The day dawned like a knife drawn slow—bright, but cold. Still, but full of omen.
Across the Field of Redis, the earth breathed faint steam as the sun met dew-stained iron. The flat, blood-colored land stretched in every direction like an old scar across the world—a relic of the War of Seven Blades. Silence hung heavier than banners.
But not for long.
On the northern ridges, wooden platforms groaned under the weight of their guests—emissaries from every realm, war-scribes hunched over parchment, vision-casters linking minds to distant cities, and cloaked spies arranging spy-crystals to relay the unfolding scene in glowing runes.
Even the wind felt wary.
Then the southern horizon darkened—not with clouds, but with brass.
The Blood Crusade had arrived.
It came like a thunderclap without sound: eight hundred thousand warriors of the Red Oath, a river of bodies and hate, their armor catching the sun in gleams like dying stars.
At their head, hoisted high on a bone-carved platform carried by chained slaves, sat Ardra the Blood Lord, his brass-scaled armor smoking with heat, twin axes resting at his sides like judgment.
"Where is he?" Ardra hissed, his voice venom poured in oil. "Where is the corpse-king who thinks he can oppose us?"
On the northern edge of the plain, inside a weathered command tent, Kalem tightened the leather straps on his gloves.
"It is time," said Garrick, stepping forward.
Kalem nodded. "All right."
But before he stepped away, Garrick grabbed his arm gently.
"Let me see your face."
Kalem paused, amused. "You think I won't come back?"
"No," Garrick said, his voice quiet. "I just want to see it."
For a long moment, Kalem stared at him—then unlatched his helm and lifted it, revealing sharp grey eyes, a jaw set like stone, and the faintest scar over his right brow. A face of someone who had looked into the Abyss and walked back out—not untouched, but unbroken.
Garrick gave a half-smile. "Still the same."
Kalem returned the look, then put the helm back on and walked toward the battlefield.
The Blood Crusade rippled with motion as Kalem stepped onto the field. Alone. In black armor.
No army behind him. No wall of banners. Just a man. A man known as the Abyss-Slayer, the Lord of Armaments.
Thousands of vision-crystals hovered like fireflies, surrounding both sides, their runes pulsing as they recorded every motion, every breath. In faraway castles, rulers, generals, and kings leaned closer to glowing projections.
Among the countless eyes watching, some knew him personally.
From a high chamber in the Silver Library, Nara watched through her own clearblue crystal, breath held.
In the citadel of Kaer Vire, Isolde stood silent by her scrying bowl, a vision-thread wrapped tightly around her fingers, brows furrowed in concern.
Farther still, in the twilight canopies of the Everwood, Jhaeros and Lyra stood side by side before an ancient Everwood crystal, its pale green light reflecting their tense expressions.
They said nothing—only watched.
On the field, Ardra bared his tusks in a savage grin.
"So, he comes. At last."
He raised a gauntleted hand. "Legion of Flame! Burn it all to ash!"
Four hundred thousand warriors moved at once. The tide surged forward—brass armor, scorched cloaks, halberds and jagged spears high. War-drummers pounded a rhythm that echoed across the hills.
Kalem stood still.
He didn't raise a weapon. He didn't speak.
Instead, his mana began to seep—slowly at first, then in surging waves—through the soles of his boots, into the earth, down into the rock, threading like veins of molten ore.
The watchers felt it. The ground vibrated faintly.
Garrick, standing with the other observers, narrowed his eyes. "He's not using a weapon."
"What is he doing?" whispered a mystic from the Drowned College.
Then, Kalem spoke.
His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.
"Gorge on your own blood... and despair."
"Forest of Death."
The ground screamed.
From the red soil between Kalem and the onrushing wave of enemies, forty thousand long, twisted iron stakes erupted from the ground like spears born from the bones of the earth.
Each spear bore ten jagged tips, fanning outward like a black bloom of thorns, making them deadlier than any pike or trap wrought by mortal hands.
The Legion of Flame had no time to react. No time to retreat.
Thousands were impaled in seconds. Some were pierced straight through, hoisted high like broken puppets. Others were skewered mid-charge, their bodies contorted, limbs thrashing.
Blood painted the field in fans of red.
The charge faltered—then collapsed.
Even the observers, seasoned veterans of battle, gasped.
The vision-crystals blinked, almost overwhelmed by the carnage.
Kalem stood amidst the rising stakes, the field now transformed into a hellish forest of iron and bodies.
Then he looked toward Ardra and the silent crusade behind him.
He raised his voice, calm and sharp:
"Do we have terms?"
In the capital of Virenth, Queen Seleria rose from her seat. "He… stopped an army."
In the Moonhall of Aran'dor, the seer-princes went silent.
In a dwarven vault beneath Mount Kerun, stone-carvers watching through a linked crystal dropped their chisels.
Even the Golden Table—where monarchs argued louder than they ruled—fell into stunned quiet.
Kalem, Lord of Armaments, had just culled forty thousand men in a heartbeat.
On the Field:
The Blood Lord snarled, rising to his feet atop the bone platform.
"You think stakes and tricks make a war?!" Ardra howled. "You think fear is fire?! You've only pricked the crust, fool! The Maw has not yet opened!"
He turned to the next division.
"Release the Red Howlers! Let the beasts run wild!"
Kalem tilted his head slightly.
"Well then," he said to himself, "round two."