Sol planted the tip of the Dreadwing Blade into the bedrock and leaned both hands against the leather pommel. When he spoke, his voice carried effortlessly across the entire battlefield, amplified by the faint atmospheric resonance of his Dreadwing bloodline.
"I’m feeling strangely generous today."
The words cut through the silence immediately.
"Here is your one and only offer," Sol announced, neon-crimson eyes sweeping slowly over the shivering enemy host. "Lay down your weapons. Drop your armor. Fall to your knees and surrender yourselves unconditionally as prisoners to the Veynar clan. Do it now... and I let you keep breathing."
He paused, letting the weight of the choice settle over them.
"Refuse..." His eyes hardened. "And I will finish what I started with the Zharun."
For a few long seconds, no one moved.
The offer hung in the cold air like a suspended blade, heavy and unexpected. Wind whistled softly across the blood-soaked limestone, carrying the copper scent of the recent slaughter, but even that seemed muted beneath the weight of Sol’s words.
Shock rippled through both sides of the battlefield.
Among the Veynar loyalists standing near the rear, warriors exchanged stunned glances. Many still held their weapons tightly, spirits flickering uncertainly above their shoulders.
They had watched Sol systematically annihilate the Zharun and cut down Layer 4 powerhouses with terrifying efficiency. The idea that the same black-armored figure now standing amid an ocean of corpses would offer mercy felt almost unreal.
Commander Thauren, still gripping his golden broadsword beside his dimming Lion spirit, blinked in open disbelief. His weathered face was tight with residual battle-tension, but confusion now mixed with it.
He hadn’t expected the dark monster who had just executed five Layer 4 powerhouses... who had carved through an entire army with cold, methodical brutality... to offer anyone a chance to live. The contrast was so sharp it left him momentarily speechless.
On the Coalition side, the reaction was even more chaotic.
Immediate murmuring broke out across their fractured ranks. Zerith stalkers, Marauder, and the last mixed infantry clusters shifted restlessly, voices rising in urgent, overlapping whispers.
Some faces showed pure, desperate hope. Others displayed deep suspicion, as if certain this was only another cruel trap.
A few of the more pragmatic officers were already calculating survival odds, eyes darting between Sol’s blood-drenched figure and the distant escape routes.
"Is he serious...?"
"After what he just did to the Zharun?"
"It’s a trick. It has to be—"
"What choice do we have left?"
The murmurs grew louder, spreading like cracks through ice. No one wanted to be the first to move... whether to drop their weapons or to try running.
The memory of how effortlessly Sol had slaughtered the Zharun was still fresh, and the neon-crimson eyes watching them now held no visible mercy... only cold, patient waiting.
The entire battlefield seemed to hold its breath, caught between the hope of survival and the terror of what refusal would bring.
Then, from the middle ranks of the Marauders, a towering warrior stepped forward.
He was a Layer 3 Peak captain, clad in thick obsidian leather armor scarred from countless battles. His face was twisted into a mixture of pride, rage, and fanatical bloodlust.
Planting his heavy mace against the ground for a moment, he then slammed it hard against his own chest plate with a loud clang that rang across the field.
"SURRENDER TO HUMANS?!" the Marauder captain roared, his voice booming with raw defiance. "We are the warriors of the Great Orrath! We are the top predators of these lands! We would rather die standing in our own blood than bow our heads to weak, filthy human cattle!"
Several dozen Marauders and high-ranking Zerith stalkers immediately shouted in agreement. Their earlier fear seemed to burn away under the heat of wounded pride as they raised their weapons high once more.
"Even if we die, we’ll simply return to the ancestors!" one bellowed. "Death is nothing! But surrendering to humans is absolutely unacceptable!"
"YEAH! DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR!"
"KILL THE MONSTER! WE OUTNUMBER HIM!"
"OUR BLOODLINE DOES NOT KNEEL!"
The cluster of proud, high-layer warriors roared as one, their combined killing intent flaring outward in a final, desperate show of resistance.
Sol stared at them for a long moment.
His expression remained blank, but inside, he was genuinely confused.
...Bro.
He tilted his head slightly, neon-crimson eyes narrowing with pure bafflement.
Didn’t you just watch me slaughter your leaders? Didn’t you just watch me annihilate the entire Zharun force in front of your eyes? And you’re still talking about outnumbering me and dying with honor?
He truly could not understand how their brain cells worked. He thought he had been generous enough to offer them a chance of survival, since the evidence of what happened to those who resisted was still steaming on the limestone around them, yet these warriors were choosing the exact same path with full confidence.
It was almost impressive in its stupidity.
Still, hearing their defiant roars, Sol didn’t look angry.
He didn’t look offended.
If anything, a faint, almost weary indifference settled over his features as he continued resting both hands on the pommel of the Dreadwing Blade.
Pride was a strange thing. Sometimes it made men strong.
Most of the time, it just made them die faster.
He simply shrugged.
"Fair enough," Sol rasped softly. "Even though I gave you a chance for survival that doesn’t mean, I had abstained from killing."
WHOOSH-BOOM!
Before the roaring Marauder captain could even finish raising his mace, Sol vanished from his position.
A localized sonic implosion cracked the air where Sol had been standing, throwing up a ring of pulverized chalk dust and blood. In the span of a single millisecond, Sol materialized directly in the center of the shouting group!
"WHAT—?!"
Sol engaged the full, high-frequency rotational momentum of the Dreadwing while invoking the absolute density of the Great Badger. He became an absolute, sapphire-and-crimson hurricane of death, whirling through the middle of the enemy ranks!
CLEAVE-CRUNCH-SQUELCH!
It was like an industrial threshing machine tearing through soft grain.
The Dreadwing blade sheared through their weapons and decapitated heads in a blinding, continuous flash of blue steel and golden light.
SLICING! TEARING! SMASHING!
In less than three seconds, Sol executed five rapid rotational spins. Over forty high-layer Coalition veterans... the proudest, most fanatical warriors who had just roared about preferring death to surrender... were transformed into a shredded, unrecognizable pile of limbs, severed heads, and minced flesh, just as they had wished!
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