“Kill!” The Beastkin surged like a storm-tide, fearless, heads down through arrows and magic, clearing a bleeding path for the monster behind them.

It was a giant ballista, a fortress on wheels, iron bones gleaming like a cold moon.

Several Sacred Rank Beastkin shouldered into it, muscles tight as bowstrings, and shoved the behemoth onto the field.

The Elves knew they couldn’t let that thing park at their gate; their spells fell like rain on tin, frantic and unending.

Under the shield of countless lowborn Beastkin who paved the road with bodies, the Sacred Rank escorts dragged their battered frames and hauled the giant ballista into place.

The super ballista hummed ready; Beastkin officers howled, pressure rolling from them like a crushing sky.

It had been charging on the march; now in range, she would spit a wrathful bolt straight at the Elf Race’s tottering line.

Elf captains clenched their teeth, eyes fixed on the blue-lit giant, its energy flooding it like a rising tide.

“Report! The Beastkin siege ballista has sighted the breach in our front.” The scout’s voice shook like a reed in wind.

The Elf officer kicked him. “Are you blind or am I? Who the hell didn’t see that thing hanging there, huh?”

“Yes.” The man nodded, small as a shadow.

The officer sighed like a cracked bell. “Get the defense squad, now. Or are you waiting for it to blast your ancestors out of their graves? Move!”

The scout bobbed and sprinted to a glowing crystal, hands trembling like leaves.

“Brothers, when the blast hits, we ride that shock and strike. Bury them here.” In the Beastkin camp, the commander laughed like clashing iron.

Then the Elven territory blossomed with a pale barrier, a thin film of light like dew on grass.

Beastkin snorted, mocking the flimsy veil as if it were paper in a storm.

The Beastkin general raised his banner, a tongue of fire in the wind. “Ready to charge, brothers!”

“Roar!”

The next heartbeat, the ballista’s long-charged maw spat death.

After a blinding blue flare, violent power slammed toward the Elf line like a falling star.

With the rear in retreat, the Elves had threadbare defenses; they watched as that power shredded the flimsy shield and howled toward their land.

Elves sighed like a tide going out; Beastkin roared like thunder rolling back in.

A portal tore open in the sky, a dark iris in bright noon.

Edlyn, black dress and shadowed sleeves, tumbled out of the air, square to the incoming beam.

Edlyn blinked. “What the—hell!”

On instinct, she raised Ashir; the blade drew a line through light like a moon cutting clouds.

The shockwave beam split down the middle; Ashir drank it, greedy as dry earth drinking rain.

In Inferno, it had starved; this was a feast.

Edlyn ended the beam and drifted down, as calm as ash settling.

Angela, buoyed by wind, still wobbled in the high air like a kite in a gust.

Edlyn glanced from the Beastkin host, frozen mid-charge, to the ragged Elf line behind—then just stared. “...?”

The Beastkin watched their sure-kill shot touch the girl and vanish, no ripple, no echo, like a candle pinched out.

They traded looks mid-sprint, legs tangled by doubt.

Their leaders eyed the black-clad girl, plopped on the dirt like a cat dropped from a wall.

Where had this one wandered in from?

Inside the Elf lands, shock cracked into cheers, joy lighting faces like dawn on leaves.

Who cared what it was? The blow was stopped. Maybe the elders’ secret weapon finally sang.

Edlyn studied both sides, thoughts drifting like ash.

“Yiyi punted me to where?” She sighed, lost as a traveler in fog.

“You! Who are you? Why wreck our plan?” A bolder Beastkin crept closer, eyes sharp as knives.

Edlyn planted Ashir in the ground; the blade rang like ice. “Uh… I was gonna ask who you were.”

“We’re the great Beastkin army.” The warrior thumped the crest on his chest, wary as a wolf.

Edlyn skimmed the emblem. “Can someone tell me what’s going on? Where is this? Did I hop to the wrong world?”

Silence fell like snow. Beastkin froze. Elves peered from behind wards.

Either way… a small crisis had just blown out like a candle.

“So what’s the deal?” Edlyn shrugged, fog-light in her eyes. “Fine, if you won’t talk, I’m out.”

“Ummm, sis… you don’t feel the vibe’s off?” Angela hovered above, staring down at her single-track big sister.

“What vibe? I don’t see a problem.” Edlyn rolled a shoulder, loose as wind.

“Ah— you win. Sis, please look around.” Angela palmed her face, a long, leaf-bent sigh.

Everyone else stared at the clowning pair, eyes like drawn bows.

This one had snuffed a long-charged super ballista like it was nothing, and wandered a battlefield like a market lane.

She had power, that much was a mountain in plain sight.

She was neither Elf nor Beastkin. So… fight or not?

Edlyn’s nerves were rope-thick. She’d brawled Heroes in her last life till the sky got used to it.

Scenes like this were daily weather. She’d just walked out of a sea of bones and blood; Ashir wasn’t even sheathed.

Nothing here surprised her.

She opened her mouth, then stilled; with the sword as a needle, her senses spread underground like ink in water.

Strong auras pulsed below, a hive in the dark.

“These feel like… Fallen Angels?!” Delight hit first, bright as fireflies.

“Now that’s pretty.” Her grin flashed like steel.

Angela eyed her neurotic sister. “Sis, what did you do now?”

Edlyn waved it off. “We find Eli, then we find the Fallen Angels.”

Angela looked at Beastkin and Elves, mouth crooked. “And them… throwing a party, huh?”

Edlyn skimmed the field. War was war; she’d seen worse storms. From last time, she remembered Eli lying with the Elf Race.

So… help chosen, like a coin already flipped.

In the next beat, demonic qi poured from her, a night tide spilling from a cliff.

Edlyn’s silver hair flew like frostfire; she rose, slow as a moon.

Purple-brown miasma curled around her like coiled dragons; she lifted Ashir. “Ants. Begone.”

Her words cracked like thunder; a wave blasted out and swept the Beastkin ranks like a gale through wheat.

Beastkin tumbled, armor clattering like rain on stone.

Pain lanced Edlyn’s side, a needle of ice where the skull-beast had struck.

She cut the pressure, blinked at her forearm, eyes narrowed like slits against sun.

A beat of thought; then a clap, brisk as flint. She soared, caught Angela’s hand, and turned away.

Find cover first; live first, talk later.

“That aura!” In the Beastkin main camp, Orleck crushed his cup; shards fell like hail.

At the same moment, in the Elf Race’s halls, Queen Elavis and her elders froze, hands hovering like birds.

Underground, Nofir’s eyes widened; he tilted his head back toward the roof of the world.

Three thrones spoke the same name, voices cold as bells.

“Demon King? Pandora.”

By then, Edlyn had already pulled Angela down a shadowed passage and left the field behind.

Elf soldiers stared at Beastkin strewn like fallen logs, not sure which way the wind blew.

A heartbeat later, a tiger-headed giant strode into the center, his gaze heavy as an anvil.

Then the Elf Queen Elavis descended with an elder at her side, light pooling like water around her feet.

Nofir lingered below, thoughts coiling, and let the impulse to rise die like an ember.

Elavis met Orleck’s eyes; both knew that power like an old scar in winter.

Orleck’s lids narrowed. “So the Demon Race’s revival is real.”

Elavis’s voice was winter water. “Does that even need confirming?”

“Not as strong as he once was,” Orleck said, face set, eyes on the earth stained by demonic qi. “But it’s his aura.”

Elavis’s laugh was a knife. “Scared, Orleck?”

Her people had been gasping for breath; bitterness sat in her throat like smoke.

“Easy, Your Majesty. Let’s shelve that for now.” A voice rolled from behind Orleck like a drumbeat.

Another giant, Orleck’s size, dropped from the sky, landing like a falling boulder.

Elavis’s smile cut. “So, Hyeok, you’re here too. Hiding deep, aren’t you?”

Hyeok raked his hair and chuckled, easy as a cat in sun.