The acrid stench of sulfur filled the air, and he inhaled it like the sweetest incense. The sounds of jeering laughter, screaming pleas for help, and the last vestiges of distant, broken cries set a wonderful backdrop to the good work he was undertaking. Certainly, some people might call him a monster—but he knew that what he did was for the greater benefit of humanity.

If his loyal subjects wanted to indulge their fantasies with ‘Fantasies’, so be it.

Ganbaatar swilled the last dregs of his liberated drinking pouch, and then tossed it to the scorched earth. Acid green flames licked, still, at patches of blackened grass, and he chortled quietly at the immolation while moving his muscular frame toward what had once been the town hall of the fantasy settlement.

Here and there, the immense green or brown bodies of what he and his people called ‘Orcs’ lay broken or dismembered in fine demonstrations of fealty to the cause, and their viscera stretched upon the earth for the crows to feast on.

It was good, he reasoned, that crows still existed: a sign that not all things in their world had come to such an abrupt and unworthy end. Normalcy was to be celebrated, even in the case of otherwise inauspicious carrion.

Ganbaatar’s strides were long and his footsteps firm while he approached the town hall, and the sounds of laughter and forced compliance echoing from within. His armor, a collaborative mixture of black steel, leather, and modern combat fatigues was strained slightly against his growing bulk—and he reminded himself, yet again, to invest more points into Agility or Dexterity.

Strength and Intellect were fine and dandy, but he’d be putting himself at a marked disadvantage if he met someone too much faster than him.

A rustling sound interrupted his thoughts, and Gaabatar halted mid-stride to turn to his right. There, amid the ruins of a broken and burnt wooden building, one single survivor remained. She had clearly been tossed among the rubble, from what he could see. She’d cleverly shielded herself behind bodies and fallen wood, and had bided her time until attention had diverted.

Her long black hair was haphazard and mussed, and her unsteady movements told him that she’d already been toyed with by his righteous warband. Their tastes, he reasoned, were a quirk of their natures—but they were loyal to the cause, always. It was strange for them to let a potential slave go unlooked-for, but perhaps they’d simply thought her beyond use.

Ganbaatar sighed and made his way over toward her with calm and steady steps. The reality was that if he wanted to ensure the compliance and eventual control of the sector, he’d need to deal with such problems as this in time. His soldiers, male and female both, were unique in their understandings of necessity—and he was glad that he only needed to force them through Decimation once or twice every three months to maintain their composure.

The devil may care attitudes that the act fermented were useful, too. He did enjoy how fearless they were. The choice between certain death for defiance, or potential death and greater reward for success was an easy one to make. He took no pleasure in depriving the world of more humans, but, needs came before wants, and necessity was the mother of action.

His thick, steel-soled riding boots—a momento from his time with the Mongols Motorcycle Club—brought him to a halt before the broken creature, and he placed his hands on his hips with a sigh. Her left leg had been severed at the knee, and she clearly had internal injuries. Judging by the dark bruising along her naked green flesh, she’d likely been roughed up a little too much after they’d realized she was useless as a slave.

How wasteful.

Ganbaatar tilted his head when she looked up at him, and smiled at her with his white teeth. He was very proud of maintaining his dental hygiene in the apocalypse, for all that people said it was a strange obsession. A man should only smile when he wished to convey his intent, after all; and Ganbaatar’s teeth were as poignant as any animal’s fangs.

“You probably don’t speak English,” he began in his usual bass rumble. “But I want you to know that I take no pleasure in this.”

The fantasy looked up at him with dull eyes the color of old rust, and garbled something in her strange and ugly language.

“Mar’kath nog uleg nak tharath.”

“You see, that’s what I despise about you people,” Ganbaatar said with a frown and squatted to peer at her. “You don’t bother to understand culture. This is our home, you know? You came here, unwanted, uninvited—actual illegal aliens, as hilarious as that comparison is, and thought you could just settle in however you wanted.”

The woman stared at him uncomprehendingly, and reached out a piteous hand hesitantly.

“Ah, no, I’m not here for that. You mistake me for someone willing to render aid. I’m not surprised, though, given how incredibly primitive you people are.” Ganbaatar reached out and lightly lifted her chin, while turning her face from side to side. Small tusks protruded from the bottom of her jaw, and her features might have even been called attractive on a human.

It was a pity that she was a monster, instead.

“You see, I live by a simple code,” he continued despite knowing she couldn’t understand. “It’s not, despite popular belief, the same code as the Humanity Alliance. Oh, the Iron Duke and his lackeys like to believe themselves the champions of humanity, but really they’re just boomers taking advantage of the chaos to be something again.”

Ganbaatar shook his head. “Not me, my little monster. Me? My code is simple: You are either with me, or my enemy. My purpose is the defense of the world, and that includes standing against those of my own kind that would waste mother Earth’s bounty. Humanity is a precious resource, but we can always make more of ourselves—though it does make every lost soul a wound in our species.”This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He tapped her flat, squared nose and chuckled. “You people, though… you live in squalor and shit, and call it civilization. You lurk in these wooden buildings and little huts, and you build with stone and mortar for your most precious buildings, and then call it advancement.”

Ganbaatar put a finger to her lips when she tried to speak and then cupped her chin again.

“Do you know that I don’t actually hate your kind? Far from it. You see, I pity you.” He tightened his grip on her jaw, and her uncertain eyes flickered with fear. “I pity how stupid you are. I pity how simple you are. I pity, miss invader, how truly and bewilderingly fucking dense you are. You come here to our world, murder our people, and call it ‘fair’—why? Because the same thing happened to you?”

Ganbaatar chuckled mirthlessly, and his grip on her jaw hardened.

“What a crock of shit that is, eh? Putting forward pain onto others, simply because pain was put onto you, is a frightfully selfish way of doing things—but then again, your entire species is just too stupid and backward to understand these concepts, aren’t you? Barbarians with swords, axes, spears, and ‘magitech’ that is just a poor excuse for real innovation.”

The orc started to sputter and try to escape his grip, but Ganbaatar was strong.

He was already pushing Fifth Tier, after all, and possessed all the power that came with it.

“In the end, that’s why what we do is necessary, you see. Your kind won’t appreciate the bounty that this world which birthed us offers. They won’t take advantage of what it can provide.” Ganbaatar felt his Core purring in his torso, and he smiled widely at his audience. After all, a man’s smile should show his intent. “Nature is a delicate thing, my dear fantasy. It is important that we, as the trueborn children of nature, ensure the proper care and custodianship of this great world.”

Mana, thick and acidic green, flooded his channels from his Core while he spoke, and he barely paid the orc any attention when she started screaming.

The radiation burns could be rather painful, so he’d been told.

“Ah, you see? There it is. In the end, you’re all the same, really; screeching animals uncertain of their fate, and bound by the savagery of their nature. As I said, dear fantasy; I really do pity you. It’s such a shame that this is all necessary, but you came here—to my home—in order to try to steal it from my people.”

Her screaming descended into agonized gurgles while his power melted her flesh and bubbled her eyes, and he grimaced at the stench of burnt pork and flaming hair. Only the lovely waft of sulfur kept him from feeling sick.

“I’m my planet’s savior, you might say,” Ganbaatar said while watching her movements cease when the flames finally started attacking and melting her skull. “And you, dear dead fantasy, are a cancer that I intend on excising.”

His fire spread to the remnants of the building behind her, and the burnt wood caught like kindling irrelevant of his charcoal state. The entire thing went up like a bonfire, and Ganbaatar sighed at the sight. “I suppose this may cause another small forest fire. Pity, that… but fire is cleansing.”

He looked back at the white bone in his grip, attached to her half-melted head, and sighed. With a flex of strength, he crushed the bone into fragments and stood up. “Yes. You are a sickness on this Earth and I, Ganbaatar Khan, shall be the surgeon that removes it.”

His eyes turned to the town hall again, and disgust replaced amusement on his features. He could still hear his people indulging, and his tolerance had suddenly evaporated. “When will they learn?” he asked grumpily, before making his way toward the building. “Excess breeds bad habits. Honestly, I’d thought this warband had learned the lesson.”

His pace was sure when he approached the doors, and his whistle almost cheerful when he picked up a discarded piece of wood and slid it through the handles. “You really can’t judge people properly, these days,” Ganbaatar said while testing the doors with his strength, and then nodding in satisfaction. “It’s one thing to indulge, but honestly, these silly idiots are slaves to their own amusement.”

The Khan placed his right hand on the door and, with only a bare flex of will, injected his cleansing green fire into the waiting product of mother earth. Like a lover’s embrace, the wood and flame caught together, and the building erupted into flames.

“Now I need to go back and fetch a new warband,” he groused while sticking his hands into his pockets and strolling away from the burning hall. “Not to mention finding new slaves. The Aetherium people pay for these creatures, especially in Babylon! Ah well, there’s other settlements.”

He didn’t know when he’d started talking to himself, but he hardly cared. There was no better company than his own, after all, as this failed warband proved. Honestly, he really had nobody outside of his Warlords he could truly rely on. Perhaps his wives, but even they had their own issues—always yelling about freedom this, monster that.

It was like they didn’t understand that humans had a responsibility to breed. His ancestor had sired dozens of children, and so of course Ganbaatar had to do the same. The women should have just learned to realize how lucky it was he’d taken them from their weak collectives, instead of letting someone less righteous do it later.

How else was he supposed to breed an army loyal only to him? How much more obvious did he need to be? Only his children could be truly trustworthy, in the long-term.

His wives’ lack of comprehension bothered him, sometimes. It was so tiresome.

Ganbaatar sighed when the screaming started up at thrice the volume inside the building, and the thumping against the door began in earnest behind him.

“It’s a pity,” he said regretfully, “but needs outweigh wants, and necessity is the mother of action.”

His eyes glanced upward to the sky, and he once again inhaled the nourishing scent of sulfur.

“As for you, strange Cataclysm… I wonder how you will sound when we finally meet? Sector 117 shouldn’t be long for the finding.”

The Khan grinned, teeth shining white in the darkness. The thought of how much he could do for the world with 20,000 Aetherium and three platinum chests was exciting.

“I wonder how you’ll sing when I cleanse you from the Earth.”

Ganbaatar Khan Rough Concept Art