They were still running.
The deeper they got into the village, the stranger it became. The houses here were tighter, crammed close, almost sheltering them with narrow paths and walls they could slip behind.
But they weren't alone.
Behind them, the rot-born still followed—some slower now, limping from injuries, others crawling with twisted limbs. Some burst through nearby homes, their weight collapsing thin walls and wooden doors as if hunting by instinct. Every few minutes, the crew would stop to catch breath—only to hear more groans, more shuffling feet, more snarls. So they kept moving.
"Why aren't they dropping?" Reva hissed, stabbing her blade through the chest of one infected that had cornered them in a tight alley. "That should've stopped it!"
"It did," Cael said, panting. "Ten minutes ago."
He pointed to a corpse they had taken down earlier—now gone from where it had fallen.
Torric grunted. "I hit one through the eye. Didn't move. Came back ten minutes later. Swear to it."
"They don't stay dead," Ravik growled. "Not unless you tear them apart."
Nyric nodded grimly. "I shot a couple clean through the heart. They dropped, yeah—but just for a while. Then they twitched. Then they stood."
"So what works?" Fen asked, ducking under a smashed archway. "Decapitation?"
"Maybe," Ravik answered. "Or breaking every damn limb they've got."
Reva cursed. "That's not exactly sustainable!"
But there was no time to test more theories. They kept moving—past collapsed houses, through alleys choked with dust, and over fallen signs. The rot-bearers were everywhere, but they were thinning. Some wandered alone now, isolated from the swarm. Others feasted on what was left of unlucky survivors.
The crew pushed forward, taking sharp turns, trying to stay out of sight. But the roads twisted—and suddenly, they stopped.
Cael stepped out from between two buildings... and froze.
"No," he muttered.
They had gone in a wide circle—right back to the village square.
The place where the Great Healing had begun.
The wide clearing was soaked in ash, scorched from the explosion that destroyed the altar. And now it was worse.
Hundreds of them.
Civilians. Knights. Mages. Priests.
All rot-born.
The once-ornate banners were torn down, the Aetherstone pillars cracked and scorched. Dozens of infected limped, twitched, or stood perfectly still—waiting. Watching. As if something in them still remembered this place.
Cael took a step back, his grip tightening on his sword.
"This is it," Nyric whispered. "We're done."
Then—
A loud, thunderous scream.
The ground shook as a massive warhorse barreled into the square, its rider cloaked in bloodstained armor, a halberd made from a full chunk of raw metal slashing down like thunder.
Commander Thorne.
He carved through the rot-born like they were straw—each sweep of his weapon tearing clean through limbs and bone. His halberd struck with such force it sent chunks of infected flying.
And behind him—a squad of soldiers.
Maybe twenty strong. Some armored, some just in torn uniforms. A few barefoot. But all fighting.
Some bore swords, others spears. A few archers ducked behind broken carts, sniping infected mages before they could cast.
Even the undead mages weren't safe—Nyric watched an infected pyromancer get dropped by a well-placed arrow straight through its throat, disrupting the spell it was forming.
One soldier was dragging a long iron club and smashing anything that twitched.
"Holy hells," Reva gasped. "They're holding the square."
"We're not alone," Cael said, almost breathless.
Ravik finally cracked a grin. "About time someone did something."
For the first time since the chaos began… they weren't running.
They stepped out from the alley, bloodied but breathing, weapons still drawn—watching as Commander Thorne's halberd spun again, taking the head off a former knight now crawling toward him.
And though the rot still spread, for a moment
There was hope.