The bloodstain on the map now stretched toward Sector 4. Priest Radu's pawn flickered intermittently, like lanterns trembling among the branches of the trees in the Hanged Men's Glade, like the torches that guided him into the treacherous surroundings he was about to descend into.
Priest Radu stepped carefully among the twisted trees, the wooden cross raised like a shield against the darkness. His fingers clutched the wood so tightly it nearly snapped, while his breath froze at his lips. The forest whispered. It swelled with dampness and the strong stench of decay. Some noises were broken only by fleeting cracks beneath his boots. The guards behind him moved like shadows, their soles pressing against the sodden earth. Even the smallest snap of a twig sounded like a sinister cry in that heavy silence.
At the Hanged Men's Glade, the wind had lost its breath, as if smothered by the presence of those who hung there. From the branches of the trees, dozens of bodies swayed gently, skeletons clothed in scraps of skin, their hollow eyes watching from empty sockets into the barren spaces. The claws of the trees seemed to stretch toward him, and the priest felt sweat running down his back, cold as the touch of the dead.
Then the forest beside him shuddered. From the dark branches, someone had been watching for a long time. A hunched silhouette, on a hilltop, hidden. The moonlight clung to his silver mask, carefully sculpted, but cracked in three places, perhaps signs of its age. Without a sound, the silhouette leapt downward, landing softly beside the priest. The legionnaire's hand wrenched the cross from Priest Radu's grip with brutal strength. The cross, once a symbol of faith and hope, now became a profane weapon in his hands. The legionnaire's voice slid into the heavy air of the glade like a hoarse whisper, mingled with a sinister chuckle:
— Do you think this will save you? Even demons know how to wield crosses...
He turned the cross upside down and drove it into the ground. From his chest he pulled out another cross, revealing a sharp hilt that gleamed faintly under the moonlight. On the old metal, a faded symbol could be seen, stained with dried blood — an imprint of a deep profanation. The priest froze, his eyes wide, fixed in horror upon the cursed sign that seemed to burn his very soul.
Around them, the guards began to merge into a bloody dance of betrayal and madness — the hands of friends rising against one another, their eyes transformed, lost in boundless fury, turning old alliances into bloody conflicts. No prayer, no plea, nothing could stop the spiral of violence unleashed in their bodies.
— Fight for your lives! — roared the legionnaire with a voice that defied the silence of the night. His arms spread wide, as though stretching out the very shadows of darkness itself. — The slaughter is only beginning. Show yourselves, exiled ones! It is time to escape!
On the ground, a green smoke, thick and viscous as tar, began to spread slowly, shrouding the glade in an apocalyptic veil of silence. Beneath this heavy mist, the skeletons began to crawl, some with rotting scraps of flesh dangling, others nothing but translucent bones, twisted into a final gesture of revolt. Their eyes, where they still existed, glowed with a mad hunger, a fire of vengeance burning in the dark.
A long, collective hiss rose into the night air — the echo of an ancient desire, a merciless hunger for blood and death. It was the voice of the forgotten, those condemned to oblivion, now awakened from eternal sleep to avenge the injustice of the living.
The legionnaire took a step forward, and his mask shone sinister in the dim light, a thirst for blood hidden beneath it, together with a ruthless secret. His voice, low and threatening, dripped over the coolness of the night:
— Father, you are allowed to choose. Join us... or die.
Priest Radu remained silent, his eyes lost in a whirlwind of unspoken prayers that spun in his mind like a tornado of helplessness and despair. His lips trembled, but the words resisted escape — he could not betray his faith, even though his body was seized by a shiver of terror that seemed to crush his soul.
The legionnaire, though disappointed, showed no trace of surprise. With an elegant movement, almost ceremonial, a fine, cold, sinister cord quickly wound a chain around Radu's neck. In an instant, the priest's body began to sway gently, suspended between life and death, among the other hanging silhouettes, swinging in the wind like ghostly shadows.
The sound of the chain creaked in the silence of the night, and the priest's last mute deeds remained unanswered, lost in the fog of destiny. The deep forest now echoed with a heavy resonance, a sinister whisper slicing through the air:
— A fitting end at the Hanged Men's Glade.
Silence fell again, heavy and oppressive, but it was by no means peace — only a deceptive calm, foreshadowing a much crueller storm to come. The dead, suspended in the midst of eternity, seemed to pause for a moment, as though observing an ancient ritual in which life and death meet for the last time.
The green smoke, thick and viscous, still drifted above the glade, entwining with the night's shadows like a poisonous mist. Far away, in the darkness, a rhythmic, frightening pounding began to echo, announcing the arrival of other footsteps. The massacre had only just begun.
The body of Priest Radu swayed slowly in the wind. Inside the silent chamber of the castle, Adam Wolf's ancient map seemed to feel the passing of life. The pawn that bore the priest's name suddenly fell, with the sound of a dull chain tearing the silence like the strike of a hammer.
It rolled slowly across the parchment, and behind it remained an unusual mark — a dark cross, almost alive. Its contours vibrated faintly, like a painful memory refusing to fade. It seemed as though the map itself wept for the loss of a man, and for a promise not yet fulfilled. In the air drifted the cold scent of death and shattered destiny, a chill creeping in — a silent warning that the shadows were gathering, and the path ahead would be darker than ever.