Chapter 74: The Brilliance Of A Warrior

Morghanna lay at the bottom of a colossal crater.

​The battlefield had long since fallen silent.

​The once-proud Chief of the Kragmar Dominion was covered in severe wounds from head to toe.

Countless jagged cuts crisscrossed her skin, and her heavy armor had been reduced to shredded scraps hanging from her blood-soaked body.

​The ground beneath her resembled a crimson lake.

​Her blood. All of it hers.

​Beside her lay the remains of her axe, the weapon that had accompanied her through countless legendary battles.

Now, it was nothing more than shattered metal fragments scattered across the crater floor.

​Morghanna stared blankly up at the emerald sky above.

​Twenty-seven.

​Twenty-seven attacks.

​Each one had been a terrifying trial in itself.

​The sixth attack had nearly ended her right then and there. She still remembered the sensation, the feeling of every bone in her arms threatening to shatter as she forced herself to meet the cyan slash head-on.

By that point, blood had already been pouring from her body, her muscles had begun tearing, and her mana circuits had started showing severe signs of strain.

​Yet she had continued, because stopping had never been an option.

​The twelfth attack was even stranger. Somewhere amidst the endless struggle, she had felt herself advancing further into the [Grand Circuit Realm].

Whether it had been genuine cultivation progress or merely the hallucination of a dying woman desperately grasping for more strength, she didn’t know.

​Nor did she care. By then, all she wanted was to keep fighting, to see the next attack, and to challenge the next impossible wall.

​By the twentieth attack... everything had changed.

​Her body had moved entirely on pure, primal instinct. There had been no strategy, no tactical calculations, and no intricate techniques.

​Only movement.

​Her mind had become too numb to process anything else. Pain had ceased to matter, fear had ceased to matter, and even victory itself had ceased to matter.

There had only been the next slash, the next impossible mountain she had to climb.

​And then came the twenty-seventh.

​The final attack. The one that broke everything.

​Ironically, it wasn’t the slash itself that ultimately defeated her. It was her own relentless persistence.

​Again and again, she had poured raw mana into her counterattacks. Again and again, she had forced her shattered body far beyond its limits. Again and again, she had demanded more from her mana core.

​Until eventually... it broke.

​Who would have thought that repeatedly striking an inexhaustible, infinite-mana attack would eventually shatter a cultivator’s mana core?

​The thought almost made her laugh. Almost.

​Her breathing became increasingly erratic, each inhale feeling heavier and colder than the last.

​Above her, a figure descended.

​Cassian Voss landed softly within the crater. The Undead Lord stared down at her with the exact same calm gaze he had worn throughout the entire battle, as though unleashing twenty-seven catastrophic attacks capable of erasing armies was nothing extraordinary.

​Morghanna found that strangely irritating... and strangely admirable.

​She coughed weakly, blood spilling over her lips and filling her mouth with a heavy metallic taste.

​Then, she let out a faint, raspy laugh.

​"So..." Her voice was barely audible above the quiet wind. "You won the wager."

​She looked toward the shattered remains of her axe, then back toward his face.

​"Fortunately for you..." Another violent cough interrupted her speech. "As requested... my life belongs to you now."

​Cassian remained dead silent.

​The silence stretched between them, heavy and absolute, yet neither seemed bothered by it.

​Eventually, Morghanna looked back toward the emerald sky. For some reason, it still looked beautiful.

Perhaps because she was finally dying, or perhaps because she had finally found the impossible challenge she had spent her entire life searching for.

​She didn’t know. And for once... she didn’t care.

​A faint chuckle escaped her bloodied lips. "I just wish... I could have struck your face at least once."

​The words lingered softly in the air.

​Then, total silence followed.

​The smile remained on her face, but the brilliant crimson light within her eyes slowly faded away.

​Her head tilted gently to the side as the remaining tension left her body, the lingering mana surrounding her frame vanished into the air, and the Chief of the Kragmar Dominion drew her final breath.

​Morghanna was dead.

Rain began as a faint drizzle.

​Tiny droplets fell from the emerald sky, striking the scorched earth of the Kragmar Dominion, landing upon shattered walls, broken weapons, and pooling blood.

As the drizzle intensified into a steady downpour, it washed crimson stains into muddy streams.

​The heavens themselves seemed to mourn.

​Not for the countless Orcs who had fallen, and not for the ruined settlement, but for the death of the one who had stood at its absolute peak:

​Morghanna.

​The rain fell over the crater where the Chief had drawn her final breath, carrying away the warmth of her blood and leaving only heavy silence behind.

​Far from the immediate battlefield, the surviving Orcs stared in absolute shock.

After retreating from the impact zone, they had remained behind to witness the final clash between their Chief and the Starbound Intruder.

​At first, they had been worried. Then excited when Morghanna broke through, then exhilarated when the intruder refused her offer of mercy... and finally...

​Reality had struck them like a thunderbolt.

​The Starbound Intruder, no, Cassian Voss, was a force of nature.

​The very same enemy they had dismissed. The same enemy they planned to wait seven days to slaughter. The same enemy they believed would cower helplessly behind his barrier.

​He had invaded their territory, destroyed their settlement, slaughtered their warriors, and executed their ruler.

​If that wasn’t a lethal blow to the pride of the Kragmar Dominion, none of them knew what was.

​"A simple task of protecting us, and she went and got herself killed," one of the elders spoke without a trace of grief. Only pure contempt.

​The remaining council elders quickly echoed his words:

​"That abomination was useless in the end."

​"She was born to protect the Dominion and couldn’t even accomplish that."

​"All that strength and she still failed."

​"Perhaps this is a sign from the ancestors. She should never have been born."

​"An abomination like her could only bring calamity."

​The surviving warriors nodded in silent agreement.

​Not a single voice defended her, not one.

​Morghanna had never truly been one of them. To the Orcs, she was not family, not a chief, and not even a person.

She was a tool, a living shield, a monster they pointed toward their enemies.

​If a stronger Orc had ever appeared, they would have gladly supported that warrior in overthrowing and slaughtering her.

The only reason Morghanna had remained Chief was because no one stronger existed.

​Now she was dead, and to them, she had simply become a broken weapon.

​One of the elders stepped forward, raising a hand. "We retreat immediately. Gather the wounded and—"

​His words died in his throat.

​Every Orc froze in place as a suffocating silence spread through the forest.

​The elder’s pupils shrank to pinpricks, and cold sweat poured down his face. Every surviving Orc felt it, an indescribable, crushing pressure that made their core instincts scream in terror.

​Slowly... very slowly, they turned their heads.

​Cassian Voss stood in the falling rain.

​Water rolled off his black armor, while the skull engraved upon his breastplate appeared even more sinister beneath the darkened sky. His sky-blue eyes remained calm, cold, and utterly unmoved.

​The crowd of Orcs felt their throats tighten.

​Then, he spoke:

​"Who said you could leave?"

​The words weren’t loud, yet they echoed like an absolute death sentence across the woods.

​At that moment, the surrounding forest exploded with movement. Shadows stirred, trees trembled, and countless undead figures emerged from the gloom.

​Skeleton Soldiers stepped out from behind skeletal trunks, Elite Undead appeared atop raised ridges, Special Units crawled from the darkness, and massive undead beasts revealed themselves among the trees.

​The Orcs looked around and realized they were surrounded. Completely.

​There wasn’t a single escape route left.

​Their faces turned ash-white.

​Then, the undead ranks parted.

​A figure walked through the downpour, white hair, violet eyes, and a dark scythe resting loosely across her shoulder.

​Nyxara stepped forward without a word, stopping at Cassian’s side.

​The champion’s gaze swept across the surviving Orcs with zero hatred and zero anger.

There was only absolute certainty, the certainty of an apex predator staring at trapped prey.

​The elders felt their legs weaken, while the warriors gripped their weapons with trembling hands.

​Moments ago, they had been casually discussing a strategic retreat. Now, they finally understood the brutal reality.

​There was no retreat. There was no escape.

​There was only Cassian Voss and the undead army that had conquered their dominion in a single day.

​The surviving Orcs looked at the legion surrounding them from every direction, then at the champion, and finally at the Undead Lord himself.

​In that horrifying second, every single one of them arrived at the exact same conclusion:

​They were fucked.