Voranthar stood on the balcony of his highest tower and gripped the stone railing. He watched the starving citizens drag his perimeter guards to the cobblestone streets.

The wooden gates of the capital swung open, allowing Iron-Scale and the Vanguard army to march directly into the city without facing a single arrow.

Voranthar stumbled backward and ran a hand through his hair. He desperately needed a countermeasure because the Heralds were completely gone. He remembered the Aether-Core device Soros presented at the coalition summit weeks ago.

The weapon rested in the center of the royal war room, designed to emit a localized anti-magic pulse that would vaporize any hostile forces approaching the palace walls.

He sprinted down the winding stairs and burst into the war room. The metallic device sat on a marble pedestal, covered in intricate protective runes.

Voranthar rushed to the pedestal and grabbed the activation lever. He pulled it down forcefully.

The Aether-Core vibrated violently and emitted a blinding blue light. A massive shockwave of energy exploded outward from the palace, sweeping across the entire capital in a matter of seconds.

Voranthar ran back to the window to watch the Vanguard burn.

Iron-Scale and his soldiers continued marching through the streets without a single scratch. The blue light washed directly over them and dissipated harmlessly.

Directly below the balcony, the Tarnstead knights guarding the palace courtyard suddenly screamed. The energy wave struck the royal guards and violently siphoned their mana reserves.

Their physical stamina evaporated instantly. Hundreds of armored knights collapsed to the cobblestones in a paralyzed heap.

Voranthar stared at his fallen guards in absolute horror. He realized Novus and Hawl had spent days inside the palace before assassinating Soros.

The two infiltrators completely altered the runic matrix of the Aether-Core. The assassins inverted the targeting parameters. The weapon bypassed the Vanguard entirely and drained the Tarnstead military instead.

The capital’s final line of defense vanished in a single moment. Voranthar fell to his knees, utterly defenseless as the Vanguard approached his front door.

The Aether-Core explosion only reached the palace grounds. The royal guard lay completely paralyzed on the cobblestones.

Down in the lower districts, however, tens of thousands of active Tarnstead soldiers still held the line. Warning bells clattered from the watchtowers as the remaining artillery battalions mobilized to defend their home. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The gates stood open. Iron-Scale marched through the entrance and signaled his army to attack.

The disciplined columns instantly broke formation as one hundred thousand Vanguard soldiers flooded the capital. Volleys of steel-tipped arrows rained down from the rooftops, striking the advancing infantry.

"Hold the line!" a Tarnstead captain screamed from behind a makeshift barricade. "Brace the pikes!"

Armored beasts roared and crashed into the wooden defenses with enough kinetic force to shatter the barricades instantly.

Gulag sprinted ahead of the main infantry line, laughing as the arrows bounced harmlessly off her armor. She activated her mana core and slammed her bone club directly into the cobblestone street. The ground liquefied into molten glass.

An entire squad of cavalry lost their footing, plunging into the superheated trap and burning before they could even attempt a retreat.

While Gulag melted the main thoroughfare, Torix scaled the walls of the merchant guilds. He fired invisible tripwires across the narrow alleyways to cut off the escape routes. Fleeing soldiers ran blindly into the monomolecular webbing.

The traps cleanly sheared through steel armor and limbs alike, leaving the alleys painted in blood.

Voranthar watched the slaughter from his tower balcony, gripping the stone railing as absolute panic set in. Without Soros or Aris to coordinate the defense, the military lacked any cohesive leadership.

The surviving captains fought bravely, but they stood absolutely no chance against Iron-Scale and his forces.

’I have nothing left,’ Voranthar realized, staring at the burning merchant district. ’They are butchering my people. Their souls would have been so useful!’

Desperate artillery crews positioned on the inner walls fired explosive shells directly into the lower districts. The blasts destroyed houses and leveled entire city blocks as the defenders sacrificed their own city just to delay the invasion.

Iron-Scale deflected a falling piece of rubble with his polearm and pointed his weapon toward the inner wall.

"Bring those cannons down!" Iron-Scale ordered over the noise of the explosions. "Tear down the walls!"

The siege beasts pushed forward, climbing over the ruins to violently clash with the last remaining infantry battalions. The streets transformed into a brutal war of attrition.

Voranthar realized his army would not survive the afternoon. He abandoned the balcony and sprinted toward the armory. He grabbed a gilded sword from the display rack, preparing to fight the invaders himself.

"If I die today, I will take them with me," Voranthar whispered, his hands trembling around the hilt of the blade.

The Vanguard siege beasts crushed the remaining artillery cannons under their massive feet and pushed directly into the upper districts of the capital.

Iron-Scale marched over the ruined barricades while Gulag and Torix cleared the flanking alleyways of any surviving archers. They easily bypassed the paralyzed knights scattered across the outer courtyard and approached the grand entrance of the royal palace.

Inside the grand foyer, King Alden paced frantically in front of his surviving personal guard. He firmly believed in Voranthar’s vision of a conquered continent and willingly sacrificed his own military to protect the refugee leader.

"Hold this line!" Alden ordered his men, drawing a highly decorative gilded sword from his scabbard. "We must buy Voranthar enough time to figure out a counterattack. He is our only hope for the future."

Deep below the throne room, Voranthar cared absolutely nothing about Alden or the Tarnstead people.

He locked himself inside a reinforced subterranean panic room and huddled in the corner. Voranthar covered his ears to block out the sounds of the dying city above him, entirely focused on his own survival.

Vorathar had realized that he was losing the war he had started for his own greed and ambition. There were no heralds to protect him, and the alliance of the fourth continent had broken because of him.

He had lost his biggest supporters, his commanders, tacticians, and the royal mages.

He was all alone.