(Execution Livestream Continuation, The Pit)
Commander Mickey James waited patiently for the Cult engineers to finish assembling their war arrays, standing at the head of the vanguard with his spear embedded into the fractured stone, unmoving as artillery frames unfolded behind him and mana conduits locked one by one into the earth, because this moment was not meant to be rushed, and the cost of impatience here was bound to be paid for in blood.
Only when the final synchronization glyphs flared across the command lattice did he draw his spear free and turn toward the countless ranks arrayed behind him, billions of Cult warriors standing in disciplined silence as engines hummed, weapons were steadied, and anticipation simmered just beneath the surface.
"CULT WARRIORS," Mickey James roared, his voice carried outward not just by amplification arrays, but by raw, unrestrained authority, rolling across the battlefield like thunder across open plains.
"THIS IS THE DAY YOU HAVE ALL TRAINED FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIVES."
His spear lifted, its tip aligning with the vast, curved arc of the Chakravyuh’s outermost ring, where Master-tier soldiers stood packed shoulder to shoulder, armor glowing faintly as formation sigils pulsed beneath their boots.
"THIS IS THE DAY YOUR ANCESTORS, AND THEIR ANCESTORS BEFORE THEM, PRAYED TO BE A PART OF."
A low growl rippled through the Cult ranks, restrained, contained, but hungry.
"TODAY..." Mickey continued, aura flaring outward as killing intent bled into every word, "WE BRING THE FIGHT TO THE RIGHTEOUS SCUM."
The sound that followed was not a cheer.
It was a promise.
"TODAY," he bellowed, spear rising high, "WE MAKE THEM PAY."
He drew in a breath, the battlefield seeming to tighten around him.
"ON MY THREE, WE CHARGE."
Behind him, the war machines came alive, siege arrays locking into forward alignment as engineers fed final parameters into targeting matrices.
"ON MY THREE, THE WAR MACHINES RAIN HELL ON THEM."
The sky itself seemed to darken as cannons angled forward.
"ON MY THREE..." his voice dropped, heavy and absolute, "...WE BECOME IMMORTALS."
A single heartbeat passed.
"ONE..."
The Cult army took its first synchronized step forward.
"TWO..."
Mana surged through conduits, engines screamed to full output, weapons tightened in hands that had rehearsed this motion thousands of times.
"GO. GO. GO!"
The battlefield detonated into motion.
Cult war machines unleashed their payloads in perfect synchronization, artillery fire screaming overhead as energy lances slammed into the Chakravyuh’s outer ring, shattering formation sigils and tearing open dense blocks of defenders just as the infantry surged forward beneath the bombardment, billions charging as a single, cohesive wave rather than a chaotic flood.
*BOOM*
*CRASH*
*SHRIEEK*
The initial impact was overwhelming.
Master-tier defenders barely had time to raise their shields before Cult Commanders crashed into them like a collapsing horizon, the Cult army charging behind them with such precision and density that entire enemy regiments ceased to exist within seconds, erased under the compounded force of disciplined momentum and superior power.
Commander Mickey James was at the very front.
His spear swept outward in a blazing arc, aura condensing along its shaft as the weapon cleaved through space itself, the strike erasing tens of thousands of enemy soldiers in a single motion, bodies and armor disintegrating under the sheer density of power behind it as the stone beneath cracked and cratered outward.
To his left, Commander Anderson Silva advanced with terrifying calm, his sword flashing as it cut through enemy lines at their structural weak points, severing command clusters and reinforcement corridors with surgical efficiency, every step he took opening controlled gaps that Cult soldiers flowed through without breaking formation.
Further along the battlefield, Commander Dupravel Nuna did not advance with the army at all.
He vanished.
And where he reappeared, devastation followed.
Entire sections of the outer ring imploded as his presence rippled outward in violent bursts, assassinations blurring seamlessly into wide-area annihilation as he carved through rear ranks alone, destabilizing the Chakravyuh’s alignment wherever he passed and forcing defenders to fracture their attention in futile attempts to respond to something they could neither track nor contain.
For a brief, intoxicating stretch of time, it looked as though the Cult army would simply carve straight through.
But unfortunately for them, the Chakravyuh had never been designed to fall quickly.
As the Cult spearheads drove deeper, the formation’s true nature revealed itself, the concentric rings tightening their invisible vice as pressure shifted sideways rather than inward, intact sections rotating and closing with grim precision until Righteous soldiers began to pour in from multiple directions, surrounding the advancing Cult forces on three sides and applying a suffocating choke instead of a frontal wall.
What had started as a clean, decisive incision slowed as resistance thickened, momentum bleeding away under coordinated lateral assaults, until the advance no longer felt like a breakthrough at all, but a grinding struggle against a formation that refused to yield cleanly and demanded payment for every meter gained.
The Cult could advance, but only by widening the breach outward as much as inward, because every meter gained toward the center left their flanks exposed to fresh waves of defenders cycling in from adjacent arcs, Master-tier soldiers flooding sideways into the gap with grim determination.
The diagonal assault that had seemed so devastating moments earlier now became a liability.
Cult units found themselves fighting forward and sideways at the same time, formations stretching under the strain as Commanders were forced to constantly rebalance pressure, redirect forces, and rotate units to prevent encirclement.
This was the Chakravyuh’s cruelty.
It did not seek to stop an invasion outright.
It sought to slow it.
To bleed it.
To force attackers to pay for every step with time, stamina, and lives.
And so the battle transformed.
The initial avalanche gave way to a grinding war of attrition, each concentric segment refusing to collapse neatly, forcing the Cult army to fully annihilate entire arcs before safely advancing deeper, because leaving even a fragment intact meant risking being cut off from behind.
Yet even as the tempo slowed, the Cult did not falter.
War machines continued to assemble behind the advancing lines, siege platforms anchoring themselves into the stone as artillery shifted fire patterns to support widening engagements rather than forward breakthroughs, while pilots above adjusted their bombing runs to disrupt lateral reinforcements instead of simply softening the path ahead.
The Cult army adapted in real time.
Monarchs rotated between pressure points, Transcendents reinforced faltering flanks, Grandmasters led counter-sweeps to collapse encircling forces, and Masters filled gaps with disciplined precision, each unit knowing its role, each movement flowing into the next as though rehearsed for this exact scenario.
Because it had been.
They had trained for this.
They had prepared for a formation designed to grind armies into dust.
And still, they pushed.
Every swing of a Monarch-tier weapon erased tens of thousands of enemies.
Every coordinated surge shattered another section of the ring.
Slowly.
Methodically.
Relentlessly.
The Chakravyuh demanded endurance.
And the Cult answered with it.
As the battle settled into its brutal rhythm, one truth became unmistakably clear to every soul watching the livestream, to every soldier bleeding on the stone, and to every God observing from within the prison’s heart.
That the Cult army had not come seeking a swift victory.
They had come prepared for a war that would worsen with every step inward.
And they had decided collectively and without hesitation, that no matter how many rings stood between them and their Dragon, they would tear through every last one.
Layer by layer.
No matter the cost.
Until they eventually saved him.