Five thousand elite soldiers dead in the first five minutes. For Lord Commander Carric, it wasn't just a loss it was an insult.
He demanded blood. At his command, the Elven cavalry surged forward. A wedge of majestic white unicorns lowered their horns, accelerating into a charge. Simultaneously, Elven mages raised their staffs, their chants weaving an unnatural, suffocating mist that swallowed the valley in seconds.
Human eyesight was useless in the dense fog, but the Elves needed no light. Their heightened senses cut through the haze with deadly clarity.
From his command post, Ulric Stone watched the white wall roll in. "Brace!" he roared. Ten thousand heavy infantry slammed their tower shields into the earth, angling them to break the incoming cavalry.
But the thunder of hooves never came. It was a feint.
Instead of unicorns, shadows melted out of the fog. Fifteen thousand Elven Shadowraths hit the human lines, but they didn't strike the shields. Moving with terrifying, supernatural agility, the swordsmen used the slanted steel as springboards. They vaulted high over the frontline, landing silently behind the human vanguard.
The humans hesitated for a single, fatal second. It was all the Elves needed.
The vanguard shattered from the inside out. Blinded by the mist and attacked from behind, the infantry was butchered.
Realizing the trap, Ulric ripped a high-tier wind scroll from his coat. He pumped his mana into the parchment and hurled it toward the slaughter. A roaring tornado materialized, ripping violently across the field and tearing the fog to shreds.
"Cavalry, flank them!" Ulric bellowed.
Human riders drove in from both sides in a desperate pincer, but the Elves were already reacting. Sensing the shifting pressure in the wind, the Shadowraths executed a seamless fighting retreat, leaving the human cavalry to catch only stragglers.
When the dust finally settled, the math was brutal. Over eight thousand Elves had made it back to Carric's lines. But of the ten thousand humans who had formed the shield wall, barely three hundred clawed their way out of the mud.
Watching from the rear, Ulric's expression remained carved from stone. The enemy commander has skill, he thought, begrudgingly respecting the feint. I wonder how Percival would have handled that vault. "Sir," a mud-caked engineer whispered, rushing up to Ulric's side. "We're halfway there."
Ulric gave a grim nod. While the vanguard had been dying above, his sappers had been digging below. A massive tunnel network was currently carving its way beneath the blood-soaked field, packed with volatile explosive scrolls. If the Elven cavalry actually charged next time, Ulric was going to blow the earth right out from under their hooves.
Across the valley, Carric sat tall on his mount. "Healers to the front!"
Verdant magic washed over the returning Shadowraths. Deep gashes knitted shut, and exhausted lungs drew fresh breath. Within seconds, they were ready to kill again.
But as the last of the fog cleared, Carric frowned.
The humans were forming a new wall. Another ten thousand infantrymen marched forward, stepping directly over the corpses of their comrades. Carric hesitated. They had just taken a devastating blow why were they pressing the line?
The human formation abruptly halted, anchoring their boots just inches outside the maximum range of the Elven ballistas. One more step meant death.
"Send the reserves," Carric ordered, unease prickling his skin. "Twenty thousand to engage."
But the moment the fresh Elves charged, the human infantry took a synchronized, deliberate step backward. The Elves didn't care to understand the tactic. Their blood was up, and they flooded into the newly yielded ground.
Ulric raised his hand. "Catapults. Fire."
Eight machines triggered at once. But instead of boulders or pitch, they launched fragile, hollowed-out clay spheres.
The payloads shattered against the stone directly in front of the advancing Elves, erupting into massive clouds of fine, black powder. It seemed entirely harmless. It didn't burn. It didn't choke. It simply coated the Elves' golden armor and the ground beneath their boots in a dark film.
The distance between the two armies was exactly one hundred and ten meters.
"Charge!" an Elven captain screamed.
Twenty thousand Shadowraths flooded their muscles with innate magic, preparing to sprint at supernatural speeds. The sheer concentration of mana from so many bodies caused the air around them to shimmer and bake.
The Elves dug their metal-plated boots into the stone to launch themselves.
Clack. One armored foot scraped violently against the bedrock. A single, tiny spark leaped into the air.
The moment it touched the floating black powder, the air caught fire.
A chain reaction of unfathomable violence ignited the dust cloud. The shockwave sheared across the Elven vanguard, a blinding explosion that sent twenty thousand Shadowraths flying. The concussive force shattered golden armor and instantly vaporized the soldiers at the epicenter.
The blast was so sudden that the human soldiers flinched, freezing in sheer terror.
When the fire rolled back and the smoke finally thinned, the battlefield was horrifyingly still. No war cries. No groans. Just the cold wind sweeping over blackened, cratered earth.
Behind the lines, Lord Commander Carric sat frozen on his horse, staring into the abyss