"I need to confer with my people first. A decision of this magnitude isn't mine to make alone."
Her reasoning was sound. The barbarian race and the giant clan shared similar values—both lived for battle and survival—but one stark contrast set them apart. Barbarians were created to embody ultimate evil, their fate seemingly sealed, while giants wielded the freedom to shape their own destinies.
Because of Arshka's karmic burden, the barbarians faced a grim choice: surrender or face extinction. Dia'Tia had the luxury of choice. She could lead her people back to the East, stay and fight for a corrupt king, or join the barbarians in crafting a new world, one where battle was endless and exhilarating.
Raiking was ready, no matter what path she chose.
"Very well," he replied, resting a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
The instant they connected, the cavern around them vanished. They found themselves in the expansive halls of the northern outpost, the air thick with the oppressive spiritual pressure emanating from the massive green formation still pulsing at the room's heart.
Raiking signaled the barbarian generals to leave. They bowed respectfully before departing, and his soul projection smoothly rejoined his physical form, which remained in deep meditation, channeling the cosmic energies into the grand ritual.
Without opening his eyes, he addressed her. "Dia'Tia. Your people have until the war begins to decide their fate."
She offered no response, only turned away from her obsession—the man who had set her on this trajectory—and strode toward the heavy doors. Her mission now was clear: to arm her people with the harsh truth of why they bled for a world that seemed mindlessly cruel.
---
As Dia'Tia journeyed back through the desolate landscapes toward the alliance encampment, a tense atmosphere enveloped the central barracks. The defection of the giantess had left a gaping hole in their leadership, prompting the human clan to appoint the Eastern Lord as the interim commander of the coalition. She now guided a council of freshly appointed generals, hastily chosen to fill the shoes of the four top commanders who had been obliterated by Raiking.
Positioned at the forefront of the war table, she scrutinized the northern territories map as if reading the kingdom's last rites. Her gaze settled on the supreme warrior of the elven delegation. "General Mozark, what intelligence do the scouts bring regarding their maneuvers?"
"Their numbers continue to grow," Mozark responded with a grim tone.
"What is the latest count?"
"Approximately seven hundred and fifty thousand."
A heavy silence settled over the tent, broken only by the uneasy rustling of armor. The cataclysmic implication of that figure needed no articulation. Historically, the alliance's strength lay in their formidable army of half a million and the divine might of the Paladixtus Order, whose power could rival entire nations.
But now, devoid of the Order and facing a barbarian force of such magnitude, the world's balance had been turned on its head.
Suddenly, a shout from the perimeter shattered the tense atmosphere. "REPORT!"
An elven scout burst through the tent flaps, dropping to one knee as he handed a dire scroll to General Mozark. The seasoned elf read the parchment, a rare flicker of shock crossing his otherwise stoic face.
"A vanguard of ten thousand barbarians is advancing on our position."
All eyes in the council shifted to the Eastern Lord, awaiting her command. "Deploy fifteen thousand to intercept them," she commanded without hesitation.
"Isn't that an over-extension of our resources?" a lieutenant questioned.
"Yesterday, we believed the northern tribes were too wild to unite," the Eastern Lord replied, her eyes as unyielding as steel. "We are confronting a new reality. We must assume that every certainty we held about our enemy is now false."
---
While the grand alliance frantically scrambled to repel the organized tide threatening their northern borders, they remained oblivious to the dagger already pressed against their throat. The true threat was already operating within the heart of the human domain.
Venarayer held her post on the western fringes of Dawnfall, where the boundary lake met the forest. She was flanked by a hundred elite warriors of the barbarian vanguard. Every soul among them burned with anticipation, waiting to play their part in the grand design.
Their vigilance was swiftly tested. A sudden, unnatural rustle in the dense brush snapped the entire company into a lethal combat stance, a hundred hands dropping to a hundred hilts in perfect unison.
Venarayer advanced, her eyes piercing the gloom. "Who goes there?"
"Good. The tedium of waiting has not dulled your instincts."
The voice carried a familiar, chilling resonance. The murderous tension evaporated from the ranks. Weapons were lowered as the darkness parted, allowing Primnear to step seamlessly into the moonlight.
"The Demon King has sent you?" Venarayer asked, her voice tight with anticipation.
"He has."
A wave of savage, knowing smiles rippled through the barbarian elites. Every warrior present understood that this infiltration was a suicide mission. Yet, to shed their mortal coils for the eternal glory of their race—to be the martyrs who paved the road to ascension—was a destiny they welcomed with open arms.
"What are his orders?"
"You are to dispatch twenty men to the kingdom's well-known evil sects."
"And then?"
"They will reveal the secret of Void Magic."
"To what end?"
"What do you think those butchers will do once they discover they can rapidly enhance their cultivation just by committing the atrocities they already unleash upon the world?"
The chilling reality of Primnear's words settled into Venarayer's bones. Piece by piece, the horrific picture came together. If a barbarian willingly walked into the stronghold of an evil sect and revealed that siphoning their blood created a Void Magic user, they wouldn't be taken prisoner. They would be instantly slaughtered and drained by the greedy wolves.
She heard Raiking's cold, exact words from the day they met whisper in her ears: "Because once the abyss is fed, its hunger becomes infinite."
A dark smile crept onto her face as the final piece of the puzzle snapped into place. Raiking's strategy wasn't just a simple inside-job assassination plot or a border distraction. It was a biological and spiritual plague. He was deliberately unleashing the most irresistible, destructive drug a mortal could ever consume—the very poison that had shattered kings, scholars, and high priests for millennia.
"Power."