Chapter 5 First Harvest

The scouts charged straight at them, torches blazing and swords raised high.

“Undead!” one of them screamed, voice cracking with terror. “Voss is one of them now! Kill it!”

Darius didn’t wait. Power surged through his limbs as the first scout swung at him. He moved faster than he ever had in life, sidestepping the blade and slamming his fist into the man’s chest. Bones cracked under the blow. The scout flew backward and crashed into the mud.

“What are you?” another scout yelled, thrusting his sword at Darius’s face.

Darius caught the blade with his bare hand. The edge cut into his palm, but no blood flowed. Only dark, dry lines appeared on his leathery skin. “Your masters made me this,” he rasped. “Now you pay for it.”

He twisted the sword from the man’s grip and drove it straight through his throat. The scout gurgled, eyes wide with shock, before dropping to his knees.

Rhen moved beside him with unnatural smoothness. “Orders, Commander?” he asked, that faint dry smile still on his face.

“Take them down,” Darius said. “No mercy.”

Rhen lunged at the nearest scout. His movements were jerky yet brutally efficient. He grabbed the man by the helmet and slammed his head against a nearby rock with a sickening crunch. “Still got the touch,” Rhen muttered as he let the body fall. “Feels different though.”

Darius didn’t have time to dwell on it. Two more scouts rushed him together, fear making their attacks wild. He ducked under the first swing and drove his elbow into one man’s ribs, shattering them. The second scout tried to stab him in the back. Darius spun and caught the blade again, then headbutted the man so hard his nose exploded in a spray of blood.

The pain in his body felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. Every strike reminded him how wrong he was now. His joints creaked. His strength felt endless but hollow. He wasn’t fighting as a man anymore. He was something else.

“Stay back!” the last two scouts shouted, raising their torches like weapons. “The Order will burn you!”

Darius stepped forward. “The Order helped bury me. Your turn.”

One scout swung his torch at Darius’s face. The flames licked his skin, but he barely felt the heat. He grabbed the man’s arm and snapped it like dry wood. The scout screamed. Darius silenced him with a brutal punch that caved in his chest.

The final scout turned to run, dropping his sword in panic. “Please! I was just following orders!”

Rhen cut him off, grabbing him from behind. “Orders got us all killed once,” Rhen said quietly. “Now it’s your turn to die.”

Darius walked up slowly. He looked the terrified man in the eyes. “Tell me who ordered the betrayal. Who touched my wife?”

The scout shook his head, tears streaming down his face. “I don’t know! Lord Merrick… the inquisitors… that’s all I heard!”

Darius placed his hand on the man’s head. “Then you’re useless to me.”

He squeezed. The scout’s skull cracked under his fingers. The body went limp.

Silence fell over the battlefield again.

Darius stood among the fresh corpses, breathing though he no longer needed to. Rhen wiped his hands on his torn uniform and looked at him.

“You okay, Commander?” Rhen asked, voice carrying that old dry tone mixed with something colder. “You hit harder than before. Almost didn’t recognize your style.”

Darius turned to him. “You remember… everything?”

“Bits and pieces,” Rhen replied with a small shrug. “I remember fighting beside you. Remember the arrows. Remember you calling my name. Feels like I should be angry, but it’s all distant now. Like watching someone else’s life.”

The words disturbed Darius more than he wanted to admit. He had brought his friend back, but this wasn’t the same Rhen. Not fully.

Before he could speak, the System activated.

[First soul harvest initiated.]

A cold pull tugged at Darius’s core. The dead scout’s body began to glow with faint dark energy. It flowed into Darius like smoke, filling the empty space inside him. Power rushed through his veins, stronger than before.

Then the memory hit him.

A woman screamed as royal soldiers dragged her away from their home. She fought desperately, reaching back toward him. Her face was clear, beautiful, fierce, eyes full of love and fear. He knew that face. He knew it in his bones.

But the name wouldn’t come.

Elyra? Was that her? Why couldn’t he remember?

The vision faded as quickly as it came, leaving Darius standing frozen among the bodies.

Rhen tilted his head. “Commander? You just went still. What happened?”

Darius clenched his fists, the green glow in his empty sockets flaring brighter. Revenge no longer felt like a distant goal. It burned cold and sharp inside him now.

He looked down at the dead scouts, then at Rhen.

“This is only the beginning,” he said quietly. “They took everything from me. I will take their kingdom apart piece by piece.”

The System pulsed again in his mind.

[Soul harvested. Power increased. First thrall bond strengthened.]

Darius turned toward the distant lights of the kingdom border. The hollow place inside him hungered for more.

But that woman’s scream echoed in his thoughts. He knew her. He just couldn’t remember her name.