CHAPTER 41: WHOSE BLOOD?

Koth looked uncomfortable. Zara’s analytical mask had cracked slightly. Even Varg, usually quick with sarcasm, said nothing.

They all understood what they were seeing.

A commander who’d broken himself against impossible odds and was waiting for someone to put him out of his misery.

Liam stood, walked to the map, studied it with cold precision.

"Show me their patrol patterns," he said.

Skel’var blinked. "What?"

"The kill-teams. They raid three times a day. Dawn, noon, and dusk, you said. Show me their approach routes."

"Why does it—"

"SHOW ME." Liam’s voice carried command that made even Koth straighten.

Skel’var, more from reflex than conviction, pulled out another map. Red lines marked the enemy approach vectors - predictable, safe, designed to minimize risk while maintaining pressure.

Liam traced them with his finger, his mind working through scenarios, calculating probabilities, weighing options.

"They’re killing you slowly because they think they have time," he said. "Because from their perspective, there’s no reason to risk a direct assault when attrition is working perfectly."

He looked at Skel’var.

"So we remove time from the equation."

"How?" The young commander’s voice held no hope. Just tired curiosity.

"We hit their forward base. Tonight." Liam’s finger stabbed the ravine position. "Fifty paladins, you said. Rotating shifts. Which means at any given time, how many are actually combat ready?"

Skel’var’s mind engaged despite himself.

"Maybe... thirty? The rest are sleeping, eating, maintaining equipment."

"Thirty." Liam turned to Koth. "How many of our ninety-three are fit for combat?"

"Maybe sixty," Koth said carefully. "The rest are wounded, exhausted, or both."

"We take forty," Liam decided. "The best. The fastest. We leave fifty to hold the outpost." He looked at Zara. "Can it be held with fifty?"

Her silver eyes calculated. "For one night, against their standard raid pattern? Yes. Barely."

"Then we move at midnight. The kill-team will have returned from the dusk raid. The paladins will be settling in for the night, confident they’ve done their damage for the day." Liam’s grey eyes were cold, calculating. "We hit them when they’re tired, off-guard, and convinced they’re safe."

"That ravine is a natural choke point," Skel’var protested, but there was something different in his voice now.

"The approach is exposed. They’ll see us coming."

"Not if they’re looking the wrong way." Liam turned to Varg. "How good are you at making noise?"

The lieutenant’s grin was sharp. "Very."

"Then you’ll lead a demonstration force. Ten soldiers. You’ll approach from the west—the obvious route. Make them think it’s another desperate assault from a garrison that’s finally snapped."

Varg’s grin widened. "While the real force comes from..."

"The east." Liam traced a treacherous path on the map, a route that skirted the ravine’s edge. "It’s exposed. It’s dangerous. One misstep and you’re dead. But they won’t be watching it because no sane commander would risk it."

"Are you sane?" Skel’var asked, and it almost sounded like a real question.

Liam frowned, that was his answer.

He looked around at the assembled commanders, at the soldiers who’d been slowly dying for months.

"Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to destroy their forward base. We’re going to kill every paladin there. We’re going to burn their supplies, collapse their fortifications, and leave nothing but corpses and ashes."

His voice rose, projecting through the command post, carrying to the corridor beyond where other demons had gathered to listen.

"And tomorrow, when the Radiant Empire sends their kill-teams as usual, they’ll find no base to return to. No resupply. No support. They’ll find themselves isolated in hostile territory, cut off from reinforcement, facing demons they cant escape."

He slammed his hand on the table.

"Dra’kul doesn’t fall. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Because tonight, we stop playing their game. Tonight, we change the rules."

[False Sovereign’s Presence Activated]

The aura rolled out like a wave, filling the command post, spilling into the corridors beyond. It wasn’t meant to be crushing or overwhelming. Just... certain. Absolute. The presence of a man that had decided how reality would unfold and would accept no other outcome.

Skel’var stood slowly, and for the first time since they’d arrived, Liam saw something other than death in his eyes.

"You’re insane," the young commander said.

"Yes."

"This plan has a dozen ways to fail catastrophically."

"Yes."

"If we’re wrong about their numbers, or their alert protocols, or literally anything, we’ll lose forty soldiers we can’t afford to lose."

"Yes."

Skel’var stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, something approximating a smile crossed his face. A broken smile. The smile of a man who’d been drowning for so long that even the possibility of death by fire seemed preferable.

"When do we leave?"

"Midnight. Gather your best. Anyone who can move fast and kill quiet." Liam’s grey eyes met those broken ones. "And Skel’var?"

"My lord?"

"You’re coming with us. You said you wanted to die with a sword in your hand. Fine. But you’re going to die attacking, not defending. You’re going to die taking fifty of them with you. You’re going to die as a soldier, not a victim."

Skel’var straightened. His hand went to his sword hilt.

"That... I can do."

Around them, demons who’d been hollow with despair found something stirring in their chests. It didn’t feel like hope—that was too fragile, too easily crushed. This was harder.

Anger. Purpose. The desire to hurt the thing that had been hurting them.

[Collective Belief - Outpost Dra’kul: -47% → -23%]

Still negative. But rising.

"Dismissed," Liam said. "Get your people ready. We’re going hunting."

He could feel the Focusing Crystal in his pocket, heavy with potential. Three hundred percent amplification of a single skill. Enough to turn a desperate gamble into a massacre.

But not tonight. Tonight was about proving that Liam Cross—or whatever he’d become—could win with tactics and terror, not just overwhelming force.

Tonight was about teaching fifty paladins what the demons of Dra’kul had learned over three months of slow death:

That hope was a lie.

That safety was an illusion.

And that the darkness, when it finally came for you, didn’t take prisoners.

[Current Time: 6 Hours Until Midnight]

[Essence: 9,847]

[Evolution Points: 45]

[Humanity Index: 31%]

The sun set over the Burning Peaks, coloring the volcanic landscape in blood.

In six hours, Liam would either prove Gorath right about what he’d become.

Or he’d prove Skel’var right about what they all were - demons marking time until death finally showed mercy and ended it quickly.

Either way, tonight would be written in blood.

The only question was whose.