Walpurgis Night 4

The battlefield was silent. It was hot— really hot that an ordinary person would feel like they are standing not in a once great forest but on the mouth of an active volcano. Everywhere the eye could see , the land was charred or reduced to ashes.

Lukas stood in the middle of the destruction, blood dripping from his ruined eye socket. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body barely holding itself together. His left arm trembled, useless at his side, while his right still gripped his sword—steady, unyielding.

Across from him, Haagenti tilted his head, examining the fresh stump where his arm used to be. Black blood oozed down his side, pooling onto the ground, like dripping ink on the surface of a scorched landscape.

Then, he laughed.