The fight that was about to unfold was the peak of the current battle between the Knights and the Ghouls Army.On one side stood Hazim and the Black Knight. The strongest Knights and the leaders of the knights army, their armors flickered under the sun, their faces were stoic and firm, they were ready to end this battle.Opposite them, Yajij finally stood to his full, terrifying height, his chest expanding as he drew in a deep, rattling breath that sounded like grinding stones. His eyes, burning with infernal light, fixed on Hazim, and a wide, grotesque smile split his features.“At last,” Yajij boomed, his voice resonant with genuine pleasure. “The wait is over. I was growing so bored. The little knights tried so hard to entertain me, they truly did. The one with the hammer… he showed such promise to amuse me, but in the end, he too was a disappointment.”He shook his massive head in mock sorrow. “But it's ok, you finally came… I have been waiting for you.”Hazim didn’t grace the mon

The tide of the larger battle had turned, but isolated storms of chaos still raged across the battlefield. While the legendary duel against Yajij consumed all attention at the center, another critical struggle was unfolding on the eastern flank. Jameel and Ibrahim were locked in a desperate confrontation against the last remaining general of Yajij's inner circle.His three most trusted generals and mightiest guards—the female Ghoul, Ghayda', the Transparent Ghoul, Ja'abal, who had fallen to the Black Knight, and Hafaf, the other two had been defeated, along with the majority of Yajij's other commanders. Now, only Hafaf and Yajij himself remained, scattered bands of lesser Ghouls the only other resistance.Hafaf's power was not one of brute force. He was not a creature of terrifying physical might. His was a far more insidious ability: psychological manipulation. He propagated his influence by emitting illusory copies of himself that spread throughout the ranks, tricking the knights in

The air crackled with power as Ali, defying Hazim’s roared command to withdraw, became a golden comet of suicidal bravery. His pride, stung by Yajij’s threat and his own desperate need to prove himself, overrode all sense of self-preservation. Instead of evading, he poured every ounce of his energy into a final, decisive thrust aimed at the deep gash he had already carved into Yajij’s neck.He never reached his target.A contemptuous, guttural sound erupted from Yajij, not a roar, but a focused expulsion of breath. It was a cloud of corrosive, green-tinged vapor that hit Ali head-on. The advanced metal of his helmet sizzled and melted on contact. The concussive force behind the blast was like a physical wall, slamming into him and hurling him backward as if he were a discarded leaf. He crashed to the earth with a sickening thud, his Sword of Light skittering from his grasp. His helmet, now a half-molten wreck, sparked and died, its internal systems overloading and failing into total

The tide of battle had seemingly turned. The ground was littered with the still forms of fallen Ghouls, and the knights fought with the weary determination of those who could see a path to victory. Yet, in the command center, Hadi’s brow was furrowed, his eyes scanning the tactical holograms with growing unease. Something was wrong.“The numbers don’t make sense,” he muttered, more to himself than to Hasan, who stood beside him, his own arm bandaged from a recent wound. “We’ve cut them down by the score, but the pressure on our lines hasn’t diminished. It’s as if… as if they aren’t truly falling.”Hasan nodded grimly, his sharp eyes having caught the same discrepancy. “I’ve seen it too. On the western flank, we dropped a dozen with rocket fire. They fell and did not move. But minutes later, when I looked back, the same dozen were still there, unmoving. They are not dissolving into ash. They are just… lying there. If we don’t understand why, our men will be struck down by sheer exhaust

The smell of blood and metal filled Ali’s nostrils as he pushed himself onto his knees, the world swimming back into focus. The shame of his defeat was a cold stone in his gut, but the sight of the three titans clashin the Old Man, Hazim, and the Black Knight against a furious Yajij ignited a different, more stubborn fire within him. Despair was a luxury they couldn't afford. Giving up was not an option.With a grunt of effort, he ripped the ruined, smoldering helmet from his head and tossed it aside, the shattered visor reflecting the chaos around him. The cool air on his face was a shock, but a clarifying one. He began to crawl, then stumble, towards a nearby pile of wreckage where the armor of fallen knights lay discarded and broken.Haitham, leaning heavily on a sword he found on the battlefield watched him with weary concern. "Ali? What are you doing? You need to fall back to the medical tents."Ali didn't look up, his fingers frantically sifting through a mangled chest plate. "I