Page 162 of Haunted Crowns
The sky churned with wrath. Clouds spiraled, as if the heavens recoiled from what was coming. Lightning cracked through thedark, divine veins split open as thunder rolled, not as warning but as requiem. The iron gates of the Obsidian Citadel groaned open. They moved slowly and deliberately, a mouth of blackened steel releasing the beast within.
From the fortress depths, they emerged. A procession of silent nightmares, marching like executioners. At first, only shadows moved. Then the front line advanced, a tide of darkness spilling across the valley. Their armor drank the stormlight, black as void.
They carried curved obsidian blades, talons forged to flay flesh. Though born of advanced technology, they fought with steel, as no bullet could end a Firstblood. Only the old way remained—steel to neck, soul undone. Their visors were smooth and black, mirror-like masks reflecting a world already dying. They were not men. They were inevitability, and they came in thousands. Not an army, but a sentence.
Lightning tore across the sky, revealing three forces in stillness: the Obsidian tide approaching, the Dragov line holding, and the Lycans, wild and ready.
Stephan had envisioned this moment a thousand times. He had planned it, etched it into his bones. They were outnumbered, but war was never won by numbers. Victory belonged to the one who commanded the field, and today, that was him.
He exhaled, one breath against the cold. His fingers tightened around Sanguine Oath. The blade hummed, hunger hardened into steel.
Then, without a word, he raised his hand, and the storm answered.
The Lycans moved first, not with order, but with fury. A wave of primal violence swept the field.
Bare feet struck frost. Claws flashed like obsidian blades.
To the Obsidian Order, it looked like chaos—a wild, reckless charge.
But that was the trap.
A hundred howls rose, shaking the valley’s bones. The enemy responded. Bolts screamed from precision launchers. Artillery units fired, their payloads exploding in fire and steel, spewing destruction into the charge. Flames lit the valley as explosions tore through the ground, screams rising while snow melted into molten ash.
Then the Lycans vanished.
They moved through the fire like smoke, dodging, weaving, owning the battlefield. By the time the Obsidian Order saw the truth, it was too late.
Stephan did not blink. Artillery thundered. The battlefield burned, but still he waited. He waited for the overreach, the opening, the moment to end them. Then it arrived.
The Obsidian Order surged forward, committed to the illusion of retreat.
Stephan raised his hand. From behind the second line, Dragov cavalry thundered into motion.
Steel hooves cracked ice. Lances dropped like lightning, brutal and precise. They struck with precision, cutting into the exposed flank like a blade through flesh.
The enemy line broke as screams tore through the field. Armor split, and bodies fell beneath warhorses. The wall of the Obsidian Order buckled.
Stephan did not smile. There was no victory yet, only the moment to finish what he had forged.
The battlefield was a weapon, and Stephan had spent weeks carving it with surgical intent.
Now it delivered.
The Order stumbled, boots slipping on ice, legs vanishing into hidden trenches. Barricades forced them inward, their formation collapsing into kill zones. There, the Lycans waited. They did not fight like soldiers. They attacked like predators.
Claws ripped through armor. Fangs tore flesh. Blood covered the frostbitten ground.
This was no longer war. It was slaughter.
The Obsidian Order retaliated. Flamethrowers ignited, sweeping columns of fire across the battlefield—engineered heat meant to incinerate Firstbloods on contact.
Stephan was ready.
"Shields!" he commanded, his voice sharp through the chaos.
The front ranks raised silver-forged composites, lined with cryothermic plating to absorb high-temperature assault. Flames struck the frost-lined shields and died. Steam rolled across the field, thick and smothering.
Then the Firstbloods advanced. Swords met Obsidian steel. For a moment, steel against steel was the only sound the storm allowed.
