A Bastion held all the power of the binding stones and granted power to his Champions.
At his best, August's skills as a spellblade allowed him to match a duogem Champion, albeit with significant help from his binding stone.
But he had three trigem Champions, and each of them was worth ten Augusts.
The power differential between the grades of Champion was massive.
And this Messenger was so obscenely powerful that he struggled to imagine her raw strength.
If August died, all of his Champion's lost their power and the fortress's defenses failed instantly.
So August could only watch, give orders, and strengthen the defenses of the fortress using the binding stone.
"Sen, Sunstorm, I need you to go help Jafeila," August ordered.
"But—" Sunstorm tried to object.
"No buts. She is going to need every Champion I can spare to help her. I don't need three of my most capable Champions protecting me," he said.
The two looked at August, then at Ciana. The unicorn beastkin stared at August, as if daring him to order her away too.
He didn't.
He knew well enough that she'd refuse to leave him.
With several glances backward, Sen and Sunstorm left the command center.
Soldiers, sorcerers, and administrative staff shouted over each other and ran around in their wake. The two Champions gave August a last wave from the doorway.
He smiled at them and gave them a salute. They smiled back and vanished from his sight.
His heart felt empty.
How many Champions had he failed to say goodbye to today? The fortress rumbled. The terminals hadn't come back to life since the last tremor.
August felt his defenses fail one after another. His Champions were fighting as hard as they could. Vala, Narime, and Jafeila were all still alive.
What did he have left to throw at the demons? What was his next step?
He was about to dive back into his binding stone to buy time to think when the room rumbled violently.
The stonework visibly shook. An explosion rumbled in the distance. Fire and lightning ran through his veins as that attack from earlier struck once more.
He realized that the Messenger was attacking the fortress this time.
"Get down!" Ciana shouted.
She pulled August beneath her. Dust billowed from the ceiling. Stone plummeted down in whole blocks.
Screams and shouts. August grabbed every ounce of magical energy he had and tried to project a defensive barrier.
All vanished into blackness.
August awoke seconds later. Or maybe it was hours. Everything was dark, but there was something warm on his body.
Pain consumed his left arm. He felt like he hadn't slept in a week, after doing ten rounds with Vala.
The castle hadn't crushed him to death. He created a wisp of light and saw that the rubble was being held above him by a glowing barrier, but only by a fraction of a meter.
Something glittered and caught his eyes. He turned. Then he looked away, his breath caught in his throat.
Ciana hadn't made it.
Channeling his binding stone, August vaporized the rubble above him.
It took several blasts to create a tunnel large enough, and he used yet more magic to keep it stable as he crawled out.
The entire fortress must have fallen on him. Had the Messenger brought the whole thing down? How was his binding stone still active?
He dove into the binding stone and his mind turned to horror. His mental world was a ruin. Almost every tether was destroyed.
He remained connected to this binding stone, but the tethers to the others had been severed.
Relying solely on this binding stone and the leylines directly connected to it.
But he still had his secret weapon. It had fully activated itself now and was burning with magical energy.
Pulling away from the ruins of his mental world, August instead faced the ruins of the real world.
The fortress had been flattened. Dark stone rubble was strewn as far as the eye could see.
A few stray walls remained standing. Dusk had arrived, and the purple rays of twilight peeked over the horizon.
August wanted to believe this wasn't real. He reached out magically to check on his Champions.
He found only emptiness.
They were all gone. Ciana, Sen, Choe, Jafeila, Vala, Narime, and countless others.
A gargantuan double door gate stood in the middle of the ruins, seemingly untouched. It was barred shut and covered in runes.
The locking bars shimmered with crystals, and the entire structure exuded an awe-inspiring power.
This gate separated the demonic portal from the actual world, and so long as it remained closed, the demons couldn't get in.
In front of the gate was a single figure.
Young. Feminine. Petite.
No, not a woman. A Messenger. The four curly horns protruding from her skull gave her away, as did the demonic power roiling off her.
She was small, barely five feet, and scantily clad.
August could generously describe her as showing a lot of skin, but it was more like she was wearing underwear with some translucent silk cloth attached to it.
Platinum hoops and bangles hung on her thighs, hips, and arms, and each gleamed with an otherworldly magic.
Her trim black hair was cut to her jawline and her skin was bronzed.
Despite the situation, August found his eyes drawn to her curves. He blamed her lack of clothing.
She lacked much in the upper body department, but her flared hips and plump thighs more than made up for it.
The Messenger turned to face August, and he saw that she had violet eyes with red pupils.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "So you are still alive," she said. "That explains why this gate won't open. You're a tougher nut than I expected.
When your outer wall went down to my first attack, I thought this was another wasted world, but you somehow survived. And now you've survived an entire fortress falling on your head.
Well done." She clapped her hands at the end for an extra-patronizing effect.
"I still control the binding stone, despite your best efforts," August growled out. "And I know a trick or two."
"Like regeneration, I suppose." She stared at his left arm. "I always find watching flesh regrow itself fascinating. Sadly, I don't really have the time.
You've been more entertaining than expected, but I need you to open this gate so that my demonic armies can spill forth from the portal.
You've made me think there may be something worthwhile in this world, and I'm rather impatient."
He stared at the Messenger. Was she serious? Did she think he was going to open the gate for her?
He had devised this last ditch security measure explicitly to cut off the portal if the fortress ever fell.
It would buy time for Falmir to raise an army and defend itself.
Then he met her eyes and realized the truth. She was patronizing him.
He smirked. "You think killing me will open the gate and undo my defenses? You're wrong. The spell operates independently.
The battle was over the moment you triggered it. It'll buy enough time for the other Bastions to raise their armies and gather Champions to suppress you and your portal.
Assuming you can even keep a portal this large open for that long."
"You set this up to operate even after death?" she asked. She sounded impressed.
Her eyes ran over the gate again. "Huh. Quite the dead man's switch. Well, no matter. I can wait."