The night was thick with mist — the air damp, heavy with the copper stench of blood and the burnt remains of villages caught in the storm of war. The firelight of the distant English camp flickered like dying stars beyond the ruined tree line.
Jay and Joan walked in grim silence. Their boots sank into blood-soaked earth, the mud slick with gore from days of slaughter. Behind them, Jaques' headless corpse still hung from the twisted branches of a blackened oak — a brutal warning to traitors and a monument to their fury.
Jay had changed.
The execution had carved something deep into him — a raw, merciless edge. His Arc blood stirred beneath his skin, pulsing like a war drum in his veins. The night air seemed colder around him. Joan walked at his side, steel-eyed and silent, her golden hair stained with dirt, sweat, and streaks of drying blood.
They reached their scattered forces at the edge of the forest. Weathered French soldiers, bloodied and beaten, awaited their command. Faces hollow. Eyes sunken. But when they saw Jay and Joan emerge from the dark, something passed through them.
Fear.
Respect.
Jay's voice was low and sharp. "Ready yourselves. Tonight, we send them screaming into the abyss."
---
The assault came with the fury of hellfire.
Jay led the charge through the treeline, his sword wreathed in a faint glow — the power of his Arc blood beginning to awaken fully. His strikes were not merely skillful now — they were devastating, brutal, primal.
English soldiers never saw him coming.
Jay moved like a phantom, his blade severing limbs and heads with terrifying precision. Blood sprayed in vicious arcs across his face and armor. Joan fought beside him, her own sword flashing like silver lightning, cutting down any who dared stand before her.
Screams filled the air. The night sky was torn apart by the clash of steel and the desperate wails of the dying.
Jay skewered a captain through the throat, then ripped his blade free with a spray of arterial blood. He caught another soldier by the helm and drove him face-first into a burning cart, shattering bone and metal alike.
Joan was no less terrifying. Her eyes were fierce, aflame with righteous fury. She fought like the wrath of heaven incarnate, her armor smeared with the blood of dozens.
And yet... for every English soldier slain, for every scream that echoed into the night, there was loss.
Jay turned to see one of their youngest soldiers — barely a boy — impaled through the gut. He fell, choking on blood, eyes wide with terror.
Jay roared in fury.
His Arc blood answered.
The glow around his sword flared — deep crimson like fresh blood — and with a savage cry, he drove forward, cutting down enemies in a whirlwind of gore.
Men lost their heads, their limbs, their very lives in mere heartbeats. The earth beneath Jay darkened with the blood of his foes. The lines between man and monster blurred.
By dawn, the English camp was in ruins. Corpses littered the field like discarded rags. Crows circled overhead, already descending upon the dead.
Jay stood amidst the carnage, his chest heaving, his face unrecognizable beneath the blood and dirt. Joan approached him slowly, her sword dripping crimson.
Their eyes met — two warriors born in fire and death.
Joan spoke softly, her voice raw. "We live... we fight..."
Jay finished, his voice hollow. "Until we fall."
Together, they turned to their surviving forces.
There was no celebration. No triumph.
Only the grim march forward — deeper into the nightmare of war.