Father-Commander Dren stood tall, despite the blood gushing from the ruin where his left arm had once been.
The Red Choir Butcher loomed before him, cleaver humming with psalms that shouldn't exist. Each note twisted the air, unwinding the relic-chants stitched into the very trenches beneath their feet.
Still, Dren stood.
He planted his boots in bloodied soil consecrated only hours ago and gripped his relic spear with one arm, his breathing slow, deliberate. His flame-cloak flickered behind him like a martyr's banner left in a storm.
The Butcher's yellow eyes glowed with cruel clarity.
Aaron watched from behind sandbags, frozen.
His mouth tasted like ash.
"He can't win," he whispered.
Aleric had vanished into the rear, sprinting toward the Sermon Caster to shut down the prayers that were feeding the monster.
But it might be too late.
The hymns still echoed.
The trench still roared.
And Dren, Dren was fading.
"Trenaxa," Aaron gasped, grabbing her pauldron. "You need to call in Saint-Captain Hema."
"She's not here."
"She HAS to be! She's the only one with relic-bound death units who can hold this thing! If anyone can anchor a psalm without singing it, it's her!"
Trenaxa turned to a nearby Redemption trooper. "Where is the Saint-Captain? What's her current engagement?"
The soldier looked pale. His hands shook.
"She's locked in combat at the Reliquary Flank. Three manifested…"
He swallowed.
"…Hollow Vox."
Aaron blinked. "Three?!"
"They came out of the trenches—no bodies, just screaming armor. The whole flank's trying to shut them down."
🕯️ The Hollow Vox
A cursed remnant of a vox-officer who died relaying prayers.
Now just an empty suit of relic-etched armor, radiating the agonized voices of every soul who ever prayed through it.
You can't kill it with bullets, it's sound made solid.
You have to find the True Frequency, the original prayer it distorted, and silence it at its source.
And they had three.
Aaron cursed loudly. "Screw this war's lore!"
The Butcher raised its cleaver again.
Dren didn't move.
He didn't beg.
He didn't kneel.
[Dren's POV]
Everything burned.
His shoulder was agony. His arm was gone. It was still twitching somewhere behind him in the mud, fingers clenched tight around nothing. He didn't turn to look.
The pain didn't matter.
He had trained for this.
He had marched through plague smoke and firestorms. He had carried relics through hell-zones where scripture peeled off the walls in wet, screaming sheets. He had stood at the mouth of the Maw of Blessed Waste and walked away with a prayer and one less lung.
He had bled in thirteen sieges.
Fought through seven failed crusades.
Watched saints die in glory… and watched lesser men live in comfort.
He had eaten prayer-rations boiled in candlewax. Slept under collapsed icons. Buried children with relic rings on their fingers because no one else could bear to.
He was Father-Commander Dren of the Crucible Walkers.
And he had never seen this.
The Red Choir Butcher stood before him.
Not advancing. Not taunting. Just… humming.
The sound shouldn't exist. It didn't echo, it soaked. It vibrated inside the lungs. It was the sound of a hymn with its bones broken, dragging itself forward with joy in its eyes.
The cleaver dripped with blood.
His blood.
It was melting relic armor like wax. The sacred sigils that once flared with holy fire were now blackened, dull. Useless.
The fog pulsed with the Butcher's hum, waves of anti-litany, warping faith as easily as wind bends grass.
Dren's thoughts stuttered.
Why didn't the chants stop him?
Why didn't the relics burn?
Why… won't God answer me?
WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!
The spear in his hand, slick with blood, began to dim.
He gritted his teeth, gripping tighter with his one good arm.
I was your hammer. I was your fire.
I was the edge you sent into the dark.
And still…
The Butcher stood.
"I sang for you," Dren whispered. "I burned for you."
The creature tilted its head slightly, like it was listening.
Not to him, but to the songs behind him.
To the prayers still rising from the trenches.
And it smiled wider.
Dren stared into the thing.
Not its face—because it didn't really have one. Just skin, too many layers deep, stitched with charred psalms and ash-black scars.
He stared into the space behind its eyes.
And he saw the abyss.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically.
He saw the absence where understanding used to be.
And it terrified him.
"Why does he still stand?"
There was no answer.
Only the hum.
Corrupted.
Beautiful.
Blasphemous.
It wasn't music—it was mockery with rhythm.
He knew then—there was no miracle coming.
No intercession.
No last-minute saint.
No flaming sword from heaven.
There was only him.
And this scream.
He stepped forward, planting his boots in mud soaked with martyr blood.
"…Then let my scream be a nail in his heart," Dren growled.
He opened his mouth.
And began to chant.
It wasn't a known psalm.
It wasn't from a book.
It came from the fire behind his ribs, the weight of every body he'd carried, every trench he'd dug, every prayer he'd said that never got answered.
It came raw.
Ugly.
Powerful.
"Ash to ash—name to name—
let this ground be your end, beast.
By the bones of the unburied,
by the silence of the faithful who screamed alone—
I curse you with my last breath."
The Butcher twitched.
Not in pain.
In delight.
It raised its cleaver.
And answered with a hymn of silence.
Not sound, but the removal of it. A void poured from its mouth, washing over Dren like a black wave.
And then—
It cut.
The cleaver passed through Dren like a verdict.
Clean.
Perfect.
From shoulder to hip.
His body didn't fall right away, it slid, unnaturally slow, like the trench itself was hesitating to let him die.
Then he collapsed into the mud, a saint and a man, cleaved together, parted forever.
His spear hit the earth a breath later, still glowing faintly.
And the chant—
died
before
its final
line.
The trenches froze.
All across the Hinge, soldiers fell quiet.
The Chorus Line stuttered.
The Sermon Caster cracked.
The Red Choir Butcher stood over Dren's ruined body, head tilted as if savoring the stillness.
It didn't bow.
It just stood, cleaver at its side.
Then it turned—
and began to walk
toward Aaron.
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"FAITH WITHOUT WISDOM CAN BE A WEAPON TURNED AGAINST ITS WIELDER."