The battlefield did not erupt with chaos.
It began with silence.
A hush, unnatural and total, swept the dust as the Lord Marshal of Consumption took its first step forward—
—and the trap snapped shut.
Papa Legba was the first to move.
Not with a blade or spell, but with a question.
"Do you know who taught death how to knock?"
The Lord Marshal paused, not out of confusion, but recognition. Something in the weave of reality twisted as Legba's cane struck the earth.
A gate opened behind the Devourer.
Not one of war, but of memory. From within came the shadows of the consumed—fragments of gods, demons, and mortals devoured across time. Their screams formed a chain, wrapping around the Marshal's limbs. His strength faltered.
Then came Ogou Feray.
Not roaring, not charging—he simply walked forward and placed a single red-hot blade against the Lord Marshal's chest.
"This is for the nameless gods," Ogou whispered.
The blade exploded, not in fire, but in history—thousands of weapons that had fallen to the Hive were reborn in that moment, carving into the creature's armor with the vengeance of the forgotten.
The Marshal struck back.
Reality cracked as it screamed, its clawed arms rending the air with such force that stars in distant systems blinked. Papa Legba dodged, vanishing into a laugh. Ogou took a hit to the chest and flew into a broken ruin—but even as he fell, he smiled.
Because the third was ready.
Baka La Kwa stepped forward, now fully revealed in his true form: his skin a tapestry of bones, his eyes ancient voids, his breath a chant from the roots of Ginen itself.
He unsheathed a single blade—long, dull, and blacker than night.
He did not strike with rage.
He simply said:
"Time to pay for everything."
Then he cut.
Not the body, not the armor—
He cut the soul.
The Lord Marshal convulsed. Not from pain, but from the unraveling of all it had consumed. The gods it thought lost. The demons it believed destroyed. The mortals it mocked as food.
They returned.
Through Zion, through the gods, through the blade of Baka La Kwa—
—they all became the sword.
And they ended the Marshal.
When it fell, it did not scream.
It whispered one word:
"Zion…"
Then silence returned.
The Hive would feel this loss like a severed limb.
And Zion, standing amid the ashes, whispered:
"This is only the beginning."