The world came back slowly.
Koda blinked against the dim light filtering through the heavy curtains, the thick blankets tangled around his legs.
For a few precious moments, there was nothing.
No weight of destiny pressing down on him.
No screams.
No blood.
No scent of burning flesh clinging to his skin.
Only the soft rhythm of breath—
his own.
Alive.
Still.
He sat up slowly, stretching muscles that ached with deep, stubborn fatigue.
But it was the good kind.
The kind earned by surviving something that should have killed him.
Outside, he could hear the muted sounds of a city preparing for war.
The ring of hammers on steel.
The bark of orders shouted down narrow alleys.
The low, steady hum of thousands bracing themselves for the night to come.
The sun was lowering fast, dragging long shadows across the stone walls.
A few hours until sundown.
A few hours until the mist would rise again.
A few hours until they bled for the city once more.
Koda dressed quickly, his movements efficient.
His armor, newly cleaned and repaired, gleamed darkly under the faint light.
The obsidian plates felt heavier today—but only because he now understood the full weight they bore.
At the entrance to the Order's fortress, Maia waited.
She wore her smoke-gray armor, her white-threaded tabard clean but already showing the signs of wear.
She didn't speak.
Just offered him a nod—and a hand brushing lightly against his shoulder as he passed.
A silent promise:
I'm still here.
The command post was a hive of controlled chaos.
Messengers dashed between tables, maps were constantly being updated, new formations scribbled in fresh ink.
But when Koda entered—
the noise stilled.
The generals turned to him immediately.
No hesitation.
No second-guessing.
Only respect.
Varrik stepped forward, his face grim.
"You think it'll be worse tonight."
It wasn't a question.
Koda nodded once.
"Last night was a probe," he said, voice steady.
"They sent the expendable ones first.
The weak.
The broken."
He rested his hands lightly on the edge of the map table.
"Tonight… they'll send the real monsters."
The generals exchanged glances.
Some tightened their grips on their belts.
Others nodded grimly.
They believed him.
Koda pointed to the eastern quadrant of the walls, tracing the routes in his mind.
"They'll hit here first. Same as last night. Test the weak points."
He moved his hand lower, circling a section farther south.
"Then they'll sweep south—hard. Harder than before."
Varrik leaned in.
"The gates?"
Koda nodded.
"They'll try to breach there. And if they do—"
he looked up, meeting every eye around the table—
"we lose."
Silence.
Heavy.
Total.
Terron stepped forward from where he had been lounging near a pillar, his new heavy plate armor creaking faintly with the movement.
He cracked his knuckles loudly.
"Guess that's where we come in."
Koda smiled faintly.
"Exactly."
The plan was simple.
And brutal.
While the majority of the city's forces held the walls—
Koda and Terron would go forward.
Into the thickest fighting.
Target the worst of the undead.
Cut down the rot at its heart before it could spread.
Two hammers striking before the enemy could entrench.
Varrik frowned slightly.
"You'll be exposed. No retreat."
Koda shrugged.
"I'm not planning to retreat."
He glanced at Terron, who just grinned wolfishly.
Varrik sighed through his nose.
Then nodded.
"And the walls?"
Koda's face hardened.
"They have to hold."
He swept his gaze across the gathered officers.
"Whatever comes tonight—hold the walls."
He paused.
"Break, and we all die."
Simple truth.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
The generals straightened, their jaws setting.
They had seen what Koda could do.
They would not shame themselves by failing him now.
Koda stepped back from the map table, his voice quieter, but no less sharp.
"Tonight isn't about heroics.
It's about the cities survival.
Hold.
Bleed if you have to.
Die if you must.
But do not break."
He met each gaze, hammering the words home.
"We hold Callestan, or we lose everything."
The officers saluted sharply.
Fist to heart.
The symbol of unity.
As Koda turned to leave, Varrik called after him.
"You'll have a runner detail at your back," the marshal said.
"They'll carry messages. Relays between the walls and your forward positions."
He hesitated.
"Good luck."
Koda paused at the door, glancing over his shoulder.
Luck?
No.
Luck had nothing to do with it.
Only steel.
Only will.
Only the promise he had made to a thousand fallen souls and the millions yet living.
"See you at dawn," Koda said quietly.
And then he stepped out into the falling sun, the mist already starting to curl at the edges of the fields beyond.
Terron clapped a heavy hand onto Koda's shoulder as they strode toward the gates.
"You ready, Boss?"
Koda smirked under his hood.
"As ready as I'll ever be."
Above them, the first warning bells began to toll.
Not panicked.
Not frantic.
Slow.
Measured.
The sound of a city squaring its shoulders and preparing to meet death with open eyes.
They reached the gates.
The guards there saluted, pulling them open just wide enough for the two warriors to pass.
Beyond the walls, the mist thickened.
Shapes moved within it—shambling forms, unnatural figures, things that crawled and writhed on too many limbs.
And something darker still.
Something unseen.
Something waiting.
Koda drew his twin blades.
Terron hefted his hammer.
Together, they stepped into the mist.
Into the dark.
Into the war that would decide the fate of Callestan.
And far in the distance—
beyond the ruined fields and the broken bodies—
something old and hungry stirred.
Greed.
The true enemy.
At last awakened.
The mist thickened around them as Koda and Terron moved deeper into the dead lands beyond the walls.
The world narrowed to a few feet in every direction—
the city's torches and ramparts swallowed behind a wall of swirling, silver-gray fog.
Every step felt heavier.
Not from exhaustion.
Not from fear.
From something worse.
Koda's grip tightened on his blades.
He could feel it now.
A pressure sliding under his skin.
A slow, oily hand pressing against his mind.
A voice whispering without words.
You could have more.
You could have everything.
Take it.
Claim it.
Why fight when you could rule?
He gritted his teeth, rolling his shoulders, letting the obsidian armor groan softly with the motion.
The influence wasn't overwhelming.
Not yet.
But it was there.
Gnawing at the edges of his consciousness.
Beside him, Terron shifted uncomfortably.
The big man's fingers tightened around the haft of his hammer.
"Feel that?" he muttered.
Koda nodded once.
Brief.
Sharp.
"It's starting."
The mist curled tighter around them, a living thing now, hissing and whispering through the cracked stones and dry earth.
The light dimmed until even the setting sun was only a faint smear of gold above them.
The world grew colder.
Thinner.
And then—
They came.
Not the shambling ghouls of the nights before.
Not mindless skeletons.
No.
These were different.
Figures glided from the mist like dark reflections.
Tall, draped in ragged black robes that hung in tatters.
Their faces were featureless masks of bone and ash, hollow-eyed and grinning.
Each figure carried a staff twisted from blackened wood or rusted iron, crowned with flickering green flames that sputtered and hissed against the mist.
The air around them shimmered—thick with magic and malice.
Wraiths.
Liches.
The officers of the dead.
The favored children of Greed.
Each one pulsing with a terrible hunger that made the ground itself seem to recoil from their
steps.
Koda slowed, blades ready, muscles coiled.
He counted them instinctively.
Seven.
No—eight.
Each standing apart, surrounded by a growing circle of writhing mist.
And as one—
they raised their staffs.
The earth cracked.
The mist churned.
And from the broken ground—
the dead rose.
Hundreds.
Maybe thousands.
Their bodies were barely human anymore—bloated, half-decayed, crawling with rot.
Their fingers clawed at the air.
Their mouths gnashed hungrily.
Their eyes burned with a sickly, unnatural light.
The wraiths and liches hissed, the sound like knives scraping across glass.
Their hunger filled the air—tangible, suffocating.
The Greed that animated them was raw, unchecked, wild.
They refused to let go.
Refused to die.
Refused to surrender what little tatters of existence they clung to.
They wanted more.
Always more.
Koda shifted into a ready stance.
Terron squared his shoulders beside him, hammer braced, face grim.
They exchanged a glance.
Nothing needed to be said.
They were outnumbered.
Outmatched.
Out in the open.
And it didn't matter.
Koda's pulse slowed.
The whispers of Greed clawed at his mind.
But they could not anchor there.
They could not root themselves in him.
He had already chosen.
He had already sacrificed too much.
There was nothing they could offer he wanted.
He lifted his blades.
The obsidian metal caught the last dying light.
The mist boiled and writhed before him.
The army of the dead crested the hill, a tide of rot and hunger.
And Koda smiled—a slow, fierce thing.
"Let's give them something to remember," he said softly.
Terron laughed—a low, eager sound—and hefted his hammer higher.
"Damn right, Boss."
The dead howled.
The mist screamed.
And the battle for Callestan truly began.