By the third day of the march, Kroq-Gar was beginning to feel that this body was becoming less and less human.
The army was advancing through the rainforest.
More than thirteen hundred Lizardmen stretched through the dense jungle in a column so long that its end couldn’t be seen.
The heavy breathing of the Cold Ones.
The rustling of Saurus tails sweeping through the ferns.
The constant chatter of the Skinks.
All of it blended together into a low, continuous background hum.
Kroq-Gar walked at the head of the army.
But it wasn’t his feet that truly made him realize he was no longer human.
It was his perspective.
The way he saw the world had changed.
A massive tree stood in his path, its trunk thick enough that two humans together would have struggled to wrap their arms around it.
Before, when he had still been human, he would have walked around it.
Now Kroq-Gar lowered his gaze.
The tree’s canopy barely reached his chest.
He could reach out and touch its highest leaves.
The ferns surrounding him would once have towered over his head.
Now they barely reached his knees.
Even the Saurus Warriors marching around him seemed strangely small.
These were towering creatures packed with muscle, warriors capable of fighting human knights one on one.
Yet most of them barely reached two-thirds of his height.
The tallest among them was perhaps 2.3 meters.
Even that Saurus had to raise his head to see Kroq-Gar’s chin.
Tekuna hurried along beside his feet.
The Skink Priest’s head didn’t even reach Kroq-Gar’s hip.
His thin legs moved so quickly they resembled the needle of a sewing machine.
Even then, every dozen or so steps, Tekuna had to stop and wait for Kroq-Gar to take another stride.
He was already accustomed to it.
Over the past month, Tekuna had developed the habit of scurrying around Kroq-Gar’s feet like a small bird following a rhinoceros.
Kroq-Gar himself still wasn’t completely used to it.
The others were.
To them, Lord Kroq-Gar had always been this enormous.
But Kroq-Gar remembered another life.
Back then, he had been only 1.78 meters tall.
Average height for a human.
He hadn’t needed to lower his head on public transportation.
He hadn’t needed to turn sideways to walk through a doorway.
“My lord.”
Tekuna’s voice rose from below.
“The scouts have returned.”
“There is a Chaos encampment three li ahead.”
Kroq-Gar stopped.
He looked down at Tekuna.
And he truly had to look down.
The Skink Priest barely reached above his knee.
“Size?”
“A wooden palisade.
No stone walls.”
“Approximately two to three hundred Chaos cultists.”
Tekuna paused.
“There is also a Chaos Spawn.”
Chaos Spawn.
An image immediately appeared in Kroq-Gar’s mind.
A twisted, bloated thing that had once been human.
A creature swollen by the power of Chaos until it stood four meters tall.
Arms growing from impossible places.
Skin covered in festering sores.
In the game, Chaos Spawn had been among the most troublesome monsters encountered in the early stages of a campaign.
Thick hide.
Powerful attacks.
Terrifying resilience.
But this time, Kroq-Gar would be standing on the battlefield himself.
“Tell the army to rest here.”
Kroq-Gar looked north.
“Wait for my command.”
Tekuna hesitated.
His golden eyes swept across Kroq-Gar’s face.
“My lord, are you planning to…”
“I’ll go first.”
The Chaos encampment lay within a clearing carved from the depths of the rainforest.
Kroq-Gar crossed the final hundred paces of jungle alone.
He moved quietly.
A one-ton creature moving quietly sounded like a joke.
But Kroq-Gar’s body knew how.
His feet settled upon the soft layer of decaying vegetation with barely more than a rustle.
His tail lifted automatically, never dragging against the ground.
Kroq-Gar crouched behind an enormous tree.
Through gaps in the foliage, he observed the encampment.
A wooden palisade.
Crooked watchtowers.
A large fire burned in the center.
A massive cauldron hung above the flames, filled with a liquid of distinctly unnatural color.
Dozens of Chaos cultists gathered around it.
Some sharpened weapons.
Others gnawed on things Kroq-Gar had no desire to identify.
Their skin was covered in uneven, hardened growths.
Some no longer possessed recognizable faces.
Only mouths.
And clusters of irregularly arranged eyes.
Then Kroq-Gar saw the Chaos Spawn.
The creature crouched at the deepest part of the encampment.
More than four meters tall.
A full head taller than Kroq-Gar himself.
Its body was an asymmetrical mass of flesh.
Three arms extended from it.
One was four times thicker than a human arm.
Another was a long, slender tentacle.
The third ended in a curved structure of bone shaped like a scythe.
Its face possessed no eyes.
Only a vertically split mouth.
Green slime constantly dripped from between its jaws.
Wherever the liquid touched the earth, white smoke rose.
One of the sentries outside the camp saw Kroq-Gar first.
Not because Kroq-Gar had failed to remain hidden.
Because he had stopped hiding.
Kroq-Gar rose from behind the tree.
Three and a half meters of scaled muscle suddenly emerged from the rainforest.
Like a demon rising from the depths of hell.
No.
To the servants of Chaos, perhaps he was something else entirely.
An angel.
An angel of Order.
The sentry opened its mouth.
It tried to shout.
Half a syllable escaped its throat.
Then Kroq-Gar’s tail swept across its neck.
The spines along his tail screamed through the air.
The impact sounded like a whip striking wet cloth.
The sentry’s head flew from its shoulders.
It spun twice through the air.
Then dropped directly into the cauldron at the center of the camp.
The cauldron overturned.
Green liquid spilled across the ground and flooded over the fire.
Hiss!
A cloud of white steam exploded upward.
The camp erupted into chaos.
Cultists screamed and charged.
Stone axes.
Wooden clubs.
Rusted swords.
They hurled themselves toward Kroq-Gar in complete madness.
No formation.
No tactics.
Not even fear.
Chaos had already devoured their fear.
Kroq-Gar charged to meet them.
His first punch struck the nearest cultist in the chest.
The creature’s sternum and part of its spine exploded from its back.
Its body folded at an impossible angle.
Then it flew more than ten meters backward and crashed through an entire row of charging cultists.
Kroq-Gar didn’t stop.
His left hand drew the Hand of Gods.
White radiance erupted from the spearhead, blazing through the dark rainforest like a falling star.
Kroq-Gar swept the spear horizontally.
Black blood sprayed into the air.
It splattered across the surrounding leaves.
Holes immediately began appearing as the corrupted blood ate through them.
A heavily armored Chaos champion charged.
It wielded an enormous greataxe with both hands.
The weapon was taller than its wielder.
The champion leaped.
The axe descended toward Kroq-Gar’s skull.
Kroq-Gar shifted sideways.
The blade scraped across his shoulder.
Sparks scattered across his scales.
Kroq-Gar drove his elbow backward.
It struck the champion’s helmet.
The metal collapsed inward.
Along with the skull inside.
The Chaos champion spun through the air.
When it landed, it was nothing more than shattered flesh wrapped in armor.
More cultists rushed toward him.
Kroq-Gar was beginning to find them annoying.
He bent down.
His claws closed around a massive stone half buried in the mud.
It weighed at least a hundred kilograms.
His fingers dug into the cracks.
He lifted.
Then threw.
The boulder spun through the crowd.
Everything in its path disappeared beneath it.
A trail of mangled flesh stretched from the center of the encampment to its edge.
A road paved with corpses.
Then the Chaos Spawn moved.
The four-meter mass of corrupted flesh released a deep roar.
All three of its arms spread wide.
It charged.
Every step shook the ground.
The wooden palisade in its path shattered instantly.
Splinters exploded into the air like gray mist.
Kroq-Gar watched it approach.
A thought passed through his mind.
In the game, he would have ordered the Saurus Warriors to hold the Chaos Spawn in place.
The Skink Javelin Warriors would concentrate their fire from behind.
The Cold One Riders would attack from the flank.
It required micromanagement.
Positioning.
Kiting.
Managing aggro.
But Kroq-Gar wasn’t playing a game anymore.
He charged straight at the Chaos Spawn.
The two monsters collided in the center of the camp.
The impact sent a shockwave through the surrounding area.
Broken sections of the palisade were blown aside.
The remains of the fire scattered.
Several cultists who had failed to escape were thrown into the air.
The Chaos Spawn’s bone scythe descended.
Kroq-Gar twisted aside.
The blade struck the earth.
A trench three meters long appeared beneath it.
Kroq-Gar grabbed the scythe-arm.
His claws sank into corrupted flesh.
Then he twisted.
Crack!
The sound of the joint dislocating resembled a young tree snapping in half.
The Chaos Spawn released a deafening roar.
Its massive arm slammed into Kroq-Gar’s shoulder.
The impact was heavy.
A thin crack appeared across one of his scales.
Kroq-Gar’s body sank several inches into the mud.
He raised the Hand of Gods.
The spearhead pointed directly toward the vertical mouth in the Chaos Spawn’s chest.
Then he thrust.
The spear plunged inside.
White light exploded within the creature.
The Chaos Spawn released one final scream.
Not rage.
Fear.
Pure, instinctive fear.
The ancient power within the Hand of Gods collided with the Chaos energy inside the creature.
The reaction was violent.
Like burning oil thrown into water.
The Chaos Spawn began collapsing from within.
All three arms went limp.
Its asymmetrical body deflated like a punctured bladder.
Black blood and green slime erupted from countless openings.
Kroq-Gar was drenched.
He didn’t move.
He stood within the expanding pool of corrupted blood and watched the remains of the Chaos Spawn dissolve into foam.
Then evaporate.
The camp fell silent.
A dozen cultists remained alive.
They stood at the edge of the encampment.
Their weapons slipped from their hands.
Their mouths hung open.
No sound emerged.
Kroq-Gar saw fear in their eyes.
Chaos had devoured their fear.
But Kroq-Gar had just driven a spear through Chaos itself.
And given their fear back.
They turned to run.
Kroq-Gar didn’t allow it.
He pulled the Hand of Gods from the remains of the Chaos Spawn.
Three strides carried him to the slowest cultist.
The spear entered through the back of its neck.
The blade emerged from its throat.
Black blood flowed down the shaft.
Kroq-Gar threw the corpse aside.
His tail swept outward.
Two cultists running beside each other were knocked from their feet.
The sharp cracks of breaking spines rang through the camp.
Kroq-Gar bent down and picked up a discarded stone axe.
He threw it.
The weapon spun through the air.
The blade buried itself in the back of the leading cultist’s skull.
The creature managed another two steps.
Then collapsed face-first into the mud.
Several others squeezed through gaps in the palisade.
Kroq-Gar walked toward them.
He grabbed the top of the wooden barricade.
His claws sank into the timber.
Then he pulled.
An entire section of palisade tore free from the earth.
Wooden stakes and mud exploded into the air.
The cultists hiding behind it were exposed.
They looked up.
A three-and-a-half-meter shadow blocked out the sky.
Kroq-Gar dealt with them one by one.
No unnecessary movements.
Every strike was fatal.
When the final cultist fell, Kroq-Gar stood in the center of the encampment and looked around.
No survivors.
Chaos Hounds crouching in the corners.
Mutated scouts hiding inside tents.
Even a tentacle still twitching beneath the remains of the Chaos Spawn.
Kroq-Gar gave each one another thrust of his spear.
Just to make sure.
“Come out.”
His deep voice carried into the rainforest.
Tekuna was the first to emerge from behind the trees.
The Skink Priest stared at the camp.
Bodies everywhere.
No.
Not merely bodies everywhere.
Not a single enemy remained alive.
Nearly three hundred Chaos cultists.
And one Chaos Spawn. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Tekuna opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then opened it again.
The staff in his hands was trembling.
“My lord…”
His voice was an entire pitch higher than usual.
“You did this alone.”
“There are several cages behind the camp.”
Kroq-Gar pointed toward the rear with his spear.
“Find out what’s inside.”
“If they’re uncorrupted, release them.”
“If Chaos has already taken them, deal with them.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Tekuna turned.
He ran several steps.
Then stopped and looked back at Kroq-Gar.
His expression said everything.
You destroyed an entire camp by yourself.
Kroq-Gar understood.
He waved one hand dismissively.
The army soon entered the encampment.
The Saurus Warriors silently gathered the corpses into piles for burning.
The Skinks chattered as they searched every corner of the camp.
Several particularly curious ones crouched beside the remains of the Chaos Spawn and poked at pieces of flesh that hadn’t yet completely evaporated.
The Cold One Riders guarded the perimeter.
Their mounts pawed irritably at the earth, disturbed by the lingering stench of Chaos.
After a while, the Cold Ones developed a strange routine.
They would look up at Kroq-Gar.
Then lower their heads.
Take a bite of grass stained with corrupted blood.
Spit it out in disgust.
Then look at Kroq-Gar again.
Tekuna eventually returned from the rear of the camp.
Seven or eight people followed him.
Human prisoners.
Their clothing was torn.
Mud and dried blood covered their faces.
But their eyes were still human.
Fear.
Gratitude.
Confusion.
Not the empty gaze of those whose souls had been consumed by Chaos.
“My lord, they are human hunters.”
Tekuna gestured toward them.
“The cultists captured them for sacrifice.”
“I have examined them.”
“There are no signs of corruption.”
Kroq-Gar looked down at the humans.
They looked up at him.
He still wasn’t accustomed to this perspective.
He had to lower his head.
They had to crane their necks simply to see his face.
Kroq-Gar could see the fear in their expressions.
Not the same fear they had felt toward Chaos.
Something more primitive.
The fear of something enormous.
After all, any ordinary human would feel their legs weaken when confronted by a three-and-a-half-meter-tall reptilian giant covered in scales and black blood.
A young woman collapsed onto the ground.
An older man beside her barely managed to remain standing.
His lips trembled several times.
Finally, he forced out two words.
“Thank you.”
Kroq-Gar looked at them.
When he spoke, the deep rumble from his throat seemed to stir the air itself.
One of the female hunters instinctively took a step backward.
He ignored it.
“Travel forty li south.”
“You’ll find one of our cities.”
“New Tlanxla.”
“Look for the serpent emblem on the walls.”
“They’ll give you shelter.”
Kroq-Gar turned away.
The Saurus Warriors automatically opened a path for him.
Over the next half month, Kroq-Gar led his army through the rainforest and destroyed every Chaos stronghold they could find.
Not a single encampment survived the first charge.
Technically, most of them didn’t even survive long enough for the army to arrive.
Usually, Kroq-Gar reached them first.
He slaughtered his way through the entire camp.
Then the Cold One Riders charged in from the flanks to finish whatever remained.
By the time the Skink Javelin Warriors arrived, there was often nothing left for them to fight.
They could only grumble indignantly while throwing javelins into the corpses.
During this continuous series of battles, Kroq-Gar gradually began to understand the limits of his new body.
Or rather…
He began to suspect that it didn’t have any.
At least not in battles of this scale.
His scales could deflect blades and arrows.
His muscles could withstand devastating blunt-force impacts.
But Kroq-Gar refused to allow a single enemy to leave the battlefield alive.
Part of it was Kroq-Gar’s instinct.
Part of it was his own principle.
Even in his previous life, he had always played the same way.
Leave no surviving enemy units.
Never move on to the next battle until the current one was completely finished.
Any survivors who escaped into Chaos territory would return later with reinforcements.
The Saurus Warriors accepted the order immediately.
The Skinks required several days to adapt.
Skinks were naturally curious creatures.
At first, some would approach fallen Chaos cultists to examine them.
A single growl from Kroq-Gar stopped that habit.
Eventually, even the Skinks adapted.
They no longer called it “research.”
They called it “confirming the kill.”
Half a month later.
At sunset.
At the edge of the rainforest.
Kroq-Gar stood in the final clearing they had purged.
Behind him waited his army.
More than thirteen hundred Lizardmen.
Perfectly ordered formations.
Spears gleaming coldly beneath the setting sun.
Before him lay the remains of the final small Chaos encampment.
The wooden palisade had been crushed.
The fires had been extinguished.
Every trace of Chaos had been scraped from this section of the rainforest.
Farther north, a silhouette could faintly be seen against the horizon.
Stone walls.
Black smoke twisting around them.
The great stronghold.
The large Chaos city two hundred li away.
Half a month.
Fourteen smaller Chaos outposts destroyed.
Not a single enemy had escaped to warn the city.
“Tekuna.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“We return to New Tlanxla.”
“One day of rest.”
“Then we march north.”
The Skink Priest lowered his head.
A cold smile spread across his narrow mouth.
Then he turned toward the Lizardmen army behind him and released a piercing command.
The formations shifted.
Thousands of feet moved in unison.
The entire army turned south like a single colossal beast.
Back toward New Tlanxla.
Farther south, hidden beneath the gathering twilight, two cities continued working in silence.
Still rebuilding.
Still growing.
Kroq-Gar stepped beyond the edge of the rainforest.
Then he raised his head.
His eyes settled upon the distant city shrouded in black smoke.