“What do you want to do?” asked Jari, his hands on his hips as he scanned the battlefield before them. There were thousands of combatants down there – mostly hobgoblins, but enough ogres to keep them honest. But none of them had attacked one another. Instead, they surrounded a pair of figures.

One was a hobgoblin almost as tall as an ogre. He was slim-hipped and broad-shouldered – a warrior’s build if ever there was one – and his every twitchy movement told a tale of quickness. It was as if his nervous system was simply wound tighter than anyone else’s.

Across from him was an ogre. If the hobgoblin was the ideal of his race, then the ogre was the opposite. He looked positively runty facing off against the enemy. Instead of the jagged and heavy armor of his compatriots, he wore thick black robes trimmed with white glyphs. In his hand was a metal staff topped with a floating crystal. Sadie didn’t need to get closer to know it was held in place by pure ethera. Upon the ogre’s head was a crown bedecked with crystals, and he wore a necklace festooned with the slightly pointy ears of slain hobgoblins.

Trophies.

No one on the battlefield moved a muscle as the pair faced off against one another.

Sadie had seen ogre mages and shaman throughout their long tenure in the Eternal War, but none of them had radiated nearly as much power as the ogre in that circle. Even from more than a mile away, when the figures were only visible through a telescope, Sadie could feel the energy billowing all around him.

If she’d been afforded the opportunity to bet on the eventual winner of the coming contest, she knew which one she’d pick.

That wasn’t to say that the hobgoblin could be dismissed. He was obviously a peerless combatant amidst a culture that prized that above all else. Against anyone else, Sadie would have picked him.

If she’d seen him on the field of battle, she would have abandoned everything to fight him. Not because she craved glory. That was the ridiculous notion of those who’d never held their friends as they slowly died from a gut wound. Or the people who had never been forced to slaughter hundreds just so her people might have a chance to live.

No – she would have stepped forward to be the shield they needed. Sadie hadn’t set out to become the army’s champion. In fact, she’d hoped for the opposite – to train Svotogorsk’s people so they could shoulder that burden themselves. But circumstances had shoved her to the front, and it had become clear that if they were going to win, the strongest among them – like Sadie and Jari, among a dozen others who’d proven themselves exceptional – needed to take the lead.

And Sadie was the best among them.

She could make that claim without ego. It was simply a statement of fact. It had also been the case since the very beginning of the apocalypse. Only a handful of people had ever challenged her dominance. Elijah. Oscar. The barbarous hunter Elijah had killed years before. The rest were inferior, either through lack of talent or opportunity.

But with that power came responsibility, which Sadie’s personality would never let her shirk.

That was why she knew precisely how to approach the situation.

“Advance. Don’t attack. Just follow my lead,” she said.

To Jari’s credit, he didn’t question her order. Instead, he passed it on to the Tacticians, who silently relayed it to the fighters. Then, as one, they all marched forward. Sadie planted herself at the head of the forward elements, and she knew from experience just how impressive a figure she cut.

Her armor was pristine. Her sword glowed with ethera. And she radiated a level of power that dwarfed the rest of the army. After months of fighting across the Endless War and killing thousands of hobgoblins and ogres – many of whom were powerful in their own right – she’d progressed considerably, reaching level one-sixty-eight. With that had come a wealth of attributes and a few new spells.

She had also managed to take the next step in one aspect of her cultivation. Her soul was stronger than ever after reaching Novice grade, and she’d made headway in upgrading her core as well. At first, she’d hoped to advance to the second stage before the completion of the Primal Realm, but that just wasn’t in the cards.

Not for now.

In any case, she was stronger than she had ever been, and if the current version of her had been the one to initially set foot inside the Endless War, things would have gone very differently. But just as she and her army had advanced, so too had their enemies. Not as quickly, but their pace of progress had maintained their advantage over all but the strongest among the humans.

Sadie could go toe to toe with any of them, but very few from her army could make a similar claim.

That – in addition to her sense of duty – drove her forward as she marched across the plain. The grass had already been trampled by the passage of thousands of hobgoblins and ogres, and the ground had been churned into mud. As always, a steady drizzle fell from the grey sky, punctuated by the occasional flash of lightning and the distant roll of thunder.

Sadie ignored it, her focus entirely on the enemy.

The gathered armies represented all that was left, but they were the best among them. The ones who’d used the opportunity to advance their levels and progress well. But if humanity wanted to emerge victorious, it would take a good deal of further slaughter.

Unless Sadie’s plan worked.

She’d spent months studying her opponents, and she thought she knew what drove them. It hadn’t taken long to abandon any notions of peace. Nor was it long before she discarded the idea that they weren’t real. For all intents and purposes, they were as real as her own people, with individual personalities that drove their needs and desires. That had taken a little adjustment and quite a lot of philosophical consideration.

But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

They were the enemy. They would always be the enemy. And Sadie knew that if humanity wanted to survive, they had no choice but to kill them all. She could accept that, even if she didn’t revel in the slaughter.

Their approach did not go unnoticed. The impending face-off between the robed ogre and the hobgoblin came to a halt, with everyone there – both armies – turning to face the newcomers. Sadie knew that they’d reached the moment of truth. If she was wrong, the coming battle would be brutal, bloody, and extremely costly.

She believed her people could win, but not without significant casualties. That was why, when she drew close enough to be heard, she harnessed her significant attributes and bellowed, “Challenge! I, Sadie Song, the Justicar of the Broken Path, challenge Obkar the Blood-hide and Niarar the Slight!”

Obkar’s title was clearly a nod to the hobgoblin’s reddish skin, and Obkar’s referred to his small frame. Sadie had simply used her class name as a title, though it felt that it fit well enough that it didn’t matter. She preferred it to the other moniker given to her by the army.

Angel of Death.

It fit. And yet, its embrace also felt cold. She hated it.

The gathered armies may not have known her name, but they obviously recognized her distinctive armor. She’d become quite a menace over the previous months – close to a year, if she wasn’t mistaken – and her reputation preceded her.

She halted a few hundred feet from the other armies, and her followers stopped as well. Then, she strode forward, leaving them behind. If things were going to go wrong, this was the moment, and Sadie felt her muscles clench as she approached her mortal enemies.

At the last moment, they parted, affording her a path to the center ring where the other two waited. Sadie never broke stride. She couldn’t afford to show hesitation or fear. That would ruin everything. In their cultures, displaying anything but an eagerness for battle was weakness. And they didn’t respond well to that.

Sadie didn’t stop until she reached her destination. Between her and the other two, they formed a rough triangle, with only a hundred feet between them.

“You believe yourself worthy to challenge us?” asked Niarar the Slight. The ogre’s voice was oddly high-pitched, though still masculine. It immediately made Sadie’s skin crawl.

“I am,” was her only response. She had already proven herself. She only needed to let her deeds speak for themselves. And after personally slaughtering hundreds – many of whom were champions of their respective armies – they spoke very loudly indeed.

“It does not matter,” spat Obkar as he fingered the hilts of his blades. One was black as night, while the other was pure white. He glared at the ogre. “It will die the same as you, mage.”

The last word came out like a curse, spelling the hobgoblin’s obvious disdain for spellcasters.

Then, the creature turned to Sadie. “I accept the challenge, human filth.”

“As do I,” Niarar hissed.

Just then, a drum sounded. One beat every three seconds. Then, every other second. One per second. The speed increased until it ceased entirely. When it did, every ogre and hobgoblin there let out a wordless shout.

Obkar didn’t wait to see if everyone was ready, instead launching himself with a degree of speed Sadie had never witnessed.

It was too bad, then, that he’d left a leg behind.

Sadie hadn’t remained idle during the lead-up. Instead, she held multiple abilities on the verge of activation. The most important was Blade of Judgement, which erupted from the ground before the hobgoblin could even twitch. It sliced through the creature’s leg, severing it mid-thigh.

And as it turned out, running with only one leg was quite difficult, and the hobgoblin immediately face-planted. Seizing upon that opening, Niarar let loose his own spell, and in a surge of ethera, he dragged the blood from Obkar’s wound and formed it into a whirl of blades that ripped through the fallen hobgoblin’s back.

That’s when Sadie released her second spell.

Niarar’s blood blades fell apart, splashing onto the hobgoblin’s ravaged back. Sadie was already sprinting in his direction, a glowing Final Verdict held high. After two seconds, she felt Niarar’s core churning against Penitent Silence, though by that point, she’d reached the enemy.

The sword fell, but despite Niarar’s designation as a Sorcerer, he was not without melee skills. He raised his metal staff, intercepting Sadie’s blade. The difference in quality was obvious, and the Final Verdict nicked the shaft of the other weapon. The force of her blow also drove the ogre to his knees.

That’s when two unfortunate things happened.

First, Obkar shot to one leg, then threw himself toward Sadie’s back. Second, Penitent Silence ran its course – an indicator that Niarar possessed a potent core of his own.

Sadie was ready for both, though. The second she sensed Obkar coming, she loosed another new spell:

That put her on a timer. She needed to finish the blood mage before Imprison faded. So, even as bars of blinding light sprang up around Obkar, Sadie used Faith’s Reckoning. Golden wings sprouted from her back, sending her attributes skyrocketing to new heights. She used it to speed her blade, diverting into a horizontal slash aimed at the ogre’s neck. The sudden speed with which she moved clearly surprised Niarar, though the mage managed to summon a blood-red shield just in time to intercept Sadie’s attack.

It broke, spraying blood everywhere.

That issue was soon joined by a spurt from the ogre’s suddenly headless neck. He fell, dead before he hit the ground. Even so, Sadie could feel the mage’s ethera churning, a portent of a spell he never had the chance to complete. If he had, things might have been very different.

She turned her attention to the imprisoned hobgoblin.

“Repent.”

“You will not –”

“I told you to Repent!” she shouted, her voice echoing with faith and ethera. The hobgoblin backed away, the white-light bars of his cage sizzling against his red skin.

He resisted.

Of course he did.

If Sadie had used Repentance on him outside the cage, he might have managed the feat. However, in the cage of faith, he was like clay to be molded by Sadie’s will. She allowed herself to see his sin – a dark and malevolent cloud as dense as any she’d ever witnessed – then dove into it with her awareness. She latched onto his spirit and squeezed.

“Repent,” she whispered.

And he did.

“I have sinned!” he shouted, falling to his knees as tears poured from his beady eyes. “Forgive me!”

“No. There is only one way to atone.”

The cage fell away, but the hobgoblin was already in her grasp. He’d broken, and far easier than she ever believed possible. He retrieved his sword from where he’d dropped it. The black-bladed one. Then, with another plea for forgiveness, he plunged the sword into his stomach and disemboweled himself.

For a long moment, silence reigned across the battlefield. Even the rain ceased for a blessed moment. The only sound came from the sobbing hobgoblin as he died.

Repentance faded with his death, and Sadie’s wings dissipated as Faith’s Reckoning fell dormant.

As the hobgoblin tipped forward, burying his face in the mud, Sadie raised her hand. That was when her army attacked the stunned collection of ogres and hobgoblins. One fight was finished, but there was one more battle before they could finally claim victory over the Primal Realm known as the Endless War.