(Voss's POV – Blackridge Stronghold)

The gates of Blackridge loomed in the distance, monolithic and unyielding. Twin slabs of blackened iron, their surfaces webbed with runes that pulsed faintly in the dim torchlight. Wards against the dead. Wards against what lay beyond.

But tonight, it wasn't the dead that it was keeping out.

It was the living.

Voss led them home—or what remained of them. His armor, once a polished emblem of command, was now a second skin of dried blood, soot, and grief. His warhorse, ribs heaving, staggered beneath him, its hooves dragging through the slush of old rain and old ash. Behind him, thirty men struggled to keep pace.

Once, they had been two hundred.

They didn't march. They moved like revenants.

A limping mass of exhaustion and ruin. Cloaks in tatters. Bandages steeped in rot. Some leaned on shattered spears for balance, others were carried on crude stretchers fashioned from shields and torn banners.

This was not the return of warriors. This was not the triumphant march of men who had conquered.

This was survival.

The guards at the gate stood frozen. One of them—young, barely past the age of twenty—stepped forward, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword as if the weight of it could steady him.

His voice barely found breath.

"Gods… what happened?"

Voss said nothing.

He urged his horse forward, past the threshold. The gates groaned open, iron screaming against iron. The air inside was thick, stagnant, holding its breath as if the city itself recoiled.

They entered.

And the people of Blackridge were waiting.

Lined along the streets, lanterns in hand, faces half-lit in flickering gold. What had they expected? A victorious return? The clash of steel against shields, banners held high? They had sent out the best. Men clad in plate and fury, marching like an unstoppable force.

But the force had been stopped.

And now?

Now, they looked like ghosts.

A murmur rippled through the crowd, a wave of disbelief rolling through the silence.

"They lost?"

"What… what could do this?"

A man fell to his knees. A veteran, by the look of him. Scars across his arms, a sword at his side. His lips moved in prayer, though no sound came. His hands trembled.

He had seen war before. But not this.

Not whatever had done this.

Voss clenched his jaw, eyes fixed ahead. Each hoofbeat, each footstep, felt heavier than the last.

There was nothing left to say.

The dead did not speak.

And neither would he.

---

The war room of Blackridge was a chamber of cold stone and colder men. A place where decisions were made with ink and steel, where lives were reduced to numbers on parchment. The long table, carved from black oak, was surrounded by the council—aged men in fine robes, their faces marked with years of governance but untouched by war.

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They had been waiting for him.

Voss stepped inside. His armor was still caked in blood, his gauntlets stained, his cloak torn. He had not bathed. He had not rested. He did not need to.

Their eyes studied him. Some with concern. Others with suspicion.

Then—

"Explain."

The word came from the head of the table. Lord Regent Rhygar, his voice edged with restrained fury. "Two hundred of our finest warriors. Gone."

Voss did not answer immediately.

He let the silence settle.

Then, finally—

"We met them in the field," he said. His voice was steady, but there was something beneath it. Something raw. "We thought we understood what we were facing."

A scoff.

Regis, the youngest among them, leaned forward. A man who had never seen battle but spoke as if war were a game to be played.

"You did understand," he said. "You faced undead. Brainless, shambling corpses. We've slaughtered them by the thousands before. How, exactly, did you fail?"

Voss's jaw tightened. His fingers curled into a fist.

"You weren't there."

Regis smirked, but it faltered when Voss took a step closer.

"You're right," another councilman said, older, his voice carefully measured. "We weren't there. And that's why we struggle to believe you. This army was sent to eliminate an outbreak, not crawl back in ruins."

Voss exhaled sharply through his nose. He had expected this. The doubt. The dismissal.

They didn't understand.

Because they couldn't.

His patience snapped.

The sound of his gauntlet slamming against the table sent a shockwave through the room. Scrolls spilled onto the floor, the echoes lingering like the distant thunder of a battlefield long since lost.

One of the councilmen flinched. Another paled.

Voss leaned forward, his voice low. Cold.

"They weren't mindless."

That silenced the room.

"They moved together—like an army. Shield formations. Flanking maneuvers. Coordination. Not instinct. Not hunger. Orders." He let that word hang. "Someone led them."

A pause.

Rhygar's gaze sharpened. "Led them?"

Voss's throat tightened. His mind dragged him back. To that moment.

To him.

"I saw him," he said. "Tall. His skin—Pale. Like the dead. But his eyes... his eyes weren't empty. They were watching. Calculating---Evil."

Regis scoffed again, but this time it sounded forced. "You're saying the undead had a commander?"

Voss's hands pressed into the table.

"I'm saying we went to cull an infection," he said. "And instead, we found a war."

Silence.

No more scoffing. No more dismissive glances.

Because they knew—

He wasn't lying.

And that meant everything they thought they understood about the enemy was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

---

He told them everything.

The way the undead fought.

The way they moved.

The way they obeyed one of their own.

And then—

The way that 'thing' smiled at him.

The council remained silent as Voss finished.

Then—laughter.

A chuckle at first. Then a full, arrogant laugh.

One of the older men, a priest clad in silver robes, shook his head.

"Ah," he exhaled. "Now I understand."

Voss turned to him, his jaw clenched. "Explain."

The priest smiled. A knowing, patronizing smile.

"You have been cursed, General."

Voss did not move.

But something dark, something cold, twisted in his chest.

"What?"

"The soldiers who returned," the priest continued, "spoke of an undead with a mind. A voice. A will. That is not natural. It's is not part of the plague."

His voice dropped into a whisper.

"It's a Witches doing."

"It was a Witch in disguise."

A murmur spread through the council.

Some nodded. Some looked doubtful.

Voss felt his heartbeat slow.

They didn't get it.

They were wrong.

That wasn't a witch.

But before he could speak, another councilman raised a hand.

"We must not act rashly."

He turned to Voss.

"The fortress. What do we know of it?"

Voss hesitated. "It was… old. Unbroken. As if it had been waiting."

The priest smirked.

"A relic," he murmured. "It makes sense. A cursed place, built by the sinners of the past. And now? A witch-possessed corpse sits upon its throne."

Voss's hands curled into fists.

That wasn't what happened.

That wasn't what he saw.

But before he could argue—

"We will send a hunting party," the councilman declared. "A small, elite unit. Enough to finish what you could not."

Voss felt it then.

The decision had already been made.

They weren't sending an army.

They weren't taking this seriously.

They were treating it like a rogue monster, not a war.

Fools.

Absolute fools.

---

The meeting ended.

The council had made their decision.

The priest and the councilmen returned to their chambers, their voices fading down the corridors, their minds already set. They believed their hunting party would end this threat. A mission. A strike force. Just another cleanup.

Voss knew better.

As he walked through the torchlit halls of Blackridge, his steps heavy with exhaustion and something far worse, a figure emerged from the shadows.

Erwin.

He fell into step beside him, his voice quiet.

"Orders?"

Voss stopped.

His mind raced.

The fortress. The undead. The way they had moved, fought—coordinated.

And Gufran.

Voss had faced horrors before. But this? This was something else.

Something was changing.

And if the council sent their men in blind, treating Gufran like any other outbreak—

They would lose. Again.

Slowly, Voss turned to Erwin.

"I want everything," he muttered. "Every record of the old world. Every ruin. Every scrap of knowledge about what came before."

Erwin frowned. "Sir?"

Voss's eyes burned, no longer clouded with exhaustion but sharpened with purpose.

"If I can understand him…"

He turned away, his figure swallowed by the flickering torchlight, disappearing into the war room's shadows.

"…I can kill him."