"In the Emperor's light, all corruption turns to ash."
---
The skies had stopped weeping for the city of heroes, leaving only dark clouds hanging above Orario like a mourning shroud.
In the Chapel of the Unforgiven, the sole sacred ground dedicated to the God-Emperor of Mankind, the air was thick with silence. At the altar, candles warmly illuminated the sacred Imperial Aquila, casting flickering shadows that painted the rundown chamber in a reverent, holy atmosphere.
Calm as it appeared, the chapel's interior had been drastically altered. The abandoned church's wooden pews were repurposed into makeshift barricades, fortifying the windows and entrance. Some had been used to construct a defensible wall behind the altar itself as a final fallback position in the event of an assault. A last stand, if it came to that.
Beneath it all, in the rotting basement, Guardsman-38912-K drank half of an elixir in one hand, while rallying his gratitude toward the machine spirits of his lasgun and laspistol.
His broken ribs and cracked skull began to mend, healing almost instantly thanks to the elixir.
This was the most expensive healing potion in all of Orario, something only first and second tier adventurers could regularly afford.
But 38912-K had no knowledge of its worth. To him, it was a rotting sin he was forced to commit. It disgusted him to his core.
The basement, once a forgotten crypt, now functioned as a makeshift war room. At its center stood an uneven table, atop which half-burnt candles struggled to light a spread-out map of the city of Orario and its many districts.
38912-K traced his gloved fingers across the marked locations. The map had been torn from a cultist's corpse, a small but invaluable trophy made tenfold more useful when paired with his current knowledge.
The central city and north western district, where the warp breach and the Guild's headquarters stood, acted as the most protected stronghold for the heretics.
But the eastern, southern, and western districts were in constant turmoil. Skirmishes broke out every hour. Refugee camps scattered across these zones had yet to be moved to secure territory, leaving many civilians exposed to violence, disease, and starvation.
The cultists, meanwhile, held control over the city walls, completing a total siege and cutting off all supply routes.
They could start fights anywhere they pleased, an unnatural reach that strongly suggested the existence of a hidden underground network.
38912-K made a mental note to interrogate a cultist to confirm this theory.
As it stood, the cultists held the upper hand over the Guild.
Using a piece of charcoal and an overgrown weed, 38912-K began outlining the city's current power map, marking zones of control from what he could gather.
He placed a small dot in blood to indicate his own location within the chapel.
He paused, gazing at the map thoughtfully.
The situation was dire for the heretical Guild. If left unchecked, their supplies would eventually run dry. Starvation and plague would spread like fire through the city's overcrowded districts. Desperation would bloom. And when that happened, the civilians that were already resentful and angry would turn on their protectors.
That sounded like a target for 38912-K.
Locate and destroy the Guild's supply depots to accelerate starvation.
For now, 38912-K's focus would be on the Guild, but it didn't mean he would ignore the chaos cultists roaming free.
The Emperor demanded their deaths just as He demanded the heretics' blood.
Both the Guild and the chaos cultists were enemies of Mankind.
Both would suffer for their heresy and their blind idolatry of false gods.
---
At one refugee camp in the devastated city, the night skies were barely giving way to the rising sun. The early hour did not discourage grateful civilians from expressing their gratitude toward the gray-haired, kind-faced girl.
"Oh, young one, you don't know how grateful we are. To give away food in times like these is a rare generosity," an elderly man said warmly, his eyes glistening as he watched his grandson walk away with a steaming bowl of hot soup.
The girl smiled charmingly at him. "It's alright, mister. If we don't help one another as people… who will?" She filled another bowl and offered it to the older man. "Now enjoy a warm meal, courtesy of the Hostess of Fertility!" she said brightly, her voice carrying enough cheer to momentarily cut through the camp's weary silence.
Her eyes swept across the gathering crowd. "It may be hard to believe, but if you are looking for a safe place, that would be one of the safest in all of Orario!" Freya's tone brimmed with warmth, her words urging them toward Mia's establishment. She knew the dwarf would risk her life to keep her "customers" safe.
Syr Flova—this was the mortal guise Freya currently wore to walk the streets uninterrupted.
She was giving out food to the starving in the hope of rekindling some ember of hope in the civilians' hearts.
She had heard of the incident that had occurred in this particular camp: how the civilians had thrown stones at adventurers.
Specifically, at the members of the Astrea Familia. The embodiment of justice itself was accused of failing to uphold it, blamed for not preventing the deaths that came during the Night of the Great Conflict.
Freya pitied those girls. To see everything they stood for crumble, to watch the very people they vowed to protect turn against them…
It only proved how deeply the faith in adventurers had been fractured.
That was why Freya was here: committing a small gesture of free food and a smile, hoping it would keep the people from sliding too far into bitterness.
She glanced to the side and spotted two familiar figures at the camp's edge—the pallum and the Far Eastern girl from the Astrea Familia. Their eyes fixed on the camp, wary of approaching too closely.
Freya raised an eyebrow inwardly. Why had they returned here, of all places, after what the people had done to them?
"May I have one?" a dull voice called to her.
It belonged to 38912-K, currently infiltrating this refugee camp to gather information through local sources and check on the civilians' conditions.
"Of course—" Freya turned to face the voice, then stopped mid-motion. Something in her perception shifted.
A fog.
No… a dark cloud of smoke.
Freya was a goddess of beauty, famed for her ability to charm any living being.
But that was not her only power. She had one more gift that made her exceptional at reading people and selecting interesting individuals to be her servants: the ability to peer into souls.
She had looked into countless hearts before. Each soul was unique, distinct in color, shape, and texture. Some flickered like fire, others flowed like wind. Some shone brightly, while others dimmed and wavered.
The soul of 38912-K was unlike anything the goddess of beauty had ever seen.
It was a dark, ashen cloud, so thick she could not see through it. Its shape… hexagonal, its lower edge stretching all the way down to the man's feet, forming the silhouette of a coffin.
It was unnervingly still. The smoke moved only within the rigid confines of its shape, as though disciplined beyond flesh into this form, never to break it.
To Freya… it was like staring into something that was already dead. Almost no emotion radiated from it.
No warmth. No light. No greed.
Only mild disgust.
38912-K, noting her fixed stare, suspected exposure and quietly prepared himself for the worst.
"Syr, are you okay?" Anya Fromel, the cat girl from the Hostess of Fertility, asked with a concerned tone. She had been quiet all this time, her presence here meant solely to ensure no one dared to try anything against Freya.
"Ah—" Freya blinked rapidly, breaking from her trance. "Forgive me, I lost myself for a moment. Here, you must be hungry!" She slipped her charming mask back into place, offering a bowl to the pale stranger.
38912-K accepted it without a word and turned away, heading toward a cluster of locals to begin his quiet inquiries.
Freya's suspicions, however, lingered. His attire was unusual—a dirty greatcoat beneath light armor, with something long wrapped in cloth strapped to his back...
"You!"
A young man from the crowd stormed toward 38912-K, his face twisted in visible hostility. "You're an adventurer, aren't you?!"
He didn't wait for a reply. "How dare you show your face here, eating food meant for the people you failed to protect!" His voice trembled with rage, grief simmering just beneath the surface.
38912-K did not respond. The accusations of this heretic were beneath him. But the scene he was causing would make his mission harder.
"Answer me, damn it!" the young man said loudly, attempting to shove the guardsman away in his fit of rage.
38912-K let go of the bowl in favor of grabbing the heretic's arm, twisting it with the man, forming a firm wristlock.
"Agh!" The young man cried in pain and surprise, just as the bowl broke on the ground, splattering hot soup across the street.
The gathered civilians began to whisper to one another. Seeing the supposed adventurer hurt one of their own rekindled their anger.
"H-hey, what are you doing?" Freya tried to intervene, her voice tight. The hostility toward adventurers was already dangerously high; if this escalated further, any hope of rebuilding trust might be lost. "Let go of him!"
38912-K did so, by shoving him forward, making the young man fall to the ground painfully.
"D-do you all see!?" He rose with a pained voice. "They fail to protect us, and when we question them they threaten us with force!"
His words nurtured the people's growing distrust of adventurers. Parents held their children in protective embraces; simple folk eyed the stranger with distrustful eyes.
38912-K didn't even flinch from their stare. Their opinions were beneath him.
"It's not the adventurers' fault, they're doing what they can to protect you from the Evils!"
Freya stepped into the growing storm, attempting to stop it before it got out of hand.
The young man scoffed at her words. "They're doing jack shit! They couldn't even save my little sister!" His voice cracked on the last words, but his eyes hardened again as they locked on 38912-K, this time more careful.
"What do you have to say about that, huh, adventurer? Do you have any words for the people your kind failed to protect!?" he demanded.
38912-K's expression did not change.
"…I do not care."
The words were not loud, but they cut through the air like a knife.
For a heartbeat, the camp was silent, the sheer indifference catching everyone off guard.
"Damn…" Lyra muttered under her breath in the distance.
Kaguya didn't move, but inside, there was the faintest twitch, her disciplined mind recoiling at the sheer, clinical response.
Freya's eye twitched. That sentence hadn't merely bruised the already fragile faith in adventurers, it had cut it open and salted the wound.
"Wh… what?" The young man's voice cracked. He was expecting silence, maybe defensiveness, maybe denial, but this?
38912-K did not repeat himself. Words wasted on heretics were ammunition spent into mud. He shifted to leave. His mission was already compromised; there would be no friendly contacts here now.
But the heretic moved to block him, either bravery or foolishness taking over his body, his arm rigid across the path. It would take little effort to shatter it completely.
"Why don't you care?" the man's voice broke into a wet sniffle. "Aren't adventurers supposed to care? Aren't they supposed to save us?!"
The plea was not his alone. The whole crowd leaned toward it.
The refugees stared at 38912-K, searching for an answer—any answer. Even a lie would have been something.
They wanted to hate the adventurers. But they didn't want to be abandoned by them.
They were selfish and hypocritical.
"Adventurers care!" Freya seized the moment, her voice ringing like steel.
"If they didn't, why would they fight on the front without hesitation? You are not alone! Do not listen to him!" She pointed an accusing finger at 38912-K, the mortal who dared seed unease.
"You fear the Evils. You fear dying at their hands. But tell me—" She spread her arms, sweeping over them all. "Who else fears death more than anyone? The adventurers themselves! They don't want to die, yet they fight anyway to protect you!"
Faces in the crowd shifted between hope, shame, a flicker of guilt toward the Astrea Familia. Yet here and there, doubt still lingered like a shadow.
38912-K turned his head toward the gray-haired girl. She was rallying the heretics toward a fragile illusion of protection.
He could not allow that.
"Care is irrelevant," 38912-K said finally, voice flat and cold. "Your soldiers serve their masters, their coin purses, and themselves. You are the ground they trample on toward their own glory."
He did not soften the blow, it was in his mission's best interest to spread as much fear as possible.
Freya's chin lifted, voice carrying. "Who is keeping this current calm? Evilus would already be here if not for the adventurers!" She then pointed an accusing finger at 38912-K. "Besides, are you not an adventurer? Or are you an agent of Evil?"
Freya's counterpoint made the civilians ease up more, but their fear grew as she accused 38912-K of being a spy.
38912-K's gaze swept the civilians like a commissar, then returned to her. He could lie about her accusations, but that would make his words even more meaningless to the heretics.
"I am neither," he opted for the truth. "You praise the adventurers non-stop, but you fail to mention how the cultists besieging this city are adventurers as well. They have the same strength and wear the blessings of their gods." The last word dripped with such disgust that several bystanders frowned, unsure if they'd misheard.
Whispers spread among the crowd. They thought he was an adventurer, yet here he was claiming to be neither a cultist nor an adventurer.
A third-party.
His words were unsettling, but they weren't completely wrong. Evilus was made up of adventurers and the evil deities who guided them.
Freya's eyes twitched. He wasn't lying about not being on either side.
"Those are traitors!" she quickly interjected as she saw the look of doubt growing in the crowd. "You cannot blame the righteous for the sins of the damned. If you continue to do so, you are a traitor as well!" she subtly threatened, hoping this would shut him up.
"You couldn't tell them apart before the conflict," 38912-K countered, ignoring her threat as he gestured at the charred wreckage around them. "If you can only see the difference once your family lies dead in the street… then what good are the righteous to you?"
Freya gritted her teeth subtly, her fist tightening.
She was considering the option of charming this nuisance into silence.
38912-K turned away. "The frontline," he began, stepping past the man who had blocked his way, "is a wall of flesh. And every time that wall falls back to preserve itself, you will be left for the cultists to harvest."
"My… my sister…" the young man muttered in grief and despair, his words echoed by others.
The civilians had gone pale. His words had offered no comfort, no hope, only the realization that they were expendable. Unease rippled through the camp like a chill wind.
Two parents hugged their little Leah protectively among the crowd. The little girl thought deeply about why this stranger looked familiar.
The seeds of fear and doubt had been nurtured enough; now they only needed to grow.
"Wait! Don't listen to him!" Freya called out, weighing whether to use her charm to undo this growing chaos.
"Hold it right there, pale dude!"
The two figures from the Astrea Familia stepped in, blocking his way.
"It's the Astrea Familia!" People among the crowd recognized the girls immediately.
Lyra grinned, her eye twitching. "That was pretty damn grim, pal. You're under arrest for distressing civilians, spreading enemy propaganda, and for suspicion of being an Evilus agent."
Kaguya didn't hide her disgust. Lies that undermined the city's spirit were worse than open attacks.
Their search for Ryuu was paused, capturing this man became the current priority.
38912-K stood motionless.
"Stay still—" Lyra stepped forward.
BOOM!
An explosion ripped through the alleys.
"Hah! Feasting without us? Rude!" a voice jeered, followed by manic laughter. Evils poured into view.
"It's the Evils!"
"Run!"
The camp's fragile order collapsed instantly into chaos.
Civilians crashed past the Astrea girls in panic.
And in the swirl of screaming and smoke, 38912-K was gone.
"Dammit!" Lyra cursed, scanning for his retreating form. "I can track him, cover me!"
"Leave it, pallum! We're under attack!" Kaguya snapped, already cutting down a charging enemy.
Freya's gaze lingered where he'd vanished. The man had ruined her work here completely.
What had begun as a simple gesture of food and hope had ended in ruin.
---
The sun's rays barely managed to pierce the ash-filled skies above the bleeding city of Orario.
The west of the city was bleeding, Evilus cultists roamed everywhere while the adventurers rallied to confront them whenever they could.
"What are you doing!? Stop it right now!" a furious Guild employee shouted at the adventurers, who were loading shipments of much-needed food for one of the many refugee camps scattered across the city.
These adventurers had been stationed in many storehouses by the Guild itself, tasked with protecting the supplies from Evilus agents while also serving as semi-workers whenever the storehouse was shorthanded.
One of them blinked at the black-haired human woman, puzzled. "Lady, we need these for the eastern camps, they just requested urgent help," the adventurer explained, his tone polite and deferential.
Eva almost scoffed at his words. "We are not assigned to that district, you morons!" she snapped, her corporate instincts kicking in. "We are at war here, Evilus is everywhere—are you deaf? Even if I gave you permission to escort all this food to the east, how will you manage to go through a literal battlefield between the adventurers and the Evils!?"
"But the people need this!" the adventurer insisted, unwilling to abandon the starving civilians even if it meant going through the fire.
Despite being a simple employee before the war, Eva's sharp, cold stare carried enough weight to force even armed adventurers into compliance. Muttering irritably, they began unloading the shipment.
"Imbeciles," Eva muttered under her breath as she strode past them, every line of her tired body dripping with frustration.
She had not been born for this life.
Just a village girl once, pushed into an arranged marriage with the chief's son for her pretty looks.
She had clawed her way free with her sharp grasp of numbers, her good memory, and luck—skills that convinced passing merchants to hire her as an accountant.
Slowly and painstakingly, she secured enough funds to pursue education in a nameless institute in a nameless town near her village.
Her dream had been the famed school district, the world's most elite institute, a place for true prodigies.
But it remained only a dream. Her teachers never once considered her worthy of recommendation, leaving her grasping for opportunities elsewhere.
'Fucking imbeciles, all of them,' she thought bitterly as she pushed into her "office," which was just a reeking horse barn converted into a makeshift command center.
Eva was in her late twenties now. She was still without a partner, with a precarious income, and the apartment she had poured years of savings into—gone, blown apart by an Evilus bombing.
Damn those cultists. Damn the familias and their monopolies over everything. Damn the gods who let all this happen.
She dropped herself at the beat-up table in the corner, the smell of manure clinging to the air.
Grabbing a sheet of paper, she began writing yet another complaint to her superiors about the lack of resupply. Their stores were dwindling fast. At best, they had enough for two meals left for the western camps.
They kept reassuring her, telling her to hold on until the Evils were dealt with in this district, as if mere words would help her stay alive!
Her hand trembled midway, smearing ink across the page. If she sent it in like this, it would scream "unprofessional," and she would be demoted, replaced by someone the Guild deemed more competent.
Not that she even cared anymore.
"What's the point…" she muttered through clenched teeth, exhaustion dripping from her voice.
Six years. Six years since she had first arrived in Orario. And all she had to show for it was a minor management role. She was buried in mediocrity.
Her parents. School district. Guild employment. Familias. Civilians. Gods. Evilus.
Curse them all!
If only they would all just disappear forever…
BOOM!
An explosion ripped the barn apart, shaking its foundations. Screams erupted outside.
"W-what—!?" Eva tripped, her gloomy thoughts interrupted.
"It's an attack!"
"Look out—!"
Eva forced herself upright, her heart hammering as the noise of battle spilled through the walls.
This storehouse was supposed to be insignificant, a series of unsuspecting small buildings chosen deliberately by Braver himself to minimize the risks of attacks over supply depots. Its very anonymity was its disguise—hidden in plain sight.
And yet they had been attacked anyway.
"Did the cultists find out about the trick!?" she gasped, terror bleeding through her voice.
FWOSH!
A searing ray of red tore through the barn wall, punching through layer after layer as if the wood were paper, starting a small fire.
"Kyaaa!" Eva screamed, throwing herself to the ground as the battle raged outside.
She couldn't take it anymore. Scrambling to her feet, she bolted toward the barn exit.
"Aghhh!"
Screams flooded Eva's ears before her eyes could even register the sight, the whole place was ablaze, fire tearing through the structures while the workers left desperately tried to save the food before it was gone forever.
"Miss, go back!" an adventurer rushed to her side, sweat streaming down his face. "It's too dangerous—!"
Eva turned just in time to see the adventurer's head burst into scorched pulp. The same burning ray that had pierced the barn reduced him to nothing.
Her legs buckled, dropping her to the ground. Her horrified gaze swept to the far end of the storehouse, where the attacker jumped down from the second story.
Tall and uncaring in the smoke and fire, Guardsman-38912-K stood still, his mask terrifying the Guild employee.
He had managed to get information about this place through a simple interrogation of one of the workers who 38912-K had encountered randomly in a camp.
"He's here!" another adventurer roared, charging toward the intruder, anger igniting his steps. Others followed, weapons raised.
38912-K pulled the trigger. His lasgun spat light and judgment, utterly overkilling the heretics who dared stand before him, his weapon deliberately sparing the black-haired uniformed woman at the center.
She would be useful.
One after another, the adventurers were purged until even the noncombatant civilians lay among the dead.
Eva's trembling eyes locked on the masked man as he advanced, every step sending shivers through her. She wanted to crawl away, to flee, but her body refused to move.
"S-stay back!" she managed to cry, hands raised like they could shield her. "Ghaa!"
38912-K's boot slammed into her stomach with ruthless force, knocking the air from her lungs. She collapsed, choking, but he seized her hair in a tight grip, dragging her across the dirt and soot, ignoring her screams.
"Aaahh!" Eva clawed at his hand, nails desperately trying to tear at the unyielding grip, but it was useless.
He hauled her back into the barn, through burning hay and horse manure, then shoved her up against the table where, moments ago, she had been writing her complaint letter to her superiors.
"Help!" she cried, her voice cracking with pain and fear, begging for anyone to intervene.
38912-K's hand went to his satchel, pulling out a parchment. He spread it across the table, revealing it to be a marked map of Orario.
Eva froze in confusion.
"Point out supply depots, heretic," 38912-K's young voice ground out from behind the mask, so heavy with disgust it made her shrink.
"W-what—?" Her words barely escaped before his hand struck her face, a brutal slap that sent her sprawling to the floor, blood running from her nose.
He did not repeat himself. Instead, he leveled his laspistol at her trembling form.
"I-I'LL DO IT!" she shrieked, scrambling back to the table, grabbing her quill with shaking fingers. She ignored the blood dripping from her lip as she marked every storehouse she knew. Resistance never crossed her mind when terror ruled her every breath.
When she finished, 38912-K snatched the map back, scanning the markings briefly before sliding it into his satchel.
"P-please don't hurt me," Eva whimpered, her voice small, pathetic. She may have hated her life, but she still feared death.
The masked soldier didn't answer. He simply raised his laspistol, aiming at her head.
Eva's eyes widened in horror. Her hands groped blindly, grasping something—anything—in sheer survival instinct.
"Agh." 38912-K grunted as an arrow slammed into his shoulder, throwing his aim off. The shot seared past Eva instead of landing on her skull.
"Leave her alone!" a voice bellowed.
38912-K turned, catching sight of an adventurer at the entrance, bowstring drawn again.
FWOSH!
Another shot from the lasgun marked the purge of another heretic.
"AHHH!" Eva screamed, her hand grabbing a pitchfork. She drove it forward in a blind, desperate thrust. Metal met leather and armor, driving the Krieg soldier backward, forcing him to drop to one knee rather than be fully impaled.
She didn't wait. She bolted, stumbling and sobbing, tearing out of the burning barn as another shot scorched the air behind her.
Somehow, by sheer luck, she made it out, collapsing into the safety of a gathering crowd of civilians and adventurers who had formed at a close distance.
Inside, 38912-K rose calmly, one hand gripping the arrow shaft in his shoulder. With a sharp pull, he tore it free. The heretic archer had nearly pierced his shoulder plate.
38912-K didn't pursue the woman. There were too many heretics outside, too many blades and eyes. Charging now would be a waste of ammunition, a meaningless battle.
His hand brushed against his satchel, where the marked map lay secure. The heretic had served her purpose.
The cultists were attacking everywhere. The adventurers were stretched thin. It was the perfect opportunity to cripple their supplies.
---
Over the largest storehouse in the northwestern districts of Orario, the air was tense with urgency.
"Do not laze around, stay sharp!" one of the senior adventurers barked, his voice cutting like steel as his comrades snapped to attention.
The seniors were on high alert. Reports had been disastrous, the cultist advances were beginning to get out of control. Perseus of Hermes Familia was unable to contain their attacks.
On top of that, the storehouses' hidden locations had been compromised, and many were already lost to what they assumed were Evilus attacks. Only one survivor had crawled away from all assaults.
This was catastrophic in every sense. In mere hours, the entire west of Orario had lost seventy percent of its food stockpile—seventy percent that had already been stretched thin against the flood of refugees!
It was already too late to salvage most of it, but urgent aid had been requested from the Guild. The response was swift: extra adventurers had been dispatched for protection, and an extraction team was being prepared to relocate whatever food remained to a more secure, undisclosed location.
Every minute they waited for that extraction was another chance for Evilus to strike again.
From a high rooftop some distance away, 38912-K observed in silence. His masked gaze tracked every patrol, every posted guard, every reinforced wall of the storehouse. His mind was sharp, calculating the angles of approach and possible weaknesses.
The depots he had utterly purged had been laughably inadequate. It took mere hours to reduce them to ash and silence.
This was the final depot. Destroying it would sever the west of the city entirely, cutting its lifeline of food and forcing the heretics to starve, to eat each other if necessary.
38912-K could tell a dangerous battle when he saw one. These heretics likely knew he was coming. They had prepared their defenses. Numbers would overwhelm him, especially when bolstered by their unholy pacts with the warp-spawned abominations they called gods.
No matter. There was always a way. There was always fire enough for the Emperor's justice.
His eyes swept the surrounding district until one building caught his attention—a small workshop only a block away from the storehouse. Piles of wood, a forge, raw materials scattered about. More than enough for improvisation.
38912-K's gloved fingers brushed the single grenade on his belt. His last issued fragmentation charge—he couldn't afford to be reckless with it.
As if providing a solution for him, 38912-K's gaze settled on a group of cultists stalking the street nearby, away from all this, likely prowling for prey to mutilate for their twisted pleasures.
An idea began to form.
---
"Damn, this is boring," Leon muttered to his familia comrade, both stationed at the front gate of the storehouse, watching for any intruder or cultist who managed to reach this side of the city.
"Tell me about it," his partner Alton agreed, cracking his neck to chase off stiffness. "There's no way anyone would be stupid enough to attack us. We've got thirty adventurers here—fifteen of them level twos and two level threes."
"I don't know, man. I heard it's only one guy doing all this," Leon said with a yawn, scratching his head with his knife. "The chick who survived the first attack was babbling about some bird-mask freak. I was there before I got orders to relocate here."
Alton scoffed, laughing. "Bro, are you crazy? No way a single guy takes out all the heavily guarded storehouses by himself."
"…Maybe he's a high level?"
That thought froze both in place. Their bravado faltered. If that was true, they were screwed. Standing at the gate would be suicide.
"Let's forget that," Alton muttered quickly, shaking off the shiver. "Evilus aren't stupid enough to throw themselves against this place. It's not worth the risk. They would rather focus on Perseus."
Leon shrugged. "Whatever." His gaze drifted back to the deserted streets.
A heavy calm settled over them. Too calm. Until Alton decided to break it.
"Hey… would you rather be a rat or a pallum?"
Leon turned slowly, giving his partner the 'what-the-fuck' look. "You realize Braver is a pallum, right? And he's the only reason any of us are alive right now?"
Alton rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, he's one of the good ones. Still don't like 'em."
"I'll do one," Leon sighed. "Would you rather…"
While the two guards bantered, a mere block away, atop the workshop roof, 38912-K placed the final piece into his crude invention: a great gear he had found lying around.
The thing he had built from literal scratch was… a three-way catapult.
It was… very bad, even by Orkish standards.
38912-K shook his head, forcing the thought aside. He began pulling the bucket back. A click echoed as the bucket locked into place, waiting to be released.
38912-K pulled out an orange bomb, looted off cultists he had purged, and had spent quite some time modifying their mechanism.
Now, instead of an igniter to self-destruct, the bombs only needed a blunt hit to explode instantly, perfect to be used as makeshift artillery shells.
Back at the gate, it was Leon's turn again. "Would you rather get kicked in the fucking head by Warlord… or burned to ashes by Nine Hells' magic?"
Alton laughed. "Easy. I hate not being alive, so I'll take a kick to the fucking head by Warlord—!?"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The words died in his throat as the sky itself exploded. Fire rained down. The upper structure of the tall storehouse erupted into flame, wood and stone crumbling as shockwaves ripped through the air.
"Holy fuck, it's raining fire!" Leon shouted as both guards bolted inside.
Another barrage fell, thunderous roars filling the air.
Explosions tore open the fortified walls, collapsing the front and exposing the interior to a storm of fire. Adventurers caught in the blasts died instantly, their bodies reduced to charred ruin. Others screamed, wounded, stumbling as flames spread across sacks of grain and stacked crates.
The nightmare did not stop. No enemy was visible. The bombs simply fell, spears of fire from the heavens themselves.
"Goddamn it, you morons!" one of the senior adventurers roared, standing tall while the younger ones scrambled for cover. "Track the trajectory! Find where the hell they're launching from before we're nothing but meat paste!"
"There's fire! The wheat's burning!" another adventurer screamed, pointing at the flames consuming the goods, spreading too fast to stop.
38912-K watched the rising smoke, the fruit of his work.
The contraption he had made was an insult to artillery, a disgrace to the concept of siege warfare.
And yet…
BOOM!
The bombs struck true. Screams, fire, chaos. It was working.
Satisfied, the son of Krieg descended from the roof into the alleys. His work here was complete. The supply depot was beyond saving now.
By the time adventurers stormed the workshop, their prey was long gone. All that remained was the crude instrument that had brought destruction upon them.
---
The Guild interior was chaos, as it had been since the start of the conflict. Employees rushed through corridors, voices overlapping as reports poured in about skirmishes, shortages, and a particularly violent riot in the eastern camp that no one knew the cause of; almost every district was bleeding.
Inside the war room, Finn massaged his temples as the flood of information washed over him.
Skirmishes in districts five, six, seven, and eight. Nearly the entire west of Orario was under threat. The only thing barely keeping order there was the Hermes Familia and Gareth's group.
But worse than the open fighting was the shadow at its heart. An unknown assailant—a "rat"—was methodically dismantling their supply network. Food storehouses, vanishing one by one as their focus was drawn elsewhere.
Only one survivor was reported, describing the man as a monster in a bird mask, which contributed little toward identifying the individual.
The door to the war room slammed open. A pale-faced Guild reporter stumbled inside clutching a slip of parchment.
"Sir, word came in—the last major storehouse in the western districts has caught fire, the food is lost!"
Her voice cracked with panic. The tension was real: no food meant no aid. No aid meant more riots. More riots meant collapse.
Finn exhaled slowly, forcing his composure. 'Breathe. Do not snap.' That Eva girl was only a Guild employee, not a soldier. It wasn't her fault his handpicked locations had been compromised.
'Still…' his mind betrayed him. That idiot should have kept her mouth shut. Why reveal the depot's location under the first whisper of a threat?
Finn cut the thought. Pointless blame would lead nowhere. Yet he had not spoken a word when Royman fired her on the spot.
If they couldn't trust even their own staff with critical information, then the Guild would be forced to ration knowledge itself. Efficiency would suffer, but leaks had to be stopped.
"Did anyone see the attacker?" Finn asked, his voice steady despite the chaos. "Was it one person, or multiple?"
Finn recalled Ais and Riveria returning early from their own mission, Ais carrying burn marks that sent Riveria into a panic and dragging her to safety.
Finn had questioned the little girl about who had managed to land a hit on her. Her answer was: 'A funny bird-mask man shot flares at me with his stick.'
…The way she phrased it could easily give a very wrong impression to any adult.
But the mask detail matched Eva's testimony. Ais had likely crossed paths with this phantom before the Guild had even realized his existence.
"W-we don't know, sir," the Guild girl stammered, her nervousness visible. "The report stated… the cultists used some kind of makeshift catapult to throw bombs from a safe distance."
'…Clever,' Finn thought. Keeping distance and inflicting attrition. Letting fire do the work. An effective tactic.
The food situation was beyond saving. Redistribution from the remaining depots would be necessary, but it would mean thin rations for all.
The starvation scenario was now more and more of a threat even with all the dead piling up. All because of that one individual.
"Thank you. You may go." Finn dismissed her with a nod.
But before the door had closed, another Guild runner stumbled in, his breathless face white with dread.
"Evilus has taken over the storehouse complex and the free market in District Six!"
Finn's brow furrowed. They were storing weapons there; luckily, they were mostly meant for level twos and ones.
That was still a major blow to the war effort.
"…I thought Hermes Familia was holding the line there. Do they require reinforcement?" His words were calm, but inside, he was trying to find a way to retake it immediately. Leaving such a strategic section of the city in enemy hands would be foolish.
"Perseus could not contain the attackers," the man blurted. "They destroyed the bridges. Only the Bridge of Heroes remains. They have established a defensive wall along the rivers!"
Finn's brows rose.
A foothold. Valleta had carved out a solid base within Orario itself. From there, they could project raids, draw lines of fire through the city.
Concentrated attacks… dangerous, but not fatal.
A known threat was better than the shadow war they had been facing. If it was simply that, Finn could concentrate forces in District Six and crush her foothold.
But the bridges were destroyed, which meant they weren't exactly planning to turn that into their new base.
Was this Valleta's aim? To bottle their forces, pin their attention, and leave the rear exposed for her agents crawling through the walls?
The pallum's quill scratched against parchment, his hand steady despite the roiling calculations in his mind. A command to Hermes Familia: redeploy immediately, reform their perimeter, adapt. A seal was pressed, and Finn extended it to the waiting messenger.
"Take this to Perseus. At once."
The man nodded sharply, but Finn raised a hand before he could leave.
"One more thing. I want a bounty issued on an individual. Send someone with skill in sketching—I want his likeness drawn."
"Yes, sir," the messenger said, nodding quickly.
When the door shut and the war room fell back into a tense quiet, Finn sat in silence. His fingers tapped lightly against the map spread before him.
"What will be your next move, Valleta…" he murmured. These moves fit her chaos-driven style—but something didn't align.
His gut told him it wasn't entirely her.
How? He didn't know.
---
"Ghaa!"
Away from the Guild's chaotic air and the pallum's paranoia, a cry of helplessness escaped the mouths of the adventurers left behind in District Six, Evilus new prized territory.
"Kill them all!" a cultist screamed in bloodlusted glee, watching the last pockets of resistance crumble like cattle driven to slaughter.
High above them all, two figures observed the spectacle, each with very different emotions.
Valleta was pleased. The swiftness of their forces, carving out such a valuable portion of Orario with so little loss on their part, thrilled her. That Perseus girl? Laughably incompetent for the exaggerated rumors surrounding her skills.
Beside her stood a simple man with forgettable features, Vito. His gaze lingered on the slaughter below, the color of blood pleasing to him, though the strategic importance of the task escaped his understanding.
"Whatcha thinking, Faceless? We got ourselves a stronghold to scare the shitheads to their core!" Valleta cheered, almost giddy with the acquisition.
Vito frowned slightly, not sharing her excitement. "If I may… what exactly do we need a foothold for? We already control the walls. I find it a waste of resources."
And it was true. The walls were in their hands, the gates at their mercy. The outside, the inside, even the underground veins of Orario were theirs to exploit. Through Knossos and many countless tunnels, Evilus could strike anywhere. They held every advantage that mattered.
Valleta slapped Vito's back, her mood even brighter than it had been since the start of the conflict. "Can't you see? I'm about to beat that short bastard!" she said with a cheeky smirk.
Vito raised an eyebrow. "How so?" His curiosity was genuine, Valleta's "big picture" often eluded him.
"Hah! There's a little rat taking out their food for us. Districts Six, Seven, and Eight are out of supplies!" she revealed with a thrilled tone, her gaze fixed on the last adventurers being torn apart by cultists below.
"Really? I thought Master Erebus ordered we avoid the depots for now." Vito's surprise was muted, but real.
Their master had been clear: stretch the despair, starve them slowly, drag the conflict into eternity. To kill everyone quickly was pointless. True despair was a slow rot.
Erebus wanted the war to bleed Orario dry, until his "little pet" reached the surface and delivered the final, crushing blow. Death alone was too merciful.
Truly, his master was despicable.
Valleta shook her head. "'Course not! You think our half-brained fodder could manage something like this? Nah. It's probably the same fella who helped us at the West Gate." Her lips curled, disdain dripping at the thought of her "troops," useful only as meat to throw at the enemy.
Vito remembered that incident well. A decisive strike at the walls made a demonstration of Evilus's reign and delivered a crippling blow to the Guild's morale.
Valleta's grin widened. "Thanks to him, soon the Guild's civies'll be eating each other for crumbs. And when chaos infests them from the inside… who do you think will be there to claim all that juicy, lawless territory, hm~?" She turned to Vito, eyes glinting with devilish glee.
Vito's expression remained stoic, though he understood now. "You want to turn this war into a land confrontation, correct?"
"Bingo!" Valleta cackled. "Why give that pallum bastard the chance to counter our momentum when we can strip away all his precious space? Corner him, crush him, cage him like the pathetic clever rat he is!" She spread her arms wide, drinking in the sight of Orario.
"This is beyond those petty gods now. We'll peel back the mask of civility and let them choke on what humanity really is about!" Her laughter rang shrill and manic, a promise of horrors yet to come.
Vito allowed himself a small smile, picturing the beautiful devastation she painted.
…
If only his master were here now. But alas, Erebus was away with that monstrous silent witch.
---
District One, northeastern Orario
Fels. His name was Fels.
To some, he had once borne the title of the Great Sage, renowned for his achievements and exceptional grasp over arcanum and the creation of magical items.
But the current humble servant of Ouranos had long since forsaken that title. Now he called himself Fels the Fool.
For all his achievements, for all the great wonders he had discovered and partaken in, his regrets had piled higher still, burying the glory beneath them. What remained was nothing but a rotting skeleton, animated by magic and failure.
A twisted form of immortality—life without living. He would never again taste the warmth of flesh, the fleeting joy of breath, the simple beating of a heart. But Fels had long since grown used to that curse. The Fool had found his purpose in serving Ouranos.
"I can see the riot," Fels murmured into the empty air.
In truth, he was speaking through a magical construct of his own design, a crystal sphere known as an Oculus. It allowed communication across great distances.
"What do you see?" came the reply from the patron god of the Guild, his voice echoing from deep within the chambers beneath the Guild.
High above, circling with steady wings, was Gafiel, Fels' owl familiar. Through the bird's eyes, the skeletal mage saw the refugee camp unravel into chaos.
The Adventurers stationed there had been forced to retreat temporarily.
Through Gafiel's vision, Fels saw men and women chained, their gaunt faces lined with despair, while others held crude weapons scavenged from scraps and broken tools. The crowd was restless, paranoid—their movements wild and uncoordinated, but their rage very real.
The chained ones were likely those who resisted the riot.
"It is as we suspected, Ouranos," Fels replied, his tone grim. "I slipped magic potions into the food to calm the people, to prevent them from turning against the Adventurers… They should not have even thought of rebellion."
The admission carried no emotion. It was not trickery, not poison, but an attempt at peace.
"I am aware," Ouranos rumbled. "Can you sense it?"
"…Yes. I am already moving through the sewers to confront this anomaly you speak of."
While his familiar soared above the city, Fels himself trudged through the damp waterways below, guided by the disturbance only his master could perceive.
It had started on the first night of the great conflict. Amid the death and destruction, Ouranos had sensed something unusual lurking in Orario.
The deity could not understand it, could not locate it. But he knew it was there.
A faint feeling.
And so Fels' original mission was cast aside. Now, his task was to uncover the source of this malignancy.
"…Blood."
Fels halted, empty sockets narrowing. The sewer water ahead ran crimson, flowing thick with blood until it stained every ripple red.
He readied his magic. This could only mean Evilus.
Each step grew heavier. The deeper he went, the stronger the current of blood became, until it was as though he waded through a river of slaughter. The very air thickened with the stink of copper.
Had he still possessed flesh, his stomach would have turned long before now.
Without warning, something changed in the air.
The magic itself shifted.
The currents around him pressed heavier and heavier upon his soul, the weight of wrongness suffocating the tunnels.
The magic was tainted. Unclean.
'Impossible,' Fels thought, his hands shaking as they felt the new energy.
Magic was neutral. It could not be pure or tainted. It simply was.
A dim light glowed at the end of the tunnel.
Then came the scream.
"AHHHH!"
A cry of death that ripped through the darkness, raw and mortal.
Without a second thought, the Fool broke into a run. He would not allow another innocent to fall while he yet had strength to stop it.
The tunnel burst open into a chamber.
And Fels stopped.
Blood.
Gore.
Bodies!
The sight clawed at his mind. The floor was carpeted in bodies of young and old alike, slaughtered without exception. Their faces frozen mid-scream, their flesh mangled beyond recognition.
The walls themselves wept red, the stone dripping with the gore of the innocent.
And among the corpses…
Evilus cultists. They stood motionless, staring upward at the ceiling. Their faces were slack, their eyes empty voids.
Fels followed their gaze.
Upon the ceiling a great circle of blood was painted, forming a star with eight spears, radiating outward in jagged symmetry.
The mage's vision recoiled. Just looking at it made his soul ache. His mind groaned under the pressure of something foul.
"What is the meaning of this?! Explain yourselves, Evilus!" Fels' voice cracked with anger, his usual calm shattered.
The cultists turned toward him in unison. Their expressions did not change. They moved as though puppets.
"Join us," one intoned, hand outstretched, a sickening smile twisting his lips.
Fels reacted instantly. Magic flared, and a blast from his magic eater annihilated the monster in a single strike.
The rest echoed the fallen one's words, their chorus cold and mechanical.
"Join us."
Fels did not listen. His fury unleashed spell after spell, obliterating them one by one
"It's… beautiful." the final cultist whispered with his dying breaths, his gaze fixed upon the symbol above.
Silence finally claimed the chamber.
Breathing raggedly—though he had no lungs—Fels surveyed the aftermath.
This loss of composure was unbecoming of him. He should have restrained them, demanded answers. But emotion had won.
And now the only answers lay buried with the dead.
His gaze swept the chamber, and despite his centuries of experience, his bones rattled faintly at the sight of infants among the butchered. Their tiny limbs strewn amidst the gore.
Then—
Join us.
The voices crawled through his skull.
Fels froze. The cultists were dead. The chamber was silent. And yet—
We will give you power.
We will give you knowledge.
We will give you everything.
The whispers slithered inside his soul, writhing where they should not be. He could not shut them out.
"Fels—"
He turned, but there was no one. The air itself spoke, every inch saturated with temptation. Promises he dared not admit he desired.
We will set you free.
"FELS!"
Ouranos' voice thundered through the Oculus, shattering the whispers' grip.
"I'm alright!" The Fool answered too quickly, his bones clattering with phantom sweat. "…I'm alright."
He turned back to the eight-pointed star. Every instinct screamed at him to avert his gaze. Yet he forced himself to look.
"What happened?" Ouranos pressed, his concern audible even through the device.
Fels did not answer immediately. His sockets traced the symbol, feeling its foul energy spread like a disease through the atmosphere. The iron stench choked the chamber, and beneath it all, he felt the corruption seeping into the magic itself.
"…I have found a clue, Master. You were right. Something is terribly wrong in the city."
"Return to me at once," Ouranos commanded, his voice grim. "And tell me everything."
Fels did not argue.
---
The End
---
Sorry I was playing Battlefield 6 beta and couldn't really focus on the story for a bit lol
Anyway, I hope this chapter was up to your standards
I usually like to stick close to canon events and just tweak them subtly, like the Freya scene
Good chaos teaser? Next chapter will dive into how it actually managed to spread, and hopefully I won't fuck it up because my W40k knowledge isn't the greatest
That Eva girl? She's an important OC
First meeting was a kick to the stomach, which honestly feels like a pretty fitting introduction to a Krieger lol
Anyway, here's a map for those who aren't too familiar with Orario's layout:
(Image)
Note: most of the territorial markings are not canon, and the areas where no one controls anything are basically a constant war zone
Image is only available on Wattpad and Webnovel—sorry to everyone else, I couldn't figure out how to put it on other sites
Thanks for your support.