End of subjugation

The early spring morning bore a strange stillness, the kind that often visited just before a storm. Perched atop a mountain of still-warm corpses, Erebus sat in silence, the horizon painted in hues of ash and blood. A sharp cry pierced the wind—soft, distinct. A dove, wings flecked with soot and sun, descended and landed beside him. A message was tied neatly to its foot.

With blood-stained fingers, he untied the parchment and unfolded the letter.

> To Erebus,

Nemesis had his first ascension ceremony. He surpassed his peers. He wished for your presence and even cried, missing you. He asks about you almost every day.

Hades has begun his first steps. Though it would've been better for you to witness it yourself, he's still trying. I hope you return safely to watch your children grow.

L.

He read it twice. Then once more.

There was no mention of what he yearned most to know—of her, of them, of the child he saw in his dreams. Was it merely a figment of war-wearied longing? Or had she deliberately left that part unsaid?

Still… she had written. That was enough to hold onto.

Erebus tucked the parchment into the inside of his armor, close to his heart. The scent of parchment and home lingered faintly even amidst the stench of death.

"Captain!" Zeraf's voice echoed up the slope. "We're ready to move on the Heart."

Erebus stood, the wind tousling his dark hair. He glanced one last time at the pyre of corpses beneath him and gave a curt nod.

"Cremate this filth," he commanded.

As flames consumed the fallen and a signal flare painted the sky blood-red, the army moved.

The second flare was fired.

Blood still steamed from the mountain of corpses behind them, and ahead loomed the putrid black belly of the forest—the Heart of the Lair. A zone so corrupted it pulsed with living malice, where the land bred horrors not for survival, but supremacy. No birds sang here. No wind stirred the branches. Only a low, steady thrumming, like the heartbeat of something waiting to devour them whole.

Erebus sat tall atop his nightmare mount, void energy trailing like tattered shadows from the edges of his armor. His presence chilled the air around him—not from cold, but from the unnatural stillness that clung to his being. The void within him was ancient, barely contained, and it stirred now as if sensing its kin within the lair.

"War formation—collapse vanguard when I give the word," Erebus ordered, voice hard and without hesitation. "Deploy all tech-alchemical ordnance. One use, one kill. You miss, you're dead."

The men moved with precision. From reinforced packs they pulled brutal-looking constructs—black-piped spears tipped with volatile cores, hammerheads engraved with old-world circuitry, and explosive charges sealed with soul-bound glyphs. Each weapon a gift of Amanécer's alchemists. None reusable.

They entered the Heart.

And the Heart reacted.

A wall of noise crashed through the black fog. From the trees, from the earth, from the very shadows, they came.

The Category Five beasts were grotesque titans—many-limbed, bone-armored, each one towering over their warhorses. Their maws opened sideways, jaws splitting unnaturally. Some galloped like insectile centaurs. Others slithered forward with mouths full of writhing tendrils. The worst of them stood upright—horned, bloated, steaming with blood-soaked heat. Their footsteps crushed old stone and snapped trunks in half like twigs.

Erebus raised a fist. "Hold the line!"

The ground quaked. A moment later, the two forces collided.

What followed wasn't a battle—it was slaughter.

Screams tore through the fog as the front ranks met the charging beasts. One soldier hurled a tech-spear straight into a demon's eye. The impact triggered a chain explosion that vaporized the beast's skull—and the man holding it.

Void-blood splashed in thick, black arcs. Erebus surged forward.

He dismounted mid-charge, landing with a crack across the diseased roots. The void around him pulsed, responding to his will. With a flick of his gauntleted hand, dark tendrils burst from the shadows at his feet and impaled a creature through its leg joints, locking it in place. He advanced, his greatsword gleaming dully in the dark. No light surrounded him—only the absence of it, a cold nothingness that devoured everything it touched.

One of the towering brutes—a horned, plated demon twice his size—charged at him with bellowing fury. Erebus sidestepped the impact, void trailing behind him like smoke. He vaulted onto its back, slammed his palm against its armored spine, and muttered a command in the language of the deep.

The void reacted.

A swirling vacuum opened within the beast's ribcage. It howled in a voice that wasn't meant for mortal ears as its own insides collapsed into the rupture. Erebus slid off its body just as it folded in on itself, imploding into a pile of crushed, chittering remains.

Across the battlefield, the air was a chaos of steel, ichor, screams, and smoke.

Zeraf fought like a man possessed. He dragged a thunder-hammer across the dirt and swung it upward into a lunging demon's underbelly. The weapon exploded on contact, obliterating half its torso and sending burning bone fragments into two more behind it. He barely had time to roll aside before another beast snapped at him with tusks longer than his body.

"Captain!" Zeraf shouted, slashing another demon across the snout. "We need thinning on the left flank—now!"

Erebus didn't answer.

He vanished into shadow—literally. One moment, he stood still, the next, the void consumed him like smoke in reverse. He reappeared beside Zeraf, impaling a charging beast through the throat from below. His blade dragged downward, splitting sinew and scale.

"To me!" Erebus barked. "Collapse the left. We move as one."

His shadow tendrils extended, latching onto the legs of multiple demons and yanking them down, exposing their throats to cavalry halberds. Explosives were hurled into their gaping mouths, detonating with sickening bursts that showered rot and blood over the entire line.

But the enemy didn't slow.

Dozens more poured from the depths. They climbed trees. They burst from beneath the ground. The sky seemed to crack with the pressure of their arrival. One particularly massive beast—a centipede-like crawler the length of a riverboat—slammed into the rear flank, scattering archers like leaves.

Erebus turned toward it, eyes dark as ink.

"No further," he growled.

He raised both hands—and the void unfurled.

The earth blackened in a circle around him, swallowing sound. A moment later, spears of raw nothingness shot from beneath the crawler, piercing it in eight places. It screeched, body writhing like a storm of blades, before collapsing in a smoking heap, leaking darkness that even the ground refused to absorb.

With that, the tide began to turn.

Demonic corpses now outnumbered soldiers'. The tech weapons had done their work. Most were shattered, spent, or melted into slag, but the breach had been carved.

Erebus didn't let up. With every kill, his void deepened, drawing strength from the broken bodies around him. He fought not with hope, nor duty—but the burning desperation to finish this and return. To her. To his sons. To the future they'd risked everything to carve.

At last, only one beast remained.

It stood alone at the corrupted heart—a bipedal monstrosity, horns twisted into a jagged crown, four arms dragging cleavers forged from bone. A commander, if such creatures had minds.

It howled and charged.

Erebus ran to meet it.

They collided with a sound like a thunderclap. The creature swung all four blades simultaneously. Erebus blocked two, ducked the third, and let the fourth gash through his side—only to retaliate with a point-blank burst of void energy from his palm into the beast's throat. It staggered, but didn't fall.

It slammed him into a tree. He coughed blood—but his hand didn't stop.

He reached forward and gripped its jaw.

Void bloomed.

The beast didn't just die. It was erased.

Its matter vanished. Its presence gone. A crater of nothing remained where it stood, and silence fell over the forest.

At last… it was done.

Erebus stumbled back, blood coating his side, eyes scanning the battlefield.

The lair was dead.

The corruption began to recede, slowly, like smoke pulled back into a broken furnace. Trees stopped weeping. The black mist thinned. No demon stirred beneath the soil.

Zeraf limped toward him, helmet off, face streaked with grime. "You did it…"

"No," Erebus said hoarsely, staring toward the distant horizon. "We did it."

He staggered forward and dropped to one knee—not from weakness, but reverence.

Zeraf offered him a helping hand to which he accepted. He pulled him to his feet.

"Are we finally going back?" Zeraf asked, his voice still held uncertainty.

Erebus nodded.

"It has finally ended."