The night fractured, yielding to a hellish symphony of madness and destruction played at maximum volume.
The first, loudest crescendo of this movement erupted from the eastern flank of the camp at the exact moment the northwest inferno painted the sky a vivid, bleeding crimson.
"Awoo—!"
"Kill!"
"For the Leader! For Blackwood Fortress! Slit the throats of these human scum!"
Hask, the colossal werewolf looking like a rabid, armor-clad bear atop his massive Snow Giant Wolf, Bonebreaker, was the first to unleash a thunderous war cry. It was a sound saturated with endless violence and primeval battle lust. He held his great war blade high—its dark steel already permanently stained by the lifeblood of a dozen scouts—offering it like a fanatic presenting a sacrament to a god of slaughter.
Behind him, a hundred elite Wolf Riders, who had suppressed their bloodlust to the absolute limit, let out answering roars that made the very ridges tremble.
Driving their giant wolves forward, they did not commit to a reckless, suicidal charge. Instead, they deployed into a sweeping, highly oppressive skirmish line, galloping frantically back and forth along the open ground some two hundred paces from the camp's palisades. Illuminated by the flickering, demonic glow of the distant fire, they rhythmically beat their heavy axes against their iron shields, creating a rhythmic, deafening rumble that mimicked the thunder of ten thousand hooves or a relentless battery of war drums.
The Snow Giant Wolves caught the fever of their masters' malice, throwing back their heads to join the chorus with long, spine-chilling howls that pierced the heavens.
Simultaneously, the riders' heavy repeating crossbows, wound tight and lethal, began to hiss in an unbroken rhythm.
Whiz—whiz—whiz—whiz!
Hundreds of cold iron bolts rained down like a swarm of startled black hornets, pouring unsparingly into the fortified eastern gates and tearing through the unlucky defenders who were scrambling onto the watchtowers to assess the northwest fire.
These bolts did not seek surgical precision; their sole mandate was to inflict maximum visual and auditory terror. They slammed densely into the wooden beams and barricades with a dull, rapid thud-thud-thud, creating the terrifying illusion that a massive archer division was conducting indiscriminate area-of-effect fire.
This sudden, deafening "siege" was the final blow to the garrison's fragile nerves. Already buckling under the weight of the apocalyptic fire in the northwest and the earthquakes caused by thousands of stampeding warhorses within their own walls, the camp reached a fever pitch of panic.
"Enemy assault! From the east! A massive host is at the eastern gate!"
"No! The west is burning to ashes! Get water! Put out the fire!"
"The horses! God protect us, the horses have gone mad! Run!"
"Where is the commander?! Where are the Centurions?!"
The sprawling fortress had turned into a boiling cauldron of chaos. Countless soldiers, acting like headless flies, ran aimlessly through the labyrinth of tents, their terrified faces illuminated by the blood-red canopy above. Officers screamed themselves hoarse trying to rally their cohorts, but their voices were instantly swallowed by the roar of the gale, the frantic shrieks of dying beasts, and the desperate wails of the trampled. Their authority was utterly powerless.
And while the symphony of panic raged on the eastern flank... in the deep, consuming dark along the natural throat connecting the burning depot to the main camp, the true, silent reaper of the night bared his fangs.
Colin lay low against the broad back of his majestic alpha wolf, Mu. His expression was a mask of cold stone as his mental interface flared, the silent notification of incoming Kill Points scrolling continuously through his consciousness.
He and the one hundred and thirty-six Wolf Riders behind him were frozen like a pack of apex predators, perfectly concealed within the jagged shadows of the ravine flanking the path. They waited for the prey to step into the mouth of the vice.
They didn't have to wait long.
A disjointed, panicked rabble of human soldiers came rushing down the road from the unhurt sectors of the main camp. Most were poorly equipped slave-hunters who were used to brutalizing defenseless peasants, alongside fragmented units of light infantry who had been dragged from their beds, their eyes still cloudy with sleep and terror. Their objective was clear: either reinforce the eastern walls or attempt to extinguish an inferno that was already beyond salvation.
They ran blindly, clutching torches that cast dancing shadows across the road, completely oblivious to the hundred pairs of cold, unblinking eyes watching them from the dark.
The moment a dense cluster of three to four hundred men fully entered the kill zone, Colin slowly raised his left hand.
Then, he cut it down.
Hum—!
The simultaneous release of one hundred and thirty-seven heavy repeating crossbows tore through the air with a coordinated, scalp-numbing hum—the literal buzz of a reaper's scythe. A lethal wall of iron bolts swept out from the silent hillsides like a poisonous gale straight out of the underworld.
Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff!
The sound of iron severing flesh, muscle, and bone was sickeningly uniform.
The left flank of the human column, entirely exposed and marching without shields raised, was sheared in half as if by an invisible giant. Dozens of vanguard soldiers dropped instantly without a sound, their bodies falling backward like wheat before a thresher. The heavy bolts punched through crude leather armor, erupting in beautiful, tragic geysers of hot blood from chests, throats, and faces.
Death arrived with absolute silence, and terrifying efficiency. But it was only the prelude.
"Charge!"
Colin's voice cut through the dark, cold as the ice of the deep north.
"Awoo—!"
The collective roar of one hundred and thirty-seven alpha wolves shook the valley, thick with hunger and bloodlust. In the next breath, the earth bucked violently. The Wolf Riders erupted from the shadows like a legion of vengeful demons, slamming into the waist of the human column before the survivors could even register the arrow rain.
If Hask's feint was the loud, distracting percussion of this night, Colin's charge was the true, overriding melody. It was a song composed of iron, blood, and the harvest of souls.
Colin anchored the tip of the spear.
His monstrous physical attributes, honed by brutal evolution, found their perfect, unrestrained expression. He was a god of ruin stepped fresh from the pages of ancient myth. Mu's massive, muscular frame acted as a high-speed battering ram, plowing into the human ranks with savage, uncompromising momentum. Soldiers blocking his path were either launched into the air like broken dolls or torn to ribbons by the wolf's iron-hard claws.
In Colin's grip, his specialized greatsword became a black whirlwind of slaughter. He eschewed all elegant forms, relying entirely on raw, crushing strength and a velocity that defied human reaction to deliver fundamental, apocalyptic cleaves.
A human officer, wearing the plume of a Centurion, had just managed to steady himself after the initial volley. He was roaring, trying to physically drag his terrified men into a defensive wall.
Colin's eyes, tracking like a falcon's, locked onto the officer's helm.
Ignoring the rank-and-file soldiers who scrambled out of his way like startled vermin, he forced a straight, arrogant line directly toward the commander.
Puchi!
He swung the greatsword in a casual, backhanded arc to his left. Three infantrymen trying to intercept him with spears were sheared in half, weapons and all. Their torsos spun through the air, spraying a red mist of blood and viscera over their dying comrades, while their legs remained standing for a fraction of a second before collapsing.
"Out of my way!" Colin bellowed, his voice laced with an unnatural, commanding resonance.
Mu reared up on its hind legs, its massive front paws—capped with black, armored scales—crushing down like twin iron anvils. Two slave-hunters trying to flank the beast were instantly pulverized into an unrecognizable slurry of flesh, their cheap scimitars flattened beneath the wolf's weight.
In the next instant, Colin materialized directly before the Centurion, whose face had gone pasty with absolute terror, his knees buckling beneath him.
Without spare thought for the man's despair, Colin flicked his wrists upward. The movement was so blindingly fast it left an afterimage in the firelight.
The Centurion's head, still encased in its plumed helmet, flew into the air like a stone hurled from a siege engine, tracing a high, crimson arc through the night. From the severed neck, a pillar of hot blood erupted meters high like a macabre fountain, glistening brilliantly under the reflection of the burning camp.
Colin did not linger to admire the kill. His gaze, scanning the battlefield with the clinical precision of a reaper's radar, sought the next high-value target.
Behind him, the Twelve Wolf Guards formed a tight, impenetrable wedge with their leader at the apex. They were the razor-sharp teeth of the scythe, moving in perfect, telepathic synchronization. Wherever they passed, life ceased to exist.
One guard used the thick iron boss of his round shield to deflect three simultaneous spear thrusts, his right hand whipping his war blade out like a striking serpent, slitting the throats of all three attackers in a single, fluid motion. Another guard commanded his wolf to leap high over a row of shields, crashing into a desperate light infantry square. The sheer weight of the impact shattered the formation instantly, turning a tactical engagement into a one-sided slaughter—a wolf loosed among sheep.
This was no longer a battle. It was a systematic gathering of grain. A flawless, highly optimized harvest of death executed to the cadence of a dying army.