Lyra’s tactical mind raced through the descriptions, trying to identify the threat.

White skin. Glowing eyes. Supernatural strength and speed. Immunity to pain. Attacking both sides.

What are these creatures? They look like humans but they also don’t , but she knew there were dangerous since Elric had brought failed hero experiments. That’s his hidden card. That’s what my gut was warning about.

She broadcast through the network: "All defenders! Those creatures are Dangerous! They’re not truly alive! Massive damage to destroy them! Target areas that can kill instantly!"

But even as she gave the tactical guidance, Lyra knew it was almost useless.

The settlement defenders were exhausted, wounded, running low on weapons and ammunition. They were barely holding against regular human soldiers.

Against thirty new creatures with unknown powers ?

We’re going to lose, Lyra thought with terrible clarity. The mathematics just shifted catastrophically against us. We can’t survive this.

The worst had truly begun.

—-----------------

The field where the corruption specialist had detonated turned into a wasteland.

The explosion had created a crater twenty-five feet deep and fifty yards wide. The ground for a hundred yards in every direction was scorched black, vegetation incinerated, earth itself contaminated with residual corruption energy. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

At the crater’s edge, three hundred yards from the detonation center where Mikazelle had teleported them to safety, the Four Heroes lay scattered across scorched ground, their bodies broken and bleeding from the massive explosion they’d barely survived.

Gattychan was the worst wounded. His blessed armor—forged from holy steel and enchanted by the Cathedral’s finest smiths—had shattered completely. Pieces of broken plate mail lay around him like shed snakeskin. His underpadding was torn and burned. His exposed skin showed severe corruption burns—purple-black marks where demonic energy from the explosion had seared through his divine protection.

His left arm was broken, bone visible through torn flesh where the explosion’s shockwave had snapped it. His ribs on the right side were cracked, possibly broken, making every breath painful. Blood ran from his nose and ears from the concussive force.

His blessed sword lay fifteen feet away, the blade cracked down its length. Even the holy weapon hadn’t survived Pattern Seven undamaged.

But he was alive. His divine power was healing him slowly, golden light flowing through his body, knitting bones and closing wounds at glacial pace.

Seraphelle knelt nearby, her hands glowing with healing magic as she worked frantically to repair critical damage. Her own injuries were significant—her robes were burned, her face was bruised from impact, blood trickled from a cut on her forehead.

But healers always prioritized others over themselves. She channeled her divine healing into Gattychan first, focusing on the broken arm and cracked ribs that posed the most immediate threat to his combat effectiveness.

"Hold still," she commanded, her voice strained with effort and pain. "Your arm is badly broken. The bone needs to be set properly before I can heal it, or it’ll knit incorrectly and you’ll lose function—"

"Just heal it enough that I can fight," Gattychan gasped through pain. "We need to get back to Third Line. Elric needs us. The main battle—"

"Will continue without us for a few more minutes," Seraphelle interrupted firmly. "If I heal this wrong, you’ll have a crippled arm for life. Divine healing can fix almost anything, but not mistakes made during emergency treatment. Give me five minutes to do this properly."

Twenty feet away, Mikazelle sat against a piece of rubble, her spatial magic completely offline. She could feel the dimensional fabric around her but couldn’t manipulate it—the Pattern Seven explosion had disrupted her connection to spatial manipulation so severely that it would take at least ten minutes to restore even basic functionality.

Her ribs were broken—she felt the grinding pain every time she breathed. Her spatial perception, normally allowing her to see in multiple dimensions simultaneously, was reduced to normal human vision. She was effectively blind by her standards.

"How long until you can teleport us back to Third Line?" she asked Seraphelle, knowing the answer but needing to hear it.

"My spatial magic is gone," Mikazelle replied, her voice tight with pain and frustration. "The explosion disrupted my dimensional connections. I need time to restore them. Ten minutes minimum before I can attempt even short-range teleportation. Longer-range jumps like returning to Third Line? Twenty minutes, maybe more."

Rindelle sat nearby, cradling her left arm. It was broken—again. The same arm that had been broken in Position Twenty’s explosion, that Seraphelle had healed during teleportation, was now re-broken from Pattern Seven’s much larger detonation.

The bone had snapped cleanly, which was actually fortunate. Clean breaks healed easier than compound fractures. But it hurt like burning coals, and she couldn’t use her bow effectively with only one functional arm.

Her quiver still held arrows, her bow was intact, but she was effectively combat-ineffective until Seraphelle could heal the arm.

"How’s your mana?" Gattychan asked Seraphelle, his tactical mind still functioning despite pain.

Seraphelle’s expression showed strain. "Low. Very low. I maintained Divine Sanctuary through the entire Pattern Seven explosion—that consumed enormous mana. Then I healed all of us during Mikazelle’s emergency teleport to keep us from dying during transport. Then I’ve been healing your critical wounds for the past three minutes. I’m running on maybe... twenty percent mana reserves?"

"Can you heal all of us to combat-effective status?"

"Eventually. But not quickly. If I heal Gattychan’s arm properly, then Mikazelle’s ribs, then Rindelle’s arm, then all our minor wounds... that’s another fifteen to twenty minutes of sustained healing. And it’ll drain my remaining mana completely."

Gattychan processed this tactical reality. They were wounded, magically exhausted, temporarily unable to teleport, and at least twenty minutes from being combat-ready.

"Then we rest here," he decided. "Seraphelle heals us properly. Mikazelle restores spatial magic. We recover to combat-effective status, then teleport back to Third Line and support the main assault."

It was sound tactical doctrine. Rushing back to battle while wounded and magically depleted would just get them killed. Better to take twenty minutes to recover properly and return at full effectiveness.