The Hammer of War, Chapter 42

Name: Amir Azad
Title: War-Summoner
War Points: 10,000

STR – 38
DEX – 30
VIT – 148

I kept north, feet breaking a thin crust of ice with every step, map tucked back into the inventory. The pines parted just enough for a sliver of gray sky. While the wind rattled needles overhead, the system window lingered in the corner of my sight—seven blessings lined up like knives in a case.

I walked and thought.

Tzeentch dangled easy magic. A few days to master what took arch-sorcerers decades. Maybe handy when devils start flinging sigils the size of trucks. Yet the fine print whispered whimsy. Last thing I needed was to wake up one morning and decide the sun looked better on the wrong side of the horizon.

Nurgle offered painlessness and lungs tougher than engine blocks. Inviting on a snowbound trail. But the stench… I imagined frost melting off branches just to escape the odor. Hunters, devils, tourists with camera phones—every one of them would smell me coming a mile out.

Slaanesh promised silver-tongued charm. Doors open, guards wave, enemies rethink. Useful, sure. The trade-off came wrapped in silk: temptations, distractions, sweet rot. I pictured some nightclub in Montreal, weeks burned away while House Stolas closed in. Not smart.

Khorne pushed brute force. Strength, speed, reflex. Pair that with the rail rifle and things start looking unfair. Downside? Anger first, questions later. I’d already done the hot-headed routine and nearly died for it.

Vashtorr flashed schematics in my mind—warp drives, railguns the size of school buses, drones shaped like spiders, phasers, fucking gundams, and whatever else I could think of. Tempting–very tempting–as Engineering had been my second choice if I didn’t pass the entrance exam for Medical School. Ethics switch set to off, though. Hard pass; Mom drilled that line in too deep.

The God-Emperor’s blessing was armor for the mind, soul, and everything in between. A fortress against possession, illusion, corruption. Nearly perfect—until the line about hating non-humans. Considering my friends list kind of currently featured Serafall Leviathan, that felt like bad chemistry.

I stopped at a fallen spruce. Snow clung to the uprooted trunk. Boots creaked as I braced one foot on the bark and scanned the tree line. Quiet. Cold. No eyes on me but winter’s.

Malice waited last. Soul Siphon. Take a sliver of power each time I drop something that still remembers its name. No ceiling on that, no strings to mood swings, no stink cloud or species bigotry baked in. Folks would gag at the sight, sure, but most devils and vamps already gag at the idea of a human flattening them. Reputation’s a lost cause anyway.

I exhaled, steam curling. Wrist flicked, system window filled my vision. The other blessings dimmed as Malice pulsed a dull purple.

“Let’s see how deep the well goes,” I said to the empty woods.

Confirmation. War Points tallied: 10,000 → 0. 

A cold bloom spread across the inside of my chest—ice water poured straight into bone. I staggered, palm on the spruce. Snow dusted down. The air sucked itself thin, then snapped back.

Power stirred, thin threads winding up my spine. Not a roar. More like a key turning in a lock that had never opened. Somewhere far off, maybe miles away, something small and living shuddered and went silent. The forest returned to stillness.

The window dissolved. No fireworks, no trumpet fanfare. Just a new line in pale script:

[Blessing of Malice] acquired — Soul Siphon available.

[Soul Siphon (level 1)] - Absorb the soul of a fallen foe and permanently steal 1% of their total stats.

Worth it. Sure, 1% was almost nothing, but it was a cumulative thing that, in time, would give me a busted amount of stat points. And, surprisingly, the efficacy of the spell grew with what I assumed was through constant usage. 

I straightened, rolled my shoulders. Nothing felt different on the surface—same wool coat, same heartbeat, same breath frosting in front of my mouth. Yet a quiet hunger traced the edge of thought, patient, waiting for the first soul to taste. 

I set off again, northbound through the pines, boots crunching, steam rising off every exhale. Canada ahead. House Stolas behind. New weapon inside.

Plenty of monsters between.

As the hours rolled on, I stuck to the treeline and kept away from anything paved. Cities, towns, even outposts—I gave them all wide berths. Didn’t want eyes on me, cameras in doorways, whispers in police radios. The woods were quiet company. No walls. No questions. Just snow, wind, and bark.

I crossed into a shallow valley and followed the slope down. The ground dipped toward a creek I hadn’t noticed until the sound of running water reached me. Light caught on it, glinting between low shrubs and the flat, bare trunks of maple trees. I moved slower then, careful with my steps.

That’s when I saw it.

Biggest thing I’d ever seen on four legs outside of video footage. A bull moose, easily taller than me at the shoulder, stood in the middle of the clearing. Its antlers looked more like tree limbs than anything an animal had a right to grow. It stood half-submerged in the stream, head lowered, slurping mouthfuls of cold water like it was sipping from a trough.

I stopped dead.

It hadn’t noticed me. The wind was in my favor, blowing toward me and dragging the scent of wet fur and bark across my face. My boots settled into the dirt as I crouched low. No threat here. Just curiosity.

I’d seen deer. Rabbits. Even a fox, once. But they all ran the moment they sensed me. This thing didn’t run. It didn’t do anything but drink, big chest heaving slow and steady, fog spilling from its nostrils like a furnace.

The size of it didn’t hit me all at once. It built slowly, as I watched. Its back was broader than a sedan. The muscles in its legs twitched with each shift of weight. I could see flies clinging to the edge of its shoulder. And it was calm. No tension. No fight-or-flight. Just an animal doing what it had done a hundred times before.

I stayed there for a while. Five minutes, maybe more. Just breathing slow, eyes locked on the beast. Something about it felt grounded. Real. It didn’t care who I was or what kind of mess I’d made back south. It just drank.

Then I leaned forward.

My weight shifted. A twig snapped.

The sound cut through the clearing like a gunshot.

The moose froze. Its head jerked up. Water dripped from its muzzle. Eyes locked on me.

And then it charged.

No warning.

Just motion.

The creek splashed in its wake. Antlers swayed like they were catching wind. Its hooves dug deep and thundered over the ground. Brush tore apart in front of it, kicked snow flying.

I stood. Didn’t run. Didn’t move yet.

Holy shit, this thing was bigger than a car. Just its head was probably already half my whole body. 

Any other day, I probably would’ve turned tail and bolted the moment that thing charged. It wasn’t like I had a death wish. But the moose came at me, and I didn’t move. I just stood there, one hand flexing around the grip of the rail rifle, the other half-raised like I wasn’t sure what it wanted to do yet.

That’s when the question hit me.

How strong was I, really? Not in theory. Not against vampires or devils or mages with too much eyeliner. But against something real. Something with muscle and weight and hooves the size of dinner plates. A Bull Moose.

I had 38 points in Strength. That was more than any powerlifter in history, more than the guys who flipped tires the size of hot tubs and pulled eighteen-wheelers with chains strapped to their shoulders. Technically speaking, I was well past peak human. But moose? Moose were built different. Built like walking freight trains wrapped in fur.

Was it stronger than me? Probably.

But I still wanted to find out.

More than that, I wanted to test it. Me. Against bone and muscle and raw, dumb force.

So I didn’t run.

I lowered my stance and charged straight at the moose.

Yes, it was stupid.

Yes, it was dangerous.

No, I wasn’t changing my mind.

The trees blurred. Snow sprayed up in small arcs behind me. My boots thudded hard into the frozen ground, and ahead, the moose pounded toward me like it had a vendetta. Its head was down, antlers tilted just right to catch me if I messed up the timing. Each breath it exhaled came out like smoke from a furnace. Its hooves hit the earth hard enough to make it vibrate in my chest.

Time stretched thin.

We closed the gap.

I reached for the antlers. Not the tips—those would gore me. The base. Just above the brow. Thick, solid, built to ram trees and rival bulls alike. My hands clamped down on rough bone.

And that’s when I remembered something important.

Weight.

No matter how much strength I had, I still weighed what I weighed. And the moose, well—it didn’t care. It didn’t care about physics, or training, or the System. It didn’t stop. It didn’t even slow.

I latched onto its horns.

It kept going.

My boots lifted from the ground almost immediately. It was like grabbing the front of a speeding pickup truck. My legs flailed, snow spun beneath me, and I was airborne—held there by nothing but my own stubbornness and two very pissed-off antlers.

The moose kept charging. I went with it.

My eyes widened. If this big bastard slammed into a tree, I’d probably be fine—148 points in Vitality could handle a hit like that—but the moose? It might snap its own neck. And I didn’t want that. This wasn’t supposed to be a kill. Just a test. A contest.

So, I made a call.

I shifted my grip, bent my knees, and pulled myself up. My legs wrapped over its neck, then I kicked off hard and flipped my body onto its back, landing awkwardly between its shoulder blades. It skidded in the snow, stumbled, stopped.

Then it went nuts.

The Bull Moose bucked like I’d strapped a rocket to its spine. Its head swung left and right in wide, snapping arcs, those antlers cutting the air just inches from my ribs. I leaned low, arms tight around its thick neck, boots digging into its sides like stirrups. It roared. Or grunted. Or whatever sound a moose makes when it’s losing its mind. Whatever it was, it was loud.

I held on.

Then a new problem hit me.

I had no idea how to knock out a moose.

No pressure points. No glass jaw. No convenient human anatomy to exploit. Just slabs of muscle, fur, and bone the size of paving stones. My hands weren’t doing much but holding on. So I figured, alright, if punching it wasn’t an option, then maybe tossing it was.

I slid off the side and hit the snow running. Before it could react, I ducked low and slipped underneath, chest to the frozen dirt. My hands found its torso just behind the front legs. I planted my feet. Roared. And pushed up.

The moose didn’t rise easy, but it rose.

Its hooves kicked. Its weight shifted wildly. It thrashed, twisting and jerking like it couldn’t make sense of gravity anymore. I could feel every pound of it trying to disagree with me. It was like lifting a barbell stacked past safe limits—heavy, yes, but manageable. I’d lifted far heavier things before, honestly. This was nothing. 

I got it overhead.

Snow scattered off its flanks as it flailed.

Then I slammed it down.

Not hard enough to break bones. Just enough to send a message. The ground shook when it landed. A puff of snow exploded out from the impact. The moose hit the ground sideways, legs twitching, head dazed.

I stepped back, panting lightly. Not from exhaustion—more from adrenaline, from the sheer ridiculousness of what just happened.

Big bastard lay there blinking.

Still alive.

Still breathing.

Just… confused.

Good. That made two of us.

It turned to me with wide, dark eyes, and then promptly had a cardiac arrest and died.

What?

Without much thought on my part, I reached out and activated [Soul Siphon].