The first rule Zikura gave the resistance was simple.
"We do not become him."
Some nodded immediately. Others exchanged uneasy glances. War had a way of eroding ideals faster than hunger ever could.
They were camped in a natural basin beneath Redfall Pass, shielded by jagged cliffs and ancient stone formations that hummed faintly with dormant magic. Fires burned low, carefully masked to avoid detection. Scouts moved in rotating shifts, their footsteps light, their eyes always on the horizon.
This was not an army.
It was a wound that refused to close.
Zikura stood at the edge of the basin, arms crossed, staring at the mountains beyond. His armor lay discarded behind him, replaced by simple leather and cloth. Without the runes and steel, he looked less like a weapon and more like what he truly was—a tired warrior carrying too many ghosts.
"You should rest."
He didn't turn. He knew the voice.
Sereth Vale approached, her silver facial markings catching the moonlight. She moved with the calm confidence of someone who had already lost everything worth losing.
"I don't sleep much," Zikura replied.
"Neither do leaders."
He exhaled softly. "I'm not a leader."
Sereth stopped beside him. "You're the reason people followed me here."
"That's worse," he muttered.
She studied him for a long moment. "You think because you were used, you don't deserve to stand at the front."
Zikura's jaw tightened. "I think because I destroyed cities, I don't get to decide who lives."
Silence settled between them, heavy but not hostile.
"Every rebellion is born from blood," Sereth said finally. "The question isn't whether you spilled it. It's whether you'll keep spilling it for the wrong reasons."
Zikura closed his eyes.
The wolf stirred uneasily inside him, sensing the truth in her words.
Before he could respond, a horn sounded—short, sharp, urgent.
Scout signal.
Zikura turned instantly, senses flaring. "Positions," he commanded, voice steady despite the tension rising in his chest.
So this was how it began.
The sky broke first.
Dark clouds rolled in unnaturally fast, swallowing the stars. The air grew thick, crackling with corrupted mana that made Zikura's skin prickle painfully.
"They found us," someone whispered.
"No," Zikura said grimly. "He sent something."
The ground trembled.
From the mountain pass emerged figures wrapped in black light, their movements unnatural, jerking as though pulled by invisible strings. Their eyes glowed pale white, mouths hanging open in silent screams.
The Void Choir.
Even seasoned fighters recoiled in horror.
"They're dead," one resistance mage whispered. "Those are dead people."
"Not dead," Zikura corrected quietly. "Erased."
The Choir raised their arms in unison.
Sound vanished.
Not quiet—absence.
The air folded inward as a wave of void magic surged toward the camp.
"Shields!" Sereth shouted.
Mages scrambled, forming barriers of light and earth. The wave slammed into them, cracking defenses instantly. People screamed as reality warped, weapons dissolving into dust, spells unraveling mid-cast.
Zikura stepped forward.
"No," Sereth shouted. "You can't face them alone!"
He didn't answer.
The Howlbind ignited, blue light racing across his skin like living fire. His eyes burned gold as he drew deeply from the wolf—not rage, but resolve.
"I choose," he whispered.
He slammed his hands into the ground.
The earth answered.
Stone surged upward, forming a massive crescent wall that absorbed the worst of the void wave. Cracks spiderwebbed instantly, but it held.
The resistance stared.
Zikura rose, breathing hard. "Move the wounded. Now."
The Choir advanced.
With each step, memories flooded Zikura's mind—not his own. чуж Voices. Screams. Final thoughts ripped from those Maelkor had erased.
He staggered.
You cannot save them all, the wolf warned gently.
"I know," Zikura whispered. "But I can save some."
He charged.
Fighting the Void Choir was unlike anything Zikura had faced.
Blades passed through them uselessly. Magic unraveled on contact. Each strike risked being pulled into nothingness.
Zikura adapted.
He stopped trying to destroy them.
Instead, he anchored them.
He bit into his palm, blood spilling onto the ground as he carved a sigil of binding—old, forbidden, taught only to Wolf Wardens in times of extinction.
"By fang and breath," he growled, "by memory unbroken—return!"
The sigil flared.
The Choir screamed.
Not in agony—but recognition.
For a heartbeat, their forms solidified. Faces emerged from the void—men, women, children. People who had once lived.
Zikura felt their pain crush into him like a tidal wave.
Thank you, whispered dozens of voices at once.
The sigil collapsed.
The Choir fell—empty shells, finally allowed to rest.
Zikura dropped to one knee, shaking violently.
The wolf howled inside him, wounded.
Sereth caught him before he hit the ground.
"You did it," she breathed.
"No," Zikura said hoarsely. "I survived it."
They won.
But victory tasted like ash.
The camp was quieter afterward. Too quiet. Bodies were laid out carefully, covered with cloaks. Fires burned low as healers worked in exhausted silence.
Zikura sat alone near the edge of the basin, staring at his bloodstained hands.
Saving the Choir had cost him something.
He could feel it.
The wolf was weaker.
Not gone—but strained.
"You can't keep doing that," Kaelen said quietly, approaching from behind.
Zikura didn't look up. "I don't plan to."
Kaelen knelt beside him. "Maelkor wanted this. He wanted to see what you'd sacrifice."
Zikura's voice was barely audible. "Then he learned something."
"What?"
"That I'll bleed for them."
Kaelen met his gaze. "And what happens when there's nothing left to bleed?"
Zikura looked toward the moon, full and merciless.
"Then," he said softly, "I'll have to decide who I become without the wolf."
Far away, Maelkor felt the Choir fall silent.
He smiled.
Because every hero had a breaking point.
And he intended to find Zikura's.