The air in the Steele Manor war room was thick enough to choke on. Not with smoke or dust, but with a palpable, suffocating dread. Outside, the very foundations of their reality seemed to tremble under the relentless, cataclysmic assault of eight Archdemons and their infernal lord, Ingranad.
The azure light of Alaric's ultimate barrier, the 'Aegis of the Azure King,' pulsed erratically, its once steady hum now a strained, high-pitched whine. Cracks, like jagged bolts of black lightning, spiderwebbed across its surface with increasing frequency, mended almost instantly by the desperate surge of power from the overloaded Seventh Order core, only to reappear elsewhere.
