The first sound to shatter the dawn's fragile silence was no longer a shout of warning, nor the frantic tolling of a bell. It was the sickening, wet sound of tearing flesh.
Thalor, the elderly man who for decades had served as the pillar of wisdom for Lamping Village, stood rigid before the advancing phalanx of Paladins. He had not even managed to finish his sentence of protest, his mouth still forming a plea for mercy, when Governor Caelistra swung her longsword. The movement was a blur of lethal grace—a horizontal arc coated in shimmering golden Mana.
Thalor's head fell to the wheat-dusted earth before his body even realized it was dead. It was followed by his frail, aged frame, which collapsed with a heavy thud, his lifeblood soaking into the parched soil of the home he had spent his life protecting.
