The sky.
The ground.
The sky again.
General Valen couldn't understand what he was seeing.
Blue.
Stone.
Smoke.
The great shadow dragon circling overhead.
The battlefield rolled again.
Sky.
Ground.
Sky.
Why...
Why was the world spinning?
His thoughts drifted to the Queen.
To the power she had granted him.
The blessing that had carried him through countless wars.
It should have been impossible.
He should have survived.
His vision turned one final time before settling.
Several yards away stood a body.
Headless.
Armless.
Legless.
It remained sitting up for a single heartbeat before collapsing heavily onto the canyon floor.
Recognition struck him.
...Mine.
Confusion swallowed every other thought.
Her blessing...
How...?
The darkness closed around him.
Just before everything disappeared...
He heard it.
Soft.
Patient.
Ancient.
Laughter.
Not Jax's.
Not the dragon's.
Something...
Else.
Then there was nothing.
Silence settled across Crescent Moon Canyon.
Not true silence.
Smoke still drifted.
Stone still shifted.
The wounded still cried out.
But the roar of battle had finally begun to fade.
Jax lowered the massive sword and looked across the battlefield.
General Valen's remains lay where they had fallen.
Without a word, Jax knelt.
A reinforced canvas sack appeared from his dimensional storage.
He carefully placed the General's severed head inside.
Nothing else.
The body remained where it rested.
"If resurrection exists..." he muttered quietly to himself, "...I'm not making it easy."
Llandra landed silently beside him.
"You think they can?"
"I don't know."
He tied the sack shut.
"And I don't intend to find out."
The battle, however...
Was not over.
"The General is dead!"
The cry echoed somewhere among the shattered Imperial lines.
Another officer shouted over him.
"Hold your positions!"
"Fight!"
A third voice screamed.
"Retreat!"
Confusion swept through the surviving soldiers.
Some continued charging.
Others looked around desperately for commanders.
Many simply froze.
Then...
One exhausted infantryman slowly lowered his sword.
It clattered harmlessly against the stone.
He raised both hands.
Nothing happened.
The shadows ignored him completely.
Another soldier saw it.
He dropped his spear.
Again...
Nothing.
Then another.
And another.
Weapons began striking the canyon floor one after another.
Like rain.
Not everyone surrendered.
Many still fought with fanatical determination.
Their eyes burned with conviction.
They charged even after witnessing the General's death.
Jax frowned.
He couldn't understand it.
The battle was lost.
Yet they fought as though death no longer mattered.
"My General!"
A lieutenant spotted Jax standing over Valen's body.
Rage twisted across his face.
"You murderer!"
He charged.
His sword never came within twenty feet.
A massive shield slammed into him from the side with enough force to lift him completely off the ground.
His ribs shattered instantly.
Before his body could even finish turning through the air—
A black blade flashed once.
Cleanly.
Precisely.
The two halves struck separate boulders before sliding lifelessly to the canyon floor.
Warden stood where the lieutenant had fallen.
Shield in one hand.
Sword in the other.
His crimson cape drifted gently behind him.
He surveyed the battlefield.
Searching.
Waiting.
For the next threat.
Jax never even looked up.
He simply continued tying the General's sack closed.
The surrender spread naturally.
Not because of speeches.
Because soldiers watched.
Those who laid down their weapons lived.
Those who continued attacking...
Did not.
One by one...
Entire groups abandoned the fight.
Others dragged wounded friends away from the remaining pockets of resistance.
The true believers continued fighting.
Everyone else...
Wanted to go home.
High above, Dante still circled.
He never attacked again.
He didn't need to.
His enormous shadow drifted across the canyon walls.
Every surviving soldier looked upward whenever it passed.
No one dared gather in large formations again.
Within the hour, the final pockets of resistance collapsed.
Only then did Jax finally step forward.
Wind carried his voice throughout the canyon.
"General Valen has fallen."
Every remaining soldier looked toward him.
"If you wish to continue this battle..."
His gaze swept across them.
"...my shadows will oblige."
A long pause.
"If you lay down your weapons..."
"...you will live."
Silence answered him.
Then...
A shield hit the ground.
Another.
A sword.
A spear.
Soon the entire canyon echoed with steel striking stone.
The portal from Crescent City shimmered open.
Zee arrived first.
Behind her came healers from the Zephrial Healing Institute.
Bunny and Nyxian followed close behind.
Both stopped cold.
Neither had been prepared for what they saw.
Thousands of bodies.
Collapsed canyon walls.
Smoke.
Shadow beasts standing silently among the dead.
At the center...
Jax.
There was no celebration in his eyes.
No triumph.
Only solemn resolve.
The healers immediately spread across the battlefield.
Holy water.
Silver dust.
Sacred oils.
Runes of passing.
Each body received the same careful treatment.
One wounded Imperial soldier watched in confusion.
"What are they doing?"
One elderly healer answered without looking up.
"Making certain the dead remain at peace."
Another quietly added,
"And considerably harder to resurrect."
Jax looked toward Zee.
"Necessary?"
She considered the question.
"Probably not."
A pause.
"But if we're wrong..."
Jax nodded.
"I'd rather waste holy water than fight the same battle twice."
No one argued.
The work continued.
Not every Imperial soldier understood mercy.
One wounded captain suddenly lunged toward a healer with a concealed dagger.
He never reached her.
A shield struck him squarely in the chest.
His body bounced across the stone.
Before he landed—
Warden's sword flashed once.
Silence returned.
No one else tried.
Nyxian eventually walked beside Jax.
She looked across the battlefield.
Then toward the surviving soldiers. And the shadow soldiers freeing them from the rubble.
"Why?"
He glanced at her.
"Why save them?"
She gestured toward the prisoners.
"They came here to enslave us."
"They would've done it."
"They would've sold every one of us."
Jax watched several Imperial soldiers carrying one of their wounded comrades toward Zee's healers.
Then he answered quietly.
"Yesterday's enemies..."
He paused.
"...are tomorrow's allies."
Nyxian frowned.
"You really believe that?"
"I do."
He looked toward the distant Empire.
"So does history."
She didn't fully understand.
Not yet.
But she trusted him enough not to argue.
As the wounded received treatment, shadow knights gathered abandoned equipment.
Armor.
Weapons.
Jewels.
Magic items.
Supply wagons.
Everything of value.
Nothing was wasted.
Llandra watched the growing piles.
"You could become the richest man on the continent."
Jax shook his head.
"This doesn't belong to me."
"It belongs to Crescent City."
She tilted her head.
"The restoration?"
He nodded.
"The canyon."
"The roads."
"The farms."
"The families who lost homes because this became a battlefield."
He looked over the valley.
"We'll establish a permanent restoration fund."
"Every battle leaves scars."
"We're going to make sure they heal."
By late afternoon...
The battlefield had finally been cleared.
More than a thousand Imperial survivors prepared for the long march home.
Their weapons remained behind.
Their lives did not.
Jax watched them disappear beyond the canyon.
He hoped...
One day...
They would return under different circumstances.
Later that evening...
Dante climbed high into the clouds.
Far above the trade roads.
Far above curious eyes.
Hours later...
The Imperial capital appeared beneath them.
Jax never landed.
He simply guided Dante into a slow pass above the main castle gates.
Below, guards pointed upward.
Confusion spread.
"Dragon!"
"Ready the—"
The order died before it finished.
Jax opened his dimensional storage.
Bodies began falling.
One.
Then ten.
Then hundreds.
Then thousands.
They crashed outside the castle gates in a thunderous avalanche of flesh and torn clothing.
The pile continued growing.
Higher.
Higher.
Until it resembled a grotesque hill stretching across the approach to the capital.
No armor.
No weapons.
Only the dead.
No guard moved.
No archer fired.
They simply watched.
Frozen.
Unable to comprehend what they were seeing.
Then...
One final package fell.
Unlike the others...
It landed gently.
A sturdy canvas sack.
Neatly tied.
A small card hung from the knot.
One trembling guard approached.
He swallowed hard before reading it aloud.
To: Her Majesty, the Queen
From: The United Kingdoms
No one wanted to open it.
The captain finally stepped forward.
Hands trembling.
He untied the cord.
Inside...
Rested only the severed head of General Valen.
Nothing more.
No speech.
No threat.
No declaration.
Only certainty.
The captain looked back toward the mountain of dead.
His voice barely escaped his lips.
"...Dear gods..."
Another soldier stared at the impossible scene.
"That's..."
He couldn't finish.
An older veteran finally answered for him.
"...That was our army."
High above...
Dante turned toward home.
Neither dragon nor rider looked back.