Blood hit the stone before he realized he was coughing.

It came up thick and dark, splattering across his gauntlet and the broken rampart beneath him. Each breath scraped, shallow and uneven, as if his lungs were lined with ash. The armor had taken the worst of the blast. Runes had flared. Plates had held.

In conjunction with his high Vitality stat, he felt that his exterior suffered no serious wounds.

But his insides had.

He pressed a hand to his chest and felt nothing steady there. Only heat and a dull, spreading numbness that made it hard to tell where pain ended and weakness began.

His name was Captain Albrecht Vayne.

Guard Captain of the Eastern Bastion. Third son of a minor house. Veteran of six border wars. He had been promoted to his current rank by Tharion Ravenshade himself after more than six hundred years of excellent service in the army.

Being a border captain like him was often viewed as a dead-end job, a career-ending move. After all, working in the heart of the duchy, leading large armies instead of being the first bastion of defense on the border, was thought of as not only more prestigious but also a lot more lucrative.

However, Vayne did not care. He felt great honor in being a captain manning one of humanity's first defenses against the subhumans should they invade.

Even with lesser pay, even if it likely meant he'd not reach the highest peak of personal power, both as a combatant and as a politician, he was content.

But now… Suddenly, being in the capital, surrounded by impenetrable walls and combatants more potent than him… And most importantly, not being the first to face such an anomalous enemy felt like a truly tantalizing prospect.

Vayne lifted his head with effort and felt his vision swimming. Through the blur, he saw the black-armored figure already walking away.

Back straight. Pace unhurried. As if what he had just done barely warranted thought.

"Y-you're leaving…?" Vayne croaked.

The words came out small. Almost childish.

Quinlan did not turn.

He didn't slow. Didn't tilt his head. Didn't acknowledge the sound at all.

Something hot and sharp twisted in Vayne's chest that had nothing to do with burned lungs.

"HEY!" he shouted, forcing air he didn't have into his voice. Blood sprayed from his mouth, and he barely stayed upright. "Fight me!"

No response.

"Don't you dare walk away!" His voice cracked due to fury, forcing it louder than his vocal cords could sustain. "You started this! Finish it yourself!"

Quinlan kept walking.

"Haha!" Vayne laughed, releasing a pitiful, broken sound. "Coward… That's what you are. You side with undead monsters and subhumans, and you won't even look me in the eye?"

His shout echoed across ruined stone.

"Kill me yourself! If you have any decency left, any spine at all, then do it with your own hands!"

The only answer was the sound of distant flame and settling rubble, alongside Quinlan's echoing steps.

Then Vayne felt it.

A pressure.

This was not physical nor magical in the way spells pressed.

This was something colder. Heavier. Like being watched by an entire mythical graveyard that had decided, all at once, to wake up angry.

Vayne's breath hitched.

The blue-skinned figures began to move.

They came from every direction. Stepping over broken engines, walking out of scorched shadows, and past collapsed walls. More than a hundred of them.

Their forms were solid, armored, and armed. Their eyes burned with the same blue fire that had fed the blade.

However, they didn't rush, electing to advance at a measured pace. Slow. Deliberate. As if savoring the distance.

Hostility rolled off them in waves, thick enough that Vayne's skin prickled beneath his armor.

They didn't like his words spoken of their master. He understood that instinctively, just by observing their posture. The way weapons were held. The way heads tilted.

Then his eyes focused.

And his stomach dropped.

"That's…" His voice came out hoarse. "No…"

One of them wore the shattered remains of a familiar cuirass. Another held a halberd with a dent he remembered arguing about during inspection. A third walked with a limp that matched a man who had laughed too loudly just an hour ago.

"They're… they're my men…"

His hands shook.

"You consumed them…" he whispered. Horror finally overpowered rage. "You twisted them... The rumors were true!"

His gaze snapped back toward Quinlan's nonchalantly retreating form. His back was still turned, and his silhouette still framed by smoke and heat.

"You are an abomination!" Vayne screamed, "A thing that should not exist! You spit on life itself! You mock death with your mere existence! You're worse than the undead! You're the very antithesis of life itself!"

The words poured out of him, desperate and raw. They were akin to a curse hurled at something far beyond his reach.

Quinlan did not stop, nor even flinch for a moment.

The strength bled out of Vayne's voice. His knees buckled, and he sagged harder against the rampart, breath coming in shallow gasps.

The summons closed in.

One stepped ahead of the others.

She was short, sporting a lighter build than most. A mask covered her face, smooth and pale-blue, with narrow slits for eyes that glowed steadily. Twin daggers rested at her waist.

She stopped just a few steps away.

Vayne looked into those eyes.

And something inside him folded.

It wasn't fear of pain. It wasn't even fear of death. It was the sudden, crushing certainty that nothing he had ever mattered. That his name, his rank, his anger, and his ideals were all equally irrelevant in the face of what stood before him.

He whimpered.

His head snapped back toward Quinlan's retreating back, and his voice broke completely.

"Please," he begged. "Please… kill me."

Tears burned down his soot-streaked face. "I don't want to die to them! I don't want to be taken apart! I don't want to be used!"

His voice dropped to a sob. "Please. I'm begging you! Quinlan Elysiar!"

The target of his pleading never turned around.

The masked woman stepped closer.

The blue fire in her eyes brightened.

Captain Albrecht Vayne screamed.

The masked woman moved.

Her fingers slipped to the hilts at her hips. The daggers came free without a sound.

She began to twirl them.

The blades rolled around her fingers in tight, controlled arcs with effortless precision. Steel flashed again and again, catching the blue firelight at a dozen different angles. The motion was smooth and hypnotic, almost casual, yet every pass traced a killing edge close enough to her skin that a lesser hand would have been sliced open.

Two spinning storms lived in her palms.

Vayne's eyes locked onto them against his will.

The rest of the world fell away. The ruins, the other summons, even his own labored breathing faded into background noise. His gaze followed the blades as they circled, flipped, reversed direction, over and over.

"Go."

The word was spoken by the assassin calmly.

Around her, the blue-skinned creatures slowed. Several had already raised their weapons. They hesitated, bodies angled toward the kill they had been aching to secure.

"I said, go."

The blue light in her eyes sharpened. The air around her seemed to draw tight, and the summoned dead understood that this was not a request.

One by one, the others turned away. Figures melted back into ruined streets and collapsed walls, leaving the space around the rampart bare except for the two of them.

Vayne swallowed. "Y-you speak…?"

She did not look at him. She finished the last turn of her daggers and slid one forward, one back, stance low and balanced.

"Stand up."

His breath hitched. "What…?"

"You wanted a warrior's death."

Vayne dragged in a rasping breath. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. "Ah… I did, didn't I…"

He forced his legs to straighten. Pain flared inside his chest, sharp enough to make his vision swim, but he stayed upright by sheer habit drilled into him over centuries.

"What will become of me?" he asked hoarsely.

Her answer came without pause. "You will serve our eternal master until the end of time or until he decrees otherwise."

Something in his posture collapsed.

A sound slipped from him that was smaller than his earlier screams. "I… I don't want that…" His voice shook as he spoke again. "I want to be buried next to my parents. I want to greet the Goddess."

"Your wishes do not matter."

He lifted his head, desperate for something. Anything.

Then his eyes focused.

The way she stood. The angle of her blades. The familiar economy of motion he had seen once before on a battlefield soaked in blood.

His eyes widened.

"Wait… You're Scar, member of the Scarlet Lilies. That's you, isn't it?"

For the first time, her expression shifted.

Her eyes narrowed behind the mask.

"I am Scar, Commander of the Primordial Villain's soul army."

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