Chapter 22: Burn the Field
The forest exploded into chaos.
The Sons of Ash roared as they stormed forward, blades and guns flashing in the firelight. But they didn't even make it ten steps past the gate before the earth betrayed them.
Snap. Click. Boom.
A tripwire pulled tight—one step, and nails ripped through legs. Pressure plates hidden in the dirt exploded with salt and shrapnel, blinding, tearing through unarmored flesh.
Screams replaced war cries.
Redd's second-in-command, a tall man with chains wrapped around his arms, lunged forward—only to fall into a concealed pit, sharpened sticks driving through his ribs. He shrieked, flailing, until he went still.
Above the wall, Jason shouted coordinates to shooters—Emily, eyes calm, fired a crossbow into a man's throat. Mary, though shaken, tended to the wounded behind the wall, ready to step in if the line was broken.
Hank stood beside Axel still, whispering intel like clockwork.
"Left flank losing momentum. West tower holding. East's gone but the fallback traps are still live."
Axel didn't speak.
He watched.
Calculated.
Waited.
Redd pushed forward, rage boiling as he realized this wasn't a fight—it was a massacre. His people were dying like insects, confused and bleeding, stepping on firebombs and dragging barbed wire nets tangled around their limbs.
This wasn't war.
This was a message.
And Axel had written it with blood and steel.
Then—finally—Axel moved.
He stepped off the wall with quiet purpose, sliding down a rope. His katana glinted as he walked through smoke and bodies, flanked by the ten young men he had trained.
They moved in formation—efficient, brutal, precise.
One slashed a throat. Another cracked a skull with a hammer. Another tossed a small homemade bomb under a truck—
Boom.
Fire engulfed two enemies, and Axel walked through it like a phantom, eyes locked on Redd, who stood in the clearing—bloodied, furious, afraid.
"You think you're clever?" Redd spat.
Axel didn't reply.
He rushed forward—one slash, clean—and took a man's arm off.
The young fighters followed, carving through the Sons like wolves among sheep.
Redd backed away, growling.
"I'll kill you myself!"
He raised his machete and charged.
Axel ducked, spun, and stabbed his blade through Redd's leg, twisting it until bone cracked. The gang leader dropped, screaming.
Axel stared down at him, emotionless.
"You came into a game you didn't understand," Axel whispered. "This isn't your world anymore."
And with that, he knocked Redd out cold.
The battle was over.
Bodies burned. Survivors were shackled. The Sons of Ash were nothing now.
Axel stood at the heart of the battlefield—blood on his blade, smoke in his lungs, and the eyes of his people watching from the walls.
And they knew:
Their leader wasn't a man.
He was a storm.
—
The sun cast long, golden shadows over the bloodstained earth. Smoke drifted lazily from the scattered fires. The battlefield outside the wall, once crawling with danger, now lay still—quiet, as if the ground itself feared Axel.
No one celebrated.
There were no cheers, no raised fists, no songs of victory.
Instead, Axel's people stood in stunned silence, eyes locked on the devastation below. The traps, the precision, the way Axel moved—they hadn't fought in a battle.
They had watched a massacre orchestrated like a symphony.
Mary stood near the gate, her hands trembling despite the warmth of the sunrise. She'd treated gunshot wounds before, stitched up dying men. But this... this was something else. Not a war. Not a fight. It had been a game. A play.
And Axel had written every line.
Jason leaned on the edge of the wall, staring at the carnage. His usual sarcasm gone, lips pressed in a thin line. "They didn't even stand a chance," he muttered to Hank.
Hank didn't respond. His jaw was clenched.
Emily had already gone to check the children, her face pale but composed. She didn't say a word about what she saw outside—only wiped blood off her sleeves and moved on.
They were safe, yes.
But something in the camp shifted that day.
They realized their leader wasn't like them. Axel wasn't fighting to survive anymore.
He was building something—and he'd do anything to protect it.
---
Axel stood in the center of the field, his katana dripping with blood and dew. Ten of Redd's people lay wounded in a pile, the rest dead or fleeing into the woods. Redd himself was bound, kneeling, bruised, but alive.
Behind him, his remaining men watched, bound, frightened—but confused. They had lost.
And yet Axel hadn't killed them.
He stood over Redd, staring.
"I watched you," Axel said quietly. "During the fight. Your men... they didn't touch the women. They didn't go near the children."
Redd spat blood, glaring up. "We ain't monsters."
Axel's eyes flickered. "No. You're not. Just men who picked the wrong guy to fight."
Silence.
One of the prisoners sobbed softly. Another looked down, ashamed.
Axel looked over them. "You followed orders. But you didn't cross that line. That's the only reason you're alive."
He turned to Hank, who had joined him. "Take them to the prison. Feed them. Guard them. But treat them like men."
Hank blinked. "You're not going to execute them?"
"No," Axel said. "But they don't get freedom. Not yet. Let them earn it."
He walked past them, not sparing another glance.
To him, they were pieces on a board.
Redd called out, voice broken. "Why?"
Axel stopped.
"You could've killed us all... why not finish it?"
Axel didn't turn around.
"Because I'm not here to play god," he said. "I'm here to build a kingdom."
Then he walked away.
---
.
.
.
You can contact me through my official page on the following Accounts:
telegram:
miraclenarrator
tiktok:
miracle_narrator
instagram:
miracle_narrator