Veil passed through the battlefield like water. Not a ripple on his surface betrayed the carnage around him—except for the faint distortion in the air, the barely visible waver of his shadow as he flickered between corpses and flame.
The ground was a tapestry of blood and ash, and he moved through it not as a man, but as a current of something older and colder. Smeared faces stared blankly skyward, half-burnt flags fluttered beside charred bones. The stink of boiled flesh, of scorched mana veins and shattered spirit threads, clung to the wind like rot.
He didn't pause. He couldn't.
One shadow to another, connecting with them—dead soldiers, crushed mages, some still breathing but cracked open like overripe fruit. The echoes of their final thoughts pressed against his shadow, whispering things they'd never said aloud. Promises to wives. Half-muttered apologies to brothers. Regrets inked too late.
