It turned and backhanded Kress with superhuman strength.

Kress flew ten feet, crashed into rubble, his ribs broken from the impact.

The Fallen Hero advanced on him

A Goblin named Mark attacked it from behind, his blessed sword cutting deep into the creature’s spine.

A mortal wound for any normal being.

The Fallen Hero turned, grabbed Mark, and threw him thirty feet into a wall with bone-crushing force.

Mark’s spine shattered on impact. He died instantly.

It attacked the nearest moving target—which happened to be a human soldier.

Across the eastern sector, ten Fallen Heroes were creating absolute chaos.

They killed settlement defenders—goblins, orcs, demons, serpentfolk—with brutal efficiency.

And they killed human soldiers with equal enthusiasm.

The creatures couldn’t distinguish friend from foe. They attacked anything that moved, driven by failed hero cells that gave them superhuman power but destroyed their capacity for judgment.

A veteran orc warrior named Grath faced one of the Fallen Heroes with his war axe.

He’d survived three days of siege combat. He’d killed eighteen human soldiers in personal combat. He was a skilled, experienced fighter.

Against the Fallen Hero, he lasted eleven seconds.

His war axe struck the creature’s shoulder—a blow that would have crippled a normal human.

The Fallen Hero’s shoulder was cut open, bone visible, muscles severed.

It didn’t slow down.

It grabbed Grath with both hands—one on his head, one on his shoulder—and twisted with supernatural strength.

Grath’s neck broke. He died instantly.

The Fallen Hero dropped his body and moved to the next target

The ten Fallen Heroes rampaged through the eastern sector for fifteen brutal minutes before human soldiers managed to restrain them with blessed chains.

In those fifteen minutes:

Settlement casualties:

43 defenders killed (goblins, orcs, demons, serpentfolk)27 woundedMultiple defensive positions overrun

Human casualties:

31 soldiers killed (friendly fire from Fallen Heroes)19 woundedSeveral units forced to retreat from Fallen Hero rampage

The Fallen Heroes themselves suffered casualties too—settlement defenders and human soldiers eventually coordinated to bring them down:

2 Fallen Heroes killed (one decapitated by coordinated orc attack, one burned to death by settlement mage)3 Fallen Heroes severely wounded5 Fallen Heroes restrained with blessed chains and dragged back to human lines

The eastern sector was a bloodbath on both sides.

=======

Central Gates

The central gates had been broken hours ago by battering ram assault. Now the gate area was chaotic close-quarters combat—human infantry pouring through the breach, settlement defenders fighting desperately to hold them at secondary defensive lines.

Into this chaos, ten more Fallen Heroes were released.

The result was slaughter.

A serpentfolk warrior named Vess’thara was commanding twenty defenders at the gate’s inner fortifications when the Fallen Heroes arrived.

She saw the corpse-white figures approaching and immediately recognized something was wrong.

"DEFENSIVE FORMATION!" she commanded. "UNKNOWN THREATS INCOMING!"

Her twenty defenders formed defensive line—spears ready, shields raised—

The first Fallen Hero crashed into their formation with the force of a battering ram.

It didn’t dodge. Didn’t use tactics. Just charged straight through, its superhuman strength and durability allowing it to ignore the spears stabbing into its body.

Three spears pierced its torso—lung, liver, intestines all penetrated.

The Fallen Hero kept moving, grabbed the nearest defender—a goblin named Krix—and literally tore her arm off.

Krix screamed and died from shock and blood loss.

The Fallen Hero threw the severed arm aside and grabbed another defender.

"FALL BACK!" Vess’thara ordered, recognizing they couldn’t hold against these creatures. "RETREAT TO SECONDARY POSITIONS!"

But the Fallen Heroes were faster.

They caught defenders trying to retreat and killed them with brutal efficiency.

A human sergeant nearby—commanding fifteen soldiers pushing through the gate—saw the Fallen Heroes attacking settlement defenders.

"Good! The experiments are killing the demons for us!"

Then one of the Fallen Heroes turned and attacked his soldiers.

It grabbed a soldier by the head and crushed his skull with one hand.

"THEY’RE ATTACKING US TOO!" the sergeant screamed. "THEY CAN’T TELL FRIEND FROM FOE!"

The ten Fallen Heroes at the central gates killed forty-seven settlement defenders and twenty-two human soldiers in the twelve minutes before they were finally contained.

Vess’thara survived by retreating into the settlement’s interior, abandoning the gate area entirely.

Central Gates - Twelve Minutes:

Settlement casualties:

47 defenders killed31 woundedGate area completely lost

Human casualties:

22 soldiers killed (friendly fire)14 wounded

Fallen Heroes:

3 killed (one by settlement demon warrior using corruption magic, two by coordinated human attacks)2 wounded5 restrained and recovered

—--------------

Western Wall

The western wall had been the settlement’s strongest defensive position—less damaged by artillery, better fortifications, defended by veteran serpentfolk and goblin fighters.

But it couldn’t withstand ten Fallen Heroes.

The serpentfolk chief Skar had died in champion duel earlier. Command had passed to a veteran warrior named Thess’vera.

She was coordinating forty defenders in fighting withdrawal when the Fallen Heroes arrived.

"What are those?" a goblin asked, pointing at the approaching corpse-white figures.

"I don’t know," Thess’vera admitted. "But prepare to engage—"

The Fallen Heroes hit their defensive line like a tsunami.

Thess’vera had fought in seventeen battles over her thirty-year military career. She’d faced human soldiers, demon warriors, undead abominations, corrupted beasts.

She’d never faced anything like the Fallen Heroes.

They moved with speed that matched serpentfolk reflexes. They had strength that exceeded orc warriors. They felt no pain, no fear, no hesitation.

And they were unkillable by conventional means.

Thess’vera’s spear stabbed one Fallen Hero through the heart—a perfect killing strike.

The creature grabbed her spear, pulled it deeper into its own chest, and used that leverage to yank Thess’vera off balance.

Then it grabbed her throat and squeezed.

Thess’vera’s serpentfolk flexibility allowed her to twist free, but the Fallen Hero’s fingers had already crushed her windpipe.

She died in nine seconds, drowning in her own blood. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The forty defenders under her command broke and ran—the western wall position was simply untenable against these creatures.

Western Wall - Eighteen Minutes:

The ten Fallen Heroes rampaged for eighteen minutes before blessed chains could restrain the survivors.

Settlement casualties:

52 defenders killed38 woundedWestern wall position completely abandoned

Human casualties:

28 soldiers killed (friendly fire)16 wounded

Fallen Heroes:

4 killed (three by settlement defenders, one by human friendly fire)1 wounded5 restrained