Ikert exhales. She understands, no easy end, no sudden triumph. Only a long, grinding war until demon dukes, lords and kings fall, until rot and corruption are burned from earth. They asked for a savior, they received a champion who never claimed greatness, only duty.

It’s enough. It must be.

Haven’s people accept the message scrawled in colossal letters. Their guardian returns not as a simple skeletal knight, but as something stronger, shaped to confront evils beyond measure. Yet the essence remain, a protector to bear burdens that would shatter any living heart.

A calm settles. Orders pass quietly, stand down, keep watch, prepare patrols. Life endures behind these walls.

It is to them another morning, patrolling atop old stones.

Emmy steps back from the edge, toy soldier pressed to her chest. “Thank you,” she whispers.

She imagines the titan understands. Perhaps its slight nod is real or perhaps just her wish.

The toy soldier in her hands stirs borrowed memories. A child's faith kept through years, while I fought and fell and rose again. My bones remember her smaller self, walking fearless beside clicking steps.

Commander Ikert raises her voice: “Haven endures. With your help, we may push the corruption back, step by step. We have maps, scouts. We can share what we know of demon dukes’ domains.”

Ikert's offer pulls at older instincts. Maps. Intelligence. Awareness that guided armies before they fell.

I scrape the letters.

NEED LARGER MAPS. DEMON DOMAINS SHIFT.

The commander nods, already calculating. "We'll spread them on the ground. Our scouts mark corrupted lands in red chalk, demon territories in black."

BRING CHALK. WILL MARK TRUE BORDERS.

These bones have crossed those borders, shattered and reformed. They know where shadow thickens, where rot spreads beneath seeming safety. Knowledge earned through combat must serve Haven's survival.

Emmy steps closer to the wall's edge. "Will you stay? Near enough to see?"

YES. DARKNESS COMES. WALLS NEED WATCHING.

My sword drags deep furrows in earth as I trace.

Crude, imprecise. Ineffective.

These chosen bones bring greater strength, yet they hamper simple connection. Smaller form allowed for smaller gestures, writing with sword tip or finger bone on parchment. Now each letter requires full arm movements, tearing trenches in soil.

I test smaller motions. The dragon-reinforced joints resist precise control, built for crushing force rather than subtle shifts. My attempts at smaller script result in illegible scratches.

Even kneeling, my skull rises above the wall-walk where Emmy and Ikert stand. They strain to read messages carved at their feet. This will not serve. Protection requires clarity not this lumbering display of borrowed might.

I must find new methods.

Perhaps arrange fallen trees into letters. Or use smaller bones as writing tools. The Field of Broken Banners holds countless fragments that might still serve.

The mission demands adaptation. Power without precision fails purpose. These bones have learned new forms before.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Within, magic stirs.

The Field of Broken Banners taught me change. Flames of a demon duke forced monstrous growth. Now I sense another path: to tear loose a part of myself and shape it into a smaller envoy. Not a separate mind, but a seperate shape. A piece to walk among them, to speak for me in more subtle ways.

I focus inward.

Bone grinds against bone beneath layered plating. A chest plate of fused ribs and vertebrae tightens as I shift inward mass. Magic crackles in empty marrow. The strain builds until hairline fractures form along hidden seams. I lock my stance, sword still rooted in earth, and lean forward.

A groan of stressed bone carries across the killing field. Massive forearms twists at the elbow joint, ancient ligaments of magic and marrow stretching thin before snapping with a brittle crack.

Fragments shift beneath fragments, smaller pieces falling to the earth. I feel no pain, these bones know no suffering, only what is unsettling. On the walls, many a watcher flinches as if they could hear sinew that does not exist, or sense the impossible tension.

I press on, heedless.

From beneath my chest plating come spare segments I never truly needed, held in reserve by old magics. I dig deep, fingers of my free hand hooking under a other bones.

Dust and old ash fall away, neneath it lie lengths of spinal bones. I seize one, tugging until it dislodges with a hollow pop. Another fragment, a shoulder-blade, slides free with a scraping.

Piece by piece, I rearrange these shards before their eyes.

Smaller vertebrae click into alignment. Ribs meant to reinforce my titan chest now form a slender torso. Offer parts meant for bracing colossal joints now become delicate fingers. Shards of skull and shoulder-blade fuse into a helm-like cranium. My large forearm breaks down further, its thicker segments splitting lengthwise into fours.

The process is slow, methodical, monstrous.

Haven’s defenders watch in horrified fascination.

Ikert’s eyes narrow, knuckles white on her sword hilt. Yet none intervene. They need protection and duty demands it. This is how I grant it, by birthing a smaller envoy from my own colossal fleshless body.

I set the fragments together. . A rib slides into a hip socket not designed for it, yet magic seals the connection. A spare jawbone grinds against a scapula until they lock as a makeshift skull, hollow sockets opening. I flex the new creation’s limbs. Splinters of bone fall away, unnecessary. I cast them aside to rejoin the dust.

At last, the smaller figure stands.

It is lean, skeletal, adorned in scraps of scale and a chipped horn rises from its head. Flickers of greenish magic race through the new envoy’s joints as I stabilize its shape.

A final spine-segment snaps into place, and the envoy steps free of my towering bulk, leaving a gap in my titan frame that closes quickly as bone shifts back into seamless armor.

To Haven’s defenders, it must appear as though I’ve birthed from my own ribs and marrow, a creature that should not be. It stands roughly human height, maybe a bit taller than Ikert, proportions uncanny yet functional.

Where my titan form looms silent and colossal, this envoy is more immediate and unsettling.

As it steps forward, the soft clack of bone on stone stirs fearful murmurs from the guards.

I remain the titan, towering above, but now I see through the envoy’s hollow eyes as well, vision doubled, perspective multiplied.

My larger form stays locked in place, sword embedded in earth, while this smaller piece of me is their level. I have done something monstrous, but necessary.

Emmy’s gasps and asks er, “What are are you doing?”

But no one answers her. The guard who considered drawing weapons now lowers them, unsure.

Ikert holds out a hand, bidding patience.

The envoy raises one slender arm, jointed too many times at the elbow, and reaches down to trace words in the dirt. The letters come easier at this scale, simple faster strokes possible with these finer bones.

The message is simple, a promise of what this monstrous birth was meant to achieve.

CAN PARLEY BETTER THIS WAY. SHARE MAPS. EXCHANGE PLANS.

The silence after these words stretch is profound. Ikert’s shoulders relax by just a fraction. The guards do not cheer, nor do they flee. Instead, they stare, grappling with what they’ve witnessed.

Death reshaped itself to help them, ripping free a portion of its terrible form to speak more clearly.

But even thinking it, they do not believe.

A monster is still a monster.

Emmy leans over the walls, voice unsteady. “It’s still you, right?”

The envoy taps its own chest, then points to the titan, and carves again:

SAME PURPOSE. SAME WILL. ONE BEING.

A murmur rises. They understand. Not two monsters, but one. Not a separate mind, but an extension of the same guardian who once fought for them, now capable of stepping through their gates without shattering them.

Ikert’s gaze hardens into resolution.

She nods. “Then let’s talk,” she says quietly, beckoning the envoy to the sally port. A guard works the chain, metal groaning, and a small door opens.

The envoy steps forward, monstrous birth forgotten in the face of practical need. Chalk and slate are fetched, scouts and scribes approach. Tremors of fear fade but do not leave.

Once more to them I write.

WILL ENDURE TOGETHER.