As Seraphine's army thundered toward Ithriel's forces, the formation began to shift with practiced precision.
Towering giants and hulking ogres surged to the front, their massive bodies forming a living wall of armor and flesh.
Every step they took sent shockwaves through the earth, kicking up debris and warping the already scorched terrain beneath them. The ground itself seemed to groan under their weight, obsidian fragments splintering with each thunderous footfall.
Behind them came the Beastkin and Dragonkin—lean, powerful predators with muscles rippling beneath scales and fur, their claws and weapons bared, eyes locked forward with unrelenting focus, nostrils flaring with the scent of coming battle.
At the rear, the Elves moved gracefully, their bodies flowing like water through the ranks. Their eyes glowed faintly—pinpricks of blue, green, and amber light—as they prepared their elemental magic and support spells, slender fingers tracing complex patterns that left shimmering trails in the air.
Their ranks became a quiet storm of runes and incantations, the air around them heavy with power that made the hairs on one's neck stand on end.
But there, among the massive shadows of the giants, a lone human darted through the chaos—an ant among titans.
Lucy.
He ran beneath the thunderous steps of the front line, weaving through swinging legs and stomping feet, the heat of the battlefield already clinging to his skin like smoke.
Each step from the giants felt like a small earthquake, threatening to knock him off balance or crush him outright. Vibrations traveled up through his boots and rattled his teeth, making focus a constant struggle.
'Damn, they're huge,' he thought, gritting his teeth as the ground trembled violently beneath him, cracks spreading like spiderwebs across the blackened surface.
The general of the Giants led the charge at the center of the formation—an absolute monolith, towering over 300 feet tall, his shadow alone swallowing acres of battlefield.
His roars split the sky like thunder, a sound more felt than heard. His hammer smashed into the earth with every step, leaving smoking craters in its wake.
Even the other giants—still titanic at nearly fifty feet tall—seemed small beside him, like children following in the wake of a true colossus.
Lucy ducked under a swinging ogre arm—close enough that he felt the wind from its passing ruffle his hair—and leapt over a chunk of shattered stone, his body fueled more by instinct than thought now.
Unease twisted in his gut, tightening like a vice.
Rage burned in his veins, hot and clarifying. And somewhere beneath it all, anxiety coiled like a serpent, whispering doubt with every heartbeat.
But still, he ran.
His heartbeat pounded louder than the war drums echoing across the field. His vision narrowed, focusing only on the battlefield ahead, the edges blurring into insignificance.
His mind screamed warnings, but his body moved forward, driven by one thought that crystallized with perfect clarity:
'Kill everything.'
The words echoed through him, not with hatred or blind rage, but with grim finality—a surgeon's resolve before the first cut.
Ever since he lost his parents, Lucy had feared death—not just his own, but others', too.
He had learned to empathize, to hurt for those who suffered. It was a part of him, deeply human, deeply raw, woven into the fabric of his being.
But now, standing on the edge of divine war, staring at the image of Ithriel looming like a ghostly god above his army—a figure of impossible power wreathed in light that hurt to look upon—he felt none of that.
Only certainty.
They all deserve to die.
Not out of vengeance. Not for justice.
For necessity.
Because if he could end this army—this blight of conquest and cruelty—he could save countless lives. He could stop countless worlds from becoming another in a long line of corpses left in the gods' wake.
The math was simple, terrible in its clarity. Many deaths now to prevent millions later.
So he pushed forward.
He shed the part of himself that flinched, that hesitated, that mourned before the killing began—peeling away layers of humanity like armor too heavy for the battle ahead.
With every step, he left behind the boy, afraid of dying, and became the weapon the gods had summoned.
Forging a new self—one built for war, tempered in desperation, sharpened on the whetstone of survival.
Then came the sound—the first true cry of war.
A deafening clash of metal cracked across the battlefield, a sound so pure and terrible it seemed to split reality itself.
Followed by a thunderous roar that echoed through the obsidian-laced wasteland.
It was the meeting of giants—literally.
The two titanic generals from each army collided at the center of the front lines.
The impact shook the very ground like an earthquake, sending shockwaves rippling across the field in visible waves. Dust exploded outward, dark and glittering like shattered onyx caught in sunlight.
The air screamed under the pressure, compressed and tortured by forces it was never meant to contain.
Lucy staggered, his body jolting from the force of the impact.
The sonic boom nearly knocked him off his feet, pressure hammering against his eardrums until they ached.
But he didn't fall.
He wouldn't allow himself to fall.
He gritted his teeth and surged forward, boots skidding over cracked obsidian that cut through the soles, his heart hammering like a war drum, keeping time with the chaos around him.
And then the world exploded into chaos.
Magic lit up the skies in a kaleidoscope of deadly color.
Elven war chants were drowned beneath the roar of elemental energy, their melodic voices lost in the storm of their own making.
Fireballs screamed through the air, trailing smoke and sparks before bursting in violent blooms of heat and flame.
Arcs of lightning tore jagged paths through the clouds, blinding in their brilliance, while streams of pressurized water sliced through metal like paper, leaving clean edges where armor and flesh had been.
Shards of ice, vines wreathed in thorns, torrents of sand—every spell imaginable fell like divine artillery from the heavens, transforming the battlefield into a canvas of destruction.
Each explosion rattled Lucy's bones, the concussive force threatening to liquefy his insides.
Several came close—too close—singeing the ends of his cloak, slicing the air mere inches from his throat, leaving the taste of ozone and ash on his tongue.
He weaved through the chaos, through the tangled legs of giants and the snarling ogres clashing like titans, dodging, ducking, sprinting forward as war swallowed the world around him.
His lungs burned with exertion, every muscle screaming for relief that wouldn't come.
And then he broke free.
Emerging from the shadow of the front lines, he was the first soldier from either side to break past the clash of titans.
For a brief second, everything around him seemed to slow, time stretching like taffy as his senses heightened to painful clarity.
The battlefield opened before him—wide, alive, and ready to kill.
His breath came in ragged bursts, each inhale tasting of sulfur and blood.
Sweat clung to his brow despite the calm wind of movement, stinging his eyes and blurring his vision.
He looked ahead, scanning the horizon with desperate intensity—
—And they came.
Charging from the opposite side were the Beastkin and Dragonkin, war cries sharp and wild—a symphony of growls, roars, and hisses that raised the hair on Lucy's neck.
Their weapons raised high caught the firelight, gleaming red like blood not yet spilled but promised in abundance.
Leading them were their generals.
The first: a golden-scaled Dragonkin, tall and broad, maybe a head taller than Lucy.
His armor shimmered—silver and gold, pristine and regal, untouched by the chaos around him, like he had walked from legend into war.
His horns curved back like scythes, razor-sharp and polished to a lethal sheen, and his tail dragged molten lines across the earth, leaving smoldering trenches in his wake.
Beside him, running with equal speed, was the Beastkin general.
A woman—lethal and wild, moving with predatory grace that made her seem more liquid than solid.
She wore no metal, only light leather that clung to her athletic form, allowing for maximum mobility.
Her body was covered in tiger-striped fur, ears flicking alertly at every sound, tail slicing behind her as she ran, a perfect counterbalance.
Her golden eyes burned with purpose, pupils narrowed to vertical slits.
Their gazes never wavered, locked onto their target with the focus of apex predators.
Their smiles were carved in confidence, as if victory was already written in stone, merely waiting to be claimed.
Lucy narrowed his eyes, a cold resolve settling in his chest.
'Now,' he thought. 'I take them down first.'
He lunged forward, heart pounding with urgency, pushing his legs harder than before.
The muscles in his calves and thighs burned with the effort, but he ignored the pain.
The roar of battle fell behind him as he locked onto his targets, calculating distances, planning his approach.
But then—a blur.
From his right, something moved—fast.
Too fast.
Instinct screamed louder than thought.
He jumped sideways just in time, barely avoiding the crushing impact of a fist slamming into the ground where he had just been.
Obsidian cracked and exploded upward from the force, shards flying in all directions like deadly projectiles, a cloud of dust and debris cloaking the impact point.
Lucy hit the ground and rolled, coughing from the sudden blast of grit in his lungs, the taste of dust and ash coating his mouth.
He slid to a halt and scrambled to his feet, eyes already scanning the smoke, searching for the source of the attack.
Then a silhouette emerged from the haze.
Slim. Upright. Confident.
As the dust settled, blown away by a gentle breeze that seemed mockingly peaceful amid the carnage, the figure became clear.
A man—lean, tall, with sharp features and pointed ears that marked him as something beyond human.
The wind tousled his short brown hair, and his eyes gleamed like blades drawn in moonlight, cold and calculating.
'An elf.'
The stranger smiled—slow and deliberate.
His expression was relaxed, but a predator's hunger lay beneath it, visible in the tightness around his eyes and the slight tension in his jaw.
Then he spoke, his voice smooth as polished stone, sharp with menace:
"I'm going to enjoy killing you, human."
Lucy stared at the elf, his expression unreadable, hollow, even.
The words washed over him like water over stone, leaving no mark.
Once, maybe, in another life, he would've cracked a joke here.
Tossed out some sarcastic line, flashed a grin, tried to ease the tension with wit.
That version of him might've laughed in the face of danger, might've made this fight a game, a performance for an audience that wasn't there.
But Lucy was gone.
He'd watched a world vanish in a blaze of divine fire, reality itself peeling away under celestial wrath.
He'd felt the screams of thousands echo in his bones, voices silenced mid-breath.
He had seen what war meant—not glory, not heroism—just death.
Endless, pointless, necessary death.
In his brief time under Seraphine's command, he hadn't just been trained—he'd been broken, shattered like glass, and now found himself being rebuilt into something colder.
Something harder.
Something that could survive what lay ahead.
The fire behind his eyes didn't flicker anymore, didn't dance with emotion or uncertainty.
It burned low and steady, a pilot light waiting to ignite something much more deadly.
His voice came out quiet, flat, and absolute.
Like a prophecy written in stone.Like the closing of a tomb.
"I promise you're going to die."
And then he stepped forward, ready to make it true.
Every muscle in his body coiled like a spring, gathering and focusing energy into a single point.
There was no hesitation, no doubt, no fear.
Only purpose.
The war had truly begun.