The sun dipped low behind the western mountains, bleeding gold and crimson across the broken horizon.
From atop the eastern wall of Callestan, the city's defenders watched in tense silence as the last fingers of light slipped away.
The mist began to rise almost as if summoned by the death of the day.
It came in slow, roiling waves, swallowing the open fields beyond the walls, creeping closer with each breathless heartbeat.
The guards shifted uneasily, adjusting helmets, checking bowstrings, murmuring half-forgotten prayers.
The air grew heavy.
Charged.
Sour with the scent of old death carried on the cold wind.
And then—
They appeared.
First as shadows in the mist.
Then as forms.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
The undead.
Bodies long since broken and rotting, flesh hanging in strips from bone, eyes empty and yet still somehow burning with a hunger that no death could quench.
Ghouls.
Skeletons.
Corrupted beasts twisted into mockeries of life.
Shambling.
Dragging rusted weapons.
Grinning wide with shattered jaws.
The guards atop the walls stiffened.
Some tightened their grips on their spears and bows.
Others clenched shields closer to their chests, their breath quickening.
These creatures—they had heard tales.
But seeing them now, in their endless tide, was different.
It was terror.
It was doubt.
It was the moment fear slips its fingers into a man's spine and whispers that maybe—just maybe—they would not survive this night.
At the center of the wall, silhouetted against the dying light, one figure stood alone.
Koda.
Obsidian armor gleaming dully under the last rays of the sun, his hood casting a dark shadow across his face.
He watched the mist roll closer.
Watched the dead advance.
And did not flinch.
Without a word, without a glance back, Koda stepped forward.
He moved to the edge of the wall.
And then—
he jumped.
The guards gasped.
Some shouted.
Some cursed.
What was he doing?
What madness drove a man to leap into that seething mass alone?
They crowded to the battlements, pressing forward to see.
To watch.
Koda landed lightly, barely a whisper against the earth.
For a moment, he stood there, small and dark against the tide of death.
Then—
With a flick of his wrists, his blades appeared.
Twin swords of blackened steel, edges shimmering with a hungry light.
Alive.
Breathing.
Singing.
And Koda moved.
The first ghoul lunged at him, mouth yawning wide, claws flashing.
Koda's right blade snapped up, the edge carving a perfect arc through the creature's throat.
The ghoul's head spun into the mist, black blood spraying in a wide, wet arc.
The body stumbled, spasmed, collapsed.
Dead again.
Truly dead.
Another rushed him.
Then three more.
Koda danced between them.
His left blade slashed low, gutting one from hip to shoulder.
The right blade flashed high, shearing through a skeletal neck in a single brutal twist.
The third ghoul leapt—and Koda spun, driving his blade through its open mouth and out the back of its skull with a wet crunch.
The guards atop the wall stared, mouths open.
Not a single arrow had been fired.
Not a single order given.
And yet the dead fell.
One by one.
Piece by piece.
The mist churned.
More dead surged forward.
Dozens.
Scores.
Koda moved like a storm.
Like a dancer.
Like death made flesh.
His blades became extensions of his will.
A blur of silver and black that severed limbs, split spines, crushed skulls.
Every swing a kill.
Every step a counterstroke.
Blood and rot sprayed across the broken earth, painting the ground in black and red.
The smell was overwhelming.
Burnt flesh.
Rotting meat.
Sour, coppery blood thickening the air until every breath tasted of death.
The guards gagged behind their helmets.
But they could not look away.
One soldier—young, barely more than a boy—whispered under his breath.
"Gods preserve us."
Another, older, shook his head slowly.
"No, boy."
His voice was hoarse with awe.
"That's no god."
He pointed down at Koda, who now spun low, both blades carving a bloody circle through the
legs of a charging pack of ghouls, sending them crashing to the earth in twitching heaps.
"That's death come for death."
The dead kept coming.
And Koda kept cutting.
He fought with a savage, beautiful efficiency.
No wasted movement.
No hesitation.
Only pure, ruthless precision.
He moved through the mist like a ghost, blades flashing like twin comets.
He left severed limbs and shattered skulls in his wake.
He carved through them not as a man holding a line—
But as a man erasing an army.
At one point, a massive undead beast charged—
a thing that might once have been a bull, now rotted and twisted by foul magic, its ribs jutting through torn skin.
Koda met it head-on.
He ducked the first wild swing of its massive horned head.
Stepped inside its guard.
Drove both blades up, deep into the soft, rotted flesh beneath its chin.
The beast let out a strangled bellow.
Then collapsed.
The ground around Koda was a charnel pit.
Bodies heaped three deep.
Black blood soaking the earth.
And still, he stood.
Still, he moved.
Still, he killed.
Hours passed.
The night grew thicker, the mist colder.
And the guards could do nothing but watch.
Some leaned against the parapets, exhausted just from the sight of it.
Others wept silently, overcome by the savage, impossible beauty of it.
For the first time since the walls had been raised, they believed.
They believed they might survive.
Not because the walls were strong.
Not because the army was large.
But because he was out there.
Because Koda fought.
And if he could stand against the dark—
So could they.
By the time the first blush of dawn touched the eastern sky, painting the mist in shades of bruised purple and pale blue, the field outside the wall was silent.
Empty.
Littered with the broken remnants of the dead.
Thousands of them.
Carved down by a single man.
Koda stood alone.
Bathed in blood and mist.
Blades dripping.
Armor blackened with gore.
Chest rising and falling with slow, steady breaths.
The guards on the wall said nothing.
They simply stood in silence.
In awe.
In hope.
And as the sun rose fully, burning away the last of the mist—
Koda turned.
Sheathed his blades.
And walked back toward the gates.
Toward the living.
Toward the next battle.
Because this was only the beginning.
And Koda would not fall.
Not tonight.
Not ever.