Written by: Chris Chret © 2026
Ashkar was burning — but not from fire.
From panic.
Lorian moved through the shadows like something that did not belong to this world.
The sword Needle flashed only for a moment — just long enough to be seen, and for it to already be too late.
The first man fell without a sound.
Needle slipped beneath the ribs and came out with a short breath no one heard.
The second tried to scream — Lorian cut the tendon behind his knee, then his throat.
He was not fighting.
He was cleansing.
Beside him — the wolf.
Twice the size of an ordinary one, with fangs that tore through armor like skin.
Men fell, dragged into the mud, bitten, torn apart.
Lorian did not look at the blood.
He looked at the path ahead.
Then — horns.
From the distance came the call to defend.
Reinforcements.
From other towns. From villages.
Ashkar was gathering around its heart.
"Retreat!" someone shouted.
The coastline was not part of Ashkar.
It was an old trade route — abandoned warehouses, broken docks, salt in the air, and wood rotting for years.
The water was dark.
Restless.
A perfect place for people who were fleeing…
and for people who did not want to be found.
Lorian thought he was fleeing Ashkar.
From the city.
From the knights.
From the blood.
He thought the sea would bring him salvation.
That the water would wash away the traces.
He did not know he was walking straight toward his fate.
Toward the moment when he would lose something that could never be replaced.
He did not know that a part of him would remain there — forever.
And there… fate collided them.
From the darkness emerged people.
Exhausted. Bloody. Armed.
Edric's group.
The first strike was not intentional.
One of Edric's men saw the wolf and swung in panic.
The wolf reacted instinctively.
The man fell without a face.
Then — chaos.
Men against men.
Scream against scream.
Blood against blood.
No one asked who was who.
Everyone was an enemy.
Blades rose. Arrows flew. Men began to fall.
A man stumbled in the mud.
His sword slipped from his hand and slid somewhere behind him.
He tried to stand, but his legs did not listen.
Then he saw it.
The wolf stood before him.
It did not snarl.
It did not rush.
It only watched.
As large as a horse, black as a moonless night, with pale blue eyes that showed no rage — only judgment.
The man opened his mouth to scream.
The wolf leapt.
The impact threw him onto his back.
The weight crushed the air from his chest.
Fangs sank into his shoulder, crunching bone like dry wood.
Blood sprayed.
The man screamed, his hands beating the ground, the wolf, nothing.
The wolf did not release him.
With one violent jerk, it tore out his throat.
The body convulsed.
And went silent.
The wolf straightened, bloody, quiet, and moved on — as if nothing had happened.
The wolf roared and leapt forward.
Edric saw it — a beast with eyes like fire.
His heart slammed.
The lion. Always the lion.
The fear of the past blinded his mind.
He did not recognize the wolf.
Nor did the wolf recognize him.
For a moment — just one moment — their eyes met.
The wolf stopped.
Edric felt something… but did not know what.
Fear was faster than reason.
They collided with the ground.
Edric fell beneath the beast's weight.
Not like this.
I cannot die like this.
I survived a fight with a lion.
I looked it in the eyes and did not fall.
Not here.
Not like this.
I will not die to a wolf.
Fear clouded his thoughts.
The knife was in his hand before he realized what he was doing.
Fangs sank into his shoulder — pain, sharp, alive.
Blood sprayed.
In panic, with a trembling hand, Edric drove the knife deep into the wolf's stomach, again and again.
Silence.
The weight slowly lifted from Edric.
Then —
the wolf looked at him.
Its eyes widened.
There was no rage in them.
No pain.
Only recognition.
And tears.
The wolf released a quiet sound — not a growl, but something like a breath.
Its lips pulled back into something that resembled a smile.
"No… no…" Edric whispered, his voice breaking.
He grabbed its fur, his hands shaking.
"Morvak…"
A name that should not exist.
"Not now, my friend…"
The wolf exhaled one last time.
And went still.
Edric crawled out from beneath it.
He fell to his knees.
Tears fell onto the sand, mixing with blood and sea water.
"Forgive me, Morvak…"
The wolf was dead.
From the side, Lorian stood frozen.
He saw it.
The only thing that had kept him alive… lay dead.
Something shattered.
And something else was born.
Not a single tear fell from him.
Only emptiness.
A gaze fixed on nothing.
His heart began to pound — adrenaline, rage, cold hatred.
Something within him broke forever.
One man from Lorian's group charged forward.
His sword was raised.
"I'll kill him!" he shouted.
Lorian moved.
He stopped him with one hand.
The man froze.
Lorian looked at him.
A cold stare.
Empty.
Deadly.
"He is mine," he said quietly.
The man lowered his sword.
Stepped back.
And asked nothing.
Lorian advanced.
Deadly gaze. Fast. Decisive.
Edric lifted his eyes — and saw him.
His brother.
The sword Needle collided with Edric's knife.
Sparks flew.
Strike after strike.
Lorian attacked with everything he had.
Edric only defended, retreating, refusing to strike.
"Fight!" Lorian roared. "Fight me!"
Edric said nothing.
There was no time.
No words that could stop this pain.
Then — a shout.
A man ran in, carrying news:
Ashkar was preparing another attack.
It had to end.
Lorian stopped.
He looked at Edric with a hatred that promised a future.
"This does not end here. We will meet again."
"Tell me your name."
"Edric."
Without another word, the groups separated.
Edric and his men fled along the coastline.
Lorian and the criminals vanished into the forests of Serpentis.
When they parted, the sea swallowed the traces of one group,
and the forests claimed the other.
The coastline smelled of salt… and blood.
Waves crashed against the sand, but the water was no longer clear.
Red spread through the foam — blood from the fighters who killed each other that night, mixed with the sea as if the land itself was weeping.
Bodies lay scattered — some already dead, others still twitching.
And among them —
the beast.
The wolf lay motionless.
The enormous body, once the embodiment of fear and power, was now silent.
The sea touched it with its waves, as if trying to wake it.
But it did not move.
That night, more than a beast fell.
A legend fell.
And with it — something that would never return.
Lorian stopped at the edge of the shadows.
He spoke the name that echoed in the silence.
"Edric."
Not as a threat.
But as a promise.
This was not the end.
This was the beginning of a war that would consume the entire world.
That night, the world split into three paths.
And far from there, Ragna stood in Dunemar, with Vaelric Frostborne beside her — a man who lived only for vengeance.
Three paths.
Three destinies.
And one war that had just begun to breathe.
End of Chapter 18