The sky wasn’t black anymore. It was bleeding.
Fires burned like wounds in the clouds, casting warped shadows across the courtyard. Smoke mixed with the ash of the dead. I couldn’t tell what ti it was—morning? Evening? All of it looked the sa now. Grey. Red. Broken.
Unit 27 was barely standing.
We’d regrouped at what used to be a small supply post. Now, it was a half-collapsed crater with so crates and splinters pretending to be cover. The bodies around us weren’t even whole—torn, lted, twisted into angles the human body wasn’t ant to take. You couldn’t look too long at them, or you’d lose your fucking mind.
Carn was breathing heavy beside , her hands shaking, covered in blood—so hers, most not. Cealith crouched with one knee down, checking a soldier’s pulse. His face gave away nothing, but the way his jaw clenched when he stood told all I needed to know.
Dead.
Amina was already moving again, dragging a corpse off one of the crates to make room for Daisuke, who was coughing into a blood-stained rag. He tried to sit upright, groaned, and then slumped again. He’d taken shrapnel to the thigh hours ago, and we were out of cloth. He used part of his shirt as a bandage. It didn’t help much.
“Where’s our right flank?” I asked, voice hoarse.
Amina didn’t look up. “Gone.”
I swallowed. “Left?”
She stopped, then glanced at .
“They didn’t scream.”
I didn’t answer. What the fuck do you even say to that?
Cealith walked over and leaned against the side of the crate next to , arms crossed. He stared at the fire line, where the last wave had hit us—barely repelled. We’d lost two more from our original unit. Ysan was one of them. Good kid. He always gave the new recruits his bread first. His sword was still embedded in the ground a few ters out, and no one had the strength to pull it free.
“We can’t hold another wave like that,” I said.
Cealith didn’t reply. His silence wasn’t cold. Just real.
“Tell I’m wrong.”
He looked at . “You’re not.”
The wind shifted. I could sll sothing new—burned oil, scorched tal. The kind of sll you only get when sothing unnatural dies.
Carn exhaled hard. “We should’ve died already.”
“No shit,” Amina muttered from behind.
Daisuke let out a dry laugh, half-choked. “Still might.”
I tried to think. I needed a plan. Positioning? Rotations? Distraction tactics? There was nothing left. We were spent. Physically. ntally. Even the air around us felt heavy, like gravity itself had decided to give up.
And the worst part?
The silence.
No screams. No tal. No marching.
Just... stillness.
That ant another wave was forming.
It always ca right after the silence.
I stepped away from the crate, toward the edge of the rubble, and looked over the ridge.
The field was carnage. A smoldering no-man’s land. Bits of armor. Shadows twisted into corpses. Blackened soil that pulsed like it rembered being alive. And across it—
Movent.
Slow. Deliberate. Stretching across the entire front.
They were forming again. Dozens. Maybe more. The creatures weren’t charging yet. They were waiting—lining up. Like they were taunting us. Like they knew we had nothing left.
Carn appeared at my side. “Another wave?”
I nodded.
She clenched her fists. “Good. I was worried I’d have to sleep tonight.”
I almost smiled. But I looked at her face—really looked—and saw the red in her eyes. The exhaustion in her voice. She wasn’t joking.
She was breaking.
We all were.
Then—
A sound.
No—a presence.
The wind shifted again. But this ti, it ca from above.
Everyone turned. Even Cealith, who never reacted to anything.
A distant roar echoed through the smoke-choked sky. Not like the others. Not the screams of dying soldiers. Not the screeches of the shadow-beasts.
Sothing primal.
Raw.
Alive.
We turned as one—and then we saw it.
A shape in the sky, piercing through the clouds like a blade of fla.
The air rippled around it.
Its wings spread wide. Massive. Leather and fire, ancient and defiant. Its scales shimred in the orange glow of the burning world, and its eyes burned like molten gold.
A dragon.
The dragon.
It roared again—deeper this ti, louder—and the shockwave hit the ground like thunder, knocking dust and ash into a spiraling storm.
The creatures in the distance froze.
For the first ti since the war began—
they hesitated.
And then it struck.
The dragon swooped low, jaws wide, and a torrent of fla burst from its throat. Not just heat. Not just fire. Cleansing. The air lit up. The flas erased the creatures, reducing them to shrieks and ash in seconds.
We didn’t move.
We watched as hope fell from the sky in waves of gold and red.
And for a heartbeat—
the war paused.
The dragon tore through the sky like vengeance given form.
Its wings split the smoke with each beat, pushing the haze outward in gusts strong enough to clear the battlefield. For a mont, I could see the entire stretch of no-man’s land—littered with burning corpses, black blood evaporating on contact with the ground, twisted pieces of armor glinting like shattered teeth.
The darkness recoiled.
The creatures didn’t scream. They didn’t charge.
They ran.
So stumbled over their own kind in panic, others turned and fled like wild animals sensing a forest fire. The front line—the sa bastards that had torn through our best soldiers without flinching—was disintegrating.
And that dragon? It wasn’t done.
It pulled up high, wings stretching wide, and then dove—mouth opening in a snarl that echoed like a cathedral collapsing. It bathed the retreating monsters in fla. Not normal fire—this shit didn’t burn. It unmade. The creatures ignited, glowed white-hot, and crumbled into nothing before they even had the chance to hit the dirt.
Behind , soone whispered, “Holy shit…”
I didn’t look back.
I watched the fla clear a swath through the enemy lines.
This is it.
I didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate. Sothing inside snapped into place like a locked gear.
“CEALITH!” I shouted.
He turned to , halfway through reloading his crossbow.
“Right flank! Take two and hold that tree line before they regroup!”
He didn’t blink. Just nodded, grabbed two others, and sprinted toward the eastern trench.
“Amina—support Carn left side, push them toward the fire!”
Amina looked at like I’d grown a second head—but she moved. Carn didn’t say anything. She was already charging. That wild grief was still in her eyes, but it had found a direction.
“Daisuke!”
He lifted his blood-soaked head, still lying half-covered in rubble.
“You’re still breathing, right?”
He grunted. “Debatable.”
“Good enough. Take those three, coordinate fallback and rotate fresh blades. If soone drops, replace them fast. Got it?”
He gave a half-assed salute with a shaky hand. “Sir, yes sir.”
I turned toward the wall of fire and death.
“Everyone else—with !”
We pushed forward—not like a desperate retreat, not like cornered dogs—but like soldiers who saw a sliver of light and decided to fucking chase it.
The dragon tore the skies above us. The battlefield beneath us trembled.
We followed its fla.
The ground was slick with gore. One wrong step ant slipping, getting gutted, becoming the next piece of scenery. I saw three of our guys go down—one got dragged by his leg, screaming, until Carn tackled the beast and ripped its throat open with a broken blade.
Amina moved like a shadow, in and out, cutting fast and deep. Cealith’s flank held firm; he didn’t yell, didn’t break formation—just kept swinging like a damn machine.
And ?
I was at the front. Breathing fire even when I couldn’t breathe.Nikita’s sword in my hand.My fucking legs on autopilot.My heart in pieces—but pushing anyway.
One of the larger creatures lunged for —three arms, too many teeth.
I ducked under it, slashed upward—felt the blade cut through tendon and bone—and didn’t stop moving. Another beast ca at . I pivoted, caught it across the snout, kicked its knee out as it scread. Drove the sword through its spine.
Blood hit my face. I didn’t flinch.
This wasn’t skill.
It was rage.
Pure, burning, fucking rage.
At so point, the ground started to change. It wasn’t just blood now. It was ash—soft and thick beneath our boots. The creatures weren’t regenerating like before. They were crumbling. The dragon’s fla did sothing to them. Undid whatever curse held their bodies together.
“They’re fucking scared!” soone shouted behind .
I turned, sword raised.
“GOOD! LET THEM BE SCARED!”
Carn broke the line beside , laughing—her blade singing through two more creatures in a single arc.
“They’re running!” she shouted.
“No,” I said. “We’re winning.”
The next few minutes blurred into instinct.
Push forward.Don’t think.Protect the ones behind you.Die later.
My hands were numb. My arms scread. The sword in my grip felt like it weighed fifty kilos.
And still—I didn’t stop.
Eventually—
silence.
Real silence.
No screeches. No claws. No breathing that wasn’t ours.
I stood in the middle of the field, surrounded by corpses and black mist curling off the ground like steam.
The creatures were gone.
The wave—that wave—was over.
We’d survived.
The battlefield was silent, except for our breathing.
Not the labored kind from panic—just the dry, shallow breaths of people who didn’t believe they were still alive.
I dropped to one knee. The ground was still warm, as if the blood hadn’t decided whether to cool or not. My sword clattered to the dirt beside . I stared at it for a second—Nikita’s sword. It looked heavier now. Like it carried more than just steel.
Cealith stood a few ters away, still holding his blade. He hadn’t moved since the last creature fell. His eyes scanned the horizon, but his face was empty. Focused. Cold.
Amina sat with her back against a burnt tree stump, blood drying on her cheek. She looked like she was trying not to blink. Like if she closed her eyes, this would all reset and we’d be back at the beginning again.
Daisuke was the only one making noise. A low, guttural noise. Half-laugh, half-sob. His arm was wrapped in a strip of torn shirt, shaking uncontrollably. Two other soldiers—what was left of Unit 27—sat beside him, staring into nothing.
And Carn—
Carn wasn’t okay.
She stood alone, back to the rest of us, arms limp at her sides, staring at the corpses ahead like they might still move. Her shoulders trembled once. Then again. Then she dropped to her knees without a sound.
I rose slowly. Every part of ached. My legs were stiff, neck burning, fingers numb. But I walked to her anyway.
She didn’t react when I knelt beside her.
“I saw him die,” she whispered.
Her voice was cracked glass. Thin. Fragile.
I didn’t answer. What could I say?
“I thought—maybe—he’d just been knocked down. That he’d get back up like he always fucking does.” Her hands clenched. “He was right next to , Aleks. Right there. And then he wasn’t.”
I sat beside her.
“I didn’t even say anything,” she went on. “He just… he just told to move left. Like it was a normal day. And then I turned and—”
She broke.
No scream. No sobbing. Just her face folding in as the weight crashed in. Tears poured silently. Her mouth opened like she wanted to scream but didn’t have the air.
I put my arm around her. She didn’t pull away.
For a long ti, she just cried into my chest. I didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
The others watched from a distance. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were too far inside their own heads.
After a while, Carn pulled away. Her hands wiped at her face, saring dirt and ash.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t an to—”
“Don’t,” I cut her off.
She looked at .
“You don’t have to be strong right now.”
She stared for a second. Then nodded once, jaw tight, and sat down fully, legs crossed, arms resting on her knees. Her eyes were red. Not just from crying—from everything.
A roar split the air—not close, not urgent. Just a reminder that not everything had stopped.
We turned as the dragon circled overhead. Its wings carved through the smoke like it belonged in the sky, like it had earned the right to fly over the corpses below. Its scales shimred in streaks of bronze and red. The fire was gone from its throat, but not from its presence.
It didn’t feel like a weapon anymore.
It felt like a guardian.
Or maybe a ghost.
Carn looked up at it.
“Do you think it ca because of us?”
“No,” I said. “I think it ca because this place was dying.”
She nodded slowly.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
And it was. For the first ti in days—maybe weeks—I saw sothing that wasn’t just survival.
Sothing alive.
Behind us, soone started crying. Not loud. Just the kind of crying that leaks out when there’s nothing left to hold it in. Another soldier fell to their knees and looked at the sky. Another curled up in the mud and whispered a prayer to a god that wasn’t listening.
Cealith finally lowered his weapon.
Amina let out a long breath, the kind that sounds like it’s been trapped inside a chest for years.
Daisuke wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and muttered sothing about needing a drink.
And ?
I looked around at the people I’d nearly lost.
And for the first ti—
I thought we might have made it.
We stayed there a while.
No one moved. Not really. So sat. So cried. So whispered things they’d never say again. The fire had dimd, the dragon circled lazily above, and for just a mont, the world looked like it had run out of violence.
Then the sky changed.
Not the color. Not the clouds.
The sound.
I didn’t notice at first. Just a low hum—barely there. Like the earth was holding its breath. A slow, heavy pressure pushing down on us. Subtle. Relentless.
My skin prickled.
Carn was the first to speak. Her voice cracked. “...do you feel that?”
Cealith turned sharply. His gaze narrowed at the western ridge.
Daisuke looked up, squinting. “What the hell is that?”
Then we heard it.
A crack—not like thunder. Sharper. Higher.
The kind of sound you don’t hear with your ears.
The kind you feel in your bones.
I stood. My legs protested, but I forced them into motion. The wind had died. The smoke had paused midair. Even the dragon’s silhouette froze in place, hovering with wings stretched open as if suspended in glass.
Then ca the light.
Black.
Sohow… black.
A single bolt, like a jagged fracture, tore through the sky and slamd into the dragon.
The creature scread—a long, shuddering roar that split the air as its body convulsed, wings spasming, limbs twisting. And then—
It fell.
A slow, spiraling collapse, like watching a god lose its balance. It hit the ground in the far distance. The impact shook the earth beneath our feet.
Silence followed.
No one spoke.
Carn took a step forward. Her voice was barely a whisper. “No…”
Then, from the smoke, a figure.
A rider.
A horse, limping toward us, its hooves barely making sound against the cracked earth. Its sides heaved like it had been galloping through hell.
The rider swayed in the saddle. Covered in blood. One arm missing. His body slumped, barely hanging on.
As he ca closer, I recognized him.
“...Antoine?”
His hair was gone—burned off in clumps. His armor was lted into his skin. His face…
Fuck. His face didn’t even look human anymore.
We rushed toward him.
“Antoine!” I grabbed the reins, caught him as he slipped sideways and nearly fell.
He looked at , barely registering my face.
His eyes were wild. Shaking.
“They’re dead,” he whispered.
“What?”
“All of them… They’re all dead.”
Carn stepped forward. “Who? Who’s dead?”
Antoine stared past us.
“Units One through Twenty-One. The entire front. They sent us to hold the lines. We tried. We held. We fought.”
His voice cracked.
“I killed ten. Maybe more. But then it ca.”
Amina narrowed her eyes. “What ca?”
He turned to again. Gripped my collar with his one remaining hand.
“I don’t know what it is, Aleks,” he rasped. “I don’t know if it breathes. I don’t even know if it exists the way we do.”
He coughed blood.
“But it ca. And when it did—everything ended.”
“Who ca?” I asked again, firr.
Antoine’s lip quivered.
“I don’t know. I just… I just know we don’t have a chance.”
He pulled closer.
“He cos,” he whispered. “He cos. He cos. He cos.”
“Where is it now?!”
He didn’t answer.
He started sobbing. “Please… don’t let it find . Don’t let it find again.”
Daisuke stepped forward, stunned. “Antoine—what happened to the Legen—?”
“They’re gone!” Antoine scread. “GORVAK! GRIMNIR! VELANA! I watched them DIE!”
His voice cracked.
“I ran. I ran like a fucking coward because I didn’t want to see what it would do to .”
Then he froze.
His eyes widened.
“No… no, no, no—he’s here. He’s here!”
He dropped to the dirt and tried to crawl away. “GET AWAY FROM !”
“Antoine!” I shouted.
But then—
We felt it.
Not a sound.
Not a wind.
Just...
absence.
The kind that makes your blood forget how to move.
The land to the west—the sa place the dragon had fallen—began to break.
Not explode. Not rumble.
Just… break.
Like reality had been cracked.
A chasm, slow and impossible, tore through the ridge. Not from force. From presence.
The air shimred.
And sothing began to walk through it.
Sothing that didn’t belong.
Antoine scread, pointing with what remained of his hand.
“RUN! FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD, RUN!”
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