"Blood and Reckoning"

The Charge at Dawn

The eastern fields of Lastlight were a graveyard before the battle even began.

Fences lay shattered, their splintered remains half-buried in the mud. The once-golden wheat had rotted into blackened husks, their brittle stalks crumbling at the slightest touch. The earth itself was sick—veins of corruption pulsed beneath the soil, writhing like serpents toward the village. The air stank of rust and decay, thick with the promise of slaughter.

Alaric stood at the forefront of the ragged line of villagers, his fingers flexing around the shifting weight of Claret Monarch. The dagger hummed in his grip, its crimson gem flickering as if tasting the coming bloodshed. Behind him, farmers and blacksmiths clutched whatever weapons they could find—rusted scythes, fire-hardened spears, axes meant for splitting wood, not flesh. Their breaths fogged in the dawn chill, their knuckles bone-white around their tools-turned-arms.

Harkin limped forward, his old bones protesting, but his sword arm steady. "They'll come from the tree line," he rasped. "The Changed don't hide. They want us to see them."

A child—no older than ten—stood among them, gripping a butcher's knife with trembling hands. His name was Eli, Alaric had learned. The boy's father had been dragged into the woods two nights prior. His mother had barred the door, weeping, but Eli had slipped out to fight.

Alaric met the boy's gaze. "Stay behind the adults. Strike when they're down. Don't hesitate."

Eli swallowed hard but nodded.

Then—

A sound.

Not a war cry. Not a scream.

A laugh.

From the tree line, figures emerged.

Not beasts. Not demons.

People.

Or what had once been people.

Their skin stretched too tight over bones that jutted at unnatural angles. Black veins pulsed beneath translucent flesh, their mouths splitting into grins too wide, filled with too many teeth. They moved with jerking, insectile grace, limbs bending where they shouldn't.

One—a woman with hollow eyes and a jaw unhinged like a serpent's—stepped forward.

"Little lambs," she crooned, her voice layered with something deeper, something older. "You should have run."

Alaric didn't wait for them to charge.

He lunged.

The Butchering of the Fields

The first Changed died before it could blink.

Alaric's sword cleaved through its neck, black blood spraying in an arc. The head hit the mud with a wet thud, the body collapsing—but the villagers didn't have his speed.

The horde crashed into them.

A farmer screamed as a Changed man buried jagged fingers into his gut, ripping upward in a spray of entrails. A woman swung a scythe, severing an arm, only for the creature to laugh and keep coming. Eli darted in, driving his knife into a Changed's knee. The thing howled, but another backhanded him into the dirt.

Alaric moved like a storm.

His blade was a silver blur, severing limbs, splitting skulls, carving through the corrupted with brutal efficiency. But there were too many.

Harkin fought beside him, his old muscles trembling but his strikes precise. "They're herding us!" he wheezed, parrying a clawed hand. "Pushing us toward the—"

Then Alaric saw it.

A pit.

Hidden beneath trampled wheat, the earth had been dug out—a gaping maw lined with jagged spikes, blackened bones already impaled at the bottom.

A trap.

"HOLD THE LINE!" Alaric roared.

But the villagers were breaking.

A Changed woman leapt onto a man's back, her teeth sinking into his throat. Another dragged a screaming girl by the hair toward the pit. Crimson Wing reared, his hooves crushing a corrupted skull, but even he couldn't be everywhere.

Alaric made a choice.

Shardstorm's Wrath

The Betrayer's Dagger pulsed in his grip, its gem flaring crimson.

He didn't have the strength for another full Gorewave. Not after the shrine.

But he didn't need it.

A single slash across his palm.

Blood—his blood—welled, blackening as it hit the air.

Then—

"CRIMSON BLOOD GENESIS: SHARDSTORM."

The droplets exploded.

A thousand razor-edged shards of crystallized blood erupted outward, shredding through the Changed like hail through parchment. Limbs sheared off. Torsos split. Black ichor rained onto the field as the horde disintegrated.

Silence.

Then—

Gasping. Sobbing. The villagers staggered, clutching wounds, staring at the carnage.

A sound.

A low, guttural growl, vibrating through the ground.

The earth split.

A massive shape erupted from the soil—a Shadow warrior, his body swollen with corruption, his veins bulging like worms beneath his skin. His jaw unhinged, revealing rows of needle teeth.

"Little emperor," he rasped, his voice layered with others. "You should have stayed stone."

Alaric bared his teeth.

"I was never just stone."

He lunged.

The Shadow met him with a backhand that sent Alaric skidding through the mud. Crimson Wing screamed, charging, but the warrior grabbed the stallion by the throat and slammed him into the ground.

Harkin roared, swinging his sword—only for the Shadow to catch the blade and snap it like kindling.

The villagers were dying.

The Changed kept coming.

And Alaric—

He was still too weak.

But they fought.

And somehow—

They won.

The Cost of Victory

They won the field.

Barely.

By the time the last Changed fell, the earth was slick with blood—black and red mingling in the mud. The villagers dragged their wounded back to Lastlight, their faces hollow with grief. Too many had been lost.

Alaric knelt beside Crimson Wing, his hands pressing against the stallion's heaving ribs. The Vein-Touched's grip had left deep bruises, but the horse would live.

Harkin collapsed beside him, his face ashen.

"We held," the old priest gasped. "But they'll come again."

Alaric clenched his fists.

He had fought like a warrior.

But he needed to fight like an emperor again.

The Training Begins

That night, Alaric stood alone in the ruins of an old training yard outside Lastlight, the moon casting long shadows over the cracked earth. His body ached from the battle, his muscles still unaccustomed to the strain of true combat.

He had been an emperor once—his strength unmatched, his endurance unbreakable. Now, he was a man of flesh and bone, his power a distant echo.

But echoes could be reforged into thunder.

Daylight Drills: The Old Priest's Methods

By dawn, Harkin found him.

The old priest limped into the yard, leaning on a gnarled walking stick that doubled as a training rod. His sharp eyes took in Alaric's exhausted stance, the way his arms trembled after a night of relentless sword drills.

"You swing steel like a man who expects his body to remember what his mind does," Harkin grunted. "But flesh doesn't work that way."

Alaric wiped sweat from his brow. "Then how?"

Harkin smirked and tossed aside his stick. "Like this."

He led Alaric through brutal, methodical exercises—not just swordplay, but the raw conditioning of a warrior.

Stone Lifting: Hauling boulders from the crumbled walls, carrying them until his shoulders burned. Log Dragging: Tying ropes around fallen beams and pulling them across the yard, legs screaming with each step. Rope Climbing: Scaling the remnants of a watchtower, hands bleeding by the time he reached the top.

Harkin didn't let him stop. "Your body was stone for centuries. Now you must remind it what it means to be alive."

Nightly Refinement: The Emperor's Discipline

When the sun set, Alaric trained alone.

No weapons. No tricks. Just the relentless honing of his own flesh.

Bare-Knuckle Strikes against a wooden post until his fists split and healed, split and healed. Sprinting until his lungs felt like they would burst, then sprinting farther. Balance Drills atop unstable rubble, forcing his muscles to relearn precision.

Some nights, Crimson Wing watched, his dark eyes judging. Other nights, the villagers whispered, wondering if their strange protector was more ghost than man.

The First Sign of the Old Power

On the seventh night, something shifted.

Alaric stood in the centre of the yard, sweat dripping from his brow, his body trembling with exhaustion. His hands were raw, his muscles knotted with strain.

But then—

A flicker.

A pulse.

Deep in his veins, something stirred.

His blood remembered.

His fingers curled into fists, and for the first time in centuries, he felt it—the echo of his old power. Not the full might of the Stone Emperor, but the beginning of it.

A whisper of strength.

A promise of what was to come.

Harkin, leaning against the broken fence, let out a low chuckle. "There it is."

Alaric exhaled, steam rising from his lips in the cold air.

"Again."

And he kept training.

Because the Vein-Touched would return.

And this time—

He would be ready.