The war drums had long since fallen silent. The battlefield, once a cacophony of clashing steel and dying screams, was eerily quiet. Too quiet.
Corpses lay scattered across the blood-soaked earth, warriors who had perished in combat—some slashed apart, others reduced to lifeless husks. The scent of iron and decay thickened the air, but for the soldiers still standing, the greatest horror was not the dead.
It was the ones who were missing.
Commander Hadrian paced through the ruined stretch of land where his forces had set up camp just hours ago. He was a hardened man, scars running across his arms and face like battle-earned tattoos. He had survived more wars than most, but this—this silence, this absence of bodies—chilled him to his very core. He was part of the main government of Veryan City.
"Sir, we've lost contact with the eastern flank." A scout rushed to his side, panting. "We sent a runner ten minutes ago. He hasn't returned."
