The moon was having a rough time pulling through a thick wall of clouds, occasionally casting down a few miserable strands of pale light like the God of Death offering a pitying shrug.
At the edge of Blackwood Forest, everything was dead silent, save for the low, ghost-like whistle of the north wind tearing through the trees.
In this pitch-black void, a unit of two hundred and ninety-six riders glided forward like literal phantoms. No torches, no shouting, no armor clinking. The Snow Giant Wolves and warhorses beneath them were natural night-walkers; their heavy paws and hooves trod upon the snow and dead leaves with a faint, negligible rustle that the wind swallowed instantly.
Colin led the pack, his tall, jacked-up frame completely merging into the shadows alongside his massive white wolf, Mo. He didn't bother looking back. With his newly evolved, superhuman senses, he could clearly map out the exact heartbeat and breathing pattern of every single cavalryman behind him.
It was an absolute, beautiful silence born from flawless discipline.
Suddenly, at the very front of the line, a Fox-folk scout raised his left hand, fingers splayed, before slamming it into a tight fist. Enemy ahead.
The entire unit stopped on a dime. No bumping into each other, no panicked whispering. In less than a second, they became a static part of the forest scenery, indistinguishable from the rocks and dead wood.
Colin peered through the darkness.
About a hundred human light cavalry were moving lazily along the forest edge. They were laughing, whispering, and clearly treating this like a boring night shift. The heavy snorting of their horses and the loud crack of hooves snapping dry branches echoed far into the night.
These were Isabelle's advance scouts. In their minds, this cursed forest was completely safe. They firmly believed no "Sinner" tribe would ever have the suicidal audacity to launch an offensive.
The corner of Colin's mouth curled into a cold, merciless arc.
Without a word, he raised his hand and flashed a few quick, non-verbal signals. The orders dissolved through the ranks like liquid ink. Hask and his two hundred Wolf Riders melted sideways into the deeper brush, vanishing entirely. Reze and his sixty Forest Trackers ghosted around to flank the direction the patrol was heading.
Colin stayed right where he was with his Twelve Wolf Guards, waiting like the apex predators they were.
The human patrol drew closer. Colin could hear the friction of their leather saddles, the boring military tunes they hummed to pass the time, and see the heavy white plumes of their breath.
Just as the two leading riders stepped right into Colin's kill zone—
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Two incredibly faint, whistle-free arrows—specifically modified by Deer-folk archers to remove the fletching noise—shot out from the dark left flank. The lead riders didn't even get to gasp before arrows punched directly into the exposed gaps between their helmets and neck guards. They thudded into the snow, dead before they hit the ground.
"Enemy attack!!" an officer shrieked.
But the shout barely cleared his throat before it was violently cut off.
"AWOOOOOO—!"
Dozens of massive Snow Giant Wolves erupted from the right brush like heat-seeking missiles. They didn't even go for the men; they went straight for the warhorses.
Faced with a pack of literal prehistoric apex predators, the horses' survival instincts completely short-circuited. They let out terrified, high-pitched whinnies, rearing back frantically and tossing their riders onto the hard ground. Those who stayed mounted were worse off; the giant wolves easily ripped open the horses' throats and bellies mid-stride, sending horse and rider rolling into explosive pools of blood.
It was instantaneous, unmitigated chaos. In less than five seconds, the human patrol completely lost their status as "cavalry."
And then Colin joined the party.
"Kill," he whispered.
Thirteen black blurs shot into the screaming, disorganized pile of men like cannonballs.
Colin targeted the shouting officer. Mo's speed was entirely unhinged now. Just as the officer scrambled to his feet and fumbled for his hilt, Colin was already on him. He didn't even waste the energy drawing his heavy sword; he just reached out with his left hand as he blurred past.
His hand—now acting like a hydraulic vice—clamped onto the man's throat.
CRACK.
A beautiful, clean bone-shattering snap. The terror in the officer's eyes froze permanently as his light went out. It was efficient, brutal, and held a weird, violent aesthetic.
The Twelve Wolf Guards were essentially lawnmowers in a field of grass. Their blades traced cold, lethal arcs through the dark, each swing generating a fountain of hot blood.
It wasn't a skirmish; it was a one-sided slaughter. From the first arrow to the last human being split in half by Hask's blade, the entire engagement took less than sixty seconds.
The clearing reeked of copper and fresh blood.
"Clean it up," Colin ordered, his voice flat. "Drag the bodies deep. Kill the injured horses."
The warriors moved like clockwork, burying the evidence and masking the tracks under the fresh snow. Afterward, Colin pulled the unit back into a hidden, dense thicket for a quick breather. The giant wolves greedily tore into the warm horse meat to refuel, while the warriors chewed on raw rations, their nerves still wound tight as guitar strings. They knew this hundred-man patrol was just the appetizer.
Colin didn't sit down. He stood beneath a towering pine, his eyes locked on the distant horizon, which was glowing as bright as day from countless fires.
That was the human main camp. Isabelle's playground.
"Hask."
"Chief," Hask materialized behind him like a shadow.
"Take the Wolf Guards. We're going for a walk."
A few minutes later, fourteen phantoms slipped out of the staging area, creeping toward a steep ridge that overlooked the entire human encampment. It was the only commanding high ground for miles, and Colin knew Isabelle's captains weren't stupid enough to leave it empty.
Sure enough, as they slithered up the base of the hill, the faint moonlight revealed a small campfire with weak, suppressed flames at the summit. A dozen silhouettes were pacing around. A standard lookout squad.
"Standard drill," Hask signaled, preparing the guards to split and launch a thunderous pincer strike.
But right as they were about to move, Colin snapped his hand up, freezing them in place. Hask blinked, confused.
Colin didn't explain. He just pointed toward the pitch-black, seemingly empty bushes and boulders surrounding the hill, then made a sharp "throat-slitting" gesture.
After his last encounter with Roland's hyper-disciplined elites in the canyon, Colin had permanently maxed out his paranoia regarding regular human military tactics. He knew what he was looking at was bait. Around those obvious, campfire-warming sentries, hidden deep in the blind spots, were the real eyes of the camp.
Hask and the guards got the message instantly, a collective chill running down their spines. If their boss hadn't stopped them, they would have charged the campfire, walked right into the crosshairs of the hidden scouts, and blown the entire operation before it even started.
The level of fanatical awe in their eyes climbed another notch.
What followed was a masterclass in stealth—a literal dance on the edge of a razor.
Colin took the left flank himself. Thanks to his jacked Constitution and Agility, he glided through the dark with the weightless grace of a massive cat. He didn't even bother crawling; he just timed his movements perfectly with the blind spots of the campfire's flicker, moving with a speed that looked casual but was terrifyingly fast.
His first target was a human scout camouflaged in a bush, holding a loaded crossbow. The guy was covered in leaves and perfectly blended into the brush.
Too bad for him, his nervous, rapid breathing sounded like a foghorn to Colin's supernatural ears.
Colin materialized behind him like a bad dream. Just as the soldier felt a sudden draft and started to turn his head, a massive hand clamped over his mouth, turning his warning shriek into a muffled, desperate mmph.
In the same fluid motion, Colin's dagger bit mercilessly into the side of the man's neck, followed by a violent, horizontal rip. Blood jetted out, caught entirely by Colin's palm. The soldier convulsed for a brief second before going completely limp.
Colin laid the cooling corpse into the snow without making a single sound, then looked up for his next victim.
In the other quadrants, Hask and the guards were executing their own silent, bloody symphony. They worked in perfect pairs. One would create a microscopic distraction—tapping a pebble against a tree or mimicking a night bird—and the moment the hidden sentry shifted his gaze, the second guard would strike from the dark.
The faint shhh of steel sliding through windpipes, the dull thwip of blades piercing hearts, and the brief, frantic struggles of dying men echoed softly across the hill.
One. Two. Five. Ten. A total of twelve hidden sentries were systematically deleted from the map before they even realized they were under attack.
When the last body was dragged into the weeds, Hask flashed the "all clear" sign.
Colin nodded, his eyes shifting to the dozen "visible" targets still chatting and complaining about the cold around the campfire. With their security system entirely uninstalled, these guys were just lambs waiting for the butcher.
Fourteen black shadows erupted from the tree line.
They crossed the remaining distance so fast it defied human reaction times. Colin locked onto the squad leader. The exact millisecond the captain realized something was wrong and opened his mouth to scream, Colin literally appeared in his face.
The sixty-eight-catty heavy sword was already mid-swing. The massive, thick blade tore through the air with a horrific, metallic whistle. No flashy techniques. No variations. Just pure, unadulterated, mountain-crushing power.
The captain's upper torso, armor and all, was sliced through like wet tissue paper. His top half separated instantly, flying several meters through the air before slamming into the snow in a messy explosion of blood and entrails.
By the time Colin sheathed his blade, the rest of the hill was dead silent. The guards had cleared their targets with the exact same ruthless efficiency.
Colin walked to the edge of the ridge, casually wiping the blood off his blade using the jacket of a dead soldier who was still staring blankly at the sky. Then, he looked down.
Even for a battle-hardened Swordmaster, the view below was enough to make a normal person choke on pure despair.
Spreading out from the base of his hill was a colossal, seemingly infinite military camp—a hideous steel leviathan crouching over the plains. Hundreds of tents stretched out for miles like a twisted constellation. Thousands of campfires illuminated the entire valley, turning the midnight sky into a fiery amber glow.
He could see organized grids of spearmen marching down the main paths. At the outskirts, he could see massive wooden cages where thousands of captured "Sinners" were huddled together, shivering in the cold. And right at the dead center, heavily fortified by layers of steel and guard towers, was a massive command tent that completely dwarfed the rest.
Isabelle's lair.
Hask stepped up beside him, taking in the view. For the first time in his life, the veteran werewolf warrior felt his throat go completely dry.
"Leader... this... there's got to be at least ten thousand of them," he whispered, his voice tight.
Colin didn't say a word.
He just stood there in the freezing wind, his hawk-like eyes scanning the massive, impregnable fortress of tents below with the cold, calculative greed of a master hunter.
He was looking for a crack. One single, fatal flaw in the armor of the steel beast.