Chapter 307: Victory Without Joy

The attack did not announce itself.There was no horn. No warning cry. No shared moment of realization between those who were about to die.

One heartbeat, the Ritefield of Beasts was alive with music—drums beating in uneven rhythm, voices raised in drunken song, cups lifted high as firelight danced across fur and stone.

The next—

Laughter shattered.

Sylvanel fighters crashed into the celebration like a falling blade. Skills activated at point-blank range, without mercy, without delay. Steel pierced flesh before screams could fully form. A sword thrust driven by a physical enhancement skill punched cleanly through an unarmored back, the force enough to lift the body off the ground before discarding it.

A lycan turned, mouth open to shout—only for an arrow released with a precision skill to tear through his throat at close range. The impact snapped his head back violently. His hands clawed at the wound, a wet, choking sound escaping him before his body collapsed into the dirt, voice silenced forever.

Combat skills detonated all around them. Not distant techniques. Not measured duels. Close-range activations meant to kill instantly.

A Sylvanel vanguard slammed a shockwave skill into the ground, the impact crushing legs and shattering bones, bodies thrown aside like broken mannequins. Bladed arcs tore sideways through groups trying to flee, flesh and fur splitting under reinforced strikes. Momentum-based skills turned simple swings into executions.

The music died.

Cups shattered. Tables overturned. Fires spilled across the ground, igniting fur, cloth, and banners alike. People ran without direction, slipping on blood and alcohol, crashing into one another in blind terror. The Ritefield became a blur of firelight, screams, and bodies falling faster than thought could keep up.

They were not soldiers.

They never had been.

These were criminals. Smugglers. Murderers. Rapists. Thal’Zar’s disposable underbelly—gathered to drink and celebrate, believing the war existed somewhere far away. Some carried weapons. Some had awakened cores. Many had nothing but claws and fear.

They died first.

Lycan screams ripped through the field—raw, animal, desperate. Howls broke into choking gasps as blades pierced lungs. Roars of rage ended mid-breath when skulls cracked under enhanced strikes. One by one, voices vanished, cut short with brutal efficiency.

Some tried to fight back.

Pulse Rank lycans surged forward, activating physical reinforcement skills, claws hardened with mana, fangs tearing into flesh. One Flow Rank fighter tore through a Sylvanel frontliner, ripping armor open in a spray of blood—

Only to be erased moments later.

A Prime Rank Sylvanel stepped in, activating a compression-based combat skill. The force crushed inward, ribs folding, chest collapsing as if gripped by an invisible vice. The lycan didn’t even scream. His body simply dropped, lifeless.

The gap between ranks was absolute.

Not a difference of talent—but of fate.

Pulse and Flow Rank Thal’Zar fought with desperation and instinct. Flow and Prime Rank Sylvanel moved like executioners, every motion deliberate, every skill activated with lethal intent. Their items—crafted and enhanced by Stonehearth—cut through defensive techniques as if they weren’t there.

Weapons summoned in panic by the Thal’Zar shattered on impact.

Defensive skills failed to activate in time.

Armor split. Shields buckled.

People tried to flee.

They ran straight into death.

From every direction, bodies fell. Firelight flickered across blood-soaked ground. The air filled with smoke, ash, and the copper stench of slaughter. Any attempt at regrouping collapsed instantly—there was no formation to recover, no line to hold.

Only chaos.

Only fear.

What had been a celebration moments ago became a killing ground.

The Thal’Zar tried to adapt.

Those who survived the first wave scrambled to activate what little preparation they had left. Mana flared in panicked bursts as weapons were summoned mid-run—axes forming half a second too late, blades materializing already out of alignment. Improvised lines took shape where fear allowed it, bodies clustering behind raised shields, claws digging into the ground as if instinct alone could hold the tide back.

It didn’t.

The first clash told them everything they needed to know.

Stonehearth-crafted items hit like judgment.

A lycan raised a conjured shield, its surface shimmering with a hastily activated defensive skill. A Sylvanel fighter met it head-on, weapon glowing faintly as a reinforcement skill surged through the metal. The impact lasted less than a breath. The shield fractured outward in a spiderweb of light before shattering completely, shards dissolving into nothing as the blade continued through—bone, muscle, spine—without slowing.

Another tried to parry.

Steel met steel, and the Thal’Zar weapon simply... failed. The moment of contact sparked once, shrieked sharply, and then disintegrated, reduced to fragments of mana and useless scrap. The lycan barely had time to register the absence in his hands before the follow-up strike split his armor and ended him.

Everywhere, it was the same.

Defensive skills collapsed under pressure they were never designed to withstand. Armor buckled as if struck by siege weapons. Shields bent, cracked, or vanished entirely. Techniques meant to buy time failed to even do that.

This wasn’t a contest of skill.

It was material inferiority made manifest.

Panic spread.

In the way fighters began glancing backward mid-swing. In the hesitation that crept into movements once confidence shattered. They were outmatched, out-equipped, outplanned.

And they knew it.

Orders came too late and contradicted each other anyway.

"Fall back!"

"Hold the line!"

"Scatter—scatter!"

They chose the only option that felt like survival.

They ran.

The Ritefield broke apart as Thal’Zar forces scattered in every direction, bodies colliding, some trampling the fallen in blind desperation. Cries echoed through smoke and fire as they fled the killing ground, claws scraping against earth, lungs burning, hearts hammering with the promise of escape—

And then the world closed around them.

Illusions shimmered into existence along the flanks.

Moonweave techniques unfolded silently, elegantly—walls where there had been none, paths twisting back on themselves, exits dissolving into mirrored dead ends. Lycans slammed into invisible barriers, recoiling in confusion, some turning in circles as reality itself lied to their senses.

Shouts turned to screams.

Then the ground shifted.

Watercaller units struck next.

Controlled surges of water roared through low ground and natural channels, flooding escape routes with crushing force. Mud swallowed legs. Currents dragged bodies off balance, pinning them against rocks and roots. What had been solid terrain moments ago became a trap designed to slow, separate, and drown.

And finally—

The forest answered.

Thorncrest techniques activated in perfect timing. Roots burst from the ground, thick and coiling, snapping around ankles and torsos. Thorns erupted along retreat paths, walls of living spikes hemming survivors in. Precision strikes followed—ambushes from concealment, blades emerging from foliage already too close to evade.

The Ritefield became a cage.

No exits.

No routes.

No mercy.

The remaining Thal’Zar were herded inward by force and terror, trapped between illusions they couldn’t trust, terrain that betrayed them, and enemies who never broke formation. Some dropped their weapons and fell to their knees, howling surrender through tears and blood. Others fought until exhaustion claimed them, until skills failed and bodies followed.

It was over.

The last pockets of resistance collapsed one by one.

Those who still stood were cut down quickly. Those who dropped their weapons were bound just as fast—arms twisted behind their backs, mana sealed, forced to their knees among the bodies of those who had not chosen surrender. The Ritefield of Beasts fell silent except for the crackle of dying fires and the ragged breathing of the wounded.

Prisoners were gathered, disarmed, and marked as captives of war. No mercy—but no unnecessary cruelty either. Orders were followed cleanly. Efficiently.

The field itself told the rest of the story.

Bodies lay everywhere. Lycans sprawled in unnatural positions, fur matted dark with blood. Broken weapons littered the ground like discarded toys. The earth had been torn open by skills and trampled flat by panic, stained so deeply that it would never truly wash clean again.

From a rise overlooking the carnage, Karon au Sylvanel reined in his horse.

He took it in without expression.

It had worked. Every phase of the plan had unfolded exactly as intended. The enemy had been shattered, surrounded, captured, or killed. Losses on their side were minimal. From a tactical standpoint, it was flawless.

Movement to his side drew his attention.

Lorian stepped forward, brushing ash from his sleeve as if the battlefield were nothing more than an inconvenience. His posture was loose, confident—almost buoyant. There was blood on his boots, but he didn’t seem to notice.

"Well," Lorian said, a crooked smile pulling at his lips, "that was easier than expected."

He gestured vaguely toward the field below. "Barely worth calling a battle. My father will be pleased to hear how cleanly the Moonweave performed. This should earn us quite a bit of recognition."

Karon glanced at him, then back to the field.

"It was handled well," Karon replied evenly. "All of you performed as expected."

That seemed to encourage him.

Lorian’s grin widened. "As expected?" He let out a short laugh. "I’d say better than expected. Honestly, if this is what the Thal’Zar can muster, this war won’t last long at all."

He sounded proud. Certain. Already imagining the stories that would be told.

Karon lifted his fist then, raising it toward the sky in a brief, silent salute. Around them, some soldiers straightened at the gesture, others echoing it in tired acknowledgment.

"Today was a victory," Karon said aloud. "You fought well."

A few murmurs of agreement followed. Relief. Satisfaction.

But inside—

Nothing settled.

No surge of triumph rose in his chest. No release of tension. Only a hollow, scraping sensation that refused to fade, like a sound heard just at the edge of hearing.

’It was too easy. This isn’t how wars are won.’

Karon lowered his hand slowly.

For a single heartbeat, the battlefield breathed.

Weapons were lowered. Some were dismissed entirely, fading back into mana as soldiers loosened their stances. Shields dissolved. Blades vanished. Voices rose. Laughter, quiet and disbelieving, crept in at the edges.

It was over.

That was the thought. The mistake.

Karon opened his mouth to issue the next set of orders—reorganization, perimeter checks, prisoner handling—

THOOM.

The sound was wrong.

The figure beside him jerked.

Lorian’s head snapped back as if yanked by an invisible hand. There was no cry, no time to react—just a wet, final impact as his body collapsed onto the blood-darkened ground. His eyes were already empty when he hit, a neat, horrifying hole torn through his skull.

A shot. A musket shot. It was a perfect shot.

For a breathless instant, everything froze.

Then panic detonated.

Shouts erupted from every direction. Soldiers scrambled, some reaching instinctively for weapons that were no longer there. Mana flared chaotically as hurried soldiers tried re-invocations their weapons.

Karon’s rage cut through the shock like a blade.

"We’re under attack!" he roared, voice tearing across the field.

"Reform lines! Now!"

"Eyes up! Shields up! Move!"

He wheeled his horse, scanning the ridges, the treeline, the smoke—anywhere a shooter could hide. His jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

How could they have done this?

How could seasoned forces drop their guard so completely?

His gaze fell back to the body at his feet.

Lorian lay sprawled in the dirt, confidence erased in an instant, renown ended before it could ever be claimed.

Karon’s fist tightened until his knuckles ached. ’An error. A grave one.’

The hollow feeling in his chest finally had a name.

’A trap.’