Vael stood motionless amid the carnage, rain hammering down in heavy, relentless sheets. The battlefield had fallen eerily quiet except for the drumming of water on broken armor and the occasional low groan from someone too stubborn—or too broken—to die yet. Bodies lay everywhere—orc, tauren, elf—twisted in the mud, blood mixing with rainwater until the ground ran in thin red rivers. The purple clouds overhead pulsed faintly, as though the storm itself were breathing, watching.
He stared at his hands.
They were clean now.
No blood.
No wounds.
No sign of the hours spent tearing through thousands with their own life-force turned against them.
But the weight remained.
Every scream still echoed somewhere behind his eyes. He had not wanted this. He had not asked for this.
A single thought cut through the numbness, cold and clear:
I shouldn't have come here in the first place.
This land was cursed for him.
He had only wanted to earn enough coin by selling the ores—to support his mother, buy her medicine, fix the roof that leaked every monsoon, give her one quiet, peaceful life after all the others had been taken.
He had wanted to live in peace this time.
Just… peace.
Instead he stood in a graveyard he had made, surrounded by corpses that would never rise again, watched by two demons who had seen too much.
Vael lifted his gaze to Gruk and Aamon.
They stood maybe twenty paces away—Gruk still grinning like a madman, Aamon silent and watchful. For a few long seconds Vael simply looked at them. No threat in his eyes. No anger. Just… exhaustion. The kind that went deeper than bone.
Gruk's grin widened, but the corners twitched. His newly regenerated hand flexed once, twice, almost nervously. He tilted his head, trying to keep the bravado in his voice.
(Inside his mind, Gruk was thinking: Is he going to beat the crap out of us now?
The demon prince had laughed through heart-shots, blood spears, shockwaves.
But something in Vael's stillness made even Gruk's immortal confidence flicker.)
Aamon said nothing.
He simply watched—arms crossed, face blank—but his eyes were sharp.
He had seen Vael's eyes change during the slaughter.
That terror at the end.
The moment the killing stopped and the man realized what he had become.
During those few seconds of silence, the system flickered into Vael's vision—pale blue letters against the purple rain.
[Collect the soul of the slain corpses]
[Quest Pending…]
[Reward: Unknown]
Vael sighed—a small, tired sound that barely carried over the rain. He ignored the system.
Without a word, he turned.
He walked past the bodies, past the broken weapons, past the staring elves and fallen orcs.
He walked toward the tree-line on the far side of the hill.
No one stopped him.
No one followed.
Gruk watched him go, grin frozen in place.
As soon as Vael vanished into the rain and smoke, Gruk exhaled—loud, dramatic, like a man who had just survived a hanging.
"See?" he said, throwing both arms wide. "He knew he couldn't mess with me, so he walked away!"
The grin returned—devilish, full-toothed, almost convincing.
"Anyway," Gruk continued, turning in a slow circle to survey the carnage, "look what we have here, Aamon. A treasure. I'm gonna turn them into undead as my army."
He rubbed his hands together like a merchant appraising gold. His eyes gleamed.
He knelt beside the nearest orc corpse—a massive brute whose chest had been torn open from the inside by one of Vael's blood spears. Gruk placed both palms flat on the ruined armor, fingers splayed.
"Rise," he whispered.
Nothing happened.
Gruk frowned. He pressed harder, black mana leaking from his palms in thin wisps.
"Rise, you ugly bastard."
Still nothing. The corpse lay still—no twitch, no glow, no stirring of undeath.
Gruk tried again, voice rising.
"Rise!"
Silence.
He slapped the corpse's chest—hard.
"Come on, you lazy piece of meat! Get up!"
Nothing.
Gruk sat back on his heels, rain streaming down his face, grin finally gone.
"Well… what the hell is going on? Why isn't it working?"
His voice cracked with irritation—high-pitched, almost petulant.
He slapped the corpse again—harder this time—then stood and kicked it in the ribs.
"Work, damn you!"
Aamon watched the entire display without expression.
Then he turned his head slightly—eyes narrowing toward the far ridge.
"Prince Gruk," he said quietly.
Gruk was still kicking the corpse.
"Prince Gruk."
Gruk spun around, irritated.
"What?!"
Aamon pointed with his chin.
Two figures were approaching through the rain—moving fast, cloaked in shadow and power.
Veyrissa the Bloodweaver.
Umbralis the Light Devourer.
High-ranking demons.
Very high-ranking.
Gruk's eyes widened.
"Oh… shit."
Aamon was already moving.
"Hurry! Prince Gruk, we need to move out now!"
Gruk didn't argue.
He spun on his heel, boots sliding in the mud, and bolted toward the opposite side of the hill. Aamon followed close behind—silent, swift, already vanishing into the rain and smoke.
The two high demons reached the edge of the clearing just as Gruk and Aamon disappeared over the ridge.
Veyrissa tilted her head, long crimson hair plastered to her shoulders by the rain. Her eyes—glowing like fresh-spilled blood—scanned the battlefield.
Umbralis stood beside her, black cloak billowing despite the downpour. Light seemed to bend and die around him.
They looked at the bodies.
They looked at the place where Vael had stood.
Veyrissa smiled—slow, sharp, dangerous.
"The rider is gone," she said softly.
Umbralis nodded once.
They stepped forward into the rain.
Raymond and his team crested the ridge just as the rain eased from a roar to a steady, miserable drizzle. The purple clouds still churned overhead, but the worst of the storm had passed, leaving a landscape that looked like the aftermath of a god's temper tantrum.
They stopped dead.
Corpses were everywhere.
Orcs, taurens, elves—hundreds, maybe more—sprawled across the mud in twisted heaps. Armor rent open. Limbs at impossible angles. Blood had turned the ground into a slick, red-black mire that sucked at their boots. The smell hit first: iron, wet earth, and the unmistakable copper tang of violent death. The rain had washed most of the gore away, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
Beatrice was the first to speak. Her voice came out small, almost lost in the drizzle.
"What happened here?"
Darius didn't answer immediately. He scanned the field with slow, deliberate sweeps—eyes missing nothing. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword, not drawing it, just… ready.
"They probably died fighting one another," he said at last, voice low and steady. He pointed toward a cluster of older bodies near the tree line—skeletons picked mostly clean by scavengers and time. "Some must have been days ago. This wasn't one battle. It was layers of them."
The team moved forward carefully, boots sinking into the mud. Kufa muttered under his breath about cursed ground. Elara kept her eyes on the path ahead, face pale.
Then they reached the center of the clearing.
A large number of corpses lay in a rough circle—fresh, too fresh. Wounds still wet, blood leaking in sluggish pulses. Orcs with chests exploded outward. Taurens with ribs splayed like broken cages. Elves with arrows still clutched in dead hands, faces frozen in shock.
Raymond felt his stomach drop.
The team stared in stunned silence—the most horrible thing any of them had ever witnessed. Faces pale. Hands gripping weapons that suddenly felt useless. No one spoke for a long time.
One of the younger scouts turned away and retched into the mud.
Darius rose slowly.
"We've seen enough."
He looked at the team—each face pale, each pair of eyes haunted.
"We go back the way we came."
No one argued.
They turned and walked away from the clearing—backs to the dead, boots sinking in red mud, rain still falling in cold sheets.
Behind them, the battlefield remained silent.
To be continued.