From the point where Eisengeist’s maddened fury clashed with Oasis City’s barrier, Teutobochus was a substantial distance removed.

An aetherwave message from Zefaris clued Victor in on the chaos taking place well before he would’ve found out on his own.

He bid the titan rise and pass through the barrier, guiding it along the shortest viable path in a full sprint: The Boiling Lake’s coast. Sprinting across the tightrope between crushing houses or falling into the lake’s abyss, he closed the distance in mere minutes… But mere minutes were still not fast enough.

Of all the forces in Borea, a sapdragon was one of the few able to force through Oasis City’s barrier, and even then, it had taken minutes to tear a hole barely large enough for its head. Unfortunately, Eisengeist retained the abilities of his razorflayer roots, including the flexibility to fit through a hole the size of his head.

The hole of Eisengeist’s making shut itself mere seconds after his passage through, but what was done was done. He was in the city, and Teutobochus was still two minutes away.

A small mote of hope had slipped through in the maddened dragon’s wake; a bright-red spark that flew on blackstone wings.

The first among the Hulsons to meet their foe in battle was not Fryg or Jorfr, but Gunnar. His razor-sharp senses woke him, and it was his hollering that alerted all others as he sprinted through the longhouse, his body warping more and more with each step. In moments he underwent a full transformation, allowing his Beast Self to do whatever it deemed necessary with full trust that it wouldn’t act foolishly.

A man possessed, he sprinted headlong out the first floor window, an axe-wielding dervish of inhuman hyperviolence. It wasn’t long that he met Gjermund Aase, elder of the Aase clan, in a clash. He seemed reluctant, somehow.

With a spark of thought and a grin taking hold, he broke off the clash and turned to his own masked allies, exclaiming: “Stand aside, all of you! I would meet him elder to elder. Whosoever thinks to intervene will meet his end by my flail, be he friend or foe! Should I fall… Delay the siege for five minutes and allow him to return.”

Gunnar knew exactly what that meant, going by not just Gjermund’s words, but by the look in his eyes. He also knew that Gjermund knew that he knew. Despite the tense silence, they might as well have been holding a full conversation.

“I’ll try not to kill you,” Gunnar stared, spinning his axes.

“I’d hate to die for a petty bitch like Kristina,” Gjermund grinned, flexing his pectoral muscles.

Zefaris had noticed the coming assault independently from Gunnar, and she had been halfway through climbing to the longhouse’s topmost floor when his alarm resounded. At this very moment she had just sent the warning message to Victor, doing so through pure will, as her hands were busy. They were busy exploding the heads of the fools who had thought to attack the Hulson household head-on. At the very top of its roof, she had perched herself, and from there she rained death upon them.

Nonetheless, quite a few survived the first shot. Projectiles of all forms whizzed past her, from hurled axes to blasts of magickal flame and razor-sharp spikes of ice, but she dodged them all, Flicker-stepping over and over again such that it looked as though she was continuously snapping from one firing pose to the next without motion inbetween.

For all her firepower, Zefaris was only one woman, and a substantial force had assembled in some misguided aim to bring ruin to the Hulson household.

It would take all those present at the longhouse to defend it; not for Zefaris’ lack of killing power, but for the fact she still needed to reload and she couldn’t see through solid material. As near-ideal as her firing position was, there were still blind zones, and these nidingrs had the home-turf advantage.

The smell of smoke reached her nostrils.

The longhouse had been set alight. Malicious green light danced across the masked faces of her foes, and the source of this self-same light was at this moment racing through the longhouse’s otherwise flame-retardant wood.

Meanwhile, across Oasis City, Eisengeist rampaged his way through the streets. Tidal waves of blazing sap flowed through the streets towards which he turned his head, the ground broke under his stride, and his six tails slashed apart men and buildings alike. His flame blazed out of control, spreading and consuming indiscriminately.

Hundreds died in minutes.

Dozens more fell in valiant attempts to halt or at least slow him. Kyriak Bjorn was not among the dead, but he may very well have been. His mighty blows, strong enough to wound the beast, drew Eisengeist’s ire, and the sapdragon brought its many-clawed foot down upon the Bjorn clan’s elder; tens of tons of weight came crashing down upon him… Only to stop a little over two meters above the ground.

Kyriak had grabbed Eisengeist’s foot with his own two hands, his feet already sinking into the ground, for the ground gave way far more easily than he did. Then, he drew in a breath, his body growing to nearly twice his already massive size as he just kept. On. Inhaling.

He had used his voice many a time. He had trained it, honed it, he had brought it to bear in battle, but those times were not the purpose of his training.

This.

This was what he had trained for.

For the difficult. That was the sort of man Kyriak Bjorn was.

A man who wished to deny the sky from falling if it came down to it.

His scream could be heard all throughout Oasis City and beyond. There was no subtlety to its effect. No tonal manipulation, or precise frequencies. This was Kyriak's philosophy on lifting made manifest; the only way he could conceive of lifting something so large that a human couldn't physically grip it. In the purest sense, this was the human voice amplified into sheer physical force through profound spiritual strength.

THE PROFOUND VOICE OF AN ENLIGHTENED MAN

BJORN CLAN ARTS: HEAVEN-DEFYING ROAR

With its utterance, Eisengeist’s foot was lifted and the great dragon found itself thrown off balance, the fur stripped from its limb up to the elbow and jets of purple blood made to erupt from its pores. The shockwave of Kyriak’s feat tore the cobblestones out of the road and the facings off of buildings, shattering windows and carrying through the streets while he ushered those around him to flee, blood gushing from his mouth and his voice completely shot.