Dawn.
There was no sunrise, just a dull, gray smear across a sky the color of bruised flesh.
The departure from Eldhar was a quiet process.
Liam stood in the main courtyard, the morning chill seeping through his dark robes.
Commander Koth and his lieutenants were already mounted on massive, scaled horse like beasts, their scales rough and chipped like flint.
The dozen guards assembled beside them looked much the same—veterans, hollow-eyed and drained.
The feeling of resignation was too heavy to not be felt. They weren't marching to glory; they were returning to a grave.
Lilith came to see them off.
She was the Queen again—armor black as one could imagine, her crown a dark silhouette against the pale sky.
The softness Liam had seen in her the night before was gone, sealed behind that regal mask.
She said nothing.
Speeches, final words – both were pointless now. She only gave a single, sharp nod to Koth, and another to Liam.
A simple message: The empire's fate is in your hands. Don't drop it.
Koth returned the gesture, his expression masked. He didn't wait for ceremony—just turned his mount and started toward the main gate.
His meaning was clear enough: Keep up, or get left behind.
---
The journey was long, silent, and cold.
They rode north, leaving Eldhar's dark spires shrinking behind them.
The land turned harsh fast—black volcanic stone and hard-packed earth, winding through canyons of rock shaped by centuries of cruel wind.
The smell here was of old blood.
Varg rode up front with Koth, his posture a permanent sneer. Zara kept a bit behind, eyes scanning the cliffs like a hunter measuring distances.
Even on horseback, her mind was somewhere else—already running numbers, calculating odds.
No one spoke to Liam. To them, he wasn't an ally. He was an unwanted shadow following the dead. He could feel it—their distrust pressing on his back like it were physical.
[Collective Belief Average: -8%]
He didn't bother breaking the silence. There was nothing he could say that would matter. So he just rode—body swaying to the beast's rhythm, mind circling back to the Cognitor's schematics and the blunt simplicity of Koth's orders.
Outpost Krazax...the linchpin...one week.
---
The first day bled into the second, and the land kept dying around them. They passed the ruins of a small demon village—nothing left but blackened stone, walls clawed down to rubble by war and wind.
By the third day, the silence broke.
It came first as a smell—the thick, sweet rot of death cut with the acrid bite of spent holy magic. Then they turned a corner in the canyon, and saw it.
A battlefield.
Recent enough that the carrion birds still circled overhead, screeching. Dozens of demon corpses lay scattered across the rocks, armor cracked and burned.
Their twisted bodies told stories of agony, of light magic burning through flesh and bone. Among them were a handful of human paladins—white armor now soaked in gore, faces frozen in holy rage.
The column stopped.
Koth dismounted slowly, every movement weighted.
His rust-colored skin blended with the blood-streaked earth as he knelt beside a fallen soldier barely older than a recruit.
One horn had been cleanly severed. With surprising care, Koth closed the boy's eyes and exhaled—a sound more tired than any sigh.
"Scouting party," Varg muttered, his voice rough with anger. "Ambushed. Didn't stand a damn chance."
Zara crouched, studying the terrain with cold precision. "Paladins came from the east ridge. See the scorch marks? They used the high ground to channel light. Textbook pincer formation." She glanced at Koth. "Their commander's learning our patrol patterns."
Liam stayed mounted, staring across the carnage. The scene burned itself into him—more vivid than any map, more real than any plan. This was what it cost. This was what it looked like.
He felt that old, cold part of himself settle in—the survivor, the observer.
His gaze wasn't on the demon dead, but the paladins. Their armor, the positions of their bodies, the expressions on their faces. He was memorizing his enemy.
Koth finally rose, massive shoulders sagging under invisible weight. His molten eyes met Liam's—hard, questioning.
"See something you like, human?" Varg spat, mistaking silence for arrogance.
Liam ignored him. He kept his eyes on Koth. "How far to Krazax?"
The commander held his stare for a long moment. The contempt was still there—but now there was something else, too. Recognition. A small, grim spark of understanding.
"Two days," Koth said. "If we ride through the night."
Liam nodded once, slow. His eyes swept the field again—the ruin, the stench, the stillness—and accepted it.
"Then let's stop wasting time."
He didn't wait for agreement. He nudged his mount forward, guiding it between the corpses. His spine was straight, Igar's Shard heavy across his back—a black promise against a gray sky.
The act was over. The road of bones lay ahead.
And Liam was ready for his first scene.