Frontier Offense 3

The battlefield was a slaughterhouse, a writhing nightmare of steel and sorcery. The air hung thick with the metallic tang of blood, the acrid stench of charred flesh clinging to every breath. The ground, once solid earth, had become a churning mire of mud and gore, sucking at boots with every step. Fifteen Cosmic Magi descended like a storm-five upon Zakop's fort, five upon Pupi's river stronghold, five upon Hwehwe's shadowed labyrinth-and the Xiaxoan troops fell in droves, their bodies broken before they could even raise their weapons. 

At Zakop's fort, the earth itself seemed to scream. A Kirati magus, its elongated fingers tipped with jagged obsidian nails, dragged a single claw through the air. [Ruptured Earth]. The ground beneath a dozen soldiers convulsed like a living thing before exploding upward in a hail of razored stone. The sound was horrific-wet thuds as shards punched through breastplates, the choked gurgles of men impaled mid-cry. Blood sheeted down the fort's walls, dripping in fat, sluggish drops onto the cobblestones below, where it pooled in dark, glistening puddles. 

Another magus, its mouth grotesquely sutured shut with golden thread, exhaled. [Ichor Burst]. The air shimmered, then ignited. A line of troops erupted into cobalt flames, their skin blackening and sloughing away in seconds. The heat was unbearable, a furnace-blast that seared the lungs. Their armor glowed red-hot before collapsing inward, the men inside reduced to ashen skeletons that crumbled mid-stride, their bones clattering like dry kindling. 

Zakop's roar cut through the chaos. He drove his totem into the earth with a force that sent cracks spiderwebbing outward. The ground answered. Jagged spikes of rock burst upward, spearing one magus clean through the gut. The creature's laughter was a wet, bubbling thing, black ichor frothing between its teeth as it gripped the stone and pulled itself free. 

The totem's wood seared Zakop's palms, its ancient grain pulsing like a second heartbeat. For a fleeting moment, he was back in the cedar grove with Moimui, her laughter mingling with the chime of wind through branches. "The land remembers," she'd said, pressing his hand to a sapling. "Even when we forget." Now, as the earth answered his call with jagged stone, he tasted copper—whether from his split lip or the soil's metallic scream, he couldn't tell. The magus's mockery echoed, but so did Moimui's voice, steady beneath the din: "Brittle things break clean."

"You are strong," it mused, its voice like grinding gravel. A forked tongue flicked out, lapping at its own spilled blood. "But strength is a brittle thing." 

Its hands rose, and the fort's stone walls shuddered-then moved. The masonry twisted like serpents, crushing three archers in an instant. The sound was sickening, a wet crunch like overripe fruit bursting underfoot. Zakop barely rolled clear, the impact sending him skidding across the blood-slick cobbles. His ribs screamed in protest as he collided with the wall, the breath driven from his lungs in a pained gasp. 

Then Larin arrived. 

No thunderous entrance, no battle cry-just a whisper of displaced air, the faintest pressure shift against the skin. The laughing magus's head toppled from its shoulders before its body even registered the blow. The corpse swayed, then collapsed in a graceless heap. 

A young spearman froze mid-retreat, his blade slipping from fingers numbed by terror and wonder. Larin moved like a crack in the world's fabric, here then there, his dao trailing starlight where steel should cast shadows. The boy had heard campfire tales of Sinlung's chosen—heroes who walked through walls and drank rivers dry. But this was no ballad. This was his commander's son, flesh and bone, carving through nightmares as casually as a farmer scythes wheat. When the first magus's head fell, the spearman vomited, then laughed, hysteria and hope tangling in his throat.

Larin stood over the head, his obsidian dao humming faintly, its edge alive with flickering moonlight. His voice was soft, yet it carried like a blade drawn from its sheath. 

"Prepare yourselves." 

Then he moved. 

Absorption. 

The air itself seemed to recoil. A vacuum formed around Larin as he drank in the ambient mana, the very life force of the battlefield. The four remaining magi staggered, their spells sputtering out like candles in a gale. Their alien eyes-too large, too dark-widened in something like fear. It lasted only a heartbeat. 

A heartbeat was enough. 

[Voidstep] 

Larin vanished. Reappeared. His dao flashed once-a clean diagonal slice that split the first magus from shoulder to hip. Black blood sprayed in a glistening arc, splattering the stones. The second magus barely had time to turn before the blade carved through its stomach, spilling coils of glistening entrails onto the ground. Both creatures crumpled without a sound. 

The survivors reacted. One flung its arms wide, golden chains erupting from the earth. [Prison Eternal]. The links rattled like a death knell, lashing toward Larin-but he was already gone. [Voidstep] carried him beyond their reach, leaving the magus hissing in frustration. 

"Does he not have any casting time?" 

Larin answered by materializing before the next magus. His free hand twisted. Oceanic Pulse. But this was no mere concussive force -this was annihilation. Invisible waves of pressure hammered down, each impact louder than the last, until the magus was little more than a pulverized ruin, its bones ground into the dirt. 

The last magus turned to flee. 

Larin's hand snapped out. A thin, glowing rope coalesced from the air, lashing around the creature's ankles. It hit the ground hard, the impact jarring teeth. Scrambling, it clawed at the earth - but Larin was already there. 

"Oh no you don't." 

Incapacitate. 

The magus went limp, its body slack. A Cosmic Magi—captured alive. The ease of it was almost obscene. 

Zakop and his surviving troops could only stare. The old warrior's face was ashen, his breath ragged. The words came out hoarse, disbelieving. 

"Son… how did you become this powerful?" 

Larin didn't pause. His hand swept out. [Blooming Bastion]. A wave of verdant energy rippled across the fort, carrying the scent of crushed herbs and fresh rain. Wounds sealed, bones knit, the scent of blood momentarily drowned beneath the crispness of healing magic. 

The healing wave left the air thick with the cloying sweetness of rotflowers, their scent masking but not erasing the stench of death. Soldiers clutched newly sealed wounds, fingertips probing skin that felt too smooth, too alien, as though their bodies had been borrowed from future corpses. The fort's shattered walls oozed sap where stone should bleed dust, and in the courtyard, a single cherry tree erupted from cracked cobblestones, its blossoms black as voidspace. It sagged under the weight of its own unnatural growth, roots strangling a dead Kirati's cuirass.

"Pupi and Hwehwe will need help," Larin said. His voice was calm, but his eyes were already scanning the horizon. "Tend to yourselves. This may not be over." 

Then he was gone-[Voidstep] carrying him toward Hwehwe's labyrinth in a blur of motion. 

Behind him, Zakop bellowed, "Fire the cannon!" 

The cannon's barrel glowed with Sinlung magic, its runes scavenged from imperial siege engines and reforged by Xiaxoan smiths to utilize Sinlung magic. A crew of three—a widow, her twin sons, and a defected Kirati engineer—hauled the final mana crystal into place. It hissed like a cornered viper, its prismatic light refracting in the widow's tear-filled eyes. She thought of her husband's pyre, of the empty space in her bed that no victory would warm, and pulled the ignition cord. The crystal shattered. The cannon screamed. And for one breath, the battlefield was beautiful.

A beam of searing light lanced across the sky, striking the retreating warship. The metal hull groaned, then shattered like glass. Fire bloomed, consuming the vessel in an instant. The screams of its crew were swallowed by the inferno, their bodies reduced to shadows against the flames. 

The battlefield fell silent-for now. 

But the silence was heavy, pregnant with the promise of more blood to come. The air still stank of smoke and death. The ground, though healing, would never forget the weight of the fallen. And somewhere in the distance, the war still raged.

"Gather the dead and reinforce the totem shield, prepare for anything. Nothing should surprise us and lose this victory." Zakop bellowed