The rainforest canopy blocked out most of the daylight, leaving the army’s path stretching through a world of mottled shadows.
Kroq-Gar marched at the head of the column.
It wasn’t simply because he was their lord and therefore expected to lead from the front, though that was certainly part of it.
The real reason was his size.
Three and a half meters tall.
Nearly a ton in weight.
Every step he took struck the ground like a pile driver.
The rainforest floor, covered by countless years of accumulated humus, collapsed beneath his feet, leaving behind a trail of deep footprints.
Water quickly seeped into the depressions, turning them into a chain of muddy pools.
The Saurus Warriors following behind simply stepped into the tracks he left behind.
It made their march considerably easier.
The Cold One Riders advanced along the army’s right flank.
The heavy breathing of their mounts could be heard from half a mile away.
The Cold Ones disliked the dense jungle.
Their nostrils constantly twitched as they tested the air, searching for the scent of humans.
Or rather, the scent of things that had once been human.
Their riders repeatedly tightened the reins to prevent the beasts from charging ahead.
The scent of Chaos made Cold Ones three times more aggressive than usual.
The Stegadon brought up the rear.
It moved slowly, but every stride covered an astonishing distance.
A single footfall could snap a fallen tree lying across its path.
Whenever its tail swept into a trunk, a tree as thick as a man’s thigh could break in half.
Walking along the same path as the beast was a dangerous proposition.
The Saurus Warriors wisely maintained a distance of twenty paces.
As Kroq-Gar marched, he continued familiarizing himself with every aspect of his new body.
Kroq-Gar’s stride possessed an instinctive rhythm.
It required no conscious control.
His muscles simply knew how to distribute their strength.
They had been marching for almost an hour, yet his breathing remained as steady as when they had first departed.
There was no soreness in his thighs.
His tail automatically maintained his balance.
His mind didn’t even need to participate in the process.
Now he understood why Kroq-Gar had possessed such extraordinary endurance in the game.
This body had been created for prolonged warfare.
Forty li.
For a human army, marching that distance through a rainforest would take at least half a day.
By the time they arrived, both men and horses would be exhausted, requiring at least an hour of rest before they could fight.
For the Lizardmen, forty li was merely a warm-up.
Their muscular structure was fundamentally different from that of humans, and their cold-blooded metabolism meant that a steady march consumed surprisingly little energy.
They had arrived.
Kroq-Gar raised one hand.
The entire army stopped.
Silently.
He stood upon a low ridge and peered through the final wall of trees.
The clearing below was not quite what he had imagined.
The first thing he noticed was the smell.
The stench of Chaos was worse than the rotting plants and animals of the rainforest.
It wasn’t simply foul.
It was wrong.
Like tasting metal in a plate of food.
Like smelling burning flesh hidden beneath the fragrance of flowers.
It didn’t offend the nose.
It offended instinct.
The muscles beneath Kroq-Gar’s scales tightened involuntarily.
A faint taste of rust appeared in his mouth.
The body he inhabited was telling him something.
This place was wrong.
Destroy it.
Only then did he truly look at the settlement.
The walls were more dilapidated, darker, and more twisted than the scouts had described.
A strange substance resembling fungal threads covered the wall of crude logs.
Gray-white strands slowly writhed beneath the sunlight.
The eight-pointed star above the gate had not been hung there.
Kroq-Gar could see that now.
The iron chains had grown from the star itself.
Rust-covered links burrowed deep into the wooden walls like the aerial roots of some parasitic plant.
Faint noises drifted from within.
Not human voices.
Not animal cries.
Something in between.
An indistinct, wet murmuring.
Like a hundred mouths trying to speak underwater.
Two sentries sat outside the gate.
Or at least, they had once been sentries.
They leaned against the wall with their heads lowered, each holding a rusted spear across their lap.
Neither moved.
For a moment, Kroq-Gar thought they were dead.
Then he noticed the extra mouth growing from one sentry’s back.
It opened.
Closed.
Chewed.
From the angle, the mouth appeared to be gnawing on its host’s own shoulder blade.
Kroq-Gar withdrew his gaze.
He turned toward the army behind him and lowered his voice.
“Tekuna.”
The Skink Priest emerged from the formation.
The crystal atop his staff glimmered faintly blue beneath the dim jungle light.
“Have the Cold One Riders circle around to the northern side of the settlement.”
Kroq-Gar pointed beyond the walls.
“Seal the northern gate.”
“Let no one escape.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“The Stegadon takes the main gate.
Break it down and trample everything beyond it.”
“The infantry follows ten paces behind.”
“The ranged units stay with me and clear the walls.”
Kroq-Gar paused.
Then he remembered something.
“Everyone moves with the drums.”
“Charge after the third beat.”
Tekuna’s eyes brightened.
The format of the command felt strangely familiar to him.
The Great Plan of the Old Ones often contained instructions much like these.
Short.
Precise.
Every force knew exactly what it was supposed to do.
Tekuna turned and hurried away to relay the orders, his short legs carrying him rapidly through the formation.
Kroq-Gar looked toward the walls once more.
Then he remembered something else.
In the game, Kroq-Gar could fight an entire company of Chaos warriors by himself.
He looked down at his hands.
Scaled palms.
Hooked claws.
When he clenched his fists, he could feel overwhelming strength surging through his joints.
In the game, these hands had slain thousands upon thousands of the servants of Chaos.
Now…
This was no longer a game.
Kroq-Gar inhaled deeply.
His chest expanded.
Corruption-tainted air filled his lungs.
It was sharp.
Pungent.
Like swallowing a mouthful of cheap liquor.
He exhaled.
Then reached behind his back.
His hand closed around the weapon resting there.
He drew the Hand of Gods.
The divine spear illuminated the dark rainforest.
Its radiance wasn’t the warm gold of sunlight.
It was something older.
Colder.
The white light of distant stars.
There was no rust upon its blade.
No scratches.
It looked as though it had only been forged yesterday.
Yet the weapon had tasted the blood of countless servants of Chaos.
Cold white light reflected across Kroq-Gar’s scales.
The same light appeared within the slit pupils of every Saurus Warrior standing behind him.
There was no need for a speech.
No need to rally them.
For the Lizardmen, the moment that spear began to shine was enough.
The deep sound of a war drum rolled through the rainforest.
BOOM.
The first beat.
The Cold One Riders pulled sharply on their reins.
Their mounts released piercing hisses before surging into the jungle, racing along the flank to circle toward the northern gate.
BOOM.
The second beat.
The Stegadon swung its enormous tail.
It lumbered forward from the rear of the formation.
Every footfall left a crater in the earth.
The colossal beast stopped at the front of the army.
Its three enormous horns pointed directly toward the gate.
Hot white mist blasted repeatedly from its nostrils.
BOOM.
The third beat.
The Stegadon charged.
What did it look like when a creature weighing more than ten tons ran at full speed?
You didn’t need to see it.
You could feel it through the soles of your feet.
The earth trembled.
Trees shook.
The air thundered.
The Stegadon lowered its head.
Its three massive horns became a living battering ram aimed directly at the gate.
Every impact of its powerful limbs against the earth sent mud exploding into the air.
The Chaos cultists on the walls finally saw it.
They screamed.
Some raised bows.
Arrows flew.
They struck the Stegadon’s thick hide and bounced away without leaving so much as a mark.
Others desperately tried to close the gate.
Too late.
The Stegadon hit.
There was no sharp crack of splintering wood.
The gate simply ceased to exist.
The instant the horns struck, the entire structure exploded.
Logs shattered into fragments.
The eight-pointed star was hurled through the air.
Iron chains snapped.
Splinters and fragments of gray fungal growth erupted outward like a blooming flower.
The Stegadon didn’t stop.
It thundered through the wreckage.
A toppled wagon lay directly in its path.
One foot came down.
The wagon was crushed into a mangled mixture of metal and wood.
“KROQ-GAR!”
Kroq-Gar roared the name.
Not the name of the man he had once been.
It was the battle cry this body had roared across countless battlefields.
His voice was so deep that the ground itself seemed to tremble.
Several Chaos cultists rushing toward him froze mid-stride.
Then Kroq-Gar charged.
A three-and-a-half-meter-tall, one-ton Lizardman thundered across the battlefield with the speed of a charging rhinoceros.
Kroq-Gar didn’t bother searching for an entrance.
He smashed straight through a line of wooden stakes beside the ruined gate.
Sharpened timber scraped across his scales.
Not even a scratch.
He burst into the settlement.
A mob of Chaos cultists charged toward him, screaming and waving stone axes and wooden clubs.
Their faces had been twisted by mutation.
Some possessed too many eyes.
Others were missing half their lips, exposing gray gums that constantly writhed beneath.
Kroq-Gar swung his spear.
The Hand of Gods traced an arc of white light through the air.
Three cultists were severed at the waist.
Not cut.
Severed.
Their corrupted bodies tore apart like paper.
Black blood sprayed through the air.
The moment it touched the spear’s white radiance, it hissed and burned.
More cultists rushed forward.
Kroq-Gar clenched his left fist.
He punched the nearest one in the chest.
Its ribcage collapsed instantly.
The entire body flew backward more than a dozen paces and crashed through the cultists behind it.
Kroq-Gar’s tail rose.
Then swept sideways.
The third spine along his tail, the one broken halfway along its length, screamed through the air.
Like a whip.
It struck three cultists across the face.
Scales, teeth, and torn flesh scattered through the air.
This wasn’t a battle.
It was annihilation.
Kroq-Gar tore through the crowd.
Every movement carried the muscle memory of thousands of years of warfare.
Kroq-Gar didn’t need to think about how to swing his spear.
How to dodge.
How to block.
His body already knew.
A stone axe struck his shoulder.
The blade slid harmlessly across his scales, leaving only a faint white mark.
Kroq-Gar drove an elbow backward.
The cultist’s head shattered against his arm like an egg.
Another cultist attempted to attack him from behind.
A rusted dagger plunged toward his lower back.
The blade struck his scales.
Snap!
The dagger broke.
The shattered blade spun through the air and buried itself in another cultist’s eye.
Kroq-Gar turned.
His hand closed around the attacker’s throat.
He lifted it from the ground.
Its legs kicked wildly in the air.
Its mouth opened, revealing rows of uneven, sharpened teeth.
Kroq-Gar stared at it.
His fingers tightened.
Crack.
The creature stopped moving.
Kroq-Gar casually threw the corpse toward another group of charging cultists.
The body flew like a stone hurled from a catapult.
Three cultists were knocked from their feet.
The sound of breaking bones merged into one.
Meanwhile, the Stegadon rampaged through the center of the settlement.
It trampled directly across the sacrificial pit.
Black sludge exploded in every direction.
Something half-formed writhed beneath the muck.
It released a cry disturbingly similar to that of a newborn infant.
Then the Stegadon’s tail came down.
The crying stopped.
Black sludge splattered across the Stegadon’s legs.
White smoke rose from the contact points.
Its hide remained unharmed.
The Stegadon flicked its tail.
Then continued crushing everything in its path as it advanced north.
The Saurus Warriors followed in its wake.
They weren’t as savage as Kroq-Gar.
But they were no less efficient.
The first rank raised their shields and absorbed the enemy’s charge.
The second rank thrust spears through the gaps.
Thrust.
Withdraw.
Thrust.
Withdraw.
Each time the spearheads returned, streams of black blood followed.
The Blessed Saurus Warriors fought along the flanks.
Their faintly golden scales shimmered beneath the sunlight.
Their spears moved faster than those of ordinary Saurus.
Harder.
More precise.
They made no sound.
They killed in absolute silence.
Like machines built solely to harvest life.
The Skink Javelin Warriors formed a loose skirmish line beneath the walls.
They didn’t join the melee.
Instead, they targeted enemies on the walls and rooftops.
Javelins screamed through the air.
One after another, they buried themselves in chests, throats, and skulls.
A Chaos cultist on the wall raised his bow.
Before he could draw the string, three javelins struck him simultaneously.
The impact pinned his body to the wooden watchtower behind him.
Black blood poured down the timber.
At the northern gate, the Cold One Riders had completed their encirclement.
A Chaos champion in armor attempted to escape on horseback.
Three Cold One Riders charged simultaneously.
The black horse reared in terror at the beasts’ hissing roars.
The Chaos champion fell from the saddle.
Before he could hit the ground, two spears crossed through his body and pinned him to the earth.
He struggled briefly.
Black blood seeped from beneath his helmet, carrying the stench of rotting organs.
One of the Cold Ones lowered its head and sniffed.
It hissed in disgust.
Then brought down one claw.
The helmet collapsed.
Along with the head inside it.
The battle lasted less than half an hour.
Kroq-Gar stood amid the ruins at the center of the settlement.
Broken black earth surrounded his feet.
Several severed tentacles still twitched nearby.
Black blood covered his body.
Fragments of flesh clung to his scales.
Yet the filth was already evaporating before his eyes.
The white radiance of the Hand of Gods burned away every trace of corruption.
There were no living enemies around him.
No.
There were no living enemies anywhere in the settlement.
Kroq-Gar glanced at the interface within his mind.
[Battle Concluded]
[Allied Casualties: 0]
[Enemies Eliminated: 612]
Zero casualties.
Kroq-Gar stood among the dead and exhaled.
He wasn’t tired.
He was hot.
The heat generated by his body during battle caused faint white mist to accompany every breath.
His heartbeat remained steady.
His muscles were still overflowing with strength.
If anything, he felt more energized than before the battle.
Kroq-Gar’s body wanted more.
More battles.
More violence.
Stronger enemies.
This hadn’t even been enough to qualify as a warm-up.
But Kroq-Gar’s attention was elsewhere.
He approached a fallen Saurus Warrior.
The warrior wasn’t wounded.
He had merely tripped and was now awkwardly trying to pull himself free from a pile of rubble.
Kroq-Gar bent down.
He grabbed the Saurus by the arm and pulled him upright.
“Are you hurt?”
The Saurus Warrior blinked his amber eyes.
His shield was covered in black blood.
The tip of his spear had been blunted from repeated impacts.
But there wasn’t a single wound on his body.
He looked at Kroq-Gar.
A low hiss rumbled from his throat.
“Unhurt.
My lord.”
The warrior shook the rubble from his scales.
Then returned to formation.
Several other Saurus Warriors were inspecting their shields.
The Skink Javelin Warriors were retrieving their weapons from the corpses.
As they worked, they chattered among themselves, apparently arguing over who had achieved the highest accuracy.
The Cold One Riders returned from the northern gate.
One of their mounts had half of a black banner hanging from its mouth.
An eight-pointed star had been embroidered across the fabric.
The Cold One chewed thoughtfully.
Then swallowed.
The Stegadon had already fallen asleep atop a pile of crushed wooden boards.
Its tail occasionally twitched.
A small piece of tentacle still hung from the corner of its mouth, apparently not yet completely swallowed.
They were alive.
All of them.
Kroq-Gar stood at the edge of the rainforest.
Behind him, the ruined Chaos settlement collapsed amid dying embers.
Black smoke scattered beneath the wind.
Beyond it appeared a clean, open sky.
Tekuna hurried toward him.
The crystal atop his staff was stained with black blood.
The Skink Priest was carefully wiping it clean with the edge of his feathered cloak.
“Cleanse the settlement,” Kroq-Gar ordered.
“Burn every trace of Chaos.”
“Fill the pit.”
“Scrape every trace of that fungal growth from the walls.”
“Then send someone back to bring the remaining Skink craftsmen here.”
Tekuna raised his head.
A trace of confusion appeared in his golden eyes.
“We’re establishing an outpost here,” Kroq-Gar explained.
“This settlement is well positioned.”
“It isn’t far from our Temple-City.
The terrain is open, and the surrounding rainforest provides a natural defensive barrier.”
He gestured toward the ruined fortifications.
“Tear down the corrupted timber and replace it.”
“Destroy the eight-pointed star.”
“Raise our own standards in its place.”
“Fill the pit and cover it with stone.”
Kroq-Gar turned.
He looked toward the Lizardmen behind him.
They were clearing the battlefield.
Saurus Warriors.
Skink Javelin Warriors.
Blessed Saurus.
They had come from different unit cards.
But now they were all doing the same thing.
Building something new upon the ruins of Chaos.
“This settlement has a new name.”
Kroq-Gar looked across the ruined walls.
“New Tlanxla.”
Tekuna’s golden eyes flickered.
The confusion disappeared.
Something else replaced it.
Something even the Skink Priest couldn’t quite describe.
“New Tlanxla…”
Tekuna repeated the name slowly, as though savoring a sweetness he had not tasted in a very long time.
“That is a word from the language of the Old Ones, my lord.”
“It means…”
“I know what it means.”
Kroq-Gar interrupted him.
The corners of his reptilian mouth slowly spread apart, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
It was Kroq-Gar’s smile.
“The Place of Beginnings.”