We Won!

The Rat Oil at the bottom of the trench burned away. The sickly green wall of fire wavered in the night wind, then suddenly sank low.

Their reprieve from death, lasting more than an hour, had finally run out.

"Roar!" The beast's bellow exploded across the battlefield again.

The tier-three Bloodthirsty Giant Rat stepped over the charred corpses, crossed the trench, and entered the final defensive line.

On the platform, Shien pointed his sword at the massive figure steaming in the cold air. Battle Aura carried his voice across the position. "All knights of the Resonance Realm and above, press forward!"

Fabien swung his longsword and charged out again with a dozen of the strongest Heavy Cavalry Knights.

They planted themselves in the giant rat's path, holding it and the elite Ghoul on its back at the edge of the defensive line.

Shield bearers met the giant rat's charge head-on, while swordsmen on either flank hacked at the protruding bone spurs along its belly.

Fabien swung his greatsword at the Ghoul's scythe, knocking the heavy weapon aside again and again.

But a chill had already settled in their hearts.

The giant rat was tier three on its own, and the Ghoul on its back was already approaching tier four.

The rat's immense bulk and bony armor protected it as it charged like a siege engine. From its back, the Ghoul used its War Scythe to cover the rat's blind spots and make up for its lack of speed.

Chained together, the two fought as if one plus one truly equaled two: a killing machine built to crush defensive lines.

Worse, beneath the Blood Moon, these Demonic Beasts' strength and reflexes had increased severalfold.

The knights struggled harder with every exchange. But through their efforts, an opening appeared!

In one close clash, the tier-three Ghoul swung its war scythe too far, leaving its chest exposed.

Fabien stepped in at once and struck with all his strength!

But at that instant, the giant rat's bone-spiked tail whipped out, fast as a black shadow.

"Watch out!" Bart, a knight on the left, charged over.

He threw himself between them and raised his Tower Shield beside Fabien.

Bang—crack!

The huge tail struck the shield, instantly caving in the thick cast iron.

The dreadful impact passed through the shield into Bart's body. Both his arms broke on the spot, splintered bone piercing flesh and skin.

A withered smile spread across the elite Ghoul's mouth.

The heavy scythe that had seemed to miss suddenly hooked back. Its blade slipped with terrible precision into a gap in Bart's neck armor.

Slash!

Blood sprayed. Bart's head flew up with his helmet still on, blood gushing from his severed neck like a fountain before his body crashed into the mud.

A desperate fight that had already been going against them was pushed to the brink of death.

Thousands upon thousands of red-eyed Corrupt Rats crossed the trench and poured into the camp from every direction.

The makeshift defenses in the inner ring held for only moments before the swarm swallowed them.

Against numbers like these, spear formations and rotating shield walls meant nothing.

The entire line was torn apart in an instant. There was no formation left.

Kyle the veteran, the recruits who had only just joined the fight, and the Convicts... every one of them was surrounded by the Rat Tide.

Several enormous Corrupt Rats seized a young recruit by the calves and wrists and dragged him straight into the swarm.

His screams lasted only seconds. Then all that remained was a bloody skeleton.

Everyone swung swords, kicked, and tore like wild beasts, struggling for their lives amid blood and entrails.

The battle line was long gone. Only an open-air slaughterhouse remained.

At this rate, in less than half an hour, the camp would be gnawed down to the last bone.

On the platform, Shien's expression did not change. He watched the collapse below with cold eyes.

His gaze swept over Fabien just as the giant rat struck him hard with a claw.

The Sacred Light on his breastplate shattered instantly. The Resonance Realm knight flew like a rag doll and slammed into the muddy water, coughing up a mouthful of blood and clots.

Shien knew no miracle was coming to save them.

His hand closed around the Ember Pendant, his last resort, which held the full-power strike of a Tier-Four Knight.

It might have been more useful later, but he had no choice now.

Shien pressed his thumb against the crystal's surface and poured Battle Aura into it. With just a little more pressure, the crystal would shatter...

At that instant, the ground beneath his feet trembled.

Click... rumble!

A heavy metallic grinding erupted from underground. The tremor spread through the earth, and the Holy Silver Fire Brazier on the platform began to shake violently.

A ragged roar suddenly cut across the battlefield, Victor's voice breaking with tears. "I got the damn thing turning!"

Scalding Rat Oil rushed through the pipes into the core. The mechanism that had lain dormant for more than half a year began to move again.

Platinum light raced along the dust-covered Holy Silver Runes, lighting each concentric ring in turn.

Then the entire Ritual Altar gave a deep hum, and a pillar of platinum fire burst from its center!

The pillar was so thick it was nearly impossible to look at. It shot into the heavens, tore through the Blood Moon's clouds overhead, and blasted a vast opening in the center of the sky!

Sacred energy erupted from the base of the pillar, sending a platinum ring of light racing along the ground.

The ring swept across the battlefield. The tier-three giant rat had opened its bloody jaws and was about to bite down on Fabien.

In the next instant, its body froze.

An invisible force pinned its immense body in midair. The elite Ghoul on its bone saddle did not even have time to scream.

Platinum light engulfed them. Rotten flesh evaporated, and bones rapidly crumbled.

In a single breath, the Composite Demonic Beast that could have crushed the defensive line was utterly erased.

As for the tens of thousands of Corrupt Rats within the position, they could hardly be called enemies before the ring of Sacred Flame. Like ashes scattered by the wind, they collapsed in waves and became black dust swirling through the air.

The entire battlefield fell silent.

Heat from the concentrated Sacred Flame slowly spread, driving the cold and stench of rot from the air.

The wasteland, moments ago strewn with corpses and blood, now seemed impossibly bright.

Kyle dropped to his knees in the mud, utterly spent. Clouded tears mingled with the stinking blood of Mutant Rats and ran down his stubbled cheeks.

We survived. We actually survived...

Driven by some instinct, Kyle slowly turned his blood-smeared head toward the platform at the center of the square.

The platinum pillar of fire piercing the heavens still burned.

Shien stood before it. Pure platinum light fell across the silver-haired youth, outlining him in dazzling radiance.

Beneath his feet lay a reeking mire soaked with rotting flesh; above his head burned the platinum Sacred Flame that drove back the Long Night.

The contrast looked like something from a Church oil painting, a sight so overwhelming that almost no one could breathe.

Reverence, fervor, fear, the need to cling to someone... these feelings surged through every heart at once.

In that fervent silence, Shien moved.

He slowly drew the tempered-steel longsword at his waist and pointed it toward the dark red sky shattered by the Sacred Flame.

Two full nights of commanding every last movement had brought him close to mental collapse. Yet when he spoke, his voice still carried a force no one could question.

"Raise your heads and look at this light." Shien swept his gaze over the hundreds of faces below, smeared with rotting flesh.

"We trampled the bones of tens of thousands of beasts and pried this path to survival from the jaws of the abyss!"

He paused. Wind swept past the burning Sacred Flame, and when he spoke again, his voice rose higher.

"This platinum Sacred Flame is the wall humanity has built at the edge of Eternal Night! As long as we still stand, the Long Night will never cross it!

"Perhaps the Church's records will call this an ordinary night raid.

"Perhaps battles like this take place every day along the endless defenses of the Eternal Night Wall."

His voice fell silent for a moment, then rang out again.

"But for Blackpine Fief, this is a night of greatness. We survived! We won!"

When his words ended, the entire position fell silent for a heartbeat.

It was as though something had struck hard inside every chest.

Kyle shuddered. Clutching his broken, notched sword in both hands, he drove it into the muddy water, then became the first to bow his head low toward the platform.

Fabien spat blood onto the ground and knelt on one knee.

Then came the knights, the soldiers, the Convicts... one after another, hundreds of blood-soaked figures bent their backs together amid the charred ruins.

They faced not only the Sacred Flame, but also the silver-haired youth bathed in its light upon the platform.

In Shien's sight, countless streams of deep blue, each signifying absolute loyalty unto death, rose from the blood-soaked ground below like a surging sea.