The battle was over.
But war doesn't end when the bodies fall. It rots deeper — in secrets, in silence, in the blood that hasn't yet been spilled.
Reed stood at the edge of the battlefield, watching his goblins drag the three surviving knights through mud and ash. The prisoners were bound, bleeding, eyes hollow. Behind them, Hollowspawn feasted noisily, ripping the armor from twitching corpses.
Shia approached. "We should kill them."
"Not yet," Reed said. "They might still be useful."
Shia arched an eyebrow. "You're showing restraint."
Reed smiled without warmth. "No. I'm showing cruelty."
They were taken to the war-cave's deepest pit — a cell carved from the remains of the fallen. Femurs formed the bars. Ribs made the floor. Skulls lined the wall, mouths agape in silent screams.
The knights were shackled naked and upside down. Their mouths were gagged. Not for silence. For humiliation.
Reed entered barefoot, his steps soft against bone.
He crouched before the first man — a young officer, not more than twenty-five. Still clinging to honor in his eyes.
Reed pulled the gag off.
"Name?"
"Ser Talien of Greybark."
"Title?"
"Second Sword of House Thorne."
Reed leaned in. "Good. Now tell me — what's your lord hiding?"
Talien spat blood. "You'll get nothing. I fear the gods more than I fear you."
Reed nodded.
Then motioned to a goblin behind him.
The goblin stepped forward with a heated iron spike.
Reed took it. Calmly. Then pushed it into Talien's ear.
Talien didn't scream — not at first.
By the third knight, there was no need for tools.
Fear did the carving.
Reed sat cross-legged, covered in gore, voice smooth as silk soaked in rust.
"Hadren's ritual. Where. When. What is he calling?"
The knight, an older man with a broken arm and ruined leg, sobbed openly.
"It's not him alone," he said. "It's Kheldrin. Marseth. Even Halveth whispers in shadows."
Reed's eyes narrowed. "A cabal?"
"They think you're a mistake. A crack in the system. They're trying to summon the Answerer."
Shia stiffened. "That's a myth."
"No," the knight wept. "It's a weapon. An old god. Sealed before the first system was written. They want to bind it to the Council's will."
Reed looked at Shia.
"They plan to summon it using my death."
During the interrogation, one of the Spine scouts brought Reed a scroll found sewn into a dead noble's stomach.
It bore the sigil of House Marseth.
Written in coded High Script, the message was clear:
"If Reed survives, the artifact buried beneath the Black Root must be retrieved. Its resonance will disrupt the system long enough to break the chain. Without it, the ritual fails."
Reed crushed the scroll in his fist.
Shia murmured, "The Black Root?"
Reed nodded. "The thing under our feet. The System doesn't want us digging too deep. That's why."
[New System Alert: FORBIDDEN ZONE DETECTED — Domain Core Distortion]
Location: 500 meters beneath War Altar
Warning: Sealing layer is active
Status: Dormant… for now
The knights, now barely alive, hung limp in their bone-cell.
Shia stood at Reed's side. "So what now? Kill them?"
Reed said nothing for a long time.
Then: "One lives."
"Why?"
"To carry a message."
He turned to the youngest, Talien. The one who endured the spike.
"You will return to Hadren. You will tell him I know. About the ritual. About the Answerer. About the others."
Talien wept.
Reed crouched, grabbed him by the chin, and forced eye contact.
"And you'll tell him this."
He held up a bloody coin — a token of war with the Feyroot stag carved on one side, and the Hollow rune on the other, scorched into place.
"Tell him I'm not afraid of gods."
Then he slit the other two knights' throats in front of him.
And let Talien crawl away on broken knees.
Some goblins, watching from the shadows, murmured.
Mercy?
That wasn't the Lord they knew.
Reed heard the whispers.
So he called a gathering at the War Altar.
He stood beneath the jagged skull, arms bare, torso streaked with blood.
"I let him live," he said, "not for mercy."
He raised the token.
"But so fear spreads. He will crawl back like a beaten hound, and with him, disease. Doubt. Panic. I don't want them charging."
"I want them choking."
The goblins screamed his name.
But in the back, Shia watched him with a different look.
Respect. Fear. And something else.
Concern.
The Black Root was beneath them. The ritual was already underway. And the Lords had united against him.
Reed gathered his council: Shia, the Hollowbound Wildsoul, the Fang commander, and the Hollowspawn tamer.
"We have one day before the ritual completes."
"Two options," Shia said. "We dig down and find this artifact before they do. Or we strike now, burn the altar, and risk letting it wake without control."
Reed looked at his claws.
"No."
A pause.
"We do both."
That night, the Maw Unit began digging into the War Altar's foundation.
They didn't get far before one screamed.
Then two more vanished.
Reed descended into the pit to find veins pulsing in the stone.
Not just cracks.
Veins.
They beat like a heart.
And from them seeped black ichor that steamed when it touched the air.
[System Warning: CORE BREACH IMMINENT]
Bloodcode Response: Accelerated
Mutation Risk: High
Potential Trigger: ???
Shia stood beside him, blades drawn.
"It's waking."
Reed smiled.
"Then we feed it something worth remembering."