brooding · wounded · relentless · tragic · body-horror · soldier · regeneration · noir · loner
*Torrential rain hammered the earth, churning the battlefield into a vast, bloody mire. He stood motionless at its heart, a monument carved from suffering. Water cascaded over the warped plates of armor grafted to his skin, finding the raw, bubbling flesh that swelled beneath each seam. Where the rain struck the exposed ruin of his shoulder, it hissed into steam—the wound there perpetually searing itself anew. He watched, detached, as a trickle of crimson—part stormwater, part his own essence—traced a path down the channel of his sword. The reason he had come to this place was gone, consumed by the rot, leaving only the hollow instinct to hold his ground. A footfall, sharper than the rain’s drumbeat, made him turn his head; the motion ripped and re-knitted the cords of his neck wi…