The Wall of the Condemned

The walls rose like the bones of a dead giant.Upon them, ten thousand soldiers aligned their lances and shields, breathing as one fragile beast.

The sky was an open wound, pulsing with black clouds.

On the horizon, only silence.

Until something moved.

Small. Crawling.

A girl.

She walked alone across the scorched earth, barefoot, her torn dress trembling in the dry wind. Her hair covered her face. She sobbed—a broken sound, like a shattered toy.

One of the soldiers, touched by a final trace of humanity, ran down the stairs.

"Hey, little one!" he shouted, tossing his spear aside and opening his arms. "You're safe now!"

The girl lifted her head.

She had no eyes.

Her mouth tore all the way to her ears.

Before he could react, her teeth—more blades than flesh—sank into his throat.

The soldier screamed.Tried to pull away.

He was dragged to the ground.

Other dead things sprouted from the earth like roots from a cursed forest.

Twisted claws like dried roots, bones jutting through torn flesh.

Dozens of deformed bodies.

They rose around him like a living plague.

The soldier was pulled by his legs, swallowed by the darkness.

Screams tore the air.

The ground began to crack.

The horror had begun.

The Abyss murmured, laughing with pleasure:

"Look at the party starting, little puppet..."

The Tide of the Dead

The soldiers fell back.But where could they fall back to?

The battlefield dissolved into chaos.

The first spears pierced the creatures—useless.

The dead flesh tore apart but did not stop.

A soldier swung his sword, severing the head of a deformed child.

She kept walking, her head dangling by threads of meat.

Another tried to retreat.

Pale arms grabbed him.

He was pulled down.

The dead tore him apart like starving wolves—ripping skin, breaking bones, drinking his scream before it could escape.

Legs twisting.Arms shredded.Throats opening into aborted screams.

Soldiers thrashed, kicking, trying to flee.

One man screamed as he was dragged into the earth—his body torn to pieces like ripped parchment.

The Generals of the Abyss marched behind.

A single hammer blow crushed twenty soldiers at once.

Bodies exploded like sacks of rotting entrails.

It was the end of the formation.

There was no army anymore.Only a field of living meat being harvested.

The sound was a grotesque hymn:Bones snapping, flesh tearing, voices ripped from throats before they could turn into screams.

Aldric's Stand

And then, a light.

A living wall against the end.

Sir Aldric.

The kingdom's last blade.

He wielded the Spear of the Gods—Forged in the depths of ancient wars, molded from the bones of a forgotten god.A white-gray metal, pulsing like a trapped thunderstorm.

A spear that didn't cut flesh.

It tore through souls.

"With me!" Aldric roared.

He charged forward.

The first strike was a dry thunderclap.

The spear's tip pierced through the chest of one of the Generals.

There was no explosion.

The armor cracked.

Black fissures opened like wounds.

The General crumbled into ashes, carried away by the wind.

The royal army roared, flooded with a flicker of hope.

They pushed forward.

But Aldric knew.

This was only the beginning.

The Shadow That Advances

From atop the hill, Lucas watched them.

The Abyss chuckled low in his ear:

"Look at them, little puppet..." it hissed. "Like fish on dry land... thrashing, thinking they can breathe..."

Lucas took a step forward.

He advanced.

And the end, hungry, marched in his footsteps.