These Hallowed Bones - [Monster Evolution, Dark Fantasy, Heroic Undead]

The titan's stride devours distance. Haven's walls fade behind as these bones march, each step covering ground that would require a dozen paces before evolution.

The world seems smaller now, distances less significant to a frame that towers above the broken landscape.

Aeternus pulses in skeletal hand, sharing hunger for what comes next.

The sword remembers how the Duke's flames scattered us before, how they sought to unmake our joined purpose.

It remembers, and it thirsts for the chance to return the lesson.

Two days to reach his fortress, maybe three as wass claimed.

This frame needs no rest, no pause, no respite from the road.

Perhaps less, before our steel darkens his gates.

Night falls. Makes no difference to these hollow sockets.

This form requires no light to see corruption's touch upon the land. Darkness merely shifts the color gray to black.

The march continues uninterrupted.

My titanic form crosses blighted plains where nothing grow. The ground cracks beneath each step, as if the earth itself recoils from the taint that poisons it.

In places, the soil bleeds black fluid when punctured by my weight.

Halfway through the night, strange sounds emerge from the darkness.

Voices. Weeping. Begging. They call from all directions, yet no forms manifest.

These bones feel no fear. The march continues.

Dawn breaks gray and sullen. The road ahead splits around a forest of shapes, trees frozen mid-death. My smaller form would have wound between them. Now I simply push through, splintering remains.

The broken trees do not die silently. Each shattered trunk releases a sound like distant screaming.

Pieces cling to dragon-forged armor, leaving trails of fluid that burns against bone.

Not true fire. Merely corruption seeking purchase where it cannot find it. These bones know true fire.

This is merely imitation.

Birds circle overhead. Their wings too long. Their necks bent wrong. They watch my passage with eyes too large, too knowing.

The corruption reshapes all it touches. Nothing here remembers its original purpose.

Midday brings haze that clings to hollow ribs and settles in empty skull.

The mist brings tinges of metal and decay.

Through it, shapes emerge, standing stones perhaps, or ancient markers. Closer inspection reveals human forms, petrified mid-stride.

Refugees caught by corruption's wave, transformed into monuments to their failed escape.

These bones pause.

Study the frozen exodus. Men, women, childre, dozens of them in various postures of flight. Their faces contort in expressions that borrowed memory recognizes as terror. Some reach for others. Some shield smaller forms with their bodies. All bear marks of attempted transformation, skin becoming bark.

The Duke's work? Or merely corruption's tide? The distinction matters little. Both must be opposed.

Both must fall.

Purpose drives these bones onward.

A town emerges from the haze.

No life stirs in its streets, not even vermin.

Buildings lean, their foundations warped by corruption that pulses beneath cracked cobblestones.

Weathered wood splinters outward, as if trying to escape the structures it forms.

Names surface from borrowed memories.

Ossin. Roaniok. Millan. Settlements that fell in wars I cannot recall.

Each echo brings fragments, burning towers, fallen standards, the clash of steel and cleaving of flesh.

But these shards of memory offer no clarity, only confusion.

None match what I see.

This place died unnamed, unmarked on any map, another victim of the spreading taint.

My titanic frame passes across its empty market square.

Market stalls lie crushed and scattered, their wares reduced to unrecognizable debris.

A well stands at the square's center. Its stones glisten wet though no rain has fallen.

The liquid that fills it moves against gravity, climbing the stone sides in defiance of natural law.

These bones understand the rules of death.

The sword pulses warning. Something approaches.

A figure stumbles from a doorway ahead, clothed in Haven patrol armor.

His movements jerk, unnatural. Behind him, more shapes emerge wearing familiar uniforms, merchants' robes, farmers' leathers, children's simple clothes.

My titan form halts.

Commander Ikkert's warning echoes through borrowed memories.

"The worst aren't the obvious monsters. It's the ones that wear familiar faces."

The patrol member raises an empty hand in greeting. His skin hangs loose, like ill-fitted cloth. His smile stretches too wide, showing teeth that glint like metal.

"Help us," he calls, voice cracking wrong. "We've been trapped here so long."

More figures shuffle forward. A merchant whose neck bends at impossible angles. A farmer whose arms hang below his knees. A child whose feet point backward.

A woman holding an infant to her chest, though both their eyes are located in their throats.

The patrol member takes another step. "Brother warrior, we need escort to Haven's walls."

My sword arm rises. These bones remember Haven's fear when I first approached their gates. Not of death, they face that daily. But of false hope. Of things that pretend, that steal beloved faces to lure the living close.

The patrol member's smile splits his face literally now, the skin peeling back to reveal rows upon rows of teeth beneath.

I lift Aeternus, the blade nearly as long as my titan form. These creatures still shuffle forward, maintaining their charade despite my obvious nature. Their borrowed faces twist with manufactured hope, uncomprehending that they face a fifteen-foot skeleton wreathed in dragon bone.

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"Please, brother," the patrol thing rasps, its jaw unhinging to reveal teeth where a throat should be. "Just a little closer."

My blade sweeps horizontal. The false patrol member ducks under it, spine bending backward until his head touches his heels.

The merchant thing suddenly scuttles.

They still don't understand.

Their stolen faces maintain expressions of desperate need even as their bodies contort. The child thing's backward feet leave prints in ash as it circles, trying to flank a target far larger than its simple hunting instincts can process.

These are not predators.

They are parasites playing at being wolves.

They know only one way to lure prey.

Even now, the patrol thing keeps up its performance.

"The demons came," it explains, though its neck has twisted completely around. "We barely escaped."

The patrol thing's features shift as it approaches, its skin flowing like melted wax. I study it closer. Something familiar emerges in the restructured face, the high cheekbones, the sharp nose.

Memory surfaces from borrowed bones. That grieving mother in Haven, whose son a scout never returned.

Understanding clicks into place.

This thing wears her son's face. Not perfectly, but enough that recognition burns through these hollow sockets.

The creature tilts its head, noticing my hesitation. "You know me," it says, voice cracking between pitches. "From Haven's walls. I'm Dallen."

It attempts a scout's salute with limbs that bend wrong.

I take a step forward. Haven is not alone in its suffering.

The merchant thing shuffles closer, its robes bearing insignias whose origin I do not know.

These parasites collected faces from scattered outposts, settlements believed isolated or already fallen.

They wear proof that humans still struggle in distant corners of this broken world.

More figures emerge from doorways and alleys. A woman in armor, a man in worn leathers with a woodsman's axe, his belt decorated with totems from the northern tribes.

The patrol thing, Dallen, stretches its arms wider, unhinged jaw working. "Take us home," it pleads. "Haven waits."

Aeternus thrums. The borrowed faces are bait, but they're also evidence.

Proof that other bastions endure, or at least survived long enough to contribute to this parasite's collection.

I raise my blade. Whether these things consumed their victims or merely mimicked them matters little. What matters is the information they unwittingly provide.

Haven is not alone.

And neither are its enemies.

These creatures are less than the undead I've faced, less than the demons I've fought. They are empty things wearing empty masks, unable to adapt when their single strategy fails.

I bring my titanic foot down, crushing the merchant thing mid-scuttle. It pops like a rotten fruit, revealing nothing but black ichor and stolen clothes. The bones of my foot sizzle where the fluid touches, corruption seeking purchase on dragon-reinforced skeleton.

The others don't react to their companion's death, still fixated on their script.

"Haven is so close," the patrol thing pleads as its skin sloughs off entirely, revealing a writhing mass of teeth and glistening organs arranged in patterns no living creature should possess. "Just help us reach the walls."

The child thing reaches for my leg with fingers that extend and keep extending, unspooling like wet rope. The farmer's overlong arms do the same, stretching yards beyond natural limits. Their faces still smile, still beg, even as their bodies betray their true nature.

They cannot comprehend that I am death's own guardian, a titan of bone and ancient purpose.

Their simple minds can only follow one path, even as I tower above them, clearly nothing like the prey they normally stalk.

I sweep Aeternus in a wide arc, cleaving through the patrol thing's torso. Black ichor sprays in a wide arc, hissing where it lands on cobblestones.

Its two halves continue their separate performances, both still mouthing pleas for help. The upper half crawls using teeth-lined cavity as limbs.

The lower half walks on..

The child thing's extending fingers wrap around my leg bones. I lift my foot, taking it into the air. It dangles, still smiling that stolen smile as I bring my blade down. The fingers dissolve into streaks like tar that cling to bone, seeking entry to marrow.

The farmer thing launches itself at my chest, arms transformed into barbed spears. I catch them with my free hand, dragon-reinforced bones ripping apart false flesh.

The spears squirm in my grip like living things, trying to burrow between finger joints. With a sharp pull, I tear its arms free.

It stumbles back, yet its face maintains that desperate hope.

"Haven," it gurgles through a throat that splits open to reveal a vertical mouth lined with translucent teeth.

My blade finds its neck.

The head rolls, expression unchanged even as the body collapses into a puddle of corruption. The severed head continues to speak, eyes blinking, lips forming words no longer connected to lungs or mind.

"Safe harbor., please, we're human."

More shapes emerge from doorways and windows.

All wear the same pleading expressions.

All reach with limbs that shouldn't bend that way.

All speak with voices that crack and split mid-word.

New movement from above. I look up to see figures crawling along walls,. Their joints bend backward, allowing spider-like movement across vertical surfaces.

Their borrowed faces still maintain human expressions despite their impossible positioning.

The mother thing presses its infant closer to its chest cavity, which opens like a mouth. The child disappears inside with a wet sound.

Moments later, the cavity disgorges two smaller versions of the mother, both continue their mutterings with stolen voices.

I plant my feet and begin my work.

Aeternus cuts through false flesh and borrowed faces.

My titanic form gives me reach their simple tactics cannot counter. They die as they are, talking of Haven and safety even as my blade separates them into pieces.

A flurry of limbs comes from all directions now.

They begin to understand that their usual approach requires adjustment. They swarm, dozens pouring from buildings.

Some shed their human disguises entirely, becoming writhing masses of teeth and eyes and grasping appendages.

My sword carves through corrupted flesh. Black ichor sprays across bone and armor.

They climb my legs, seeking joints in dragon plate. Their teeth find no purchase on reinforced skeleton.

Their fluids burn but cannot dissolve.

I raise one foot, shaking off clinging parasites, then bring it down with crushing force. The cobblestones crack. False bodies burst.

Still they come, a tide of stolen faces and stolen forms.

Three latch onto my sword arm, their combined weight attempting to drag the blade down. I swing anyway, their bodies adding momentum to the strike. Five more are cleaved through. The parasites on my arm lose their grip, falling into their dying brethren.

One climbs higher than the others, reaching my skull.

Fingers probe eye sockets, seeking control that flesh would provide.

Finding none, it tries to insert itself through the jaw, becoming wedged in hollow bone. I reach up, crush it against my skull.

They evolve their tactics, learning from failure. These bones understand adaptation.

Aeternus sweeps low, taking legs from a dozen parasites. They continue crawling, torsos pulling themselves forward with whatever appendages remain. I bring my foot down repeatedly, crushing their corrupted forms back to ichor.

The guard thing's armor shifts again, plates extending into a crude ranged weapon. It launches a shard that strikes my ribs, lodging between bones.

Pain is for the living. I advance.

A seamstress thing thrusts a spine-spear at joints in my armor.

The weapon bends mid-thrust, curving to seek vulnerability. I catch it, snap it off. The creature shrieks with a voice that multiplies, a multitied of stolen screams.

The baker thing flings its arms.

They transform mid-air into burrowing worms that seek entry through bone. I slash them from the air, then bring my blade down on their source. The baker's false face maintains its pleasant smile even as its body dissolves into bubbling corruption.

They learn but too slowly.

Their adaptations still assume I possess vulnerabilities of the living. They do not understand what faces them, death, purpose given form.

When the last one falls, I scan the empty town. Nothing else moves. The cobblestones steam where their ichor spreads, eating through stone like acid. Buildings begin to sag, their foundations dissolving in the caustic aftermath.

I examine my frame.

Corruption clings to bones, seeking entry to marrow. The sword pulses, its ancient magic burning away taint where it touches.

I scrape remaining ichor from joints, watching as it hisses and evaporates against Aeternus' blade.

A noise draws attention back to the well in the square's center. The liquid has risen further, now spilling over the stone rim.

It flows against natural channels, moving directly toward the fallen parasites. Upon contact, the bodies liquify completely, absorbed into the spreading pool.

The corruption is not just taking. It is reclaiming. Learning. These parasites may have failed, but their experiences return to the source.

Next time, the mimicry will be better. The tactics more evolved.

These creatures spread closer to Haven. Their simple tactics work well enough on desperate travelers, on patrols seeking survivors, or merchants from distance bastions braving dangerous roads. I must warn Commander Ikkert about these things wearing her patrol members' faces.

But greater threats demand attention first.

From a nearby rooftop, a figure watches. Unlike the parasites, this one makes no attempt at human mimicry. Its form shifts constantly, as if refusing to settle on a single shape. Only the eyes remain constant - yellow, slitted, aware in ways the parasites were not.

It observes my titantime frame, head tilting at inhuman angles. Studying. Assessing.

This is no mindless parasite.

This is something that directs. Something that creates.

Our gazes lock across the distance. Recognition passes between predators. It knows I see it.

It makes no move to attack or flee. Instead, it simply watches, motionless save for its constantly shifting form.

Then, deliberately, it raises a limb toward the east. Toward the Duke's fortress. The gesture could be warning or invitation. With creatures of corruption, the distinction matters little.

Before I can approach, it melts into the rooftop, becoming one with the corrupted structure. Only those yellow eyes remain visible for a moment longer, unblinking, before they too dissolve.

These bones understand territorial messages.

The parasites were merely border guards. Tests. The true power lies ahead, perhaps in alliance with the Duke, perhaps in opposition.

The corruption spreads from multiple sources, multiple ambitions.

I will face them all.

The Duke's fortress awaits ahead.

My titan stride resumes, each step bringing us closer to proper vengeance.

This time, the Duke will not scatter us so easily