<h2>?? Bonus Scene – “The Godboss is Real”</h2>


    POV: A scattered group of orc survivors, struggling to process their defeat.


    <hr>


    The orcs huddled beneath the gnarled remains of a dead tree, breath misting in the cold night air. Their warband had been annihilated. Not defeated. Not routed. Annihilated.


    No one spoke. No one moved.


    A lone ember drifted from their dying fire. One of the younger warriors flinched.


    "We were not meant to win."


    Grazzik, his hands still trembling around his shattered axe, whispered the words like a death prayer.


    The others watched him, silent. He swallowed hard.


    "The Godboss… he called down the Fiery Gatekeeper of Hell."


    Several orcs spat to ward off evil. Others exchanged uneasy glances.


    "What could we do against someone who commands that?" Grazzik’s voice rose, his terror turning theatrical.


    "I saw it!" He gestured wildly, his breathing ragged. "Flames rippled across its body, its eyes burned with the fury of the underworld, and smoke poured from its maw. It—" he gulped, "—it judged us."


    The Truth?


    Furblaze, the Cuddliest Harbinger of Doom, had arrived.


    A wolf-sized Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, bounding across the battlefield, his enormous floofy ears flopping with every enthusiastic gallop. His tail wagged like a blazing banner of war, embers floating in his wake. His big, loving eyes gleamed with an unnatural golden glow—not because he sought to destroy, but because he was just so happy to be included.


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    And then he sneezed.


    A burst of flame shot from his tiny snoot, igniting a pile of dry corpses.


    The orcs? They saw the Fiery Gatekeeper devouring the souls of the fallen.


    <hr>


    "It consumed warriors whole!"


    Another orc, cradling a burn wound, howled in agreement.


    Reality?


    Furblaze had tripped over a discarded helmet, tumbled headfirst into a fallen orc’s stomach, and stood up triumphantly, tail wagging, completely unaware that the corpse was now on fire.


    <hr>


    "The Godboss disappeared and reappeared like a phantom!"


    Rick had used Shadow Blink, stepping from shadow to shadow with deadly precision, dispatching orcs before they could react.


    To the orcs?


    He was an eldritch force of nature, vanishing into the void and returning only to kill.


    In reality?


    He had also stubbed his toe mid-blink and barely caught himself before tumbling face-first into the dirt. But the orcs hadn’t seen that.


    <hr>


    A grizzled orc veteran, his tusks chipped from years of battle, clenched his jaw. "What if… what if we angered something beyond this world?"


    The orcs froze.


    "What if he is a god of war?"


    It was absurd. But so was everything they had witnessed.


    They had faced warlords before. They had faced armies. But never had they fought something that looked so harmless yet had torn through them like an unstoppable force of nature.


    A heavy silence fell over them.


    One orc dropped to his knees. "We live only because Furblaze willed it."


    Another orc, still shaking, murmured, "He judged us unworthy. We must spread the word."


    One by one, the remaining orcs stood, heads bowed, their fate decided.


    "No orc must ever challenge the Godboss."


    The warband''s last commander stood, his expression grim. There would be no revenge, no oath of blood. Only survival.


    One by one, the remaining warriors rose, their decision made—not by logic, but by the instinct that had kept orcs alive for generations. They fled into the wilds, carrying with them a whispered warning.


    And so, under the darkened sky of the Deadlands, a legend was born.


    <h2>The Godboss had come.</h2>


    And soon, the Cult of Furblaze would rise.