The void followed by the dreamscapes shifted and swirled, merging and overlapping—his mind playing its oldest trick, memory.

  There was no escaping it. Only delay. You could bury yourself in work. Cling to a cause. Find something new to believe in. But it always came back. The same images. The same weight. Refusing to fade. Refusing to change. His memories were his own. And he had to live with them.

  Sleep was no refuge.

  Just another battlefield—with different rules.

  Shift.

  He was a corporal.

  Decorated for valor.

  Steel-gray eyes like gunmetal—hard, unflinching—as he watched the beast kin shaman charge their position, screaming in fury and hate.

  Reckless. Too fast.

  The mines triggered.

  Geartrap coils snapped. Razorwire whipped out of the ground, wrapping her legs mid-step, shredding flesh and tendon.

  She went down howling—more rage than pain—as blood painted the dirt.

  Kael didn’t flinch.

  He turned to the kid beside him.

  Hollow-eyed. Shaking. Maybe sixteen.

  Kael jabbed a finger into his chest, voice like gravel and broken glass.

  “Kill it.”

  The kid stared, frozen.

  “I said kill it.”

  Still nothing.

  Kael’s voice rose, cold and brutal.

  “Don’t you get it? It’s us or them. Kill it, and we can go back. They wouldn’t spare you, you fuck. They wouldn’t think twice. So don’t you hesitate.”

  He grabbed the boy’s collar, pulled him in close.

  “Kill it, and you’re one of us. Kill it, or I’ll kill you.”

  A voice broke the tension behind him.

  “Hey! Corporal—that’s enough!”

  Kael didn’t turn right away.

  Didn’t need to.

  He smiled.

  Because right then—right there—he finally got the punchline.

  It’s all a fucking joke.

  Shift.

  Kael lay on the cold cot inside a field tent, the canvas walls stained with old blood and rain. His armor had been stripped off hours ago—what was left of it. His hands were still shaking, crusted with dirt and someone else’s blood.

  He was alone. Except for the man who stayed behind.

  Brother Thomas.

  The healer sat beside him in silence, the only sound the low rustle of wind outside and the occasional groan from wounded soldiers in the tents beyond. Kael hadn’t said a word. Not since the screams stopped. Not since the killing.

  He wasn’t hurt. Not physically.

  But something in him had cracked open.

  Brother Thomas looked at him like he was seeing something holy and terrible at the same time—like Kael had survived something no one should, like he had walked through fire and come out changed.

  A miracle.

  An edge.

  The older man leaned in, voice barely above a whisper.

  “Hey… everything’s going to be okay.”

  He reached out, gently pulling Kael into a quiet embrace.

  “I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you.”

  And Kael broke.

  The tears came without sound, sudden and choking.

  He clung to the old priest like a child, sobbing into his shoulder, the smell of ash and sweat and healing herbs in the man’s robes.

  He didn’t remember the last time someone held him like that.

  And in that moment, Kael cried—not just for the dead.

  But for himself.

  For the part of him that already knew…

  He was never coming back from this.

  Shift.

  They stood gathered around a table littered with maps, diagrams, and weather-worn tokens—each piece a stand-in for a regiment, a front, a risk worth bleeding for.

  Steel incarnate.

  That’s what they were now.

  A thorn driven deep into the side of every enemy they’d ever faced—bleeding them dry, painting the ground in crimson.

  Men and women carved by war.

  Not soldiers anymore—weapons.

  Sharpened to a singular purpose, honed over years of hell.

  They were his family.

  And this was Operation Candlehook.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  A last gambit. A desperate swing at something bigger than any of them.

  An attempt to sever the Eclipsed’s mirror-gate network—those cursed doorways the immortals used to fracture reality and walk unseen.

  If they broke the gates, they could break the Eclipsed.

  Cut off their reach.

  Keep the world from falling into the dark.

  From unraveling completely.

  The table hummed with quiet tension.

  Murmured voices traded strategies.

  Contingencies.

  Numbers.

  Casualty projections.

  Fallout zones.

  Soft admissions disguised as confidence.

  Kael said nothing. Just stared at the board.

  Eyes flicking between front lines, chokepoints, the neat symbols that meant entire lives.

  Then he laughed.

  Low. Sharp.

  A knife of sound through the hum.

  “Fuck the Triune Crown,” he muttered, lips curling into a grin as he reached forward—scattering a flank with one casual motion.

  “We’ll just do this.”

  The room froze.

  One of them looked up, voice tentative.

  “That… that could work.”

  Another scoffed. “The Crown’s not gonna like it.”

  Then someone spoke with a crooked smile.

  “Guys… he’s doing that thing again.”

  They turned to Kael.

  And there it was.

  That grin.

  It didn’t promise victory.

  It didn’t ask for permission.

  It didn’t care.

  It warned.

  This wasn’t a plan anymore.

  This was a storm.

  And there was going to be blood.

  A lot of it.

  They all knew.

  And none of them turned away.

  Shift.

  He stood on the hill, shoulder-to-shoulder with the formation, Imperial Guard uniform soaked in sweat, spear in hand, short sword at his hip.

  His throat was dry. His jaw clenched tight.

  And in front of them… loomed the gate.

  Tall as judgment. Blackened and jagged, pulsing with defensive wards and death.

  How the fuck were they supposed to take that?

  Then came the first barrage.

  Crossbow bolts rained down like steel hail, rattling off shields, skewering flesh with wet thunks. Men and beasts screamed. Some didn’t. The line held. Barely.

  Then the dwarven siege engines opened fire.

  Wooden javelins the size of tree trunks tore through the air with sickening velocity, slamming into the stone walls like thunder.

  Another round followed—this time with fire.

  Explosions rocked the valley.

  The earth itself convulsed, the shockwaves leaping from hill to hill like angry gods hammering the ground.

  A call rang out.

  READY!

  Kael gripped his spear harder, muscles straining. He locked down his breath, stilling his heart. Torrent answered.

  Then the charge came.

  And everything fell into the abyss.

  The Beast kin roared.

  A thousand voices, a thousand blood-born challenges hurled across the valley like a storm.

  The gate yawned open—and the Battle-Born poured out.

  Kael felt the crush of bodies before he even moved, the wall of meat and steel slamming forward. Spears dropped, and the line surged.

  The impact.

  Meat met meat.

  Steel met bone.

  Blood sprayed in arcs, painting armor, skin, eyes. Boots churned the gore into the mud, until the earth itself bled beneath them.

  Kael slipped—someone grabbed his shoulder—then took a bone spear through the mouth and collapsed in a gurgle of red and teeth.

  Kael pushed forward, shoulder to shoulder with men who wouldn’t live to see the gate.

  The heat was unbearable—the sun a furnace overhead, sweat and blood boiling on skin.

  The screams became the only music.

  He lost his spear when he drove it through a Battle-Born’s eye—watched the beast stagger back with a snarl before dropping.

  A bone-forged sword slammed across his helmet, ripping it free and blinding him with sweat and blood.

  He staggered, disoriented, and grabbed another fallen spear off a corpse.

  The line pushed.

  And pushed.

  And pushed.

  Until finally—they reached the gate.

  That’s when the fort exploded.

  The world vanished in light and sound.

  Kael’s ears blew out—he felt the pressure ripple through his organs, as if something tried to wring him out from the inside.

  He was flung like a rag doll, tumbling through air, smashing into dirt.

  He couldn’t hear.

  Couldn’t breathe.

  He looked down—his right arm was shredded.

  Muscle flayed open, bone gleaming, metal splinters poking out.

  It hung by sinew. Useless.

  But he didn’t stop.

  He couldn’t stop.

  He drew his short sword with his left hand, spat blood from his mouth, and charged.

  They stormed the fort floor by floor. Room by room.

  Every stair soaked in blood.

  Every hallway packed with corpses.

  Steel clashed. Screams echoed.

  The stench was unbearable—burned flesh, ruptured organs.

  He didn’t know how long he fought.

  Just that the pain never stopped.

  That every step was a curse.

  That his vision blurred at the edges, turning the world into red and ruin.

  Kael reached the top of the fort.

  And collapsed.

  His last thoughts before blacking out were not of glory.

  Not of victory.

  Just of silence.

  He awoke in a field hospital, arm bound in blood-stained bandages, shoulder screaming.

  The fort had been taken.

  All the Battle-Born inside were dead.

  Good, he thought, as the pain came rushing back.

  Brother Thomas found him hours later, his face pale from the search.

  He said nothing—just knelt beside Kael and held his hand.

  Kael didn’t cry.

  But his eyes stayed open the entire night.

  Shift.

  Pain.

  Unrelenting. Blinding. Total.

  It screamed through every nerve ending—an orchestra of agony tuned to his soul.

  He couldn’t see.

  His eyes had ruptured from the pressure, exploded like grapes in their sockets.

  Slick warmth oozed down his cheeks as he screamed—but no sound came.

  Only breath, ragged and desperate.

  Then it happened.

  He felt the torrent stir.

  Mana. Wild. Untamed. Hungry.

  It howled outside his ruined body—just out of reach—and he drank.

  Like a dying man at the bottom of a desert well, he drew it in—raw, volatile, and screaming.

  It ripped through him like molten iron through ice, filling every vessel, every shred of marrow.

  His body seized.

  His veins lit up.

  The torrent responded—not with comfort, but with fury.

  And then—he felt it.

  A healing matrix. A spell already mid-cast, hanging in the air like a loaded trap.

  He ripped it into himself.

  Flesh obeyed.

  Nerves regrew, twitching like worms in meat.

  Sinew stitched.

  Eyeballs formed—wet, white, wrong.

  Vision returned in a burst of searing, holy light.

  Too bright.

  He vomited instantly, bile and blood spilling down his chest, burning like acid.

  His limbs jerked—bound.

  Hands shackled above. Ankles split and bruised in iron restraints.

  He dangled like butchered meat.

  The torrent thrashed within him, furious and ravenous.

  It wanted war.

  Not healing. Not weakness.

  Not tears.

  It roared inside its cage—clawed at his mind—demanded blood.

  A single tear tracked down his cheek, hot and ashamed.

  He thought he had known pain before.

  He was wrong.

  This was something else. Something sacred and cruel.

  Like gods dissecting a soul.

  He gasped. Found his voice.

  “Please… I think I’m good. I’m done. We can stop…”

  His voice was shattered glass—soft, pleading, small.

  The torrent snarled.

  Weak.

  Coward.

  Let me out.

  Then came the voice.

  Cold. Commanding.

  “Again.”

  He shook his head. Panic bloomed.

  “No—no, please, not again—I’ll do anything, I’ll serve, I’ll beg—please—”

  But the bindings pulled taut.

  The spell ignited.

  And pain became everything once more.

  Shift.

  They were so high up it didn’t feel real.

  The world below had shrunk—forests reduced to green patches, mountains to rolling hills. From up here, it all looked so small. Distant. Quiet.

  Kael had never seen it like this before. Never felt so far from it all.

  “Kael, isn’t this wonderful?” she asked, her voice light and full of wonder. “These balloons... we could place them around key points—just imagine the visibility! You can see forever.”

  She leaned over the edge, weightless, fearless—her hair catching the breeze like firelight.

  He, on the other hand, clung to the ropes in a white-knuckle grip. His scarred hands trembled slightly, breath coming slow and deliberate. Grounded in habit. In fear.

  She turned, Solanir’s light glowing behind her, haloing her in warmth and gold. And then she laughed—open, unguarded, joyful. A sound he wanted to trap in a bottle and keep forever.

  “Oh, Kael…” she teased, eyes bright with affection. “If everyone could see you now—the big, grim war hero, terrified of a balloon ride.”

  She stepped close, pressing gently into his side. Her presence was soft and sure, anchoring him.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.”

  She didn’t mock. She didn’t pull away.

  Just stayed there. Steady. Kind.

  “If I’d known this would rattle you so much,” she added, her voice dipped in warmth, “I never would’ve suggested it.”

  He clung to her like a lifeline.

  Here, with her, he didn’t have to pretend. Didn’t have to wear the mask. The armor.

  With her, he was just Kael.

  She made the world fade. Made the scars not matter. Just by being there.

  Her arms wrapped around him tighter, grounding him even as they floated higher.

  “This is nice, too,” she murmured. “Just… holding you. Like this.”

  She held him like he was something worth saving. Worth loving. As if he wasn’t broken. As if she saw every fracture and loved him more because of them.

  He’d never been loved like this before.

  And he never would again.

  Then—

  The warmth bled from the air.

  The sky darkened.

  The nightmare began.

  New chapter is live; hope you enjoy it!