If Sol’s battle had been a display of cataclysmic, world-ending pressure, Warchief Veylara’s assault was a masterclass in close combat terrifying violence.

She did not merely fight the Coalition forces; she dismantled them with the casual efficiency of a butcher harvesting cattle.

Her feet dug into the blood-slicked limestone, leaving webbed fractures in the stone with every explosive burst of speed. She caught up to a fleeing cluster of Gray Marauders near the western ridge.

They had been all their might, desperate to outrun the crimson death behind them, no matter how dull witted they were they knew that fighting against a layer 4 powerhouse is a dead end, but Veylara was already there.

SWOOSH.

Her spear cut through the air, creating a shrill, whistling vacuum that pop-fractured the eardrums of the men closest to her. A Layer 3 Marauder berserker, sensing the lethal wind at his back, spun around with a desperate, animalistic roar.

He brought down a massive, dual-pronged bone cleaver, pouring every ounce of his remaining essence into a final, suicidal counter-attack.

Veylara didn’t even adjust her stance. Her deep blue eyes remained as cold and unblinking as the deep sea. With a flick of her wrist, the broadblade of her spear met the bone cleaver head-on.

BANG.

The flint-like cleaver exploded into a shower of razor-sharp shrapnel that shredded the berserker’s own face and chest.

Before the fragments could even hit the ground, Veylara’s spear point flashed forward like a striking viper, piercing cleanly through the center of his throat.

With a grunt of primal effort, she flexed her toned, sun-darkened shoulder and lifted the three-hundred-pound giant entirely off the ground with one arm.

"Rats!" she bellowed, her voice shaking the slate ridges.

With a brutal twist of her hips, she hurled the dying giant’s body like a ball from a catapult straight into the thickest part of the retreating vanguard.

The impact was horrific.

The heavy corpse smashed into four more warriors, the sheer kinetic force breaking their spines and throwing them into a tangled, screaming heap on the gravel.

Veylara was already moving before they hit the ground. She spun her weapon in a violent, two-handed overhead wheel, her Layer 4 core pulsing like a miniature sun within her chest. T

he air within ten paces grew so hot that the blood pooling on the rocks began to hiss and boil into a sickening pink steam.

She slammed the spear downward.

A crescent wave of compressed, blindingly hot crimson fire erupted from the impact point, tearing across the valley floor in a twenty-pace arc.

It cleanly sheared through leather armor, iron-oak shields, and flesh alike. The heat instantly flash-boiled the internal organs of multiple Zharun elite warriors, leaving a perfect, smoking crescent of severed, cauterized corpses in its wake.

To Chief Vane, watching helplessly from the rear, she didn’t look like a human being.

She looked like a primordial god of war, painted in the blood of his kin, systematically erasing his tribe’s future from the face of the earth.

...

But of course, Veylara didn’t know his thoughts nor would she have cared even if she did.

Right now her entire focus was on utilizing the golden opportunity given by Sol to slaughter the enemy.

Because even though she is a Layer 4 powerhouse capable of facing three opponents of the same realm at once, in the end she was still a human.

If a massive wave of enemies surrounded her and sacrificed themselves in endless human waves, no matter how deep her essence reserves were, they would eventually run dry.

And using such overwhelming power always came at a heavy price.

Every surge of essence strained her body, burned through her stamina, and pushed her body closer to collapse.

One mistake, one moment of exhaustion at the wrong time, and even the mighty Warchief could be dragged down by sheer numbers.

That was why she refused to waste even a single second of this golden window.

Her deep blue eyes blazed with primal hunger as she scanned the chaotic battlefield.

Just then, her gaze locked onto a fresh cluster of Zharun spearmen retreating in a panicked, disorganized line.

Nearly two hundred warriors were scrambling backward in a panicked, disorganized line.

Seeing this, a savage grin split Veylara’s blood-splattered face, her muscles coiled, her sun-darkened skin glistening with a mixture of sweat and enemy gore.

She opened her mouth to unleash another deafening war cry, her right foot already lifting to launch herself forward.

But right at this moment, deep within her chest cavity, her heart suddenly gave a sudden, violently erratic, and agonizing shudder, as if a hand had suddenly reached inside her ribs and squeezed the heart tightly.

And with that, the battlefield seems to swim around.

The sharp lines of the valley mountains dissolved into a spinning, nauseating vortex of blurred grays and reds.

The explosive momentum that had carried her through thousands of enemies seemed to instantly vanished.

Her legs, usually as unyielding as ironwood trees, had turned into soft branches, unable to even lift her own weight.

Thud.

Veylara stumbled heavily, her body almost falling forward.

"Warchief!!"

A blood-spattered Veynar commander, marching barely five paces behind her to clean up the remnants of her slaughter, saw the impossible happen.

His heart leaped into his throat as he witnessed Veylara falter and sway.

"Form up! Protect the Warchief!" he screamed, his voice cracking with a sudden, sharp spike of panic.

Three veteran warriors broke ranks, abandoning their shields, and lunged forward at maximum speed.

Just as they were about to catch her, she somehow was able to control her body, barely able to avoid falling face first and refused their help.

Still, she collapsed heavily onto her left knee.

Her hands, suddenly trembling and slick with cold sweat, gripped the shaft of her spear, driving the butt of the weapon deep into the limestone cracks just to keep her body from collapsing entirely.

COUGH.

Suddenly a violent, convulsive spasm ripped through her chest.

Veylara arched her back, coughing violently.

A thick, massive mouthful of dark, almost black blood spilled over her lips, splattering across the pristine white gravel between her knees.