The dining hall in the southern spire had been cleared by noon. Sunlight filtered in through narrow windows, casting gold-laced shadows across the long rectangular table set for seven.
No guards. No formalities. Just steel cutlery, strong tea, and a dozen fresh loaves of bread set beside roasted game and dark greens.
The table wasn't lavish — but it felt earned.
They came in one by one.
Thessa first. Then Junen.
Wren and Deker entered together, already whispering about trap glyph angles.
Terron and Maia arrived side by side talking, Koda trailing just behind them — silent but watchful, as always.
No one looked tired.
They looked ready.
They ate for the first few minutes in silence — not from tension, but concentration. Hunger sharpened by exertion, not stress.
Finally, as plates emptied and drinks were refilled, Koda sat forward and spoke.
"Let's talk about what broke."
No one flinched.
He looked at each of them. "Every weakness we ignore now becomes someone's death later."
Junen was the first to speak. "I struggled to stretch my sanctum wide enough. When Koda split, I had to choose to follow him or anchor the core. I chose the core — but it exposed him."
Koda nodded. "That was the right call."
"But," Junen continued, "if we're splitting again, I need a ward tether. Something to at least pulse protection to the forward."
Thessa leaned in. "I can reinforce that. My Burning Faith aura can extend to allies with line of sight. If Koda stays visible, I can tether buffs through."
Terron took a long drink, then muttered, "Rear was fine. No breach. But if they swarm smarter, I'll need ranged backup. Someone who can blind or trip without me moving."
Wren raised a hand. "I can lock a rear angle with sigils. If we mark terrain, I'll know exactly where to trigger."
Deker chimed in, "I can lace that with volatile mist. They cross it? They light themselves on fire."
Terron grunted, satisfied.
Maia leaned forward. "My only concern was being forced into too much wide healing. I had to cover flanks with AOE instead of targeted channels."
Koda nodded. "We fix that with tighter rotation. Junen—stay center. Deker, you float back slightly. You're covering too much space right now."
Deker raised an eyebrow. "So… don't run around like a caffeinated squirrel?"
Maia deadpanned, "Correct."
Wren tilted her head. "We need signal codes. Hand signs. Quick calls. I nearly blinded Thessa when she leaned into a trap flare."
Thessa nodded. "Agreed. I'm used to formation language from the punitive squads. I'll drill the basics after this."
Koda smiled faintly. "Standardize it. We start using them tonight."
He looked around the table.
"Anything else?"
A beat of silence.
Then Deker cleared his throat. "That… whisper we heard."
Everyone stilled slightly.
"It hit me harder than I expected. I know we were close, but if it's going to keep getting worse…"
Koda nodded. "It will."
"I think we should practice mindfulness drills. Maybe anchor objects. Something personal. Ground us before we go in."
Junen offered quietly, "I can lead those."
Thessa murmured, "We should name the thoughts when they come. Say them aloud. It weakens their hold."
Koda looked between them.
"We don't just cut better tonight."
"We stand better."
He tapped the table once.
"We leave again at dusk."
They nodded, in unison.
And the blades grew sharper.
———-
The gates opened again at dusk.
The light was softer than the night before, stained orange by smoke trailing in from the far east. Shadows stretched long across the road as the seven passed through in silence — weapons secured, minds sharp, expressions unreadable.
They didn't need torches yet.
They carried their own light.
Koda took point again, blades sheathed, but his eyes never still. His posture was relaxed — but only because tension was a waste of strength. Behind him, the team settled into their practiced formation.
No orders. No reminders.
Just rhythm.
They walked a full mile in quiet before Maia broke the silence.
"I saw a city."
The others turned.
"A beautiful one," she said. "Peaceful. Oria rebuilt… and people thanking me for what I'd done. Calling me Saint of the South."
She looked at her hands.
"And I liked it."
Junen didn't flinch. "You weren't alone."
She stepped forward slightly. "Mine showed me a cathedral of every soul I'd ever failed. And none of them were in pain. They forgave me."
She looked up. "I wept. In the vision. And I believed them."
Wren's voice came next — soft, barely a whisper. "Mine showed silence. A world with no conflict. No filth. No hunger. No noise. And I was the one who cleaned it."
She paused. "I didn't want to leave."
Deker laughed quietly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I got a lab. Big, beautiful, open-ended. Time didn't matter. Resources didn't run out. I just… made things. All day. And they all worked."
He glanced sideways. "I think I cried when it disappeared."
Thessa didn't speak for a long time. Then: "Mine showed me my flame… healing. Instead of burning. They came to me, even the corrupted, and I cured them. Every one."
Terron muttered, "I stood on a mountain made of broken weapons. And the world was finally quiet. Like I'd killed the last problem."
He snorted. "Then I smiled. That's what scared me."
All eyes turned to Koda.
He walked a few more steps before answering.
"I saw the war already won," he said. "The future at peace. No more blood. No weight left on my shoulders."
He looked up, meeting their gazes. "I think that's why I almost stayed."
They didn't respond.
They didn't need to.
The air around them felt tighter — but their footing steadier.
They'd named their ghosts.
And Greed would have to work harder now.
The first group of undead came at the edge of the broken orchard — six ghouls, low-slung and twitching with erratic hunger. Nothing coordinated.
They didn't waste spells.
Junen rooted. Terron swung. Wren dazzled their vision. Deker lobbed a flash vial into the thick of them while Maia layered a weak ward.
Thessa purified the ground where the last fell, her flames burning not for spectacle, but closure.
The second group — nine, more spread — met similar fate. Koda danced through their backline like a shade, fast and clean. One ghoul turned to hiss — and found itself cleaved diagonally in a single stroke.
He didn't even break pace.
By the time they reached the outer bend of the scar, twilight had faded to full night.
And the land ahead pulsed faintly.
Not with flame.
But with ambition.
Wren crouched at the edge of a ridge and held up two fingers.
"Two clusters. Twenty in total. Eight of them are… not undead. Greed-touched. Still breathing. You can hear them breathe."
Terron frowned. "Why would the living follow that thing?"
Deker muttered, "Because they think it'll give them more."
Thessa's voice was quiet. "Because it already has."
Koda stared across the scar's edge.
Low fires flickered across a crude encampment — not randomly placed. There were watchpoints. Perimeter marks. A chain of glowing glyphs woven through the terrain. They were building something.
"Formation holds," he said. "But this time, we don't wait for them to come to us."
He turned his head just slightly.
"We end this camp. Tonight."
-----
The wind off the scar was foul.
It carried no salt, no heat, no honest scent of decay. It was heavier than air should be, slick as oil and sweet like overripe fruit — the kind that had been left to bloat and burst in the sun. That stink rode the breath of Greed, and every time it pulsed from the deep black gash in the world, it curled around the skin and slithered down the throat.
Even before the first blade was drawn, the new team felt it. A second heartbeat beneath their own. Something ancient and ravenous whispering in their veins, teasing wants they didn't know they carried. But they kept walking.
Koda stood at the front, eyes forward, will sharp. The others trailed just behind, keeping formation in tight rhythm. Junen's shield hummed faintly with stabilizing magic, a quiet sanctum encasing them in a thin layer of clarity — just enough to help them think. Wren breathed through her nose, quick, calculated breaths as she tapped her staff to the dirt every few steps, mapping the magical pressure underfoot. Deker, beside her, rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles. His hands were already glowing, veins pulsing faint orange.
Thessa held her fire behind her eyes. Controlled. Ready.
Terron flexed his fingers around the haft of his hammer with a grunt. He didn't talk. Didn't need to. Maia walked near the center, her white-threaded armor glowing faintly, the symbol of the Holy Mother catching ambient light. She looked at Koda with quiet certainty. She was ready.
The outer ring of the encampment came into view just past a ridge of burnt trees. Bone totems marked the boundaries — stakes driven into the earth with the skulls of humans, beasts, and things unidentifiable lashed with sinew and dried vine. The wind moaned through hollow sockets, creating a low whistle that matched the beat of that unholy pulse in the ground.
Koda raised his fist, signaling halt.
Below, nestled in a shallow depression and shadowed by ruined cliffs, stood the encampment. Three hundred yards wide, maybe more. Dozens of tents stitched from flayed hide. Fire pits rimmed in black stones spewing green smoke. And in the center: the command circle. Elevated. Marked by banners of skin and rusted chain. There, on a crude throne built of splintered bones, sat a creature that might've once been human.
The vampire thrall.
It was grotesquely large, not by size but by presence. Bloated, its skin translucent and webbed with veins that pulsed with dark ichor. Its limbs were long, skeletal, knotted with muscle where blood had pooled and hardened into clots. Its mouth was a mess of jagged teeth, and its eyes were too wide, too bright. Behind it, a host of lesser undead waited. Corpse-walkers, armored ghouls, twisted remains of once-proud warriors bound to the will of Greed.
Koda turned to the team. "This is the camp. The pulse is strongest here. That's our test."
He looked directly at Terron. "If the group breaks, you fall back to support."
Terron nodded once.
"I'm taking the thrall," Koda said. "You hold the line."
Junen planted her feet. "We've got the line."
Then Koda was gone.
A flicker. A blur. A streak of motion so fast it left afterimages in the dusk.
He descended on the thrall like a silent curse, blades drawn — twin arcs of condensed will — slashing with no warning, no flourish. The moment his boots hit the packed dirt of the central clearing, the first arc cut through the air toward the throne.
The thrall shrieked.
It reacted faster than expected, raising one elongated arm to deflect the strike. Koda's blade met bone, sparked, tore a shallow gouge — and then he rolled to avoid the retaliatory swipe of a clawed hand that cracked the ground where he'd been standing.
The rest of the camp ignited.
Undead surged from the periphery like stirred ants. The team responded in perfect synchronization.
Junen stepped forward, raising her shield, and slammed it into the earth. A dome of gray light flared outward, catching the first wave of ghouls and sending them scattering like charred leaves.
Wren's staff pulsed — threads of binding magic flared between trees, tangling limbs, tripping the dead. She cast fast and often, weaving obstacles and slowing the tide. Deker flanked her, fire blooming from his fingertips, blasting into clustered foes with reckless glee. Each blast sent limbs and burning corpses hurtling through the haze.
Thessa stayed high, atop a crumbled watchtower, her hands moving in furious rhythm. Her flames were precise, searing, drawing arcs across the battlefield like brushstrokes of ruin. Lines of undead fell beneath her artistry, reduced to smoldering bone and screaming ash.
Maia moved between them, healing with near-miraculous control. Wounds stitched mid-motion. Burns cooled with a breath. Panic calmed with a touch.
Terron charged the flank with a bellow, hammer swinging in wide arcs that pulped anything too slow to dodge. He was a force of nature — a weight no undead could hold. One swipe shattered three skulls. Another caved a ribcage. He fought like he was angry the world had let this happen.
And Koda?
He danced with death.
The thrall was a nightmare to fight. It moved erratically, twitching, its limbs disjointed yet fast. It screeched and lunged, mouth splitting wider than it should, jaw unhinging to snap at Koda's throat. Each time, he dodged by inches, blades cutting lines across bloated flesh, severing tendons, scoring through ribs. But the creature didn't bleed. It pulsed. Every wound was a window into its hollow frame — dark mist coiling like smoke inside, barely contained.
Another pulse from Greed rolled through the battlefield. Stronger. A bass note in their skulls.
The undead stiffened.
Some began to laugh. Some wept. Some turned on each other with gnashing teeth.
Deker stumbled for a moment, clutching his head — eyes glazed.
Thessa shouted, burning a tight ring of fire around him to keep the dead at bay.
Junen's dome flickered.
Wren growled, sweat pouring down her face, eyes wild with fury. "Not now," she hissed. "Not now—"
And she cast again. Stronger. Snares of force bound a whole platoon of corpse-knights, locking them mid-charge.
Koda ducked beneath a swipe from the thrall and slammed one blade into its thigh, twisting hard.
It screamed — the sound cracking glass in the nearest tents.
But it didn't fall.
It backhanded him with a limb that was more bone than flesh, catching his side and launching him across the clearing. He hit hard, rolled, coughed blood — but his eyes were clear.
He stood.
Behind him, the battle still roared.
Terron shouted something — Koda didn't catch it — but he saw the man cleave a ghoul in half at the spine, turning to hold the rear where a new wave pressed in.
Maia flared with holy light, driving back a charging corpse with a palm to its chest — not blasting, but banishing.
Koda turned back to the thrall, panting.
The thing was trying to rise again. Its legs buckled. Its body slumped.
But its mouth smiled.
And Greed pulsed again.
"You're not a king," Koda whispered. "You're a leech."
He moved.
One step. Two. He ducked into its shadow, having emerged behind it, and drove both blades into the thrall's spine. It arched. Screamed.
He twisted.
The blades shattered through resistance. The core within the creature's back split with a sound like wet wood snapping.
The body collapsed, its eyes flickering once — then darkening.
Still.
Around him, the battlefield broke.
The undead wavered. The pulse dimmed.
The platoon shuddered… and fell. One by one. As if the strings had been cut.
Silence spread in ripples.
Terron panted, soaked in blood and sweat.
Wren dropped to a knee, hands trembling.
Junen braced her shield, eyes scanning.
Thessa stared at the ruined camp, fire still glowing faint in her palms.
Maia stumbled toward Koda, who stood over the thrall's corpse, blades still humming.
The camp was gone.
Destroyed.
But Greed?
Greed still watched.
And Koda could feel it.
He turned toward the others, raising his voice over the still-settling silence.
"Finish it. Eradicate the stragglers. No scouts. Nothing leaves."
Without question, the team moved. Wren darted through the shadows, identifying stragglers trying to slip past the edges of the ridge. Deker followed her flares with fire that rained down in sharp, controlled arcs. Terron stalked anything moving upright, smashing skulls with methodical rage. Thessa purified every corpse they passed. Junen locked a wide sanctum against the terrain, holding space while Maia moved to stabilize burns and bruises from the last wave.
Within minutes, it was done.
Nothing remained of the encampment but bone and soot.
And still… the scar pulsed.
Koda motioned them to regroup, and they followed him up the shallow incline toward the nearest edge of the scar's rim. The wind died as they approached. The ground beneath their boots felt less like earth and more like old, brittle parchment. It flexed faintly with each step.
Then came the wave.
Like before — but heavier.
Thicker.
It hit like heat and honey poured into their minds. The air soured instantly. The ground breathed beneath them, and the world turned gold.
---—
Koda blinked.
And was standing in sunlight.
Real sunlight.
A cool breeze brushed against his cheek, and when he turned, he was standing on a balcony.
A stone one.
With vines curling around the railing, a quiet garden beyond, and a worn trail leading down to a quiet lake. The air smelled like pine, like wildflowers, like coffee brewing in the next room.
He felt… calm.
The kind of calm that could make you forget war ever existed.
He looked down.
His hands were clean.
No scars. No blood. No marks of a fighter. Just the hands of someone who'd lived, worked, built. He turned again, and Maia stood in the doorway, wearing a loose robe, laughing at something he didn't quite hear.
She stepped forward, barefoot, holding two mugs, and handed him one.
"This is the year we plant the orchard," she said, her voice so clear and real he felt tears sting his eyes.
He looked past her, into the warm home behind her — quiet shelves lined with books, a fire in the hearth. Somewhere, off in the distance, a child laughed.
And the world didn't need saving.
Not anymore.
They'd saved it already.
And walked away.
Koda inhaled.
And let the air settle.
And then he broke the vision.
With effort.
With force.
With fury.
"No," he said — not to the air, but to the thing behind it.
He gritted his teeth and stepped back from the image.
The gold shattered.
The warmth peeled away.
And he was at the edge of the scar again.
---—
Maia stood, frozen.
Her eyes locked on a vision of Oria — radiant, restored, thrumming with light and song. She walked the central street in a healer's cloak, her hands curing sickness with a gesture, her name sung in prayers. And beside her, Koda — not a warrior, but a guardian. Her pillar. Her shield. There was no pressure. No war. Just reverence and peace.
She smiled in that vision.
Until it cracked.
She blinked once. Twice.
Then turned her head sharply.
"No," she whispered. "We earned nothing yet."
And the image splintered.
---—
The others stirred in sequence.
Junen knelt in a cathedral surrounded by the faces of the saved, her hands glowing as she raised the fallen and erased suffering. They worshipped her not as a goddess — but as proof that peace was possible. She wept in the vision. And then she let it go.
Wren sat at the center of a perfect, silent city. Clean streets. Perfect systems. No mess. No death. Just ordered peace. But no people. And she recognized it for what it was — isolation. So she destroyed it.
Deker stood in his lab again — designs coming to life, failures never happening. He almost laughed in joy — until he saw himself, alone in the reflections of every glass vial. And he dropped the vision like a broken beaker.
Terron sat atop a battlefield of old victories, with no new war in sight. His muscles relaxed. His hammer rusted at his feet. And he was forgotten. The stillness felt like death. He roared and shattered the dream with a swing of his will.
----—
All seven stood again at the rim.
Scar wind in their hair.
Ash on their boots.
Koda exhaled slowly.
"Send a few more of your mutants," he said aloud, voice loud and sure. "I just might level up again before we visit."
The pulse recoiled.
The air snapped tight — offended.
The scar did not scream, but the pressure behind it twitched with anger.
They had passed the test.
And the war had taken notice.
The road back to Callestan was quiet.
No more undead lingered. No pulses chased their steps. Even the wind seemed cautious now, rustling low through the ruined brush as if unwilling to speak too loudly.
The seven walked without urgency. The tension was gone from their shoulders, replaced by something steadier — a weight that didn't press down, but held them upright.
Koda broke the silence.
"What Greed showed me…" he said, voice level but low, "I still want it."
The others glanced his way, not judging, just listening.
"A world at peace. A life without war. Maia. A home. A garden. Quiet mornings."
He stopped walking, just for a moment, and looked up at the gray stretch of sky.
"I want that more than anything. But I want it to be real. Not given. Not whispered into my head like a lie dressed in comfort."
He looked ahead again.
"I want to make it with my own two hands."
Maia walked closer, brushing her fingers against his briefly. "If we have to build it inch by inch, we'll still get there."
Junen nodded once. "The dream is only holy when it's earned."
"I'd rather fail in the real world," Wren murmured, "than succeed in a perfect lie."
Deker chuckled softly. "It's funny. All that brilliance, all that temptation — and none of it came with dirt under my nails. No thanks."
Thessa walked with her eyes on the horizon. "If peace is a flame," she said, "it should hurt a little to carry it."
Terron grinned. "Let the bastard keep showing me dreams. Every one just reminds me I've still got something to swing for."
They didn't speak after that.
They didn't need to.
When the spires of Callestan rose in the distance — dark against the late dusk, rimmed with torchlight and watchfire — none of them slowed.
The gates opened for them once more, iron and oak groaning in welcome.
And this time, the city didn't just see warriors return.
It saw a wall come home.
And behind that wall — a promise the world hadn't earned yet, but one these seven were ready to fight for again tomorrow.
Just before they parted at the threshold of the inner gate, Koda turned back to face them. The torchlight behind him caught the steel in his eyes.
"The next time we set out," he said, voice steady, "we enter the scar."
No one flinched.
"We meet again in two days. At dawn. At these gates."
He held their gaze — one by one.
"Rest well. Prepare completely."
And with that, they scattered to the shadows of Callestan, the breath of war still clinging to their cloaks, but purpose blazing quietly in their steps.