Chapter 331: Riven’s Stand

Five minutes later, Class Fortis was in position along the edge of the stone canyon.

The wind was deafening. Dust stung Riven’s exposed skin like tiny needles as he crouched on a narrow stone shelf fifteen feet above the canyon floor.

Below him, Caster was hammering the last rune stone into a deep crack in the cliff wall, his hands glowing with a soft, pale light as his Structure Affinity bonded the runes directly into the canyon’s mana veins.

"Done!" Caster yelled over the roaring wind, hurrying back up the loose dirt slope. His boots slid twice on the shifting rock before Riven reached down, grabbed him firmly by the collar of his shirt, and hauled him up onto the shelf with one easy motion.

"Watch your footing, Caster," Riven grunted, letting go instantly and turning his eyes back toward the upper mouth of the pass.

"T-Thanks," Caster panted, quickly wiping dust from his face. "The array is set. All thirty spots are connected to my core. The moment I push mana through this circuit, the left wall comes down."

High above them, stretching across the whole width of the stone pass, a thick, shining web of pale green roots and huge thorned vines spread through the desert air.

Lyssaria stood on a high arch at the back of the pass, her hair whipping wildly in the strong wind. Her hands were raised in a steady, unbroken motion as her World Tree core hummed with power. With a dry, heavy thump, the living roof locked firmly into both cliff faces, sealing the sky above the pass like a metal roof.

"They’re coming," Riven said quietly.

He didn’t need a signal.

He felt it through the soles of his boots, a low, steady shake running through the dry ground. It wasn’t just a shake; it was a steady, pounding heartbeat of the earth telling him his luck was about to run out.

From the high ground above, a huge wave of dark, screaming shapes poured down the steep slopes.

They didn’t come down in a neat line.

They tumbled and crashed into each other, a messy, screaming mass of limbs and armor that tore down the loose rock like an unrolling carpet of teeth.

They spilled over like a black flood. It was a wild swarm of Grade 3 Dune-Scuttle Scorpions, their heavy armor shining under the harsh sun, mixed with wide, armor-plated Spine-Back Crawlers whose clicking jaws sounded like hundreds of iron scissors snapping at once.

Every click sent a sharp pain through Riven’s temples.

Above the ground beasts, a flock of sun-scaled gliding lizards swooped down, screaming as they prepared to dive straight into the pass.

"Hold your ground!" Riven’s voice cut through the noise as he drew his dual daggers. The steel blades gleamed with a dark shadow aura that swallowed the sunlight around his hands. His heart slammed against his ribs

The gliding lizards dropped first, aiming straight for the canyon floor.

Crunch!

They slammed into Lyssaria’s thorn roof at full speed. The huge, vine-woven ceiling didn’t even shake. The fifteen-inch thorns tore cleanly through leathery wing skin and soft bellies, spraying dark, thick blood across the rocks below.

Three beasts were impaled instantly, screaming in pain as living roots held them in mid-air, locking them in place before they could drop even a single foot lower.

"Caster! Now!" Riven barked.

Caster slammed his glowing palm onto the rock face beside him. "Alright! I’m doing it! Hold on tight, you guys, this is gonna be loud!"

A series of sharp, deafening sound, like thirty cannon shots firing one after another, echoed along the left canyon wall.

The entire fifty-foot slab of stone groaned, split along Caster’s precise rune lines, and collapsed inward with a thunderous roar. Tons of jagged stone crushed the front ranks of the Spine-Back Crawlers instantly, turning the fifty-meter-wide canyon mouth into a narrow, dangerous pile of rubble barely three meters across.

The swarm bottlenecked violently.

Scorpions stumbled over the fallen debris, their jointed legs snapping as they jammed together into a squirming, helpless mass.

Riven didn’t wait to give himself a second to breathe, because stopping to think in a fight meant getting your throat cut open. He dropped straight from the ledge into the center of the gap. His shadow aura burst outward, melting his body into a blur of pitch-black mist.

A fraction of a second later, he reappeared directly behind a Grade 4 Greater Scuttle-Beast. His dual daggers flashed in a clean, brutal cross-strike, sliding through the beast’s neck joints before it could turn its armored head.

His daggers moved in a deadly, unbroken blur. Whenever a heavy pincer swung toward his ribs, he dropped low into a sliding dodge, using the momentum to rip his blades upward through the soft belly of the monster.

The heavy smell of torn guts and hot acid blood hit the back of his throat like a physical blow, making his stomach turn.

Blood sprayed across the rock in dark, smoking curves.

Riven killed three, four, five beasts in quick succession without breaking his rhythm for a single heartbeat. His arms burned, his shoulders screaming under the endless repetition of tearing shell and bone, but he gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached.

Behind him, the rest of Class Fortis carried out their turns with cold precision.

Three students stepped up in a tight, disciplined wall behind Riven, locking their iron shields into the rubble to block the rushing claws. Their boots slipped on the wet blood, their knuckles turning white against the iron handles as the weight of the monster charge hit their shoulders.

When a crawler tried to jump over the barrier, two spear-wielding students from the second support line thrust in unison, driving iron-tipped shafts straight through the beast’s soft belly with clean, practiced strikes.

Every student knew their turn.

Every gap was filled instantly. Yet, even as they held the line, the absence of those who had fallen during the academy attacks three months before hung heavy in the air, the empty spaces in the ranks reminding the survivors of the blood already paid.

They fought not with wild bravery, but with the cold, sharp focus of a unit that refused to lose anyone else.

From her high arch at the back of the pass, Lyssaria watched the front line with cool, calculating focus. Her mana flowed smoothly into the thorn roof above, taking the hit of another diving beast, while her eyes constantly scanned the top of the high ground.

Riven’s line is holding the narrow point, she analyzed silently, her brow furrowing slightly as a deep, unnatural shake ran through the canyon wall beneath her boots. Caster’s array is completely stable... but the mana pressure at the top of the pass is shifting violently.

She looked up toward the highest rift at the peak of the high ground.

The first wave hadn’t even been fully cleared, but the simulation wasn’t waiting.

A huge, violet pulse of mana, far thicker and more unstable than anything from the Grade 3 and 4 waves, burst into the sky, followed by a deep roar that shook straight through the stone valley. Even the sunlight seemed to twist around the jagged tear in the sky, staining the amber dust a sickly purple.

Lyssaria’s jade eyes narrowed as she felt the sudden drop in air pressure.

A second wave is coming... she thought, her fingers tightening slightly against her sleeves.

Down in the rubble of the narrow point, Riven ripped his blade free from a crawler with a wet squelch, wiping dark blood from his cheek. He looked up toward the high ground, his steel-red eyes locking onto the surging violet light radiating from the upper rift.

"Bring it on," Riven muttered through gritted teeth, his grip tightening on his hilt as the ground beneath his feet began to split once more. "We’re not letting them through.