amid the chaos—

Xandor walked.

Stone shattered around him, blades flashed past him, yet his pace never changed.

A warlord lunged.

His blade moved once.

The man dropped before the motion finished.

Another came from behind.

The shadow beneath Xandor rose and struck first.

He did not even turn.

His eyes lifted instead toward the centre of the battlefield.

Theodred.

Zilong.

Anfaleen.

And above them—

The Node.

The stone structure hummed faintly now, its old bones responding to the presence it had been built to serve.

Xandor’s gaze lingered there.

Measuring.

Then he moved again.

Unnoticed.

Unharmed.

He watched the exchange without slowing his pace.

Bryan crushed another warlord beside him.

Adrian’s white fire burned through the flanks.

The infected saw Eclipse butchering the warlords like nothing.

It suddenly became easy.

Victory should have been building.

But it wasn’t.

Xandor’s eyes flicked once more toward the centre.

Toward the warlock.

Toward the slow accumulation of power that only he seemed to notice.

He exhaled quietly.

“Still the same,” he murmured.

And then he turned slightly—just enough to redirect the next wave of enemies away from the centre rather than towards it.

Not retreat.

Not advance.

Just enough.

To keep the fight from ending too quickly.

Zilong roared in the centre.

Two of his arms seized a broken pillar and tore it free from the ground. The massive slab of stone spun through the air like a thrown mountain.

Anfaleen lifted one hand.

The pillar stopped.

Not shattered.

Stopped.

Even before it could touch his barrier.

Dark threads of mana wrapped around it like skeletal fingers before hurling the stone back across the field.

Zilong smashed through it without slowing.

Fragments rained down across the battlefield.

Hans descended through them.

His blade flashed.

Light split the warlock’s barrier in a crescent arc that carved open the ground behind him.

Anfaleen tilted his head slightly.

“You really remind me of him,” he murmured.

Then the counterattack came.

Dark sigils unfolded around him in silent rings.

Seven circles.

Each one older than the last.

The courtyard dimmed as the spells took shape.

The barrier was repairing.

Zilong’s six arms slammed into the forming barrier again and again, the impacts echoing through the fortress like artillery fire.

But the warlock did not move.

His gaze remained on Hans.

“This is not your stage,” he said softly.

The next spell fired.

A column of black force erupted upward, tearing through the sky where Hans had been a moment earlier.

Hans twisted midair, a sphere of light rotating.

Armis.

Protecting.

Then his wings burned brighter as he redirected the momentum into another dive.

Light-filled Steel struck the barrier again.

Cracks spread across the dark mana field.

For the first time—

Anfaleen’s expression sharpened.

“Light always contradicts darkness,” Anfaleen murmured.

“But contradiction will not assure you a victory—”

The second strike came from below.

Yet efforts seemed wasted.

Zilong saw it.

The barrier was repairing faster than they could break it.

So he stopped trying to break it.

Instead—

The Red Demon Commander drove his four lower arms deep into the fractured ground beneath the barrier.

Stone cracked.

Then tore.

His upper arms seized the edge of the dark field itself, fingers digging into the mana shell like claws into armour.

For a moment, the world resisted him.

Then it moved.

The entire courtyard lurched upward as Zilong ripped a massive slab of earth free from the foundation of the keep.

Barrier and stone came up together.

The dark dome still clung to the land like a second skin.

Zilong rose with it.

The shattered mass rested across his shoulders—an entire section of battlefield held by raw strength alone.

For a heartbeat, even gravity seemed uncertain which way the world should fall.

Even the allies and enemies took the pause.

Something unimaginable was happening.

The world was stilled.

And then it moved as he stepped forward.

Left foot planted.

His body twisted like a titan preparing to throw a mountain.

Then he hurled it.

The barrier-wrapped earth tore through the air and smashed into the high ceiling of the main keep.

The impact detonated through the fortress.

A fracture split the stone above them like lightning trapped in rock.

One tower collapsed.

Then another.

Foundation support pillars shattered as the Node’s outer structure screamed under the strain of colliding mana and falling stone.

Anfaleen’s eyes lifted.

His body was levitating.

A bit disoriented,

But unharmed.

He was smashed, but what he felt wasn’t fear.

Assessment.

The ceiling finally gave way.

A wall of stone crashed into the chamber as the entire keep began to collapse inward.

Sky burst through the wound in the fortress.

Wind roared downward.

Dust, smoke, and shattered masonry spiralled into the open air.

The battlefield was no longer a chamber.

It was a crater.

Hans rose with the surge of air, wings cutting through the falling debris.

Zilong roared beneath him.

And Anfaleen stepped backward into the storm of collapsing stone, as if the destruction were merely inconvenient weather.

Beyond the shattered courtyard, the rest of the fortress began to die.

Entire corridors folded inward as the main keep fractured from its foundations. Walls that had held for centuries split open like brittle bone.

Chris saw it first.

“Move!” he barked.

The infected did not need to be told twice.

Dozens of altered bodies surged through the collapsing halls, some running, some limping, some dragging others with them as the roof above began to peel apart.

Delimira ran at the front.

Her hands struck the stone floor once.

Roots of pale mana burst through the fractured ground, bracing a collapsing archway just long enough for the survivors to pass beneath it.

“Out!” she shouted.

Behind them, another section of the keep tore free and vanished into the widening crater.

On the outer flank, Eclipse moved differently.

Bryan did not retreat.

He advanced.

His maces rose and fell as he forced the enemy line backward, clearing space rather than fleeing it.

Adrian followed, arcs of white lightning fired through the air to collapse the remaining warlocks who tried to block their path.

Amid the chaos—

Xandor walked.

Stone collapsed around him, dust swirling through the broken courtyard, yet his pace never changed.

His blade moved once.

Another guardian fell.

Another tried to intercept him.

The shadow beneath Xandor rose and struck first.

He did not look back.

His eyes lifted briefly toward the open sky above the ruins.

Toward the duel.

Theodred.

Zilong.

Anfaleen.

The Node trembled above them like a wounded heart.

Xandor watched it pulse.

Measuring.

Calculating.

Then he turned slightly.

Just enough to guide the remaining Eclipse fighters toward the widening breach in the fortress wall.

Not retreat.

Not flight.

Simply positioning.

“Open skies. I needed that.”

Hans did not give him time to recover.

He dove through the falling debris, blade carving lines of gold through the dust-filled air.

Three strikes.

Each aimed for a different weakness in the warlock’s defence.

Anfaleen blocked the first.

Redirected the second.

The third cut through his sleeve.

For the first time—

Blood touched the air.

Zilong saw it.

The Red Demon Commander lunged.

Six arms struck together like the jaws of a collapsing trap.

The warlock vanished again—

—but not completely.

One of Zilong’s claws caught him across the ribs.

The impact drove Anfaleen through a wall of falling stone.

The warlock landed hard against the fractured courtyard.

Dust swallowed the impact.

For a heartbeat the battlefield froze.

Then Anfaleen stood.

Slowly.

His robe torn.

Blood staining the pale fabric.

Zilong didn’t waste a second.

His punch landed squarely against Anfaleen’s ribs.

The impact thundered across the ruins.

For a moment the warlock’s body bent with the force.

Dust surged upward.

When it cleared—

He was still standing.

His hand closed slowly around Zilong’s wrist.

Not struggling.

Holding.

And something behind his eyes had changed.

“It seems you have regained your strength—even in this form,” he said.

Then his other hand rose.

The air around him darkened.

Zilong’s fist tightened.

He had six hands and that felt advantageous.

Another strike was ready.

For a moment it seemed the warlock’s ribs might finally break.

Then—

Something strange happened.

The blood on the ground moved.

Not flowing.

Rising.

Thin threads of crimson lifted from the shattered stone, pulled upward as if gravity itself had reversed.

Drops of blood floated into the air.

From fallen soldiers.

From broken bodies.

From the wound Zilong had just opened.

They drifted toward Anfaleen.

Hundreds of tiny crimson beads circling him like a silent storm.

Only then did the air darken.

Not with shadow.

With blood.

And the battlefield felt the shift.

Something older than warlock magic began to surface.

Hans felt it first.

And suddenly—

The fight no longer felt balanced.

***