Chapter 436: The Blood of the Fallen (Bonus PS)

I could see the precise moment the scavengers began to break, and it was both fascinating and deeply disturbing to witness.

I had killed a lot of people, but my magic was powerful, and most times it happened so fast that most of the people I had killed were not aware when they perished. I thought it was important not to allow someone to suffer before they died, it just seemed meaningless to me.

Obviously, there were those that needed to suffer before they were taken out, but I would argue that most people do not need to die in agony, but once again, reality was showing me something different from my previous thinking.

I was too powerful, and so I had the option to be merciful... with the loop, I was able to gain an advantage beyond what any mage would ever hope to acquire, giving me a sort of advantage that crushed any opposition at my level.

This was not the case for most people, and I was seeing it in front of me now. The warband fought dirty and brutally, even with their more powerful weapons, and the sight was not pretty, and this slaughter did not take long to break the mentality of those here.

I don’t know what they were expecting to find as they roamed this wasteland, most likely weak and desperate survivors, after all, it was nearly a month since Serrath was destroyed, and if there was anyone alive, they would be at their breaking point... I was sure they had not expected this sort of resistance.

"Fall back!" someone screamed, a human woman with a look of utter terror in her eyes. "Fall back! They’re...they’re not..."

Her words were cut off as Coin’s pendant flared with light. A wave of something that was not quite shadow, not quite light, washed over the battlefield, and the woman’s horse reared in terror, throwing her to the ground.

She scrambled to her feet, reaching for her weapon. But her weapon was gone. Her hands were empty. Her horse was gone. And standing in front of her was a figure in a dark cloak, a pendant glowing at its chest.

"Please," the woman whispered. "Please, I..."

Coin raised her hand, and the light from her pendant intensified; the woman’s eyes went wide, and then she was gone, erased from existence as though she had never been.

∞

The battle lasted less than ten minutes, and when it was over, forty-three bodies lay scattered across the plain. The warband stood among them, barely winded.

Ruggah looked at me, his single eye bright with satisfaction, before he frowned a bit at the covering I had over my eyes. An odd look passed through the eyes of the other members of the warband, and I saw a smirk from Tam, as he whispered to Ines that perhaps I was scared of blood.

I tapped my mount, and the Drakespawn moved towards the warband, gingerly stepping over the bodies of the dead. I had watched the entire battle, and although I did not particularly like the way they killed, it was efficient, and as a mage, I appreciated efficiency.

"You did well," I said, as I looked around at what remained.

Ruggah nodded. "It felt good to fight back."

Thurrim was wiping his axe clean on the cloak of a dead orc. "Aye," he said. "It felt good to make them pay."

Tam was still holding his sword, staring at it as though he could not quite believe what he had done. Ines walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder, and he flinched, then relaxed.

"I did it," he said. "I can fight them, Ines... we do not need to fear for our lives any longer."

"You aided the warband," Ines said quietly. "You did well."

"This is just the beginning," I said. "There will be more. Many more."

"We know," Ruggah said. "And we will be ready."

I looked at the warband, and smiled a bit sadly. "Then let us continue," I said. "Serrath awaits."

∞

We rode for three more days before we reached the ruins of Serrath, and ruins was the only word you could use for that place.

The landscape grew worse as we traveled south. The burned forests gave way to fields of ash, and the ash gave way to cracked earth that had been baked hard by fires that had either raged for weeks or come in a single burst of intense heat.

It was a dead land, and it stretched as far as the eye could see. And there was no one, no animals, birds, insects... no bodies.

That last part was what unsettled me the most. A battlefield should be littered with the dead. A massacre should leave bones and ash and the remnants of lives that had been cut short, but the land was empty as though something had come through and swept it all away.

I had noticed it during our ride south, but I had not mentioned it to the warband, since I was sure they had also noticed the lack of bodies on the ground as we moved.

The warband rode in silence. They had been quiet since the battle with the hunters; most likely, each of them was lost in their own thoughts. I did not disturb them, nor did I want to peer into their minds. I understood what it was like to carry the weight of a fight, to replay every moment in your mind, to wonder if you could have done something differently.

Tam had not spoken since the battle. He rode at the back of the group, his eyes fixed on the horizon, but I could see his hands brushing the hilt of his sword, as if he could not stop touching it. Ines rode beside him, her hand occasionally reaching out to touch his arm, and I wondered if she was doing this to reassure her brother or for herself.

I knew the bond between siblings intimately, but I also understood it could take many shapes.

The Shades rode ahead of us, scouting the path. They moved through the shadows, invisible to normal sight; they could spread their shadows over their mounts to blend with the darkness... it was a fascinating ability, and it made me think about the power system of this era.

Unlike mages who were born with the ability for soul growth, and all our abilities were tied to the capacity of our souls, the people of this era were primarily focused on their bodies and their respective bloodlines.

As far as I could tell, each race was distinct, and they had certain properties that could be enhanced according to ancestral customs and teachings, and so it was no longer shocking why humans were seen as lesser in this era.

They did not have the control over shadows like a Shade, the resilience of a Troll, the strength of a Dwarf, or the adaptability of a Beastkin. What they had was a greater soul capacity that aided them in learning, but their bodies were weak, and in this age, knowledge most often did not translate to power.

Coin rode at the center of the group, her pendant glowing faintly against her chest. She had not spoken since we left Dorrik’s mountain, but I could feel her attention on me. Of all the members of the warband here, she seemed to be the one who was most fascinated with me.

I had not forgotten her words from our first meeting. You are a presence in the shape of a man, and this world is aware of you in a way that it is not aware of others.

I wondered what she saw when she looked at me... I wondered what she knew that I did not.