Chapter 62: I Am His Shadow

Chapter 62: I Am His Shadow My name is Chloe. It is a gift from my Lord, a name that separates me from the simple creations of the System. I was once Val’sharah, a 50 CP unit, a tool with a predetermined function. Now, I am a Bloodkin. I am an extension of my master’s will. This is not servitude. It is purpose. It is a state of being so profound that the concept of "self" has become secondary. My self exists only in relation to him. While Commander Isabelle and her Wrecking Crew engage in their brutal, direct assaults...the loud, messy work of a hammer, my Shadow Strikers have a different task. We are ghosts. We are whispers. We are the rumor of a threat that is far more terrifying than a blade to the throat, because it is a threat that is never seen until it is too late. We are Lord Ragnar’s scalpel, and our work is precise. Our current theater of operations is the domain of the Demon Queen Alyssa. It is a fortress of crystal and light, a beautiful, fragile thing that rings with a hollow sort of power. It is an aesthetic triumph and a tactical liability. My master has ordered us to sow chaos, to be a relentless, infuriating distraction. It is a task I perform with religious devotion. Today, our target is one of Alyssa’s primary subordinate barracks, located deep within a sector of shimmering, crystalline caves. According to our scouts, Giant Bats whose loyalty is fleeting but whose senses are sharp, it is guarded by a contingent of her elite ’Crystal Golems’. We move through the glowing caverns like shadows. The air hums with latent magic, and the light refracts a thousand times through the crystal formations, creating a disorienting, beautiful landscape. It is designed to dazzle and confuse. It does not affect us. My Goblin Snipers, Zix among them, are all but invisible on the high ledges, their dark-wood bows blending perfectly with the dark stone between the glowing crystal veins. Grunt, my massive Kobold Warlord, moves with a surprising stealth for a creature his size, the sound of his heavy footfalls muffled by the ambient hum of the cave, his iron-shod maul held at the ready. We find the barracks. It is a large, open cavern, its entrance flanked by four Crystal Golems. They are beautiful creatures, I will admit. Ten feet tall, their bodies carved from what looks like solid, translucent quartz, with facets that catch and amplify the light. They hum with a low, magical energy. They are also, according to my master’s intel, slow, predictable, and possessed of a single, glaring design flaw. I give the signal. Not with a word, but with a thought, a shared pulse of intent that binds my team together, a ripple in the psychic space that only we can feel. The attack is silent and overwhelming. It is over before our enemies even realize it has begun. From the ledges above, my three Goblin Snipers loose their arrows. They have trained for this single shot for hours. They do not aim for the Golems’ hard, crystalline bodies. They aim for the single, glowing power rune etched into the center of each Golem’s chest—their power source and their only weak point. Three black arrows fly, silent and true, streaks of shadow against the brilliant light. Ping. Ping. Ping. The sound is small, almost delicate. Three of the Golems shatter. They explode into a shower of glittering, razor-sharp shards, a beautiful, silent detonation that fills the air with sparkling dust. The fourth Golem, the last survivor, turns, its crystalline head swiveling towards the source of the attack. It raises a massive, quartz fist, preparing to hurl a shard of crystal. It is too slow. It is always too slow. BOOM! The ground cracks and explodes as Grunt launches himself from the shadows. The wind shrieks as he closes the distance in a single, thunderous bound, his massive body a meteor of fur and muscle. He brings his war maul, Earthshaker, down upon the Golem’s head in a brutal, descending arc. CRACK! The sound is not of stone breaking, but of a mountain shattering. The impact is an absolute, apocalyptic detonation of force. A massive shockwave of displaced air and pulverized crystal blasts outwards, shaking the entire cavern and causing smaller crystals to rain from the ceiling like deadly hail. The Golem’s head vaporizes into a fine, glittering powder, and its body collapses into a pile of sparkling dust. The barracks is now unguarded. We move inside. It is filled with dozens of off-duty crystal goblins and floating, jellyfish-like elementals. They look up from their gambling and their bickering, their faces a mixture of confusion and dawning terror. "Leave none alive," I command, my voice a cold whisper. What follows is not a battle. It is a cleansing. A neat, orderly extermination. My team moves through the barracks with a ruthless, detached efficiency. We are not here to conquer. We are here to send a message to the Crystal Queen. A message written in blood and shattered crystal. Later, as we melt back into the shadows of the crystalline caves, leaving behind a scene of silent, glittering devastation, I feel a sense of profound satisfaction. It is not the thrill of victory that I see in the eyes of my Lord’s other Bloodkin. It is not the cold resolve of Commander Isabelle. It is the quiet, perfect peace of a task well done, of an equation balanced. My Lord Ragnar worries. He is a brilliant strategist, a true king, but he carries the weight of his entire world on his shoulders. He worries about his rivals, about the heroes, about his crippling debt. It is my duty, my purpose, to eliminate the sources of his worry, one by one, until his mind is free to focus on the grand canvas of world domination, unburdened by the petty distractions of his enemies. I am his shadow. And his shadow will cover the world.