For three days, the Giant did not leave the dark room. He was broken.
But Axiomra did not fall. Runa took command.
She did not weep. She put on her armor, stood on the walls, and commanded the remaining soldiers with flawless, mechanical precision.
She repelled two sieges, her crossbow snipers working in cold, calculating shifts. She proved that the system could survive the collapse of its founder.
On the fourth day, the doors of the Great Hall opened.
Bilal walked out. He wasn't wearing his Jarl's cloak. He wasn't wearing his crown. He was stripped down to chainmail and leather.
His eyes were completely dead. The guilt had burned away his humanity; all that was left was the Demon.
He didn't speak to Runa. He walked straight to the kennels.
He took his beloved War Dogs—forty massive, terrifying hounds he had raised by hand.
He commanded his men to strap small clay pots of pitch, animal fat, and the secret gunpowder mixture to the heavy leather harnesses on the dogs' backs.
"Father," Runa warned, seeing the darkness in him. "What are you doing?"
"Ending it," Bilal said, his voice sounding like grinding stones.
That night, Bilal opened the gates. The Swedish and Norwegian armies were camped in the tree line, celebrating their kills, drinking ale around massive bonfires.
Bilal unleashed the hounds.
The forty dogs sprinted into the darkness, charging straight toward the smell of the enemy's roasting meat. They penetrated deep into the center of the enemy camps, running between the tents.
Bilal raised his hand. Runa and the snipers drew their bows, wrapping the tips of their steel bolts in burning pitch.
"Fire," Bilal whispered.
The flaming arrows rained down from the sky, striking the clay pots strapped to the dogs.
The explosions tore the forest apart. The Greek Fire splashed in every direction, turning the enemy camp into an instantaneous, inescapable inferno.
The dogs died, but they took the entire enemy coalition with them.
As the surviving Jarls and soldiers ran screaming from the flames, Bilal and his remaining forty men walked into the firelight.
Bilal was a butcher that night. He did not show off his martial arts. He used a heavy axe.
Every time he swung, he saw Elin's face. He saw the 30 orphans who died for his arrogant speech.
But even in his darkest moment, the laws of Axiomra held.
When he found the peasant farmers who had been forced to fight, he kicked their swords away and let them run.
When he found the women attached to the camp, he ordered his men to shield them.
But when he found a Jarl... he didn't just kill them. He dismantled them.
By morning, the war was over. The coalition was ash.
EPILOGUE: The Cost of the Crown
In the history books written by Torik years later, this conflict would not be called a glorious victory. It would be recorded as "The Epic Punishment War."
The cost was devastating.
Fifty citizens of Axiomra were dead. In a population of 800, that meant every single family in the city lost a brother, a sister, or a son.
Bilal stood in the graveyard, watching the fifty bodies being lowered into the earth.
The illusion of a perfect, bloodless utopia was gone forever. War was not a math equation. It was ugly, it was stupid, and it stole the best people.
Astrid stood beside him, holding his hand. She felt his grip trembling.
He had won the war. But the Giant of Axiomra knew he would never forgive himself for the words he spoke, and the breath he forgot to give.