The two massive iron axes—each forged in the shape of a snarling bear—dripped with hot gore.
Titus stood in the center of the slaughtered vanguard, his chest heaving like a bellows. His eyes burned with the terrifying, absolute freedom of a man who had already accepted his own death. When he spoke, the deep rumble of his voice seemed to shake the snow from the surrounding trees.
"You came to the wrong village." He raised both axes, the firelight glinting off the crimson steel. "And I will make you pay for it. With your lives."
With a deafening CRACK, the remains of the main palisade gave way.
Forty fresh soldiers poured through the splintered wood. Their black armor was spotless, their swords drawn and ready. Behind them, the archers held their fire, terrified of striking their own men in the chaos.
Titus did not brace for their charge. He charged them.
He didn't run like a man. He moved like a natural disaster. His heavy boots pounded the freezing mud so hard the earth shuddered. He was wind. He was fury. He was death wrapped in human skin.
The forty soldiers saw him coming. They looked past the giant and saw the broken, twisted bodies of their comrades littering the dirt. They saw a man soaked from head to toe in blood, roaring like a beast.
And they broke.
Like children fleeing a nightmare, the soldiers screamed, turned, and ran. They crashed into each other at the bottleneck of the broken gates, trampling their own brothers in a desperate, pathetic frenzy to escape.
But Titus did not stop.
He reached the pile of fleeing men and launched his massive frame into the air, both axes raised toward the smoke-choked sky. When he came down, it was with the unstoppable force of an avalanche.
Crunch.
The sound was sickening—a wet, metallic symphony of destruction. Black iron armor crumpled like dry leaves. Ribcages shattered beneath his boots. Skulls split under the iron bears. Titus waded into the screaming mass, his axes moving in devastating, rhythmic arcs. Every swing painted the air red. Every step left a broken corpse in the mud.
The surviving soldiers outside the walls watched in absolute horror as their trained, elite killers were harvested like wheat. Some tried to flee into the woods, but the Black Dragon's law held them back: run without orders, and your entire family burns. Trapped between the Emperor's law and the monster at the gates, they chose the only option left.
They formed a shield wall.
A hundred black iron shields locked together. Spears thrust forward through the gaps, creating an impenetrable hedge of steel.
"Archers! Draw!" a captain shrieked.
But before a single bowstring could snap, the shield wall parted.
Four figures stepped out from the ranks. They didn't wear the standard infantry black. Their armor was custom, their weapons pristine, their posture radiating the bored confidence of predators who had never known defeat.
Titus stopped his rampage. He let the butchered soldiers drop from his axes. His eyes narrowed.
The first was a swordsman in dark leather, a crimson dragon stitched across his chest. His eyes were dead and calm.
The second was a woman with a bow, her face as sharp and unforgiving as ice.
The third was a mountain of a man carrying a heavy iron shield, standing as rooted as an oak.
The fourth gripped a spear, twirling it casually with a smug, mocking smile.
The swordsman raised a gloved hand, halting the archers behind him.
"Hold your fire," he ordered quietly. "I will handle him."
Titus let out a harsh, barking laugh that sprayed blood from his chin. "Look at what I just did to your army, little man. Bring all four. It will save me time."
The swordsman offered a slow, mocking bow.
"My deepest apologies. I am not a foot soldier." He drew his longsword. As the steel cleared the scabbard, a faint, golden aura of spirit energy flared to life along the edge. "I am Karesh, Iron Fang of the Dragon. I would hate for you to die thinking me weak."
Titus cracked his neck. "Are you ready to bleed, gentleman?"
Karesh didn't answer. He vanished.
He moved with speed that defied the human eye, clearing the distance in a fraction of a second. His golden blade swung in a lethal arc aimed perfectly at Titus's neck.
Titus spun, throwing his right axe up to intercept.
CLANG!
The impact rang out like a church bell. Karesh pressed his attack, his blade a blur of golden light, but Titus met every strike with raw, brute power.
"Cut him down, Iron Fang!" the soldiers roared from the safety of the shield wall. "Finish him!"
Karesh gritted his teeth. The golden light around his sword flared blindingly bright as he poured his spirit energy into the weapon, hardening the steel to the density of diamond. He swung with everything he had.
CRACK!
Titus's iron axe shattered into a dozen pieces.
The golden sword tore through the exploding metal and bit deep into Titus's bicep. Hot blood sprayed the snow. Titus's fingers went numb, dropping the broken axe handle.
Karesh smirked.
It was his final mistake.
Titus didn't pull back. Instead, his wounded arm—the arm Karesh thought he had just disabled—snapped forward like a viper, his massive hand wrapping entirely around the swordsman's face. His grip was like a vice.
"So," Titus growled, lifting the thrashing elite warrior off his feet with one arm, "your spirit hardens your sword." He squeezed. "Let's see if it hardens your skull."
CRUNCH.
Karesh shrieked as bone gave way. With a roar, Titus hurled him like a ragdoll. The Iron Fang flew through the air, crashing violently into the shield wall, disappearing beneath a pile of screaming soldiers.
Titus turned his burning gaze to the remaining three Fangs. His left arm hung at his side, blood pouring freely from the deep gash, but his eyes were still feral. Still hungry.
"Who is next?"
The three elites exchanged a nervous glance. The arrogance was gone.
"Together," Boran, the shield-bearer, commanded.
Yelai, the archer, moved first. She drew her string back and fired. The arrow whistled straight for Titus's right eye. Titus simply tilted his head, letting the shaft breeze past his ear. He smirked.
"You fight like children. Anyone can dodge—"
THWACK.
Titus grunted, stumbling forward. He reached back. An arrow was buried deep between his shoulder blades.
Before he could pull it, the air filled with a terrifying, high-pitched whistling. The single arrow Yelai had fired had multiplied in mid-air, bending and curving like a flock of furious wasps.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Five black shafts sank deep into Titus's back.
Yelai smiled, spirit energy glowing softly at her fingertips. "I control the flight. I control the number. You cannot dodge the sky, bear ."
Titus spat a wad of blood into the snow. He took a heavy step toward her.
Boran slammed his heavy iron shield into the mud. "Stone Wall!"
The earth beneath Titus violently erupted. Slabs of solid rock tore themselves from the frozen ground, crashing together to form a suffocating, airtight tomb of stone around the giant.
"I am Boran," the shield-bearer panted, wiping sweat from his brow. "My apologies for the late introduction, though I assume you can no longer hear me."
Temur, the spearman, laughed, resting his weapon on his shoulders. "You two killed the beast without me? Unfair. You should have—"
BOOM.
The stone tomb shuddered.
BOOM.
The rock exploded outward in a shower of lethal shrapnel. Titus burst from the ruins, his body a canvas of horrific violence—arrows jutting from his back, his arm sliced open, his skin shredded by the exploding rock. But he was standing.
Before the dust even settled, Titus hurled a chunk of jagged stone the size of a boar directly at Boran.
The boulder struck the shield-bearer in the chest with the force of a catapult. Boran's ribs caved in with a sickening crunch, and he was thrown thirty feet backward, lying dead in the snow.
Titus locked his eyes on the archer. "Your tricks annoy me the most. You die now."
Yelai screamed, pulling her bowstring back so fast her fingers bled. A dozen arrows materialized in the air, raining down on the giant. They pierced his thighs. They sank into his collarbone. They tore through his sides.
Titus didn't even flinch. He walked through the rain of steel like a man walking through a summer drizzle. He reached her in three strides. His remaining axe rose, and fell.
The Sky Hunter was dead.
Temur watched the slaughter, the smug smile wiped completely from his face. "Now this... this is a fight."
He planted his spear in the mud and vaulted into the dark sky. For a terrifying second, he hung suspended above the flames, aiming the tip of his weapon directly at Titus's heart. He dropped like a stone.
The blade sank deep into Titus's side.
Titus roared—not in pain, but in sheer, blinding rage. Before Temur could extract the weapon, Titus's bare hand clamped down on the steel spearhead.
Temur fed his spirit energy into the weapon. The spear seemed to come alive, extending and twisting like a serrated snake. It sliced through Titus's palm, carving through muscle and scraping against bone, leaving his fingers hanging by bloody threads.
Titus ignored it. Gripping the agonizing, twisting blade, he yanked the spear downward.
Temur was pulled violently forward, entirely off balance. Titus's good hand curled into a fist the size of a boulder and slammed into the side of Temur's helmet. The metal crumpled. The Long Death hit the ground and did not twitch.
The battlefield fell utterly, terrifyingly silent.
Four elite guardians, broken and dead. Dozens of soldiers, slaughtered. And standing in the center of the carnage was a single man, leaking blood from a hundred wounds, waiting for more.
From the parted ranks of the terrified army, a pristine white horse trotted forward.
The rider was young, dressed in immaculate, decorative armor that hadn't seen a single drop of blood. He had sharp, calculating eyes and dark hair pulled back neatly.
He looked at the mangled corpses of his finest warriors. Then he looked at Titus, and he smiled.
"Tarek Ashen," the young man announced smoothly, sliding from his saddle. He didn't even draw his sword. "Second son of the Emperor. They call me the Mind of the Dragon." He clapped his hands together slowly, genuinely impressed. "How does a filthy savage fight like that? Tell me, do you want a commission in my army? I would pay you well."
Titus stared at him, his vision swimming, his lungs burning with every breath. "Why?" he rasped. "Why burn my home? For sport?"
Tarek laughed, a light, airy sound. "Sport? No, I am a practical man. I am marching to war against the Snow Emperor. This valley is the perfect staging ground for my troops. I told your elder to surrender. I told him no one would be harmed." He sighed. "But you people have too much pride."
"If we surrendered..." Titus spat blood at the prince's boots. "We become your slaves. We die in your mines."
Tarek's smile widened, bright and venomous. "Yes. Exactly. But it is better than dying in the snow, isn't it?"
Titus raised his dripping axe. "I will send you to hell before I die."
Before he could take a step, two armored soldiers dragged a prisoner from the shadows of the tree line.
A boy. Bound tightly in thick ropes.
Ryan.
Titus's heart stopped beating.
The soldiers shoved Ryan to his knees in the bloody snow. His clothes were torn. His face was smeared with soot and dirt, but his eyes were wide and completely empty with shock. He stared at the giant, blood-soaked monster before him and realized it was his father.
"Ryan!" Titus's voice broke, the ferocious bear suddenly replaced by a terrified father. "Where is your mother?! Ryan, where is she?!"
Ryan's mouth opened, but only a ragged sob escaped. His mind was trapped in the trees. The whistling arrows. The blood soaking into his mother's dress. She was gone. Everyone was gone.
Tarek stepped forward, placing a casual, friendly hand on Ryan's shoulder. The boy violently flinched.
"Look at that," Tarek purred. "Your son survived the purge in the woods. For now." He patted Ryan's cheek. "Drop the axe, big man. Surrender to me, right now, and I will let the boy walk away. You have my word."
Ryan's empty eyes suddenly snapped with fierce, desperate life. "Dad—NO! He's lying! He'll kill us both! DAD, FIGHT HIM—!"
But Titus wasn't looking at the prince. He was looking at his son. He was looking at the boy he had taught to track deer in the snow, the boy he had sworn to protect.
His fingers opened.
The iron bear axe fell to the mud with a heavy, final thud.
Tarek's smile stretched from ear to ear. He took a slow step back from the boy and raised a single, gloved hand.
"Archers."
A thousand bowstrings pulled taut. A thousand arrows angled toward the sky. They hung there for a fraction of a second, blotting out the stars.
Then, they fell.
They struck Titus with the sound of tearing canvas. They hit him from the front, the sides, the back. They punched through his thick chest, his massive shoulders, his thighs. In an instant, the giant was turned into a horrifying monument of black shafts and red blood.
The man who crushed skulls with his bare hands. The man who had broken the iron will of an army.
He died under a coward's rain.
But he did not fall.
Titus stood there, an impossible amount of steel piercing his organs. Blood poured freely from his mouth, his nose, his terrible wounds. His massive frame shuddered with the agonizing, dying effort of remaining upright.
But he refused to let his knees buckle. He refused to let his son watch him fall.
Ryan screamed. It was a sound that tore his own throat, a sound of absolute, world-ending agony. He thrashed against the ropes, kicking the soldiers holding him, biting at their armored hands like a rabid dog.
Titus's dimming eyes locked onto his son.
His lips moved. His lungs were too filled with blood to make a sound, but Ryan read the shape of his father's last command.
Run.
The light vanished from Titus's eyes.
And still, the giant stood.
Prince Tarek stared at the corpse, his smug smile faltering for the very first time. He slowly approached the dead titan, looking up at the man who defied death itself just to prove a point.
"Put him down," Tarek ordered, his voice suddenly quiet, lacking its usual arrogance.
The soldiers hesitated, genuinely terrified the dead man might still swing at them.
"A warrior like this..." Tarek reached out, respectfully touching the fletching of an arrow protruding from Titus's chest. "...has earned the right to sleep."
With a firm push, the massive body finally tipped backward. Titus hit the snow with the weight of a falling redwood, the earth trembling one last time.
Tarek stared at the body for a long moment. Then, he turned slowly toward the kneeling boy in the snow. The cruel, sharp smile returned to the Prince's face.