The clang of the gates echoed like a war drum as Ethan pushed them open with a single hand.
What met him was chaos.
The horizon beyond the west wall was painted red—fire, blood, and a sea of corrupted beasts
snarling in unison. Orcs with glowing crimson eyes and bulging veins sprinted toward the
barrier, wielding rusted axes and jagged bone spears. Their guttural bellows shook the very
stones of the city wall.
Ogres crashed through wooden barricades like living battering rams, their mutated muscles
pulsing and twitching under cracked, stone-like skin. Dark ichor oozed from splits in their barkcovered hides.
Goblins, eyes bulging with wild madness and black drool streaming from their mouths, darted
between the larger monsters like green, rabid shadows.
Packs of wolves with skeletal limbs, exposed rib cages, and black fur seething with corruption
slunk along the outer edges, snarling low like devils in a preacher's nightmare.
And it didn't stop there.
