Up on the mountain front, exhaustion had started to settle into everyone's bones.
Ice King, Azaryl, and the rest of the Imperial forces had been fighting for hours in brutal conditions. The air was thin and icy, sharp enough to burn the lungs every time they breathed. The snow beneath their boots was no longer clean white, it was churned into dirty ice, ash, and blood. Wreckage from crashed jets littered the ridges, and every explosion echoed across the mountain range like thunder trapped between stone walls.
Ian stood near the edge of a frozen shelf, scanning the battlefield through blowing snow.
Then he saw it.
A massive beast was charging straight toward their position.
Its body was built like a battering ram, huge and thick with plated flesh, snow and rock kicking up under its feet with every stride. A glowing Kia shield wrapped around it, shimmering blue-red in the cold air as it plowed through falling debris and artillery smoke.
Ian's expression hardened.
"It's a siege beast!" he shouted. "Open fire!"
Imperial jets immediately dropped their noses and fired. Missiles screamed in. Plasma rounds hit. The beast kept coming. The Kia shield absorbed the first wave and distorted under the pressure, but it held.
Then the demon army answered.
Heavy artillery started hammering the mountain range.
Shells exploded across the ridges. Snowfields shattered. Stone broke apart. Entire sections of the slope began collapsing under the bombardment. The ground shook so hard soldiers struggled to stay upright, and cracks spread across the icy paths beneath the Empire's feet.
Ice King slammed his staff into the ground and sent freezing waves across the broken slope, trying to stabilize whatever he could.
"I'm holding the surface as best I can!" he yelled.
"It won't be enough!" Azaryl called back, bracing against another shockwave.
Ian looked toward the charging beast again, then toward one man.
"Deadshot!"
Deadshot Valor turned from his position, already understanding by the tone alone.
"I need you to take out that beast."
Deadshot didn't answer with words.
He moved.
The ground was still shaking when he stepped forward and pulled out a long sniper rifle powered by Kia, a weapon built specifically for targets protected by reinforced energy barriers. The rifle hummed as he planted his feet in the snow and aimed.
The mountain trembled again.
Snow slid down the upper cliffs.
The beast kept charging.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Deadshot stood right in its path.
To anyone else, it would have looked suicidal.
To him, it was just another shot.
He inhaled once.
The rifle glowed.
He fired.
The shot cracked through the mountain air like a bolt of judgment.
The round pierced the Kia shield.
The shield shattered in a burst of distorted light, and the projectile drove straight into the siege beast. The giant creature collapsed mid-run, its legs folding under it as momentum carried its body forward. It slid across the ice and snow, plowing a trench through the slope before finally stopping right at Deadshot's feet.
For a moment, even the battlefield seemed stunned.
Then Ian looked up and saw the upper ridge moving.
His eyes widened.
"We need to get off this mountain!"
The avalanche had begun.
It started as a low roar somewhere above them.
Then the entire slope answered.
Snow, rock, and ice broke loose all at once, pouring down the mountain in a white wall of destruction.
Ian didn't waste another second.
He jumped onto the roof of a Sentinel armored combat vehicle and slammed a hand against the hatch.
"Drive!"
The driver didn't hesitate.
The vehicle lurched forward and tore down the mountain path as fast as its treads could handle. Deadshot vaulted up onto the back. Ice King dove into one of the other armored vehicles, and all across the line, Imperial units started retreating down the slope while the avalanche thundered after them.
The roar behind them became deafening.
Ian stood on top of the moving vehicle, one hand gripping the mounted frame while snow and icy wind whipped at his armor. He risked one glance back.
The avalanche was only feet away.
It rolled down the mountain like the wrath of nature itself, swallowing wreckage, artillery positions, and demon dead alike.
"Faster!" Ian shouted.
The vehicle barreled down the final section of the descent just as the avalanche crashed into a lower ridge. A mountain of snow burst upward and outward from the impact, sending a violent spray across the valley floor.
The truck skidded to a stop.
Ian and Deadshot dropped down behind it and took cover as the wave of snow blasted over and around them. For a few seconds, there was only white.
Then silence.
The snow settled.
Ian stood and looked back up.
A huge path had been carved through the mountain.
The avalanche had erased the natural choke points.
The ridges that had slowed the demon advance were broken open now, torn apart by artillery and buried under sliding ice.
There was nothing left between the demon army and the road to the capital,
nothing but the Empire's military.
Deadshot rose beside him, brushing snow off his coat. "That's not good."
Ian stared at the open pass. "No. It's not."
One by one, the remaining Imperial forces regrouped at the bottom of the mountain. Ice King arrived with the other vehicles, exhausted but standing. Azaryl came down with the surviving ground elements. Armor formations repositioned. Artillery crews re-established firing lines. Jets circled lower now that the battlefield had opened.
The demon army was coming.
And this time, there would be no terrain to slow them.
Ian linked back into the wider comm net and joined up with the main force. In the distance, he could already see the rest of the Empire's army moving into position for the final stand.
Above them, the great STF warship shifted into attack posture.
Massive guns rotated.
Missile bays opened.
Hangar doors spread wide.
The ship itself seemed almost alive in the sky, as if it understood that this next clash would demand everything it had.
Ian looked toward the widening mountain pass and then up at the warship hanging above them.
The demon army had a clear road.
The Empire had nowhere left to fall back.
Now all that remained,
was the fight of a lifetime.