**Torin Shadowear's Log, Supplemental**
**Western Front – Center Sector**
**1st Company, Republic Guardian Force recording**
**40 days after Rothgard's Fall**
The guns fall silent.
The cost reveals itself.
Victory tastes of ash and blood.
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The battlefield lay under a heavy pall of smoke and silence, bathed in the blood-red light of the setting sun. Torin Shadowear stood at the crest of a low ridge, his Mark 1A rifle still clutched in his hands. The weapon's barrel and helical rails radiated intense heat, shimmering faintly in the cool evening air. Exhaustion pressed down on him like a physical weight, every muscle burning, every breath tasting of blood and burnt ozone.
Kira Emberwhisk stood beside him, her twin tails limp, rifle barrel still ticking as it cooled. Borin Ironvein leaned heavily on his massive axe. Sylvana's shoulders were slumped, her magic spent. Elara knelt nearby, checking on a wounded Albion soldier. Garrick stared out across the carnage with hollow eyes. None of them spoke for a long time. Torin finally broke the silence, his voice rough and tired.
"Towards the end… my rifle started losing zero. The rails must have warped." He looked down at the weapon in his hands. "We're going to need replacements. The whole company." Kira let out a weary laugh that held no real humor. "Mine was cycling so hard I thought the coils were going to melt. But we kept firing anyway." She shook her head, gaze distant. "I don't think I've ever pushed a weapon that hard before."
Borin grunted, wiping sweat and blood from his face. "We pushed everything hard today. I've never seen men move like that — like one single beast with hundreds of teeth. We tore through them." Sylvana's voice was soft, almost haunted. "They kept coming even when they knew it was hopeless. Wave after wave. And we just… kept cutting them down."
Torin stared across the field of broken bodies and shattered armor. The sheer scale of the destruction settled over him like a cold shroud. Pride and horror twisted together in his chest. "We did what we had to," he said quietly. "But seeing it like this… it hits different." Kira leaned against his side, exhaustion weighing heavily on her small frame. "I keep thinking about how fast it happened once their general went down. One moment they were a raging tide. The next… just broken men throwing down their weapons. We really did it. We broke an army."
Garrick finally spoke, his voice low. "I don't know if I feel proud or sick. Maybe both." Elara stood up, wiping her hands. "That's the cost of winning. You feel both." The group fell quiet again, letting the heavy silence of the battlefield wash over them. Their rifles continued to tick and hiss as they cooled. In the distance, Wyvern shuttles roared low overhead, carrying the wounded toward safety. Torin looked at his companions — bloodied, exhausted, but still standing — and felt a fierce, quiet pride swell in his chest despite the horror surrounding them. "We held the line," he said finally. "We closed the jaws. That's what matters." The Guardians stood together on the ridge, weapons still warm in their hands, watching the smoke rise slowly into the darkening sky.