Chapter XVII — Where the Sky Bled

The sky bled crimson on the open field.

Grasses bent in the wind like supplicants in prayer, and wildflowers, once bright in their innocence, shimmered under the blood-hued light like witnesses to an execution. The meadow, usually a place of stillness and song, had become a stage for the unspeakable.

At the field’s edge stood the Tori of the Dead—massive, solemn, painted red with a thousand coats of ancient warning. The wood was old as myth, bound with forgotten prayers and sealed by fire. But today, it flared alive—not with grace, but with hunger.

A sick-green glow oozed from beneath it.

Through the heart of the gate stepped Blight Zombie Nicolas, his form draped in robes stiff with crypt-dust and war ash. At his side trotted his hound of bone, the death-bonded beast Rattlespine, each step a clicking defiance of the natural order.

His staff, crowned with a churning emerald stone, pulsed. The light from it didn’t shine—it dripped, leaking out like infected oil, staining the grass, twisting the roots beneath it. Where the stone glowed, insects died mid-flight. Flowers wilted in silence.

Behind him, from the shadows between realms, came a wind unlike wind—a pressure, a taste of death given form.

The Legions of Rot were coming.

You could not see them yet, but the land felt them. Horses began to buck in distant stables. Wolves howled from the forest edge. Babies wailed in towns they would never remember being born into. Something ancient was crossing the veil.

"There is no longer peace in the afterlife," Nicolas rasped. "There is only unfinished business."

And then—

A gust of wind swept the field.

A presence.

Standing alone among the grass and wildflowers, as if he had always been there, stood Enchanter Tengukensei of Mt. Kirama. His saphire robes stirred like banners in a rising storm. His ruby staff, crowned in dragonfire and prophecy, flared to life—a beacon of burning defiance against the emerald decay.

Eyes like thunderclouds. He said nothing.

He did not need to.

The emerald of rot met the ruby of flame. The two lights warred without touching—casting flickers of future ruin and ancient wrath into the wind. The field trembled between them, caught between life and death, between spell and silence.

Behind Nicolas, the undead legions began to emerge—silent, endless, purposeful.

Behind Tengukensei, there was no one.

No army. No banners. No gods.

Only a single, forgotten wind—whistling through the field like a song sung at the edge of a cliff.

And the Tengu stood.

Alone.

“You were never meant to cross,” Tengukensei said, voice soft, yet deeper than the grave. “But now that you have—this is where your second death begins.”

Nicolas grinned, his face cracked and ancient. Rattlespine growled.

The field ignited with silence. The first war cry would not come from a throat. It would come from the clash of stone and flame.

The world was holding its breath. Because this— This was where everything would change.

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