The deeper the Seventh Vanguard pushed into Osoroshi, the more the world seemed to reject their presence. The sky here was not black or blue, but a bruised, static-heavy purple. The very soil was spongey and grey, exhaling a miasma that made the Forgemire soldiers' eyes water behind their visors.
"They aren't retreating anymore," Mikaela noted, her voice low. She held her hand out, and a snowflake she conjured turned black and dissolved before it could hit the ground. "The mana here is... fermented. It's rotten."
Kael didn't respond with words. He felt it in his marrow. The Emperor State within him was reacting like a white-hot coal dropped into a swamp, hissing and spitting against the ambient corruption.
As they rounded the bend of the Valley of Shrines, the violet fog suddenly pulled back, like a curtain being drawn by an invisible hand. There, standing before the black-iron gates of the Osoroshi Capital, was the "Military" of the rogue nation.
It was not an army of men. It was an army of experiments.
Row upon row of Grave-Walkers stood in perfect, terrifying silence. These were not the jerky, alchemical guards from the border. These were towering husks of muscle and stitched hide, their armor fused directly into their flesh. Among them were the "Void-Singers"—mages whose mouths had been sewn shut, their magic channeled through the humming resonance of the obsidian staffs they clutched in skeletal fingers.
"Steady!" Kael roared, his voice acting as a pillar of heat for his trembling men. "Shields up! Cinders to the front!"
The Osoroshi military didn't use war cries. They moved as a single, hive-minded organism. The Void-Singers struck their staffs against the ground, and a wave of necrotic sound tore through the air, shattering the first line of Forgemire's steel shields like they were made of glass.
The skirmish turned into a meat-grinder. The Grave-Walkers fought with a suicidal lack of self-preservation, walking through fire and ice to sink their rusted blades into the Forgemire infantry.
Kael was a sun gone rogue. He tore through the center of the formation, his fists vaporizing the stitched flesh of the giants. Beside him, Mikaela was a blizzard, her ice spikes piercing the throats of the Void-Singers to silence their lethal resonance.
"They're just husks!" Mikaela shouted over the din of battle, her silver hair stained with grey ash. "Kael, there's no one driving them from the field!"
Kael looked toward the high, jagged walls of the capital. He saw them then—the shadows standing atop the battlements, watching the slaughter with the cold detachment of scientists observing a petri dish.
As the last of the Grave-Walker front line fell, a booming, distorted voice echoed from the ramparts, silencing the remaining combatants.
"Enough of this clutter," the voice echoed. It was smooth, refined, and utterly devoid of empathy.
Three figures stepped into the light of the violet moon, looking down at Kael and Mikaela.
The Alchemist, Vane: A tall, spindly man wearing a plague doctor's mask made of white bone. His hands were stained a permanent, sickly yellow, and jars of bubbling, iridescent fluid hung from his belt.
The Dirge-Mother, Elara: A woman draped in funeral veils that seemed to move on their own, as if made of smoke. She held a conductor's baton made of a child's femur.
The Iron Lich, Malphas: The center figure. He was encased in heavy, rusted plate armor that leaked a constant stream of black ichor. Unlike Noelle, who hid his malice behind a smile, Malphas radiated a raw, ancient hunger.
"You've come far, Sovereign," Malphas said, his voice a metallic rasp. "Noelle was a dreamer. He wanted to change the world. We? We simply want to see how much of it we can take apart before it stops screaming."
Vane chuckled, the sound muffled by his mask. "Look at them, Mother. The fire-boy and the frost-girl. Such exquisite specimens. I wonder... how many Grave-Walkers could I make out of one Emperor?"
Kael stepped forward, his knuckles white-hot, his eyes locked on Malphas. "You won't get the chance to find out."
The Iron Lich raised a gauntleted hand, and the ground beneath the Seventh Vanguard began to heave. "Welcome to Osoroshi, Kael the destroyer. We've been waiting to add your heart to our collection."