The field groaned beneath the weight of corpses. Iron stakes jutted from the soil like jagged fangs, still dripping with blood. The forest Kalem had conjured did not sway with the wind—it pulsed with dying breath.
And yet, the tide had not ended.
Upon the high brass platform, Ardra the Blood Lord lifted one chained axe high into the air. "Unleash the Red Howlers!"
The drums resumed.
Chains snapped.
Cages burst open.
From behind the Blood Crusade, they came forth—beasts, monstrous and unnatural. Each stood twice the height of a man, bipedal yet hunched forward, their limbs thick with corded muscle. Red fur draped their backs like fire-kissed cloaks, while patches of blue skin shone underneath, sickly and veined with pulsing sigils. They wore piecemeal scrambald brass armor, hammered into them like second skin—jagged, dirty, and cruelly shaped.
They did not wait for command.
They ran.
Snarling, shrieking, foaming at the mouths, they galloped on knuckles and feet toward the center of the killing field—toward the man who stood alone amidst a forest of their kin's corpses.
Kalem.
High above in the watch platforms, horrified gasps escaped lips as the beasts tore across the field.
"Red Howlers," said a dwarven commander in a low voice. "I thought they were a myth."
"No myth," whispered a sun-priestess from the Eastern Circles, tightening her grip on her scrying lens. "Warbeasts bred in bone pits. Fed only ash and meat. It's said they eat each other to stay strong."
Kalem watched them come.
His blade shimmered into view. A heavy, single-edged weapon—broad and curved, its spine thick with runes, its weight not for display but for destruction.
"Warhawk."
The blade fell into his hand like it had waited all this time to return.
He stepped forward.
First a walk. Then a slow pace. Then a run.
Then the storm.
He met them head-on.
The first Red Howler leapt high, both claws outstretched. Kalem stepped into the strike, pivoted low, and cleaved upward. The creature split open from hip to shoulder, its entrails flying like banners behind it.
The second tried to flank. Kalem bent backward, using its momentum to hurl it over with a twisting sweep. Before it landed, his blade crashed into its chest, pulping the ribcage.
Then came the others.
He spun. Slashed. Ducked. Rose.
A whirlwind of steel and gore.
Each strike was a message. Not a single motion wasted. Not a breath out of rhythm.
The watchers saw it again—that moment where he vanished, not in smoke or spell, but in blood.
In the time it took to blink, Kalem disappeared into a curtain of meat, only to reappear at its far edge—dripping, breathing, and still walking.
From afar, Isolde's crystal pulsed with light. She stood frozen.
"He's... cutting through beasts as though they were wheat," she said, more to herself than to anyone nearby.
In the Silver Library, Nara stood over her own crystal, knuckles white against the wood.
"It's him again. That look—he only gets it when he's half-lost to the forge or the field," she whispered. "Damn you, Kalem, don't make it look so easy."
In the deep forest citadel, the Everwood crystal flickered.
Jhaeros spoke first, voice unreadable. "That blade—he reforged Warhawk."
Lyra, beside him, nodded slowly. "He didn't just sharpen it. He fed it blood."
Back on the field, the Red Howlers lay in pieces.
Kalem stood alone again, ringed by bodies—fur, brass, bone.
He took a breath.
The ground cracked beneath his feet.
Then he raised his voice once more—not shouting, but steady.
"Do we have terms?"
The Blood Crusade wavered.
The slaves carrying Ardra's platform stumbled in fear, and the orc had to steady himself.
"Impossible..." Ardra muttered, his brass-clad fingers digging into the wood. "They were bred for killing. Even Abyss hounds feared them."
He looked around—not at his foes, but at his own army.
Their steps had stilled.
The front lines no longer surged. Even the fiercest acolytes looked to one another. Whispering. Doubting.
From the far side of the world, leaders gathered to speak over connected crystals.
In the Iron Halls of the Gilded Reach, Warlord Varrak grunted. "The boy's no longer just an incident. He's becoming a power."
In the sea-bound court of Miralis, the Veil King leaned back on his silver throne. "He fights like a nation."
In sun-scorched Sudara, the Flame Sultan held his breath, then spoke to his shadow council: "We must act before others do."
And far below the field, deeper than stone and flame, in places where things older than kings watched quietly—
The air stirred.
Something unseen opened an eye.
Back above, Garrick stared down from the ridge. Beside him, a scholar dropped their ink quill.
"He just asked again," the scribe said. "Do we have terms?"
"Yes," whispered Garrick. "But no one is brave enough to answer."