A war?

The world was quiet.
Too quiet.
That kind of silence that came before a massacre.
Hell’s Hidden Warrior stood atop a hill of ash. Below him lay the skeleton of a town he had erased only minutes ago. Its people? Nothing but dust in the wind. Its guards? Speared to the walls like trophies.
And yet, the flame on his skull burned softer than usual.
“She calls,” he muttered, his decaying right hand clenching. “A puppeteer dares summon monsters.”
He didn’t move quickly.
He didn’t need to.
Each step cracked the ground.
Where he walked, grass blackened, and the sky trembled.
Then, he stopped.
His dead blue flame flickered violently.
He sensed it.
A presence.
The others were moving.
He didn’t see them. Didn’t need to.
The jester dances.
The beauty stalks.
The lover readies his final war.
And now, he—the last to respond—picked up his spear and began walking.
But unlike the others, he didn’t teleport, or vanish, or float.
He walked.
Straight. Unstoppable. Through the earth. Through monsters. Through illusions.
Every puppet that tried to stop him was shattered in one swing.
Every trap designed to ensnare minds or hearts failed—he had neither left to twist.
One puppet, larger than the rest, dared face him in the fields before the cursed tower.
It screamed in a human voice, crying, “TURN BACK!”
He stabbed it through the throat.
“I've walked through real war. You? You're just theater.”
He kept walking.
Behind him, flames burn.

He didn’t bother watching them.
They were only ashes waiting for the wind.