The runes etched into the flesh of my arm were not ink. They were parasites, sleeping things that fed on mana and woke only for violence. As my palm connected with Zog's iron breastplate, I fed them. I pushed a sliver of will, a single, potent concept, into the network.
Shatter.
It wasn't a fiery explosion or a brilliant flash of arcane light. It was a dull, resonant thump, a sound that was felt more than heard, like a sledgehammer striking a side of beef. A wave of kinetic force, focused to a point no larger than my hand, discharged directly into Zog's chest. His eyes, which had been burning with triumphant fury, went wide with a profound, terminal shock. The iron of his breastplate, which should have deflected a sword blow, didn't just dent. It buckled inward, folding around the point of impact like wet clay, the metal groaning in protest as it was subjected to a physics it was never designed to endure.
I felt the recoil shoot up my arm, a jarring shock that rattled the teeth in my skull. A wave of nausea washed over me as my mana pool plummeted, the sudden drain leaving me feeling hollowed-out and cold. I ripped my hand back, stumbling away as Zog stared down at the impossible crater in his chest. He tried to speak, to scream, to curse me, but only a wet, pink froth bubbled from his lips. His cleaver slipped from his numb fingers, clattering onto the muddy ground. He took one shaky step back, then another, before his legs gave out and he collapsed into the bloody mire, his life fading from his eyes before he even hit the ground.
The world, which had been a hyper-fast blur under the effects of my Cognitive Haste, snapped back to its normal, chaotic rhythm. The skill faded, leaving my mind feeling sluggish and thick. A string of blue-bordered windows popped into my vision, the System's cold, impartial accounting of the recent transaction.
[Pit Boss Zog Slain!]
[You have dealt a killing blow to an Elite-class enemy 1 level higher than you!]
[XP Gained: 2,100]
[Your Vocation, Scholar, has gained 210 bonus XP.]
[Feat Accomplished: Decapitation Strike! You have successfully eliminated an enemy second-in-command while their leader was still active on the battlefield. All allies gain a temporary +10% morale boost.]
[Runic Power Usage Detected: Unnamed Volatile Construct. Warning: Continued use may result in a fatal Backlash and unpredictable mana corruption. Proceed with caution.]
I ignored the warning. Caution was a luxury for men who weren't fighting for their lives in a primordial swamp. I swayed on my feet, taking a deep, shuddering breath. The whip was still tangled around my vambrace, a dead, leathery snake connecting me to the corpse of its master. I shook my arm, and it fell away.
The sudden, brutal finality of Zog's death acted as a bucket of ice water thrown over the last embers of the battle. The small knot of his loyalists, who had been locked in a death struggle with Gnar's Hobgoblins, faltered. They had seen their champion, their strongest warrior, fall not to a noble blow, but to a strange, quiet touch from the Bigskin wizard. It was magic they couldn't comprehend, a power that defied the simple logic of sharpened steel, and it terrified them more than any axe.
Gnar, ever the pragmatist, exploited their hesitation. His sword, a dark arc of steel, took the head from the nearest goblin. His Hobgoblins, moving with the cold efficiency I'd come to expect, finished the rest in a matter of seconds. Silence fell over our small corner of the battlefield, a pocket of quiet in the dwindling chaos.
Across the compound, the fighting had almost entirely ceased. The sight of Zog's fall was the final straw. It was one thing for your tribe to be betrayed by its leader, another for it to be routed by a superior force. It was something else entirely to watch your last hope be extinguished by a power that felt alien and wrong.
A goblin warrior, his face a mask of terror, dropped his sword with a clatter. He stared at me, his eyes wide, and slowly, hesitantly, he dropped to his knees. A few feet away, another followed his example. Then another. The phenomenon spread like a contagion. Across the muddy, blood-soaked compound, the surviving members of Grob's tribe, dozens of them, threw down their weapons and knelt. It wasn't the organized surrender of a disciplined army; it was the terrified, instinctual submission of a pack that had just seen its alpha torn apart by something new and infinitely more dangerous.
My HP was at 42/115. My mana was a pathetic 35/320. The runic power had taken almost everything I had left. I felt a familiar, faint ache from my soul, the phantom pain of the Soul-Scar left by the Rune of Unraveling. This new power, this focused kinetic strike, was less draining, but it still exacted a toll. It was a tool to be used sparingly.
I forced my legs to move, my boots making sucking sounds in the mud as I walked toward Zog's body. Gnar and his two Hobgoblins fell into formation around me, a moving wall of steel and muscle. I stood over the corpse, my expression a detached, clinical mask. The analysis was automatic. Zog's iron breastplate was caved in, the metal warped and blackened as if from a massive, invisible hammer blow. Beneath it, his entire ribcage had been pulverized into a slurry of bone and tissue. It was brutally, terrifyingly effective.
It was in that moment of quiet assessment that her voice echoed in my mind, a clear, sharp signal cutting through the fog of my exhaustion.
Kale. It's done. Grob is a mess on the wall. The words were pure Elara: efficient, bloody, and tinged with a breathless satisfaction. The den is clear. I found something. Papers. Maps. It's more than we thought.
A wave of profound relief washed through me, so potent it almost brought me to my knees. The second half of my insane gamble had paid off. Elara was alive. The chieftain was dead. We had won.
I pushed back a simple, two-word reply, focusing my will through our bond. Good work.
It was all that was needed.
I lifted my head, my gaze sweeping across the battlefield. The scene was one of total subjugation. My warriors stood among the fallen, their weapons dripping, their chests heaving. Rakka was there, her enchanted cleaver resting on her shoulder, her face a mask of grim, victorious satisfaction as she kicked a corpse at her feet. And everywhere else, there were the survivors of Grob's tribe, a sea of green-skinned bodies kneeling in the mud, their heads bowed. They weren't just defeated. They were broken. They were a resource waiting to be claimed.
This was the moment. An army isn't just forged in training; it's forged in the crucible of a shared, impossible victory. Loyalty isn't just given; it's seized.
I walked to the center of the compound, my boots squelching, until I stood on the highest point of the churned-up ground. Gnar and Rakka saw what I was doing and moved to flank me, their presence a statement of the new order. I held up my right hand. It still held my dagger, a simple, utilitarian blade stained with Zog's lifeblood. It wasn't a grand sword or a mythical axe, but it was the instrument of my will, and in this moment, that was all that mattered.
I raised it high, the steel point aimed at the bruised, weeping sky.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the wind and the distant, mournful drip of water from the swamp trees.
Then, a voice, deep and resonant as a war drum, shattered the silence.
"KALE!"
It was Gnar. He slammed the butt of his sword into the wood of his shield, the sound a sharp, percussive crack. He raised his own blade, a salute to his commander, his Speaker, his Blessed One.
The other five Hobgoblins of my Gutter-Guard, my original converts, answered instantly. They raised their spears and shields in unison, their voices joining Gnar's in a disciplined, hammering chant.
"KALE! KALE! KALE!"
Rakka watched for a half-second, her intelligent eye understanding the raw, political power of the moment. She was a chieftain; she knew how to command loyalty. A cruel, triumphant smile split her face. She raised her own enchanted cleaver, its faint blue light a stark contrast to the grey gloom, and let out a piercing, savage shriek. It wasn't my name, but it was a cry of victory, an endorsement of my power. Her fifty warriors, their blood still up, their bellies full for the first time in weeks, and their minds full of the impossible promise of becoming Hobgoblins themselves, answered her call. They roared, a wave of anarchic, joyous sound, banging their crude weapons against their shields, adding their own savage voices to the chant.
The two sounds, the disciplined roar of my Hobgoblins and the wild cry of Rakka's tribe, merged. They swelled together, washing over the field, over the kneeling, terrified survivors, over the dead and the dying. It was the sound of a new tribe being born, a new army being forged in blood and mud and the strange, terrifying magic of a scholar from another world. They were no longer just allies of convenience. They were my people. They were my weapon. And I stood at the heart of it all, the dagger held high, the cheers a physical force against my skin.
And the first snow of this battlefield was falling.