Kael stood atop the scorched hill, crimson blade humming softly in his hand, his black mask catching the rainlight like a curse.
He looked down at the battlefield—and laughed.
Everything was going exactly to plan.
The poisoned mages. The broken morale. The chaos.
All of it.
He had been the one behind the toxin laced through Veyran's ranks.
So why hadn't he just waited?
Why not let them rot and die on their own?
Simple.
Kael didn't want just victory.
He wanted exhaustion—on both sides.
He wanted to sit at the edge of the world and let others claw each other apart.
Minimum effort. Maximum ruin.
His eyes scanned the wreckage.
The estate's army was collapsing.
Aerik lay broken, bleeding, barely alive.
Veyran's remaining mages—barely forty—still stood, but faltering, poisoned, their power flickering like dying stars.
Veyran himself was dragging half a leg, drenched in blood.
General Morvien wasn't much better—body cracked from spells, eyes hollow.
And Kael?
