The air smelled of ash, cordite, and blood.

  Reinhard moved like a ghost through the ruins, his body still half-wrapped in the haze of grief, his soul anchored now only by vengeance. Mars stalked beside him, hackles raised, low growls vibrating deep in his chest.

  Behind them, the war machine stirred to life.

  The Panzergrenadiers moved with discipline born of another world’s brutal wars. Their boots thudded against cobbled streets, rifles at the ready, helmets casting shadows over resolute faces behind their gas masks. They advanced in formation, sweeping intersections, stacking against alley walls, clearing buildings as if they had trained for this specific city all their lives.

  And behind them came the thunder.

  A pair of Tiger 2s, their tracked hulls rumbling over fallen debris, rotated their massive barrels toward the enemy-occupied quarter. Smoke coiled from their muzzles as they prepared for a second barrage.

  Reinhard raised his hand, and the Tiger commander’s voice cracked through the radio feed.“Targets locked.”“Send them home,” Reinhard replied.

  The Tiger 2s fired.

  The shells screamed overhead, trailing smoke and fire. They smmed into the eastern sector of the city, where twisted towers of the Verminthar logistical hub still loomed. The impact was cataclysmic — vermin screamed, Beastmen roared in confusion. A second barrage followed, this time cratering a major canal route the enemies were using for fnking. The explosions didn’t just damage them — they broke their cohesion.

  His HUD flickered. Target designations updated. More red blips blinked out.

  [Soul Point Gain: +92][Remaining: 356]

  Reinhard’s breath hissed through his mask. He checked the feed from his drones. They were doing their work — identifying enemy officers, heavy weapon empcements, and pces where Beastmen gathered to rally.

  He would turn them into graves.

  “Suppressing fire,” he ordered.

  The MG42s came alive. The sound wasn’t just loud — it ripped through the air, a banshee wail of overpping fire that tore down charging cnrats in waves. The gunners used overpping arcs, pinning down entire streets with deadly efficiency. Ratogers tried to charge but were met with Panzerschrecks — one staggered, the other exploded in a fireball that bathed the walls in gore.

  Still they came. Still the enemy cwed forward.

  Reinhard moved with them, rifle raised. He took no pleasure in the killing — just purpose. Every shot he took was measured. A throat. A temple. A limb to disable before the machinegun finished them off.

  And Mars — Mars was a phantom. He ripped through fnkers with precision and fury, his coat now stained with ash and blood, but his eyes locked to his master.

  Then came the counterassault.

  A Beastman Minotaur brute, standing 3 meters tall, wielding a fming give, charged the lead Panzergrenadier squad. A single gesture from Reinhard, and the Tiger II’s turret rotated with a slow, lethal grace.

  One shot.

  The beast disappeared in a plume of blood and fire, chunks of burning flesh raining down across the rooftops.

  [Threat Level: Neutralized][Soul Point Gain: +33]

  Reinhard exhaled and looked toward the keep.

  Smoke still rose around its ancient walls. But the skies above it were clearing — for the first time since the battle began, the defenders of Stonewatch had air.

  "Push to the inner keep’s walls," he barked. “Clear them a path.”

  The infantry surged forward, and Reinhard followed.

  His city burned.

  But it would not die.

  ****** Elsewhere*****

  The pza before the inner keep was a graveyard of broken formations.

  Bodies — beastmen, cnrats, humans — littered the charred ground. Smoke choked the air, thick with the stench of blood, burned flesh, and sulfur. What had once been a coordinated surge toward the heart of Stonewatch had become chaos.

  And Ghorvak felt it.

  The Minotaur general stood at the edge of the ruined fountain, his nostrils fring, eyes scanning the fire-wreathed ramparts of the keep. His armor, dark and jagged like obsidian, was spattered with gore. One of his horns was chipped — a relic of a kill that hadn’t come easy. But the look in his eyes was not rage.

  It was calcution.

  The pn had been fwless. Coordinated explosions to cripple the outer defenses. A multi-pronged assault — tunnels below, beastmen from the east, the Verminthar from the west. And now… now his warriors were dying in droves.

  To what?

  The air trembled. Another whump of distant artillery. A fming shell crashed into a nearby battlement, sending rubble and cnrats flying.

  Ghorvak turned, muscles rippling beneath his pte as he stalked toward the tall, hunched figure waiting at the base of a shattered statue — the Shaman Gruth’Kal.

  The beast was still robed, the runes across his staff pulsing in erratic rhythms, as if even the Netherstone didn’t understand what was happening anymore. Gruth’Kal’s long tongue flicked once in agitation, then again, tasting the change in the air.

  “They are not from this world,” the shaman hissed.

  Ghorvak grunted. “I know. Steel ghosts. Marching with discipline. Magic of fire and metal. We lost three squads to one machine.”

  He paused, eyes narrowing.

  “And they are heading here.”

  Gruth’Kal twitched. “This was not in the threads. I felt no ripple in the Weave. This is something new. Something wrong.”

  Another thud. The ground vibrated beneath their hooves. One of the siege towers, half-deployed near the wall, exploded into a burst of fme and shrapnel. Screams followed. Then gunfire. That relentless, sawing gunfire.

  MG42s.

  “Even our artillery gunners were sughtered,” Ghorvak growled. “Sniped before they could return fire. They see us. They know our positions. They fight as one mind.”

  “They do not bleed like mortals,” Gruth’Kal muttered. “They burn like they’ve already died once.”

  The Minotaur stared at the distant streets beyond the square. The firelight reflected off something — metal hulls. Shapes moving in formation. The roar of treads, the bark of commands. A machine war had begun, and their wild brutality meant nothing to its cold precision.

  “We must break the keep now,” Ghorvak snarled. “While we still can.”

  Gruth’Kal’s cwed fingers tightened on his staff. “I will call the Void Maw.”

  Ghorvak raised an eyebrow.

  “That was not sanctioned—”

  “The gods are not here,” the shaman rasped. “Whatever hunts us was not forged by prophecy. It is a curse made flesh. And it is bleeding your army, general.”

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

  Then Ghorvak nodded once. “Do it.”

  Gruth’Kal turned, his staff already thrumming with violent energy as he limped toward the rear. Beastmen peeled away to give him space. The air darkened unnaturally, the wind stilled.

  Ghorvak drew his scimitar and walked forward to the front ranks.

  If this city was to be taken, it would be taken through blood and smoke. But something deep in his bones — old, primal — whispered that this enemy would not fall like the rest.

  Not today.

  **********In the keep**********

  The main courtyard of the keep pulsed with raw tension.

  Soldiers were packed shoulder-to-shoulder along the inner battlements and gatehouse — some bleeding, others silent with grim focus. Smoke billowed from the city beyond, and the air stank of death, burning flesh, and broken stone. But the keep still stood, its ancient rune-shield shimmering faintly above the gate towers.

  The eastern gate had taken the brunt of the assault. Its defenses were scorched and battered, the rune-locks barely holding against the assault of beastmen, verminthar, and nether-augmented monstrosities. The outer gates had fallen hours ago, the barricades within reinforced only by bodies and grit.

  But now — with the tide turning — it was time to strike back.

  Margrave Halderan stood at the fore of his remaining forces. His armor bore the gouges of a dozen skirmishes, blood streaking his face and pting, but he hadn’t stopped once. Beside him stood Erich, haggard and pale, leaning on his staff, the veins in his hands glowing faintly from residual magical exertion.

  “They’re regrouping for a final push,” Halderan growled, eyes narrowing at the siege lines visible through the arrow slits.

  “Yes,” Erich rasped. “But something’s changed.”

  The Margrave gnced sideways. “What?”

  Erich didn’t answer with words — instead, he tilted his head to the west.

  It started as a dull rumble. Then a boom. Then another.

  Rhythmic. Precise.

  Artillery.

  Not crude bombardment. Not wild vermin-fires. Disciplined strikes, like war drums announcing doom. And beneath it, the mechanical hum of engines. Vehicles. Tracks grinding over shattered stone.

  It was coming from the west.

  “Reinhard,” Halderan muttered, the ghost of a grin tugging at his lips. “By the gods, you mad bastard.”

  Erich’s eyes gleamed. “He’s returned. And he didn’t come alone.”

  There was no time to marvel.

  A nearby tower mage shouted. “Enemy consolidating at the eastern pza! They're preparing a charge!”

  Halderan turned on his heel, voice booming.

  “Prepare the main gate. Form up the sortie lines! Infantry center, shields forward, spears staggered. Crossbowmen on the fnks. Hold the gate until the order is given.”

  A horn blew. The defenders scrambled to formation — the st remaining reserve force, once held to guard the Keep’s inner sanctum, now their spearhead.

  Behind them, the st stragglers from the city limped through the entry halls, past piles of rubble and makeshift barricades. The wounded were being rushed to the inner courtyards, but the gates were closing. There would be no retreat.

  Above, mages gathered on the ramparts, staves raised. The sky shimmered with growing light, runes spinning into focus. Spells of warding, fme, frost, and arcane judgment built into a ttice above the gatehouse.

  Halderan drew his bde, eyes fixed on the gate ahead.

  “Erich,” he said, voice low.

  “Yes?”

  “When the gate opens, and the order’s given…”

  “I know.”

  “I want that shaman turned to ash.”

  Erich’s smile was bitter. “I’ve been saving the st of my strength for him.”

  As they made final preparations, the distant sound of Reinhard’s counteroffensive grew louder. Gunfire. Screams. Explosions.

  And now, the enemy found themselves between the hammer and the anvil.

  *************************************

  The earth trembled beneath Ghorvak’s hooves as he watched the horizon twist.

  "Hold your ground!" he bellowed, smming his scimitar into the stone beside him.

  But even his voice couldn't anchor the madness unfolding ahead.

  Gruth’Kal knelt beside a broken altar — the remnants of an old chapel now warped by nether energy. Around him, beastmen formed a wide ring, eyes wide with fear and awe as the shaman’s staff pulsed like a second heart.

  “The time is not yet!” Ghorvak snarled. “You risk summoning a curse upon us all—”

  “That curse is already here,” Gruth’Kal whispered.

  With deliberate care, he pressed an obsidian talisman into the fractured earth. The moment it touched the stone, the ground cracked. Glowing green sigils ignited in a circle around him. The air thickened. Screams echoed — but not from any throat in the pza.

  They came from beneath.

  [VOID MAW: Containment Seal – Fractured]

  Wind whipped through the streets — without direction, without source. The sky dimmed. Soldiers stumbled back, cws over their ears as an unnatural shriek tore through the air.

  And then it opened.

  The Void Maw.

  A rift cwed itself into reality — jagged and howling — a vertical gash of pure unreality at the edge of the square. From within, tendrils of shadow burst forth, shing indiscriminately. Anything living was fair game.

  A Tharkari berserker was the first to fall — lifted screaming into the air, torn limb from limb by invisible cws. Cnrats scattered, some dragged beneath the cobblestones by unseen maws. A Ratoger tried to fight back — only for half its body to vanish in a blink, sliced clean by something that wasn’t there.

  Gruth’Kal stood, arms raised, eyes glowing. “They will cleanse the weak,” he rasped. “And leave only the chosen.”

  But even he was beginning to lose control.

  The tendrils spun out farther than intended. The rift pulsed again — unstable. Growing.

  ******************************

  Moments prior, The main gate of the keep creaked open with a deep, groaning defiance — a sound that cut through the chaos like a bde.

  Soot-streaked soldiers poured out through the archway, shields up, spears leveled, voices hoarse with battle cries. Above them, the banners of House Halderan fluttered, scorched and tattered, yet unbroken.

  Margrave Halderan rode at the vanguard, his warhorse armored in melr ptes, snorting steam from fred nostrils. His bde gleamed cold and sharp, his eyes locked on the broken square ahead. To either side of him, Stonewatch's elite guard surged forward, their formation tight and practiced despite exhaustion.

  Erich ran behind the front line, his breath controlled, his staff glowing at the tip with an ambient hum of power. He was no longer a court mage — he was a weapon, forged by desperation and fme.

  The cobbled streets outside the keep were strewn with corpses — Tharkari beastmen, Verminthar cnrats, and Stonewatch defenders alike. Bck blood pooled around shattered masonry. Fires raged in the buildings to either side.

  From his position behind the Tharkar berserkers, Ghorvak watched them emerge. The minotaur general narrowed his eyes, nostrils fring. He smmed the butt of his scimitar against the stones, then growled low to the hornbearer at his side.

  “Sound it. Let them come.”

  A harsh bellow echoed through the square, rallying the remaining Tharkari. The beastmen began to form ranks, fnked by bloodied Verminthar gunners and the towering forms of remaining Ratogres.

  The two forces cshed like twin storms.

  Halderan’s bde cut down a vermin warrior, then parried a jagged axe from a beastman, skewering the brute through the chest with one clean thrust. His horse reared, trampling another.

  Erich raised his staff and unched a bolt of chain lightning that arced across a dozen cnrats, igniting their crude armor in bursts of light. He ducked behind a shield wall as arrows whistled past his ear.

  Then — he felt it.

  A pulse.

  Dark. Wrong.

  His eyes snapped up — and there, near the colpsed statue ptform beyond the center square, stood the Shaman.

  Gruth’Kal.

  He chanted, his staff glowing with sickly green light. Behind him, the Void Maw twisted reality like melted gss, distorting the air and hissing with malign hunger.

  Erich’s stomach turned. “No…”

  He sprinted across the shattered square, his boots thudding on cracked stone slick with blood and ash.

  The closer he came, the more the air warped. The Void Maw pulsed like a living wound — distorting space with each ragged breath it took from reality. It hovered behind Gruth’Kal, widening by the second, its edges tearing open with threads of screaming darkness.

  And from within… shapes were beginning to stir. Daemon things. Hungry. Mad. Wrong.

  Gruth’Kal stood unmoved. Arms raised, staff lifted high, his guttural chant growing louder — an incantation in the blighted tongue of the deep Void. Green fire bzed from his eyes, and the runes tattooed across his chest shone like molten iron.

  Erich didn’t hesitate.

  He snapped his staff forward, with a defying shout of “Lux Invicta” and with a blinding burst of light, unleashed a bolt of condensed wrath — Divine Smite. It surged like a thundercp, smming into the shaman’s protective ward. The shield fred, cracked, then shattered.

  Gruth’Kal staggered.

  The chant faltered.

  And Erich was already moving — closing the distance with terrifying speed. A second spell leapt from his staff — this one a spear of force that drove through the shaman’s midsection. Gruth’Kal colpsed to his knees, blood gushing from the wound. His staff fell from his hands, cttering against the ground.

  But the damage was done.

  The Void Maw shrieked.

  A single daemon breached its threshold — a towering, misshapen thing with too many limbs and a burning core where its heart should have been. It cwed its way into reality, shrieking with fury, and began tearing into the nearest Tharkari warriors indiscriminately.

  The battlefield descended into chaos.

  Ghorvak, seeing the monster turn on his own troops, roared orders — but the creature ignored all commands. It hurled a Ratoger into a building, then impaled a beastman with its tendrils.

  Erich stood, breath ragged, watching as the Maw began to colpse in on itself, losing coherence now that the shaman was dying. The rift screamed — a final gasp of hatred — before it folded into a point of blinding light and vanished.

  Silence followed.

  Then — the screams resumed.

  The daemon still rampaged.

  Erich turned, eyes fshing, and ran back toward the battle, his staff glowing with renewed fury. Behind him, Gruth’Kal's corpse crumbled into ash, his final spell spent.

  The maw was gone.

  But the enemies were still breathing.

  Now the battle raged in the heart of the city.

  Duke Halderan’s sortie was fully committed—his household guard and rallying soldiers forming a bristling wedge of steel and willpower. They pressed outward from the damaged gatehouse before the keep, advancing behind a tight phanx of shields while mages and crossbowmen provided a punishing hail of cover fire and meeting the enemy in the square.

  At the center of it all stood the duke himself—cloak torn, armor bckened with soot and blood, but unbowed.

  The Thrakar line, already pressured from the front, now looked to the west—too te.

  A low, grinding growl echoed across the pza, like the earth itself groaning.

  Then the first of Reinhard's armored column emerged from the smoke and shattered alleyways.

  Panzer IVs, coated in ash and rubble, rolled in tight formation with Tiger IIs, their barrels already trained toward enemy targets. Treads crushed debris underfoot, followed closely by the mechanized Panzergrenadiers dismounting under cover of their steel beasts.

  Reinhard was at the front, his uniform torn and blood-smeared, the hellfire of grief still burning behind his eyes. Mars ran beside him, silent and focused, fur matted with soot and blood.

  He raised one hand—then dropped it sharply.

  The Tigers fired in unison.

  The pza shook. High-explosive shells tore through the right fnk of the beastmen formation, reducing entire squads to mangled limbs and scorched fur. A Panzer IV pivoted hard and fired point-bnk into a makeshift barricade where Verminthar gunners had taken cover. The shot vaporized them.

  The enemy line, already reeling from the failed ritual and frontal pressure, now buckled under the sudden, brutal fnk.

  Reinhard moved like a wraith, his Banshee rifle barking death through the haze. A Ratoger charged from the smoke, and was met by a storm of MG42 fire as one of the machine gun teams set up behind the tanks let loose. The beast colpsed mid-sprint, riddled with holes.

  Across the pza, Halderan turned briefly—eyes locking on the armored behemoths cutting through the enemy fnk.

  He smiled grimly.

  “Push forward! Link with the armored units!” he roared.

  Erich, breathless but alive, rejoined the duke, his staff dimming as the st of the magical discharge faded. “That was a shaman of terrifying power,” he muttered. “If we had been a minute slower…”

  “We weren’t,” Halderan said. “Now we break them.”

  The final push began.

  Reinhard’s soldiers advanced in a disciplined wave—clearing buildings, flushing out nest pockets, and cutting down anything not wearing friendly colors. Their coordination was inhuman—each man operating like a cog in a death-dealing machine, drawn from a war of steel and fire far beyond this world. the MG42 crews set up makeshift empcements to bnket the square with 8mm Mauser hellfire.

  The daemon screeched, lurching toward Halderan's line, but a Tiger swivelled and loosed another shell. The bst severed the thing’s right arm at the shoulder, and the follow-up from the two Panzer 4s shredded what remained.

  Smoke curled from the crater where the daemon finally fell, its form imploding into the very cobblestones it had defiled.

  By then, the remnants of the Thrakar and Verminthar force were in retreat—what few had not been crushed underfoot or turned to ash.

  The pza was theirs.

  But not without cost.

  Blood soaked the stone. The fires still burned. And above it all, Stonewatch's battered skyline loomed—its soul cracked, but not yet broken.

  Reinhard moved slowly toward the center, visor dimmed. The ghosts of the dead still echoed in his ears.

  And the battle was far from over.