As Angra advances, Gord whispers to Rothütle, "You stand here and not there, and that's our victory today."
Then she raises her sword.
YAML gets close to Rothütle, holding his dagger ready.
"You brought a dagger to a sword fight," Rothütle says, smirking.
Then as YAML marches forward, Rothütle swings his sword and cuts off YAML's hand.
"You have a long hand, but you're short-sighted," Rothütle adds, stepping back. "You let Angra creep into your mind too easily."
YAML steps back in pain, clutching his stump.
Jack gets furious, and Gord punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground.
Angra roars, and a dark mist envelops the area. Angra, as a solid shadow, now aflame, comes forward and starts attacking Gord.
Rothütle steps forward, blocking the shadow's strikes with his shield. But Gord stops him.
"Run," she says. "You need to live."
Gord stabs the shadow with her sword, but it gets stuck in the shadow's body.
The shadow stabs Gord back. She stands still.
Jack attacks Rothütle from behind, but something penetrates the air and hits Jack in the shoulder.
The dragon-archer arrives, and Jack looks at the dragon-archer in shock.
"My mission here is complete," Jack says, and flees into the forest.
The shadow starts launching fireballs around.
A fireball heads toward Rothütle, he blocks it with the shield, but a smaller one hits his arms, burning him.
"Run!" the dragon-archer shouts to Rothütle.
"I'll hold them off."
"Don't despair," Gord says weakly, "We have won this day."
Then she stands up, pulls her sword off the shadow, and swings it at the shadow, chopping its head off.
The shadow roars and turns into twelve smaller shadows.
Gord looks at Rothütle, exhausted, as if she's not ready to fight anymore.
Then she nods to the dragon. He grabs Rothütle and flies into the sky.
"No!" Rothütle shouts, looking back at Gord, who is fighting the shadows alone.
As they ascend, Rothütle faints, exhausted from his burns...
Security Tip #24 — Design for Resilience
Not every system can be saved.
When compromise becomes inevitable, sometimes the goal is no longer to win —
it is to ensure that what matters can escape.
- Protect identities, backups, and recovery paths.
- Accept that some components must be sacrificed.
- Prioritize the survival of critical assets.
A secure system isn't the one that never falls.
It's the one that lets the future continue.
The story doesn't end here...
Stay tuned for the book Black Forest Shadow, coming out in February 2025.
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