And Sik'ra, who noticed, raised an eyebrow, wondering why she was smiling, staring at Jorghan.

He looked back at Jorghan and then shook his head, not wanting to ponder about these two.

"Tell me everything," Jorghan said, his voice terrifyingly calm.

"Every detail of Lamorg's plan. How did you track us? How you orchestrated the chimera attack. What you intended to do with my cousin and Scarlett once you had them. Leave nothing out."

Through the haze of pain, through tears and snot and the absolute breakdown of dignity, Kelris told him. The words spilled out in gasping fragments—how Lamorg had been consumed by rage after his father's death, how he'd gathered the clan's most loyal warriors, how they'd made contact with a beast-master in the deep forest who could control chimeras through blood-binding rituals.

They'd tracked Jorghan's party from the moment they entered the Whisperingtris. The hunt had been orchestrated from the beginning, designed to separate the group, to create chaos that would allow targeted abduction. Swana and Scarlett had been the primary targets—one for her connection to Jorghan, one for her potential intelligence value as an Earth-born human.

The plan had been to hold them in a prepared location deeper in the forest, send word to Jorghan of where to find them, and ambush him when he came for the rescue. Lamorg had prepared for weeks, gathering allies and setting traps, convinced that with proper planning he could succeed where his father had failed.

Then the human soldiers had stumbled into the extraction route, and everything had collapsed into violence and capture.

"Please," Kelris begged when the story was told, the blood-lines still holding him, but the agony reduced to merely unbearable rather than transcendent.

"Please, I gave you what you wanted. I told you everything. Let me go. I'll disappear, I'll never—"

"You planned to harm my family," Jorghan interrupted, his voice still that terrible calm.

"You participated in a conspiracy to abduct and use them as tools. You thought you could manipulate me through threatening those I care about."

He looked at Kelris with eyes that held no mercy, no forgiveness, and no recognition of shared humanity.

In that moment, he wasn't Jorghan or even the Berserk Lord. He was something colder, something that existed outside moral frameworks.

"I don't let anyone who harms my family walk away," he said simply.

His hand clenched into a fist.

The blood-lines contracted.

All of them, simultaneously, with force that exceeded what human or elven tissue could withstand. Kelris's body came apart—not exploding, not tearing messily, but separating along precise lines like a diagram in an anatomy text. Limbs disconnected at joints, torso segmented through careful cuts, head detached from shoulders with surgical accuracy.

The pieces fell to the forest floor in an almost organized pattern, each one outlined in crystallized blood that gleamed wetly in the filtered sunlight.

Sik'ra looked away, his jaw tight. He'd seen violence before and had participated in clan raids and territorial disputes, but this—this calculated brutality—was something else.

Sarhita stared at Jorghan with an expression that mixed horror and understanding. She knew why he'd done it, knew that in his position she might have made the same choice, but seeing it executed so coldly made something in her chest clench painfully.

"The direction he indicated," Jorghan said, as if he'd done nothing more significant than swat an insect.

"The terraspers took them east-northeast. Their ships are in that direction."

He looked at his companions.

"Are you coming?"

"Of course we're coming," Sik'ra said, his voice rough.

"They're family. But Jorghan... what you just did—"

"Was necessary," Jorghan interrupted.

"He was part of a plan to harm Swana and Scarlett. He doesn't get mercy for being a messenger. None of them do."

He began moving in the direction Kelris had indicated, his pace quick and purposeful.

Behind him, Sik'ra and Sarhita exchanged glances—concerned, troubled, but ultimately following. Whatever moral lines were being crossed, family loyalty superseded them.

The forest seemed to shrink away from Jorghan as he passed, as if the ancient trees recognized something in him that transcended their understanding of natural order.

*

IPMF Forward Operating Base - Landing Zone Ridge

The ridge overlooked a natural depression where the three dropships had been positioned in defensive formation. Temporary structures had been erected around them—command tents, supply depots, defensive emplacements.

It was a textbook military deployment, efficient and professional.

Major Carrow stood on the ridge itself, looking down at the two prisoners who'd been brought before him.

The red elf warriors had been secured in a separate holding area—bound, disarmed, and under heavy guard.

But these two were different. These two had intelligence value.

Swana knelt on the ground, her injured leg extended awkwardly, her brown skin covered in a sheen of sweat that spoke to the venom still working through her system. Her gold eyes, however, remained defiant, tracking Carrow's movements with the assessment of a warrior evaluating an opponent.

Beside her, Scarlett sat with her hands bound behind her back, her earth-born humanity making her seem small and fragile next to the seven-foot elven woman. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears, but her jaw was set with stubborn determination.

"Let's start simple," Carrow said, his voice carrying the flat affect of someone conducting an interrogation they'd done a thousand times before.

"You," he gestured to Scarlett, "are from Earth. That much is obvious. How did you get here? When? And who brought you?"

Scarlett stared at him without responding.

"I asked you a question," Carrow continued, his tone not changing.

"Answer it."

Silence.

Carrow sighed, a sound of wearied patience reaching its end. He walked to Swana, drew his boot back, and kicked her injured leg with a simple motion.

Swana's scream was involuntary, torn from her throat by agony that overwhelmed even her warrior's conditioning. The venom made the pain exponentially worse, the nerve endings hypersensitive and every sensation amplified beyond tolerance.

"Stop!" Scarlett shouted.

"Leave her alone! She hasn't done anything to you!"

"She's a hostile combatant in possession of intelligence assets I require," Carrow replied, his expression not changing.

"That makes her a legitimate target for enhanced interrogation. Now—answer my questions, or I continue hurting her."

"You're a monster," Scarlett spat.

"You're supposed to be human. Supposed to be civilized. Not—not this!"

No matter how many years pass by, no matter how much humans progress, the fundamental feelings of humans never change. It was what Scarlett saw now.

Swana was clearly not in a state to retaliate, yet he was being cruel to her. She couldn't fathom the idea of doing such things to anyone. Her heart couldn't take it.

Carrow moved with surprising speed for a man in his fifties. He grabbed Scarlett by her hair, yanking her head back sharply, exposing her throat. His other hand produced a combat knife from his pants—Earth military issue, wickedly sharp, designed for efficiency rather than sport.

"Listen very carefully, girl," he said, his voice still that terrible flat calm.

"I've been fighting this bloody war for three years. I've seen things that make your worst nightmares look like children's cartoons. I've lost good soldiers to creatures that shouldn't exist, watched entire units get annihilated by magic that violates every physical law we know. So spare me your moral lectures about civilization."

He pressed the blade against her throat—not hard enough to cut, but hard enough to make the threat absolutely clear.

"I will do whatever is necessary to protect Earth's interests. That includes torturing aliens if they have information I need. It includes killing human collaborators who've sided with enemy forces. And it definitely includes making you watch while I systematically dismantle your friend there piece by piece until one of you starts talking."

He released her hair, letting her head snap forward, then stepped back and gestured to two of his soldiers.

"Strip the elf. Start with non-vital areas—fingers, toes, anything that causes maximum pain without killing her. And make sure the Earth-girl has a good view."

"No!" Scarlett struggled against her bonds.

"Please, I'll talk! I'll tell you what you want to know! Just don't hurt her!"

"Too late for that," Carrow said.

"You had your chance to cooperate. Now you watch the consequences of defiance."

The soldiers moved toward Swana with tools that gleamed with terrible promise.

Swana met Scarlett's eyes, and despite the pain, despite the fear, there was something else there—a message, a promise.

Don't break! Don't give them what they want! Hold on!

The first soldier reached for Swana's hand, pliers already open.

And in the distance, moving through the forest with murder in his heart and blood magic coiling around his hands, Jorghan Sol'vur sensed something terrible was happening.

His eyes flared like lava. His pace accelerated from quick to supernatural.

The IPMF had made a critical miscalculation.

They'd thought themselves the apex predators, the ones with overwhelming force and technological superiority.

They were about to learn what it meant to threaten the family of a Berserk Lord.

The forest whispered its warnings, but this time, someone was listening.

And what heard those whispers was coming to paint the ridge red with the blood of those foolish enough to torture his kin.

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