Embers and Reckoning

On the battlefield, several refined-steel cables had torn the corpse of Ulgan, the Fourth-Tier Wolf King, into chunks of flesh.

A heavy pig-iron bolt pinned his head in a crack between the rocks. A dull, lifeless film covered his dark-yellow eyes, and they would never move again.

The red bony ridge along his back had snapped into three pieces, with shrapnel lodged between the bones.

His blood, mixed with concentrated Holy Water, hissed as it corroded in the cold air, giving off foul-smelling smoke.

At the center of his torn-open chest, the Sourceblood Core lay submerged in black blood. It no longer pulsed; only an occasional point or two of dim red light flickered across its surface.

The order confirming victory came through. Inside the stone chamber of the Ashen Fief command post, all was quiet.

The signal operator knelt on one knee before the Echoing Platform, his fingers hovering over the rune plates. Around the long table, staff officers stared at the Defense Zone Sand Table, while several veteran officers swallowed hard.

According to the Church's tactical doctrine, wearing down a Fourth-Tier Demonic Beast would cost thousands of knights—unless a knight or divine arts officer of equal rank intervened.

But under Shien's command, the battle had become a sequence of butchering procedures. A few orders were issued, and a Fourth-Tier Wolf King was carved into dozens of pieces.

The brass mechanical clock on the stone wall was still ticking. Less than ten minutes had passed between the decoy cavalry firing their first crossbow bolt and the Wolf King's chest being torn open.

Shien closed his eyes and severed the Soul Anchors linking his mind to hundreds of decoy knights.

The instant the links broke, the pain of a hundred near-deaths flooded his mind. A sharp whine filled his