The heavy doors at the top of the stairwell slammed open as Alden, Lyn, and Kaeden burst into the castle’s main hall, breathless and aching.

  Chaos greeted them.

  The once-orderly great hall was now a storm of shouting voices and frantic movement. Guards in partial armor ran back and forth, shouting over each other. Healers sprinted between supply crates with blood-stained wraps and dwindling vials. Civilians huddled in corners, clutching their families. Some were crying. Some were praying. Some just stared, empty-eyed.

  “What happened—?” Alden started, but no one answered.

  A woman wailed near the front as a stretcher passed. Kaeden stepped aside just in time to avoid being knocked over by a soldier racing down the corridor.

  “This is insane…” Lyn muttered, tightening her grip on her spear. “We were gone for, what, an hour?”

  Then, across the hall, they spotted him.

  Louise.

  He stood near one of the support pillars, watching the commotion with an unreadable expression. His cloak was still pulled tight around him, but his eyes darted across the room—measuring, calculating.

  “Louise!” Alden called, weaving through the panicked crowd.

  Louise turned. Relief flickered behind his eyes. “You’re back.”

  “What is all this?” Kaeden asked, stepping up beside him. “We passed the test and everything’s gone to hell.”

  Louise kept his voice low. “You need to stay inside. It’s worse than before. Something’s pushing the monsters harder than ever.”

  “Where’s my father?” Lyn interrupted. “Where is he?” Her voice was sharp, already trembling.

  Louise hesitated.

  “He’s not here, is he.” She didn’t wait for an answer.

  She turned—and ran.

  “Lyn—!” Alden called, but she was already at the main gate.

  The guards barely noticed as she pushed past them.

  Kaeden sighed. “We’re going to regret this,” and sprinted after her.

  Alden followed without thinking.

  Outside—

  The sky was choked in smoke.

  Ash fell like black snow over the kingdom’s outer walls. Just beyond the perimeter, monsters swarmed in numbers Alden couldn’t comprehend. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. All sizes. Some crawling, some flying, some as big as houses. The ground shook with each step of the larger ones.

  And above them all—floating high above the front line—was King Terra.

  He hovered like a sentinel in the sky, vines twisting and curling around him like wings. Every gesture he made sent massive roots crashing into the enemy ranks. Thorned walls burst from the ground. Entire monsters were consumed by carnivorous plants.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The walls were holding—for now—but the line was cracking.

  Lyn stared in horror. “What is this…?”

  Kaeden didn’t speak. His eyes were wide, jaw slack.

  Louise caught up behind them, face grim. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  Then—

  The King turned his head.

  He saw them.

  For a moment, he smiled—a tired, faint, but real smile.

  They had passed.

  But the smile didn’t last.

  A roar tore across the battlefield.

  A hulking titan emerged from the distant treeline—twisted and stretched, with limbs too long and a torso too lean. Its movement wasn’t slow like the others—it sprinted. And then jumped.

  Straight toward the kingdom wall.

  A gasp rippled across the defenders. The beast flew higher than any of the others before it—soaring, spinning mid-air like a demon flung from the heavens.

  The King reacted instantly.

  Vines exploded upward from the ground like spears. A colossal thorn wall slammed into the beast mid-air—impaling it through the chest and driving it sideways into the rock. Black blood rained across the battlefield.

  But more monsters came.

  The line buckled.

  Guards near the gate began to push the children back.

  “You need to go—get inside now!” one shouted, trying to shield them.

  “Where is my father?!” Lyn screamed, fighting against the push.

  The King’s voice boomed down from above, carried by magic.

  “The elites… and Terra’s best… were sent to stop a greater threat.”

  Alden turned toward him, heart pounding. “Greater than this?!”

  The answer came not in words—

  —but in sound.

  A distant, primal shriek tore through the air—high, sharp, full of ancient malice.

  Then wings.

  Massive.

  Horrifying.

  Silhouetted against the horizon. But enough.

  The children froze.

  The sky was too quiet.

  George stood at the front of the squad, staring into the haze where the treetops gave way to ash plains. Fifty soldiers—Terra’s finest—waited behind him in nervous silence. Beside him stood Ruben, his face grim, and Mary, her staff pulsing faintly.

  “They said it had wings,” one soldier muttered.

  “They said it killed the other elites.”

  “Then why are we going?”

  “To stop it before it reaches the kingdom,” George snapped, eyes fixed forward. “We don’t let it reach our children.”

  The earth trembled.

  Just slightly.

  And then came the noise.

  Not a roar. Not a screech. Something lower. A rumble. A wet grind. A broken moan.

  The soldiers froze.

  From above—shadows.

  Then the clouds tore apart.

  It came down like a meteor.

  Not a dragon. Not really. A distorted monster, shaped like a winged lizard but wrong in every way. Its frame was gaunt and twisted, bones protruding like spears from beneath taut, veiny skin. It had three wings—two functional, one malformed and torn, twitching with every movement. The creature’s jaw was split unevenly, one side drooping, exposing rows of mismatched teeth. Its tongue lolled like a dead snake. Each claw was long enough to skewer a man whole.

  Its face… no eyes. Just a mess of ridges, old scars, and pulsing tissue.

  And it was huge.

  Twice the size of any building in Terra.

  The second it hit the ground, men died.

  The impact launched a dozen soldiers into the air—cracking bones, shattering armor. Dust and blood exploded outward. The backline screamed as bodies were crushed beneath the monster’s landing.

  George reacted instantly, launching himself forward with a Terra-powered leap. His greatsword gleamed, slamming against the creature’s side—but it barely flinched.

  It turned—and backhanded him.

  He flew across the battlefield, smashing through a boulder. His blade snapped in two.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  He staggered up—then looked down.

  His arm was gone.

  The bleeding was instant and deep.

  “GEORGE!” Ruben sprinted toward him—only for a massive tail to whip sideways, carving through three soldiers and ripping Ruben’s leg off below the knee.

  He hit the ground, screaming.

  The monster charged forward—not with elegance, but like a predator on a killing spree. Its wings beat violently, throwing wind and dust into the ranks. It trampled two more guards—one flattened under a claw, the other bit in half mid-scream.

  Mary didn’t hesitate.

  She pulled George and Ruben behind a crumbling wall and stepped forward.

  The soldiers were panicking. Some tried to retreat. Others screamed orders that no one followed.

  Mary’s voice was loud, firm, and furious. “FORM UP!”

  She rose into the air with a burst of Terra energy.

  The monster lunged.

  She dodged—barely.

  It clipped her leg with a talon, slicing it open.

  She kept flying, gaining height, scanning its twisted form. There—beneath the malformed third wing—a thin seam along the back of its neck. Flesh. Unarmored. Pulsing.

  She gritted her teeth.

  “If there’s a chance—” she whispered.

  She dove.

  Her staff spun through the air, glowing bright green, trailing streaks of Terra energy.

  She came within inches of striking it—

  —and its jaw snapped upward.

  Too fast.

  Too brutal.

  It caught her out of the air like a toy.

  CRUNCH.

  Her body twisted once, blood spraying wide—

  Then it bit again.

  And swallowed.

  The soldiers below went still.

  George, barely conscious, tried to crawl forward—blood leaking from his shoulder.

  Ruben screamed, “NO!”

  The monster looked down at them, tongue flicking over torn flesh.

  Then it began to advance again.

  Only a handful of soldiers remained standing.

  The rest were torn apart, broken, fleeing… or frozen in terror.

  Blood soaked the soil.

  George knelt in the dirt, arm gone from the shoulder down, face slack with shock. His shattered sword lay beside him. Smoke from scorched trees and torn terrain curled into the overcast sky, thick with ash.

  The monster stood in the center of it all.

  A twisted, reptilian monstrosity—dragon-like in shape, but not in grace. Its body was bloated with stone and sinew, three massive wings twitching in unnatural rhythm. Black rot pulsed beneath its scaled skin. Its mouth stretched too far, wide and gaping, filled with jagged, uneven teeth. Where its eyes should’ve been, there were just sockets of gleaming red light.

  It reeked of corruption.

  The soldiers around George were trembling. Barely a dozen left. Burned, bleeding, broken.

  Mary was gone. Torn from the sky, devoured whole.

  Ruben limped toward George, one arm slung over a makeshift crutch of earth—his leg gone from the knee down, replaced with a crude prosthetic fused by Terra energy.

  George’s lips barely moved. “She’s… she’s gone…”

  “I know,” Ruben said. He didn’t stop moving. “But we’re not.”

  The remaining soldiers gathered what little courage they had left. They watched the dragon-thing circle the battlefield, stomping on corpses, scattering rubble with every step.

  “What now?” one whispered.

  “We’re all gonna die,” another said hollowly.

  “We don’t run,” Ruben said. His voice was low. Steady.

  “But there’s no plan—”

  “There is,” Ruben interrupted. “There’s one thing left we can do.”

  He turned to George, eyes sharp through the dust.

  “You have to go.”

  George blinked. “What?”

  “You saw what Mary saw—there’s a weakness. That patch on its neck.”

  Ruben took another painful step closer.

  “Someone needs to tell the King. Warn the kingdom. If that thing survives this, it’s going straight for Terra.”

  George looked around. At the soldiers. At the ruin. “But… I can’t leave you here—”

  “Yes, you can,” Ruben growled. “You must.”

  The soldiers were quiet.

  Then one said, “He’s right.”

  Another nodded. “You’re the fastest, George. The strongest. You’re the only one who can make it back with that wound.”

  “You’ve still got one arm. That’s more than the rest of us.”

  George clenched his fists. “You’re asking me to leave you to die.”

  “No,” Ruben said. “We’re giving you the chance to make our deaths mean something.”

  The words hit like a hammer.

  George stared at the dirt. Then at the monster.

  It was watching again.

  As if amused.

  “Go,” Ruben said quietly. “See your daughter again.”

  That broke something in George. His teeth clenched. Tears welled, unfallen. But he nodded.

  “I’ll make it,” he said.

  “You better,” Ruben said with a crooked smile. “Or I’ll haunt you.”

  George stood. Blood dripped from the bandage at his shoulder. He gave one last look—to the men he trained with, fought beside.

  Then he ran.

  No one stopped him.

  Not even the monster.

  Ruben turned back to the soldiers.

  Silence.

  No orders now. No ranks.

  Just men and women with nothing left to lose.

  Ruben inhaled sharply, then slammed his hand into the ground.

  Stone rose underfoot, a stairway of jagged earth lifting him high.

  “Listen up,” he said. “You saw what she did. That patch on its neck—maybe it’s a weak spot. We’re going to find out.”

  He flexed his one remaining leg, strengthening the prosthetic with glowing Terra energy. He shaped it like Mary had taught him—a sleek, brutal limb of stone and vine.

  “I’m going in.”

  The soldiers stepped forward. Swords ready. Spears clenched.

  Not one of them expected to live.

  But they would fight.

  Together.

  The smoke clung to the ground like fog. The battlefield outside Terra’s walls was silent for only a moment.

  Then the distorted beast landed again—its triple wings folding in unnatural, jointed segments. Its talons dragged trenches through the earth. It turned slowly, like it knew they had nothing left.

  The remaining soldiers—barely two dozen now—stood scattered across the bloodied field. Some clutched shattered shields. Others leaned on broken blades. None turned to run.

  Ruben stood at the center, his leg bound by hardened Terra stone—a prosthetic patchwork of vines and rock that barely held him up. His body was shaking from exhaustion, but his eyes were clear.

  He looked at the twisted monster ahead. The gaping maw that had swallowed Mary whole. The fanged mouth that stretched too wide across its face. The extra wing that flapped even when the others didn’t move.

  It didn’t matter if it had a weak spot.

  They wouldn’t make it to strike it again.

  Still, he raised his fist. Terra energy pulsed around it—dull and fading, but present. His last reserve.

  “For Terra,” someone whispered.

  The distorted dragon shrieked and charged.

  The soldiers screamed back.

  And they ran to meet it.

  Blades flashed. Vines erupted. Arrows arced through the air. The beast tore through the first wave with a single sweep of its claws—bodies thrown like dolls. The ground cracked as it slammed down, scattering the formation.

  Ruben lunged forward. His stone leg crunched with each step.

  “NOW!” he shouted.

  A handful of surviving soldiers threw their weights against the creature’s legs, driving hooks and earth-forged chains into the joints.

  Ruben leapt.

  His body sailed through the air. His fist, glowing with every ounce of his Terra energy, slammed into the raw, red patch at the back of the monster’s neck.

  Crack.

  The impact echoed across the plains.

  For a breath—everything stopped.

  Then the monster shrieked—and nothing happened.

  The skin there didn’t tear.

  It didn’t fall.

  It just turned its massive head.

  Ruben’s eyes widened. “No…”

  The maw opened.

  And he was gone.

  The ground trembled beneath their feet.

  Lyn’s breath caught in her throat. Kaeden dropped low, ready to run, and Alden instinctively grabbed her arm as the second deafening roar thundered across the kingdom.

  A sick, low vibration rippled through the castle stones and the twisted vine wall that surrounded them.

  More soldiers rushed across the courtyard, shouting to one another—some helping civilians into the inner halls, others forming rushed defensive lines.

  “EVERYONE INSIDE!” one guard screamed. “THE MONSTER’S COMING!”

  Kaeden stepped between the guard and Alden. “We just passed the test—don’t shove us like we’re toddlers—”

  “Get in the castle now!” the soldier snapped back.

  Lyn wasn’t moving. Her eyes scanned the chaos outside the plant wall—past the thorny jungle the King had raised to hold the line.

  Then—

  From the far end of the field, just past the edge of the vine wall, a figure stumbled into view.

  A guard spotted him first. “Wait—someone’s coming!”

  The vines shuddered.

  Then unraveled—just enough for the battered man to pass through.

  George.

  His armor was torn open, dirt and ash smeared across his face. His right arm ended in a bandaged stump. His sword was gone.

  “Dad?!” Lyn gasped.

  He didn’t stop moving. He passed her with only a brief look—his expression soft, proud, and heavy with grief.

  “You passed,” he rasped. “Good.”

  The King hovered just above the battlefield, surrounded by a tangle of his living wall—vines extending like arms around him, slamming into creatures that dared approach. Blood painted the roots. Screams echoed through the outer field.

  George moved forward, ignoring the stunned guards and soldiers.

  The King floated just a few feet off the ground now, eyes fixed on the distant battlefield.

  George knelt below him, breathing hard. “Your Majesty,” he said. “I bring a report—from the eastern edge.”

  The King looked down.

  “We found the source,” George said. “The flying monster. It… it wasn’t like anything we’ve seen.”

  He looked up, eyes shadowed with grief. “It was huge. Fast. Distorted. Three wings. A twisted, gnashing thing. It tore through fifty of our best.”

  The King stayed silent.

  “Mary found something,” George continued. “A spot on the back of its neck—unarmored. She thought it might be a weak point, that is the best chance we have”

  He looked toward the horizon.

  “It’s coming.”

  Even before he finished speaking, another roar split the sky.

  The ground shook. Dust rained from the ruined battlements. Some of the younger soldiers screamed.

  A distant explosion lit the far end of the kingdom.

  Then silence.

  The King lowered slowly to the ground. His expression remained unreadable. But something shifted in his posture.

  Louise stood just a few paces behind him, eyes narrowed.

  “…How long do we have?” the King asked.

  George’s voice was hollow. “An hour, maybe. Less.”

  Alden, Lyn, and Kaeden stood frozen behind the guards, watching everything unfold. The weight of it crashed over them like ice water.

  The King looked out toward the burning edge of the kingdom.

  “…Then this may be our last stand,” he said quietly.

  A pause.

  Then, without turning, he asked, “You feel it too, don’t you?”

  Louise stepped beside him, gaze fixed on the horizon. “Yeah.”

  No more words passed between them.

  Just the rising smoke.

  The distant scream of something that shouldn’t exist.

  And the quiet, pulsing glow of the dying kingdom.