He mourned, for this was the last time he would so for Eira. Even though it hurt him to know his family’s true nature, it wasn’t really new information as much as it was confirming his past suspicions. He had lived in the outside world for a year now and everything he heard pointed at the Zakaris being wild, power-hungry beasts. He had just been desensitised by being too close.

Tightening his fists, Orion breathed out and let his chest fall, then walked away from Eira. He stopped at the edge of the barrier and touched it, his power breaking through the biting force of the ice.

His head was cast low as he stepped through to the battlefield, not in despair but in thought. All this time, he had imagined killing his family’s enemy to be a distant goal but still one that would fill him to the brim with joy. Even when he had figured Eira, his own cousin, to be his enemy, he had still held the expectation, after all, she had to be a monster considering what she had done. And she was a monster, only so had been the men and women he had avenged, and thinking on it, so was he.

He had started off by killing monsters but once he had transitioned to killing men, he had developed a taste for it. From Visgamar to the cold and stingy grounds he now stood on, he was sure he could be traced by the trail of bodies he left behind.

Breaking into a macabre grin, he looked up and finally faced the chaos around him. Immediately, his eyes cast to Kora, who was running towards him. Her right arm was dangling lifelessly and her body looked pocked and diseased. Looking up from her, he noticed Caleb was in a far better condition, watching his daughter run to Orion with sharp eyes. Beside him stood Lucifer who held a hand over his stomach where Orion had gifted him cracked skin and broken bones. Lucifer’s eyes were more passive, those of grudging respect.

Kora came to Orion and he welcomed her with a wide embrace, immediately feeling her fangs on his neck before he could even say a word. Regardless, he didn’t care about her impatience as his body overflowed with energy anyway. Deep down he was scared what he would do with the power Eira had graciously gifted him if it wasn’t reined back.

Eyes searching the battlefield, Orion found Yhaoli. While Kora had been pockmarked, Yhaoli looked to be half-devoured as if the monster king had fought a beast so horrible it had an ungiving taste for Yhaoli’s flesh. And to the side of Yhaoli, that was exactly what Orion found: a bald beast with bright, dangerous eyes. Kasib coolly regarded him back, yet simultaneously seemed tense enough to pounce any second.

Yhaoli’s towering figure, or at least what was left of it, was left standing, acting as a beacon on the battlefield. His eyes had dulled over with death and the rest of his body looked as if someone had just wrestled it out of the jaws of a starving hound.

As Kora finished up, Orion pushed his eyes off Yhaoli and onto the battlefield around. He couldn’t see much due to the carnage and kicked up bloody mud surrounding him, but the sounds of war seemed muted to what they were before. In contrast, the smell of blood and death were stronger than ever, enveloping him, depriving him of air. Almost. For some reason, Orion felt a tingle through his heart instead of the suffocating pain he expected.

“Let’s go,” he said to Kora, his desperation leaking through.

She didn’t turn to Orion, instead to her father as they locked eyes. Eventually, with excruciating slowness, Caleb nodded but seemed a hundred years older right after, the decision ageing him to his core. She then stroked Orion’s shoulder with a familiar softness, setting him into motion as he strode across the battlefield, leaving behind his cousin’s grave.

Not a single person there tried to stop him or Kora’s exit. Orion knew for certain Kasib would have liked to and questioned him after, and yet the bald hunter didn’t. Perhaps they can sense the power oozing out of me now, Orion thought. Or maybe it’s because they know why I’m rushing away now.

Still, his VIP treatment ended as he entered the fray of the fighting where monsters and men didn’t care for his face or status. And they fell with passionless ease, crumpling up into bone-chilling forms as he passed. Either way, they both made it out of the battlefield eventually, seeking a vantage to look down upon the fighting. From here, Orion figured out the conclusion to the war.

The Tribes were all but decimated at this point, and the monsters that had come to support them were far and few between. Still, it wasn’t as if the Imperial Army was better off. Orion could only spot small clusters of them now, and he was certain had it not been for the vampires’ entrance, the Imperial Army would have broken apart ages ago.

As most wars tended to finish with, there were no winners here, only losers who would trudge back to their homes with haunting memories.

Burning the scene into his mind, Orion smiled and turned, leaving for the horizon.

*******

6 months. It had been 6 months since the Great War, as it was now known. Due to it, the Tribes had lost their appetite for the Empire, at least momentarily, and the Empire had lost a third of its soldiers. In fact, more now as their southern defence against the Horsemen had been lacking and the vampire support there had done little to tip the scales. Nonetheless, it seemed the Horsemen were content for the moment as they enjoyed their doubling in territory, cutting deep into the Empire.

But it was the east that mattered since no one had expected much from the Imperial Army and the weaker half of the Cruorems at the southern border anyway. It was the opposite in the east where it had been an Imperial Army and the entire Piros household, arguably the strongest House in the Empire, and definitely the flagbearers of the Empire. Everyone had expected a steamroller victory, one so definitive and crushing the foreigners would retreat with their tails far up their arses.

Nope. Despite only, apparently, being the scouting force, the foreigners had come to a standstill with the Empire’s strongest. Orion had anticipated this after Joiroa had told him of Shrien’s strength, the leader of the foreigners, but it was another thing to actually realise it to be true. But it didn’t matter, or at least it wouldn’t soon enough.

After the Great War, exaggerated tales of Orion’s influence and power had spread far quicker than he had anticipated. It seemed the returning soldiers had nothing to talk about but the next dreadful Zakari on the block. Regardless, as much as it pained him to admit to the common fearful man, he had to do just that as he came to terms with his own power. During her death, Eira hadn’t simply given him the energy to leave the battlefield, she had actually sapped the power out of her bones and transferred it to his.

He was now stronger, alarmingly so, and he knew it was all according to her plan. Hell, for all he knew, this could just be an extended Zakari plan, one where he would magically revive them back to life at the end. Maybe the power he had been given by her were small sections his family had passed onto her. Either way, he wouldn’t let them succeed. As much as he had once loved his family, considering the Empire was now crumbling to death and despair, he doubted the last thing it needed was the revival of a power-hungry family. In truth, he didn’t care too much for the Empire. It was instead his unfortunate familiarity with death and despair that made his feelings to his family turn.

No, as far as he was concerned, the world was done with the Zakari line and he would be doing his darn best to keep it that way. From what Eira had said, it seemed she had transported all the younger Zakaris far from their House and into distant cities. If any of them emerged into the world with dreadful power, he wouldn’t stop them. But for the legends of the past who now lay in the ground, they would have to continue doing so and forget any dreams of revival.

And for this to happen, Orion had a plan, one he was sure Eira hadn’t thought through, or at least believed he wouldn’t commit to. But he would after this last necessary evil, because while it went against his urges, deep down, it was far better than the alternative.

“Orion?” Joiroa suddenly asked, intruding on Orion’s thoughts.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Orion replied, breaking out of his daze. “But you’re sure?”

“Yes, this is where they gather. Look at the light and fire and life,” Joiroa replied.

“No.” Orion said, “You’re sure you want to do this? It’s technically a betrayal, right?”

Joiroa released a low guttural laugh, more beast than man, especially one so refined and aged as Joiroa was. “They betrayed me first. Besides, I don’t…” he stopped. “I don’t want to see what will happen otherwise. It is too dreadful, too base, too inhumane,”

Orion nodded at the aged foreigner before turning to Kora who kept a watch for both of them.

“We alright?” he casually said.

“Yeah, but we’ve got visitors. I think the Piros are also launching an attack now, and from the patterns the torches are following, I think the foreigners are expecting them. Don’t get me wrong, they’ll all be there but this is an ambush,” she said slowly.

Orion shrugged. “All the better to deal with them in one strike,”