On the left flank, Bruga moved like a storm given form. Pyrebite danced in his hands, carving through orcs and goblins with brutal precision. Emberplate Mantle vented excess heat as he moved, the volcanic-fiber mesh beneath glowing faintly. His strikes were not wild or showy, but efficient, calculated—every swing a kill, every motion deliberate. His brother Hjald, fighting just behind him, could barely keep pace. What shocked Hjald more than the carnage was the clarity: Bruga had become something else. Not the hotheaded fool he remembered but a killer honed in war.
Bruga's cultivation surged with each motion. Molten qi flowed beneath his skin. When a cluster of goblins rushed him, he unleashed a Pyroclastic Burst, a ring of explosive flame that sent bodies flying and seared the forest floor to slag. Sparks of untrained lightning flared in the air around him, threading through the smoke like living veins. His warband followed his fury. They swept through the treeline, setting it ablaze with oil-soaked torches, pinning goblins to trees, snapping orcish limbs like twigs. The forest screamed with fire and death. Hjald, for all his skill, could only mutter, "He's not the same."
On the right flank, Altan led with a strange calm. He wasn't faster. He wasn't more brutal. But he was always ahead, just before the enemy struck, already moving where the killing blow needed to land. He weaved through the chaos like it was scripted, like every ambush had already failed before it began.
Behind him marched twenty Stormguards. Each was clad in full-coverage helms of darksteel and aurichalcum, slitted for eyes and mouth, faceless and silent. Their armor bore no sigils. No flesh showed. From afar, they resembled war-golems, motionless until moved by will. When they struck, it was with precision and finality. They used no elemental qi. Their art was the Silent Core Path.
Their sabers, shaped like broad leaves, moved without flourish, each strike a calculated dismantling. Their shields snapped out in chains of bashes and locks. In one moment, they stood still like statues. In the next, they moved with the efficiency of avalanche stone. Some wielded spears in Serpent Wind Form, strikes curling like silver coils around orc throats. Others set the terrain against their foes, breaking bones through footwork alone. Echo Perception guided them; they felt intention before it became action.
Gravelwalk Technique turned broken terrain into a weapon. One Stormguard forced three goblins to stumble into each other with a single shift in stance. Another executed Stumblefield Mirage, causing an ogre to lose footing and tumble onto its allies. Their strikes in Leaf Saber Form landed with surgical speed. Shields locked into Mirror Edge formations, creating pressure traps and counterstrikes in seamless rhythm.
And among them, Nyzekh fought, not behind, not beside, but like one of them. Draped in his Nullmantle Carapace, his presence dimmed the air itself. His twin sabers, Eclipsed Fang, bent light as they cut, erasing movement and cleaving through flesh without resistance. Each strike wasn't just physical; it disrupted thought, unraveling orcs before they could act. His domain of void shimmered faintly behind his gaze.
The Stormguards did not break formation. They flanked the two hundred Skarnulf clansmen like wolves protecting cubs. And yet the clansmen hardly needed protection, the enemy couldn't reach them. The Stormguards, Nyzekh, and Altan had already thinned the ranks, left only the dying and wounded to stumble into waiting axes.
More than 1,500 corpses littered the treeline.
When the smoke began to part, Stormwake appeared on horseback, his falcon circling above. He rode to Altan and raised a fist in salute.
Altan gave no smile. He only said, "Send word to Bruga. We strike the flanks of the horde in five minutes."
Stormwake nodded and turned his steed.
Exactly five minutes later, the Stormguards, Altan, and the right flank burst from the treeline like a silent avalanche. From the opposite end, Bruga's force surged as well, Hjald now roaring with him.
The flanks of the orc horde shattered under the twin assault. Goblins turned to flee and were cut down. Orcs tried to regroup, only to be split by spear and flame.
Bruga's father, in the center, raised his axe as he saw the flanks collapse. Relief was short, but visible. The trolls still rampaged, but the tide had turned. Reinforcements had arrived and they carried death in their hands.
The brutal finale surged forward. One troll barreled through the flames toward Bruga, swiping aside a dozen warriors. Bruga met it head-on, Pyrebite glowing hot as magma. He ducked a massive blow, slammed his Ember Hatchets into its knees, and vaulted upward in a burst of kinetic qi. He drove Pyrebite into the beast's jaw, igniting a Pyroclastic Fist from inside its skull. The troll convulsed, head bursting in fire and bone.
Another troll crashed toward Nyzekh. He moved with no haste, no panic. His sabers shimmered, vanishing into void-streaked arcs. One, two, three strikes and then silence. The troll's body split and fell apart, cleaved through in pieces that didn't bleed, as if its existence had simply been erased.
Altan faced two trolls at once. He didn't shout, didn't grimace. He walked forward, relaxed, as if out for a stroll. The trolls lunged. His blade flicked. Their throats opened, their spines cracked. They collapsed without a roar.
Behind him, the twenty Stormguards moved like echoes. Where he stepped, they followed, cutting down orcs and goblins with the same precision. Their formation was unbroken, their expression unreadable.
Altan moved toward the center. The orc warlord roared and charged. Altan caught the axe mid-swing, turned, and in one motion drove his sword through its heart.
Elsewhere on the field, Bruga and Nyzekh stood back-to-back. The orc shamans had begun chanting. Bruga hurled a hatchet that cleaved through one's jaw. Nyzekh flickered, vanishing and reappearing in the midst of the others. Void shimmer erupted as heads and limbs dropped in silence. The last shaman fell to Pyrebite through the chest.
The center buckled. The shamans were dead. The warlord slain. And the storm had not yet passed.
When the field finally fell still, silence replaced the roar of blood and flame. The forest edge smoldered. Corpses lay in heaps. The warriors of the Skarnulf clan stood where they were, weapons in hand, staring at the field and at Altan and his companions.
Some dropped to one knee. Others simply bowed their heads. None spoke.
Bruga's father approached Altan, streaked with gore, one arm limp, but still standing. He extended a hand and clasped Altan's forearm. "We would have died without you. The Skarnulf remember their debts."
Altan only nodded. "Then live. That's payment enough."
Behind them, Bruga turned to Hjald and laughed, his voice ragged from the fight. "Vargan owes me a horn."
Hjald blinked, then let out a shaken grin. "The carved one?"
Bruga nodded, lifting Pyrebite to his shoulder. "Last gift from Father. Said he'd trade it for my armor if he won."
Hjald looked around at the smoking battlefield, the corpses, the craters. "Well, you're still wearing it."
Bruga smirked. "Then he better start carving a new one."
He glanced around the blood-soaked field. "You seen him?"
Hjald shook his head. "Not since the charge. Maybe he's counting corpses somewhere."
Bruga snorted. "More like hiding behind a rock. He knows he lost."
As if summoned by the insult, Vargan limped into view, his stonemaul dragging behind him, soot and ash streaking his beard. He scowled at Bruga.
"Do burnt-up husks even count?" he grumbled, jerking a thumb toward the charred trench Bruga had left in the treeline. "Hard to keep count when half the damned forest's been turned to slag."
Bruga grinned. "You can count the ones still smoldering, if it makes you feel better."
Vargan rolled his eyes. "That horn was mine, you pyromaniac bastard."
Bruga clapped him on the shoulder, still laughing. "Then you should've fought faster."
They stood together in the aftermath, fire cracking in the distance. Around them, warriors tended wounds, buried friends, or simply stood silent. For now, the storm had passed. And though none could say what came next, the battle at least was done.