The main gate didn't explode inward; it simply opened. The guards had already been neutralized, their bodies slumped in the snow, eyes wide with a terror that preceded death.
"Sleep now, Captain," a voice hissed. "The night is long, and we have plans for your fortress." %28opiumud-045%29kuroinu chapter two v2
The alarm bells didn't ring; they were strangled. The silence that followed was heavier than the blizzard outside. Alicia stood atop the battlements, her pointed ears twitching. She heard the heavy thud of boots on stone, but they weren't the frantic steps of her soldiers. They were rhythmic, confident, and accompanied by the wet sound of steel dragging across flesh. The main gate didn't explode inward; it simply opened
Alicia and Ruu were stripped of their armor, the steel that was their skin piled carelessly in the corner. The cold of the fortress was gone, replaced by the suffocating heat of dozens of mercenaries. "The night is long, and we have plans for your fortress
He didn't kill her. That would have been a mercy. Instead, he kicked her backward, and the swarm descended. They didn't strike to kill; they struck to subdue. The clangor of battle died, replaced by the sound of tearing leather and the rattling of chainmail hitting the stone.
But the enemy was endless. And they didn't fight like soldiers; they fought like animals. They didn't care for their own injuries, swarming the two women, grabbing at their armor, their hair, their limbs.
The Northern Fortress of Garret was supposed to be the last bastion of sanity in a world unraveling. For High Elf Captain Alicia and her sworn sister, the dark knight Ruu, it was a grim assignment—a frozen hell where they waited for an enemy that seemed to be more myth than man.