Khufu stood firm as Thor thundered forward, lightning snaking from his body, scorching the earth in arcs of raw fury. Behind him, the remnants of the shield lay shattered, and the enemy Valkyries, angels, and demons poured in like a flood, screaming war and death. The humans and magical creatures the anchor and world defenders met them head-on. The sand around the pyramid turned to spears, halberds, and jagged blades under wand-wielders' Transfiguration spells, flung by Conjuration-enhanced currents toward the oncoming horde. Explosions of metal and fire punctuated the air, but still the tide surged forward.
"Stop there," came Khufu's voice, ancient and unshaken.
The earth beneath Thor cracked.
A pulse of golden light radiated from glyphs etched deep into the stone foundation around the pyramid glyphs that predated even the earliest of wizards. Khufu raised a palm, and the wards triggered. From the sand, bodies began to rise.
They came in silence first: towering sand-forged warriors shaped like ancient Egyptian gods. Some bore the jackal heads of Anubis's kin, others the falcon beaks of Ra's aspect. Still others had lion-like faces, all carrying bronze kopeshes and shields inscribed with glowing hieroglyphs. Dozens, then hundreds, emerged in perfect unison, slamming weapons to the ground in a thunderous beat before charging the enemy.
They clashed like hammers on iron.
Human witches and wizards surged forward alongside them, ducking and weaving through the larger sand warriors' formations. A team of Hogwarts-trained fighters near the front turned the terrain to their advantage: sand shifted into walls to funnel enemies, others raised spires and towers for snipers.
Centaurs loosed enchanted arrows from ridgelines, their accuracy uncanny. Every bolt burst with magical force, bringing down winged foes from the sky. Goblins erupted from concealed tunnels, blades flashing as they struck at the exposed flanks of demons and Valkyries, then vanished beneath the dunes again.
Bjorn stood near the center, his axe glowing with warded Norse runes. He roared in defiance, hurling the weapon into the chest of a charging demon before summoning it back with a sharp twist of his hand. He turned toward his squad. "Raise the ridge! Channel into the left flank! Push 'em toward the jackal-forms!"
On his left, Ahmed crouched behind a crumbling wall, his wand flicking in precise, controlled motions. Green healing magic flowed from his hand into the wounded beside him, closing torn flesh and knitting bone. He whispered calming spells to the dying, even as a blast from above tore through the roof and sprayed hot sand across his robes. He didn't flinch. "I need cover fire keep them off me!"
A pair of young wizards beside him conjured a barrage of metal discs from the ground, spinning them into a shield wall to protect the wounded.
Out on the field, Thor barreled forward, carving a bloody path. He slammed a sand warrior aside and impaled another on his crackling hammer. Lightning burst from his chest like a furnace, arcing toward human ranks, throwing men and women screaming into the air.
"You think this will stop me?" he bellowed, voice booming like a collapsing mountain. "You beasts are so persistent. Give up already. Your brothers and sisters already did!"
He lunged forward straight toward Khufu.
The ancient sorcerer began another summoning, hands etched in glowing blue light, sand swirling upward into a new titan, but he wouldn't finish in time.
Then Ra struck.
The massive falcon burst from the clouds like a blazing meteor, flames streaming from his wings, talons extended. He hit Thor mid-charge, sending the god crashing backward across the dunes. The sky roared with the heat of his descent, and the wind howled as feathers of molten gold fell like burning leaves across the battlefield.
Thor rose, teeth bared. "Still alive, bird?"
Ra screeched in reply, circling overhead, wings drawing trails of light in the twilight sky.
Khufu, unshaken, turned back toward the fight. "Hold the line."
Around him, the humans and sand soldiers surged with renewed fury.
Human wizards, trained in battle magic and hardened by months of skirmishes, moved in coordinated squads. Their robes were scorched, many wore no house colors anymore just armor cobbled together from enchanted scraps and salvaged gear. But their discipline held.
A veteran auror barked orders from atop a conjured platform. "Formations, east flank! Push toward the jackals' spear line—use sand to metal, aim for the wings!"
Four wizards raised their wands in unison. A cloud of sand erupted beneath their boots, rising into the air and hardening mid-flight. With a sharp twist, the grains forged into a volley of jagged iron spears—each hurtling toward the oncoming swarm of shrieking Valkyries. Wings burst in midair. Screams followed.
On the western slope, a defensive transfiguration team took control of terrain. One conjured a trench behind a fallen obelisk, while another hardened the slope into a sharp incline. Enemies stumbled, exposed mid-charge. From behind the trench, two younger wizards—still barely out of school—transfigured sand into long, spiked chains. They whipped the chains around the legs of a lumbering demon, yanked hard, and sent it crashing onto its back. A third wizard conjured a jagged pike and drove it through the demon's chest.
No shouting. No heroism. Just cold, efficient killing.
Behind them, goblins worked in tandem. They didn't speak much, but they'd learned to follow the rhythm of the human units. One waved a small banner—two green stripes, one red—that signaled a prepared detonation. The humans backed off. A goblin vanished beneath the sand, then seconds later a blast sent a group of demons skyward in a gout of fire and shrapnel.
"Fall back and funnel!" a witch yelled. "Force them into the kill zone!"
A group of wizards, working in practiced sync, conjured walls of hardened clay in the shape of narrow corridors, leading the enemies into a choke point. At the other end waited five transfiguration specialists. Each stood on elevated sand platforms, breathing steady, wands at the ready.
"Now."
With a synchronized flick, the sand before them reformed into hundreds of silver stakes. The stakes rose, hovered, then blasted forward in a burst of wind. Dozens of enemies were impaled in one breath.
Ahmed sprinted past them, dodging between burning wreckage and bodies. Blood soaked his sleeves, but it wasn't his own. "Casualties at the southeast ridge! I need four! Now!"
Three witches broke formation to follow, another conjuring a hovering stretcher from shredded tents. Ahmed dropped beside a fallen centaur and pressed a glowing hand against the wound. "Too shallow. Stay with me."
"More coming!" one of the witches shouted.
Ahmed barely glanced up. "Hold them for twenty seconds."
On cue, Bjorn's voice roared across the sand. He charged from the rear line, axe blazing with runes. "With me! Clear the ridge!"
Behind him, another team conjured a massive battering ram from raw sand—carried it with levitation charms, then slammed it into an advancing horde of demons. The spell broke on impact, and the enchanted mass exploded into shrapnel and flame.
Bjorn arrived seconds later, swinging his axe in wide, brutal arcs. Sand sprayed in all directions as he cut through the wounded. He didn't stop moving.
At the heart of it, Thor fought like a storm let loose—but even gods bled in the mortal world now.
He tore through a sand jackal's torso with a burst of lightning, then leapt over a collapsed centaur line. He lifted his hammer and prepared another killing blow—
—but Khufu was ready.
The Pharaoh raised both arms, and the glyphs etched along the battlefield pulsed again. From the sands to Thor's right, a colossal sand lion burst forth, gripping a shield twice the height of a man and a spear longer than any wand.
"More tricks?" Thor spat.
Ra dove again, forcing Thor back with a blast of divine fire.
But this time, the humans didn't watch from behind.
They surged.
A dozen wizard squads advanced behind the burning lion-warrior, conjuring blades of hardened copper, flinging sharpened glass conjured from heat-melded sand. Shield spells flashed in front of them as arrows whistled past—centaur volleys driving demons out of the sky in graceful arcs. Goblins beneath the sand finished the rest.
And through the smoke and haze, Bjorn reached Ahmed's position.
"More wounded behind the ridge!" Ahmed shouted.
Bjorn nodded, axe already lifting. "I'll clear it. You keep them breathing."
And far ahead, just beyond the front line, Khufu stepped into the advancing dust once more, face unshaken, golden sigils glowing at his shoulders.
Behind him, more sand began to shift.
More warriors were coming.
***
Morpheus dodged an invisible strike from Loki as Herpo transformed into his Baskalisk form and thrashed his tail in a wide arc, Loki wasn't seen being his but they could hear the crunch and subsequent sand imprints of his body flying off to the side.
Morpheus used both wandless and wand magic to fire cutting spells at Helga as she danced around the battlefield, no one but Herpo was any wiser of Morpheus's spells were hitting the large iron plates in the background.
Herpo smoothly transitioned back into his human form, dodging a barrage of lightning and light spears that were aimed at his snake head.
Whipping around, he spat a couple of words, and the bodies around them seemed to bubble and twist before launching in the air toward the Valkyrie's and Angels.
"Die!" he snarled making a fist with his hand causing the bodies to explode, lighting up the air with a foul, almost rotting hue.
Screams and shouts were heard overhead as Valkyrie and Angel's bodies began to rot at a visible pace.
"FOUL!" Loki snarled after getting to his feet, "You dare!"