The deeper they moved into the deadlands, the more the world seemed to close around them.
No stars. No moon. Just a sky like bruised iron and a horizon swallowed by crawling fog. The only light came from the dim rune-lamps strapped to a few soldiers' chests—flickering, pale, and useless beyond six paces. Every bootstep crunched over brittle bones buried in sludge.
Bright stuck to the middle of the formation, exactly where he intended to survive.
Captain Rourke led from the front like a man too stubborn to die. His bulk moved with hardened purpose, every so often glancing back with a look that told the company: If I live, it won't be luck.
Tobin trudged beside Bright, whispering nervously, "Feels wrong tonight. Like the fog's listening."
Bright didn't answer. He didn't say that the fog always listened—just that most people didn't live long enough to notice.
A low chitter sounded from somewhere ahead.
Dozens of helmets turned. Silence tightened around them like a noose.
Then the scream came.
It came from the left flank—short, wet, and abruptly smothered. Rourke raised his fist and barked, "Shields up—brace!"
The formation tried to tighten, but it was already too late.
Something burst from the dark with the speed of a loosed ballista bolt—a warped canine-shaped monstrosity with bone spines jutting from its back and ribs splitting through grey flesh. It slammed into the line, crushing two soldiers before the first sword even left its sheath.
The air erupted in panic.
Steel scraped. Men shouted. Something else growled from the right flank.
Bright ducked, shoved past a stumbling recruit, and narrowly avoided a barbed tail that split another soldier's spine like kindling.
Tobin fumbled his spear but held the line beside him. His breathing was ragged.
"Bright—left! Left!" he cried.
Bright pivoted just as a second beast lunged. Someone's torch hit the mud, illuminating its grotesque form—six eyes bulging from its skull, mouth splitting wider than anatomy allowed.
The soldiers braced, but the monster cut through them like wet fiber. Blood sprayed. Someone's leg flew. The smell of iron filled the air, thick and cloying.
Rourke barreled into the creature with a roar, fists cracking bone like dry bark. Strength multiplier or not, even he was being pushed back.
Bright slashed at a tendril reaching for his thigh and shouted, "Regroup on me!"
Few heard. Fewer obeyed.
Then Tobin made his mistake.
A third creature—a crawling, centipede-like horror with human arms fused along its flanks—coiled from beneath the ashen dirt, seizing a soldier's ankle and dragging him screaming into the mire.
Tobin lunged forward to help, activating his soul talent.
His arm flickered weakly, turning pale like a translucent shell. The ability—Minor reinforcement —increases the durability of his limb. Useless in real combat, but he tried anyway, smashing down at the centipede's head.
His strike barely made the creature flinch.
"Tobin! Fall back!" Bright snarled.
But another monstrosity erupted behind him—a gorilla-shaped abomination with three jaws layered atop each other. Its massive hand swept sideways and hit Tobin across the ribs.
The sound of bones shattering was loud enough to silence all other noise—for a heartbeat.
Tobin flew three meters and crashed into a dead tree trunk. He coughed blood instantly, limbs twitching.
A nearby soldier screamed and ran. Another tried to drag Tobin back, only to be impaled through the stomach by a protruding bone spike from the gorilla-beast's forearm.
"Tobin, get up!" Bright shouted, even as his own heart thudded and his legs screamed to run.
Tobin tried. His left arm hung uselessly. His right trembled. He mumbled, half-choking, "I-I can still walk… Bright… help me stand—"
The beast seized Tobin by the waist and lifted him.
Tobin screamed, thrashing, smearing blood with every movement. His fingers dug into the creature's forearm but found no purchase.
Bright moved without thinking.
He grabbed a fallen pike and sprinted forward, jamming it through the monster's throat. It howled and dropped Tobin, but didn't die—just raged harder.
Roegan smashed into it an instant later, tackling it with enough force to shake the earth. The captain slammed his fists into its skull again and again, caving it in with wet crunches.
Bright dropped to his knees beside Tobin.
Half of Tobin's torso was caved in. His breathing was wet and bubbling. A jagged bone shard had pierced straight through his abdomen.
Tobin blinked up at Bright, vision fading. Blood dripped from his lips in thick streams.
He tried to laugh but choked instead. "Should've… stayed in the back with you…"
Bright's jaw clenched. The world around him muted—screams, blades, tearing flesh, all distant under the drum of his heartbeat.
Tobin reached out with trembling fingers. "Don't… let them take my core. Don't let me… feed them…"
But there was nothing Bright could do.
The beast Rourke killed twitched nearby. Another soldier was dragged screaming into the fog. Men cried out for help that would never arrive.
Tobin's chest rattled. He winced, eyes wide with fear even as they dulled.
Bright stayed until the final breath left his friend's lips.
A wet gurgle. A final twitch. Silence.
Then something in Bright snuffed itself out.
No tears. No outrage. No shouts of vengeance.
Just a cold clarity.
He stood, unslinging his fused blades, eyes scanning the fog for the next monstrosity.
So this is the cost, he thought. Warmth is a liability.
Another scream rang out nearby. This one Bright ignored.
He didn't run to help. He didn't shout a warning.
He survived.
And with every corpse hitting the mud, the world felt a little simpler.