WAR GOD'S CRIMSON AWAKENING

The General's Curse

The howls grew closer, a chorus of hunger slicing through the fog. Elias stood over the altar, heart pounding in a rhythm that felt alien too strong, too fast, like war drums echoing in his chest. The crimson glow under his skin pulsed with every beat, casting flickering shadows across the cracked stone.

Thorne Kael hovered a few feet away, arms crossed, translucent armor clinking faintly as if stirred by a wind only he felt. The ancient general’s face was all hard lines and old scars, crimson eyes narrowed in assessment.

“On your feet, boy,” Thorne said, voice rough as gravel dragged across steel. “Lesson one: beasts don’t wait for you to finish your existential crisis.”

Elias flexed his fingers. They didn’t shake anymore. The exhaustion that had weighed him down for days was gone, replaced by something hot and restless coiling in his gut. “What are they?”

“Ash wolves. Mana-corrupted pack hunters. Normally they’d tear a bloodless runt like you apart in seconds.” Thorne’s mouth twisted in something that might have been a smirk. “Now? You might last thirty.”

“Comforting.”

“Comfort is for people who live long enough to enjoy it.”

The first wolf burst from the fog a massive thing, shoulders level with Elias’s chest, fur matted with gray ash, eyes glowing sickly yellow. Its jaws dripped viscous saliva that hissed where it touched the ground.

It lunged.

Elias reacted without thinking. He sidestepped, felt time slow just a fraction, and drove his fist into the beast’s ribs. The impact sounded like a hammer striking wet wood. Bones cracked. The wolf yelped, tumbling past him into the altar with a heavy thud.

More shapes emerged six, eight, a dozen. Circling. Snarling.

Thorne floated closer, voice calm as a battlefield commander. “Feel it yet? That burn in your blood? That’s the War God waking up. It wants to fight. Wants to kill. Don’t let it drive you steer, or it’ll turn you into something worse than these mutts.”

Elias breathed through his nose. The air tasted of ozone and old blood. Rage flickered at the edges of his vision, red-tinged, whispering promises: rip them apart, make them pay, start with Harlan, burn it all

He shook it off. Not yet.

The pack attacked as one.

He moved.

It wasn’t graceful. Years of hauling trays and scrubbing floors hadn’t prepared him for this. But something deeper did. Instinct ancient, brutal guided his body. He ducked a snapping jaw, grabbed a wolf by the scruff, and slammed it into another mid-leap. Claws raked his side, tearing cloth and flesh, but the wounds knit almost as fast as they opened, crimson light sealing skin with a hiss.

One wolf clamped onto his forearm. Pain flared white-hot. Elias roared raw, guttural and swung the beast like a club, smashing it against the altar. It released with a whimper, neck bent wrong.

“Better,” Thorne grunted. “But you’re wasting energy. Aim for vitals. Throat, spine, heart. War isn’t a brawl it’s execution.”

Elias spat blood his own or the wolf’s, he wasn’t sure. “Easy for you to say. You’re already dead.”

“Exactly. Means I’ve got nothing to lose watching you die stupid.”

Another wolf leaped for his back. Elias spun, caught it by the throat, and squeezed. Cartilage crumpled. He flung the corpse aside and faced the rest.

The pack hesitated. Their alpha a scarred monster twice the size of the others stepped forward, hackles raised, lips peeling back from fangs like daggers.

Elias met its gaze. Something passed between them: predator recognizing predator.

The alpha charged.

Elias didn’t dodge. He stepped in.

They collided like thunder. The alpha’s jaws snapped for his throat; Elias caught its muzzle with both hands, muscles straining, veins blazing crimson. For a moment they strained, locked beast against man, raw power against awakened legacy.

Then the bloodline surged.

Heat exploded through Elias’s arms. He forced the jaws wider wider until tendons tore and bone cracked. The alpha howled in agony. Elias drove his knee into its chest, felt ribs cave, then slammed the beast to the ground and crushed its skull with a downward punch that cratered the earth.

Silence fell, broken only by his ragged breathing and the drip of blood on stone.

The remaining wolves fled into the fog, whimpering.

Elias stood amid the carnage, chest heaving, hands slick with gore. The rage ebbed slowly, leaving him shaking not from fear, but from how good it had felt. How easy it would be to let it take over.

Thorne regarded him with something close to approval. “Not bad for a first dance. Purity’s climbing ten percent now. You absorbed their essence without even knowing how.”

Elias looked down. Faint crimson mist rose from the corpses, flowing into his skin like smoke into lungs. Warmth spread through him, knitting the last of his wounds.

“What happens when it reaches higher?” he asked quietly.

Thorne’s expression darkened. “You get stronger. Faster. Deadlier. You’ll hear the battlefield call your name in every heartbeat. And if you’re not careful, you’ll answer by painting the world red.”

Elias wiped his hands on his torn tunic. “And you? What’s your stake in this?”

The general’s form flickered, as if the memory of chains still bound him. “I was the last Primordial War God’s right hand. Fought beside him when the divine coalition came to end our line. They couldn’t kill him outright too strong so they sealed him, scattered his bloodline, bound his generals to altars like this one.” He gestured bitterly at the stone. “Your blood broke my seal. Now I’m tethered to you until you die or ascend. My curse is your curse.”

Elias absorbed that. Parents dead in a beast tide or so he’d been told. No bloodline spark at awakening. It fit too neatly.

“They hunted us,” he said. “The gods. My parents…”

Thorne nodded once. “Likely. The seal on you was masterwork deep, old. Someone sacrificed everything to hide you in plain sight. Probably died for it.”

Grief hit Elias like a fresh wound. Not the vague ache of orphaned childhood, but sharp, specific. Someone had loved him enough to die hiding him. And House Voss had thrown him away like garbage.

The rage stirred again, hotter this time.

Thorne noticed. “Control it, boy. First rule of the War God: rage is fuel, not master. Let it rule you once, and you’ll slaughter friends as easy as foes.”

Elias closed his eyes, breathed until the red haze receded. When he opened them, the world looked sharper colors deeper, sounds clearer. The bloodline was changing him already.

“What now?” he asked.

Thorne pointed deeper into the ruins, where faint crimson runes glowed on a half-buried archway. “That altar was just the trigger. There’s a trial chamber below first inheritance of the Primordial line. Survive it, and you’ll claim real power. Fail…” He shrugged. “You die, I go back to sleep for another thousand years. Win-win for me, really.”

Elias almost smiled. “You’re a bastard.”

“Guilty. But I’m your bastard now.”

He stepped toward the archway. The fog parted slightly, revealing stone steps descending into darkness. From below came a low thrumming, like a heartbeat older than the world.

“One more thing,” Thorne said, floating alongside. “The trial will test more than strength. It’ll drag up everything you’ve buried betrayal, loss, the shit that keeps you up at night. War Gods don’t break from blades. We break from within.”

Elias paused at the top step. Mira’s face flashed in his mind her tear-streaked cheeks as they dragged him away. Harlan’s smirk. The fall.

He started down.

“Let it try,” he said.

Behind him, Thorne chuckled darkly. “That’s the spirit. Or the beginning of the end. We’ll see.”

The darkness swallowed them both.