The Captain of the Black Scripture was a man defined by his absolute faith and unwavering purpose. He rode at the head of his devastating army, a righteous storm of steel and holy light, ready to wash away the heresy of Elysia. His senses, honed by years of battle and blessed by the grace of the Six Gods, felt the world with a clarity few could match. Which is why, as they crested the final hill overlooking the Elysian capital of Lyria, he knew immediately that something was profoundly, terrifyingly wrong.
The city was silent.
It wasn't the silence of an empty city or a city holding its breath. It was a complete and total absence of sound, of motion, of life itself. The flags on the castle ramparts did not flutter in the wind. The smoke from the city's chimneys hung motionless in the air, frozen in perfect, unmoving plumes. A bird, caught in mid-flight above the city wall, was a suspended, feathered statue.
The entire city was a perfect, silent tableau, as if a master painter had rendered it onto the canvas of reality and then walked away.
"Halt!" the Captain's voice boomed, his command echoing in the unnaturally still air. The entire fifteen-thousand-man army ground to a stop, their own sounds of marching and jingling armor seeming blasphemously loud in the face of the silent city.
"What is this sorcery?" his second-in-command, a paladin of immense renown, asked in a hushed, awe-filled whisper.
"Scouts, forward!" the Captain ordered. "Mages, analyze the phenomenon! Clerics, prepare sanctification wards!"
The orders were given, but there was a hesitation in the ranks. The soldiers stared at the frozen city, a primal fear creeping into their hearts. This was not a defense they had trained for. How do you fight an enemy that has stopped time itself?
A team of scouts, the swiftest in the Scripture, rode forward. As they approached the invisible one-mile perimeter Kaelus had dictated, they simply… stopped. Their horses, caught in mid-gallop, froze instantly, becoming perfect equestrian statues. The scouts themselves were frozen in the saddle, their expressions of grim determination locked on their faces. They had not been killed or harmed. They had simply been absorbed into the stasis field.
The mages began their incantations, their scrying spells and diagnostic cantrips aimed at the silent city. The spells flared and then fizzled out, splashing uselessly against the edge of the field like water against a stone wall.
"Report!" the Captain demanded.
The lead mage, a woman of considerable power, turned to him, her face pale and beaded with sweat. "Captain... I... I don't know what it is. The magical density of the barrier is off any scale I have ever seen. It's not a wall of force or a shield of energy. It feels as if space and time themselves have been... folded. Woven into a cage. To try and break it would be like trying to punch the sun."
The Captain's jaw tightened. Their target was untouchable. Their mission to cleanse the city was impossible. They were an army of god-slayers who had been stopped dead by a single, silent, defensive spell. The sheer, casual arrogance of it was as insulting as it was terrifying. Kaelus hadn't even bothered to meet them. He had simply put his "property" in a display case and rendered their entire army irrelevant.
"This is the bait," the Captain realized aloud, his mind racing. "The city was never the true target. We are. He drew us here to trap us."
"Should we retreat, Captain?" the paladin asked, his voice strained.
"Retreat? And show the world that the Black Scripture was thwarted by a single spell?" the Captain retorted, his pride warring with his tactical sense. "No. We will hold our position. We will find a way through this. The second team must be close to the enemy's stronghold by now. When the World-Item is activated, this spell may fail. We will wait."
It was a fatal miscalculation, born of arrogance and a fundamental misunderstanding of his opponent. He assumed Kaelus would play by a recognizable set of rules.
As he gave the order to make camp, to lay siege to a city that could not be besieged, a new presence made itself known.
The air directly in front of the Captain, in the very center of his command staff, began to shimmer. It was not the flawless, controlled fold of Gravity's magic. This was a jagged, angry tear in reality, a vortex of pure, black, entropic energy.
Every paladin and cleric in the vicinity felt their holy symbols grow cold, their connection to the divine smothered by an overwhelming tide of negative energy.
From the portal, a single figure stepped forth.
Kaelus.
He stood before the assembled leadership of the Theocracy's finest army, having appeared in their midst as easily as a man stepping into his own room. He was alone, but his presence was more commanding than all fifteen thousand of their soldiers combined. The aura of the void washed over them, a pressure that made their souls feel heavy, their faith feel thin and brittle.
The Captain of the Black Scripture, a man who had faced down Demon Gods and ancient monsters without flinching, felt a genuine, ice-cold sliver of fear pierce his heart for the first time in his life. He and his personal guard instinctively drew their holy, blessed weapons, their blades glowing with a golden light.
Kaelus looked at the drawn swords, then at the frozen city behind him. He slowly raised a hand, and with a gesture, the stasis field around Lyria became semi-transparent, allowing the Theocracy's army to see the unaware, frozen citizens within.
"You came to my lands," Kaelus's voice was a low, terrifyingly calm rumble that seemed to emanate from the ground itself. "To murder my subjects."
He pointed a single, obsidian-gauntleted finger at the Captain. "You are the leader of this mob of zealots. You are the one who gave the order."
"In the name of the true gods, we have come to purge your heresy from this world, demon!" the Captain declared, his voice ringing with a conviction he no longer truly felt.
Kaelus's shadowed helm tilted slightly. "Your gods are dead," he stated, the words a simple, devastating fact. "Their silence is your proof. You are children, clinging to the cold ashes of your long-dead parents, screaming at anyone who tries to light a new fire."
He took a step forward. The holy light from the paladins' blades flickered and dimmed in his presence, their divine energy being passively consumed by his armor.
"I will not grant your army the glory of a battle," Kaelus said, his voice dropping to a chilling whisper. "I will not allow you the dignity of a warrior's death. You are beneath my notice. You are pests."
He continued his slow, inexorable advance. "But you... you are the one who chose to lead them here. You are responsible. And leadership," he paused, standing directly before the Captain now, towering over him, "carries a heavy price."
Before the Captain or any of his guards could react, Kaelus's hand shot out. It was not a punch or a spell. It moved with an impossible speed, faster than thought. His gauntleted fingers wrapped around the Captain's helmeted head.
There was no resistance. The holy enchantments, the masterwork steel—it all meant nothing.
The Captain felt a cold that had nothing to do with temperature. It was a cold that seeped into his very soul, a torrent of pure, unadulterated void energy. His connection to his gods, his faith, his life force—it was all being drained, siphoned away into the abyss that was Kaelus's being.
He tried to swing his sword, but his limbs would not obey. He tried to scream a final prayer, but his voice was gone. His world dissolved into a maelstrom of blackness and absolute terror.
Kaelus held the Captain in his grip for five agonizing seconds. Then, he let go.
The Captain of the Black Scripture, the most powerful holy warrior of his generation, crumpled to the ground like a discarded marionette. He was not dead. He was not even wounded. But he was... empty. His eyes were vacant, his skin was ashen. The divine power that had defined him was gone. His class levels, his skills, his blessings—all of it had been drained away, leaving him as weak and helpless as a newborn babe. Kaelus had not killed him. He had unmade him as a warrior.
The surrounding paladins stared in frozen, abject horror.
Kaelus looked down at the pathetic, broken man, and then his silver gaze swept over the rest of the terrified command staff.
"This is my message to your Pontifex," he declared, his voice resonating with the power he had just absorbed. "This is what happens to those who lead armies into my domain. I do not kill the soldiers. I break their leaders."
He turned his back on them, a final gesture of ultimate contempt.
"Leave my lands. Take your broken champion with you. Tell your masters what you have seen here. Tell them that the next time they send an army to my door, I will not be so merciful as to leave them a leader to carry back."
With that, he stepped back into the black portal, which swirled and vanished, leaving the leadership of the Theocracy alone on a silent battlefield, before an untouchable city, with their legendary captain broken and whimpering on the ground at their feet. The holy war had ended before its first battle had even been fought.