CHAPTER 1512: STORY 1512: BIRTH OF THE CRIMSON HOST

The shard quivered in the pale light, its cracked surface spider-webbing further as if straining against unseen chains. From within, the silhouettes writhed—limbs pressed against the crystal walls, faces distorted in agony and hunger. The whispers that had been a faint hiss now surged into a chorus, layered voices of the damned chanting in unison:

“Rise. Rise. The host awakens.”

Kael gritted his teeth, every syllable clawing at his sanity. He drove his sword into the dirt, steadying himself, but the sound burrowed deeper, gnawing like worms inside his skull. Elara, clutching her ribs, pressed her forehead against the ground, her hands clamped over her ears. Even so, the chant vibrated through their bones.

The shard split with a shriek like metal tearing. From its jagged core poured forth a flood of crimson mist, thicker than before, coiling upward into a storm. Shapes bled from the fog—figures neither dead nor living. Soldiers with skeletal frames clad in rusted armor. Women with hollow eyes and mouths that gaped wider than screams. Children, pale and silent, their small forms crawling on all fours like broken dolls.

They assembled, countless and relentless, an army bound to the shard’s will. The Crimson Host.

Kael staggered upright, blade raised though his hands shook violently. “It’s not just raising the dead anymore...” His words were hoarse, almost drowned in the roar of the horde. “It’s birthing them.”

Elara forced herself beside him, her flame sparking weakly in her palm. “We can’t fight that, Kael. Not like this.”

But retreat was no longer an option. The host advanced, their march shaking the earth. Every step carried the weight of endless graves. The air itself seemed to die around them, birds falling silent, trees withering where the crimson mist touched.

Kael tightened his grip on his sword, his knuckles bloodless. “Then we don’t fight the army...” His eyes locked on the shard, glowing furiously in the midst of the chaos. “We strike the heart.”

The plan was madness, yet Elara nodded, her eyes gleaming with desperate resolve. Together they charged—not at the host, but through it.

Kael’s blade carved a brutal path, sparks and blood erupting with every strike. His strength was fueled not by flesh but sheer defiance. Elara followed close, her fragile fire flaring enough to blind and stagger the horrors that lunged for them. Still, every step was paid with wounds: claws raked Kael’s shoulder, teeth tore through Elara’s sleeve, blood streaked their bodies like war paint.

At last, they broke through the tide. The shard loomed before them, cracked wide, its glow unstable. Within its fractured depths, Kael saw a shadowed figure, far greater than the shard-knight, struggling to push free. A general. A master.

Elara screamed, thrusting both hands forward, summoning every last ember of her soul. Fire burst from her palms, not a flame but a torrent, white-hot and blinding. The shard’s surface hissed, fractures widening under the assault.

“Now, Kael!” she cried, her voice breaking.

With a roar that tore his throat raw, Kael drove his sword deep into the core. The shard erupted in a shattering scream that split the air, the Host convulsing as one body, their forms collapsing into ash.

For a heartbeat, silence fell. The mist dissipated. The battlefield lay still.

But as Kael pulled his sword free, the shard—broken, shattered—still glowed faintly, a single ember refusing to die.

And in that ember, a voice whispered, clearer than ever:

“You cannot kill what was never born.”

Kael and Elara locked eyes, their triumph hollow. The Crimson Host was gone, but something far worse was trying to escape.