The Topa Kingdom. The besieged city of Tormeus.

  In the semi-darkness of the makeshift command post, which had been set up in the damp, musty-smelling basement of a ruined tower, the air was heavy and stagnant. It smelled of ozone from the dozens of portable servers and communication relays, all working at their limit, of cheap instant coffee that had long since turned into a cold, bitter sludge, and of the smell of fear, sweat, and despair that had seeped into the ancient stones.

  "CP! This is Golden Eagle-1, respond! Urgent, CP, on the line!" An agitated, almost cracking voice broke through the static of the R-187P1 "Azart" tactical radio's speakers.

  Major Alexey Neverov, who had been catching a few moments of sleep right at the tactical table with his head resting on his folded arms on top of a map, started violently. His weary, unshaven, dust-covered face for a moment reflected only a deep, animalistic exhaustion from several days of almost continuous slaughter. He jerked his head up, rubbing his red-rimmed, sleep-deprived eyes. The sleep vanished instantly, replaced by an icy concentration, honed to a bestial automaticity.

  "CP on the line. Report, Golden Eagle," his voice was hoarse but perfectly calm. He had instantly recognized the call sign of his sniper team—their "eyes," inserted into the most dangerous and critical position.

  "Alpha-Zero is in play! I repeat, Alpha-Zero is on the field!" The voice on the radio, which belonged to the spotter, was trembling with a mixture of terror and adrenaline. "Alpha-Zero"—the codename for the Demon Lord himself. The main objective of the entire operation. "He has no fewer than two hundred legionaries with him, high orcs. They are in the central square of Minias, three hundred and fifty meters from the forward positions of the Topans! He's… he's tearing our allies to shreds! Three squadrons of Topan cavalry… they're gone! He… he just incinerated them with a single spell!"

  Neverov instantly tensed. Nosgorath. Had personally taken to the field. That meant one thing: the enemy, having lost his "generals," the ogres, had moved to a final, desperate strike. He had stopped playing at tactics and had decided to end it all with a single blow.

  "Golden Eagle-1, this is CP. I copy you," the major's voice was even, without a trace of panic, only the cold metal of command. "Do not engage directly! Your task is observation and target designation. Suppress the orc officer corps and support mages, if any, only if the opportunity arises and without risk to yourselves. Your main objective is to track Alpha-Zero, do not lose sight of him. I repeat, avoid detection! How copy? Over."

  "Copy you, CP! We are operating in observation mode!" A palpable relief could be heard in "Golden Eagle's" voice.

  Neverov had already switched to another frequency, contacting his assault groups.

  "Attention, all assault groups! 'Sokol,' 'Wolf,' 'Bear'! Assemble at point Delta-3! The enemy has revealed his main piece! We're starting!"

  Then he snatched his tactical helmet from the wall, putting it on as he moved.

  "ALL GROUPS! ON YOUR FEET! GENERAL ALARM! ALPHA-ZERO IS IN PLAY! WE ARE MOVING OUT TO THE CENTRAL SQUARE! 'YAMAL,' START THE 'ELEPHANTS'! 'TYPHOON,' YOU'RE UP FIRST! THE CLOCK IS TICKING!" his command roar, amplified by the internal communications speakers, echoed throughout the fortress, rousing the weary but ready for one last, decisive battle, soldiers.

  The Central Square of Minias.

  The foggy, damp morning over Minias was stained crimson. Not from the dawn, but from the hundreds of fires still smoldering in the ruins, their greasy, suffocating smoke mingling with the low, heavy clouds, casting an unreal, infernal hue over everything. Avon, commander of the royal heavy cavalry, a young aristocrat whose lineage had died on the walls of this kingdom for centuries, stood in his stirrups, the steam from his warhorse's breath mixing with the ash. His face, previously pale from exhaustion and sleepless nights, now burned with a feverish, almost manic flush. This was the last battle. The last chance. The final charge.

  "WEDGE FORMATION! ON ME! FOR THE KING AND FOR TOPA! FASTER!" his roar, amplified by a battle incantation, cut through the moans of the wounded and the distant, rhythmic beat of orcish war drums that seemed to resonate not in the ears, but deep within the bones.

  Two hundred knights, all that remained of his once-mighty thousand-man regiment, formed up behind him as one. Their armor gleamed in the dim light of the dying fires, their heavy, six-foot cavalry lances ready, their battle-worn but still proud heraldic banners flying—it was a magnificent, almost theatrical, tragic spectacle. The last parade of the damned. At the signal from Avon's war horn, the steel avalanche, from which the very earth trembled, surged forward, straight into the unbreakable, black wall of orc legionaries.

  The impact was monstrous. The heavy knightly lances, designed to shatter enemy formations, broke against the magically reinforced black armor of the legionaries with a deafening crack, barely scratching it. Some orcs fell, knocked from their feet by the sheer kinetic energy of the charge, but others immediately took their place. A brutal, chaotic, almost hopeless melee erupted. The clang of steel on steel, the death-screams of horses driven mad by the scent of blood and fear, the sickening crunch of breaking bones, and the cries—both human and orcish—all merged into a single, deafening, primal roar of slaughter.

  Avon, fighting at the vanguard, was the embodiment of fury. His enchanted sword, a family heirloom covered in glowing runes, whistled through the air, leaving fountains of thick, almost black orcish blood in its wake. He slashed wildly, feeling neither fatigue nor pain, driven only by hatred and duty. But his battle frenzy was short-lived. A high orc, a giant with a two-handed jagged axe, ignored a sword-strike that merely glanced off its massive pauldrons and, with a monstrous, almost lazy swing, caved in his horse's skull. Avon was sent tumbling to the ground. His heavy knight's armor saved him from serious injury, but just as he managed to get back to his feet, his vision darkened from the impact, another orc, roaring, charged him with an enormous poleaxe that looked like a guillotine.

  Avon, instinctively dodging the lethal blade that scraped against the cobblestones with a screech of sparks, drew his own blade diagonally, nearly decapitating the monster. Around him, a brutal, hopeless battle raged. His knights, surrounded and exhausted, could no longer hold their formation. Their mighty wedge, their primary tactic, had disintegrated, and now each one, unhorsed, wounded, fought for his life in a chaotic, bloody mob.

  And then the earth shuddered. A powerful, guttural rumble seemed to emanate from the very depths of hell, and everyone on the square, both men and orcs, froze for a moment. From the heavens, like a black, flaming meteor, a dark figure crashed onto the square with a deafening roar. The stone slabs beneath it cracked, creating a small, localized earthquake that knocked everyone, on both sides, off their feet.

  It was Nosgorath. His black, spiked armor seemed to swallow the very light, and in the slits of his helmet, an inhuman, crimson, intelligent fire burned.

  "I HAVE GROWN TIRED OF YOU, INSECTS!" his voice was not loud, but it thundered in the mind of every soul, paralyzing the will and evoking a primal, almost religious terror. "HELLFIRE FROM THE REALM OF UR-BADUR, ARISE AND DEVOUR THESE WRETCHES!"

  The Demon Lord slowly, with an almost theatrical gesture, raised its clawed hand. Beneath the feet of the fighting knights, on the stones of the square, a gigantic magic circle ignited, woven from crimson, pulsating runes. From these runes, as if from cracks in reality itself, a thick, oily black smoke began to rise, smelling of sulfur and burnt flesh. It enveloped the knights and their horses, obscuring them from view. For a moment, an absolute, unnatural silence fell. And then, from the black, roiling cloud, came such inhuman screams of agony that even the high orcs, those ruthless killing machines, instinctively recoiled, their eyes widening with superstitious horror.

  When the smoke slowly, reluctantly dissipated, nothing remained on the square. Only charred, melted armor, fused with bones into shapeless, grotesque sculptures of pain. And eerie, black shadows, burned onto the stones in contorted, death-agony poses. Two hundred of the kingdom's finest warriors, the flower and pride of its aristocracy, had simply ceased to exist. And it all happened in a few, seemingly endless, seconds.

  In one of the abandoned buildings on the outskirts of Minias.

  The tall, four-story merchant guildhall, having miraculously survived the meat grinder of the siege's early days, had become the perfect forward observation post. From here, through a breach in the tiled roof, the entire aristocratic quarter and the central square where the final tragedy was unfolding were visible as if in the palm of one's hand. Assault Group "Falcon," under the command of Captain Sokolov, had taken their positions, melting into the shadows and construction dust.

  The soldier with the call sign "Filin" (Eagle-Owl), the group's designated marksman, lay almost breathless, his body completely relaxed. He seemed to have become one with his heavy-caliber, suppressed VSSK "Vykhlop" sniper rifle. Through the green, ghostly lens of his 1PN113 thermal sight, a true, primordial hell was unfolding before him.

  "Holy shit…" he whispered into his throat mic, as if afraid of being heard from hundreds of yards away. "The thermal's going crazy, Commander. The residual temperature on the square is… at least three hundred degrees, probably more. And at the epicenter, where he… uh… cast his spell, it's probably hitting five hundred. So much for 'hocus pocus'… I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that."

  Captain Sokolov, sitting beside him with powerful binoculars equipped with night vision and a rangefinder, only grunted grimly.

  "I've already sent a short report to HQ on a secure channel. Neverov's aware. Our job is to observe. We do not engage without orders."

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  "Filin" nodded silently, his eye never leaving the scope. He watched as the remains of the squadron smoldered, as the black shadows on the stones slowly cooled. The sight was both gruesome and… mesmerizing. This was beyond anything they had been taught at the academy.

  Meanwhile, reinforcements were appearing on the approaches to the square. Three surviving regiments of the Topan royal army, having arrived from the capital, stared in horror at the scene before them. The charred and melted remains of Baron Avon's squadron, the pride of their cavalry, were all that was left of their vanguard. There were no bodies, no horses. Only shapeless, twisted lumps of metal, fused with the cobblestones.

  And in the center of this scorched hell, towering over the smoking ruins, stood Nosgorath.

  His hands, wreathed in pulsating dark mana, slowly rose to the sky. The Demon Lord's voice, amplified by magic, was not a scream. It was a rumble, like the shifting of tectonic plates. He spoke in an ancient, long-forgotten tongue, and his every word seemed to make the very air tremble.

  "GREATEST GOD OF THE EARTH, NUR-DATAR! HEAR THE CALL OF YOUR FAITHFUL SERVANT! AWAKEN THE PRIMAL GUARDIAN OF THE DEEP! OH, NUR-DATAR, SEND FORTH INTO THIS WRETCHED PLANE OF EXISTENCE ONE OF YOUR MOST ANCIENT AND MIGHTY CHILDREN! UR-GARON, HEAR MY CALL! ARISE FROM THE STONE AND CRUSH MY ENEMIES!"

  The ground began to shake. At first, it was a barely perceptible vibration, but with each passing second, it intensified, growing into a powerful, deafening earthquake. The stone slabs of the square cracked and buckled, as if something gigantic was awakening beneath them. From under the earth, shedding tons of stone and dirt, a colossal silhouette began to rise. First, a huge, boulder-like head. Then, mighty shoulders. From the chaos and dust, to the accompaniment of grinding stone, a golem emerged. A colossus of granite and earth, reaching eighty feet in height—exactly the height mentioned in the legends of the ancient Ravernal Empire's war machines. It did not roar, but let out a deep, booming groan that seemed to block the ears. And despite its massive, clumsy body, it moved forward with terrifying speed, each step shaking the ground.

  The soldiers of the royal forces stood frozen in superstitious terror. The cries of their commanders were drowned out by the thundering steps of the stone giant. Their formations broke. Men began to fall back, many of them dropping their weapons in panic, trying to save themselves.

  And then a new sound cut through the air. A long, clear, and melodious blast from a war horn. The sound, like a bucket of icy water, brought the army back to its senses. Onto the battlefield, emerging from the side alleys, came ten figures in long robes embroidered with silver and gold. The Royal Battlemages. The elite of the elite. Their faces were calm, and in their hands, they held staves crowned with huge, pulsating crystals of magical energy. They formed a circle, and their voices, merging into a single, hypnotic chorus, began to weave their great, final spell.

  "PREPARE! STRIKE UR-GARON AND NOSGORATH SIMULTANEOUSLY! WE WILL WIPE THEM FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH WITH A SINGLE BLOW!" the squad leader roared, his voice, amplified by magic, thundering over the battlefield like the clang of a war gong, instilling a final, desperate hope into the hearts of the wavering soldiers.

  The mages, moving in perfect, years-honed synchrony, began their grand chant:

  "O, spirits of the wind! Lords of the terrible tempests and fierce hurricanes, of gentle breezes and serene calms! Hear our call!"

  Their hands, in a smooth, ritualistic dance, began to trace invisible runes in the air. The streams of mana erupting from their staves condensed, painting the air first a soft turquoise, and then a dazzling lime green. It seemed as if nature itself, the very soul of this world, had answered their summons.

  "PROCLAIM THE DOOM OF OUR ENEMIES! UNLEASH YOUR WRATH! DRAGONSTORM!"

  The sky, just a moment ago merely overcast, instantly turned black, choked with heavy, leaden clouds. The first drops of rain, cold as the tears of gods, fell to the earth. And then the heavens split apart. A deafening crack of thunder, and a downpour of such force descended upon the land that it seemed the very skies were collapsing. The wind howled, transforming into a monstrous tornado, within which, as if in hell, dazzling balls of lightning danced and collided.

  The tornado, roaring like a mythical beast, crashed upon the giant golem. Ur-Garon froze for a moment, enveloped in the furious vortex. Then its massive body trembled and swayed. A deep, long crack echoed, and the colossus, with a ground-shattering crash, collapsed. The shockwave from its fall, like an explosion, blew the nearby buildings to dust and rubble.

  "YES! IT WORKED! THE ROYAL MAGES ARE THE STRONGEST OF ALL! HUZZAH!" the inspired roar of nearly four thousand soldiers momentarily drowned out even the howl of the storm.

  But their celebration was short-lived. The mages, having given all their strength without reserve, could barely stand. One by one, they dropped to their knees, their faces pale as linen, their robes soaked with sweat.

  "RUN!" the squad leader rasped. "WE'VE… WE'VE ONLY DELAYED IT! RUN!"

  His warning sounded like a death sentence.

  "Hahaha!" Nosgorath's thunderous, contemptuous laughter rolled over the field. He slowly, with an almost mocking theatricality, clapped his clawed hands together. "Pathetic little monkey-spawn have learned a few cheap magic tricks. Impressive."

  He swept the mages and soldiers with a derisive, almost disgusted gaze and roared:

  "UR-GARON! ENOUGH SLEEPING! CRUSH THESE INSECTS!"

  The golem, which had been lying motionless, stirred. Its massive body trembled, and an inarticulate, gurgling sound erupted from its stone depths:

  "Ur-g-ga-gy…"

  Like an ancient weapon, just awakened, it rose to its feet with an unnatural agility for its size and charged forward.

  The soldiers, grabbing their exhausted, nearly unconscious mages, fled in panic towards the last line of defense—the surviving castle walls. But the golem was faster.

  Ur-Garon, swinging its gigantic stone hand, struck the ground with monstrous force. A powerful shockwave, visible even to the naked eye as a distortion in the air, rolled across the square. The soldiers closest to the epicenter were torn apart. Those further away were knocked from their feet. The air filled with the sound of tearing armor, the crunch of breaking bones, and desperate, final screams.

  Nosgorath, watching this chaos from his dragon, grinned widely, almost with pleasure. The lesson had been taught.

  "Command, this is Falcon! We're at the new position! Moved out of the library, set up in the bell tower of the old cathedral! What's your sitrep?" Captain Sokolov's hushed voice, distorted by static, hissed through the radio.

  The reply from headquarters, where Major Neverov sat before a tactical map, didn't come immediately. He was processing what he had just witnessed through the trembling feed from a tactical drone.

  "Command acknowledges. Alpha-Zero has summoned 'Behemoth'," the major deliberately used the dry, almost emotionless language of military codes, trying to push away the irrational dread he'd felt watching the stone colossus be born. "As the golem began to rise, the drone lost line of sight behind the buildings. We're temporarily blind."

  Neverov exhaled wearily, gripping the push-to-talk button tighter.

  "Solid copy, Falcon. You're our eyes now. Maintain observation. Keep your heads down. Over and out."

  He released the button and leaned back in his field chair. His face twisted into a mask of tense, almost painful concentration.

  "An eighty-foot golem… Jesus Christ…"

  Out of place, like a painful case of déjà vu, a memory surfaced of the dusty lecture halls at the General Staff Military Academy and the face of one of the "attached specialists"—an old, eccentric archmage from Qua-Toyne who had been sent to give a course on "non-standard threats." Back then, a few months ago, the young Russian officers—pragmatists and materialists to the core, forged in the fire and steel of modern conflicts—had treated his stories of griffins, manticores, and golems as amusing fantasy tales. Now, those tales had taken on flesh, stone, and monstrous destructive power.

  Archmage Atorus, a spry old man who had lived nearly two hundred years, with cunning, perpetually laughing eyes, had adored his subject: "Applied Bestiary and the Fundamentals of Tactical Countermeasures against Magical Entities."

  "Golems, my young men," he would lecture, stroking his long gray beard, which was braided with woven-in runes, "are not merely animated statues. They are the pinnacle of creation magic. Perfect constructs, capable of executing the most complex algorithms. Nowadays, they are used for plowing fields or in construction for lifting heavy loads. But other races of the New World, even the most skilled elven mages, can only create golems no more than six to ten feet tall. To create something larger would mean burning out one's magical reserves and, most likely, one's very life."

  Then he would pause, his face growing uncharacteristically serious.

  "But once… a long time ago, they were the ultimate weapon. The ancient Magical Empire of Ravernal… now, they were the masters. Their ancient texts, which miraculously survived, speak of war constructs fifty, or even a hundred feet tall. Living siege towers, invulnerable to conventional magic. They were one of the main arguments of their tyranny. But that technology, thank the gods, was lost along with their accursed empire."

  Then one of the young lieutenants, a future tanker, had raised his hand with an ironic smirk. It was Artur Neverov, the major's younger brother.

  "Excuse me, esteemed Archmage, but if these stone idols are so indestructible, how can they be destroyed at all? Would the kinetic energy of a 125-millimeter sabot round, traveling at one and a half kilometers per second, be enough to take them down?"

  Atorus had grinned slyly then, his eyes twinkling mischievously from beneath his thick gray brows.

  "Now that, young man, I do not know myself. The ancient texts are silent on the matter. Apparently, it will have to be determined empirically. That, with your iron monsters, will be for you to find out."

  "Well, Atorus, looks like we'll have to find out right now," the major thought with grim irony. The memory seared him with an icy chill. An eighty-foot golem. Technology that was thought to be lost. This meant that Nosgorath was not just a powerful demon. He was the bearer of the knowledge and power of that same ancient and terrifying Ravernal Empire. The threat had just grown tenfold. This was no longer a local conflict. This was the echo of an ancient, total war.

  On the tactical map, the red markers indicating enemy forces were relentlessly tightening the circle around the last pockets of Topan resistance. Somewhere in that bloody chaos, his small detachment had to find and destroy the main target.

  "Command, this is Falcon! New intel on 'Behemoth.' I think I've figured out how to take this walking statue down. How copy?" Captain Sokolov's voice, steady and cold, cut through the crackle of static.

  Neverov sat up sharply, pulled from his dark thoughts.

  "Falcon, report. I'm listening," he replied, gripping the handset tightly.

  "It's cold on its own. My guy with the thermal confirms: surface temperature matches the surrounding stones, blends right in with the background. But in the center, around the chest area, something is… glowing. A bright, pulsating heat signature. A core. Its power source. If we hit it there, there's a high chance the whole construction will fall apart. Sending you the precise coordinates. How copy?"

  Neverov froze for a moment, his mind processing the information at a feverish pace. A core. A weak point. Of course. Just like in a damn video game. Just like in those fantasy tales the old archmage used to tell them. The absurdity of the situation was such that he wanted to laugh. But he only nodded to himself.

  "Solid copy, Falcon. Excellent work. Invaluable intel. Continue observation. Over and out."

  Without wasting a second, he switched the radio frequency, contacting the commanders of the armored group.

  "Yamal, this is Command. Over."

  "Go for Yamal."

  "Prepare to move out. As soon as you reach the central square, you will see our primary target—an eighty-foot stone bogey. Your mission is surgical. T-14, callsign Elephant-1, your job is to open up the patient. You will engage the core, it's in the center of the chest, coordinates are incoming from Falcon. Use depleted uranium armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot rounds. Immediately after impact, T-90, Elephant-2, you will perform the amputation. Target the same point with high-explosive fragmentation. Fire in bursts. Until the target is completely destroyed. Is the mission clear?"

  The reply came instantly, filled with dry, professional confidence:

  "Command, this is Elephant-1. Understood. Destroy the core. Over and out."

  "Command, this is Elephant-2. Acknowledged. Ready to execute."

  Neverov lowered the radio. Now everything depended on the skill of his tankers. And on whether ancient, almost divine magic would prove weaker than modern ballistics.