[Lithuanian Borderlands, October 1878]
Rawrrrr!
The Velnias beast screamed across the battlefield.
That sound still made Marcus's skin crawl even after two years of killing these abominations. He slammed his back against the fortress wall, trying to catch his breath. His sword dripped with black blood. Everything smelled like rot and death.
"Marcus! Left flank!"
Lukas yelled. Marcus moved before he even thought about it. That's what two years of fighting together does to you. You don't think, you just trust.
He spun and his blade was already cutting through the air. The beast looked like a wolf if wolves were made of nightmares. Too many eyes. Flesh that smelled rot. It lunged and Marcus drove his sword through its skull. The thing burst into ash and shadow.
"Good kill!" Lukas ran up beside him, blood splattered across his face but grinning like an idiot. "Thought that one had you."
"Not with you watching my back." Marcus grabbed his friend's shoulder. They'd survived countless major battles together. Countless times they should have died. "How many more?"
"Captain's clearing the upper flank. I can smell victory from here." Lukas surveyed the carnage around them. Their friends lay dead across the stone floor. Good men reduced to corpses. "King wasn't lying about this place being a complete shitshow."
Marcus nodded grimly. Three days ago, King Alexander had summoned them both to the capital personally. They were among the finest knights in all of Lithuania, handpicked for this impossible mission. The Velnias had overrun a critical fortress on the eastern border. Retake it, the king had commanded, and I'll reward you with gold and something worth far more than mere coin.
The way Lukas's eyes had gleamed at those words. Marcus remembered that hungry look. He should have paid more attention to it.
"Let's finish this," Marcus said, rolling his shoulders. "I'm sick of eating dried meat and sleeping on cold stone."
They pushed deeper into the fortress, stepping over beast corpses and fallen comrades. More death. More destruction. The king had sent two hundred and fifty soldiers on this mission. Marcus counted maybe twenty still breathing.
The command chamber loomed ahead. Its massive doors hung in splinters from broken hinges. This was where the previous garrison commander had made his final stand. Where the beast nest would be thickest and most dangerous.
"Ready?" Lukas asked, adjusting his grip on his bloodied blade.
Marcus looked at his friend. Those familiar brown eyes that had laughed with him around countless campfires. Eyes that had watched his back through two brutal years of endless combat. Eyes he trusted more than his own instincts.
Marcus smirked. "Always."
They charged through the shattered doors together.
The chamber erupted into absolute chaos. Beasts everywhere. Smaller scout types, but dozens upon dozens of them, pouring from every shadow like a living tide of nightmares. Marcus's sword became an extension of his will. Cut, parry, dodge, strike, kill. Beside him, Lukas fought with identical deadly precision. Two years of combat had synchronized them into a perfect fighting unit.
"There!" Lukas shouted above the screeching, pointing his blade toward the far wall. "The nest core! Destroy that and they'll scatter!"
Marcus saw it immediately. A pulsing mass of corrupted darkness writhing against the stone. The source. The anchor point spawning these abominations. Destroy it and the mission would finally be complete. They'd return as heroes. The king would shower them with gold, lands, titles, everything they'd ever dreamed of. They could finally stop fighting this endless war and actually live.
"Cover me!" Marcus roared, breaking into a dead sprint across the blood-soaked chamber.
He didn't see Lukas hesitate behind him.
Didn't see his friend's expression shift from determination to something far colder.
Didn't see the blade rising in betrayal.
Marcus raised his sword high for the killing blow against the nest core. Victory was mere seconds away. They'd actually done it. They'd survived the impossible and won. They'd…
White-hot agony exploded through his back.
Air vanished from his lungs. His sword clattered uselessly to the floor. Marcus looked down in numb disbelief and saw a blade protruding from his chest, slick with his own blood. Steel he recognized instantly. He'd watched Lukas sharpen that blade a thousand times.
The sword twisted cruelly, then withdrew.
Marcus collapsed to his knees, hand pressed desperately against the gushing wound. So much blood. Far too much blood.
"Arrggh!"
He clamored in agony, the sound raw and animalistic.
He turned his head slowly, not wanting to see but needing to know the truth.
Lukas stood there with Marcus's blood dripping steadily from his blade.
"Why?" The word came out as barely a whisper.
Lukas's face remained eerily calm. That's what made the betrayal so much worse. Not anger, not battle madness, not possession. Just cold, calculated calm. This had been planned all along.
"The king didn't send us both, Marcus." Lukas methodically wiped the blade clean on a torn royal banner. "He sent me. You were just insurance in case I failed the mission."
"We're brothers," Marcus choked out, tasting he's own blood.
"We were friends," Lukas corrected, his voice empty of emotion. "But the king made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Your lands. Your title. Your position at court. Everything you had. All I had to do was ensure you died here, heroically, fighting beasts. A tragic hero's death. Everyone wins." He paused, tilting his head. "Well. Almost everyone."
The surviving beasts were fleeing now, sensing their nest's vulnerability. Lukas stepped over Marcus's crumpled form like he was already a corpse and drove his blade deep into the pulsing core. It shrieked and dissolved into nothingness.
They'd won the battle.
Marcus tried desperately to stand, to fight, to do anything, but his body refused to obey. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading across ancient stone. Around him, the surviving soldiers emerged from their individual battles, cheering wildly at the nest's destruction.
"Captain!" someone shouted jubilantly. "Lukas destroyed the core! We've won!"
"Where's Marcus?" another voice called out with growing concern.
Lukas turned to face the troops, and his expression transformed instantly. Perfect grief twisted his features. "He… he saved my life. Took a beast's claws that were meant for me. He's…" His voice broke convincingly, years of practiced deception on full display. "Marcus is dead. He died a hero."
Liar. LIAR!
Marcus tried to scream the truth, tried to expose the betrayal, but only blood bubbled from his lips. His vision darkened rapidly at the edges. The soldiers surrounded Lukas, congratulating him on the victory while mourning their fallen hero Marcus.
None of them knew the truth.
None of them would ever know.
Lukas glanced back one final time, meeting Marcus's fading eyes. No guilt. No remorse. No humanity. Just cold, empty calculation.
"It was always supposed to end like this, old friend."
The world dissolved into absolute darkness.
Marcus's final thought, burning through the overwhelming pain and soul-deep betrayal and all-consuming rage, crystallized into a single desperate prayer.
If I ever get another chance. If God or the devil or any power in existence gives me just one more chance…
I'll kill you for this, Lukas.
I'll make you pay a thousand times over.
I swear it.
Marcus's eyes closed slowly, embracing ultimate darkness.
[◆SYSTEM INITIALIZATION◆]
[Soul Fragment Detected: MARCUS]
[Trauma Classification: EXTREME]
[Death Analysis: Ultimate Betrayal]
[Emotional Residue: Maximum]
[Qualification Met: SSS-RANK POTENTIAL]
[Initiating Special Protocol: SECOND CHANCE]
[Reincarnation Sequence: ACTIVE]
[Transferring consciousness…]
[Welcome to your second life, Player]
Reincarnating into Apocalypse 1878 Online…