The titan's stride devours distance. Haven's walls fade behind as these bones march east, each step covering ground that would have taken a dozen paces before evolution. The world seems smaller now, distances less to a frame that towers above the broken landscape.

Aeternus pulses in skeletal hand, sharing hunger for what comes next. The sword remembers how the Duke's flames scattered us before, how they sought to unmake our joined purpose. It remembers, and it thirsts for the chance to return the lesson.

Three days to reach his fortress, the scouts claimed. This frame needs no rest, no pause, no respite from the road. Two days, perhaps less, before our steel darkens his gates.

My titanic form crosses blighted plains where nothing grows, where even the wind carries the scent of rot. The ground cracks beneath each step, as if the earth itself recoils from the taint that poisons it.

Twisted shapes rise from the horizon, trees frozen mid-death, their branches grasping at a sky that offers no salvation. My smaller form would have wound between them, picking a careful path through the petrified forest. Now I simply push through, splintering remains.

A town emerges from the haze, its broken silhouette a wound against the gray sky. No life stirs in its streets, not even vermin. Buildings lean at impossible angles, their foundations warped by corruption that pulses beneath cracked cobblestones. Weathered wood splinters outwards.

Names surface from borrowed memories, Ossin, Roaniok, Millan, settlements that fell in wars I can't recall. Each echo brings fragments, burning towers, fallen standards, the clash of steel against corrupted flesh.

But these shards of memory offer no clarity, only confusion.

None match what I see.

This place died unnamed, unmarked on any map, another victim of the spreading taint. My titanic frame passes across its empty market square, dragon-reinforced bones creaking against rusted armor. Market stalls lie crushed and scattered, their wares reduced to unrecognizable debris.

A figure stumbles from a doorway ahead, clothed in Haven patrol armor. His movements jerk, unnatural. Behind him, more shapes emerge wearing familiar uniforms, merchants' robes, farmers' leathers, children's simple clothes.

My titan form halts. Commander Ikert's warning echoes through borrowed memories.

"The worst aren't the obvious monsters. It's the ones that wear familiar faces."

The patrol member raises an empty hand in greeting. His skin hangs loose, like ill-fitted cloth. His smile stretches too wide, showing teeth that glint metallic in dim light.

"Help us," he calls, voice cracking wrong. "We've been trapped here so long."

More figures shuffle forward. A merchant whose neck bends. A farmer whose arms hang below his knees. A child whose feet point backward.

The patrol member takes another step. "Brother warrior, we need escort to Haven's walls."

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My sword arm rises. These bones remember Haven's fear when I first approached their gates.

Not of death, they face that daily. But of false hope. Of things that pretend, that steal beloved faces to lure the living close.

The patrol member's smile splits his face literally now, the skin peeling back to reveal rows and rows of teeth beneath.

I lift Aeternus, the blade as long as titanic form. These creatures still shuffle forward, maintaining their grotesque charade despite my obvious nature. Their borrowed faces twist with manufactured hope, uncomprehending that they face a fifteen-foot skeleton wreathed in dragon bone.

"Please, brother," the patrol thing rasps, its jaw unhinging to reveal writhing darkness of teeth in many places. "Just a little closer."

My blade sweeps horizontal. The false patrol member ducks with inhuman flexibility, spine bending backward until his head touches his heels.

The merchant thing scuttles sideways on too many limbs.

They still don't understand. Their stolen faces maintain expressions of desperate need even as their bodies contort. The child thing's backward feet leave prints in ash as it circles, trying to flank a target far larger than its simple hunting instincts can process.

These are not predators, they are parasites playing at being wolves. They know only one way to lure prey. Even now, the patrol thing keeps up its performance.

"The demons came," it whimpers, though its neck has twisted completely around. "We barely escaped."

These creatures are less than the undead I've faced, less than the demons I've fought. They are empty things wearing empty masks, unable to adapt when their single strategy fails.

I bring my titanic foot down, crushing the merchant thing mid-scuttle. It pops like a rotten fruit, revealing nothing but black ichor and stolen clothes.

The others don't react to their companion's death, still fixated on their scripting.

"Haven is so close," the patrol thing pleads as its skin sloughs off entirely. "Just help us reach the walls."

The child thing reaches for my leg with fingers that extend and keep extending. The farmer's overlong arms do the same. Their faces still smile, still beg, even as their bodies betray their true nature.

They cannot comprehend that I am death's own guardian, a titan of bone and ancient purpose. Their simple minds can only follow one path, even as I tower above them, clearly nothing like the prey they normally stalk.

I sweep Aeternus in a wide arc, cleaving through the patrol thing's torso. Black ichor sprays as its two halves continue their separate performances, both still mouthing pleas for help.

The child thing's extending fingers wrap around my leg bones. I lift my foot, taking it into the air. It dangles, still smiling that stolen smile as I bring my blade down. The fingers dissolve into streaks like tar.

The farmer thing launches itself at my chest, arms transforming looking to impale. I catch them with my free hand, dragon-reinforced bones ripping apart false flesh. With a sharp pull, I tear its arms free. It stumbles back, cavities weeping darkness, yet its face maintains that desperate hope.

"Haven..." it gurgles through a throat that splits open to show more teeth. .

My blade finds its neck. The head rolls, expression unchanged even as the body collapses into a puddle of corruption.

More shapes emerge from doorways and windows, a seamstress whose torso bends backward, a baker missing the back of his skull, a guard whose armor has fused with liquefying flesh.

All wear the same pleading expressions.

All reach with limbs that shouldn't bend that way.

I plant my feet and begin my work. Aeternus cuts through false flesh and borrowed faces. My titanic form gives me reach their simple tactics cannot counter. They die still trying to maintain their charade, whispering about Haven and safety even as my blade separates them into pieces.

When the last one falls, I scan the empty town. Nothing else moves. The cobblestones steam where their ichor spreads, eating through stone like acid.

These creatures are spreading closer to Haven. Their simple tactics work well enough on desperate travelers. I must warn Commander Ikert about these things wearing her patrol members' faces. But greater threats demand attention first.

The Duke's fortress awaits ahead. These parasites were just a delay.

The sword thirsts for reckoning. These bones know purpose. My titan stride resumes, each step bringing us closer to proper vengeance.