General Cassian Viremont had commanded men for twenty-eight years.
He had survived assassins.
Monster outbreaks.
Civil wars.
Three border campaigns.
He had watched heroes die.
Kings surrender.
Entire cities burn.
Never...
Not once...
Had he considered retreat.
Until today.
The battlefield no longer belonged to the Empire.
It belonged to the shadows.
Crystal Knights shattered shield formations with disciplined precision.
Towering Yetis scattered cavalry as though armored horses weighed nothing.
Crystal Wolves hunted fleeing soldiers with terrifying coordination.
Above them all, the shadow dragon circled lazily through the smoke, its crimson eyes watching for any siege engine foolish enough to remain standing.
General Viremont drew a slow breath.
"Reform the line!"
His officers repeated the order immediately.
"Shield wall!"
"Protect the mages!"
"Cavalry, left flank!"
Training took over.
For one brief moment...
Order returned.
Then the blond man moved.
General Viremont never saw him leave his position.
One heartbeat...
Jax stood nearly a hundred yards away.
The next...
He wasn't there.
A thunderous crack rolled across the battlefield.
Then another.
Then another.
Not explosions.
Sonic booms.
The sound chased something moving faster than the eye could follow.
Viremont turned instinctively toward the noise.
An Imperial captain suddenly stopped shouting.
His helmet slid from his shoulders.
Then his head.
His body collapsed a heartbeat later.
Silence spread through the nearby soldiers.
Another crack echoed.
A cavalry commander simply...
Came apart.
Another.
A battle mage.
Another.
An engineer beside a shattered catapult.
Every sonic boom meant another officer disappeared.
No one could see the attacks.
Only the aftermath.
General Viremont's mouth slowly went dry.
"...What..."
His voice barely escaped his throat.
That wasn't speed.
That wasn't swordsmanship.
It was inevitability.
He finally found him.
Far across the battlefield.
Jax stood with Peacemaker resting casually across one shoulder.
Completely still.
Then—
Another sonic boom.
Another officer died.
Impossible.
He wasn't running.
He wasn't flying.
He was simply...
Everywhere.
General Viremont's training screamed for an answer.
There wasn't one.
He slowly realized something horrifying.
The blond adventurer wasn't hunting soldiers.
He was removing command.
Systematically.
Methodically.
Every experienced officer vanished first.
Every signalman.
Every cavalry captain.
Every battle mage capable of coordinated spells.
The army wasn't losing.
It was being dismantled.
Piece by piece.
Until only frightened men remained.
General Viremont suddenly understood.
This battle had ended the moment Jax smiled.
Everything since then...
Had merely been cleanup.
A shadow passed over him.
He looked up instinctively.
Nothing.
Confused, he looked forward again.
The blond man stood only a few feet away.
Calm.
Expressionless.
Peacemaker resting comfortably in both hands.
General Viremont managed the faintest smile.
"So..."
"You finally came yourself."
Jax inclined his head politely.
"You led them well."
Oddly...
Those words hurt more than any insult.
Because they sounded sincere.
General Viremont lifted his sword.
Not because he expected victory.
Because it was the last thing a General should do.
Jax nodded once.
Almost respectfully.
The blade moved.
General Viremont saw steel.
Then...
The sky.
Blue.
Cloudless.
Strange.
Why was he looking upward?
The world turned.
Grass.
Sky.
Grass.
Sky.
Again.
Again.
Only then did he realize...
He wasn't standing anymore.
His head rolled gently across the battlefield.
Several feet away...
His body remained standing for one impossible heartbeat before collapsing to its knees.
Jax stood over him.
Peacemaker resting quietly against one shoulder.
General Viremont's fading vision fixed on the blond man one last time.
The reports had been wrong.
Not because they exaggerated him.
Because they had underestimated him.
His final thought was not fear.
Nor hatred.
Only one quiet realization.
The Empire... has no idea what it has awakened.
Darkness followed.
And the battlefield became silent once more.