Mid-way through strategic planning, an alliance-wide alert flashed across their consoles. Barlas had launched a coordinated assault against their unbubbled members.
Flickering through the live battle logs, Eden noted with grim relief that only a single casualty had occurred—the rest of the targeted strongholds were decoy garrisons strategically seeded across the alliance hive.
"Uriel, prepare my teleportation potions. I'm mobilizing the vanguard personally," Eden commanded, vaulting up from her seat.
"Do you require backup?" Corruption offered instantly.
"No, keep your forces dedicated to the active boss rallies," Eden replied, turning toward Onibat, who sat staring dejectedly at the floor, he was still recovering from his previous ambush.
"I can't offer much heavy field support right now, considering I'm still recovering," Onibat grumbled.
"You're fine. I'm doing a hit-and-run sniper maneuver. He won't be able to pin me down—just make sure everyone else keeps their shields locked tight."
Mounting Thunder, Eden led her elite strike force toward the gates. The moment their hooves crossed the threshold, a blinding flash of light consumed the battalion, teleporting them directly to the perimeter of Barlas's alliance. He had created his own alliance since their last encounter.
Spurring her mount into a dead sprint, Eden carved through the enemy patrols like a sudden gale. Ground troops dropped silently, their throats slit before they could raise an alarm. Arthur charged next to her like a living fireball, reducing supply tents to ash, while her archer units picked off fleeing survivors.
Blowing the main castle doors open with raw momentum, Eden vaulted inside. Her speed allowed her to run on walls. Enemy guards swarmed her; a high-ranking general managed to clip her plate armor, drawing a thin line of blood across her cheek as she leaped onto the wall. The sting only sharpened her reflexes. Within seconds, the fortress was swallowed by raging flames, its citizens scrambling in vain.
With ruthless efficiency, Eden recalled her troops, shifted coordinates, and struck the next target—then the next, and the next.
Panting heavily, she paused momentarily to evaluate her stamina reserves. Suddenly, a dark blur plummeted toward her from the right at twice her speed.
Barlas's broadsword missed her neck by a fraction of an inch, shearing clean through a stray lock of her hair.
Reacting on pure instinct, Eden slammed a teleportation vial against the cobblestones, vanishing in a puff of chemical smoke. She reappeared fifty meters away, only to see the same dark figure barreling toward her again.
Teleport.
As she materialized for the second time, she didn't run. "Shield!" she barked.
The barrier expanded quickly, catching Barlas mid-charge and hurling him backward through a wooden fence. He circled her like an apex predator, muscles corded, his piercing dark blue eyes locked onto hers with feral intensity.
Eden smirked.
Barlas lunged again, slamming his body against the barrier, only to be thrown back by the electrical discharge. He then disappeared.
Just then, a private ping flashed from Maur: He's back at our hive hitting the unbubbled targets.
Are they fresh targets or the same decoys? Eden messaged back.
Same ones, Maur confirmed.
Smiling coldly, Eden held her ground. But before she could drop the shield to attack another, Barlas stepped directly into her path.
Up close, he was striking—tall, rugged, and stripped of heavy plate armor, wearing only a strapped leather vest, a heavy belt, and trousers. His long black hair framed a handsome, deeply weathered face, and his broad chest was marked by a dense pattern of dark hair over corded muscle. Is that a custom event skin, or a high-tier developer asset? she wondered briefly.
A notification chimed in her inbox. The message from Barlas was brief: Leave.
"I will burn you and your alliance to the ground if you don't stand down."
Eden tapped out a swift reply:
"Go ahead. They understand the risks of dropping their shields. I see about five more of your holdings I can solo right now—next time, I'm bringing friends."
Barlas's eyes flared with a sudden, unnatural crimson light as he read the text. He fired back:
"You don't care about your own people. What kind of sovereign leader does that?"
Eden smirked, her fingers flying across the interface:
"You think you know me? Who is going to avenge my members every time you attack our borders while I sit quietly and watch? Maybe you should have considered the consequences before you targeted mine. An eye for an eye."
She locked eyes with him, holding his blistering gaze without flinching as he read her final dispatch. For several tense seconds, neither moved. Finally, Barlas drew a sharp breath, tapped out one last concession, and turned back toward his hive:
"Fine. I will halt all strikes against your alliance, provided your members leave mine alone."
Exhaling a long, pent-up breath, Eden dismissed her blades. She teleported back to the Excalibur citadel, where her commanders were actively processing damage reports.
"Maur," Eden said, walking straight to the tactical table. "Can you pull up our alliance attack logs from the archives."
Maur blinked, confused. "Why are you checking our offensive logs? We're the ones who just got hit."
"Barlas didn't mention the provocation, which means retaliation was already triggered. I want to test a hypothesis."
Maur tapped the console, pulling up the history files. A few hours prior to the raid, a single alliance member—Bellatrix—had logged an unprovoked attack on a resource node within Barlas's territory.
Maur stared at the screen, stunned. "I missed this entirely... and Bellatrix didn't report a thing."
"Of course she didn't," Onibat growled, slamming his fist against the armrest. "This is the third time she's pulled this exact stunt. She's the reason he targeted us."
"Our actual losses were minimal thanks to the decoys, and our members had time to bubble," Eden stated stoically. "I will personally compensate our single casualty for their trouble, and send compensation to the player whose resource node she exploited. As for Bellatrix..." She paused, her expression hardening into absolute ice. "...she is officially stripped of alliance protection."
Eden then called for her Knight Commander Arthur. "Arthur, I want a complete scout report on Bellatrix's coordinates. I need her resource inventory."
"Are we about to gank her for her assets?" Onibat grinned, leaning forward.
"No. She is going to serve as a peace-tribute to Barlas's alliance to settle the misunderstanding," Eden said flatly. "Trust me, if our losses had been severe, I wouldn't bother negotiating. But Bellatrix needs to absorb the cost of her own recklessness."
Mounting their horses, Eden and her Alliance Commanders rode out to the crest of a distant hill overlooking Bellatrix's stronghold as the sun dipped below the horizon.
"Did Barlas actually explain why he attacked?" Maur asked, keeping his eyes on the valley below.
"He didn't have to. He demanded we halt our aggression, which only made sense if we had struck first," Eden explained. "The archives confirmed it. Furthermore, the scout report shows she deployed a barrier immediately after her raid—meaning she knew retaliation was inbound and deliberately chose not to warn the alliance."
Down in the valley, Bellatrix's territorial shield flickered and dropped as its timer expired.
A fraction of a second later, a deafening blast tore through the compound as a massive siege payload detonated dead-center on her keep before she could manually re-engage her defenses. Moments later a towering dark figure emerged from the roaring flames, dragging an industrial-sized resource chest in one hand while his broadsword rested casually in the other.
The figure paused, glancing up toward the distant hill where Eden stood on horseback. He offered a single, curt nod of acknowledgment before melting back into the smoke.
"I' going to need to change pants– I think I just peed a little," Maur whispered, breaking the silence.
"Don't you mean underwear?" Onibat frowned, turning to him.
"I'm not wearing any underwear," Maur replied smoothly, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Wrong tree, dude," Onibat muttered, hastily guiding his horse three paces to the left away from him.
Eden let out a sharp, genuine laugh, shaking her head at the bickering pair.
"You sent the scout report to Barlas and an apology for the misunderstanding. Then offered to stand guard, no one else takes his claim. But how did you know the shield wasn't going to be activated in time? ," Corruption mused aloud.
Before Eden could answer, Onibat jumped in. "That's classified intel. I'd have to kill you."
"Oh, come on, Oni. You can tell me," Corruption sang out playfully.
Onibat stared at her for a moment, a sudden rush of pink flushing across his cheeks as he realized how long he had been holding eye contact. He cleared his throat loudly, looking away. "Well, I observe the behavior patterns of the members, something Eden requested a while back. Since we still haven't figured out the traitor. I deducted that Bellatrix is frugal with her shields and she likes to wait for it to completely expire. She leaves like a 1 to 2 minute gap, probably due to a delay in telling her guide to shut up after the timer goes off."
Maur raised an eyebrow. "Are you an undercover FBI operative?"
"I'm Batman," Onibat rasped in a gravelly, theatrical baritone.
Eden and Corruption burst out laughing while Maur rolled his eyes so hard he nearly strained a muscle.
As they turned their mounts back toward the hive, Corruption edged her horse closer to Eden's. "So... how was your face-to-face with Barlas, really?"
"I nearly shit my pants if I wasn't running off adrenaline, fucker came out of nowhere!" Eden squealed, prompting both women to break into fresh fits of laughter. Then Eden cleared her throat to compose herself again.
"I'm just genuinely impressed you walked away in one piece," Onibat called from the rear.
"And deeply glad you didn't require an emergency wardrobe and bath," Maur added with a smirk.
"Believe me, I had to project absolute calm," Eden admitted, her expression softening into a relieved sigh as they crested the hill. "The man moves twice as fast, and I knew I was an inch away from an early respawn. That shield saved my neck. Which is why we need to drill into everyone's heads: stats matter, and those potions save lives."
"Agreed," Maur nodded, flashing a grin. "E.X.C. lives matter."