The fire beneath Dravenguard's grand war chamber burned low. The red glow reflected in the steel-armored faces of its gathered generals, thirteen warlords, lieutenants, and lords of flame and fang. They sat beneath the vaulted obsidian ceiling of the high war citadel, each throne bearing the crest of a conquered realm. At the center of the chamber, the war-table glowed, carved from volcanic glass and runes that shifted with the war's tide.
Saevan stood at its head, his cloak blacker than midnight and his expression unreadable.
Yet even he could feel it.
A tremor.
It began not in stone, but in silence.
A hesitation before the next general spoke. A glance held too long. A breath too still.
And then it came.
"My lord," said General Hadrik, rising slowly from his place. His armor bore the mark of the Shattered Fang—one of the outer realms consumed by Dravenguard early in the conquest. "I would speak a thought that burdens me."
Saevan inclined his head.
Hadrik's voice was measured. "We are winning. Yet… there are whispers among the rear legions. That Elyrion—" he paused, choosing his words carefully, "—is not a king, but a god."
Eyes turned.
"You saw what happened at Nareth's Hollow," Hadrik continued. "A single mage. Seven thousand gone. Not wounded. Not even slain. Erased. If such power exists in Artherion's backwaters, what, then, sits on the throne?"
Murmurs rose.
"The people say his life sustains the realm itself," another added, "and that should he fall, the world might collapse into itself."
"They say his eyes see through stone," said a third.
Saevan lifted a hand.
The chamber silenced.
"Then let them say," Saevan whispered. "Let them scream Elyrion's name from the battlements. Let them cry of gods and light. It will not save them when their walls burn."
"But what if—" Hadrik began.
"No."
Saevan's voice did not rise, yet it cracked through the room like a whip.
"You question the perfection of the plan?"
"I question… whether you have accounted for divinity."
For a moment, no one breathed.
Saevan turned slowly. He walked to Hadrik.
"I have seen things," Saevan said, his voice low. "Things you could not comprehend. I know the shape of gods. I know the way they fall."
He placed a hand on Hadrik's shoulder.
"I thank you for your honesty."
And with that, his other hand drove a blade between Hadrik's ribs.
Gasps filled the chamber.
Hadrik slumped.
Saevan let him fall.
"Let this be the last time doubt enters this hall."
He turned.
"But let fear remain. It sharpens the mind."
And so, though the dissenter lay dead, the fear he voiced did not die with him. It festered.
—
Meanwhile, in the western warfront of Artherion, a battle blazed.
A host of Dravenguardian forces had launched a surprise offensive through the Ashen Vale, led by mercenary companies, highland raiders, and two lesser primordials recently awakened from Saevan's command.
The centerpiece of their onslaught was the Beast of Sorrow.
A behemoth taller than towers. Its hide was a dark, thorned chitin. Its arms were massive and clawed, dragging gouges into the valley floor. Eyes like molten coals bled flame as it roared.
Artherion's forward battalion met them at the Vale's edge.
Steel clashed.
The beast stormed forward, plowing through soldiers like paper. Entire ranks were torn apart. Spells shattered upon its flesh. The sky darkened with smoke and falling ash.
One knight of Artherion leapt from a cliffside, a lance of pure silver drawn...
The beast caught him in mid-air and crushed him in its claw. The sound echoed for miles.
Flames burned across the vale.
Dravenguard howled with fury and triumph. Their spirit surged.
But as the beast stepped deeper into Artherion's soil...something changed.
Above, the sky shimmered.
From among the Artherion ranks, one knight raised his sword, his eyes glowing.
Then another.
And another.
They stood taller. Faster. Their movements were like wind on water.
No horn had sounded.
No command was given.
Yet divine strength flowed through them.
And they began to push back.
A hammer met the beast's foot and cracked the ground.
A blade of light pierced its shoulder. Black ichor spilled.
It screamed.
And then, above them, a figure appeared, cloaked in radiant flame.
A High Knight of Artherion. Name unknown. Rank unspoken.
He raised his hand.
And the sky responded.
Lightning carved the heavens. A single bolt struck the beast's neck...
...and severed it.
The beast's body collapsed. Its head rolled for thirty yards before crumbling into ash.
The battlefield stilled.
Neither side moved.
Then, from the Artherion side, a knight dropped to his knees, not from exhaustion, but reverence.
And one whispered: "He fights for us."
The light faded.
And in Dravenguard's camp, the lieutenants regrouped, shaken.
"Two battles," one said. "And we are losing what no one can see."
Saevan received the news with no change of face.
But his fingers curled.
Tighter than before.
But the battlefield had not yet finished its dirge.
For the ash that drifted from the beast's corpse coalesced into a new form, twice the size, thrice the rage. It reformed, its hide blacker than void, dripping with molten essence. A second heart beat within its chest, sounding like a war drum that fractured the minds of men.
It rose.
With a scream that shattered boulders and ruptured the earth.
Artherion soldiers faltered.
The beast surged forward.
And death followed.
Men burned where they stood. Magic shields crumbled like parchment. One battalion vanished into a crater carved by a single sweep of its claws. Its tail lashed across the field and reduced trees, watchtowers, and flesh into pulp. A high knight tried to cast a binding spell.
The spell was devoured.
Another tried to fly above it.
He was eaten mid-air.
Hope began to falter.
And then… the sky split.
A soundless rupture in the heavens, like reality itself bent in reverence.
A single figure descended through the break.
No flash. No fanfare.
He descended into the battlefield as if he had always belonged there.
Lucien.
His coat did not flutter, air fled his presence.
His steps left no prints, but the earth glowed faintly wherever he walked.
Hands in his pockets.
Eyes calm.
Expression unreadable.
But around him,
Power.
Not magic. Not might.
Sovereignty.
The very fabric of existence bent slightly toward him, the way grass leans toward the sun.
Even the beast hesitated.
Thousands of soldiers, friend and foe, stilled.
Breathing became reverent.
He walked through the rubble. Over corpses. Past fire.
The beast bellowed, a sound to split the stars.
Lucien blinked.
And stepped forward.
He was now before the beast.
They starred long into the beasts eyes. Lucien was increasing it's anxiety.
It lunged...
...and Lucien, with no change of expression, appeared atop it in a blur, a quick flash step and he gracefully stepped upon its skull.
Just a step.
The beast froze.
Its body convulsed. Its limbs shattered. Its inner fire died.
And then, as if life itself recoiled from the touch,
Its head caved in.
With a thunderous crash it fell to the ground.
Dead.
Lucien descended gracefully to the ground.
His gaze did not rise.
He turned, and walked away.
And the battlefield watched.
The surviving Dravenguard knights began to tremble.
Not from pain.
But from the presence.
They had seen something beyond their wars.
A god who wore the skin of man.
And as he vanished once more into the veil of light, his name echoed.
Spoken not in fear.
But awe.
"Lucien."
To be continued...