I've always believed in being carefully ambiguous when delivering bad news. Not so vague that people think everything's fine, but not so clear that they panic. It's a delicate balance—like telling soone to check their safety equipnt without ntioning you've spotted a bomb.
So when I ntioned "high-ranking" Savage Communion mbers in the vicinity to those academy kids, I kept my tone neutral. Professional. The kind of voice you use when discussing slightly concerning weather patterns rather than the potential arrival of genocidal maniacs.
These weren't just any academy students, either. Mythos Academy's finest—a fact they wore like invisible badges, visible to anyone with enough perception to see past their youth. Arthur Nightingale—almost Integration-rank, with a Gift that made necromancers twice his age look incompetent. The Saintess, Rachel, whose healing abilities could bring soone back from the brink of death with a touch. Rose, with her reality-bending Paradox manipulation. Even Clana, perpetually half-asleep but capable of layering spells in ways that defied conventional understanding.
Talented, yes. But still children playing at being soldiers.
The Western Continent had been my responsibility for a long ti now. Second only to Valen Ashbluff himself in raw power, I had earned every scar, every rank, every whispered legend.
I brought the academy students with on patrol—not standard procedure by any asure. Grand Marshals don't do patrols. We coordinate them, plan them, review reports from them. We don't personally trudge through borderlands unless we're expecting sothing that requires our direct attention.
But I needed them with today. Not for their protection—that would be absurd—but because their presence would force to make the right choice when the mont ca.
The hovertruck wheezed asthmatically as we traveled, its systems protesting every bump and dip in the uneven terrain. Frontier equipnt was always like this: functional but complaining, like a soldier who does their job perfectly while grumbling the entire ti.
I pulled Arthur aside when we reached the ridgeline. Of the four, he showed the most promise in necromancy—my own specialty. Not that he was purely a necromancer; his talents were more diverse than that. But he understood the fundantals in a way that suggested intuition rather than re study.
"Walk with , Arthur," I said, keeping my voice neutral.
He followed without question. Good. Not all brilliance cos with obedience.
"You've studied necromancy," I stated. Not a question. I'd read his file, watched him practice.
"So," he nodded. "It's one of my focuses, yes. But I'm not purely a necromancer."
"That's fine," I told him. "I'm not either." I paused, considering how to explain. "You know what necromancy really is?"
"Raising the dead," he offered, giving the textbook answer.
I couldn't help but snort at that. So many years of teaching, and they still started with the most simplistic understanding. "No. It's control. Understanding. It's the discipline of keeping things from falling apart when they already should have. Necromancy is balance, Arthur. Not just bones and corpses. It's mory, legacy, structure in decay. And you? You have potential."
He blinked, surprise flickering across his face. "Is that why you brought ?"
"Part of it," I admitted. "The other part is that I have a very bad feeling."
His expression told he understood the weight of that statent. Good. The boy wasn't an idiot.
"Bad feeling as in…?" he prompted.
"As in we're being watched. And I want soone with who can raise a wall of corpses and make it polite."
I allowed myself a small smile—barely there, but genuine. The boy had earned that much honesty, at least.
The truth was, I hadn't slept properly since seeing that marking in their report. Three diagonal slashes with a horizontal line—the Axe King's personal trail marker. I knew exactly what it ant. The Axe King himself was moving along our frontier.
I imdiately contacted Valen Ashbluff. The King of the Western Continent. The only being on this continent who could face the Axe King with certainty of victory. The ssage I received in return was polite, diplomatic, and utterly useless. Valen was halfway across the world on so crucial diplomatic mission. He would return "as soon as circumstances permitted."
Circumstances. As if the Axe King's presence along our frontier was a minor scheduling inconvenience rather than an existential threat.
I brought these students with for a reason. Not because they could help against what was coming—they couldn't. But because their presence would ensure I made the right choice when the mont ca. I would do whatever was necessary to ensure they survived. To ensure the future they represented would have a chance.
I felt it before I saw anything—a ripple in the ambient mana, like a stone dropped into a still pond. Then the temperature plumted, the air itself seeming to recoil from what was approaching. Even the ground beneath our feet trembled slightly.
"Get back to the truck," I told Arthur, my voice calm despite everything. "Take the others and go. Now."
To his credit, he didn't waste ti asking questions. He saw sothing in my face that told him everything he needed to know.
"Marshal—" he began.
"That's an order, Captain," I said firmly. "Go."
He hesitated for just a mont, then nodded and turned, running back toward where the others waited.
I turned to face the approaching presence, drawing on my Gift. Deepdark swirled around , responding to my call—not just from recent deaths but from the accumulated weight of all the battles this land had witnessed. The Western frontier was saturated with death; it was my perfect battlefield.
The air split open about fifty ters away—not a portal in the conventional sense, but a tear in reality itself. Through it stepped a figure that could only be the Axe King.
He was massive, nearly two tres tall, his skin covered in ritual scars that glowed with internal power. His armor was crafted from the bones of powerful creatures and tals that shouldn't exist in nature. And his axe—the weapon that gave him his title—was a monstrous thing of black tal that seed to devour light.
"Marshal ilyn Potan," he said, his voice surprisingly cultured despite the tusks that protruded from his lower jaw. "The Second Pillar of the Western Continent. I've looked forward to eting you."
"Axe King," I replied evenly. "You're trespassing on Western territory."
He laughed, the sound like stones grinding together. "Am I? The borders between our domains have always been... fluid. Especially when Valen Ashbluff is absent."
So he knew. Of course he knew. The Axe King's intelligence network was legendary.
"Valen's absence is temporary," I said. "Mine isn't."
"Brave words," he acknowledged, hefting his enormous axe. "But we both know the truth. Without Valen, you cannot stop what's coming."
"Perhaps not," I agreed. "But I can delay it."
I felt the hovertruck activate behind , its engines whining as it lifted off. Good. The students were leaving. They would report what happened here. They would prepare the frontier for what was coming.
The Axe King noticed too. His eyes—eerily intelligent for an orc—flicked toward the retreating vehicle, then back to .
"Sending away your reinforcents? Unwise."
"They're not my reinforcents," I said. "They're my purpose."
Understanding dawned in his eyes. "Ah. You an to sacrifice yourself. Honorable, but futile."
"We'll see."
I gathered my power, channeling it through Eternal Cycle. Deepdark swirled around in visible currents, the air itself darkening as I drew on decades of mastery. This would be my final act—a culmination of everything I had learned, everything I had beco.
The Axe King raised his weapon, miasma coalescing around it.
"Your sacrifice will be rembered, Marshal," he said, almost respectfully. "But it will not save them."
"It doesn't need to save them," I replied. "It just needs to give them ti."
He leaped forward with impossible speed for sothing so large, his axe describing a perfect arc toward my head.
I t it with everything I had, pushing my Gift to its absolute limit. Death energy erupted from in a catastrophic wave, the perfect counter to his strike.
The resulting collision was blinding, deafening—a cataclysm of opposed forces eting in perfect destruction.
And in that final mont, as the Axe King's weapon fell and my life force surged to et it, I smiled. Not the ghost of a smile, not a hint of one—but a true, genuine expression of peace.
I had found my courage. Not in the absence of fear, but in its acknowledgnt and transcendence.
These students, these children playing at being soldiers—they were the future. A future worth dying for.
The blade fell, and the world went white.
Reviews
All reviews (0)