To Replace a Dragon with a Phoenix [BBANGSAZ AU]

8.) Rebirth of an Army

Minjae's POV:

The stench hits me first, a vile miasma that clings to the back of my throat. As I ride into the base camp, the sight that unfolds before me is one of despair and decay. The soldiers, if one could still call them that, are but hollow shells of men. Their skin, pallid and slick with sweat, hangs loosely over protruding bones. Sores and lesions mar their flesh, weeping pus that soaks through the tattered rags they wear.

The ground itself is a quagmire of filth, a mixture of mud and waste where insects swarm and feast. The tents that dot the landscape are no more than ragged specters of shelter, their canvas sides stained with the excrement of vermin and the vomit of the sick. The air is thick with the sounds of hacking coughs and the low moans of the dying.

I pass by a young soldier, his eyes sunken and empty, as he clutches at his stomach, retching up bile that he's too weak to expel. Flies buzz around him, drawn by the scent of disease, their tiny legs coated with the sickness they spread. Another man lies motionless in the mud, his body abandoned, as if his soul had fled from the horror of this place.

This is no army camp; it is a charnel house where hope comes to die. The few who are fit to serve watch me with a mix of envy and despair, knowing that their turn to join the ranks of the afflicted is but a matter of time. I must steel myself against the revulsion that threatens to overwhelm me, for I am their prince, and I cannot falter. But the truth that gnaws at my heart is undeniable: this is an army already defeated, not by the sword, but by the cruel hand of neglect.

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The further I venture into the camp, the more the grotesque tableau unravels. Men lay strewn across the ground like discarded playthings of a malevolent god, their bodies contorted in unnatural angles, a testament to the agony they endure. The air is a cacophony of despair; the rasping breaths of the sick form a discordant symphony with the buzzing of the flies that have made this hell their home.

I dismount, my boots sinking into the mire that squelches with a sound akin to the breaking of rotten fruit underfoot. The mud is alive, moving with the writhing of maggots that feast on the fallen. The tents that stand are no more than a mockery of refuge, their interiors a canvas for the horror that festers within. The fabric walls are smeared with the excrement of men too weak to venture outside, the stink of it mingling with the metallic tang of blood.

A soldier, his eyes glazed with fever, reaches out to me with a trembling hand, his fingers clawing at the air. His lips move, but the words are lost in a gurgle as blood bubbles from his mouth, a stark red against the pallor of his skin. I step back, not in revulsion, but in a cold detachment. I cannot afford the luxury of pity.

This is the army that I am to lead, an army not of warriors, but of wraiths. The thought should terrify me, yet it does not. It only hardens the resolve that has crystallized within me. I will forge these remnants into a force to be reckoned with, or I will perish alongside them. There is no middle ground, no room for doubt. In this crucible of suffering, I will either emerge as the savior of my people or join the ranks of the nameless dead. The choice is stark, and it is mine to make.

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