Captain Voss wiped soot from his scarred face as he surveyed the blackened remains of the supply depot. The acrid smell of smoke still hung in the air, though the flames had finally been extinguished after hours of desperate firefighting. Half their winter provisions were ash, three buildings were total losses, and his men were exhausted from battling the blaze.
"Any word on how it started?" he growled to his lieutenant, a thin man with burn scars across his forearms from the night's work.
"Nothing concrete, Captain. Some of the men think they saw movement before the fire started, but nobody can agree on what they actually saw." The lieutenant spat into the ash-covered ground. "Could have been sabotage, could have been an accident. Hard to tell with everything burned."
Voss nodded grimly. Three years of raids and careful planning had gone into stockpiling those supplies. Whoever was responsible would pay dearly once they were found.
"Keep investigating. Question the slaves again—maybe one of them saw something. And double the watch rotations. If this was sabotage, the bastard might try something else."
"Already done, sir. The slaves are too scared to speak, but we'll keep pressing them. As for the watches—"
A low rumbling sound interrupted the lieutenant's report. It seemed to come from the direction of the cave entrance where they kept the dungeon portal sealed. Both men turned toward the sound, frowning.
"What in the seven hells was that?" Voss muttered.
The rumbling grew louder, accompanied by what sounded like hundreds of voices raised in panic and rage. Then came the unmistakable sound of stone cracking under tremendous pressure.
"Captain!" A guard came running from the direction of the cave, his face white with terror. "The portal barrier—it's breaking! Something's trying to get out!"
Voss felt ice form in his stomach. The dungeon portal had been sealed for good reason. The treasures within came at a terrible cost, and they had learned to be very careful about what they allowed to emerge.
"How many men do we have near the cave?"
"Four guards, sir, but they're already running. Whatever's in there, it sounds like—"
The conversation was cut short by the thunderous crack of ancient stone finally giving way. A sound like a breaking dam echoed across the camp, followed immediately by an inhuman roar that seemed to come from hundreds of throats at once.
Then they saw them.
Goblins poured out of the cave entrance like water from a burst pipe—dozens, then hundreds of the creatures, their yellow eyes wild with panic and their crude weapons glinting in the torchlight. They scattered in all directions, some heading for the camp walls, others charging straight through the compound toward anything that moved.
"Arms! Arms!" Voss bellowed, drawing his sword as chaos erupted around him. "It's a dungeon break! All hands to defense positions!"
But his men were already scattered from fighting the fire, exhausted and caught completely off guard. The goblins hit the camp like a green tide of claws and crude steel, overwhelming the few guards who tried to make a stand.
Screams echoed through the night as bandits who had survived countless raids found themselves fighting for their lives against enemies that seemed to appear from nowhere. The creatures showed no coordination, no strategy—just blind panic that made them even more dangerous as they struck at anything in their path.
Voss tried to rally his men, but the situation was already beyond control. Goblins were everywhere—climbing the walls, setting fire to buildings, engaging in vicious melees with anyone they encountered. The carefully organized bandit camp had become a battlefield in the span of minutes.
Through the chaos, he caught glimpses of individual fights. His lieutenant went down under three goblins with spears, his final scream cut short by crude blades. The quartermaster tried to flee toward the gates but was caught by a pack of the creatures and torn apart before he could reach safety.
How many of them are there?
The tide of green bodies seemed endless. They kept pouring from the cave entrance, spreading through the camp like a plague of violence and destruction. Some were already scaling the walls, preparing to spread their chaos into the surrounding countryside.
This wasn't just a dungeon break—it was a catastrophe.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, Voss couldn't help but wonder if there was a connection between the mysterious fire that had destroyed their supplies and the nightmare that was now consuming his command.
But such thoughts would have to wait. Right now, survival was the only priority.
As Captain Voss raised his sword to face the goblin charging toward him, he couldn't shake the feeling that this night would mark the end of everything they had built.
The bandit camp that had terrorized the region for years was dying around him, victim to forces they had never seen coming.
In the chaos and bloodshed, no one noticed the small, broken figure that crawled out of the dungeon portal in the wake of the goblin exodus—a child covered in blood and filth, clutching crystals that glowed with inner fire, watching as his former captors reaped the consequences of their cruelty.
Aeon lay still among the shadows, gasping clean air into his lungs while his enemies tore each other apart in the darkness around him.
For the first time since awakening in the corpse pit, he allowed himself to smile.