WHOOSH-SLASH!
Before the blade could touch the warrior’s neck, a silver streak flashed through the humid air.
Zeyra materialized from the warrior’s blind spot like a striking shadow.
Her right dagger swept upward in a clean, effortless arc that severed the woman’s wrist in mid-swing.
Without breaking her momentum, Zeyra spun on the ball of her foot, driving her left dagger straight through the woman’s collarbone, pinning her to the damp wooden wall of the hut.
"They’re completely mad!" Zeyra spat coldly, wrenching her blade free and kicking the body down into the canal. Her dark eyes swept the surrounding rooftops, where several more figures were scrambling across the thatched reeds with throwing spears. "Even their weavers and cooks are trying to take our heads!"
Beside her, Kira drew her short hunting bow in rapid, fluid motions.
THWIP. THWIP. THWIP.
Three feather-fletched arrows left her string in the span of two heartbeats.
Thirty paces away, two Zerith youths leaning over a wooden railing with spears were struck cleanly through their throats. T
hey flipped over the barrier with short, choked gurgles, splashing heavily into the dark water below.
Her third arrow caught a spearman who had lunged from beneath the walkway, piercing straight through his eye socket and dropping him instantly before he could rake his venomous claws across a Veynar spearman’s leg.
Yet, despite their comrades dropping around them, the Zerith did not retreat. If anything, the smell of fresh blood in the humid air seemed to drive them into a deeper, feral frenzy.
Further down the main thoroughfare, where three elevated walkways converged onto a wide wooden staging platform, a formidable defensive cluster had formed.
Over forty Zerith fighters... a mixture of surviving secondary line guards, armored hunters, and burly laborers... had barricaded the bridge with timber piles, heavy crates, and rows of sharpened stakes.
At the center of the barricade stood the strongest remaining warrior in the settlement: a towering, broad-shouldered Layer 3 veteran named Skal, whose skin was covered in crude war-tattoos.
He gripped a massive, two-handed stone-headed war mattock, his yellow eyes blazing with murderous fury.
"STAND FIRM, SONS OF THE MARSH!" Skal bellowed, slamming the butt of his heavy mattock against the timber planks, sending vibrations through the entire walkway. "THE VEYNAR BASTARDS CANNOT FIGHT IN OUR WATERS! DROWN THEM IN THE SWAMP! CUT THEIR VEINS AND LET THE VIPERS FEAST!"
"KILL THE SURFACE APES!" the defenders roared back, beating their bone daggers against their shields in a frantic, terrifying cadence.
From behind the barricade, four Zerith hunters hurled heavy clay urns filled with live swamp vipers and concentrated blister-oil directly into the path of the advancing vanguard!
Veylara, walking at the head of the center column, stopped.
Her deep blue eyes swept over the shrieking mob, the venomous traps, and the fanatical hatred contorting their faces.
The lingering restraint she had maintained at the gate... oping to secure a compliant labor population for the Veynar’s expansion... instantly dissolved into pure, sovereign detachment.
She had shown mercy at the pass. She had offered them the chance to surrender their weapons and live under Veynar law. But to a hostile alien race that answered mercy with venom, live serpents, and venom-coated blades, there was only one response.
Veylara tightened her grip on her spear, her voice pierced the oppressive swamp heat, chilling and unforgiving as a winter gale.
"They have refused our mercy," Veylara stated coldly, "Wipe out anyone who lifts an arm against us. If they bare their claws, raise a stone, or step onto the path... cut them down where they stand, doesn’t matter whether they are warriors or civilians."
"NO MERCY! SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!" Thauren roared, his broadsword igniting with a dull red sheen of battle essence.
"WITH ME!" Commander Thauren bellowed, leading the Veynar assault warriors forward in an impenetrable shield wall!
BOOM!
The two forces collided at the base of the barricaded staging platform.
The clash was deafening. Veynar shields slammed into the timber planks with the force of an avalanche.
Zerith spearmen thrust desperately through the gaps, their venom-coated stone tips scraping furiously against the hardened beast hide.
Several Veynar warriors took shallow cuts across their shoulders, their skin sizzling and turning an ugly purple under the marsh toxins, but their Layer 2 and Layer 3 vitality, combined with the continuous purifying ward of High Shaman Zephyra, kept them on their feet.
Roaring in battle fury, a veteran Veynar soldier grabbed the shaft of an enemy spear, pulled the Zerith warrior forward across the planks, and drove his short sword straight through the alien’s throat, kicking the corpse back into their own ranks.
High Shaman Zephyra stepped up onto a raised root bank, her silver-white robes flowing elegantly without a stain. She pointed her wooden staff toward the cluster of venom-throwers hiding behind the barricade.
WHOOSH-WHIRL!
A violent vortex of emerald wind erupted from the tip of her staff, condensing into three razor-sharp, crescent-shaped air blades. The wind blades sliced through the humid fog with a terrifying shriek, effortlessly cleaving through the wooden planks, the clay urns of venom, and the torsos of the four Zeriths behind them!
The urns shattered, splashing boiling blister-oil and crushed serpents across the Zerith’s own backline, throwing their formation into screaming, burning disarray!
Seeing his barricade collapsing, Skal went wild.
"DIE, VEYNAR WHORE!" Skal roared, his Layer 3 essence detonating around his body in a dark, greenish-black haze.
He kicked the broken planks aside and leaped five paces through the air, his massive stone mattock whistling down with enough kinetic force to shatter a boulder, aiming straight for Veylara’s skull!
Veylara didn’t even flinch.
She simply stepped forward, pivoted slightly on her heel, and let her Layer 4 physical essence ignite like a miniature sun!
BANG!
Veylara’s left hand snapped upward, catching the massive stone head of the mattock in mid-air with her bare, essence-infused fingers!
The kinetic impact sent a shockwave of displaced air outward, blowing the peat dust and mist away in a ten-pace circle.
But Veylara’s arm did not bend by a single millimeter. Her body radiated an immovable, mountain-crushing authority that froze Skal’s breath in his chest.
The Zerith’s yellow slit eyes bulged in pure, uncomprehending horror as he felt the absolute, divine disparity between a mortal Layer 3 and a true Layer 4 warlord.
"I-Impossible..." Skal choked out, frantically trying to yank his weapon back.
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