The flap of the tent rustled softly behind him as Koda stepped back into the field hospital. The scent of burnt poultice and iron hadn't faded, and even though most of the cots were empty now, he could still feel the echo of pain that lingered in the air.
Maia stirred before he reached her. She sat up too fast, rubbing her eyes and brushing away the dried salt of tears she probably didn't know she'd shed. Her voice cracked when she spoke.
"You're awake."
"I'm okay," Koda replied, easing down beside her. "Better than I should be."
She reached for his hand without thinking, fingers curling around his. "I saw them carry you in. You were—"
"I'm fine, Maia," he said, squeezing her hand gently. "Really."
She looked at him, studied his face as if trying to memorize it. Her gaze was sharper now, more searching than it had ever been. "You could've died out there."
"I didn't."
"But you could've."
Silence stretched between them, thick with things unsaid. The lantern beside the cot flickered as a draft rolled through, and for a moment her expression changed—softened, like she was about to lean in, about to say the words that had trembled on the edge of her tongue since before she'd left for the north.
But she didn't.
Instead, she looked down. "I hate that you keep having to do this alone."
Koda exhaled, brushing his thumb across the back of her hand. "I'm not alone. I've got a team. I've got you."
"You barely had a heartbeat when they brought you in."
"But I came back," he said, voice low. "I'll keep coming back."
Maia's voice faltered. "I don't want to lose you, Koda."
"You won't." He stood slowly, tugging his hand free.
Maia stood with him, reluctant. "Where are you going?"
"They're mobilizing a strike team," he said. "There are still some of the orcs in the fallen ring. Deep—beneath the rubble. The kind that don't retreat. I have to help finish this."
Maia stepped in close, close enough that Koda could see the faint shimmer of water in her eyes. "Come back again. I'm not ready to—"
She stopped herself. Bit the words in half and let the silence hold what she couldn't say.
Koda didn't press her. He only leaned forward and pressed his forehead gently against hers, just for a heartbeat.
"I will," he promised.
Then he turned, grabbed his gear, and stepped out into the light.
———
The fallen ring still stank of charred oil, rotting meat, and the copper stench of blood soaked too deep into earth to ever wash clean. Smoke clung to the broken alleyways like a memory, rising in thin curls from collapsed towers and shattered masonry. The battle had moved on, but this place still breathed war.
Koda moved through the ruins with practiced steps, quiet but deliberate. The remains of the wall loomed behind him like jagged teeth, the stones blackened from the fires and marked with the clawing scrapes of desperation. Ahead, the city's old streets twisted into chaos—abandoned merchant stalls overturned, doors blown open, barricades chewed to splinters.
His blade pulsed faintly in his hand.
There weren't many left now. The tide of the horde had been broken on the first wall, and what remained were stragglers, loners, the dregs of the storm still clinging to instinct and hunger. But they weren't without danger. A wounded predator could still kill.
The first one rounded the corner just ahead—a towering brute, mottled grey skin slick with blood and soot, its yellowed tusks cracked and caked with red. It let out a low growl, more animal than man, and for the briefest moment, its bloodshot eyes flinched.
Mantle of Echoes had grown stronger. Koda could feel the fear now, trembling just beneath the surface of their rage. The aura didn't scream or shine—it hummed, like something ancient standing behind him, whispering dread into the hearts of beasts. The fallen creature's hesitation lasted no more than a second—but that was all he needed.
Koda surged forward. His blade sang through the air and struck the orc's knee from the side, cleaving deep and dropping it in an instant. The thing snarled and clawed for him, but Koda was already behind it, driving his sword between its shoulder blades, into the spine, twisting.
It fell with a broken wheeze.
The next encounter came a few streets over—two more stalking through the remnants of a food cellar, lured by the scent of preserved meat. Their heads jerked up at the sight of him, and again, a ripple passed through them. A flicker of hesitation. Not enough to stop them—but enough to make them slower.
He lunged into the first with a sweeping cut across the gut, opening a geyser of black-red blood. The second, bellowing, tried to catch him with a backhand swing, but Koda ducked low and drove his blade upward beneath the ribcage. A gurgle, a spasm—and silence.
He pulled free, breathing heavy but steady.
They were dying easier now. Not because they were weaker, but because he had learned. Learned how their bones fit together, how thick their hide was, how deep to cut. How to kill. The bridge had taught him.
And they were beginning to know him. Even in their broken minds, driven by bottomless hunger, something in them recognized him now. Maybe it was the blood-soaked armor. Maybe the way he moved without flinching. Or maybe it was the Mantle, feeding off the night he'd survived, echoing it back at them in waves of silent terror.
Another, alone, tried to flee instead of fight—limping toward the wreckage of a broken home. Koda didn't let it. A throw of his blade, enhanced by will, skewered its spine mid-sprint. It crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.
Four down.
A fifth lurked in a cellar's shadows, hulking and half-starved. Koda dropped into the basement without a word, his boots echoing on the stone. The thing lunged without hesitation, but Koda didn't meet it head-on—he stepped aside, using its own momentum to slam its skull into the wall. As it reeled, he severed its hamstrings, then ended it quickly.
[Level Up Achieved — Level 21]
The notification pinged faintly in his head, but he barely noticed. He didn't stop to check it. The work wasn't done. The streets were still too quiet. The rot still lingered.
He pressed on. The hours began to smear together—streets repeating, smoke masking direction, blood dulling the edges of his awareness. His kill count climbed, one after the other. Eight. Nine. Twelve. Fifteen. Each more ragged and desperate than the last.
But fewer.
And fewer.
And fewer.
By dusk, the ring had fallen silent again.
Koda stood in the fading light, high above the ruins of the ring. His armor was caked in blackened gore, his blade heavy with use, his limbs stiff from the ceaseless churn of violence. The silence crept in unnaturally, as if the city itself held its breath.
Then he heard it.
A sound not meant for mortal throats—a wailing battle cry, ragged and layered like the howl of some abyssal choir. It echoed across the torn streets and broken walls, reverberating through the cracked stones like a funeral dirge for the fallen.
From his vantage on the scorched rooftops, Koda looked southward, toward the horizon.
And there he saw them.
A trail of figures still moved, silhouettes vast and jagged against the bleeding sky. The surviving orcs—those few still dragging their grotesque frames—were retreating.
But it wasn't a scramble of the defeated.
It was deliberate.
Slow.
Proud.
Like beasts returning to their den after a long, blood-soaked hunt.
And in the distance, visible now that the smoke and chaos had thinned, stood the source of it all.
The scar.
A gaping wound in the world itself—churning lightless mist and shadows, impossibly wide, pulsing with a sick rhythm like the breath of a slumbering god. The rift shimmered and warped the space around it, a tear in reality born from twisted hunger and power left unchecked.
Even from here, Koda could feel it. Like a heartbeat in his bones. Like it was watching.
The orcs—what remained of them—were crawling back to it. Not with desperation. But with assurance. They weren't fleeing.
They were returning.
He tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade, its edge whispering with residual will.
The siege had ended.
But the war?
The war had only just begun.
The scar would be the next battleground.
The chamber of command was quieter now, the war table cleared of maps and scrolls, the air heavy with a different kind of weight—the aftershock of survival. Outside, the lull in violence made the silence more oppressive than the sound of battle.
Koda stepped into the room with purpose. His armor had been scrubbed clean, his blade sheathed, but his presence carried the weight of what he'd done.
General Aeron looked up from a sparse report, exhaustion drawn into the lines around his eyes. "You should be resting," he said without force.
"I'm not here for rest," Koda replied. "I want to volunteer."
Aeron's gaze sharpened. "For what?"
"The scar," Koda said plainly. "I want to be on the team that closes it."
A moment passed—long and still.
Aeron glanced toward the Order's observer seated in the shadows nearby. The silver-marked man said nothing, only gave a single, slow nod. That was enough.
The general turned back to Koda and leaned forward, clasping his hands. "Good. We're sending a team of twenty. Five, level twenty or above—you'll be one of them. The rest are experienced, level fifteen and higher. It's not a full force. It's not meant to be. We don't want to provoke whatever remains inside the rift before we understand it."
"They'll meet at the southern gate tonight," the Order's agent said. "We move under moonlight. The fallen won't be the only thing waiting in that scar."
Koda inclined his head in agreement.
Twelve hours. That's what he had left before they stepped beyond the wall again.
Twelve hours to see her.
⸻
The city was still, like it had paused between heartbeats. A thin wind rustled loose canvas from the abandoned triage tents near the first wall, and somewhere in the distance a hammer rang against stone, the work of repairs already underway.
Koda found her near the edge of the temporary chapel. Maia was bent over a crate of supplies, issuing instructions to a young acolyte, her brow furrowed in the way it always did when she was focused—calm but commanding. Strong.
He almost turned away.
But she noticed him first.
Her breath hitched slightly. "Koda?"
"I'm going," he said, voice low, steady. "Tonight. A mission to the scar."
Her expression shifted, the blood draining from her cheeks. "That fast?"
He nodded. "We can't give them time to gather strength again."
There was a long pause between them.
"You don't have to—" she began.
"I do," he cut in softly. "You know I do."
She looked away, hands trembling as she gripped the edge of the crate. "You always walk toward the fire."
He gave a faint smile. "This time I hope to put it out before it reaches you."
She didn't answer at first. But then she stepped forward—close, too close—and placed her palm flat against his chestplate. "Then come back. Promise me, Koda."
He swallowed. "I will."
Maia's eyes searched his, full of words she still wouldn't say. Maybe couldn't. So instead, she rose onto the balls of her feet and pressed her forehead to his for a breathless moment. Quiet. Intimate. Fragile.
When she pulled away, her voice was barely a whisper.
"Don't let that place take you."
Koda turned halfway, the words still lingering in the quiet air between them. He'd promised to come back, but even as the vow left his lips, he knew the weight it carried. The kind of promise that sometimes died on the battlefield before the man did.
His hand lingered on the doorframe. He looked back.
Maia hadn't moved. Her eyes were wide, glassy, holding everything she wasn't saying.
Koda stepped close again, slow and deliberate. He reached up, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek, and then — without a word — he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. Soft. Steady. Just long enough to say what neither of them could.
Before she could react, he pulled away.
Then he turned, and this time, he didn't stop walking.