The March of the Crimson Tsar

Phoenix War Council – Fort Silan, War Room

The air inside the war room was thick with tension. Maps of the Western Provinces were sprawled across the central table, red pins marking newly lost villages. The Crimson Tsar's forces had moved faster than any of them expected.

"He's not conquering," Liu growled, tracing a line of red across the province of Varda. "He's purging. Every settlement from the border to the inner valley has gone dark."

Tharaka flipped through intercepted signals. "He's using Void Flame—dark pyrotechnics powered by forbidden soul combustion. This isn't just war; it's ritualistic genocide."

Miren adjusted her glasses, pale. "He's culling the land... for power. Just like he did a century ago during the First Fracture."

Kavi stood silent, then asked grimly, "What's the death toll?"

"Too high," Tharaka said quietly. "And climbing."

Arjun's hand tightened around the hilt of the fire-born blade. It was warm again—alive, like it hungered.

"He's coming for me," Arjun said. "So I'll go to him."

"No," Liu snapped. "He wants that. You leave the walls of Silan, and he'll use his cursed field to cut you off from us. I won't let you walk into his trap alone."

"I won't be alone."

He turned to face his command—each of them scarred, tested, and loyal.

"I need a vanguard. The best of the Phoenix Army. We take the battle west, but on our terms. Guerrilla strikes. Territory denial. Bleed him before he reaches our people."

Tharaka nodded. "And if you fall?"

Arjun met his eyes. "Then someone better take up this sword and finish what I couldn't."

Three Days Later – The Western March, Near the Ash-Roads

The Phoenix Vanguard moved like ghosts across the charred plains. Dozens of elite riders, stealth units, and aerial scouts formed the heart of this mobile strike force.

Liu rode beside Arjun, her dual sabers already coated with a shimmer oil that disrupted dark magic. Kavi wore his full Infiltrator armor—light-deflecting and near-invisible in the windstorms.

The villages they passed had been reduced to shadows of bone and soot. Every house looked like it had wept before it died.

"This is more than killing," Liu whispered. "This is unmaking."

"Crimson Tsar doesn't conquer people. He erases their existence," Kavi muttered.

Arjun rode in silence, every new grave another weight on his soul.

At night, he dreamt of fire, and in the flames, a voice always called:

"He remembers you... the boy who hid beneath the palace when his father died. You ran then. Will you run again?"

Elsewhere – The Crimson Tsar's Warcamp

The Tsar sat cross-legged in a throne made of skulls, draped in dark velvet armor etched with soul sigils. His generals knelt before him—half-human, half-warped by ancient black alchemy.

One of them rose—General Rascha, once a warlord of the Russian Kirov Lines, now more golem than man.

"My lord," Rascha rasped. "The Phoenix Vanguard approaches. They skirmish and vanish. A thousand small cuts."

The Tsar opened one eye. It glowed with red frost.

"Good," he murmured. "Let the Phoenix bleed before the flame dies."

He rose. His aura twisted the air, bending it unnaturally.

"I will not go to them. Let them climb to me, through ash and memory."

He pointed westward.

"Tell the Wraith Choir to sing."

The Echo Hills – Midnight

Rain fell in sheets as Arjun and his vanguard reached the hills. The ruins here were from an old war—stone cities eaten by moss, statues with their faces melted off.

Liu signaled a halt. "Something's off."

Arjun looked around. "Too quiet."

Then it began.

Low, melodic humming. Dozens of ethereal voices in unison. No physical enemy in sight, but the sound crawled into their bones.

Miren screamed behind them as two soldiers collapsed, bleeding from their ears.

"It's the Wraith Choir!" she shouted. "Sound-based phantasm spells—if you listen, you die!"

Kavi activated a frequency disruptor, but it fizzled.

Arjun closed his eyes, raising the fire-born blade. The blade pulsed.

He whispered in the old tongue:

"O flame that hears all sins—burn false echoes to ash."

The blade flared, and a shockwave tore through the hills.

The singing stopped.

Half the vanguard lay injured. A few didn't rise.

Liu knelt beside one young scout, her hand shaking as she closed his eyes.

"Every step forward," she whispered, "costs a life."

Arjun looked out at the path ahead. The Crimson Tsar had chosen his battlefield well.

But so had he.

Phoenix Campfire – Late Night

Arjun and Liu sat beside the fire, their armor hanging nearby, their eyes hollow from the day's trials.

"I've seen too many die," Liu said, staring into the flames.

"So have I," Arjun said quietly.

"I thought leading meant winning. But it just means... living long enough to make the next hard choice."

She turned to him. "Why do you still fight?"

Arjun didn't speak for a while. Then:

"Because if I stop, their deaths mean nothing."

He reached out and took her hand.

She didn't pull away.

Northern Ridge – Dawn

Kavi returned from scouting. His armor was cracked, and blood dripped from a shallow gash across his chest.

"There's movement ahead," he reported. "Not an army. Just him."

Arjun's breath caught. "The Tsar?"

Kavi nodded. "He's waiting."

Tharaka stepped forward. "We're not ready. This isn't strategy—it's madness to face him now."

"He wants a duel," Liu said, standing. "It's psychological warfare. He's isolating Arjun, trying to break morale."

Arjun stared at the rising sun. "Then let's turn his trap against him."

Final Scene – The Bone Plateau

They met atop the Bone Plateau, the scorched battlefield where Arjun's father had once fallen.

The Crimson Tsar stood on the far end, blade in hand, eyes burning.

"You came," the Tsar said. "Like your father did. And like him... you'll burn."

Arjun's fire-blade gleamed. His breath fogged in the cold.

"I'm not my father," he said. "I'm the future he died for."

They raised their weapons.

The sky cracked.

And the battle for the soul of the world began.