Midnight came without ceremony.
No moon.
No stars.
Just clouds hanging low over the valley, turning the world into a lidless dark.
Gilbert stood in the frontmost trench, rifle cradled tight against his shoulder. His shift. Finn slept a few meters behind him, curled awkwardly against the trench wall, helmet still on like a habit he hadn't learned to break yet.
The silence was deafening.
Not peaceful. Not calm.
Empty—like the land itself was holding its breath.
Gilbert peered through one of the narrow firing slits, eyes straining against the black stretch of no man's land. Burnt grass swayed gently in the wind. Craters cast shadows inside shadows. Nothing moved.
His finger rested near the trigger.
Then—
A scream tore through the night.
Not close.
Not distant.
Close enough to be human.
Before his brain caught up, gunfire erupted—sharp, frantic cracks ripping through the darkness.
"CONTACT!" someone shouted down the trench.
Flares screamed into the sky.
The valley exploded into light.
And hell came with it.
From the darkness beyond the slope, hundreds of shapes surged forward—orc silhouettes pouring out of the smoke, charging uphill with terrifying speed. Some wielded axes, spears, jagged blades. Others carried rifles—human rifles—firing wildly as they ran. Explosives arced overhead, clumsy but deadly.
"OPEN FIRE!"
The trenches came alive.
Thousands of rifles roared at once.
Gilbert fired.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
The recoil slammed into his shoulder as flashes lit his vision. Tracers stitched through the night. Shapes fell—some tumbling, some vanishing into smoke, others crawling before disappearing under boots.
The noise was overwhelming.
Gunfire.
Screaming.
Explosions hammering the ground.
An explosive detonated short of the trench, throwing dirt and debris into the air. Gilbert ducked instinctively, ears ringing, then snapped back up and kept firing.
This wasn't training.
No targets.
No reset.
Just bodies charging into bullets and bullets tearing into the dark.
He saw an orc leap into a crater and rise again, bloodied but screaming, only to vanish as concentrated fire cut him down. Another stumbled, tripped over a fallen comrade, and disappeared under the stampede behind him.
Some made it frighteningly close.
Too close.
Shrapnel rattled against the trench wall. Someone screamed nearby—not loud, not dramatic—just a sharp sound that cut off too fast.
Gilbert's breath came hard.
His hands shook.
But he didn't stop firing.
This was the first time he truly understood it.
Not fear.
Not danger.
Horror—the kind that doesn't let you think, only react.
The valley burned with muzzle flashes and firelight, shadows dancing violently as the world collapsed into noise and motion and instinct.
Somewhere to his left, a heavier weapon opened up, chewing through the charge. Somewhere to his right, something exploded inside the no man's land, throwing bodies skyward like broken dolls—no detail, just impact and absence where movement used to be.
Gilbert fired until his rifle clicked empty.
He slammed in a fresh magazine with trembling fingers and raised the weapon again
And the night kept screaming.
The charge didn't slow.
It thickened.
Then the sky itself turned against them.
A shrill whistle cut through the gunfire—
BOOM.
The ground convulsed.
An artillery shell slammed into the valley floor, not caring who stood beneath it. Dirt, fire, and shattered ground erupted upward, swallowing charging orcs and defenders alike.
Another shell followed.
Then another.
The Jakura had begun shelling their own advance.
They didn't care.
Explosions tore through no man's land in violent bursts, ripping open craters where bodies had been seconds earlier. The shockwaves rolled into the trenches, hammering walls, collapsing sections, throwing soldiers off their feet.
Gilbert staggered as a blast went off frighteningly close—so close the air felt like it punched him in the chest. His ears screamed. His vision blurred.
"THEY'RE SHELLING EVERYTHING—!"
Another explosion cut the voice off.
The ground shook again.
A shell landed just behind the trench line, sending debris raining down like knives. Someone screamed Gilbert's name—maybe Finn, maybe not. He couldn't tell anymore.
Then a new sound rose above the chaos.
Closer.
Lower.
A roar of rage and momentum.
Orcs vaulted into the trenches.
Not charging anymore.
Slaughtering.
They came over the edges like demons torn loose from the dark—bloodied, screaming, swinging blades in tight spaces where rifles were awkward and panic spread faster than fire. Gunshots became desperate. Too close. Too fast.
A voice thundered down the line—hoarse, commanding, breaking through the noise.
"RETREAT! FALL BACK! FALL BACK NOW!"
The word hit like a shock.
Soldiers turned.
Too many at once.
The trench became a choke point—boots colliding, bodies slamming together, men and women trying to move through a space that suddenly felt too narrow for breath.
"MOVE—MOVE—!"
Someone fell.
Someone else tripped over them.
Gilbert ran.
He didn't look back.
He vaulted over a collapsed section, heart hammering so hard it drowned out everything else. Smoke burned his lungs. Dirt coated his mouth. The screams blurred into one long, endless sound.
Explosions chased them.
Closer.
Closer.
A shell detonated to his left, throwing him sideways into the trench wall. He slammed into the dirt, scrambled up, and kept running. Survival narrowed his world to one thing: forward.
Then—
A deafening crack.
Light.
Heat.
The world punched him.
An artillery shell exploded directly ahead—far enough that it didn't tear him apart…
close enough that it erased everything else.
The blast hurled him off his feet.
The ground rushed up.
Sound vanished.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Gilbert woke choking on dust.
His ears rang like the world was still breaking apart, a dull, endless hum that refused to fade. For a moment, he didn't know where he was—or who he was. He pushed himself up on trembling arms, body screaming in protest as pain flared everywhere at once.
His rifle was gone.
The trench was gone.
What remained… was aftermath.
He staggered forward, each step unsteady, boots slipping against wet ground. The valley was no longer a battlefield.
It was a grave.
Bodies lay everywhere—human, hybrid—twisted at unnatural angles, uniforms torn, weapons discarded where hands would never reach them again. Blood soaked the dirt, splashed against trench walls, pooled in craters where rain would later pretend nothing happened.
Some soldiers were still, eyes open.
Others were broken in ways training never prepared him for.
Gilbert's breath came shallow.
This wasn't combat.
This was slaughter.
He moved forward without knowing why—drawn by instinct, or shock, or something worse.
Then he heard it.
A voice.
Familiar.
"P-please… please…"
Gilbert turned.
Time fractured.
Finn lay a short distance away, dragging himself across the dirt with desperate, useless motion. What remained of him shook violently as he crawled, crying openly, voice raw and hoarse from screaming too long.
Too much of him was gone.
Gilbert's knees buckled.
He collapsed to the ground, unable to breathe, unable to think, horror crashing into him all at once like a wave that refused to break.
Finn saw him.
His eyes widened with desperate hope.
"GILBERT—HELP ME! PLEASE—HELP ME!"
Again.
And again.
And again.
Gilbert tried to move.
His body didn't listen.
Then the light changed.
A shadow fell over Finn.
Heavy.
Slow.
Footsteps pressed into the earth behind him.
Gilbert looked up.
A massive Jakura orc stood there—towering, broad, its armor stained dark and old. In its grip was a jagged, serrated blade that looked less like a weapon and more like a tool meant for something cruel.
Finn screamed louder.
The orc reached down and lifted him by the hair, yanking his head back with brutal ease. Finn's body thrashed weakly, his cries breaking into wet, desperate sounds as he clawed at nothing.
"NO—NO—PLEASE—!"
Gilbert watched.
Frozen.
Useless.
The blade pressed against Finn's neck.
The orc leaned in.
There was no single strike.
Just a slow, grinding motion.
The sound was what broke Gilbert—not a scream, but a horrible, choking noise that turned into silence piece by piece. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the sound followed him anyway, searing itself into his skull.
When it ended, Finn's body fell.
His head did not.
The orc raised it briefly, blood running down its arm, and performed a ritual Gilbert didn't understand—didn't want to understand—before tossing the remains aside like refuse.
Finn was gone.
Gone like he never mattered.
Gilbert couldn't scream.
He couldn't cry.
His instincts were screaming RUN, but his body still refused.
Then the orc turned.
Its eyes locked onto him.
Slowly, deliberately, it began to walk toward Gilbert.
Each step heavy.
Certain.
The world narrowed to that approaching figure.
Gilbert's heart hammered so violently it hurt.
Move.
Move.
MOVE.
The orc closed the distance.
And finally—finally—
his body remembered how to survive.
The blade began to rise.
Gilbert couldn't breathe.
Couldn't move.
Couldn't even scream.
Then the night howled.
A roar of wind tore through the valley—violent, furious, alive.
"GILBERT!"
Kael came out of the smoke like a storm given a body, eyes wide, face twisted with screaming rage. Wind magic exploded around him, tearing loose dirt and ash from the ground as he thrust both hands forward.
The air itself sharpened.
A massive wind blade screamed across the battlefield.
It struck the Jakura orc mid-motion.
There was no resistance—no dramatic struggle. The force hit like divine judgment, ripping straight through the creature in a violent flash of pressure and sound. The massive form collapsed in two heavy halves that never finished falling the same way.
The threat was gone.
Gilbert barely registered it.
Kael didn't stop.
He grabbed Gilbert by the collar and yanked him upright.
"MOVE! MOVE—NOW!"
Gilbert stumbled, legs numb, mind shattered, but Kael dragged him forward anyway, boots slipping through blood-soaked dirt and debris.
A Jakura orc lunged from the smoke.
BANG.
Kael's pistol barked once—clean, precise. The orc dropped instantly.
Another appeared.
BANG. BANG.
Headshots. No hesitation.
They ran.
Gunfire was everywhere now—constant, overlapping cracks and roars as Velmoran and hybrid forces fought desperately to regain control of the trenches. Bullets tore through the air. Dirt burst upward in violent sprays as rounds struck ground and bodies alike.
Kael shoved Gilbert behind a broken section of earthworks, reloaded without looking, then spotted something worse.
An armed Jakura orc stood over a fallen soldier—already dead—still hacking downward in blind, fanatical fury.
Kael's face hardened.
He dropped the pistol, scooped up an abandoned automatic rifle, and pulled the trigger.
The weapon screamed.
The orc jerked violently under the impact and collapsed, finally still.
Magic lit the battlefield in flashes of color and force.
Fireballs arced overhead, detonating among charging figures. Ice spread across the ground, freezing movement and sending bodies crashing hard. Ground shifting like it's a natural disaster just to keep the enemies away enough for others to get back. Lightning cracked through the smoke, blinding and brutal.
The valley was no longer a place.
It was pure chaos.
Kael grabbed Gilbert again. "DON'T STOP—JUST RUN!"
Gilbert's legs finally obeyed, moving on instinct alone as they sprinted through firelight and shadows, through screams and thunder and the endless noise of a world tearing itself apart.
Behind them, the battle raged without mercy.
Ahead of them—only survival.