The plan finalized, there was little left to discuss. The time for quiet calculation had passed. Now came the chaos.
As the first threads of gray light clawed at the dead horizon, the war party moved. Through the outskirts of the fallen city, the teams fanned out like silent ghosts among the ruined alleys, broken towers casting long shadows over the ash-laced ground.
Team 1—Koda and Torren—took position near the eastern gate. The last remaining entrance wide enough for a full assault.
The structure, if it could be called that, was formed of stacked bones and tar-stained planks lashed together with sinew. As if the orcs built it not as a defense, but a message—a warning of what became of invaders.
Koda didn't flinch.
"Ready?" Torren asked, rolling his shoulders. The man was a giant—a head taller than Koda and much broader, with muscles like coiled steel and his war-hammer across his back.
Koda gave a single nod, Mantle of Echoes already shivering around his shoulders, its phantom threads bleeding menace.
"Go loud," he said.
Torren grinned.
And then they moved.
Torren hit the gate first, hammer raised high. It came down like a god's judgment, the dented blunt surface crushing through the bone-wood wall with a thunderous crack. The screeching hinges snapped, splinters flying, and the gate erupted inward.
Koda was already in motion.
As the orcs turned to see what had shattered their gate, he burst forward—a blur of silver and smoke. His blade sank deep into the chest of the first sentry, carving straight through muscle and bone. The creature's howl died in a gurgle.
Torren followed with a roar, swinging his axe in a wide arc that split another orc in half at the waist. Gore sprayed the walls. The orcs were slow to react—confused by the sudden onslaught, their formation faltering.
The hammer and the nail.
Koda moved like a spear, piercing the heart of the enemy's ranks—fast, surgical, unrelenting. Each strike was placed with precision, tearing tendons, collapsing knees, slipping through ribs.
Torren was the storm behind him. Where Koda struck, Torren flattened. Bones crunched beneath his boots. When his hammer wasn't killing, it was deflecting, intercepting blows that would've caught Koda's flank. The two moved with the unspoken rhythm of war-born brothers.
An orc lunged at Koda's side. Torren's hand snapped out, catching its neck and thrusting it down into the soil. Falling with the full weight of his hammer, he crushed it. Brains sprayed the black dirt.
Behind them, Team 3 surged through the broken gate. Dara's infantry formed a phalanx and locked the entrance down, their shields raised high as orc reinforcements scrambled toward the breach.
Koda and Torren didn't stay to help. Their job had only just begun.
They split from the main fight, darting into the city's inner alleys, hunting their true targets: the generals.
Torren laughed as they rounded a corner. "Bet I kill more than you."
"Not if you keep talking."
The city rose around them—burned wood, cracked stone, stained with old blood and darker things. They moved like beasts, boots pounding through the dirt roads, shadows swallowing their steps.
And the generals were waiting.
The first towered at the center of a crossroads, armored in black iron plates bolted directly into his flesh. A war-maul bigger than Koda's torso rested across his shoulders, his eyes burning with recognition as he saw the intruders.
Koda didn't slow.
He surged forward while Torren flanked wide. The general raised his maul to swing—too slow.
Koda slid low, slashing behind the orc's knee, tendons snapping like cords. As the beast stumbled, Torren barreled in from behind, leaping and slamming his hammer down on the nape of the general's neck.
A roar. A crunch. A gout of blood.
The general dropped like a felled tree.
Koda ended it with a precise thrust through the throat—his blade driving in deep, twisting as he pulled free.
"One," Torren muttered.
Koda rolled his eyes. "It was mine."
"Assist doesn't count."
A second general was already charging from a nearby alley, flanked by two smaller orcs.
Torren lunged first this time, colliding with one of the smaller guards and sending it flying into a wall. Koda met the second guard, parrying its jagged cleaver and stepping inside its guard to drive his blade through its heart.
The general roared, slamming a heavy cleaver down toward Koda—but Torren intercepted, hammer meeting blade with a crash of metal that sent sparks flying.
Koda didn't waste the opening.
He spun behind the distracted general, leapt up onto its back, and drove his sword down—through the spine, through the base of the skull, splitting the top of its head like an overripe fruit.
Torren caught the falling corpse, using it as a battering ram to bash the last orc into the dirt before finishing it with a downward strike.
They stood in the silence that followed, panting.
"Two," Koda said flatly.
Torren snorted. "Fine. That one's yours."
The war behind them raged. Screams and steel. Crumbling buildings. The beat of blood and fury.
And the castle still loomed ahead.
Their hunt had just begun.
The wind rolled through the broken alleys like a whisper from the dead, dragging ash and dust in curling eddies around Koda's boots. Blood clung to his blade, thick and dark, but his grip was steady, his eyes forward. Torren's hammer rested over his shoulder, its head slick with black ichor and bone fragments.
"Two down," Koda murmured.
"Two to go," Torren said, cracking his neck. "Hope they're not all so disappointing."
Koda didn't respond. He could feel it in the air—thicker than blood, heavier than smoke. A presence ahead.
The third general found them.
It crashed through a dilapidated structure at the end of the street, a living mountain of mutated muscle and tangled chains. This one wore no armor, its skin blackened and scabbed, its maw distended unnaturally wide—like it had tried to devour something too large and never quite healed.
It bellowed.
Not a challenge.
A greeting.
Like they were old friends.
"Careful," Koda said, stepping forward.
"I'll distract, you pin it," Torren replied, already moving into a wide arc.
The creature lunged.
Koda dropped low, rolling beneath its gnarled limbs. One arm swiped for him, but Torren intercepted, swinging his hammer up into the joint with a sickening crunch that snapped the elbow back at an impossible angle.
The general barely noticed. It laughed—a guttural, choking sound—as it grabbed Torren with its good arm and hurled him like a sack of sand. He crashed through a wall, dust rising in a thick plume.
Koda didn't hesitate.
He leapt forward, blade glinting, and drove it into the thing's ribs. It roared again, this time in pain, spinning with enough force to throw him back. Koda landed on his feet, but his shoulder ached—bruised, maybe worse.
Torren returned with fury, bursting from the wreckage like a bear, his hammer gripped in both hands.
He slammed it into the creature's spine with a war cry, forcing it to its knees. Koda surged in again, this time driving his blade through its collarbone and down into its chest cavity.
The general convulsed once, then collapsed into a heap, its final breath a long, wet sigh.
Torren exhaled hard, dragging the hammer free. "That one had some fight."
"Don't get sentimental," Koda said, wiping blood from his face.
"One left."
They didn't wait.
Cutting through alleys and half-standing buildings, they followed the scent of blood and rot, weaving deeper toward the inner wall of the castle. Here the structures changed—less crude, more ordered. Built with deliberation. The last general was no brute.
He stood calmly in the courtyard before the castle gate.
Slender—tall for an orc, but almost human in build. His armor was refined, made from blackened steel, lacquered bone forming an intricate crest across his chest. He held no oversized weapon, just a long, curved blade and a stance that screamed discipline.
Torren whistled low. "This one's a duelist."
"Not a berserker."
"Guess I'll hang back," Torren muttered. "You got this?"
Koda's eyes narrowed. "If he's faster than he looks, hit him hard."
The orc general inclined his head, almost courtly, before lunging forward with terrifying speed.
Their blades clashed, steel on steel, sparks dancing in the shadows. This general moved like a predator—every step calculated, every swing efficient. Koda was forced onto the defensive, barely parrying strikes that came in like whispers.
He countered with a low sweep and followed with a pivoting slash, but the general twisted aside, drawing a thin line of blood from Koda's forearm.
"Back!" Torren shouted.
Koda disengaged and fell aside just in time for Torren's hammer to whistle through the air.
The general ducked—barely—but Torren was already in motion again, forcing the orc back with wild, battering swings. Koda used the pressure to reenter, this time moving from below.
The dance shifted.
Koda slashed high, Torren swung low.
The general parried one, avoided the other, but the relentlessness began to wear him down. Every dodge left a gap, every parry opened a new line of attack. Blood began to drip from thin cuts across his legs and side.
Torren roared and brought the hammer down in an overhead slam.
The general blocked with both arms—breaking them.
Koda was already airborne.
He came down like a falling star, his blade driving straight through the general's chest and pinning him to the dirt.
The general gasped once—eyes wide—and fell still.
Silence.
Only the crackling wind filled the courtyard.
Koda withdrew the blade and stood, catching his breath. Torren leaned on his hammer, watching the castle.
"That's four," he muttered.
"No," Koda corrected, eyes narrowing as he stared at the looming spire. "That was just the threshold."
Torren nodded. "Yeah. I feel it too."
Whatever drank the mana dry… whatever pulsed like a heartbeat at the center of this ruined world…
It was waiting inside.