The smoke from the battlefield had settled into a low, choking smog. The Plaza of Bastion was no longer a town square; it was an open-air morgue.

Red watched from the Void. The battle was over, but the psychological warfare was just beginning.

“Bring him up,” Iron-Scale ordered.

Two Shell-Kin dragged Warlord Gorak from the Vault of Whispers. He was in bad shape. The radiation from the Fragment of the Forgotten had leeched the color from his scales and the strength from his limbs. He stumbled into the sunlight, blinking against the glare.

He saw the carnage.

Piles of Troglodyte bodies were being stripped. Mud-Skippers were pulling boots off dead soldiers. Grey-Fins were collecting the rusted, useless hammer heads to be melted down.

“You…” Gorak rasped, his voice trembling with rage. “I heard them scream. I heard them beg.”

He lunged at Iron-Scale, the heavy iron chains pulling him back.

“They yielded!” Gorak roared, spit flying from his mouth. “They dropped their weapons! There is a law of war! You take prisoners! You do not slaughter surrendering men!”

Iron-Scale didn’t flinch. He wiped a speck of blood from his cheek.

“Laws are written by the living,” Iron-Scale said coldly. “If the gate had broken… if your hammers had crushed our shells… would you have taken prisoners, Warlord? Would you have spared the hatchlings in the mud?”

Gorak fell silent, his chest heaving. He knew the answer. The Obsidian-Claw took slaves, not prisoners. And slaves who fought back were executed.

“War is not a game,” Iron-Scale continued, stepping closer. “War is a weed. You do not cut the leaf. You pull the root. If I leave one of them alive, in ten years, he returns with a son to kill my son. I ended the cycle.”

Iron-Scale turned to the line of corpses.

“Sit,” Iron-Scale commanded. “And watch.”

Gorak was forced to his knees. He watched as the Kobolds efficiently stripped his kin. There was no reverence. They treated the dead like fallen trees, as if they were resources to be harvested.

“Does it burn?” Iron-Scale whispered in Gorak’s ear. “Good. Now stand up.”

Iron-Scale shoved Gorak toward the long, grim line of the dead.

“Walk the line, Warlord. Name them. Tell me who is missing.”

Gorak stumbled forward. He looked at the faces frozen in terror. “Captain Hrog…” Gorak whispered. “Lieutenant Varg…” “Quartermaster Gorn…”

He walked past hundreds. His heart broke with every step. These were his men. His drinking companions. His shield-brothers.

Then he stopped at a massive body lying near the fountain. The head was nearly severed, but the one eye staring blankly at the sky was unmistakable.

“Korg,” Gorak choked out.

The aggressive Elder lay dead, his hands still gripping a pneumatic drill. He had died fighting.

Gorak continued. He reached the end of the line.

He turned to Iron-Scale, confusion warring with his grief.

“Where are the others?” Gorak asked. “Where is Elder Zek?”

“The old one?” Iron-Scale shrugged. “He was not here. His clan did not march. Our scouts saw him leave with his people last night.”

“Zek is a coward, he left before the war,” Gorak muttered. “But where is Vraxx? Where is the Strategist? His clan is here. I see his nephews lying in the mud. I see his personal guard dead by the wall.”

Gorak looked around frantically.

“Vraxx led this army. If his men are dead, he should be dead with them. Where is his body?”

Iron-Scale smiled. It was the smile of a predator who had trapped its prey.

“He ran.”

“Liar!” Gorak screamed, straining against the chains. “Vraxx is an Elder of the Onyx Hall! He would not abandon his kin to die while he fled!”

“I have no reason to lie to a ghost,” Iron-Scale said calmly. “We watched from the walls. When the front line broke… when Korg fell… a group of Troglodytes at the rear turned and ran. They wore the robes of command. They did not look back.”

Gorak shook his head. “No. No!”

“Believe what you want,” Iron-Scale said. “Or go ask him yourself.”

Gorak froze. “What?”

Iron-Scale turned to the guards holding the chains.

“Release him.”

The Kobold guards looked at Iron-Scale like he was crazy. “Inquisitor? If we—”

“Release him!” Iron-Scale barked.

Reluctantly, they unlocked the manacles. The heavy iron chains fell to the blood-stained stones with a clang.

Gorak stood there, rubbing his raw wrists. He looked at his hands. He was free. Weak, starving, irradiated… but free.

Iron-Scale reached down and picked up a spear—a simple iron spear, looted from the battlefield. He tossed it to Gorak.

Gorak caught it instinctively. The weight felt familiar.

“You have a choice,” Iron-Scale announced, spreading his arms wide.

“You can attack me. You can try to kill us for revenge. You might kill one or two of us before Krug takes your head.”

Iron-Scale pointed to the open gate. To the mountain road that led back to the Onyx Hall.

“Or,” Iron-Scale whispered, “you can go home.”

Gorak gripped the spear until his knuckles turned white. He looked at Iron-Scale. He looked at the piles of his dead men.

“Go home,” Iron-Scale urged softly. “Find Vraxx. Ask him why Korg is dead and he is alive. Ask him why he sent your army to die against a wall while he sat in safety.”

“Realize who the real enemy is, Warlord. Is it the lizard who defended his home? Or the brother who stabbed you in the back?”

Gorak stood frozen. The rage inside him shifted. It twisted away from the Kobolds and aimed itself like a jagged arrow toward the North.

Vraxx? The Strategist? The one who had proposed the war but hadn’t fought in it.

Gorak growled, an animal sound that rumbled in his chest. He looked at Iron-Scale one last time. There was no nod of respect. There was only hate. But it was a deferred hate.

“If I find he lives…” Gorak hissed. “I will mount his head on your gate myself.”

Gorak turned. He didn’t run at first. He walked. He stepped over the bodies of his fallen soldiers, his grip on the spear tightening.

Then, he began to run.

He ran out of the open gate. He ran past the Treants. He ran into the treeline, his silhouette disappearing into the smog, heading straight for the Onyx Hall.

Iron-Scale watched him go.

Krug walked up beside him, wiping blood from his axe.

“He will kill many,” Krug grunted.

“He will kill the right ones,” Iron-Scale corrected. “A civil war does more damage than an army ever could.”

Iron-Scale turned back to the city.

“Clean this up. We have iron to smelt.”

Red, watching from the Void, slowly clapped his hands.

“Brilliant,” Red whispered. “Absolutely diabolical.”

[ QUEST COMPLETE: DEFEND THE BASTION ]

[ REWARD: MASSIVE LOOT / XP ]

[ STATUS UPDATE: NORTHERN REGION – CIVIL WAR IMMINENT ]

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep