Chapter Two: Ash Village

  The village stank of rot and desperation.

  Ash Village—named for the color of its cursed soil—was a ramshackle cluster of huts surrounded by wooden stakes. Fires burned day and night to ward off beasts. And from every pole hung a corpse—some fresh, some reduced to bone—left to warn both man and monster.

  Lucien approached without stealth.

  The guards shouted, raised spears, and blocked the narrow path into the village.

  "Turn back! Outsiders bring demons and worse."

  Lucien stopped a few feet away. His clothing, made of stitched monster hide, dripped with rain and old blood. His eyes, cold and unblinking, fixed on the man speaking.

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  "You’re already cursed," he said simply. "You just don’t know it."

  Before the guards could react, he moved.

  A flicker.

  Two spears shattered. Throats opened. Lucien stepped past their collapsing bodies.

  Panic spread like wildfire.

  The villagers screamed, scattered, some throwing rocks, others kneeling in the mud, pleading. Lucien ignored them. He walked into the center square where a crude idol stood—some kind of spirit god covered in dried blood and feathers.

  He tore it down with a single kick.

  "I am your god now," he said to no one and everyone.

  A group of thugs, clearly enforcers of the local chief, rushed him. Five men. Iron clubs, bronze blades, some with tattoos that glowed faintly with chi.

  He killed them in six seconds.

  Not because he needed to.

  Because it was important they learned the difference between power and dominance.

  By sunset, the chief kneeled before him, bruised, bloodied, and missing three fingers.

  "W-What do you want?" the man whimpered.

  Lucien smiled.

  "Your loyalty. Your resources. Your children, if they’re useful."

  "And if they aren’t?"

  Lucien leaned in.

  "Then they become fertilizer."