Night fell like rotting flesh draped across the North.
It pressed down—thick, suffocating—seeping into bone and breath alike. The wind howled without direction, spiraling through the dead forest in broken voices. At times it shrieked like the damned. At others, it rasped like something dying slowly in the dark.
The land itself seemed to recoil.
This was the only warning the world would give.
The camp did not exist.
Fires were buried deep beneath earth and stone, their glow reduced to faint, dying embers. From afar, there was nothing—no light, no sound, no sign of life.
Only darkness.
And within it… something waiting.
The air was saturated with intent. Not noise. Not movement.
Killing.
Colin stood alone atop a jagged outcrop at the edge of the camp.
Still.
Unmoving.
Like something carved into the night itself.
Moonlight bled across the steel of his armor, tracing a cold, merciless sheen. He had not slept. He would not.
Sleep belonged to those who could afford weakness.
His mind did not stop.
It refined.
Every possibility unfolded, dissected, rebuilt. Every variable was measured, every failure pre-answered with something harsher.
South Gate feint—timing, pressure, collapse points.Barton and Boulder—how long before they break under Rodon's elites?Thirty breaths between patrol gaps—margin of error? None.Anna's fire—can it ignite fast enough?Hask's ram—how many strikes before the wall gives?Slaves—who breaks first? Who leads? Who panics? Who dies in the stampede?
Nothing was left to chance.
Because this was not war.
War had chaos.
This—
This was design.
A ritual carved in blood, measured in screams.
And he was both priest… and executioner.
He raised his hand.
Steel fingers opened slowly.
Invisible threads stretched outward—binding every soldier, every commander, every hidden piece of the coming slaughter.
Hask.
Boulder.
Anna.
Broken Tooth.
All of them.
His will moved through them like a current through dead flesh.
"System," he whispered.
A pale blue glow flickered before his eyes.
[Kill Points: 213.5]
"Seven healing potions."
The points vanished.
Gone.
Without hesitation.
He did not need strength for himself.
He was the strength.
Control was enough.
Below him, the army breathed in silence.
Hask's cavalry did not rest.
They sharpened.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Blades gleamed white under the Moonlight—too clean, too perfect. The repetition bordered on madness. But it was not madness.
It was preparation.
The calm before tearing flesh.
Nearby, the battering rams waited—thick logs carved into brutal instruments. Ladders lay hidden among the deadwood like bones waiting to be used.
Hask crouched before one ram.
His massive hands moved across its surface slowly… almost tenderly.
Like a man memorizing something he would soon destroy.
"Do you think they'll fight?" a young warrior asked.
Hask didn't look at him.
"Do you remember your mother?" he said.
The boy froze.
"She told you to live," Hask continued. "And to remember."
He stood.
His shadow swallowed the ground.
"They remember too."
His voice dropped.
"We are not here to save them."
A pause.
"We are here to give their hatred teeth."
The boy said nothing more.
Elsewhere, Boulder and Barton stood before a different kind of silence.
Heavy infantry.
A wall of flesh wrapped in iron.
They did not move. They did not speak. They simply stood—waiting to become impact.
Armor was tightened again and again, ropes binding steel plates tighter into their bodies. Not for comfort.
For endurance.
They would not dodge.
They would not retreat.
They would absorb.
Behind them, the Deer-folk worked in quiet ritual.
Each arrow inspected.
Each feather aligned.
Each tip tested.
Precision.
Because their first volley would not just kill—
It would begin everything.
"Colin is insane," Boulder muttered.
Barton didn't react.
"We stand as bait," Boulder continued. "We hold the line against their strongest force… and bleed for it."
He clenched his fists.
"These cubs… they're all we have left."
Barton's gaze cut toward him.
"And the six thousand in chains?" he asked coldly.
Silence.
Barton stepped closer.
"If we don't tear open that hell now, we'll be next."
His voice hardened.
"He isn't fighting a battle."
A pause.
"He's deciding what survives."
Boulder exhaled slowly.
Then nodded.
"Then we hold," he said.
His voice turned iron.
"Tell them—no retreat. No hesitation. Tomorrow, we become the wall."
A darker pause.
"And if anyone breaks…"
His jaw tightened.
"I'll break them first."
Anna moved.
The only living shadow in a dead camp.
She passed between archers without a sound, issuing commands with nothing but gestures and whispers.
"First arrow—flag."
"Second—window."
"Third—fuel."
She inspected the fire arrows herself.
Layered cloth. Oil-soaked. Resin-coated.
Not weapons.
Signals.
Or rather—
Ignition.
She handed them to three archers.
"You have one chance," she said quietly.
"Make it burn."
They nodded.
No one spoke after that.
At the edge of the camp, she stopped.
Colin stood above.
Unmoving.
Watching something far beyond the visible.
"Everything is ready," she said.
"Then go," he replied.
No emotion.
No hesitation.
"Tell them," he added, "the ritual begins."
Anna inhaled once.
Then vanished into the dark.
Not a scout.
Not a messenger.
A fuse.
Silence returned.
Only Colin remained.
He lifted his gaze toward the fractured moon, half-devoured by cloud.
Memories surfaced.
Blood.
Fire.
Screams.
The night he arrived in this world.
The helplessness.
The crawling survival.
The hatred.
All of it… faded.
Not gone.
Refined.
What remained was something colder.
Something absolute.
"I am not doing this for revenge," he murmured.
The wind swallowed his voice.
"For the future."
A pause.
Then, softer—
"Raymond…"
His eyes gleamed faintly.
"Tomorrow…"
"you begin to understand despair."