Last Bastion: Reincarnated Prince of Stormwatch

"Long ago, the world heard our drums. Then your bells rang louder. Now we break your bells."

—Ghrol Skullborne, before the Burning Accord

Location: Broken Flame Camp – Southern Wastes

The wind here stank of ash and salt.

Banners flapped—stitched from beast hide, scarred by years of war.

Drums echoed across the dunes, not in rhythm—but in challenge.

Warchief Ghrol Skullborne stood atop a ridge of blackened bone, gazing across a sea of orc warbands, siege beasts, and molten-blooded shamans.

A scar bisected his face. Not fresh. Not old. But eternal.

Branded into him by the bell-song that once killed his brothers in the north.

He raised a hand.

The drums stopped.

POV – Ghrol Skullborne

I have heard no music sweeter than the silence after a human bell dies.

They called him savage.

Primitive.

A brute of the Wastes.

But it was the Choir Towers that first rained fire on his clan. Not in war—but as a test. A calibration.

"We were numbers on a tuning fork," Ghrol growled to his war-priests.

He turned to his council—six chieftains, one from each surviving Scorchfang tribe.

"Stormwatch rings again."

One of them, Yarrk Bonecleave, spat. "Let's crush them now!"

But Ghrol shook his head.

"No. This isn't a raid. This is the end."

He raised a scroll—wrapped in cracked human skin, sealed in black wax.

The Dusk Covenant.

"They've agreed."

The council stilled.

Even Yarrk blinked. "The elves? The… goblins? The Forgotten?"

Ghrol nodded. "All five now march as one."

Flashback – The Dusk Accord

A canyon deep in the Dustspine Range.

No magic. No bells. Just blood oaths.

Ghrol stood across from Vaeryss, the withered elven queen wrapped in dead ivy.

Beside her crouched Twitchblade Rakka, eyes glinting with profit.

Hovering nearby—Morghan, a walking crypt with a voice like wind through tombs.

None spoke for an hour.

Then Ghrol stepped forward and slammed his war-axe into the stone altar.

"One accord," he said. "One march."

Morghan's wraiths howled.

Vaeryss opened her hollow palms and whispered, "Let silence guide us."

They burned the pact into the stone with three words:

"Stormwatch must fall."

Back to Present

Ghrol turned from the ridge and descended into the war camps.

The Scorchfang legions were more than orcs now. They were siege masters. Drummers of ruin.

Each war-drum was built from ancient tree bark, reinforced with bell-metal ripped from fallen Choir towers.

Each beat summoned beast-kin—fire-snouted drakes, magma boars, and scaled rhinos caged in stone-plated barding.

He passed by one of the new siege weapons: a Bellcrack Spitter—a reverse-engineered sonic cannon salvaged from the ruins of Bell 6.

"Your own songs will tear down your walls," Ghrol thought.

Location: War Tent – Scorchfang High Table

A map lay spread across the bonewood table.

At the center: Stormwatch.

Surrounding it: banners of the five armies.

Ghrol tapped his claw on the southern mark.

"We strike first. Burn the outer crops. Starve their outer villages. Cut their legs."

"Then we break their tower lines. One by one."

He pointed to Thornwake.

"That bell still rings. It dies first."

System Broadcast: To All Choir Towers

[WARNING – SOUTHERN SIEGE FORMING]

Detected: Scorchfang Mobilization

Leader: Ghrol Skullborne – Class A+ World Threat

Estimated Army Strength: 32,000+ combatants

Bell 2 – Thornwake targeted within 72 hours

Scene Transition – Ghrol in Solitude

As night fell, Ghrol stepped away from the war camp.

He looked to the stars—once his ancestors' guiding light.

But they had grown dim since the bells rang.

"They stole the sky," he murmured. "Now I steal their towers."

He clenched his fist.

"And if that human prince wishes to rule by song…"

He slammed his axe into the ground, sending a small shockwave through the stone.

"Then I'll teach him how we answer music in the Wastes."

Back at Stormwatch – Same Night

Jag stood on the highest parapet, watching the southern skies glow red.

Rain approached behind him. "The system confirms Ghrol himself is leading the southern front."

Jag didn't blink.

"Then Thornwake won't survive."

"Should we recall the tower crews?"

"No," Jag said coldly.

"We let them bleed. Then we rebuild with those who learn."

Rain inhaled sharply. "You're changing."

Jag's voice came, hard. Iron.

"I'm surviving."