He had covered a few miles with a few jumps, crossing distance that should have taken an minutes of hard running in mere moments. He didn’t seem normal at all. He didn’t seem like anything that should exist in these forgotten corners of the Lands of Stone where the greatest powers were supposed to be Bone Tempering Warriors scratching out survival among tribes that the Anointed Ones called Dross.
He looked at the mutilated figure of Lady Morgana, and his gaze paused on her serpentine pupils.
Those eyes that had allowed her to track prey across distances, to control Warriors weaker than herself, to build an army from the dregs of Unbound Tribes for purposes that served her Vassal masters.
His own eyes became even sharper with recognition.
Any variation of anatomy usually indicated a unique power across the Lands of Stone, a blessing from the Ancestors that set certain bloodlines apart from the common masses. This woman had a Land and Sky Physique, something that should have made her exceptional, something that should have guaranteed her success in these territories where such powers were rare.
It hadn’t been enough.
As she heaved and looked at him with a gaze that mixed horror and defiance in equal measure, her one remaining hand pressed against the stump of her arm in a futile attempt to slow the bleeding, Damian spoke.
"Answer my questions and you have a chance of leaving here alive."
His voice was calm and cold, carrying no emotion beyond the simple statement of conditional possibility.
"Why did the Iron Serpent Tribe send you here? And do you have any more forces that know about this place?"
...!
He asked such questions while walking closer to her with steps that seemed unhurried but covered ground with disturbing speed, and she scooched backward on the stone as if the extra distance might save her somehow.
Her blood painted the stone below her in streaks of red that would dry and darken and eventually be worn away by wind and rain, just another stain among countless others that marked the violence of the Lands of Stone!
She replied with a strained voice that cracked and wavered despite her attempts to sound composed.
"I...brought all my forces here already. Everyone I had."
She swallowed blood that had pooled in her mouth from internal injuries she couldn’t assess.
"The Iron Serpent Tribe needed more Warriors to fight on their behalf. A conflict with a rival Vassal Tribe. They sent people like me to gather forces from the Unbound regions."
She tried to read his expression, tried to find some sign of mercy or interest that she could exploit.
"If I don’t make it back, they’ll send someone to check on what happened. They’ll want to know why I didn’t return with the soldiers I was supposed to deliver."
She was answering his questions and adding additional information, anything that might make her seem valuable, anything that might secure her life for another few moments.
Damian kept his gaze cold as he looked at this being who had planned to slaughter the Purple Stone Tribe, who had sent the Butcher and Lukaku to do the same thing to other tribes, who viewed the Dross as nothing more than resources to be harvested or eliminated according to convenience.
And as if she could see something within his eyes, something that told her the words she had offered weren’t enough, she continued with a look of desperation spreading across her blood-splattered features.
"I come from a Vassal Tribe! We’re connected to the glorious Anointed Ones!"
Her voice rose with the fervor of someone playing their last card.
"Killing me would be blasph-"
BOOM!
Damian took the log in his hand and used it like a hammer, bringing it down upon the body of Lady Morgana with all the force that had allowed him to throw similar logs across miles and obliterate Warriors on impact.
Rivers of blue Mana wrapped around his arm and the weapon it held, power channeling through wood and flesh alike as the strike descended with the inevitability of a mountain falling.
One could only hear the pop of her head bursting and the crushing of bones collapsing under force they were never designed to withstand.
The body of Lady Morgana was turned to pulp.
What had been a Bone Tempering Warrior with a Land and Sky Physique, what had been a leader of men and a servant of Vassal interests, what had been a schemer and a killer and a would-be conqueror of Unbound territories, became nothing more than a smear of red and pink and white across stones that had witnessed such endings countless times before.
Damian looked at the corpse calmly.
He had told her there was a chance.
He didn’t tell her if that chance was less than zero percent.
And for her to begin mentioning Anointed Ones?
For her to invoke the name of those powers as if they would protect her, as if the very word would make him hesitate or reconsider?
That only further sealed her fate.
He was a Vakochev.
He knew exactly what the Anointed Ones were capable of.
And he knew exactly what they deserved.
As for her words, he didn’t believe many of them. Her Vassal Tribe sending someone to check on her disappearance? Maybe. It was possible that the Iron Serpent Tribe kept track of their agents closely enough to notice when one failed to return.
But if she was sent here, there were likely multiple others like her scattered across various regions of the Lands of Stone near their Vassal territory, each one gathering forces from different Unbound populations. And a lot of things could happen across the Lands of Stone that had nothing to do with mysterious enemies who could throw trees like spears.
Primal Beasts claimed lives daily.
Tribal conflicts erupted without warning.
Disease and famine and simple bad luck killed more people than any war.
Anyone who didn’t return could be attributed to having fallen to any of these common dangers. Even if someone came to check, they would only ask a few questions and observe the state of the tribes nearby. They wouldn’t find evidence of what had actually happened, because Damian intended to make sure there was no evidence to find.
He almost considered this threat to be taken care of as he looked around the expanse of stones that were littered with blood and bones and the scattered remains of those who had thought themselves hunters.
The bodies would need to be disposed of by the Lands of Stone themselves.
But for now, the immediate danger had passed.
He didn’t like killing, even though he had done so much of it today and yesterday. The weight of each life he had taken pressed against something inside him that his mother had nurtured, that part of his soul that still believed in honor and goodness and the possibility of a world where such violence wasn’t necessary.
But he killed with purpose.
And at this moment, his purpose was completed.
He turned and began the long walk back, leaving the pulped remains of Lady Morgana to feed whatever scavengers were brave enough to approach a site that still reeked of Mana and death.
The Lands of Stone would clean up the evidence eventually.
They always did.