The barbarians, who had been backing away from the thunder of his shots, stopped. Their eyes rolled back, turning entirely black. Veins bulged along their necks and arms. Fear drained from their faces, replaced by something empty and violent.
They howled and surged toward Kael. Their bodies dropped low as they ran, spines pitched forward, arms and legs driving at unnatural angles.
The movement abandoned anything human—built only for speed, for closing the distance as fast as flesh could carry them.
Kael checked his pocket. Nine shells left.
The berserkers kept coming, packed tight, bodies filling the ground ahead in a moving mass. There was no gap to cut through, no space to stand and trade shots.
Kael turned and ran.
THUD-THUD-THUD.
A shadow swept over the snow.
A warhorse, clad in steel barding, smashed into the flank of the berserkers like a battering ram.
Bones snapped. Men were trampled into the mud.
A longsword flashed in the grey light, severing a barbarian's head in a clean arc.
Behind the lead rider, the full weight of Blackstone Keep's cavalry poured in like an avalanche, a tide of steel and mass that swallowed the berserkers whole.
Bodies vanished beneath hooves and armor, the charge rolling over them without slowing. Where the Vanguard's line had stood in desperation, only black steel remained, advancing without pause.
Kael slid to a stop behind the broken pine, chest heaving.
One berserker, somehow still alive after the cavalry hit, tore himself out of the crush. He was blind to the horses, blind to the steel. He saw only Kael.
His skin burned dark red, veins standing out like cords. He lurched forward, roaring through shattered teeth.
Kael raised the shotgun.
BOOM.
The shot took him in the head. Bone and fragments burst outward, half the skull tearing away as the face collapsed into ruin.
But he stayed on his feet.
Blood poured down what remained of his face as he lurched forward again, momentum carrying him on despite the fatal damage.
What the hell… Kael thought, his eyes widening. Something is holding it together.
BOOM.
As the distance closed to arm's length, the second shot tore through what remained of the man's neck. The head vanished completely. The body stood for a heartbeat, blood pumping hard into the air, before finally collapsing into the snow.
[Aether: +0.6] [Total Aether: 15.5]
The kills are worth more, Kael noted coldly. But they are harder to kill.
He snapped the gun closed, but there were no more targets. The cavalry had swept the field.
In the center of the melee, Captain Valen sat astride his black stallion, moving with precise economy. His black greatsword rode low in one hand, balanced and ready.
A barbarian Centurion—a giant equal to the one Kael had killed—roared and brought a massive iron axe down in a killing arc.
Valen simply raised his blade one-handed.
CLANG.
Steel met steel. The impact rang out sharp and flat.
The axe stalled instantly.
The blow that could shatter stone met Valen's wrist and stopped there, force crushed into stillness. Bone, muscle, and steel collided, the impact snapping through the air.
The Centurion drove forward on instinct alone, weight and momentum pouring into the strike, veins swollen, breath tearing from his chest in a raw snarl.
Valen held.
His arm stood locked, unyielding, an iron pillar set into the ground. The shock traveled back through the axe shaft, into the Centurion's shoulders, into flesh pushed past its limit.
The weapon trembled.
Valen did not.
In that narrow instant—old force spent, new force not yet born—Valen stepped in.
The black blade flashed once. Snick.
The Centurion's head left his shoulders and hit the snow a step later, the body folding forward without ceremony.
For the first time, Kael saw Blackstone Keep's greatest strength revealed in motion.
Valen flowed through the melee from the saddle. His blade rose and fell in clean arcs, each cut delivered without excess. Arrows struck his armor and skidded away harmlessly. Spearheads bent on contact with his pauldrons.
Nothing checked his advance.
Kael lowered his shotgun. He felt a doubt surface. He wasn't sure his weapon would bite through that armor.
He felt the distance.
A gulf.
Valen stood on the far side of it—an entirely different level of existence. Strength, balance, instinct, control. Every part of him belonged to a world Kael had never touched. Sky and ground. Two ends that didn't meet.
The slaughter ended quickly. The Shaman had fled, and the rest were meat.
Valen circled his horse back. He stopped in front of the broken pine tree, looking down at Kael. His sword was wet with red, but his breathing was even.
His eyes were cold, assessing, and visibly impressed.
"Well done, soldier," Valen said evenly. "You exceeded what I expected."
He pointed his sword toward the ridge where the Shaman had vanished.
"We'll clean up the rest. Get yourself treated."
Valen turned and rode away, the Black Reaper returning to his command.
Kael leaned back against the tree, letting the shotgun rest across his knees. He touched the cut on his cheek and looked at the blood on his fingers.
Blackstone Keep itself was nothing more than a listening post on the edge of the map—built to signal invasion, not to withstand it. And Valen was merely its captain.
A fire took root inside him.
It burned with discipline and direction, its heat measured, its purpose fixed.
Ambition, given shape.
In Kael's mind, the map expanded. Blackstone Keep revealed itself in full—a frontier stronghold. A listening station set at the edge of settled land. Stone and signal, built to watch the horizon and carry warning to greater powers beyond.
He imagined Valen standing at the highest tower, armor catching the light. From there, the world stretched outward—roads cutting through fields, lines of fortresses marking the limits of order.
Kael saw the road continue.
He had heard these stories before.
Bards told of paladins riding beneath consecrated banners, entire crowds falling into ordered silence at their approach. Faith spoken as law, authority carried in steel and oath.
They sang of dragon riders in the open sky—ancient beasts bearing armored figures bound by blood, will, and fire. Their passage cast moving shadows across the land. Their descent marked turning points remembered by generations.
They recited the names of archmages who shaped treaties and campaigns, of grand sorcerers whose clashes carved scars into the world, leaving marks that maps still traced.
These were the stories of the world as it was told.
Power, already present.
Heights, already occupied.
Kael possessed Voros's gift. All that remained was to kill enough.
The path before him took form.
He would walk it past holy orders and dragonflame, past crowns and spells, until ambition reached its natural conclusion—