As Kavari mulled over Kael’s words, the door slammed open.

  A tough stumbled in, breathing hard, road dust caked to his sweat-slick skin. His chest heaved, eyes wide.

  “Boss—caravan ambushed. Fifteen hostiles, minimum!”

  Kael didn’t move. His gaze locked with the runner’s. Measured. Cold.

  The tough swallowed. “They’ve got a mage.”

  Kael’s expression sharpened like a drawn blade. “You should’ve led with that.”

  In a blink, he was up. Moving. Grabbing a long coat and shirt and throwing them on as he talked.

  “Find Lucien,” he barked, striding toward the weapons wall. “Tell him to bring anyone with steel and a heartbeat. And get Oliver—tell him it’s a mage, and where.”

  His hand flew across the gear wall—metal shield strapped to his arm in one practiced motion. Four daggers secured—two front, two back, reverse-grip accessible. His fingers wrapped around a short spear, worn but deadly.

  “On me!” he called, voice a sharp command.

  Frank and Yuri fell in behind without hesitation. Yuri’s sabre gleamed. Frank’s maul looked like it could shatter bones just by existing.

  “Where?” Kael asked, already moving.

  “Just past the containment line—south road. One klick from the teleport array. My partner’s shadowing them—standard scout loadout.”

  Kael ran the numbers in his head. Twenty minutes, best case. Too long. The traders were already corpses—they just didn’t know it yet.

  Boots thundered across stone as they tore south through the district, streaking past stalls and lanterns, the city stirring awake around them.

  Then a flash of plate caught his eye—Kavari, keeping perfect pace despite her armor, her red braid whipping behind her like a war banner.

  “I need this,” she said, eyes forward. “For my behavior.”

  Kael didn’t reply.

  But he didn’t stop her either.

  Their boots pounded the dirt at a brutal, relentless pace. Beyond the Iron District’s jagged boundary, the world opened into golden fields—wheat, potato, and root crops nearing harvest. Life clung to the earth in swaying stalks and sun-warmed soil. But Kael knew what was coming.

  Soon, this would be no farmer’s field.

  It would be a graveyard.

  During Fadefall, this stretch of land would become a war zone—fertile ground turned to churned mud beneath dwarven siege engines. What now shimmered with the blessings of Solanir would soon boil under blood and fire. Spear lines would break and reform. Sabers would clash. Mauls would crush. And trained specialists wielding their too few evokers—cold-eyed and exhausted—would fire flame and lightning to shatter charges or hold the line.

  Field hospitals would rise in hasty tents, where priests worked miracles without magic, where screams became background noise, and the barely-living ran messages through storms of steel and ash. Fadefall made monsters of men and memory of the land.

  But not today.

  Today, the fields glowed. Sunlight spilled like molten gold across the wheat, and the wind carried the scent of ripening grain. The illusion of peace. A fragile breath before the scream.

  The team pressed on, breath heavy but controlled, until the farmland gave way to old stone and runic light.

  The teleportation array stood like a forgotten altar—a vast circle of ancient glyphs carved into granite, its overhang etched with glowing script. Glyphs bled across the stone like veins in a sacrificial ritual. Power pulsed beneath it, caged but never tamed.

  Very few could use such an array.

  Only the Crown—or those they trusted—could afford the use of the array.

  As that thought flickered through Kael’s mind, a sharp hiss cracked the morning sky.

  A mage flare.

  Bright red against the blue.

  They all saw it.

  Green meant all clear.

  Orange signaled twenty or more.

  But red?

  Red was fifty. Or worse.

  Kael felt the weight of it settle like a blade on the back of his neck.

  Yuri stiffened beside him, visibly collecting himself.

  Frank snorted—a sound like a warhound tasting blood.

  Kavari shot Kael a look, her brow furrowing in question.

  He answered before she could speak.

  “Red means the scout’s probably dead. We’re walking into a bad situation.”

  He glanced at her armor, at the glowing glyphs. “How good’s your elemental resistance?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Tier two. Mid to low.”

  Kael nodded once—sharp, final.

  “Then stay sharp. You’re on the mage.”

  His gaze swept across the group, locking eyes with each of them as they ran.

  “Yuri, Frank, and I will hold the line until reinforcements arrive. If it’s a false report, formation will be you stay left, I hold center, Frank anchors the right, and Yuri sweeps the flankers. No gaps. No slips.”

  A moment of silence passed between them, tense and sharp as drawn steel.

  Then Kavari grinned, feral and unshaken.

  “It’s a good day to die.”

  Kael grinned back, cold and calm.

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  “That it is.”

  Frank gave a short nod and a grunt, the sound low and steady—like a warhorse ready to charge. No fear. Just momentum.

  Yuri, by contrast, looked pale beneath the glare of the sun. Sweat clung to his brow, his jaw clenched tight. The heat was getting to him—or maybe it was the blood that was going to be drying on his boots by the end of today.

  As they rounded the bend, the nightmare unfolded.

  No illusion. No mercy.

  Traders knelt in the churned mud, hands bound, faces smashed and bloodied, the stink of piss and fear clinging to them. Behind them, their caravans lay torn open like gutted animals—wood splintered, goods scattered, wheels snapped. A few fires smoldered in the wreckage, casting flickering light over the butcher’s work.

  The mercenaries hired to protect them? Torn apart. One had his head caved in, eyes frozen wide in disbelief. Another lay in pieces—legs hacked off, entrails dragged across the ground like a spilled offering. They hadn’t died clean. They’d died slow.

  A line of looters stalked the survivors. One, methodical as a ritual killer, stepped from kneeling trader to kneeling trader—gripping their hair and sawing deep with a short-bladed cleaver. Heads hit the dirt like dropped fruit. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Kael’s fists clenched, jaw locked. Half still lived. Not for long.

  The ambush had been perfect—wide clearing, open killbox, treeline cover to the south. A clean kill zone. No way out. No mercy in. The traders and mercenaries must’ve thought they were close enough to safety. Close enough to let their guard down. Close enough to dream of drink and comfort.

  Now they were kneeling or laying in their own blood, waiting to die or dead.

  Kael’s boots crunched hard against gravel as they stepped into the open.

  The looters froze, every head turning. Fifty against four. Blades still wet. Faces painted in gore.

  Bad odds.

  Kael’s favorite kind.

  The torrent surged within him, roaring like a beast unchained.

  To his right, heat exploded—red and furious. Kavari’s aura ignited like wildfire, her scars glowing molten. The pride-fang in her grip—carved bone, enormous and brutal—lit with runes etched in old blood.

  She let out a roar that shook the clearing.

  Primal. Defiant.

  A war cry that reached into the bones of every soul who heard it.

  The enemy hesitated.

  Kael rolled his neck, loosened his grip on the spear, and smiled.

  “Let’s show them,” he said.

  He liked his odds just fine.

  Everyone charged.

  Kavari launched forward like a bolt loosed from the gods, the air snapping with heat as her pride-fang tore through the first two men—bone, meat, and armor cleaving apart in a spray of red. They didn’t even have time to scream. One was nearly split in half at the waist, intestines unspooling like rope across the blood-slicked ground.

  Frank hit the line next ram horns down—his maul a wrecking stone swung by a siege engine. The first man caught by the blow crumpled like wet parchment, his skull reduced to pulp as his body folded backward with a sickening crack. Another came in screaming, only for Frank to spin low, shattering the man’s kneecaps before bringing the maul down on his spine.

  Yuri danced on the edge, sabre flashing—quick, clean cuts. He hamstrung one enemy, slashed another’s throat so deep the head lolled on a flap of sinew. He kept to Kael’s right, denying any flanking route, his footwork sharp, his breath ragged.

  Kael held the center.

  He fought like he was born to the blood—spear jabbing into a man's throat with a wet crunch, the body convulsing as Kael wrenched it free and used it like a shield, slamming the corpse into two more. He followed with a low thrust—spear point burying itself in a groin with brutal precision, tearing up through guts. A scream tore loose, sharp and animal, before it choked off into gargling silence.

  Each strike was cold, surgical. Block. Thrust. Pivot. Kill.

  No wasted motion.

  But for every man they felled, more came. The second wave slammed into them like a tide. Then the third. The fourth was moments behind, the slowest just now joining the frenzy.

  Kavari roared, a deafening challenge. Blood and spittle flew from her bared teeth as she slammed her blade into a chest, caving it in like brittle glass. Her armor was weeping red, her braids dark with blood. Every swing broke ribs, severed limbs, tore men apart.

  Kael was bleeding. A deep gash tore through his thigh—muscle screaming. Another wound, a high stab to the bicep, leaked warmth down his arm.

  Pain anchored him to the now.

  The torrent howled inside his skull—feral, relentless, hungry for more.

  His scars burned like brands, pulsing with each heartbeat, flaring in jagged waves of agony.

  They were tightening ranks now.

  Yuri dropped back, panting, sweat streaked with blood. Together they formed a tight knot—backs to each other, blades facing outward.

  Frank’s maul swung slower now—each arc labored, but no less lethal. Every blow landed like a collapsing building. His horns were slick with gore, glistening red in the sunlight. Blood matted his beard, streaked his arms.

  One man got too close.

  Frank met him with a snarl and brought the maul down—bone, muscle, and spine crumpling into meat. The body didn’t fall—it simply ceased to exist, smeared across the earth in a red bloom of ruin.

  Kavari was snarling—blood slicking her gauntlets, as she lashed out with savage strikes. A soldier drove a dagger into the joint of her shoulder plate, and she bellowed, more rage than pain.

  They were being swallowed whole.

  Then—

  A flash of steel. A blur of motion.

  Lucien.

  He slipped into the chaos like a blade between ribs—silent, sudden, and terminal. His sword cut a man from shoulder to hip in a single fluid motion. Another lunged—Lucien pivoted, sliced the tendons behind the knee, and finished him with a flick of his wrist that opened the man’s throat in a perfect arc of red.

  He moved like wind through trees—calm, precise, unrelenting.

  And behind him came the Ironbound.

  Kael’s toughs hit the enemy line like hammers to glass. What had been a slaughter turned into a reversal. Now the looters were falling. Screaming. Retreating.

  And soon…

  They would be the ones surrounded.

  Kael’s scars flared like molten wire under his skin. A silver blaze crawled across his ribs and arms, pulsing with fury.

  Then the ground split open with a groan like the world itself had been wounded.

  It climbed out.

  A monster made of dirt, steel, and death. Ten feet tall, plated in rusted armor and twisted metal, its fists were the size of wine barrels. A fucking golem. Ancient magic bound into a siege weapon made for grinding men into paste.

  Looters screamed in triumph, rallying behind it like jackals behind a lion. The tide turned instantly. Kael’s gut clenched.

  The golem roared—a sound like buildings collapsing.

  Lucien and the toughs surged forward with blades drawn, teeth bared. Kavari cracked her neck, aura igniting in a blaze of blood-red flame. Her scars burned molten, tribal markings glowing like brands.

  “Leave the golem,” Kael barked, voice steel. “Kavari and I will handle it. Kill the rest.”

  The air around them vibrated with tension.

  The looters screamed and surged forward—idiots. They left the shadow of the golem, running straight into the blades of the Ironbound. Mistake.

  Kavari slammed into the golem with a shriek, her bone blade carving a blazing arc—but it scraped off its stone hide like flint on granite.

  Kael dove under its swing—a tree trunk of a limb that shattered the ground where he’d stood. Dust and pebbles exploded into the air.

  “Right shoulder!” he shouted, feeling the mana core pulsing beneath layers of earth and steel.

  He stabbed again and again. Metal screamed. Sparks exploded. It didn’t bleed. It didn’t feel. It hated.

  Then it came—the pulse. Like pressure behind the eyes.

  Magic.

  Kael twisted. Behind the golem, the air shimmered—and parted like torn cloth.

  There. The mage.

  Smug bastard in a high-collared robe, pulling raw mana into himself like a starving man. Mage cores in both hands, eyes rolled back towards the blue sky, mouth chanting the spell that would turn this clearing into ash.

  Kael’s scars howled.

  He ran. Ducked. Rolled. Dodged. The golem’s foot slammed down behind him, cratering the earth.

  Then—impact.

  The golem’s fist caught him.

  The world went white.

  His shield exploded like shattered bone.

  The force hit him like a god’s hammer—his arm snapped with a wet, sickening crack, white bone tearing through skin and meat in a burst of blood that sprayed across the dirt.

  Kael flew.

  Thirty meters.

  A broken missile hurled from the storm—spinning, bleeding, bones grinding—until he slammed into the mage like a thrown corpse.

  The impact crushed them both to the ground, a blur of limbs and blood.

  Kael’s world tilted, pain screaming in every nerve, one arm hanging useless, pouring heat down his side.

  The mage grinned, blood bubbling from his mouth. He was still casting.

  Kael’s right hand moved on instinct.

  The first dagger punched through ribs—into the heart.

  The mage twitched. Still grinning. Still drawing on death.

  Second dagger. Into the lungs. The wheeze turned to a rattle.

  Still grinning.

  Kael roared through the agony, his vision red.

  Third dagger—into the eye.

  The grin faltered.

  Fourth—into the other. Crunched straight into the brain.

  The mage stiffened—then collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Mana ruptured from the body—wild, unstable—but Kael’s scars drank it in, the pain searing through every nerve like fire. He didn’t scream.

  He collapsed onto the corpse, covered in blood, dirt, and death.

  Behind him, the golem froze mid-swing. Its mana severed, its limbs cracked and crumbled. It collapsed in slow motion, turning to rubble as Kavari stepped back, panting, coated in gore.

  The battlefield stilled.

  Blood soaked the dirt. Limbs scattered like garbage. Steam rose from cooling corpses.

  Kael didn’t move.