Riska crouched at the camp’s edge, the scent of sweat and smoke thick in the air. The warband moved in its usual rhythm—restless but unaware, oblivious to the storm creeping toward them from the dark.

  A twisted amusement curled at the edge of her thoughts.

  She had once dreamed of escaping this place.

  No, dreamed was the wrong word—dreaming was for fools, for those who thought the world allowed such luxuries. She had dismissed it. Brushed it off as a passing delusion, an idle fantasy that had no place in reality.

  Escaping Skarn’s warband had seemed as likely as tearing the moon from the sky. And Rick?

  Back then, he had been nothing—a foreigner, a man barely standing, barely surviving, an outcast with no power to his name.

  And now, here we are.

  She watched him melt into the night, his movements deliberate, precise, like every step was part of something bigger than mere survival.

  A slow shake of her head.

  "I thought we were dead," she mused, watching as he traced the camp’s perimeter, the darkness swallowing him whole. "They should have crushed us. Dragged me back in chains, killed him on the spot. And Rick? He was nothing but a broken man. No chance. No hope. Just another corpse waiting to happen."

  But that wasn’t how it played out.

  She was still breathing. The warband was unraveling.

  And Rick?

  He had rewritten the rules.

  "Twenty-six orcs," she counted silently. "In two days. Twenty-six. One by one. No war cries, no pitched battles. Just silence. Just death."

  Not out of desperation. Not in reckless defiance.

  But slowly, methodically, surgically.

  He wasn’t fighting them. He was infecting them—one precise, unseen strike at a time.

  First, whispers in the night. Then, bodies left in ways meant to be seen, wounds meant to tell a story. A growing, creeping horror that slithered through the warband like rot beneath the skin.

  They didn’t see a man.

  They saw a phantom. A shadow without form.

  Each death was a whisper. Each whisper fed the fear.

  And the myth took root.

  Rick wasn’t just a man anymore. He was becoming something else, something unshackled from reason, something that defied understanding.

  And the orcs, in their ignorance, did what all desperate men did when faced with the unknown.

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  They gave it a name.

  "The Phantom," she thought, lips curling. "They fear him like he’s a spirit, something beyond them. A thing that kills without cause, without reason, without being seen."

  But Riska knew the truth.

  He had created this.

  He had made them believe.

  He had taken fear—a thing raw, untamed, dangerous—and wielded it like a master craftsman forging a blade.

  And the warband was already bleeding.

  "He’s not just killing them." The thought struck her suddenly, sinking in like a slow-burning ember. "He’s making them believe in him."

  They weren’t fighting a man. They were worshiping their own demise.

  Step by step, he was building the legend, carving the myth into the bones of those who survived.

  And soon, it wouldn’t just be these orcs.

  "This won’t stop here," she realized. "This is just the beginning."

  This wasn’t chance. It wasn’t just survival. It was calculated, precise, a performance played on a stage of corpses.

  "And they don’t even realize they’re part of it."

  Rick wasn’t in a hurry.

  There was no desperation in his movements, no reckless need to finish this quickly.

  Every act was intentional. Every move was setting something bigger in motion.

  He wasn’t fighting for survival. He was crafting inevitability.

  Each time they whispered of the Phantom, it wasn’t a name.

  It was a promise.

  A slow, creeping certainty.

  "They think he’s some divine punishment," Riska thought, a dark amusement curling at the edges of her lips. "But it’s a sleight of hand. A misdirection. Godboss. That’s what he said he’d plant in their heads. That’s what he’s carving into the world."

  Not just a killer. Not just a legend.

  A force.

  One that would spread past this warband. Past these orcs.

  "It won’t stop here. This fear? This myth? It’ll reach nations."

  But beneath her observations, beneath the growing certainty of what he was becoming, a different feeling gnawed at her.

  Why am I still here?

  Rick had offered her freedom. She could have walked away. She should have walked away.

  But she hadn’t.

  Because fear still gripped her.

  Not fear of the warband. Not fear of the orcs.

  Fear of being without him.

  Because who was she without someone to follow?

  She clenched her fists.

  "I was a slave."

  "I lived to serve."

  "And now… now I’m following a being I don’t even understand."

  It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t submission. It wasn’t even loyalty.

  It was survival.

  And the worst part?

  He knew it.

  Rick hadn’t asked for her loyalty.

  He hadn’t forced her to stay.

  He had simply let it happen.

  He had let her watch.

  Let her see the myth unfold.

  Because in the end, it suited him.

  The night shifted.

  Rick’s form flickered—a blur of shadow and steel—before he reappeared mid-strike, axe sinking deep into an orc’s chest.

  A heartbeat of silence.

  Then, the orc crumpled.

  No warning. No sound. Just a moment of understanding, a flicker of terror—the same terror that was consuming the warband, the same terror that was shaping the legend.

  Rick vanished again, slipping into the dark, leaving only the void of his absence.

  Riska let out a slow breath.

  Fear. Admiration. Helplessness.

  She had watched him, and in doing so, had become part of this machine—whether she wanted to or not.

  "He doesn’t need me."

  "So why does he let me stay?"

  It was a twist of fate, wasn’t it?

  A broken slave, bound by nothing but her own mind, caught in the wake of something far greater than herself.

  "He offers me freedom, but here I am, still stuck in his shadow."

  "He never forced me to stay... but then again, why would he?"

  "I’m just so helpful, aren’t I?"

  The realization settled.

  Rick wasn’t just a man anymore.

  He was becoming something unstoppable.

  The Godboss was rising.

  And she was part of it.

  Whether she wanted to be or not.

  "And when the world bows to him," she thought bitterly, "they won’t remember his name."

  "They’ll only know his myth."

  "The Godboss."

  no going back. The Godboss is no longer just a myth—he is the fear that breathes in the dark.

  desperation has transformed into something far more dangerous—a legend, carefully engineered to perfection. Rick is no longer just a man. He is the phantom behind every breath, every shadow. The myth is no accident. It is a machine, and he is turning its gears with chilling precision.

  cunning and ruthlessness are reshaping the battlefield—not with brute force, but with a masterclass in psychological warfare and manipulation. Each kill is not just survival, but a strategic move in the game he’s creating.

  Riska? Her struggle is growing. She admires Rick’s brilliance, yet fears the shadow she is walking into. But can she even stop? Or is she already too far gone?

  Are you starting to see just how far Rick is willing to go? How far he’s already come? And what about Riska—does she have a way out, or has she already been consumed by the legend?

  only just beginning. This is only a taste of the chaos Rick is set to unleash.

  Let me know your thoughts below! ??