NOVEL NEXT B3 - Lesson 10: "Battlefield Presence."
Garrelt looked out from where he stood atop the wall.
The battlefield below was chaos.
Raw. Roaring. Blinding.
The ground churned beneath the boots of charging bandits and steadfast adventurers, soaked with blood and scattered with shattered stone. Shouts morphed into screams. Steel clashed and shattered. Spells carved glowing arcs through smoke-choked air. Somewhere below, someone laughed — a high, cracked sound — as fire licked over a fallen barricade.
Yet the bandits seemed endless.
They came in droves — former mercenaries, rogue cultivators, hardened enforcers, all drawn by the scent of blood and the promise of plunder. Worse, Dr. Maria's suspicions had proven true: Icefinger had insider knowledge. The expedition's rank-and-file were mostly early- to mid-stage [Golden Spirit] cultivators. Yet from what he could see, most of the bandits were in the late or peak stage of [Golden Spirit]. Garrelt could even see a few [Shackle Breaking] cultivators running around the battlefield.
With greater numbers and, on average, higher cultivation… this should have been a slaughter.
Should have.
Fweeeem!
Garrelt turned left, gaze landing on the goblin hunter crouched beside him. He hadn't caught the smaller warrior's name. Then again, it was hard to tell them apart with their black, beetle-like armor. Perhaps feeling his gaze, the single, glowing red eye in the middle of the goblin's otherwise featureless, glass-smooth helmet turned to him.
The goblin stood and lifted the strange crossbow-like weapon from where it rested on the rampart.
"Want to give it a try?" the goblin asked, voice casual as he held the artifact up.
Garrelt hesitated for a breath, then shook his head. "No thank you," he replied, tone flat.
The goblin shrugged and pressed a button on the weapon. With a quiet click, a black rectangular box slid from the grip. The goblin unclipped it, affixed it to his belt, then retrieved a fresh one from the opposite side and slotted it smoothly into place. The entire motion was fluid, practiced — like a smith swapping tools mid-forge. Garrelt recognized the rhythm. The same kind of ease he himself had while carving runes into a circuit array.
The goblin reset the weapon on the wall and went still.
Fweeeem!
A streak of light burst from the weapon's barrel. On the battlefield, a bandit's hand erupted in a spray of blood and bone, just as he'd raised his blade to finish off a wounded adventurer. The downed woman wasted no time; she surged forward, her spear driving through the man's chest.
Garrelt frowned, his thoughts heavy.
By conventional wisdom, this should have been a fight far above the goblins of the village.
Most of the villagers barely reached low- to mid-[Bronze Spirit] cultivation. Even the weakest of the bandits could have wiped out half the village alone. Boarslayer and Antchaser stood stronger than most — peak and mid-[Silver Spirit], respectively — but even they wouldn't have made a difference against an army of [Golden Spirit] cultivators and mages.
And yet…
Across the field, similar scenes unfolded.
Each time a bandit gained the upper hand, each time an adventurer faltered, there came a flash from somewhere on the wall. A shot. A reversal. The tide shifted again.
Garrelt doubted the fighters below noticed, swallowed by the chaos. But from here, above it all, he could see. He could see.
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And his frown deepened.
"What's wrong? Wishing you were down there?" an aged voice asked from behind, warm, amused, familiar.
He turned to find Dr. Maria approaching, a soft smile tugging at her lips, her eyes dancing with mischief.
He turned back to the battle as she joined him. "A bit," he admitted.
Despite being one of the expedition's few mid-tier [Shackle Breaking] cultivators, he wasn't arrogant enough to think he could turn the tide alone — but he could have helped.
Dr. Maria chuckled. "I won't deny, I'm tempted, myself. Did I ever mention I was a field medic during the Clan Uprising?"
Garrelt gave her a sidelong look. The "uprising" had been a brief but major war in Halirosa's history, when some of the more powerful clans of the time thought to wrench control of the city from the Adventurer's Guild… nearly three centuries ago. If she'd been there… then she was older than he had thought. Even by [Golden Spirit] standards.
The perks of being a spirit healer, he supposed.
"No. You didn't."
She smiled wider. "Well then. Let me pass on one thing I learned: Sometimes, where we need to be matters more than where we want to be." She chuckled again. "Don't worry, boy. Everything's going as well as it can. Be where you need to be, and trust things will unfold as they should."
"All according to the dungeon's plan, right?" Garrelt muttered, brow furrowing. He couldn't quite keep the sarcasm from his voice.
Dr. Maria didn't answer. But Garrelt caught the flicker of a smirk in his peripheral vision.
A silent moment passed between them. Then she pointed. "Looks like things are about to heat up."
Garrelt turned to look.
Three men stood at the center of the battlefield.
——————————————————
At the center of it all, untouched by blade or beam, stood Robert, Bert, and Magnus.
None of the three moved. None spoke. Yet that didn't mean they weren't fighting their own war.
Around them, the battlefield split, tumult roaring on either side, yet flowing around the trio, like a Third Realm cultivator parting the sea. Not a single bandit or adventurer dared cross within thirty meters of the silent clash. The space between them seemed almost hollow… sacred.
No command had been given. No explanation was needed.
That invisible boundary wasn't marked by blade or flame, but by presence alone. By Will. A ring of death carved not in stone or spell, but in the deepest instincts. While the details of Spiritual Will weren't something those of the First Realm could truly understand, they didn't need to understand to feel it. Just as animals would avoid the den of some vast, hungry predator, they knew, even through the chaos of battle, that to cross that line was to die.
On one side stood Magnus Ironheart, a monument of stillness.
He loomed like a mountain torn from the world's bones, unshakable and vast. His eyes, deep beneath a heavy brow, were locked onto his opponents with the quiet assurance of inevitability. Around him, the air bent and twisted — not with heat, but with pressure. Gravity swelled near him, thickening the space until men stumbled if they wandered too close. Even the wind seemed to mourn in his presence, its freedom stolen. His Spirit Will pressed outward like an avalanche waiting to fall.
Opposite him stood Robert.
Gone was the twitchy, angry man from the wall. In his place stood a swordsman honed to a perfect edge. His stance was loose, almost lazy, yet every muscle sat on the edge of violence, like a blade waiting to be unsheathed. Nothing about him seemed forced, but everything screamed danger. Around him, the world sliced itself. Leaves that drifted near him were shaved into nothing. Pebbles cracked. The very air seemed drawn into edges. His Spirit Will wasn't heavy or flowing. A naked blade that cut without striking.
Beside him stood Bert.
If Magnus was a mountain and Robert a blade, then Bert was a storm given flesh. Towering and broad-shouldered, he looked more like a siege weapon than a man, yet his Spirit Will whispered of howling winds and raging storms. It rolled off him in rhythmic pulses — not the heavy oppression of Magnus or the sharp-edged intent of Robert, but a spiraling, ever-moving form, a ceaseless dance that dared the other to try to touch it. And Bert? Bert was the eye of that storm, a perfect paragon of calm determination. A hurricane in slow motion.
Their battle wasn't one of fist or blade. Not yet. It was quieter than the war raging around them — Yet infinitely more deadly.
Each time Magnus' Will would reach out to crush one of the nearby adventurers, Bert's storm would rise to meet it, breaking the pressure with whorls of wind. When Magnus tried to press further, Robert's cutting edge would flash, slicing through the distraction, fracturing the wave before it could land.
Alone, Magnus had already bested Bert
But now?
Now, with Robert at his side, they split Magnus' focus, his Will stretched, divided, forced to defend from two fronts at once.
But the advantage was mutual.
Of course, the same was true for them as well. If Robert's sword-intent lashed out — cutting even without form — at a bandit who strayed too close, Magnus' gravity crushed it into weightless dust before it could reach those behind him.
If Bert tried to send raging winds to disrupt the other bandits, Magnus would slip through the storm and last out at the other.
So the duel raged.
Silent. Still.
A battle not of motion, but of being.
Every breath was a question. Every heartbeat a test.
Whose Will would falter first?
And what would tip the scales?
To everyone's surprise, the answer to that question came from a direction all but one of them had never expected.
From below.