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1. A Rotten Silence
After the fall of the siege-class beasts, Scorchfront endured a momentary peace. Just one night.
The city didn't celebrate. They couldn't. Too many bodies. Too many names unspoken.
But Aira barely rested.
While healers worked and commanders regrouped, she wandered the shattered perimeter, fire lantern in hand, inspecting the cracks in the wards.
> "They're testing our patience," she murmured. "Letting us believe we survived."
A single breeze whispered across the ash-laden ground—and it reeked of decay.
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2. The Rotborn Reveal
The attack came with no sound. No trumpet. No tremors. Only a distant whispering, like breath upon bones.
> "They're already inside the fog!" cried a mage from the watchtower.
From the black mist, the Rotborn Horde emerged.
Not monsters of flesh or stone.
These were corpses. Once human, once beast—now twisted, half-melted, and walking with stolen will.
Their eyes glowed green. Their limbs moved in unnatural jerks. Hundreds, maybe thousands, poured forth like a decayed river.
And at their front—
A Necrodrake, rotting wings flapping sluggishly, bones creaking as it opened its skull-mouth in a silent shriek.
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3. New Orders
General Harun slammed his gauntlet down on the war table.
> "We hold the inner district. The outer ring's already lost."
> "You want to abandon it?" Kaelen growled.
> "We'll die defending broken rubble!"
Aira walked in, her armor already smoking. "No. We fight. But differently."
She turned to the map and laid a palm across the outer ruins.
> "We lure them here. I'll ignite the fuel stores and collapse the bridge once they're funneled in."
> "You want to burn our own city?" Kaelen asked.
> "I want to stop that thing—" She pointed at the Necrodrake on the scouting sketch. "Before it reaches the civilian vaults."
No one spoke for a moment.
Then Harun nodded.
> "We'll give you time."
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4. The Funeral Pyre
The plan was simple—and suicidal.
Aira stood atop a ruined bell tower, Soulfire Chains wrapped around the pillars like fuses. Below her, the Rotborn flooded through alleyways, moaning and hissing like boiling oil.
She waited.
Waited.
Waited…
> "NOW!"
She dropped from the tower, igniting the oil runes left behind.
The entire district exploded in a column of crimson and gold.
Flames roared across rooftops. Soulfire danced like serpents through the air, seeking out undead and incinerating them from the inside.
Hundreds burned in moments.
But not the Necrodrake.
It rose above the firestorm, mostly untouched—its wings too wide, its magic too necrotic.
> "Of course," Aira muttered. "It wasn't going to be that easy."
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5. Aira vs. Necrodrake
The Necrodrake was a relic from a forgotten war—a skeletal dragon fused with a lich's soul. Every breath from its throat was a blight; every wingbeat dropped rotting feathers that spread disease.
Aira dashed into the sky, fire wings ablaze.
> "Eternal Ember—Piercing Flame!"
A beam of golden fire struck the creature's ribcage, but the flames sputtered where they met black mist.
Necrotic resistance.
> "Even Eternal Ember struggles…"
The creature responded with a scream—sonic and soul-wrenching. Buildings shattered. Mages bled from their ears.
Aira dove low to avoid the shockwave, then looped upward, calling every ounce of power she had.
> "Soulfire Chains — Lockdown Spiral!"
Dozens of chains erupted from her aura, spiraling around the drake mid-air, trying to bind its wings.
They caught.
It struggled.
And then—it began dragging her upward.
> Too strong… It's pulling me!
But she didn't let go.
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6. The Sky Inferno
High above the city, Aira battled the drake alone, their struggle a silhouette against the burning skyline.
She flipped onto the creature's back, avoiding bony spikes, and plunged her flaming daggers into its spine.
It screeched, and twisted—then suddenly rolled mid-air, throwing her loose.
She plummeted, spinning—
—until she ignited a fire burst under her boots, redirecting her fall back toward the beast.
> "You think decay can match fire?!"
She screamed with rage, her voice thick with smoke and fury.
> "Blazing Meteor Shower — Wide Area Impact!"
From the sky, a ring of meteors descended around the Necrodrake—each one wrapped in fire forged to burn the soul.
They struck.
The drake's wings exploded into bone dust.
Its torso crumbled under the blast.
It didn't shriek this time. It simply fell, a husk of hate, crashing into the molten district below with finality.
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7. The Green Tide
But victory was short-lived.
From the craters, green mist rose.
And within it, the Rotborn evolved.
Dozens of the undead began fusing. Clusters of corpses melted into Grotesques—flesh mounds with too many limbs, wielding the strength of ten men.
One of them leapt straight at Aira, its scream layered with ten voices.
She caught it mid-air, forced it back with a point-blank fire blast, then crushed it with a full-body ignition.
> "They're mutating faster…"
> "We'll never hold if this continues!" cried Kaelen from the ground, battling a three-headed Rotborn with lightning.
Aira landed beside him, both panting.
> "Then we don't hold."
> "What?"
> "We burn it all."
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8. The Ashstorm Protocol
Aira knelt, placed her hand on the cracked earth, and called forth her most dangerous spell yet—one she'd never dared to use in battle.
> "Ashstorm Protocol — Ignite City Core."
Kaelen's eyes widened. "That could collapse the entire southeast sector!"
> "Exactly."
She linked her fire through the old city's buried mana lines, channeling her Eternal Ember into every stone, every metal pipe, every residual ember in the broken streets.
Fire bled through the cracks like veins.
The entire battlefield shimmered.
And then—
BOOM!
A ring-shaped inferno burst from the ground, sweeping across the city's eastern district like a wave of divine judgment.
Every Grotesque, every fused corpse, every last rotling—turned to ash.
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9. Aftermath and Warning
When the fire died, silence returned.
True silence this time.
The enemy was gone. The green mist had burned out. The corpses could not rise again.
Aira fell to one knee, exhausted. Kaelen steadied her.
> "You just destroyed half of Scorchfront."
> "I know."
> "And saved t
he other half."
> "It won't be enough next time," she whispered.
A gust of wind blew in. It didn't carry the scent of rot.
It carried ice.
From the north, a new sound emerged.
Drums.
Not of beasts.
Of something organized.
The next wave was coming—and it wouldn't be mindless.