Chapter 12: He Who Commands Beasts
The third wave didn’t begin with footsteps.
It began with magic.
A pulse rolled through the gorge like a shockwave, a sudden surge of power that wasn’t fire or thunder, but pressure.
Noah staggered as the ground beneath him trembled, and a second later, the walls of the maze shattered all at once.
Not just cracked. Not dented.
Obliterated.
Stone exploded in every direction.
The exact strategy they’d been banking on, their fortress of controlled chokepoints, was now a field of rubble.
Dust rose in thick plumes, making it difficult to breathe or see.
Noah coughed and shielded his eyes, stepping over a collapsed section of wall. Shouts rose from every direction as knights regrouped, some bleeding, some stunned.
Arlo landed beside him, his tunic streaked with dirt but his grin intact.