[Third Person POV]

  The Church’s armored carriage advanced heavily over nd that had long since ceased to be green. As they drew closer to the northern frontier, the ndscape shifted into a palette of grays, browns, and bcks. The air here was not only cold; it carried a metallic stench, a mixture of sulfur and rotting flesh that seeped through the seams of the transport. Inside, the silence of the thirty heroes was dense, almost solid. They were no longer the noisy youths who had arrived from Terra; now they were rigid figures, eyes fixed on the ground or on their own hands, where the yellow mark pulsed with a dim light.

  When they finally stopped and the doors opened, the sight that greeted them was desote.

  They stood in a valley wedged between barren hills. The camp was not the fortress they had imagined in their video game fantasies. It was a cluster of gray canvas tents, many of them torn or caked with patches of dried mud. An improvised warehouse made of splintered wooden pnks rose at the center, surrounded by overturned supply crates. Church soldiers, wearing dented armor and filthy bandages, patrolled the perimeter with expressions of exhaustion that bordered on madness.

  Machias descended from the carriage, his immacute white robes cshing violently with the filth of the surroundings. The heroes followed him, instinctively clustering together.

  "High Priest… what happened here?" Aris asked, his voice trembling as he pointed to a row of tents that had been burned to shreds. "It looks like there was a fire… or an explosion."

  Machias stopped and sighed with calcuted heaviness, turning to face his pupils. His eyes gleamed with a warning light.

  "Just three nights ago, my children, we suffered what can only be described as an act of absolute cowardice," Machias began, walking toward the ruins of the warehouse. "The demons unched a night raid. They did not seek an honorable duel, nor a direct confrontation. They came in the darkness to destroy our supplies, to burn our food and our medicine. Their intention was clear: to force us to retreat through hunger and disease so they could advance toward civilian nds."

  The heroes looked around. They saw a soldier sitting on a log, clutching his amputated arm, staring into nothingness. The reality of war began to sink into their bones in a way that Graywood never had.

  "Our brave soldiers managed to hold the line, but the cost was terrible," the priest continued, lowering his voice into a venom-ced whisper. "We suffered many casualties. Men with families, men who only sought to protect the light of Gaia. That is why you have been summoned. This camp is the st line of defense before the hordes of darkness reach the cities."

  Machias approached Ulric, pcing a hand on his shoulder, making sure everyone heard his next words.

  "You must understand something fundamental. Those beings you call demons are not like us. They have no culture, no mercy, no soul. They think only of ciming the entire world for themselves. They desire neither peace nor dialogue. They care about nothing but fighting, destroying, and consuming. They are a pgue spreading across the Goddess’s creation. If we do not stop them here, nothing you love will remain. They will not rest until every corner of Lyre becomes an ossuary."

  The emphasis he pced on the word "pgue" nded like a hammer blow. He was brainwashing them, giving them the enemy they needed to justify their own existence. If demons were soulless monsters, then any atrocity the heroes committed would, by definition, be an act of justice.

  Suddenly, an iron bell began to toll from one of the improvised watchtowers. The sound was shrill, shattering the heavy atmosphere.

  Machias’s expression changed instantly. His face hardened, his jaw tightened, and his eyes projected divine authority.

  "TO YOUR POSITIONS!" he shouted, his voice rising above the chaos beginning to erupt in the camp. "AN ATTACK IS COMING! THE DARKNESS WILL NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE READY!"

  The veteran soldiers reacted with the efficiency of trained panic. They sprinted toward the palisades, drawing swords and loading crossbows. The heroes, by contrast, fell into a state of frantic confusion. Some collided with one another; others fumbled for their weapons with clumsy hands.

  "Ulric! Form the group!" Adalbert roared, emerging from between the tents already cd in his officer’s armor. "Prove those fifty years were not a waste of time!"

  Ulric, driven by survival instinct and the Church’s conditioning, began shouting orders. "Here! Everyone together! Form a circle! Mages in the center!"

  The thirty heroes gathered into a tight formation in front of the warehouse. They were a block of gleaming steel and immacute robes amid mud and despair. Moments ter, the ground began to tremble—a dull vibration felt in the soles of their feet and in their teeth.

  In the distance, emerging from the gray mist of the horizon, the first silhouettes appeared.

  It was not an organized army; it was a tide of nightmare. Groups of ogres—three-meter-tall creatures with leathery skin and clubs made from tree trunks—led the charge. At their sides, green-skinned orcs with bloodshot eyes howled rhythmically, smashing bone shields together. Behind them, mountain trolls—slow but unstoppable—hurled rocks the size of carriages toward the camp’s defenses.

  "Do not fear!" Machias shouted, climbing onto an elevated ptform so all could see him, raising his staff, which began to emit a blinding golden light. "Do not fear corrupted flesh! The Goddess has sent us her chosen! The Heroes of Terra are here to end the pgue! Today, demon blood will soak this soil in the name of the Light!"

  The Church soldiers’ cry was unanimous, a roar of morale rekindled by the presence of the so-called saviors. They felt protected by the legend Machias had built.

  But below, within the heroes’ circle, reality was very different.

  Their faces, caught in the light of dusk, formed a gallery of horror. There was no bravery—only fear and an anxiety that stole their breath. Aris’s mouth was dry; he could feel sweat running down his back beneath his armor. Isolde gripped her staff so tightly her knuckles were white. Conrad, the giant, trembled almost imperceptibly, staring at the mass of muscles and tusks charging toward them at full speed.

  "There are… there are too many…" one of the heroines whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "This isn’t like the Void… this isn’t practice…"

  "Shut up!" Ulric yelled, though his own voice was an octave higher than usual. "Just do what we trained for! Area magic! Now!"

  The demonic horde was less than five hundred meters away. The ogres roared—a sound that was not human, a sound that spoke of hunger and a fury that knew no reason. The heroes braced themselves, but deep in their minds, a terrible doubt assailed them: were they truly saviors, or merely the next sacrifice on the Church’s altar?

  The first troll hurled a rock. The projectile tore through the air with a terrifying whistle, smming into one of the supply tents just behind the heroes, throwing up a cloud of dust and splintered wood.

  The real battle was about to begin.

  ---

  [POV Aris]

  My ears are ringing. The priest’s shout feels distant, as if I’m underwater. I look ahead and see only a wall of green muscles and tusks. In the White Void, fifty years of training taught me to move a sword with grace, to strike with thrusts that cut the wind. But there was no smell there. There was no sound of a thousand feet pounding the earth like a war drum.

  I feel my yellow mark burning. It’s hot—too hot. I look at Ulric and see that he’s shouting, but I can’t understand his orders. Beside me, Isolde begins to conjure a light spell, but her hands tremble so badly that the mana particles scatter before forming the magic circle.

  "They’re coming! They’re coming!" someone screams to my left.

  An ogre breaks from the main group. It is a mountain of flesh with festering scars and a club dripping something dark. Its yellow eyes lock onto us. Onto me. I don’t see an intelligent being in it—I see only death. I remember Machias’s words: "They have no soul… they are a pgue." I try to cling to that. I try to hate it so I don’t have to fear it. But fear is a tide stronger than hatred.

  "FIRE!" Adalbert roars from the palisade.

  Church arrows fly over our heads, embedding themselves in the green tide, but the demons don’t even slow. The orcs trample their own fallen in their rush to reach our flesh.

  The ogre raises its club. Time seems to slow. I see every detail: the filth under its nails, the tartar on its tusks, the stench of death that precedes it.

  "For Gaia!" Ulric shouts, throwing himself forward in an act of desperate courage—or pure madness.

  And then, the collision. Metal against bone. The first scream of a hero discovering that celestial armor does not make one immune to pain. The war has begun, and we are the eye of the storm.

  ---

  [Third Person POV]

  The initial impact was brutal. The group of heroes, despite their fear, possessed mana that far surpassed that of any common soldier. When the first orcs crashed into their formation, they were repelled by golden shockwaves and cutting gusts of wind. However, the demons’ numerical advantage was overwhelming.

  The ogres battered the formation like hammers against an anvil. The heroes could kill one, but three more took its pce. The camp’s central ground quickly became a chaos of red and bck blood.

  Machias, watching from above, wore an icy smile. He did not care how many of them were wounded. What he wanted was the baptism of fire. He wanted their hands so stained with demonic blood that they could no longer distinguish good from evil—only "us" versus "them."

  "Look at them, Your Holiness," Machias murmured to himself, imagining the Pope listening. "They are learning. Fear is turning into fury. And fury is the material from which war gods are forged."

  Below, the heroes screamed, cried, and killed. They were trapped in the Church’s perfect snare: to survive, they had to become the very monsters Machias had told them to hate.

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