Orion was no stranger to command. He hadn't been born into power; he'd clawed his way up from nothing, leading armies forged in the crucible of war. But the Abyss operated on a different logic, a brutal calculus that he was still adapting to. The losses against the Doomguard had been a bloody lesson.
Bidalun's warning simply drove the point home. The First Army wasn't like the Scourge Wardens or the Wraith Knights. They weren't constructs of soulfire or reanimated bone; they were living, breathing soldiers. They had needs. They needed food, and they needed an outlet for their desires—desires that, in the Abyss, burned hotter and more fiercely than in any world above.
The infrastructure for the First Army had to be built, and it had to be built now. He knew, with cold certainty, that the vast majority of his future followers would be just like them.
"As you command. Bidalun will not disappoint," the commander vowed.
