Carine Forest — Forward Battlements
Morning mist still lingered over the battlefield.
Burning sections of Carine Forest still smoldered beyond the horizon.
Black smoke drifted through the sky in thin, crooked columns.
The smell of ash never truly left.
The battlements were crowded.
Cardinals.
Prateras.
Auroras.
Commanders from every army stood upon the elevated observation platforms overlooking the forward lines.
And for the first time since the campaign began—
The Laosian army occupied the front.
All of it.
Logos had used every piece of equipment he had at his disposal to build a wall of fifty guns around ten corridors.
Each corridor was defended by one thousand Black-armors.
A trap formation.
A standard one, by his standards.
Darian stared at the arrangement with visible disbelief.
"This is supposed to lure out the intelligent one?"
Logos turned toward him.
"You will see."
Then he looked toward his gunners.
"Begin."
The first phase was the same as before.
Arson shells arced into the forest.
The trees answered with movement.
The creatures came again.
Masses of black roots.
Animal flesh.
Twisting growths and malformed bodies surged from the burning treeline, writhing through smoke and fire as the Laosian formation held the front.
"Stand firm!" Bal shouted.
The Black-armors obeyed.
The guns opened.
The corridors turned into killing lanes.
The creatures were driven deeper into the trap, herded by artillery bursts and shield walls into narrow channels of shattered earth and blackened roots.
Then—
Something changed.
Within the packed corridors of dark roots and mangled flesh, a strange light appeared.
A sickly green haze.
It spread slowly at first.
Then thickened.
Dense bilious clouds rolled low across the ground, sinking into shell craters, burning pits, and broken trenches.
The gas clung to everything.
The creatures at the front barely understood what was happening until it was too late.
The cloud ate through their hides.
It burned the flesh beneath.
It dissolved natural armor.
Roots split.
Bones showed through.
Entire creatures collapsed in minutes, stripped down to twitching ruin.
Then the haze began pushing outward.
Toward the front line.
The soldiers pulled back just enough to avoid the densest concentration while the guns continued firing.
Skin blistered where the gas reached exposed flesh.
Creature hides peeled apart.
The battlefield became a furnace of green death.
On the battlements, Logos watched the results of his own chemical weapon with calm, almost clinical satisfaction.
Kleber looked at him and immediately regretted it.
That grin had returned.
The same cruel smile that chilled everyone else to the bone.
But the forest was not merely suffering.
Something inside it was watching.
Something was feeling it.
The red and gold had been manageable.
The white one had been frightening.
The black one was pain.
Every creature at the front carried the same signal back into the depths.
Pain.
It was overwhelming.
It was sickening.
It was maddening.
It wanted out.
Then it saw him.
Beyond the green fog.
Beyond the fire.
Beyond the shattered bodies.
It could see the source of the pain.
A dark shadow.
Smiling at the destruction.
At the front lines, the gas cloud swallowed everything in its path.
Then—
A voice rose from within the forest.
Low.
Ragged.
But deliberate.
"Death..."
The words spread again.
"Death..."
Then again.
"Death..."
Then again.
"Death to the..."
The sound multiplied.
One throat.
Then ten.
Then hundreds.
"Death to the Demon!"
The cry exploded across the battlefield like a curse carried by thunder.
"Death to the Demon!"
"Death to the Demon!"
"Death to the Demon!"
Even the soldiers froze.
Even the commanders stared.
Because they understood what that meant.
The creatures were no longer simply reacting.
They were communicating.
They had chosen a target.
Atop the battlements—
Silence settled briefly.
Then Logos tilted his head.
Listening.
Thinking.
Calculating.
Finally—
He spoke.
"So."
A pause.
His smile widened slightly.
"This thing is capable of superstition."
Darian grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Not the time!"
The thing is swearing death curses—what do we do?!"
Logos calmly removed Darian's hand.
"Breathe."
Darian tightened his grip.
"No."
"Enough games."
"Enough experiments."
"From now on, I am watching you."
His expression hardened.
"And you are going to use everything you have to destroy that thing."
He leaned closer, voice dropping to a furious hiss.
"And if I so much as smell you taking a sample from it, I will go to Laos and burn your entire lab."
Logos stared at him.
"Try it and I will turn you into a thing."
Darian blinked.
"What does that even mean?!"
Before Logos could answer—
Adrean stepped between them.
"Calm down, both of you."
Then he turned toward Logos.
"He is right."
His voice was sharp now.
"We kill this thing now."
Logos exhaled through his nose.
For once, the expression on his face looked almost irritated.
"Fine."