​The cacophony of war died abruptly, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

​Smoke still billowed from scattered points, creeping slowly like the final breaths of a fallen giant. The pungent stench of rendered fat and metallic blood saturated the air, so thick on the tongue it induced nausea. On the expanse of red earth, the black armor of Brassvale and the crimson robes of Ignis-Sol no longer held any meaning. They were now merely piles of lifeless flesh, indifferent to the colors of their banners or their oaths of loyalty to the crown.

​The remaining Plagueborne still moved, but their motions had slowed unnaturally. Some staggered aimlessly, colliding with the wreckage of Golems without reaction, falling, and crawling back up. Others simply stood petrified, heads tilted to one side—krit, krak—as if tuning into a frequency beyond the reach of human ears. They were waiting. Waiting for a command far more ancient than their hunger.

​Orchid stood tall amidst the sea of corpses. His red energy blade remained ignited, but its glow had dimmed, flickering occasionally like a candle reaching the end of its wick. His shoulders rose and fell rhythmically. He wasn't physically exhausted—his muscles were forged for combat until sunset—but the air around him had suddenly turned dense. Heavy. As if the atmosphere itself was rejecting every breath drawn by the living.

​Beside him, Khaleed rested his massive cleaver on his shoulder. The flames on the blade had died out completely, leaving behind black metal that still emitted traces of heat haze. His right arm, struck earlier by the Death Knight, was severely bruised, appearing stiff as he tried to clench his fingers. Khaleed spat a glob of blood, cuih, wiping his lip as he scanned the battlefield with an unreadable expression.

​"They've stopped," Khaleed muttered. His voice was hoarse, grated by dust and soot.

​"For now," Orchid replied curtly.

​The two didn't look at each other. They didn't need to. Two Heroes who, just minutes ago, had intended to take each other's lives, now stood side-by-side atop a mound of friends and foes rendered indistinguishable. The feud between Brassvale and Ignis-Sol suddenly felt like a distant, irrelevant fairy tale in the face of this horror.

​A few survivors began to crawl out from beneath the heaps of dead. A Brassvale infantryman with a dented helm dragged a shattered leg, while an Ignis-Sol archer stumbled toward what he thought was the rear line. But there were no lines left. Everything was broken.

​Suddenly, the wind stopped.

​It didn't fade; it ceased instantly. It was as if a giant hand had sealed the entire battlefield inside a vacuum-tight glass jar. The dust that had been swirling froze mid-air. The rising smoke stopped curling, petrified in place. Even the moans of dying soldiers and the shuffling of the Plagueborne vanished. Silence. A pressing, suffocating silence that made heartbeats sound like the pounding of war drums.

​Orchid felt his blood run cold. It wasn't fear, but a primal instinct inherited from his ancestors. Something incredibly old and immensely powerful was knocking on the door of reality.

​"Hmm, you feel it too?" Khaleed whispered. His voice was barely a breath, as if terrified that even a sigh might crack this fragile stillness.

​Orchid merely gave a slow nod. His fingers tightened around his sword hilt until his knuckles turned white.

​Then, the black mist descended.

​It didn't come from the southern horizon like the dust before; it fell directly from the sky. The mist crept down slowly, falling like black snow that swallowed every remaining reflection of sunlight. The lower it fell, the more suffocating the air became. The atmospheric pressure surged drastically, forcing the few soldiers still standing to fall to their knees. Their legs could no longer bear the invisible weight crushing their shoulders.

​The aimless Plagueborne now stood at attention. Their heads tilted upward, staring into the darkening sky. They were silent. A submissive silence, like hounds waiting for their master's command.

​Khaleed gripped his cleaver tighter. "Hah... what now?"

​Orchid remained mute. His eyes were locked on a single point in the sky, where the black mist began to swirl into a massive vortex. And from the center of that vortex, something descended with grace.

​A woman.

​She drifted weightlessly, her toes never touching the damp red earth. Her long white gown trailed behind her, stained with old, dried patches—blood. So much blood. It had turned a rusted brown, forming horrific patterns that told the story of thousands of lives she had claimed.

​Her raven-black hair flowed long, concealing her entire face. Yet, through the gaps in the strands, a pair of eyes was visible. White. Empty. Without pupils. Eyes that should have been long dead, yet somehow remained capable of an incredibly sharp gaze.

​Her hands were thin, nearly skeletal under pale skin. Her nails were black and curved sharply like a predator's talons. Her arms hung limp at her sides, though her fingers twitched occasionally—tik, tik—following a deathly rhythm only she could hear.

​She descended with agonizing slowness. There was no haste. It was as if she were the rightful owner of all the time in the world.

​Wabil of Plague.

​Orchid recognized her not from historical records, but from the lineage of Archon Ometra's blood flowing in his veins. That blood was screaming—the same warning his ancestors once felt when facing an entity that should not tread upon this earth. The scream was clear: this was not an enemy that could be cleaved by mere human strength.

​Wabil stopped hovering about three meters above the ground. Her head moved slowly, scanning the entire battlefield from left to right. She gazed at the piles of corpses, scanned the submissive Plagueborne, and observed the trembling soldiers beneath her feet. Her movements resembled a collector reviewing items in a storehouse.

​Then, the motion of her head stopped.

​Directly on Orchid.

​The strands of hair covering her face parted slightly—not from the wind, for the air was dead—revealing a single, hollow white eye. It wasn't just a look. It was an assessment. A cold calculation to determine if the being before her was worthy of being allowed to breathe a moment longer.

​Orchid didn't flinch. He didn't raise his sword in a striking stance, but he didn't retreat a single step either. His jaw tightened, his gaze meeting that void with a rigid bravery.

​Wabil tilted her head slightly. Krit. Like a bird of prey observing a curious insect.

​Then, her head turned toward Khaleed.

​The same process. The hollow gaze. The tilted head. The deathly silence.

​Khaleed lacked Orchid's composure. He gripped his cleaver so hard his arms trembled. The fire on his blade tried to spark, tek, tek, but died out instantly. It was as if the woman's presence alone was enough to extinguish any energy before it could manifest.

​The silence stretched on. Wabil hovered there, weighing Orchid and Khaleed as if deciding which would be more interesting to destroy first.

​Then, Wabil smiled.

​The smile was thin, a mere slight pull at the corners of her pale lips. Yet amidst that hair-veiled face, that smile felt more terrifying than any explosion of rage.

​"Boring."

​The voice didn't come from her lips. It resonated directly inside their heads—soft, almost like a mother's whisper putting her child to sleep, yet carrying a coldness that crawled into the marrow of their bones.

​Wabil raised her hand slowly. Her skeletal fingers spread wide, revealing a palm as white as chalk. Her black nails glinted sharply in the dim light of the sky.

​Suddenly, the corpses around them began to vibrate.

​It wasn't the tremor of an earthquake, but an internal vibration. From the wounds on the corpses, thin black smoke began to seep out. Eyes that had been tightly shut were forced open. And inside them, there was no longer any normal white or black. Only a dense, pitch-black void.

​Wabil kept her hand raised, as if conducting an orchestra of death. The corpses vibrated more violently. Her goal was clear: she was pulling back the departed souls to fill the broken vessels. Everyone who had fallen on this field—Brassvale, Ignis-Sol, even the Plagueborne that had perished earlier—would rise again as extensions of her will.

​Orchid finally moved. He raised his sword, positioning it before his chest. His energy blade suddenly flared brighter than before, as if challenging the black mist encircling them.

​Wabil turned to him. Her hand was still raised. The smile remained.

​"You wish to fight?" the voice whispered again in Orchid's head, this time with a faint tone of amusement.

​Orchid didn't answer. He simply adjusted his footing and tightened his grip.

​Wabil didn't laugh, nor did she show anger. She simply continued to smile, like an adult watching a toddler trying to attack them with a wooden sword.

​"Good," she whispered softly. "At least you are not as boring as the others."

​Her raised hand began to slowly clench into a fist. And at that very moment, the corpses around them began to crawl back to their feet with the sound of violently snapping bones.