White-Gold Tower, The Imperial City

  Spring

  Year 175 of the Fourth Era (4E175)

  (Day three of the ‘Battle of the Red Ring’)

  The Imperial City was dying, steel blades of formations dragging along marbled veins as pike formations and shieldwalls spilt their blood on the city streets. Fires burned out of control, crowds pushed, shoved, and trampled like tides of mortal flesh, and the air was filled with nothing but the howls, roars, screams and cries of hundreds of thousands of men and mer murdering each other. For the second time in two years the Imperial City’s streets were choking under the weight of death and blood, but this time those attacking the city were fighting for its salvation.

  Three great Imperial Armies fought against their Elven counterparts; the Dominion’s Plíthosi in equal, vicious combat. Legions fought Fálangas, Castas fought Thématas, and Cohorts fought Tágmas just as those who filled their ranks fought their counterparts. Gladii wielded by Nordic and Orchish Legionaries clashed with the pikes of Altmer Metananeoi, Dunmer and Cyrodiilic Foresters skirmished with Bosmer Lyeis and Emero archers, and Breton and Redguard Extraordinarii fought Khajiit senche-rhat riders in massed cavalry battles that shook the ground. Thirty eight Imperial Legions and thirty three Fálangas were fighting to the death, struggling, battling, and killing until men, mer and beastfolk began dropping dead from exhaustion.

  By the second day of the battle, all strategy and tactics had devolved as the four hundred thousand combatants fought on relentlessly. Command and control on both sides had been severed, or simply couldn’t keep up with the sheer insanity of the Battle of the Red Ring. Indeed, for many commanders their perceptions of the battle had been reduced to the few hundred troops under their command, leaving Tribunes, Centurions and their opposing Chiliarchs and Merarchs to follow the last orders they had received. In many cases these orders had been little more than ‘seek out the enemy and kill them’ as the chaos spread, and the battle continued into the third day.

  No one knew how many had already died to blades, bows, pikes and even fists, teeth and rocks wielded by the soldiers of the two Empires. There was no way to even tell how the battle itself was going, beyond that it was indeed still occurring with unrelenting savagery. Only those who came after, in many cases years or decades later, would be able to begin to calculate the lives lost. Such historians, scribes and learned individuals would be the first to call this battle the Battle of the Red Ring due to the fact that it primarily occurred on the Red Ring highway circling the outer shore of Lake Rumare. Some would say the battle was named for the Ruby Throne in the heart of the Imperial City, which was the battle’s objective for both sides.

  For those who fought and died and who would find themselves, standing on the bloodied fields in countless nightmares to come, the name was born from the volume of blood that had stained the Imperial Heartland red.

  As storm clouds gathered and framed the circling hordes of ravens and crows eagerly awaiting to glut themselves on the flesh of the fallen, the City was finally breached. Through a combination of ballistae, catapults, battering rams and legionaries discarding their gladii for hatchets and axes, they had managed to force their way through the great gates and into the city proper. Three cohorts were shattered in the attempt, but what was another three hundred mortal lives lost to the violence consuming tens of thousands? Their objective was near, and was now opened from their sacrifice and such an opportunity could not be wasted. The Culling had already begun, and it had to be stopped no matter the cost.

  Shieldwalls formed from dozens of survivors from differing cohorts, castas and even Legions pushed hard into the streets of the Imperial City, meeting and killing all the moonstone armoured foes they could find. Along the via Talosia; the main arterial highway cutting from west to east to White-Gold Tower moved a different mass of soldiers, a mass of heavily armoured Extraordinarii that shook the ground as they galloped headlong through their enemies. They ploughed their way through the handful of formations that attempted to stop their charge, but the Imperial elite didn’t slow in the slightest, following the gilded figure to the steps of White-Gold.

  To the men and women following in his footsteps he was not Kaius. He was not a Blade. Neither was he a vampire or a renowned hero of centuries past. He was their Emperor, armoured in the ancestral plate of the Mede Dynasty whose golden details were hidden under copious amounts of blood. Hidden behind the death-mask of Titus Mede I, there was nothing of Kaius to be seen. It was a source of bitter amusement to Kaius that all the soldiers who followed him would never have known that the death-mask that concealed his identity was inaccurate, that the facial dimensions of the first Mede Emperor were skewed. All they knew, and likely even cared about, was that their current Emperor was leading them to the very heart of their enemy with the intention of carving the rotten infestation from their Empire.

  As one of the largest buildings in all of Nirn and brother to the equally enormous Ada-mantia in far away High Rock and the long-lost towers of Sun-Glass and Crystal-like-Law, White-Gold was an architectural impossibility. Three hundred metres and a hundred stories tall, it had been the home of multiple empires, but since the rise of the Septim and Mede dynasties it had been home to the Imperial Palace, Library, Battle College and of course, the Chambers of the Elder Council. Throughout history it had always been the heart of one empire or the other, from that of its builders the Ayleids, through three separate human empires. In all of its thousands of years of history, it had never been home to what Kaius and the Extraordinarii encountered as they burst into the Council Chambers.

  The enormous oval table and seating for the Elder Council was gone, smashed into broken shards and piled against a wall, the five story tall mosaic of Tiber Septim equally defaced by the Elven occupiers, but these were unnoticed compared to the true horror that awaited them. Anyone who had lived during the Crisis would have never forgotten such a sight of an Oblivion Portal before, but to find themselves faced with the roaring, baleful portal of obsidian and fire in the centre of the Council Chambers was not something anyone could have expected. Framed in enormous arms of molten marble and blackened stone reaching towards the chamber’s ceiling fifteen metres above their heads, it was as though the hateful tear in reality was seeking to pull the tower down with its blasphemous existence.

  For men and women who had already seen so much horror and devastation in the Great Concordat War, the sight of the portal into Oblivion was too much. Prayers and pleas to all the gods went unheard, weapons lowered as the realisation of the impossible sight sunk into their minds, but among them there was one who didn’t hesitate for a moment. Kaius had seen such things before. He had even entered such portals and closed them from the other side, and was more than willing to do so again if the situation required. Getting to the portal though was an entirely different matter.

  A hundred, heavily armoured Dominion elites stood between him and the portal, the Oiopelin bracing into a shield wall of gilded moonstone at the sudden appearance of an almost equal number of Extraordinarii. There were dozens of them, grim faced and hidden behind their fluted and carved armour, but their own leader, like Kaius, was also with them.

  Framed in the burning light of Oblivion, the tall, rake thin Altmer, Strategeos Primach Naarifin stood, watching with a triumphant grin as Kaius and the Extraordinarii entered the desecrated chambers of the Elder Council. He had been waiting, ready, and expecting them, preparing both himself and his hand picked Tágma of bodyguards, and supplementing their forces with dozens of creatures spawned from, and bound to, the portal at his back. Atronachs; lesser and bestial creatures of Oblivion surrounded him, chains of silver and gold and eye-watering sigils daubed in blood binding them to the portal’s heat blasted stonework. There were almost as many of the elemental creatures standing behind the Oiopelin shieldwall as there were elves in armour plate, their essences forced into writhing physical bodies of flame, ice, lightning and stone.

  "Well, well. The Emperor himself.” Naarfin called out, his voice echoing in the chamber over the sound of the blazing tear in reality at his back. “Come to... What? Duel me? You think you can stop me, is that it? Fool. Look around you! The Culling has begun. I will unleash the fires of Oblivion tonight… After I've added your body to the pyre!"

  All eyes, elven and human were upon him, but they didn’t see the way that Kaius’s muscles were coiling with vampiric power and straining the chainmail under the gilded plate he wore. They also couldn’t see the way his face was taut, cheekbones jutting and fangs splitting his lips into a bloodthirsty smile. All that the assembled elves and human soldiers saw was Kaius raising the burning, golden katana Goldbrand into the air and bellowing two words at the top of his lungs.

  “DOVAH INVICTA!”

  Echoing the Legion’s, and Empire’s battlecry there was no hesitation from the Extraordinarii as they followed Kaius in his headlong charge into the very centre of the Elven battleline. Naarfin was there, so too was the Oblivion portal, and vampiric might and rage was thundering its way through his body as he rushed towards the elf who had ordered Astonoia’s death. All Kaius needed to do was kill everything in his path to reach the Dominion army commander, something that he was relishing, as he sought to drown out his sorrows and grief in a tidal wave of blood.

  Smashed from their feet by Kaius’s shield, the first of the elves staggered backwards into the second rank and the formation buckled as the Extraordinarii struck home. The men and women dressed in the thick, ebony and steel Legion armour hadn’t hesitated in following the man that they believed to be their Emperor, falling upon their foes with relentless savagery right at his heels. Kaius paid them no heed. He was lost to his thoughts and emotions, feeling the pulsing might of the vampire in his veins, the bony protuberances twisting and rubbing against the inside of his borrowed armour as more and more of the daedra-infused vampire came to the surface.

  Hacking left and right with Goldbrand, and with the power of his curse behind every blow, even if his weapon wasn’t a daedric artefact belonging to the Prince of plots, cruelty, and murder, he would’ve made a mockery of the moonstone plate armour of the Oiopelin. It cut through everything in his path; plate armour, chainmail, shields, flesh, muscle and bone. One elf dropped with a massive smile opened in his throat, grasping at the hideous wound even as he was kicked backwards by one of the nearest Extraordinarii. Another shrieked as his hamstring was severed by the golden katana, dropping to his knees but losing his head to an Extraordinarii hacking it away with their spatha.

  The fact that from the moment that he had picked up and claimed the daedric sword that it was reacting to him, burning with unmatched power was inconsequential. For one reason or another, Boethiah had revoked their blessing to Rieve at the moment he would have taken Kaius’s life, and now the sword was blazing fiercely, the flames hot enough to melt steel as he wielded it against the elves. Boethiah had granted him her blessing, and was overtly supporting him against those who were still her worshippers, but Kaius didn’t care. He had a weapon in hand, foes in front of him, and strength enough to face them, so he killed and killed and killed with sword, shield, feet, fists, and anything else that he could use to take lives.

  Teeth were smashed down a screaming elf’s throat as Kaius punched the rim of his ebony shield into the mouth of an Oiopelin who had lost his helmet somewhere in the devolving melee. The mer’s head snapped back hard, dropping him onto his back just long enough for Kaius to stomp down hard on the elf's windpipe, stabbing another in the armpit as he leaned out of the way of a sword thrust. Another died as he ducked down behind his shield, twisting and flicking and throwing the charging elf over his shoulder before the sounds of stabbing and stamping could be heard as the nearby Extraordinarii ensured his assailant wouldn't be rising again.

  One after another, with barely enough time to think, Kaius struck, killed, readdressed and moved into the next killing blows. An elf was lifted off the floor as Kaius jammed Goldbrand to the hilt in a groin, seeing nothing but whitened eyes and a shrieking mouth in the Y shaped visor of the helm his opponent wore. A second staggered, unable to even scream as they had been kicked away, left scrabbling at unravelling loops of intestine after Goldbrand sliced through armoured plate and chainmail to caress the flesh underneath.

  It was absolute carnage, men and elves screaming in pain, anger and soul destroying fear, as they fought, bled and died on the polished marble floors of the chamber. For a moment Kaius saw one of the Extraordinarii kneeling down over a fallen Dominion soldier, forcing his spatha down with both hands, even as the elf tried throttling him to death. Another had lost an arm in the fighting but through a combination of determination and pure adrenaline was sawing her blade back and forth across an elf’s naked throat, roaring wordlessly the whole time. Men and mer were killing each other with everything they could use, some even picking up chunks of masonry or the broken remains of the Ruby Throne to brain their adversaries to death as they wrestled on the blood streaked floor.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  For every legionary that died, they took an elf with them, but it was the same in reverse. Both sides were slaughtering each other and their bodies were soon entwined in death. Gore washed over the white tiles in torrents and made each step treacherous. Kaius was one of several who fell foul to the slippery battleground, a boot skidding in a puddle of gore as a trio of Naarifin's elites rushed him with blades and shields. One of the double-edged moonstone swords bounced off his helm, jarring him for a moment that gave the others the chance to press their advantage. There were too many enemies and with most of his senses locked away behind the mithril mask he couldn't fight to his full potential, and found himself driven to the floor under a flurry of blows.

  There were dozens all around, stomping, stamping, hacking and cutting. Some were Oiopelin attempting to find weaknesses in Kaius’s armour, doing everything they could to kill the man who they thought was the Emperor. Others were handfuls of Extraordinarii, struggling just as fiercely to defend him, but the press was too thick, too chaotic. Knives and swords flashed, Goldbrand sent an gilded elf screaming to the ground as both legs were hacked away at the shins, but even Kaius’s vampiric strength wasn’t enough to fend off so many. He was on his knees, the deathmask hiding and protecting his features askew,, and practically blinding him but was still fighting, lashing out at the smells of elvish blood with his fangs practically piercing his lips.

  As suddenly as the pressure of the battle crashed down upon him, it was gone, the acrid tang of magicka catching in Kaius’s throat as a bolt of pure energy crashed into an Oiopelin trying to seek purchase for his sword in Kaius’s armour. His lifeless body was thrown a dozen metres away, flopping to the ground in a smoldering pile of armour and scorched flesh, and another Oiopelin dropped with a throwing dagger lodged in his throat. More and more of the elves directly assaulting him were dying, being killed by strikes and blows no Extraordinarii would ever perform, and as the pressure of the press shifted away from him, he was roughly hauled to his feet.

  "Don't just stand there you wet-legged bilge rats!" A hand, rough, scaled, tipped in claws and strengthened from decades of hauling on sails, dragged Kaius up, and another dagger was flicked into an Oiopelin’s vision slit. "Kill something!"

  The City was filled with fighting soldiers, but somehow in amongst all the chaos his friends had managed to find him. There were very few people who knew that Titus Mede II wasn’t leading the Legions and it was in fact Kaius. A handful of Titus’s closest confidants, a few members of the Penitus Oculatus bodyguards, and the Legate of the VIII Legio Ferrata; Legate Cassia Pamitia Urtori. Cassia had been the only one who had worked it out for herself, seeing through the disguise and now, with their other comrades, had come to fight by his side.

  Cassia, Laaneth, even Swims-at-Night, despite whatever trepidation they had at the revelation of Kaius’s true nature had come through the chaos of the battle, following their friend into the mouth of Oblivion. And they hadn’t come alone. Cassia had also brought with her the last surviving remnants of her Legion, a force that had once numbered five thousand legionaries, but over the course of the war had been whittled down to a mere hundred. It had been the VIII Legio Ferrata, ‘Iron-Clad’ Legion that had fought to the last during the city’s fall to evacuate as many civilians that they could. Since the beginning of the war, the Eighth had suffered through the bloodiest fighting, losing thousands of their comrades in arms, but those who had survived it all were no longer mere Legionaries.

  Even the alchemically and magically enhanced Legionaries of the Septim Legions would have found their match in the last cohort of the Ferrata Legion, the men and women, Imperials, Nords, Dunmer, Bretons and Orsimer that made up their limited ranks having been forged into true titans of the battlefield in the fires of the Great War. Through grit, determination and unwavering will, they had hacked a path through three kilometres of enemy occupied city on foot, massacring their way alongside their Legate as she went to the aid of her friend. Nothing could stand against them, the Oiopelin’s finding themselves faced with the grim and silent veterans of the Great War who attacked with no battlecries, and instead went about killing their elven adversaries with all the emotion of Dwemer Animunculi.

  Through the misting blood of the dying, and the haze of the burning portal, Kaius could see Naarifin standing, watching, and directing his dwindling troops as best he could. He was concerned, the signs of emotion seeping through, and Kaius could relish the slow growing expression of fear on the Merish general’s features. Between the unstoppable Legionaries of the Eighth Legion and the Emperor’s personal Extraordinarii, Naarifin’s own bodyguard of ‘Eternal Knights’ were being annihilated. Fear, concern and realisation were growing, and were unmistakable as he watched in outright horror as Kaius shouldered his way through the weakened battleline, and towards him with Laaneth, Swims-at-Night, and Cassia close behind.

  As Kaius smashed an atronach off its burning feet and speared it through the molten wound of a mouth, Naarifin grew concerned. When a swirling, sentient vortex of energy and rocks was battered aside by a shield, and scattered across the floor as tumbling chunks of void salts, he began to panic. Nothing was stopping, or even slowing Kaius down; not Oiopelin, nor atronachs, and without any other options left, he did the only thing left to him. Muttering words of world-rending power, bending his own magical will into, and through his arcane staff, he began to force the Oblivion portal even wider.

  This was Naarifin's ultimate goal; the singular event that he had been arranging for the months since his capture of the Empire’s capital. Atronachs had been summoned and bound with increasingly powerful spells and enchantments, their daedric, elemental natures providing the perfect anchors for the wound in reality he sought to create. But they were not going to be enough. He needed more than what ‘simple’ conjuration magicka could provide to succeed in his plans, and of the entire world there was one place, and one place only that such a ritual was even possible.

  Ever since the Oblivion Crisis, portals to Oblivion were extremely short lived, and exceptionally difficult to create. Even summoning daedric entities from their infernal realms required skills and efforts of experienced and determined practitioners of magicka, and no longer were mere novices capable of summoning Oblivion’s denizens. Mehrunes Dagon’s Invasion had torn the Liminal Barriers between Mundus and Oblivion apart, and until Akatosh’s intervention, had even merged the mortal realm into his own of the Deadlands. Only the last Septim Emperor; Martin Septim’s sacrifice to summon Akatosh had saved reality, but in doing so the Liminal Barriers were strengthened beyond what they had ever been. No invasions from Oblivion could ever occur again, but what Naarifin intended was nothing to the scale of Mehrunes Dagon’s failed attempt.

  No all encompassing invasion of Mundus was intended here, just a localised, targeted and precise portal at the heart of the Empire. It would permanently cripple the kingdoms and empires of man, give birth to a bleeding canker in the heart of Tamriel that could never be closed. Opening it however required considerable… sacrifice.

  Through sorcerous knowledge, singular determination, and under the watchful gaze of hundreds of Thalmor Justiciars, Naarifin’s forces had begun The Culling; the mass, ritualistic killing of the Imperial City’s million inhabitants. Squads of Altmer Metananeoi and smaller units of Bosmer and Khajiit Phoederati were moving from building to building, massacring entire families in their homes. It was this… Distraction that had allowed the Legions to siege and breach the main gates in less than a day, instead of the two years it had taken the Dominion to take the city. It had also allowed Kaius to lead his force three kilometres along the via Talosia to White-Gold itself. In many cases, in the chaos and bloodshed in the city, exhausted, drained, hungry and wounded legionaries were finding themselves cutting down dozens of Elven troops and their Thalmor supervisors who were more focussed on continuing the massacre of innocents than the legionaries coming for them with bloodied gladii.

  To slaughter a city, let alone one with a population such as the Imperial City was no small thing, and the tens of thousands of Dominion Soldiers could only kill so many, so quickly. For over twenty four hours they had ritualistically murdered thousands, but hundreds of thousands remained. Their efforts though had been enough for the ritual to truly commence. The portal had been opened, and in growing panic at being personally threatened, Naarifin pressed his will into the portal, and opened it further to disgorge daedra into the heart of White-Gold itself.

  Grossly disproportionate, their arms and legs extended far beyond that of normal beings, the creatures had a starved, emaciated appearance that was completely at odds with how they moved. They twitched and scuttled, bounding over broken, blood streaked marble, claws clacking and mouths mournfully howling the sound of tortured damnation. Like the sword gripped in Kaius’s gauntleted fist, these creatures, these Hungers, belonged to Boethiah, and they lived up to their namesake as they began swarming legionaries in their overwhelming desire to feast on hot flesh. They were swarming, shrieking, cawing and twisting about through the ruined Council Chambers but even they were proving insufficient enough to stop Kaius’s advance, or that of the surviving Extraordinarii and the veterans of the Iron-Clad Legion. Many of the Hungers threw themselves animalistically at the shield wall with all the effectiveness of rotten fruit being thrown at a castle wall, being returned to Oblivion with experienced, precise killing blows.

  Naarifin’s situation was devolving rapidly, the gate was flicking and bucking against his will, weakening as the death-squads throughout the city were killed by the vengeful legions, and his bound atronachs were returned to Oblivion. In his haste and panic he had opened the portal too far, too quickly, and without enough death, blood and soul energy to sustain itself, it collapsed in a reversed thunderclap, leaving him now utterly without reinforcement, or options.

  Several of the foul daedra belonging to the Daedric Prince of deceit and betrayal had attacked Kaius, but between him and his companions they were dealt with quickly. Between Laaneth’s magicka, Swims-at-Night’s knives, and Kaius and Cassia’s swords they were untouchable, killing the last handful of Oiopelin and daedra between them and the Dominion commander.

  Kaius’s eyes were fixed on Naarifin, even when surrounded and beset by enemies, hacking a Hunger’s head from its shoulders, leaving another scrabbling on the floor as he took both of its legs away before gutting it. Another dropped heavily to the floor as he shattered the teeth in its circular, lamprey-like mouth, dropping an armoured knee into its throat as it thrashed on the ground. Despite the rage and vampiric hatred flowing through him, he was killing coldly, emotionallessly, practically ignoring all other enemies as he continued to stride towards the Elf who had ordered his daughter’s death.

  With the closed oblivion portal at his spine, a mass of armoured, bloodied legionaries to his front, and an increasingly lack of surviving soldiers and bodyguards, Naarifin was alone, his eyes widening with concern and horror as he gazed upon the gilded, bloodied figure stomping towards him. The expressionless death mask of the first Mede Emperor was staring at him, the soulless, blank visage barely containing the simmering hatred pouring out of the mithril eyeslits. Realisation though, the strange niggling thought that had been worming its way into his mind finally broke through his growing panic, as Naarifin’s eyes came to rest on the burning, golden daedric katana that had killed so many of his Oiopelin bodyguard.

  "You're not the Emperor!"

  His shield clattered to the floor, as Kaius strode purposefully toward Naarifin up the stairs leading to the now-empty dias where the Ruby Throne once sat. Goldbrand too left his grasp as he flung it point first into the tiles where it stuck fast, wobbling and quivering in the air.

  "No. I am not."

  Like he had many times before, Naarifin tried to flee, seeking an escape from the threat that was approaching him with bloodied armour and burning hatred, but there was nowhere to go. The Oblivion Portal had collapsed, the entrance to the Council Chambers was filled with a hundred or more veteran soldiers of the Empire, and Kaius was close enough that Naarifin could hear him growling. Staff in hand, he lashed out at the suddenly unarmed Kaius, trying to cast a spell, any spell at all to fend off his foe, but a gauntleted fist slammed into his abdomen like the kick of a mule. The impact drove the air from his body and most of the contents of his stomach with it, folding him over vomiting and coughing, even as Kaius grasped him by the hair and hauled him back up again.

  "After all that you have done..." Kaius’s knee rammed itself into Naarifin's groin, drawing a pained gasp of agony from the taller elf as pain tried to drop him to the ground despite Kaius's grip.

  "After everyone who has died..." With the sound of splintering bone, Naarifin’s knee was shattered, and leg snapped the wrong way as Kaius kicked him as hard as he could.

  "And after everything that has happened..." Coated in blood, scratched, and dented from three days of battle, the funeral mask of Titus Mede I slammed hard into Naarifin's face, pulping his nose in a flood of gore.

  "You still failed..."

  Knee broken and in complete agony from his injuries, Strategeos Primach Naarifin of the Aurion Plithos fell to the floor in a puddle of his own blood and bodily fluids, losing control of his bowels, and vomiting again. Staring down over him, the expressionless mask of the first Mede Emperor bore into his soul, but it was the man underneath it all whose pain and anger and rage that the elf could feel. There was death behind that mask, not even a promise of further pain and agony but rather a guarantee. It was unyielding and absolute like the sun would rise again in the morning, and with terror flooding his veins and pushing through his agony, Naarifin reached out to grasp his staff from where it had fallen, desperately seeking a way to survive.

  An armoured boot came down so hard onto his hand gripping the staff, that the two metre length of wood cracked in two and the marble tiles underneath were shattered. It took the last of his strength to pull his pulped extremity from the crater that had been left after Kaius's stomp but Naarifin didn't scream. He couldn't scream. Instead he was left looking at the bloodied mess of his hand, his mouth open, and wordlessly gaping as though he could no longer eject any more pain from his body. .

  Whether he expected death no longer mattered to Kaius and he turned away from the shattered thing that had once been the commander of the Dominion forces in Cyrodiil. The elf would live, not because he had shown him mercy, but because he had decided that death was not going to be punishment enough for everything that he had done. A pair of surviving Extraordinarii gathered up the insensible Naarifin at Kaius' orders, dragging the elf away after being commanded to "Show him what an Imperial Victory looks like..."

  Knee deep in death and the ruins of the greatest city in Tamriel, Kaius closed his eyes and struggled against the tears, finally glad at the fact that the stifling mask hid more than his true identity. All the loss, all the pain, the sorrow rushed from him in a flood, streaking through the sweat and grime of the battle under the mask as he looked over his three friends who he had shared so much hardship.

  Together, the four of them strode out of the blood soaked interior of White-Gold. The Culling had been stopped, the Battle of the Red Ring was coming to an end as both sides became too exhausted to continue fighting and with it, the Concordat War would also end. Kaius however felt nothing. His soul, like so many others, succumbing to shocked numbness even as he took the first steps of his own choosing in over a hundred years.

  Bloodtide Rising I would further chop them up, amend and change the posting schedule. Unfortunately, at the moment I am also dealing with all the usual life stuff, attempting to finish Bloodtide Rising off completely, plan and write the third series The Dragonblood King, and start cobbling together my very first, original series for release towards the end of 2026 or sometime early in 2027. Busy busy busy.

  one hundred chapters that are yet to come (and nearly 2 months of arranged shoutout swaps) most of these chapters will be chunkier that my other series. Some, will still be shorter in length like the last chapter of The Dead don't Weep, but the rest will be around 3,000-5000 words like this one.

  Bloodtide Rising, it will definitely assist and influence The Dragonblood King and my future series of REDACTED (lol)