The ground was slick with blood.
It had seeped into the cobblestones, greased the stone like oil, and painted the white-trimmed walls of Oria in streaks of ruin. Medics ran past Koda—small units of white-cloaked healers, breath hitched, hands already glowing with the golden hue of their gift. They didn't stop to speak. They couldn't. There was only enough time to grab the fallen, drag them from the streets, and pray the limbs still twitched.
Behind them, the shrieks of pain trailed like threads of smoke.
Koda didn't turn.
"Vren, circle east," he barked, his voice cutting through the din. "Don't let them group—split them, isolate them!"
"Yes, Captain!" Vren's response came fast, and already his team of seven was dispersing—shadows flitting between alleys, moving with practiced synchronicity. These were veterans now, honed by raids and months of living on the edge of ruin.
And Koda—he stepped forward alone.
Down the street came the next of the invaders, their great frames hunched and pulsing with exertion, each breath a wet snarl. Nine feet of grotesque, bulging muscle, black-green flesh taut over swollen frames, mouths slathered with thick saliva, and fingers ending in jagged talons caked with gore.
The first one spotted him, roaring in recognition—then charged.
Koda didn't wait. He sprinted forward to meet it.
The impact was thunderous—steel against brute strength. Koda ducked beneath a downward swing of a rusted axe, rolled under the creature's legs, and with a twist of his body, launched himself upward onto its back.
His blade flashed.
One stab. Two. A third.
Again. And again. And again.
It howled, clawing at its own back as Koda drove his sword into the base of its skull, then ripped it down the spine, severing muscle, grinding against bone. Blood sprayed, hot and thick, coating his face, stinging his eyes. But he didn't stop.
The body collapsed in a twitching heap, and he was already moving.
A second orc turned the corner too late. Koda was already at its flank, sliding under its massive arm and slamming his blade into its side. It twisted in pain, backhanding him across the street—he skidded through blood and ash, hit a wall hard enough to crack it—but rose again with fire in his eyes.
He dashed forward, feinted left—then vaulted off the wall and onto the creature's shoulders.
His blade plunged into the creature's throat.
It thrashed, but he held on, stabbing with vicious precision into the gullet. Thick cords of muscle resisted, but Koda kept stabbing, hacking through the windpipe until a thick stream of blackened blood burst forward and the orc finally fell.
"Two," he muttered.
Down the next alley, he glimpsed his team at work. Eno's arrows tore into the neck of one beast, driving it backward into the path of Vren's spear. A flash of molten light from Seta's drone marked another target, and the squad converged, their coordinated strike ending the third in seconds.
But there wasn't time to pause.
A roar turned him back toward the main road—three more orcs barreling toward him. No formation. Just raw, overwhelming force.
Koda's blade hummed in his hand.
He met the first one with a leap, planting his feet into its chest. He was thrown backward by the momentum but twisted midair to land on its shoulders, blade coming down into its temple. It screamed, then slammed back against a wall in an attempt to dislodge him.
He didn't let go.
He stabbed again, through the eye socket this time—into the brain—and rode the creature down as it crumpled.
The second came with a sideways swing that Koda ducked by a hair's breadth. He rolled under it, then slashed at the backs of its knees. The creature buckled, and Koda shoved the blade through its open mouth from behind—splitting the head in two.
Five.
The sixth one didn't scream.
It hissed—something guttural, a sound that sent a spike of cold down his spine. This one was smarter.
It attacked with precision. Sidestepped his lunge. Landed a backhand that cracked two ribs and sent him spinning.
But Koda wasn't winded.
He used the momentum, slid under the orc's center of mass, and slashed up—cutting through the abdomen. Entrails spilled. He kept moving.
His sword found the base of the neck. He carved through the sinew, relentless.
The seventh was waiting.
It charged him before the sixth ever hit the floor. No time to recover.
He let it come.
At the last second, he twisted to the side, grabbing onto its arm and using its own momentum to swing up onto its back. His blade wasn't enough now—he used his fists, hammering the sword deeper with every punch, the edge driven like a spike into the nape.
The beast shrieked and bucked—then finally dropped.
Koda was covered in blood. He didn't know which was his.
He turned, saw his team again—Vren had just finished another kill, Eno letting loose one final shot to pierce an orc's eye from across the street.
Koda looked down at his trembling hand, then back toward the north gate where fresh roars called out.
There were more.
And he wasn't done.
The clang of steel rang out in the near distance, but here—where bodies lay heaped and the smoke hung low in the alleys—there was only the labored sound of breathing. Heavy. Wet.
Koda turned, breath sharp in his lungs, ears straining for movement. Then he saw it.
Past the overturned cart, behind the shattered crates and makeshift furniture jammed into place to hold the line, one of the monsters writhed. Its massive frame was half wedged through a barricade meant to stop men, not these beasts. Jagged splinters of wood tore into its gut. Blood leaked freely from the deep gash torn across its belly, and with it—thick coils of intestine, black sludge, and half-digested chunks of human flesh.
A woman's hand.
A soldier's ear.
The creature didn't care.
It crawled anyway, fingers clawing at the pavement, trying to drag itself through even as the barricade ripped deeper into its open wound. Its mouth was slack, jaw broken, one eye blind. But it was smiling. If such a thing could still smile.
Koda's expression didn't change.
He stepped forward.
The creature reached toward him, gurgling out a sound like a drowned animal. Then the sword slid up—clean, swift—through the soft underside of the jaw, past rotted teeth and shattered bone, and straight into the brain.
The body twitched once.
Then collapsed, stuck like a grotesque decoration in the rubble.
There was no moment to breathe before the system flared behind his eyes.
⸻
Level Up
Koda of the Eternal Guide has reached Level 18.
Stats increased.
HP: 154 / 220
Mana: 198 / 220
Stamina: 112 / 220
Strength: 22
Vitality: 22
Agility: 22
Intelligence: 22
Wisdom: 22
Endurance: 22
⸻
He blinked the window away, lips parted in a shallow breath.
He should've felt stronger—fresh, renewed—but the aches didn't fade. His wounds didn't vanish. The system had given him more to draw from, yes, but the tank was already cracked. Blood still dripped from his fingers. His grip was slow to respond.
He could feel the growth, but he was still just a man.
Koda wiped his sword against the orc's rough skin and stepped back into the street. Screams still echoed down the block. There was no time to rest.
He looked up at the darkening sky.
No matter what, he thought, tightening his grip again, they do not get through.
Not to Maia.
Not while he still breathed.
——
The streets reeked of blood, bile, and blackened tar. But for now, the line held.
Smoke coiled upward from ruined buildings and the shattered remnants of siege shots. A faint breeze stirred the tattered flags on the wall. And Koda's squad, soaked in gore and sweat, finally pulled back beneath the commander's order to rotate out.
The clamor of war faded behind them, traded for the murmuring chaos of the field hospital—a swarm of white robes, blood-soaked cloth, and the rhythmic incantations of healing spells. Even the wounded cried silently now, voices stolen by exhaustion and pain. But the smell—burnt skin, singed herbs, rot—was unforgettable.
Koda staggered toward the nearest triage tent, where one of the aides grabbed his arm and ushered him toward the central pavilion. His team broke off in pairs, limping toward the cots, bleeding from cuts and gashes where flesh had yielded to monstrous strength.
And she was there.
Maia.
Her sleeves were rolled high, stained at the edges. Her hair pulled back in a messy braid. Her golden sigil faintly glowed under the collar of her robes, light trembling with each breath she took as she moved from patient to patient.
Then she turned and saw him.
"Koda," she whispered, dropping the roll of bandages in her hand.
She didn't run—there was no time to run—but her steps carried her fast across the tent, hand outstretched before she even realized it. Her fingers touched the dried blood on his cheek, trembling as they followed the deep laceration at his temple. Her eyes, wide and wet, scanned the bruises and torn armor and sticky black ichor clinging to his arms.
"It's not mine," he muttered with a half-smile. "Not all of it."
She pressed her lips together unamused and motioned for him to sit.
As her fingers worked, steady despite the way they trembled, Koda's eyes didn't leave her. Her mouth moved silently—prayers, likely. Or maybe curses. Maybe both. But he didn't interrupt.
Each time the healing light touched his skin, it came with a pulse of warmth. The bruises faded. The cuts closed, leaving faint pink lines. His breath grew easier, pain in his side abating with each pass of her hands.
But he felt the shift. She wasn't just treating wounds.
She was trying not to cry.
"You shouldn't be here," she said finally, voice hoarse.trying to choke back her emotions.
He didn't answer.
His gaze drifted beyond the flap of the tent to the outer corridor—where the bridge lay beyond sight, but never far from his thoughts. He hadn't taken his sword off. Not fully. Not even when his team collapsed into the cots behind him.
Maia looked down at his arms and pressed one last healing spell into the bruised tendon at his elbow. Then she whispered, "Don't do something stupid, Koda."
"I'm not planning to," he said softly.
But the bridge was still standing.
And as long as it did, so would he.
A sharp clack echoed outside the tent. A new voice called out, a hesitant tenor: "Captain Koda!? Kill report requested!"
A librarian, young, robed in ash-grey, stood in the tent's shadow with a writing board, enchanted quill already scribing.
"Total confirmed? Seven kills?" the clerk asked, not even looking up.
"Eight," Koda corrected him, eyes still on the horizon.
"Understood. Squad total: eleven."
The clerk nodded and disappeared as fast as he came.
They rested—several hours passing in the blink of an eye. That was all they had.
One of his soldiers had a burn across her shoulder but was already strapping back into her gear. Seta's cheek bore a fresh scar. Vren, silent as ever, cleaned his spear like a ritual. Eno merely stared at the tent roof, whispering something to himself—his lips not prayers, but perhaps promises.
And then came the call.
Another group limped back from the front. Only four of the ten returned. One dragging his leg. Two carried another between them, both arms missing at the elbow. Their kill count was scrawled quickly on the board. Less than five.
The barricade was buckling.
The monsters didn't tire.
And if someone didn't hold the line—it would collapse.
Koda stood.
His armor shifted. His eyes found the door.
"Let's go," he said. "They'll be through by dusk if we don't."
The squad rose one by one, a grim silence passing between them. There was no pretense of valor now. Only the knowledge that if they didn't go—no one else could.
And so, back into the fire, they walked.