First

Undying Blues

His eyes flutter open and he doesn’t suddenly pop up with unexpected, unwanted energy beyond the desired. He simply rises. His legs a counterweight to lift him upwards. His eyes open and he’s still in the medical chamber. And thank goodness for that. His luck is turning and so long as he can keep the pressure on the problem it should be resolved.

Hopefully.

He rolls his shoulders and there is a small series of satisfying pops. A stretch of his arms and a roll of his wrists feels immensely satisfying as he rises up. The Doctor is not present, nor is anyone else. He assumes that since there is no barrier he can sense and nothing has been applied to him that there is no risk of infection or they have at least some confidence in his health. He rotates his body in a short bit of stretches to wake himself up further and takes a deep breath to centre himself. The sensation that he had been drowning on dry land is fading a little, but still present. But thankfully he seems to be safe enough to at least acknowledge, in his own head at least, that he’s in over his head.

Mentality is a big part of this. A huge part of it really. A curling of his toes cracks them as he starts moving to leave the medical area. As expected the door opens before he reaches it and the doctor is there.

“Hello Doctor. May I assume my lack of containment means I am no longer infectous.”

“I managed to get some information on those things that were inside you. They dissolve harmlessly when killed, but take several days to fully fade.” The Doctor says.

“I see. That’s good to know that the thing was no longer actually within me.”

“... What was it like? The report on the thing states that prolonged infestation can drive a person insane while rendering them almost completely immortal. Even a Null blast can’t stop the regeneration. Only the death or removal of the parasite can actually kill the host.”

“... The madness was never obvious in the moment. It was a slow change of personality in the moment, but in hindsight... I was growing ever more volatile. How best to describe this? I can only see this due to my own training in self control and reflection. The important thing to recall though, is that the madness is an honest madness. Born of endless stress, over-tuned instinct, overwhelming and unrelenting energy and the increasing divorce from the consequences of poor decisions. I can fully believe that anyone with those things in them for a prolonged period have a severe estrangement from reality.”

“I’m sure. The Captain wants to see you.”

“That’s wonderful. Could you please tell me where I may find her?” He asks.

“Oh, right. You don’t know the ship.”

“I think it would be rather concerning if I did know the ship prior to any tours or proper time to explore it.” He notes.

“... I can’t tell if that was sarcasm or pleasant conversation.”

“It’s a neutral statement, I am a Courtesan good Doctor. Much of what I say is reflective of my training to keep myself as personable and either as pleasant or provocative as the client prefers at any given moment. If one was looking for humour then my statement was a joke, If they’re looking for acknowledgement then the statement served that purpose. It could also be impudent or insulting, all depending on the mindset and therefore desires of the client. People will look for what they want after all, even if they don’t care to admit they’re looking for it. Or even consciously aware of it.”

“I wasn’t aware it was that complicated.”

“Much like any field there are levels of skill within it. For example, most any nitwit can wrap gauze around an open wound to staunch the bleeding. But it takes training or bitter experience to wrap it without causing further harm to the patient. And it takes both training and experience to do so quickly and without seeming effort.”

“I see... still that’s clearly a benefit of being born to royalty your highness.”

“Please madam, I am so far down any line of succession that the idea of holding any amount of actual power or authority is either laughable, or an admission of intended usurpation. My family is enormous. So much so that even though it was a direct blood aunt that had kidnapped me, it had taken an embarrassingly long time to recognize her.”

“So... a fairly typical family. So many members, so many children that people just get lost in the shuffle?” The Nagasha asks.

“Yes, I was either going to be of use or I was going to be used. So I deigned to be of use. Then began my Courtesan training which my family ensured was as complete and arduous as it could be to encourage me to quit. The end result is that I am now considered one of the finest Courtesan’s in the La’ahbaron empire.”

“If not the galaxy?”

“The galaxy is a rather large place good Doctor. It would be the height of hubris to think myself competitive on such a scale.”

“Or a demonstration of appropriate humility to compete at such levels to deny it.” She notes.

“Ah! You understand, wonderful.” He says with a heartfelt smile.

“Oh... you are dangerous. Just not in the way you’d typically think of in an Ibu.” She notes.

“Oh very much so. But very quickly before I entertain the captain, what’s her name and... how long have I been asleep? And for that matter madam, and this is terribly embarrassing, but what is your name?”

“I’m Doctor Hissia. Well... technically a nurse, but after... what happened I’ve been serving as a doctor on this ship.”

“Ah, well. It is a pleasure to meet you Doctor Hissia.”

“The Captain is Purra Legara. She’s a throwback to a Tret ancestor born to a Valkas.” Doctor Hissia says and Danburi smiles with a nod. Shuffling the species named Valkas into the back of his mind as he honestly has no idea what that is. He’s never met anything called a Valkas, but it must be a standard species in some regard if they can have Trets in the family tree.

“Thank you very much for telling me.” He says genially. “Now... might I bother you for instructions on how to find Captain Legara please and thank you?”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Bridge, Nova Pirate Craft, Between Systems)•-•-•

The door to the bridge opens and she turns to see the towering blue frame of the rescued Ibu Prince step into the bridge.

“Ah, the sleeping prince awakens.” Captain Legara notes. “You’re looking better.”

“Am I? I haven’t been able to avail myself of a mirror yet.”

“Really? Well there are more and more surprises aren’t there?” She asks. “Now, we need information. Contact information primarily. As well as any possible allies to drop you off to, because our long range sensors are showing that those stealth ships are running their engines hot to keep up with us. Meaning you’re valuable, but a little hard to keep.”

“And I would appreciate if you did keep me captain. I’ll need a good look at a galactic map to see if there are any La’ahbaron allies or trading partners close to our location. I have the passwords to bypass most security checks for calling the La’ahbaron Royal Palace directly and... I sense you have more questions madam.”

“Yeah. About that sword. A lot of my girls with more curiosity than sense have been tampering with it and everything we learn about it just confuses me further. That thing is as sharp as a ball bearing until someone holds it, then it goes through trytite like a plasma blade through butter. Every scanner we’ve brought near it has broken as if severely overloaded or suddenly undergoing millennia of wear and tear without repair totems and holding the thing exhausts everyone to the limit. And pulling in Axiom doesn’t help.”

“Is my blood on the handle still wet?”

“It is.”

“Terrifying.”

“Yes.” The Captain agrees with him. “Where did that thing come from?”

“Unfortunately captain, the only source I have for the source of that weapon is unreliable in the extreme. It is my Aunt Wurana who was clearly attempting to subvert or manipulate me and therefore every she said to me is highly suspect to put things lightly.”

“Hmm...”

“However, the gist of what she claims is that she uncovered an entire world infested with the same parasite that has been purged from me. It rendered the inhabitants unable to die but increasingly insane. The animals were twisted into giant monsters and everything was in a gigantic cycle of death, obsession and madness, except in some few small places. There was apparently some kind of temple of monks who found an herbal method to quell the madness and coupled it with meditation and ritual to regain and maintain their sanity.”

“And the sword?”

“Apparently there was some other temple. One where it was held like a sacred artifact. But again, I’m not sure what I do or do not believe from her. But the one thing I do believe is that the weapon was found on a world overrun with the parasites that a single nick from that sword killed.”

“Hmm... where were you cut by that sword?”

“Right palm, I already healed the wound though so it doesn’t show.” He says showing his right hand to her.

“I see. How did you get your hands on it?”

“During my escape from my Aunt’s... pardon me if this is crass but, as I ran away out of that puckered sphincter of hell and torment I was in a berserk state and only barely in enough control of myself to not enact a massacre on her slave soldiers and instead leap over them. I was able to keep ahead of her portal network in the base and yet she was still able to find out I was looking for some kind of escape craft and successfully guessed which one I would find first. She had the sword at the time. I’m not entirely sure how I disrupted her attacks with the sword, but I did and grabbed onto it via the blade, which is how my palm was cut, and then attacked her so viciously I stunned her before kicking her away and breaking her grip on the sword. I then took the sword and rushed onto the ship before she could collect herself and took off as quickly as I could.”

“So she was using it?”

“Yes, and the moment I picked up the sword I nearly collapsed in exhaustion.”

“... Very strange.”

“Yes.”

“No one has been able to sense any Axiom use from that thing.”

“Nor have I.” Danburi agrees.

“Okay, so rule one with that thing. Which I passed while you were asleep. Is that we’re keeping it on your ship so that if we have to we can throw it out of our ship and not have it just vanish into deep space to be found embedding some poor bitch’s ship some thousand and ten years from now.”

“Understandable and acceptable.”

“Good. Rule two, and this is for you exclusively. Is cover up.”

“Very well, but... why?”

“You’re the only man on this ship. We’re in a very dangerous situation and while you are a beautiful piece of blue eye candy we can’t afford the distraction those abs and that man ass is going to be giving us. You need at least a shirt and some less flattering pants.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t exactly dressed when I stole that ship and made these by hand.”

“We’ve got some things sized for Cannidors. It’s going to be baggy on you. But right now we need that because I had to tell off a lot of girls from just staring at you as you slept rather than actually working.”

“I see. Shall I tie a scar around the lower half of my face as well?” He asks holding up a hand to show what he would look like with half his face covered. Captain Legara just stares at him in open mouth shock.

“I... that might make it worse...” She says slowly before looking away. “How the hell is one person so damn pretty? Was he designed to be like this?”

“Essentially.” Danburi replies and she turns back to him.

“I’m not surprised. You’re too pretty.”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“... Oh you’ve gotten in trouble from it.”

“Yes. I have. However this branch conversation is now over, please and thank you.”

“Ah, got it. Scandal.”

“Personal and private, please respect it please and thank you.” Danburi says.

“Fine. But my order stands. Clothes. Big and baggy. You’ve got some delicious looking muscles and that’s the problem.”

“Should I wear a hat to cloak my face in shadows?”

“Honestly? Probably.”

“Hmm, well I won’t begrudge that. Once I’m more appropriately dressed would you mind if I discussed with you manners in which to make my skills of use to the ship?”

“OH? And how would you do that?”

“I can create powerful Axiom Totems that will allow you to expand your already existing storage expansion to a ludicrous degree and stretch your supplies many thousand fold.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You will have my utmost attention during that conversation good sir. Now. Shirt.”

“And where shall I find it Madam Captain?”

“Right, let me call up the Cabin Girl.” Legara says as she taps at the armrest of her chair.

“Yes?” A voice asks over a speaker on the chair.

“Get up to the bridge and give our guest and payday the trytite tour of the ship. Start it in the Tertiary Storage area, where we got those extra clothes. He needs to get covered up. He’s distracting.”

“Woo! Time with the man candy!”

“Grizelle!”

“Sorry! On my way!”

First Last

The head of the medical department heaved a big sigh, even though its species did not technically have lungs. This had been a very embarrassing experience. It had never needed to deal with another species’ reproductive organs in any depth. Other beings kept their reproductive organs inside their bodies, like normal people, and mostly didn’t even need to think about them until mating season. They certainly didn’t talk about these things outside of their own species. The human doctor it had spoken with had just…told him about human reproduction and sexuality. Just laid it all out. With pictures. It shuddered in remembrance of that conversation.

Now, he had to decide how much of what it had learned to pass on to its whole department. And then he would have to write a report to send on to the major medical stations’ Heads of Medical, as well as something to tell the military. Oh, yes. The military commanders were not going to be happy to need to know this. He needed to include instructions to only ask human medics for any additional information needed. The doctor has told him that the human military were very casual about the subject. And that they were always in season. And liked to have sex, a lot. The doctor had tried to tell him about something they called ’stress relief’. He still didn’t understand how that worked, and really didn’t want to.

First, he thought, was the alert to medical personnel on site. He could worry about the military later. Maybe he could get the senior doctors from the main research institute to talk to the military. Hmmm, that had possibilities…

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Attention all medical personnel:

You are to actually look at human biology, based on actual scans, before assuming that a human male has a soft tissue injury. Human males keep their reproductive organs on the outside of their bodies, between their legs. Yes, really. Apparently that is a major reason the humans wear body coverings.

If you are not absolutely certain of a soft tissue injury, meaning bleeding, do not attempt to debridement in that area. The human will scream and attempt to run away. If cornered, they will become violent. If there are multiple humans in the area, the females will laugh hysterically, but other males may attempt to leave the area with the patient. They may threaten you with live weapons until you go away.

To avoid this behavior, always listen to the patient. If the patient is unconscious, another human male should be consulted. Do not listen to the females in this instance. They may attempt to ’play a joke’ on the male, and the male may react violently once conscious.

It is suggested that the same protocols be used for human females, although they apparently have their reproductive organs mostly inside. The females carry mammary glands on their chests that provide nutrition to their offspring. Unlike most species, human mammary tissue is always present and not just when lactating. The females tend to be touchy about the size of their mammary tissue. It is best to never mention it unless bleeding is present.

In conclusion: reread any available information about the human body. Please do not cause another interspecies incident regarding humans, like last week.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

[Chapter 1] ; [Previous Chapter] ; [Discord + Wiki] ; [Patreon]

cw: Violence, Blood, Gore

Chapter 295 – Killer instinct - 1

In a quick flash, Shida’s eyes flicked over to James in an attempt to assess his current state after taking such a rough tumble in his condition. For someone whose body had already been through more than one wringer today, tackling him out of the way at full force like she had was certainly far from ideal.

Not that that was really something she could have given much mind to when she had followed the gargling noise that barely made it to her ears and saw that massive leg start to move, knowing in her gut that he wasn’t reacting in time. In fact, there was no thought or consideration to it at all. Her body had reacted completely on instinct, and even then she had only just made it in the nick of time before her partner would likely have ended as a smear over the carpet.

Even now, her tail was throbbing after being caught in the path of the colossus’ swinging leg right after she had barreled into James. She remembered the rough, wrinkly skin brushing against her as even the flexible extension of herself was knocked aside harshly enough to hurt even now, leaving it not difficult to imagine what might have happened had it hit anything more rigid instead.

But a sprained tail was of little concern when compared to everything else that happened, and even if she was the only one hit, her concern in that moment was certainly not for herself.

James was still very visibly out of it as she pulled him up onto a half-kneel while attempting to get him to stand; his head swiveling slightly along with the world that was most certainly spinning around him in his inner vision.

And yet, somehow, he seemed to know that she was looking as he blinked heavily twice before letting out a strained cough that sounded as though he had inhaled a whole fist full of dust just moments before.

“Still breathing,” he pressed out, clearly trying to reassure her, though it was only blessed with modest success as he almost immediately broke into a more extensive fit of coughing.

However, even then, it seemed like he deemed any focus of her on him to be misplaced as he, while still coughing, lifted his mechanical hand up to point right ahead in the direction of the still ongoing battle between giants, indicating he considered it more of a concern than himself.

Shida’s eyes followed his gesture out of instinct, soon landing on the immediate threat once more.

Right after coming out of their first tumble, the first thing her body had assessed in an instant was that they both were, at least for the moment, outside of the zodiatos’ effective range, which allowed them to take this moment of a breather.

But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t be moving at any instant they were not watching him. And, obviously, they were also not the only ones in danger right now.

Though his attempt at turning James into a mark under his foot had failed, that was clearly only a secondary concern to the massive bull who had now taken the time to plant his foot firmly back on the ground.

Standing on all four of his massive feet, he immediately gained further leverage that he could use against the snarling reptile that still clung to his face like a horror movie scene.

Congloarch was latched tightly onto the bull’s natural weapons; using every limb with the ability to do so to grasp firmly onto one half of the Nahfmir’s tusks while his jaws buried their teeth into the root of the zodiatos’ trunk with the determination of a predator forged for millions of years to bite on and never let go.

And yet, with the zodiatos’ attention now solely on him for a moment, it became clear quick that there was still a notable difference between a tonamstrosite’s natural prey and the power that a fully grown zodiatos bull brought to the table.

The largest of the sapients moved very close to his very own world when it came to power that very few were able to challenge. And with no further distractions, he visibly prepared to let even the largest of the predators feel it; enormous muscles bulging and tensing underneath loose skin as the mountain of a bull strained to put more of his weight into his next attack.

Immediately, Shida’s eyes zipped around. Her free hand had already grabbed at empty air just a moment ago, no longer finding the resistance of the weapon that she had held just moments before breaking into her dead sprint towards the then distant altercation. She wasn’t surprised that she had dropped it at some point during her rescue given her use of her claws to stop her momentum, however she couldn’t really remember when exactly it had fallen out of her hands.

Searching the immediate area, she couldn’t find it anywhere she would have expected it to roll off to had it slipped from her grasp during the last tumble with James. Then again, in this low of gravity, there was really no saying how much it may have flown.

She found no sign of it anywhere near quick enough to be useful. However, what did catch her attention instead was the bright sparkling gleam of a handle’s sheen reflecting back the room’s dim light.

As if searching for confirmation, her eyes snapped down to James once again, just for an instant. The pointing hand was obviously empty. But as her gaze flew down to the organic side, it, too, had its finger clamped around nothing as he pressed it into the ground to try and push himself up.

It seemed that James’ grip had not been any firmer than her own.

And with nothing else in her reach, that shimmer in the thick carpet became like a beacon.

“Keep breathing!” she ordered harshly as she had to quite suddenly let go of James’ jacket, causing him to very nearly drop right onto the ground, though he barely managed to catch himself with the fist he had already pressed against it.

As she pushed herself off, an electric pain immediately shot through all of Shida's body. It originated from two places in her tail and her thigh. However, almost as though those two wounds had closed some sort of circuit with each other, it very quickly spread from in between them to soon shoot its rays throughout her whole body.

The effect was so instant and so intense that, for the first step she took to push into this renewed sprint, it almost felt as though the pain was harsh enough to stop time for a moment, leaving her seemingly frozen in place, standing on one leg, becoming nothing but a statue of frozen, electric agony.

It was nothing but a trick of the mind of course. But, during it, she could feel the very moment in which her injured leg wanted nothing more than to give out underneath her. The very moment in which her muscles were right on the brink of simply ceasing their service to leave her falling rather than running on that side of the body.

She could feel the instant as her body teetered right between tension and failure, like a thin sheet of ice that was ready to break under even the remotely wrong movement.

Something inside of Shida spoke to her in that moment. Something primal. Something that looked ahead as it wanted to run. Something that saw its target. And it knew: Her leg was injured. It would not hold much longer. And if she missed this step? She was not getting up again.

Around her was thunder. Behind her, a partner who’d no longer walk himself. Ahead of her, a raging giant locked in the last throws of a beast at the end of a hunt.

Enormous. Fighting. It knew it was large. It knew of its might. It did not want to become prey.

It was built to fight.

But...only to fight.

Shida broke the spell as she exhaled what remained in her lungs into a primal sound that drowned in the thundering noise of the room. Her claws extended into her boot, pressing into its sole as they tried to gain more traction while her injured leg strained against her weight.

Her body and her voice were equally crying out as the pain of that pressure shot through her, and they both screamed in triumph as she pushed right through.

Time resumed in an instant as she tore ahead, closing the minimal distance as she made a sharp turn to lean down and grab onto the glimmering handle once more.

In a positive turn of fate that felt so rare in these moments, the pivot actually had her bearing all her weight onto her healthy leg this time, allowing for all her usual strength as she took that momentum with her into the sprint.

A zodiatos’ brain wasn’t as fast as that of a human – much less that of a myiat. And with all the colossus’ focus on the more ‘even’ opponent before him, the Nahfmir had as little chance to react to her charge as James had to react to his own kick just seconds ago.

But, unlike James, there was no one to cover for that weakness as the by now almost familiar hilt laid like an extension of herself in Shida's hand, cutting through the air as though it had no weight as she brought it upwards.

In a mirror to what she herself had felt just moments ago, the thrust struck the zodiatos’ leg right as it was on the apex of its tension – right when power would be translated into strength.

His skin was thick. His muscles thicker. But the blade’s edge was thin. Lethally thin. And with her healthy leg once again taking the pressure, Shida had more than enough force behind her strike to drive it in deep.

She was no swordswoman. There was no finesse to her strike that would allow for a clean cut like James might have done. Just a thrust into flesh.

But it was also not brutish. It was not unaimed. Though she had no immediate skill with the blade, that did not mean she did not know exactly where to strike.

The gurgling sound from earlier soon repeated itself. However, even after that last one had been caused by the pain of a giant maw biting onto his face, this outcry of the Nahfmir still sounded somehow more distressed than the last. Possibly because he had not been ready for the attack.

Shida tried to pull the blade back with her as she realized she had to retreat. However, even the slightest buckle of the colossus’ leg upon the thrust had already squeezed his rough and wrinkled skin down around it, trapping it as though in a tight hold even as dark, thick blood streamed out from underneath the protective layer, which left her to uselessly pull at a weapon that would need far too much force to get free instead of a quick release.

With no other choice, she abandoned the blade, letting the hilt slip from her grasp as she jumped back and away when the titan’s muscles failed him even more; not wishing to get buried underneath the mountain of flesh should it come falling down her way.

Just a breath later, the massive leg buckled completely; its pierced muscle no longer able to hold its owner’s enormous weight just when he had tried to put as much of it against the ground as it could take.

He did not fall completely, but the knee of that leg hit the ground harshly in its descend, leaving the bull to fight for balance as he suddenly had to cope with the difference in elevation between it and the other three-fourths of his body.

Immediately, Congloarch reacted to the created opening. Though his own body certainly felt every strain of his muscles as well as the deep dent in his protective plate pushed against his insides, the low rumble escaping his chest shook the air as he gave what he still had to wrench down the Nahfmir’s head in the direction of the injury, further pushing the bull’s balance now that a part of it was further lowered towards the tonamstrosite’s level.

Blood bubbled out, both from the sides of his maw and the very end of the zodiatos’ trunk as the Nahfmir released a huff of strain and pain while he attempted to push back against the tonamstrosite’s pull, clearly determined not to be made to fall.

For a second, it seemed as though both of the giants were locked into that very struggle; pushing back and forth between remaining up and trying to make the other fall. And as both of them strained against their injuries and put whatever strength they could muster into their struggle, Congloarch’s claws began to dig deeper into the carpet, and his tail began to swivel over the ground as it shifted the exact angle in which it provided anchoring balance to his body.

Little by little, the reptile pushed up a bit further, pressing more of his weight down onto the tusks to try and overwhelm the bull’s balance over his injured leg. And, for a moment, Shida already saw the colossus topple before her inner eye.

However, just right before the moment in which she may have believed that thought could at any second become a reality, a shiver suddenly ran down her spine. Immediately, her head moved upwards, tilting back into her neck as she searched for the zodiatos’ eyes.

Even at this distance, they were barely more than black spheres in the colossus’ head. Dark and uniform, with little to no indication of movements or direction inside them.

And yet, still. Some way. Somehow. She knew exactly that he was looking at her. Knew his focus had shifted away from the giant wrestling with him.

And once again, that primal part inside of her knew the sight of a beast that was not ready to be beaten yet.

Her mouth opened. However, even if her voice could have been heard underneath the thunder of guns, she didn’t even know what exactly she wanted to warn the tonamstrosite of before it was already too late.

In a sudden shift of tension, the Nahfmir instantly stopped his resistance to Congloarch’s pressure, momentarily allowing his head to be pushed downwards while the tonamstrosite’s entire weight was suddenly left to drop along with the zodiatos’ tusks’ descend.

Then, tension suddenly entered the bull’s long neck once again. But now, instead of trying to lift against the push of the massive reptile, he first lifted the other side of his head up in a tilt.

Congloarch was left to drop, carried on by his own weight, while the Nahfmir’s second pair of tusks rose up behind him.

With his previous posture, Congloarch had managed to strategically place his own massive body in between both of the pairs. Now, with his falling body left to be pulled along as the Nahfmir pleased while the claws of his hind feet still held tightly onto the carpet, he was left to be stretched out to his opponent’s desire.

And he was more than long enough for the second pair of tusks to also be of use as the Nahfmir fully threw his head around in the opposite direction to just moments before.

The curve of the downward pointing tusk on the opposing side of his face swept the tonanstrosite up, hooking into the segments between parts of his armor as it carried the entirety of giant along.

With his own force and weight now working against him, it was Congloarch who quite suddenly lost the battle of balance, and the sound of ripping carpet spread through the air briefly as he was lifted completely of the ground in a violent thrust of the Nahfmir’s tusks.

He still held on tightly, of course. However, neither a tonamstrosite’s arms nor legs had ever been made with the intention of supporting his entire weight. And as the angle of his sudden pivot became too sharp for his arms and maulers to hold on at the same time without either his arms or his legs breaking, he was forced to let go.

His jaw still held on. But his teeth were made to bite onto flesh. To bite on and to rip, until what was in between them came loose. And come loose it did.

Another ear-shattering scream of pain escaped from the bull as he sent Congloarch flying, the scene nearly moving in slow motion as the tonamstrosite's jaws ripped the chunk of flesh they held free from the trunk.

However, even as the Nahfmir was left with an enormous, gaping hole on his face that oozed out dark blood from underneath loosely swinging flaps of skin and the hanging, torn ends of countless tendons, his gaze remained focused and followed the flight of the reptile, keeping watch even when Shida had to avert her own eyes to dive out of the way of the crashing titan; sharp reflexes alone saving her from being crushed as the tonamstrosite impacted the ground just breaths behind her in a hard enough fall to cause the ground beneath them to quake.

But, even as she dove for her own safety and her heart clenched at the sound of Congloarch's fall, the image of that that gaze still lingered in her mind.

Dark eyes narrow and clear, even as endless blood seemed to stream from his torn face. Bestial, almost demonic in its appearance.

Even when potentially mortally wounded, the Nahfmir was very far from being done.

"That doesn't make any sense. Are you drunk?"

"Hear me out," Zorbalax insisted, "I can explain."

I shook my head and stacked another bag onto the tower I was building in his arms. "As long as you can explain while carrying this fertilizer for me. If we don't get the shelves restocked by ten, the boss is gonna shout at me again and my doctor says I need to watch my blood pressure."

Zorbalax nodded and shuffled along after me, unable to see over the huge pile of twenty-kilo packs of chemically-fortified soil but trusting me to guide him. "Sure, sure. So, like I was saying, humans' greatest strength is their weakness."

"See, you're losing me already. How can strength be a weakness?"

"No, no, you've got it backwards. Their weakness can be a strength." I had known Zorbalax for a long time, but this was starting to worry me.

"Isn't that what I just said? If strength is weakness, then weakness is strength. Which is nonsense, strong is strong and weak is weak. Obviously."

Zorbalax waited while I shifted fertilizer from the tower onto the shelf until the flimsy metal creaked faintly under the strain. "Hmm. I guess you have a point." Finally! "But it's only the second one, how weakness is strength, that I'm talking about." Sigh.

"Okay man, dazzle me with this brilliant insight of yours. Oh, and take a step this way.. yeah, some customer left a rake in the aisle again. It's like they don't think."

My friend bounced on his toes and cheerfully followed me to the next shelf. "All right, try to follow along here. How many of these bags could a human carry?"

"Pff.. maybe five, if he was trying to show off? I don't think he'd have any breath to spare arguing with me, though. Like I said, weak is weak."

The stack had shrunk enough that Zorb could make eye contact over it again. "Right, but human merchants move more goods every day than we do. So ... how?"

I thumped another sack down onto the shelf and stopped to think. "They use one of those little cart thingies, right?"

Zorb's tail curled in the way that his people used to signal agreement. "Exactly. Instead of getting stronger, they made the work easier."

"Yeah, but it would make the work easier for us too. They have to either buy or build a cart just to move as much as we can, but the cart doesn't make them stronger than us. They're still spending more and doing less than we could with the same tools."

Zorbalax handed me the last bag of fertilizer, brushed imaginary dirt off his hands, and we set off back to the store-room. "Sure. But they invented it before we did. And with old, basic tech, that's not a big deal. But just like they're always behind us in literal muscle power, we're always behind them when it comes to pushing technology ahead."

"Look, I'll be the first to admit that humans have invented some cool toys. But I think you're taking it a little too far, now. Can you think of any technology where the human version is the best? Hold your arms out, we're doing cement next."

As I loaded him up with the powdered mineral mix, he pressed his point. "They've invented a lot more than some. Pick a tech, any tech you want, the humans are ahead of three quarters of the rest of us. It's a different three quarters for each tech, too, and over the past few centuries their version has been the first as often as not. You know what they do with all those inventions?"

"Yes, Zorb, they sell them to the rest of us. I did go to school you know, I took this job because I like the climate here, not because lifting heavy things is my only skill."

"They sell them to the rest of us, and they use them. There's a reason that out of 57 known space faring species, more than thirty percent of occupied systems are part of the Terran Republic, Korg."

I hefted one last bag of cement mix onto the pile and tapped Zorb's shoulder to let him know it was time to follow me back into the store-front to stock the shelves again. "And you want me to believe that reason is that humans are weak, therefore they invent things faster?"

"They do say that necessity is the mother of invention. And nobody needs to invent more ways to make work easier on themselves than humans."

I had to give him that one. The collective pouting of the human race when it had reached the stars and found out that they were actually among the least physically capable intelligent species was legendary. Every other species was more fit in at least one way - more agile, more durable, or physically stronger - and most of us surpassed humans in at least two out of those three.

"Okay, it's true that they need to do more work leveling the playing field than the rest of us. But their success is mostly down to the fact that there's just so zotting many of them, isn't it? I mean, their ships and tools are good, sure, but the main reason they always win is that it's like playing cards against a rich man. They just bully you into folding by committing more to every single hand than you can afford to risk. And if you do manage to win a hand, it doesn't even really hurt them. It just means you get better terms when you eventually lose."

Zorb shuffled to a stop and carefully set down the cement mix so he could help me line them up neatly - the conversation was slowing us down and we didn't want a lecture about being lazy from a man who had never lifted more than his own body weight in his life.

"That's a result, Korg, not a cause. They have a lot of worlds, and people, and ships, now. But they started with just their home the same as the rest of us, and by order of discovery they're number 45 out of 57. Since they were discovered they've gone from one star to owning more than the rest of us put together. How did they keep winning before they were the biggest player?"

That was a real puzzler, and we worked in silence for a while as I thought it over. Raw population density was a factor, but compared to advanced technology, a bigger navy, and more territory, it had a pretty hard upper bound on how much it helped.

"Traded excess population to other empires for an early advantage, and took more than they gave with their initial allies?" I hazarded, not really expecting that to be the answer. Humans were notorious for trying to impose their own morals on others and more than one derelict had been towed to civilization and set adrift with PEOPLE AREN'T CARGO, MATE written on the hull in carbon scoring. Societies changed over time, but this would be a pretty radical departure.

"Nope!" Zorbalax cheerfully confirmed my suspicions. "It was three things: reverse engineering, cooperating with enemies, and a whole lot of cheating."

Setting the last sack of cement atop the pyramid, I admired our handiwork. "What are you, a history professor now? Why are you suddenly so knowledgeable - and so interested?"

"Not yet! I'm using my wages to help pay down my tuition, working on a xenosociology degree whenever I have enough for another class." I hadn't known that. Zorb was more of an intellectual than I had given him credit for.

"Oh nice, good on you mate. But I don't really follow how those things prove your point."

The boss poked his head in and gave us a dirty look for standing on the shop floor not visibly busting our asses, but we were on schedule so he didn't actually say anything. I was so smug, I didn't even mind that I could feel the balance of the argument shifting.

"Right, so, the first thing that happened when humans were discovered is that they got tangled up in a war. Big surprise to everyone, despite being weak they survived and the Dezlan had to sue for peace because they had over-extended trying to wipe out the humans and everyone they'd ever pissed off suddenly wanted a piece of them. How did the humans fight a much more advanced and stronger species to a standstill?"

"Well, you kind of gave me the answer already. They figured out how the Dezlan's tech worked."

"Exactly!" Zorb's tail was twitching excitedly. "The humans needed less time to figure out how to operate Dezlan weapons and ships than it took the Dezlan to train their own troops. Humans are so used to breakthroughs that the Dezlan's most pessimistic guess was that they were ten generations ahead of human scientific progress, but ten years was enough for the humans to use almost every one of their own technologies against them."

My friend shook his head, putting on a disgusted expression. "And then the Morban rolled through after taking half of the Dezlan's territory, and tried to crush Terra before they could use that stolen tech to become a serious player."

"Wait, the Morban-Terran War was that early? But that would mean..." My head was starting to spin. "No. There's no way. They survived the Dezlan, but they'd just got the crap beaten out of them and they still had only one world. That can't be right."

"Oh, but it is. And, one minor but important correction. They had only one star system, but several worlds. Their population had taken a big hit, but in the twenty years it took the Morban to win and the ten years it took them to secure the territory they'd taken from the Dezlan, humans had been breeding and building shipyards like crazy. And then, of course, the impossible happened."

I was nodding along in spite of myself. "The Impossible Alliance. I remember as a child, thinking that must have been a bit of human propaganda. That there was no way what they said had not been some kind of exaggeration or spin. But you're telling me it really happened."

"It sure did. See, nobody was listening to the tiny handful of scholars that had actually read the huge pile of historical texts that Terra had made publicly available. What kind of idiot would trust what someone told you about their own history? Except it was, broadly, true. Human cooperative societies began so far back, it's arguable if they'd even finished evolving into a fully separate species from their closest relatives. They didn't have a choice; they were too weak to live as independent individuals like most of us did back in our early days."

"And one of the things it taught them was how to live with people that they had been enemies with, is what you're saying?" I was no expert, but the implication was obvious.

"More than live with. If you gave them a reason they could accept, they'd learned how to cooperate in the name of survival so well that they'd work with yesterday's enemies to defeat today's. And the Dezlan, well, they didn't trust the humans, but Terra didn't even ask them to - only to show up and aim their guns at the Morban. Most of the galaxy was just as shocked as you were when they found out what had happened. Certainly the Morban didn't expect it."

"Now that I can believe." Human ships during that war had been built too quickly; they were armed, and numerous, but they weren't up to the rest of the galaxy's standards. Something like one ship of every three had deliberately sacrificed itself to screen the much better designed, heavier Dezlan ships of the line, which had promptly taken revenge on the Morban in truly epic fashion. Humans and Dezlan had almost had a fistfight at the negotiating table arguing over who would own which stars when the fighting was over, but in some inexplicable way they had come out of it as allies, less than half a century after the Dezlan had literally tried (and nearly managed) to conquer Terra itself. It was, well, impossible.

"And you said the third thing was... cheating? Are we still using card games as a metaphor? I'm not sure what cheating at real life would even mean."

Zorb glanced over my shoulder and grimaced. Uh oh. I grabbed a pair of trowels, tossed one to him, and we quickly scooted outside to do some busy-work weeding the big flower display in front of the store before the boss could catch up and start ranting about chatting while on the clock.

"Humans cheat all the time, at everything. Did you know they have a GalaxyNet page that does nothing but keep track of how many interstellar laws only exist because a human did something that nobody had thought needed to be explicitly illegal before? Last time I checked, it was more than seventy percent. Seventy percent, Korg! It's a point of pride to them. Their home world dealt them a bad hand and they've been countering it by stacking the deck ever since. They've made cheating into a zotting art form."

"All right, I think you need to calm down a little. Every species has people that try to take advantage of oversights in the rules, it's not something that only humans do."

Zorb 'accidentally' yanked a weed out too forcefully and spattered my face with dirt. Real mature. "Okay, yes, mister spoil-sport, it's a matter of degree. But one of the newer species being so heavily over-represented is not just a bit of statistical variation. I'm thinking of making this my thesis at school, actually. Right after the Morban-Terran war, Terra had relatively average technologies and a fistful of systems to start with, and then within a hundred years they had reached #4 on the list of species with the most territory."

Gaining multiple worlds suddenly by turning the tables in a war was not unusual, for a mature species. Jumping from around fortieth place to fourth in one of the best metrics for overall power was on a wholly different scale. The species that had been the top three (and were now ranked two through four) had been the only space-faring species for more than five thousand years before the rest of us came along, and the difference between the current holders of fourth and fifth place was easily a full order of magnitude.

"So how did they manage it? I'll concede that they have done a lot of shady things, but since each one has been outlawed, it's not like they could just do it repeatedly."

Zorb was smirking at me as he tossed another fistful of weeds into a bucket. "How much did you say you would wager on that?"

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. "I didn't say anything about a wager. But humans are also the ones most likely to .. what's that saying .. to throw the book at you if they catch you breaking the rules. Are you trying to say they're just being hypocritical, that they actually break the laws and are just better at not getting caught?"

"Not exactly. But think back. We've already agreed that they're really good at coming up with and making use of new ideas, and working together." I supposed we had. And, I realized with a start, I had stopped thinking that it was ridiculous that those things that gave humans such an advantage were because of weakness.

"They apply those advantages to everything," Zorb continued, "not just to work and war. Nobody has ever gone to the trouble to prove it, but the timing of a lot of events is ... suspicious. A new law would come down, too late to stop the first person who had found the existing gap in the rules, but it would turn out that a hundred human companies and government programs had been doing the same thing, and they would also be forgiven as having happened before the change."

He was really warming up to his subject now. "Humans didn't snatch mining and colony rights to one world and then get stopped, they'd grab those rights on one world in each other species' territory all at once. They'd apologize, and it wasn't against the rules at the time, but all of a sudden they had forty or fifty more worlds. And of course, they needed to build trade routes between those worlds, and they were scattered all over explored space."

My expression must have shown my horrified comprehension - Zorb was nodding rapidly and gesturing with his trowel. "It all looks so natural and harmless, and then before you know it, they're everywhere and our own laws make it illegal to kick them out without a formal grievance that will probably end up starting another war. And the more times they get away with it, the less appealing it is to go to war with them."

"They make money on every trade - and they trade with everybody. You know, on average, most species only have official trade and nonaggression pacts with seven to ten others? The Terran Republic has one with every species they aren't actively at war with." My left eye was starting to twitch and Zorb was still barrelling on.

"They usually win without even having to fight, and you remember what happened the last time someone was mad enough at them to actually start a war." I had been so cocky when this argument started, but I was completely lost now.

The latest major interstellar conflict had been little more than an object lesson on the importance of correctly identifying your friends and enemies. A coalition of four species had attacked the humans. By the time news of the war had reached the farthest corners of settled space, it was over. Two of the four had turned on their supposed allies during the very first battle because the humans offered them a better deal before the shooting had even started.

Seriously outnumbered even without counting the possibility of reinforcement by human forces that would have had to travel to reach the conflict zone, the two remaining aggressors had been surrounded and forced to surrender in well under a year.

The worst part, at least to them, was that of course Terra immediately resumed trading with them, and its navy would rescue their ships or colonies now that they had lost too many resources to provide those emergency services for their own kind. It would probably only take one generation before they were among the humans' allies.

The Terran Republic was well on its way to being in control of all of explored space, and we were paying them for the privilege the whole time.

Because being weak had made them too strong to challenge.

It was a calm day on Cloudhaven Station.

“Boss,” John shouted from the other side of the room, “can I redirect this to you? It sounds serious.”

It had been a calm day.

“Sure,” I said resignedly.

I answered the call with my headset and gave the usual introduction. “Hello, this is Chief Engineer Peter Johnson. How may I help you today?”

“My daughter and her bastard husband went missing! They don’t answer my calls, and they should’ve been back an hour ago!” The other side was practically screaming.

“Who am I talking to, ma’am?” I interrupted.

“My name is Mrs. Jackson,” she answered, slightly calmer. “And you need to rescue my daughter!”

I asked a few clarifying questions, and the story started sounding serious enough to investigate. Her daughter and son-in-law had rented a ship and left the station five hours ago. They hadn’t answered any calls for at least two hours.

“John!” I shouted. “Can you check radar and see where the airship Nautilus currently is?”

“Sure, boss,” came the immediate reply. He knew I hated it when he called me boss. That’s why he did it, I was sure.

While he tracked the ship down, I pulled up its datasheet: standard two-person airship, twenty-seven years old, last inspection two months ago with clean results. The atmosphere of Venus is harsh, but the ship looked flawless on paper. They had rented it yesterday but only started the trip today. Since they rented it for two more days, there was no reason to panic yet. Maybe it was nothing - just out of range, with an overprotective mother.

Suddenly, I realized John was standing right beside my desk.

“What?”

“Boss, they’re at the bottom,” he said in an ominous voice. “I think the ship is disabled, and now it’s floating at the ten-megapascal level.”

I quickly glanced back at my screen. Yes, the ship was designed to float at the 10 MPa level, and fortunately, it was built to withstand that pressure for an extended duration.

A rescue mission from the bottom. Brilliant. It had been a calm day. Until now.

“That explains why they aren’t answering calls: at that depth, signals can’t reach them,” I said to no one in particular. John obviously already knew that.

“Okay, we have two rescue ships,” I listed our immediate options, which weren't really options at all. “The Enterprise, but she can’t go that far down; and the Victoria, but she’s designed to rescue people, not haul ships.”

“Is there any other ship in the area that can go down to the bottom and lift a hundred and fifty tonnes?” John was following the exact same train of thought. We didn't have many options.

“Okay, I’ll call the Central Venusian Rescue Operator - maybe they have something,” I decided. “You call the military. I’m pretty sure they have heavy craft; the question is when they can get here.” I glanced at my screen again. “The ship only has enough air for three days, so we need something fast.”

“Sure, boss,” John answered, already turning back toward his desk.

My call to the Rescue Operator was fruitless; they didn’t have anything larger than our own inventory. I started calculating how to deploy the Victoria - rescue the crew first, worry about the ship later.

“I found a ship that can help,” John announced triumphantly. “A military vessel called the UVS Extractor. She’s designed for heavy-depth rescues and can be here by late tomorrow afternoon.”

“That might be too late, John,” I replied grimly. “They have three days of air, but at that level, the ambient temperature is four hundred degrees Celsius. Without power, the ship’s internal temperature will hit fifty degrees in just eight hours.”

I sat back in my chair, deflated.

“If they still have power, late tomorrow afternoon is fine. But if they had power, we wouldn’t be staring at a rescue scenario.” I looked at John, and he knew what I was calculating next. Our only choice was the Victoria. But spinning her up takes an hour, plus another hour to descend to that depth. It had already been six hours since they left. We had to launch now, or there wouldn't be anything left to save.

I picked up the comms and patched directly through to engineering.

“Jack,” I said the second he picked up. “We need the Victoria. Now. Start spinning her up and skip every non-critical protocol. This is an active rescue operation; we don't have time to waste.”

I turned back to John. “Head down to the Victoria. You’re leading the operation.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ll call the mother back and break the news.”

One painfully awkward phone call later, I was deep in buoyancy and vector calculations for the Victoria when my communicator pinged.

“Go ahead, John.”

“Peter, you won’t believe it. The Nautilus just docked.” His voice was an equal mix of relief and irritation.

“Did they blow their ballast tanks? Managed an emergency ascent?” I stood up immediately, grabbing my tablet. “Did the heat exchangers hold?”

“You should probably just come down here, boss.”

When the elevator doors opened at the docking bay, there was no medical team, no scorched hull venting emergency coolant, and no structural breach squad.

There was only a middle-aged man in a tropical shirt stepping off the airlock gangway, holding two iced mocktails in thermal pouches, followed by a woman stretching her arms as she’d just woken up from a glorious three-hour nap.

“Excuse me,” I called out, marching over with my heart still hammering from calculating thermal mortality rates. “Your mother reported a catastrophic system failure! You were hovering at ten megapascals!”

The husband took a slow sip of his drink and smiled peacefully.

“Ten megapascals is the only depth where comms, radar, and long-range emergency beacons are completely blocked by dense supercritical carbon dioxide,” he said mildly. He nudged his wife, who looked more relaxed than anyone I’d ever seen on this station. “Best four hours of quiet we’ve had in fifteen years.”

Wiki

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"OPEN FIRE!" The captain practically screamed within the bridge of the pirate ship Nico, followed swiftly by a tremble that resonated through-out the entire ship, its sturdy bulkhead vibrating furiously as six plasma cannons all fired simultaneously causing the vessel to drift and lean starboards as it travelled through the empty void of space.

"This is madness captain! They outclass us by seven thousand tons!" exclaimed the second in command, her eyes wide in panic and despair as she desperately held onto the control panel with both hands.

"I don't care, Althera! Its been six months, six fucking months on this god forsaken vessel!" Captain Bill shouted in response, eyes wide as well but not in panic but rather desperation and wrath! The rest of the crew didn't understand what had changed, what could possibly have changed to make their Captain so reckless. Althera recalled just minutes before that things had been going well, they had managed to hide their ship within the void without being seen by the competing pirate vessel. They had even managed to break into their coms network so that they could listen in on some of the communications within the vessel. Their Captain, a human had even managed to keep a cool, steady head even if he was constantly tapping his fingers against his large captains chair.

There was no reason to attack the vessel which outclassed them so much, then suddenly something seemed to have change in him. A strange stillness having come over him at something that had been said by the other vessel..

Their ship suddenly recoiled, a shudder and a groan from the bulkheads as the response of the other vessel arrived, less impactful than she had expected. "Status!" She shouted to the crew causing a chorus of responses from the rest on the bridge. "We've lost power to engi-.. "Cannon two to four are reporting dama-.." "Critical hit to their power supply! They're drifting!" That last part was important she felt but before she could ask for clarification she heard a new order from the captain. "Good, prepare boarding torpedoes!" She paused, mouth agape and glaring at their captain, seemingly gone mad.

"You can't be serious captain! There's more people on that ship now than have ever even served on our ship!" She waved her arms around madly as she watched their Captain step down from the chair and set into a sprint down towards the torpedo bay, faster than she has seen him move in ages. He turned to look towards Althera as he sprinted down the corridor without stopping. "Good point! I better pack enough ammo."

"That's not the fucking point you oaf!" He slowed, if only briefly giving Althera time to catch up a little to the man. "You're right.. I'll bring the sword!" She glared at the back of his hairless skull as he doubled his pace towards the armoury. "NO! FUCK'S SAKE CAPTAIN WHAT THE KRELL HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU?!"

"You wouldn't understand!" He ducked into the armoury and by the time she finally caught up to he was already strapped to the teeth with two assault rifles, eighteen magazines all of which had enough energy in them to fire a hundred rounds, six grenades, two plasma charges for breaching bulkhead a landmine and a plasma machete. He pushed past the woman with his broad build, quite easily and ran off to the torpedo bay.

"I'm pretty sure no one could 'get it', could you just slow down and explain already?!" The ship once again shook which reminded her that she'd never given the order to cease fire in her rush to try to stop the captain from doing something fantastically reckless and.. She hated to use the term but could think of nothing that fitted better, Human.

"No time! There's no time!" There was desperation in his voice but also hope, joy the likes of which she hadn't heard from the captain for six entire months. She wondered what could possible get their captain out of his irate mood. Then she remembered what that word had been they'd used seconds before he'd told the entire ship to get into combat ships. "IS THIS ABOUT THAT FUCKING TOBACCO YOU KEPT BURNING?!"

The captain practically dove into the torpedo tube and gave a quick thumbs up out of the top before closing the hatch. The last thing she heard before he activated the automatic loading and firing sequence was. "DADDY 'S COMMING BACK, HE'S JUST GOING OUT TO GET SOME CIGS!"

Althera stood there in the loading bay for several seconds, glaring at the now empty tube fury that made her dark violet knuckles turn white. Crushed within her fist was a small green pack which she now regretted very much taking away. She honestly hoped that the enemy ship took them out, anything would be preferably over that awful smoke again.

FIRST

-- --

Blurb/Synopsis

Captain Henry Donnager expected a quiet career babysitting a dusty relic in Area 51. But when a test unlocks a portal to a world of knights and magic, he's thrust into command of Alpha Team, an elite unit tasked with exploring this new realm.

They join the local Adventurers Guild, seeking to unravel the secrets of this fantastical realm and the ancient gateway's creators. As their quests reveal the potent forces of magic, they inadvertently entangle in the volatile politics between local rivalling factions.

With American technology and ancient secrets in the balance, Henry's team navigates alliances and hostilities, enlisting local legends and air support in their quest. In a land where dragons loom, they discover that modern warfare's might—Hellfire missiles included—holds its own brand of magic.

-- --

Chapter 101: Serious Firepower

-- --

The thing about downtime was that Henry had never figured out how to spend it. Of course, some scenarios were easier than others; sometimes there wouldn’t be enough time to do anything but play on his phone, so he’d have an easy answer. Sometimes he’d have homework or reports to work on. And sometimes he’d have enough time to binge a show. This current bout fell into none of those categories.

Well, technically it did fall under the last one, but how the hell was he supposed to binge a show without internet? The last time he’d resupplied his laptop was weeks ago, and he’d already burned through everything he’d saved.

So he’d gone looking for something to do, and it turned out there really was something.

With their campaign assignment on hold until Sinclair and the Guild got everything sorted out, the only thing left on his plate was figuring out what to get Sera for their one-month anniversary. It wasn’t due for another couple weeks, but Henry didn’t much like kicking the can down the road, so he’d decided to scope the market early – get a feel for his options, come back with a plan, and spare himself the indignity of scrambling for something last minute.

As luck would have it, the search had gone sideways almost the second he started. The enchanted gear that would’ve actually upgraded her kit was somewhere in the millions of lumens. Everything under that he’d either failed to understand or couldn’t picture her wanting.

After scoping out several equipment shops, he’d ended up trying his luck at a jewelry store. Nothing came to him at the time. He’d stood at the case for minutes – long enough that the shopkeep came over to figure out whether Henry meant to rob the place or just have a stroke in front of it. It was neither, of course. Henry had explained it was a gift for a girl, and that he didn’t have the first clue what she’d like.

The man, to his credit, hadn’t tried to move the priciest thing in the case. He’d just asked why Henry didn’t bring her something from his own homeland instead. It was admittedly a bit embarrassing that he hadn’t thought of something so obvious, but it was true: there was nothing here she hadn’t seen a thousand times over, but everything back home she’d never laid eyes on. Anything he wanted was just a requisition form or an Amazon order away.

So he’d resolved to do just that, thanking the man before heading back to the inn to make a list of all the stuff Sera might find interesting.

The others found their own ways to fill the days. Hayes spent his becoming a local legend, which had been inevitable from the moment the first dwarf in Kharvûk recognized him as the Kraggen Slayer – the man who’d bested Var at his own drink back in Krevath. Word like that got around, and now every dwarf in town with something to prove wanted his shot at the title. Hayes turned every challenge down, partly because a hungover operator made for a bad look, and partly because Hayes knew to quit while he was ahead.

Sera and Doc had spent most of the three days with Sinclair. Sera knew the political landscape from the inside – the standing tensions between the powers, the alliances that held and the ones that only looked like they did, the history that explained why the Nobians being here meant what it meant. Doc, meanwhile, made sense of it all, drawing on past conflicts for the parallels that fit and handing them to Sinclair to run down. Between them, they’d helped shape the Korth Varren mess into something Command could take to a war council.

And then there was Ron, who’d somehow talked Isaac Yen into leaving the wire for something other than work. Henry would’ve bet against that one at long odds and lost, which was more or less the mood at breakfast when Ron tried to explain how it had happened. Or rather, what happened during their outing, because apparently that was a lot more important.

“– and this dude ain’t do shit!” Ron put his fork down to free up both hands. “She talkin’ for an hour, half an hour, whatever. And guess how many words Yen says during that whole time? Three.” He sighed. “It’s bullshit, cuh.”

Yen continued working through his plate, like none of it concerned him.

Henry shrugged, landing on his usual response for the big guy. “Gotta lock in, bro.”

“Yeah, lock in what? How? Fuck am I supposed to do? Mew?” Ron lifted his tongue and closed his mouth, mugging across the table.

Henry lifted a palm toward him. “There you go.”

“Whatever, man.” Ron picked the fork back up. “Y’all don’t get it. One day I’ma figure out his secret and then it’s over for everybody.”

“Well, you’ve got time.” Henry went back to his own plate. “Even once Kel gets here, it’ll be a week plus before we deal with that dragon. Plenty of runway to crack the code.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ron’s voice flattened into mock enthusiasm. “Lemme just go compete against the high-ranking adventurers with their magic and their fancy mithril gear. Real even playing field.”

“It worked for me,” Yen said.

Ron shot him a look.

Yen shrugged, unbothered. “Just saying.”

“He’s got a point.” Henry tipped his fork toward Yen. “Just lean into the novelty. Think about how many times the locals have geeked out over us – our gear, where we’re from, all of it. The folks back in Eldralore. Livia. Half the dwarves in this town.”

“Oh, speaking of – we ran into Livia’s crew at the tavern. Whole party of ’em rolled in yesterday.” Ron pointed the fork like Henry might’ve missed it. “Wild, right? Out of everybody. Sera’s gonna be in for a surprise when she gets back.”

Henry hadn’t known that. “Huh. They in for the campaign?”

“Yup. They came straight from Enstadt, too. Apparently the dwarves are prepping for–”

Henry’s radio crackled before Ron could finish.

“Alpha, Durin Actual. We’re on final approach to your position, two mikes out. Kelmithus is with us, along with your fires element. Over.”

He keyed back. “Copy, Durin. We’ll come out and meet you. Alpha out.” He pushed up from the table. “Alright. That’s us. Let’s go say hello.”

They stepped outside. The convoy came up the lane a minute later – two MRAPs sandwiched between two UGVs. The lead vehicle pulled up short of the inn, doors already opening before it stopped.

A pale blond guy Henry didn’t recognize swung down from the lead MRAP and made his way over, tablet in hand. The unloading had already started behind him, the convoy’s personnel dragging out the first crates of goodies.

“Captain Donnager? McMillan, sir.” He held out the tablet. “Got your requisition here. Everything's accounted for. Figured you’d want eyes on it before we started unloading.”

Henry took it and scrolled. The list ran longer than he remembered putting in, though most of that was the ammunition padding it out. He thumbed through the line items, found nothing missing, and handed it back.

“Looks good. Appreciate the haul.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll get it staged and out of your way.” The sergeant tucked the tablet under his arm and turned back toward the vehicles, leaving Henry to the two passengers stepping down from the cab.

First came Kel – the mad genius himself, probably already itching to nerd out about something. After the chaos of the last few weeks, seeing him was a damn comforting sight.

“Kel.” He went to meet him. “Good to see you. How’s it been?”

“Busy, Captain. Gloriously so.” The weariness lost out to the enthusiasm without much of a fight. “I have at last met your forgemaster. Ah, Captain, what a fellow! Balnar and I have scarce quitted the workshop since. We sit down to discuss one matter and find ourselves embroiled in six ere the first has settled.

“Indeed, three days ago we laid a binding upon one of your metal plates, merely to discover whether it would take the charge. Well, it did, and with such success that neither Balnar nor I would credit it at first. We ran the trial again, and then once more for good measure, yet still arrived at the selfsame conclusion.”

He caught the thread running off without him and reeled it in. “Ah, but this is intolerably rude of me. How goes the campaign? You fare better than I feared, and I’m glad of it.”

“Shit, it’s going well – real well, all things considered. Long story, though. I’ll tell you over dinner.”

“Very well,” Kelmithus said. He glanced toward the inn. “Though I ought to find Sinclair first.”

“I’ll take you,” Yen offered. “She’s at the Guild.”

Kelmithus nodded and set off after him.

Henry waved them off. “Oh, and Yen – tell Sera about Livia.”

The other passenger had hung back through all that, waiting his turn. The chunky field radio he set down marked him for the JTAC, plain as anything. Years of humping that thing through sun and hard country had worn him lean and dark.

The guy waved as he came over, going for a poker face but not quite getting there, clearly too starstruck to pull it off.

Henry nodded him toward the door. “Come on, let’s head inside.”

They filed in out of the cold. Once they’d taken a table, the man set his pack down and put a hand out.

“Captain.” He took Henry’s hand with both a grip and a grin he couldn’t fully tamp down. “Staff Sergeant Delgado – but you can call me Tripp. I’m your JTAC for this one. Shouldn’t be in your hair long – half the job’s just pointing a laser, anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Real glad to be here, though, sir. Been hearing about Alpha for weeks now. Kind of a big deal, getting put on you.”

Henry shook his hand and waved him into a chair. “Likewise. Glad to have you.” He sat back down across from him. “But what do you mean, just pointing a laser?”

“Exactly that, sir.” Delgado sat. “This isn’t a normal CAS run. No talk-on, no nine-line, nothing you really need me for. The General’s using Tomahawks for this one. We’ll launch a timed strike toward the AO, then use a laser to paint the target for terminal guidance. Could be me, could be a drone, could be you if you want hands on it.”

“That simple?” Ron asked.

“As far as you guys are concerned, yeah.” Delgado tipped a hand side to side. “How hard it is to mod the missiles, I can’t say. There’s a whole setup behind it, too – relays strung up the corridor, the bird flying itself on internal nav the whole way, all that. The way I heard it, it’s a lot of moving parts. But none of those parts are yours. What matters is they get the missiles to the target area, and the laser does the rest.”

He pulled a map from his cargo pocket and spread it on the table.

“Right now they’re still finding it. There’s an RQ-180 up, running the search. Once it pins the target down, it hands routine tracking off to a Reaper to keep watch until you’re ready to move out.”

“How many Tomahawks we got?” Henry asked.

“Twelve. Three Typhon systems, four missiles each.” Delgado ticked them off. “One system’s running conventional, one’s thermobaric, and the last one’s the experimental stuff. Word is the eggheads cracked the chemistry once they got the new powder figured out. I don’t know how hard it is to go from deflagration to an explosive payload, but they did it. So after some quick testing, the first thing they did was load up four and send ’em along to see what they do.”

Ron whistled. “That’s some serious firepower.”

“That’s the idea. You’re going up against a Tier Ten.” Delgado said it plainly, the way a man states a fact he’s made his peace with. “Which is why they’re not picking and choosing. They’re putting all twelve on it at once. One salvo, all in.”

He let that sit for a moment.

“Which means you do not want to be anywhere near it when they land. Klick and a half off, minimum – and I’d push it further if the ground gives you the option.”

“Contingency if it survives?” Henry asked.

“Then you get into the Gatebuilder site and you hunker down.” Delgado shrugged. “Nobody told me why, specifically. But I guess at this point it’s kinda obvious we might go nuclear.”

Henry glanced at Ron, then back at Delgado. “Shit, dude.”

Delgado folded the map back up. “Yeah, I know, right? But nukes should be able to handle any Tier Ten, or at least hurt ‘em bad enough to deter them, I think. Dr. Perdue said as much.”

The guy’s tone wasn’t as reassuring as Henry might’ve preferred, but the logic underneath was sound enough. If Dr. Perdue said so, then there probably shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

Delgado looked back up after stowing his map. “Oh, right. Forgot to mention this. As far as the brass is concerned, I’m a formality – somebody’s gotta sign off that you had fires support attached, and that’s me. I don’t need to be out there with you. The Reaper can hold the laser fine on its own, or one of you can do it. It’s just holding a designator on the target.” He shrugged. “But if you’d rather have a dedicated guy running it, I’ll come. Up to you. Just let me know before the op.”

“We’ll sort it out,” Henry said. “Appreciate the rundown.”

Delgado nodded. “Just the messenger, sir.”

Henry checked the time. With nothing pressing on his schedule, the rest of the day was wide open. “You wanna tour around town?”

Delgado’s face faltered again, the poker face slipping. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m down for that.”

-- --

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The fence was all that they remembered from the time before. That and the infernal, menacing mist that always blocked the light from the sun, no matter what the season was. It was the morning, but who would really know for sure?  Then again, nobody really had a reason to care anyway.  Morning, evening, it was all the same.

Jon stopped tending the grass long enough to put his digger down to wipe the sweat from his forehead.  The sun was always seen through a haze of dust or smoke or something that was in the atmosphere.  It might keep the light levels down, but it didn’t do anything to slow down the heat any.  If anything, it held the heat in.

He looked around and just breathed for a moment.  Jon liked to spend his extra time out here where nobody else was.  Even if it wasn’t his assigned task, he would probably be out here anyway.  It was a place to go.  Here in the plot, there just weren’t that many places where you could get away by yourself, even for a little bit.  It was peaceful here … serene almost.

The fence in the distance seemed to shimmer and undulate in the heat and haze as if it was a long, segmented worm, carried along by the whispery thin legs of the posts that supported it.  The swaying weeds and wild grasses at the edge of their plot brought the vision to life even more as he watched.

It was like a living thing that wrapped around their plot and kept them on one side while the roving towers of metal rumbled in the distance.  Or did it protect them from the giant leviathans of metal that lumbered across the terrain as they followed the directions of their alien gods?  They had discussed what it was all about many times in the clan huddles of the conclave over the generations that they’d been here.

There were stories of the multitudes of people that covered the planet in the old times … back before “they” came.  Humans were supposed to have been at their peak of evolutionary advancement.  The elders used to tell all the old tales of ships that could fly, and others that could float across giant oceans of salty water where other people of different skin colors and body structures would meet them.  It all sounded like made-up shite now.

The elders were long gone now anyway, and the stories probably got embellished a little bit with each retelling.  Nobody believed them anymore.

In the distance, toward the conclave, he could see someone coming toward him pulling a cart.  He sure hoped it would be Cheris.  Really, he already knew it would be her.  If it was, that meant that there would be some mostly fresh water to drink, and there would be some gruel to put something in his belly.

The thought of his stomach made the insistent feelings of hunger and emptiness more pronounced.  That was nothing new, though.  It was a constant nagging feeling, but they all learned a long time ago that there wasn’t going to be anything to help out in that department, so they shrugged it off.

A movement on the other side of the fence drew his attention away from the person with the cart.  It was a small creature with long ears, nibbling on the grasses close to the fence.  He already knew what it was.  It was something called a rabbit.  It was one of the many different creatures that lived outside the plot.

His immediate thought was of alarm for the rabbit, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do.  Everybody knew that the fence was death.  It was like the sky when it began to rumble and light up with those streaks of crackling lightning.  Touch any part of it, and there would be nothing left but a smoking husk of your former self.

It was still going to be several minutes before Cheris could get there, so he watched the rabbit.  It was such a beautiful creature.  It was gray and brown so that if it wasn’t moving, it almost looked like a stone from his vantage point out in the grass.

The little rabbit went out of sight for a moment in the tall weeds on the other side of the fence, and then back in his field of view a little farther down from where it was before.  It was curious and inquisitive, just nonchalantly checking out this, and then that.

While he watched, there was another movement that caught his eye.  Another rabbit joined with the first and they met and sniffed each other up before going their own way again.  That was so cool.  It was like two strangers meeting and talking for just a second before saying, “Okay … see ya.  Have a good day.”

He looked back, and Cheris was much closer now.  She was such a gentle girl.  They had been friends most of their lives.  She wasn’t born here like he was, but was dropped with another group of people years ago.  Actually, it was the last time that there were any new people dropped here in this plot.

They didn’t have much of a story to tell … just another plot like this one, only there was an earth-shake, and part of their fence tore apart.  As soon as it did, the metal towers outside their fence rolled up and began to suck everybody up with wind or something.  They were brought here … and that was that.

She was almost there now, and he looked back for another look at the rabbit.  It was gone by this time, and the fence and the waving grass were all there was.  Jon sighed and put it out of his mind.  Rabbits, and dogs, and deer … they were all creatures that you could see every now and then, but it wasn’t like they could actually touch them or anything … not with that fence there.  It was an inescapable and deadly prison.

Cheris was always a welcome sight for Jon.  She was one of the only people in the whole plot that understood where he was coming from.  It wasn’t just one-sided either.  They both understood each other.  Well, he got along with her better than anybody else anyway.  He’d probably never truly understand her.  She wasn’t like the other girls here … or guys either, for that matter.

That was probably the thing that he liked most about her … the way she was different.  You know, if every part of your day is pretty much the same … every single day … something that stands out is a welcome change.

She had this way about her that made him think of things that nobody even discussed at all.  It probably wasn’t her fault, but she had these dreams that kept occurring, again and again.  In the dream, they were in a big plot that didn’t have any fence.  The animals could come right up to them, and they could walk as far as they wanted and never have to turn back.  They could go all the way to the ocean if they wanted.  Crazy, right?

  It sounded pretty crazy.  Nobody talked like that since the elders were around.  Sure, there were elders still in the conclave, but they weren’t the elders that really knew the old stories.  These people just heard it from those that came before, not like they actually saw those things they talked about.

Cheris waved when she knew he was looking again.  Jon waved back and waited for her to get there.  He could have met her and not let her pull the cart all the way over, but it didn’t even occur to him.  His job was tending to the grass, and hers was bringing the gruel, which, of course, was made from the stalks and grain from the grass.

If he met her halfway, then he would be partially doing her job, and then he’d still have to do his.  Everybody had to do their own job, or how the hell was the plot supposed to survive?  You gotta have grass to get the seeds and stalks to make gruel, and gruel was the key to survival, wasn’t it?  What else is everybody supposed to eat?

When she got to where he waited, Cheris was about to say something to him, but then she looked past him to the fence.  She had a look on her face that was like horror and surprise and shock all at the same time.  It was enough to make Jon turn around again.

The rabbit was back, or at least a rabbit was back, and it was being pursued by a dog of some kind.  No, not a dog.  This was smaller, with a bigger head … it was a coyote.  It had been years since he saw one of those.  The dog packs had run off all the coyotes years ago.

They were both frozen in place watching this scene of life and death play out on the other side of the fence.  There was nothing they could do.

Cheris’s hand reached out to hold on to his arm.  He wasn’t sure if it was for her own stability, or to reassure him.  It felt nice all the same.

The coyote was close … the rabbit was weaving back and forth as they neared the fence.  Closer … and closer.  It was almost to the fence, and Jon felt himself holding his breath … just knowing that the end was right there.  He even squinched up his face in anticipation of the contact with the fence.

They both knew what would happen as soon as that poor rabbit made even the slightest brush against that thing.  There would be a loud cracking sound and a bright flash of light, and then the smoke would rise up with the terrible stench of burning flesh and hair.  They’d seen it before.

Cheris’s hand clenched down harder on Jon’s arm and then … at the last second … the rabbit vanished from sight, and the coyote veered off at the last moment too, just before running into the fence himself.

Jon and Cheris both just stood there for a moment, not knowing what happened.  The rabbit was there one second, and then it was gone.

“What …?” Cheris asked, to nobody in particular.

“Uumm …” was all Jon had to say too.

Then, on their side of the fence … not the other side where the drama had just played out, but on their side … a little nose from a rabbit popped up out of a hole in the ground, right at the edge of the grass that Jon was plugging.  It was close to the fence, so nobody ever went over there, that far.  Nobody ever went anywhere close to that thing.  To go over there was suicide.

The rabbit followed its nose and came out into the grass of the plot as if it didn’t have a care in the world.

“How did it …?” Jon said.

Cheris pulled her hand back and slowly said, “Jon … it went under the fence.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said.  Understanding that the rabbit did indeed go under the fence, but not quite understanding what she was getting at.

“No Jon … It went under the fence,” she said, looking meaningfully at his digger.  “If it did … then we can too.”

Jon raised his digger up and looked at it as the realization of what she meant opened in his brain.  “The dreams …” he said, looking over at Cheris.

The Interspecies Sciences Facility on Kethra 7 was the largest in the galaxy. It included scientists from every known species, studying every scientific field anyone could think up. Cooperative research had advanced knowledge beyond anything any species could have done by themselves, and everyone benefited from the cooperation.

Unfortunately, having so many scientists in one place, had consequences no one outside of the facility had thought of before it was too late. The problem? The geek wars. No one could have stopped the geeks in the first place without using their own geeks. When they had first tried to restrain the scientists with their own people, their geeks invariably joined in, and the pranks would then be aimed at them.

The humans started it, of course. Apparently it was a tradition among them, dating back to before the humans even had reached space. Anyone not actually involved in that specific conflict was supposed to be safe from the pranks. In reality, everyone was in danger of getting caught in the crossfire. This lead to the entire population of the facility being at war with everyone else more than once. (Excluding the senior staff, at first.)

Most beings grouped together, and acted as a group. This was vaguely tolerable for the senior staff, if not the preferred method of releasing stress. Then, individual humans started changing sides, suddenly pranking their own team. But they didn’t stay with the group they were helping. Individuals were helping research tactics, and when everything was done, the human would suddenly start working with a different group that was fighting against them. They were moving among the groups spreading misinformation and chaos, along with tiny bits of real information.

It was the humans that started pranking the senior officials. It became a test of science and courage to play the highest officials without getting caught, resulting in new and better traps every time. Some of the officials tried to prank them in return, but they were fighting against the best and brightest geeks the universe had produced. They were hopelessly outsmarted, and retaliation, in any way, was sure to leave their offices unusable until it had been searched by whoever was willing to help them. Unfortunately, this often resulted in new pranks being installed as the old traps were removed.

It began 8 months after the first pranks. Someone pranked a friend on a visiting ship. They fought back, of course, and the war went on for the entire time the ship was in orbit. The same thing happened with the next ship. Somebody knew somebody on the current ship in orbit for resupply and data transfer, and then the pranks would start. Then those ships started pranking the next ship with humans on it, and it spread through the galaxy as the humans taught their nonhuman shipmates.

Every being in the galaxy learned eventually:

Beware the Geeks!

I’d lost track of time long ago.
Our life back home seemed like a distant dream.

The biggest insult was that only now, laid bare in the cages of the Harvesters, did I realize how good we had it.
Sure, the hive itself had been but another prison. A ‘reservation’. Offering the freedom to move around inside our cage.
But even that tiny strip of liberty had carried with it at least some droplets of life.

Inside the cage, inside ‘processing’ I’d realized what it truly meant to lose freedom. The prison had shrunk down from a hive to a room.
Where once we at least had some basic amenities and entire halls to call our own, in some desperate attempt to simulate what we’d been taught should be a proper hive, there now was only a shrinking tomb, closing in on us.
Forced to eat, sleep and defecate all in the same place, while desperately huddled together for some modicum of safety.

Outside, I had hated the sun. It was too bright, too warm, it had always felt like I was burning up inside my carapace when standing under it. Stupid…
Now I wished to sizzle under that same sun. It would be something different. It would let me feel something.
In here, all there was, was that encroaching numbness.

I longed for pain. Pain was a sensation. The burning from the sun was a sensation.
But in this cage, there was nothing to be felt. The walls were made of cold steel and dead flesh. The pulse drumming through the walls was faint, weak, as if it was trying to fight its way through layers of dirt.
A false heartbeat, there to mock life itself.
The bars too, were cold and formless. No artistry. No change. Only static. Unmoving.
Grown together as one unit, there was no contrast between them, no shape that could stick out in any meaningful way. Just a massive maw, in which I was trapped.

Same for the guards. They didn’t speak, unless instructed by their masters. I wasn’t sure if many of them even could speak.
And every movement of theirs was stiff and emotionless. It made me forget what dancing was like. How could something like the Reborn Circle ever exist, when there were things like these thralls?
Compared to them, even the slightest twirl and spin seemed akin to madness.
There was no movement in life. There was no joy in the shifting of colours, clacking of exoskeletons and harmonious vibrations of sisters.
It must’ve been a dream. An illusion. The Harvesters had made it up to torment me.

The Harvesters… our masters.
There was no joy in their movement either. Stiff, direct, to the point. Nothing was wasted; no step was superfluous. Everything they did was strict and calculated.

There was nothing to interpret from them, other than surface detail. They were here to harvest and process us. They carried no emotion, other than perhaps cruelty.
But the biggest insult was, even that cruelty was mundane!

Tear us apart! Burn us alive!
Do anything other than just this maddening by-the-numbers procedure!
Day in and day out, the same again and again.
Five prisoners are brought out for processing. Then later, an additional three are also taken.
Again and again and again and again and again and again and again…

Every day is the same. Every hour is the same. Every minute is the same.

The only thing that truly changed, were my sisters and I. I’ve forgotten too many names already. The name Lylaari had once meant something to me… at least, I think.
Someone I grew up with? Someone who’d held a deep friendship with me? Or maybe just a meaningless name, that had managed to climb its way to the surface? The others hadn’t been so lucky. I could hardly remember my own name. Pirryl…

Those older sisters that raised me? Their forms and scents were gone.
All I could see and smell was that black liquid pouring from the walls. All I could see were the huddled bodies of my fellow prisoners surrounding me.
Neither dead nor alive were moving.
Static.
At times, I wondered if I was already dead and if this was what eternity looked like.
Forever stuck inside this one moment, forced to endlessly repeat it.

So, one day, I made the same decision that so many of my sisters had already made.
I told the youngest to stay as far behind in the group as possible, instructed them to listen to their older counterparts and carry on the little I’d been able to teach them.
To them, survival still meant something. There was something to still strive for, to hope for. I didn’t want to take it away from them.
Instead of telling them the truth, that I simply couldn’t take it anymore, I crafted a spiel about supposedly knowing that today they’d take more prisoners than usual and that I would place myself at the front, to hopefully buy someone further back a bit more time.

A sham.
A lie told not out of necessity, but to save face and act like I hadn’t become just like those husks wandering the outside of our cells.
What difference really was there, between those empty shells wearing the skin of a dead sister and me? To somehow pretend I was better or that there was still something worth saving seemed preposterous and selfish to me.
My other sisters had learnt the truth before me.

It didn’t matter. There was no escape once you were brought to processing. You could drag it out, desperately cling to some modicum of survival, selfishly and childishly pretend that there was a point to you staying at the back of the pack.

No, today would be the day where it would finally end. Whatever the Harvesters had in mind, whatever they would do to this empty shell that had once been someone, it didn’t matter anymore. Anything was better.
Annihilation was better. Eternal darkness was better.
Drown me in that black liquid for all that it changes.

I counted.

Counted down to the moment the guards would escort a Harvester here, who would then pluck out five from us to drag away. It occurred to me that I didn’t even know what exactly would happen after that.
Sisters were brought here, then removed later. For all I knew, this torment was just a holding cell, just a temporary step unto whatever monstrosity awaited me further down below.
A faint flicker of hope tried to light my mind, tried to delude me into thinking that, perhaps, being dragged away wasn’t the end. Maybe they’d simply assign me to work detail. Send me back to the hive to instruct new sisters. Ship me off to wherever they hatched our young, to look after them.

Stupid. The only thing to come out of being shipped here was to be processed.

And so, I continued to wait.
And wait.

And wait…

Had I finally gone insane?
I was sure that I had counted down to the moment the guards were supposed to appear. Yet, nothing had happened. The ones standing in front of my cell were unmoving.
No… no I must’ve been wrong. They were always right on time. The Harvesters were never late. Not once, during my stay here, had they missed their window to take us away.
Always the same time, always the same amount.

I could feel my body tensing against my exoskeleton. My mandibles ground against each other as I looked and waited and looked and waited.

And instead of the familiar stomping announcement of death to be at my door, I heard a distant… thunder?
It had taken me a moment to realize, but the walls had shaken with the reverberation of that loud thundering boom.
The blue veins inside the darkened steel accelerated their pulsing, the flesh interspersed with it quivered in anticipation of… something.

Could there be a riot in a place like this? Could enough prisoners ever stand up against their tormentors? Impossible.
With what weapons? A Harvester’s lance was strong enough to bisect one of us with a single spew of its glowing flames. We’d never stand a chance.
A hundred of us could try and take on a Harvester and we’d all fall by its weapon.

Yet there it was again. Another thunder.
Then came in a Harvester. The very same that had been supposed to take me away. It came in in a hurry, closing the entrance behind it.
For once its movements weren’t cold and calculated. Its steps were irregular. Hasty. Wrong.
It’d looked like it had stumbled for a moment when it entered, like for the first time in its miserable existence, it was unsure of its own footing.

The whiskers on its carapace where shaking with a silent fury and at once, the guards all stood at the ready, aiming their own weapons at the entrance.
Wait… no.

Not fury. Not anger.
As it stepped away from the entrance, I saw something else.

It was afraid.

Another thunder. Closer.
The walls shook with anticipation and fear. The black liquid seeping in from the ceiling rippled with the arrival of something.
So many things had stayed static. So much of my cell had always remained unmoving.
And now, everything was moving at once. I realized that my own body was shaking.
Would I truly be allowed to move again?
Was there a world out there, where even in the depths of a Harvester created hell, one such as I could dance again?

Could there be light, in this ever-consuming darkness?

My answer came, with not just a thunder, but a roar, a blast louder than anything I’d ever heard.
The guards were knocked back, the Harvester flinching against the light that had finally breached its domain. And out of this light, I saw something igniting the air as it sheared through it.
Little darts of flame whizzed by, cut down the guards and nipped at the Harvester’s armour.
It heaved up its lance, intended to bring forth that terrible fire with which it would burn away everything.

Yet it never came to be.
A monster had roared from within the light and a straight line was drawn, from that burning entrance to the carapace of the Harvester.
And it fell.

Cut in half, it fell to the floor.

The Harvester fell.
Clattered against the ground.

It was dead.

It could be killed.

They could be killed.

And in from the light came shapes. Blurry at first, upright rectangles shuffling through the fire, carefully cutting away at the darkness.
I allowed my eyes to focus again. For too long, everything had become a blur, a mess of shapes and colours flowing together into meaningless sediment.
No, I needed to see.

Two legs. Two arms. I couldn’t see a face or eyes. Thralls?

No… no, they were alive. I saw it in the way they moved. The way their heads spun around, taking in the scene around them. The way their arms clutched their weapons. The way they were hunched as they stormed inside.
And the noises. Muffled as they were by their helmets, I could hear it.

No slave of the Harvesters could ever sound so alive.

As my eyes focused, I saw their clothing too. Colours like I’d never seen them before.
Cloaks greener than any plant I’ve borne witness to in the plains, flapping in the winds streaming in from outside.
Any plant that’d grown near our little hive had usually been of a pale complexion. As if the sun had stripped away the very colour from even the flora surrounding us.
But the cloaks on these strangers were as vibrant as life itself, glowing against the surrounding browns of our festering cells.

And underneath those cloaks, I saw the colour of the sky. A deep blue, a reminder of the beauty of the azure. The ocean above, promising that there was more.

I’ve felt myself to be in a dream. Or maybe I’d finally woken up from one?

As things settled down, one of these strangers walked up to the cell.
I saw myself reflected in the visor of its armour as it came closer to the bars, looking straight at me. They were surprisingly short.
Shorter than any of my sisters or I.

And yet, that figure stood tall, as it observed me from outside the cell that had become my whole world.
It carried with it a sense of vigour. It hadn’t been broken by some slave master.
On two legs it was and likely on two legs it always had been, since time immemorial.

I couldn’t remember the last time, I’d stood up straight.

When it knelt down, however, some part of me finally realized what I was seeing. I wasn’t looking at some abstract statue or idea.
It removed its helmet and showed me its face. A face!
Harvesters didn’t have faces. Neither did those they enslaved. Thralls didn’t have eyes, didn’t have antennae or mandibles to emote with, didn’t have voices to talk to us with.

Yet here it was, this strange, pink, fleshy creature looking at me from two wet orbs stuck in its head, saying something to me. Its voice carried through the air like a river of fresh and clear water.
It didn’t have an exoskeleton, its skin looked smooth, soft almost and the top of its head was covered in fur.
And it looked right at me. And it spoke to me.

Draped in those tones of life, covered in signs of battle, kneeling in front of my cell and looking at me as I sat in that tomb, it made me remember something I’d forgotten a long time ago.
For far too long, I’d been sure of the fact that beyond the bars in front of me, there could ever only be death.
Outside of this cell, was the domain of decay and oblivion. Nothing living could be there.

I was wrong.

A living breathing creature was looking at me from the other side.
There was life. There was hope.

My biggest regret is that I didn’t have the necessary tongue to thank that alien standing beyond the threshold. I didn’t have the words, didn’t have the vernacular to bring to life the ocean of gratitude necessary to express what this moment had meant for me.

I promised myself that I would thank them. One day, when I’d learnt their strange language, when I’d known of their customs, I would say something I should’ve said a long time ago.
Not for me. Not for them. But for all my sisters that had not been granted the privilege to be here on this day.
I’d forgotten far too many things.

I would not forget this.

_ _ _

As if awoken from a deep slumber, Mia stirred slightly, clasping her hands together and slightly adjusting herself. A murmur, stutter or cough wouldn’t have been far off, if she was human.

Something had changed. Before, she’d certainly seemed authentic and well meaning.

It was as if a flip had been switched.
Before Tobias would’ve argued that the insectoid had been reserved in a veil of politeness, that she'd purposefully been holding back so as to not freighten him. But that was now gone.
Mia was practically radiating authenticity as she leaned in. It felt to him like, for the first time since he'd seen her, he was now really seeing her.

The real her.

The insectoid’s voice dropped to a whisper: “I promised that I would thank those that freed us that day. Each and every single one I can find. Because you fought for us. You liberated us. You freed us from that nightmare. And you invited us into your home.”

Was it fair to be spoken of as a hero? Perhaps the term liberator was enough?
The annoying truth was that Tobias would only find out with time.

“I can only imagine what you must go through Mr. Remaut but… but I want you to know that you have done something good! That you’ve made a difference! You saved my life! If not for me, then please accept the gratitude of those that could never express it.”

Perhaps for those that had been forgotten?

Mrs. Ojha quietly chimed in: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire…”

And lastly, Mia extended her hand towards Tobias one last time. Her left hand. She was beckoning to meet him chitin to skin. Not to shake the prostethic that marked him as a victim, but instead the real flesh-and-blood hand that marked him as... him.

As Tobias reciprocated the handshake, feeling his fingers and palm brush up against the skin and plates of this insectoid alien he’d helped save he… he didn’t see a Ycriol before him.
He saw a person.

A sister.

He’d accept it. Not for himself.
But for those that could no longer accept her gratitude.

He would remember.

What follows is a transcript of the interrogation of Legate Gnav Urgela, former Commanding Officer of the Lidis Imperium P.O.W. camp in the northern hemisphere of Tykelion in the system of the same name. The camp mainly housed prisoners from the Federation of Sol and was designated “Camp Tiberius” by Federation Intelligence.

The recording was found by Union Congressional Intelligencers after the liberation of Melva-3. The name of the interrogator has been redacted, only their rank remains.  Translation, transcription, and localization courtesy of Col. Efe Ibeh, Federation Council of Intelligence. 

Provost: You oversaw the camp for how many cycles, Legate?

Legate: I was there since it was constructed.

Provost: How many prisoners were under your watch?

Legate: Roughly twelve thousand when the camp was full.

Provost: But it is no longer full, is it, Legate? How many escaped?

Legate: …My officers tell me the count is close to two hundred and fifty.

Provost: Two…hundred…and…fifty. In one night!

Legate: No, not one night, they had been working away at their plan for many cycles.

Provost: And you were none the wiser, Legate! This happened on your watch, and you did not see, you did not know! It makes one wonder if you have abandoned your oath to The Emperor and allowed it to happen. [Slams on the desk]

Legate: How dare you!? I am a Legate in his Imperial Majesty’s army, and I will not allow such a baseless insult to pass by so unanswered!

Provost: You mean you were a Legate in his Majesty’s Imperial army. You will certainly be losing your command and your rank after this, whether or not you lose your life is up to the throne.

Legate: …What? Without trial? I demand a court martial.

Provost: You are in no place to demand anything, Mister Urgela.

Legate: This is a masquerade of justice.

Provost: Tell us the truth and perhaps his Imperial Majesty will find it in his infinite character to dole out mercy for such a disgrace of an officer.

Legate: [Uninterrupted string of untranslatable curses]

Provost: Speak. What happened?

Legate: [Chair shifts against the floor, sounds of pacing] They tunneled out.

Provost: That is not possible. They had no access to tools for such an endeavour.

Legate: [Remains silent]

Provost: They would have needed tools to dig through the clay and stone, pumps for air as Terrans are so susceptible to poisonous air, and that is not to mention the survey equipment and computers needed to keep a tunnel straight and on target. Are you telling me you provided them with such things? That you were complicit?

Legate: NO!

Provost: Then explain! Did they burrow and dig as though they were giant talpa?!

Legate: I did not provide them with the tools nor the materials, but they made do without.

Provost: “They made do”? That is your explanation. That is your best lie? I thought you smarter than that, Mister Urgela.

Legate: They made the tools themselves.

Provost: How in the minds of the gods did they accomplish that? Did they have a workshop? They had to have had help.

Legate: Not one of my men helped them. You will not drag them into this shameful discourse; you are after me and me alone. Understand!?

Provost: Sit down, or I will be forced to call the guards in.

Legate: [The pacing stops and the chair slides] The Terrans are an industrious bunch. They scavenged metal and other materials from the buildings throughout the camp and manufactured their own tools.

Provost: Surely such a civilization as young as theirs lacks such capabilities and understandings.

Legate: Were my life not on the line I would say that the Terrans may well be the finest tool makers outside of our glorious Imperium.

Provost: But it is, and you are not. [Snaps fingers]

It appears that the exchange preceding the snap was meant to be edited out but it had been reconstructed by some unknown party.

Provost: Even if I did believe that they made the tools themselves and not one guard in the camp noticed, that still leaves the engineering of the tunnel itself. Without navigational data and surveys there is no way they could have managed to dig the tunnel straight and long enough to make the tree line as they did. They had access to such data, and someone in your command gave it to them.

Legate: No, they made do without.

Provost: [dismissive mouth noise]

Legate: I do not know how else to explain it, Provost REDACTED. They did the math the hard way.

Provost: Those prisoners were mere soldiers; they are not educated in such matters. That still does not account for how they made measurements or gathered data.

Legate: They made a measurement device out of homespun rope with pieces of colored cloth tied off at curious intervals. As for the rest, it may have just been educated estimates.

Provost: You mean that a secure prison camp on Imperial land, headed by an Imperial officer was outplayed by simple guesswork!?

Legate: You may not have spent as much time among Terrans as I have, Provost. But they are always looking, always seeing and hearing. I thought it was a quirk of their uncivilized nature but now I see that it is innate to their kind. They observe, they collect, they process, and they plan. Your outrage comes from a place I once stood. I too underestimated them once. Now it seems I shall pay the price for it. I have spoken nothing but the truth, send your men to the camp and see for yourself.

Provost: I am waiting for their report now.

Legate: Then, if you do not mind, I would rather sit in silence with my wounded pride while it is the only part of me that is wounded.

There is some time of silence before the Provost returns.

Provost: I have received the report of my men that were dispatched to your camp. It appears to corroborate everything you have said.

Legate: Just as I knew it would.

Provost: However, it is the official position of his Imperial Majesty that the Federation of Sol are uncivilized barbarian interlopers, and it cannot be known they outplayed the imperium so handily and so simply.

Legate: No…

Provost: [Snaps fingers]

That exchange shows signs of being another restored edit.

Provost: Mister Urgela, you are hereby stripped of your command, your rank, and sentenced to death by firing squad. You will be labeled a traitor, and your family name will carry that shame as long as your line lasts.

Legate: My men, my family, they will not be satisfied with your fabrication, they will want answers, they will want the truth.

Provost: They will make do without.

[The Legate shouts unintelligibly as he is dragged from the room]

END TRANSCRIPTION

Of the 250 Federation escapees from Camp Tiberius, only 4 are accounted for and known to be alive. This transcript was turned over to the Federation Council of Intelligence after Union Congressional authentication and in honor of the Nifflon V Agreement.

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He cleared his mind of the carnage, concentrating instead on finding his squad. Fortunately, Orion—whom Giddeon had seen hoisting Eddington onto his back—left a trail of deep footprints in the sand. The heavy tracks abruptly veered toward the forest.

“Easy,” Johnny warned. “You’re a glass bottle waiting to shatter at this velocity. If you trip, you aren’t falling—you’re crushing your skull into the earth. You’ll break every bone in your body before your brain registers the impact. Speed doesn’t make you invulnerable; it just makes your mess-ups bloodier.”

“Point taken,” Giddeon muttered, forcing his pounding legs to decelerate. His ankle nearly collapsed as his heel dug deeper into the shifting sand harder than his muscles were accustomed to. Wobbling, his inertia nearly hurled him face-first onto the beach. The terrifying momentum hammered Johnny’s warning home; super speed had a physics to it that he was entirely unprepared for. “I’ll be careful.”

Pushing tall ferns aside, he penetrated the tree line, navigating the uneven forest floor at a cautious pace. Searching the shadowed canopy, he spotted three ancient pines towering above the other timber that marked section R—Team Panda’s emergency rendezvous point. Heading toward the landmarks, he eventually broke through the thick underbrush and stumbled into a quiet glade.

Hinelin whipped around, his rifle leveled dead at Giddeon’s chest. Letting out a ragged sigh of relief, the team leader immediately lowered his weapon.

“Gid!” Uzari threw herself on him, her arms locking around his sides in a crushing embrace.

“Ouch!” Giddeon sucked a sharp breath through his teeth, his fingers instinctively easing her forearm away from his right-side ribs. He’d been forced to drop his high Endurance during the fight, leaving his body a patchwork of half-knitted bone and deep bruises.

Uzari instantly pulled away, her eyes wide and frantic as she looked him over. “Are you hurt? Where? What’s wrong?”

“I’m okay.” Giddeon forced a faint, reassuring smile, reaching out to steady her trembling shoulders. “It’s just my ribs. They’re still a little tender.”

“If she only knew you broke five of them,” Johnny snickered.

She doesn’t need to know. Besides, they’re almost healed.

“I thought you were a goner for sure,” Hinelin said, shaking his head in sheer amazement. “Who were those people?”

Giddeon scrutinized his face, looking for an involuntary tic or a flicker of his eyes. He paused a moment before answering, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Hinelin didn’t flinch, meeting Giddeon’s piercing stare head-on. “I know as much as you.” He clutched his chest, coughing hard before spitting a gob of blood onto the grass. “We should keep moving.”

How hurt is he?

“He’s a mess, but you’re a bigger one,” Johnny replied. “Endurance looks to be one of his main attributes. Give him a few days and he’ll be fine.”

We might not have minutes, let alone days. They might be hunting us down right now.

“What about…what about Redler?” Oomah asked, her eyes darting northwest, towards camp. “Shouldn’t someone go back for her?”

A heavy silence fell over the glade. Uzari and Vessa looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

“Redler’s dead, Oomah.” Giddeon’s voice was flat, cutting through her delirium like a thrice-sharpened blade. “We saw it happen. We don’t have the luxury of coddling each other right now.” His fierce gaze locked onto each crew member in turn, pinning them in place. “Hinelin’s right—we need to move. Now.”

Vessa scanned their battered faces, her voice barely a whisper. “Is this…is this everyone?”

“Graks bolted the second that madman showed up,” Hinelin spat, his face twisting in disgust. “Worthless coward. Aside from that waste of skin, everyone else is accounted for.”

“We’re better off without him,” Giddeon said bluntly. “He was an Asp.”

Hinelin nodded grimly. “I saw the tattoo.”

“We all know he was a jerk,” Orion spoke up, his voice strained under Eddington’s weight. “But I don’t think that’s reason enough to up and abandon someone.”

Giddeon snorted, his gaze briefly dropping to his shredded, blood-caked knuckles.

“Not an as—” Hinelin began, then shook his head. “An Asp,” he emphasized the ‘P’.

A what?” Vessa asked. She adjusted her hand to steady the limp Eddington riding on Orion’s back, blinking away blood as it trickled into her eye from a gash in her scalp.

“A syndicate that deals in blood, slaves, and drugs—in that order,” Giddeon replied. His focus shifted to Eddington, and he stepped up close to the limp man, peeling back one of his eyelids. “What’s wrong with him? Why are his pupils blown?”

“Paralysis,” Vessa replied. “He’s recovering, slowly. Likely a neurotoxin.”

“Move,” Hinelin ordered, then began walking. “We can all talk when it’s safe.”

The next thirty minutes turned into a haze of hacking through ferns and dodging low-hanging vines as Hinelin beelined southeast, the opposite direction of Base Camp Six. No one spoke; only their heavy breathing countered the nerve-wracking sounds of the teeming forest, proof that they were still alive.

At a ridge where the trees thinned, Hinelin abruptly stopped, turning around.

“Most of the sectors we explored were north, not south,” he slowly explained as he rummaged in his ammo pouch, the metallic clink of brass shells echoing sharply against the forest’s hum. “We’re at the edge of any territory our hunters cleared out, meaning everything beyond here is unknown, even to our AIGES. We need to decide where to go.”

The team collapsed, finding rock outcroppings or fallen logs to rest their weary frames. Vessa and Orion eased Eddington down onto a tree stump. He was recovering—albeit extremely slowly—and was finally able to sit up straight without help. His face, however, remained pale, and his body occasionally quivered.

“What are our options?” Oomah’s voice was thin and brittle. She pointed back the way they’d come, her face scrunching into a mask of grief. “Everyone’s gone!” she choked out, hugging herself tight until her knuckles shook. “We can’t go back, and we’ve no clue what’s out here! Probably more of those hell cats,” she whispered, eyes wide with rising panic. “Waiting for us to tire.”

Orion placed his hand gently on his sister’s shoulder. “Calm down, Oom.” His eyes turned to the others. “Can we contact Vibane? Get some kind of backup down here?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Hinelin replied.

Kilner stepped up into the team leader’s personal space, staring him straight in the eyes. “Now’s not the time to be cryptic!” he growled. “We’ve not been told how Vibane plans to return us to the ship, but you seem to know. Care to explain?”

“He’s right,” Oomah’s voice rose to a frantic pitch, her fingers yanking at tangled strands of her hair. “We’re all going to die if we stay here. We need to get back. Tell us how to get back!”

“Come on, Hinelin.” Orion joined the fray as the team leader remained silent. “Don’t just stand there playing dumb—spit it out!”

The air grew suffocating with their demands, yet Hinelin remained a statue, his eyes glued to the gloom of the forest while their collective anger boiled over.

“He doesn’t know,” Giddeon’s voice cut through the shouting. Wiping his blood-crusted knuckles on his shirt, he gave a sharp nod toward Vessa. “She knows, though.”

Vessa went rigid, the color draining from her face as every eye suddenly pivoted to her. She took a half-step back, her face contorted with confusion as she shook her head.

“How does she know?” Kilner’s eyes narrowed to slits, his gaze darting between them. “And how do you know she knows?”

“Because I’m a hacker,” Giddeon said bluntly, holding nothing back. “I breached Vibane a long time ago. It’s how I got on this mission. Earth One residents weren’t allowed to apply—at least not this time.”

Orion let out a sharp, jagged laugh. “So, you’re just a criminal. Perfect! We have a guy with all tens for stats who’s also a thief. I guess you did have a skill after all—a completely useless one on a planet with no tech."

“Shut it,” Kilner snapped. “Cowards don’t get to speak.”

Orion’s face burned. He took three quick strides toward the skinny man before Oomah threw herself in his path, hands pressed against his chest. Kilner didn’t even blink; his eyes locked on Giddeon.

“You’re a hacker, then? That doesn’t explain what you said about Vessa.”

“And I’m curious what you meant by ‘this time’?” Hinelin spoke up, his eyes intent on Giddeon.

Giddeon purposefully ignored the question, his posture remaining calm as he answered, “When I breached Vibane’s mainframe to forge my ticket, I found someone else had already hacked in ahead of me. They approved an application.” He locked eyes with Hinelin. “If we get off this rock, tell your handlers they missed the hidden backup protocols that logged their entire footprints in the system.”

A hard tension gripped the clearing as the crew’s focus abruptly pivoted back to the team leader.

“Why would Hinelin need his application approved?” Vessa asked.

“The military doesn’t like Vibane keeping secrets,” Giddeon replied flatly. “I traced the source back to a Triumvirate command post on Earth Two. They left a digital trail. Again—very sloppy.”

Orion shoved past his sister, boxing Hinelin in on one side with Kilner on the other. “Is it true?” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous.

Hinelin didn’t flinch. He met Orion’s heat with a cold, unblinking stare that said absolutely nothing.

“This doesn’t prove a thing,” Vessa said, her voice a dead calm. Giddeon’s eyes, however, caught her trembling fingers right before she pressed them hard against her leg. “Mr. Seres has already admitted he’s a thief. He could be manufacturing all of this.”

“To what end?” Uzari cut in, crossing her arms. “What does he have to gain from lying? Make it make sense.”

“I have no clue what hidden agendas people have on this mission,” Vessa replied, stilling her hands as her gaze drifted back to Giddeon.

Uzari smiled, her eyes flashing dangerously. “Including yours?”

Vessa tilted her head, one hand on her hip. Her finger began tapping an insistent, slow beat against her side. “What are you insinuating?” She was smiling, but her tone was biting enough to draw blood.

“Just wondering why you’re the first to call someone else a liar, considering you were just accused of doing the same.” Uzari’s smile remained a cold, static line. “What’s with the tone, Vessa? We’re all friends here, right?”

“He’s got no gaming experience,” Giddeon cut in as the women’s eyes bore death into one another. “Vibane wanted gamers—people who understood the basis behind the AIGES system. The Triumvirate hacks didn’t even bother spoofing his gaming history; the amateurs simply green-lit the file. It was a rushed job.”

Kilner looked confused, his hand unconsciously touching the Veridian axe tucked through his belt loop. “I thought the Triumvirate was partnered with Vibane.”

Giddeon shook his head. “Ereos lied. We’re officially not even here. In fact, not all of us are. Over thirty Aiges participants went missing after the enhancement surgery. Most of them were older.”

“What are you saying?” Oomah asked, her voice cracking.

“Probably dead,” Orion answered. “They said implantation was a hundred percent success rate. Probably lied about that too.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Kilner shouted, pacing in a frantic circle as he shook his head. “This is an unsanctioned mission? Meaning we have no rescue team coming? Is there even a way back up to the ship?”

“Ask her.” Giddeon’s stare bore into Vessa.

Vessa’s eyes widened, the perfect picture of wounded innocence. “I’m just as perplexed as everyone else,” she said smoothly. “What are you talking about?”

“I have to say, her acting is top-notch,” Johnny chimed in. “A solid nine out of ten. What was that old show where they gave out orbs—no, globes? Golden ones. I want to give her one right now!”

Orion turned his glare onto Giddeon, his jaw tightening into a hard, rigid line. “Stop with the word games. Explain it yourself.”

Giddeon shrugged. “My intellect’s only ten, so if you can’t keep up with what I’m saying…”

Orion spat a curse, stepping aggressively into Giddeon’s space until they were nearly chest-to-chest. “I don’t give a damn about your stats. Start talking before I decide to beat that last brain cell in your head to a pulp.”

Uzari caught Giddeon’s eyes. “Gid,” she said softly, shaking her head.

Her words melted his natural inclination to ridicule the man, and he let out a sharp, jagged breath. “Fine. You want the simple version? During our briefings, Ereos had to check his holo screen before addressing us. But with Hinelin and Vessa? He never looked once. He didn’t need to—he already knew who they were.”

Giddeon’s gaze shifted onto Vessa. “I know why he was briefed on Hinelin. But you’re not military. You’re something else.”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vessa’s voice faltered, a slight stutter forming a hairline crack in her facade of ignorance. “I was hired for my expertise. I’ve always wanted to see Enivia, just like the rest of you.” She looked at Kilner, then Oomah, her eyes wide and pleading.

“Perhaps Mr. Vibane met Vessa before the briefing,” Oomah suggested.

Giddeon snickered. “Did you find the water fountain to your liking, Vessa?”

Vessa’s eyebrows furrowed. “Water fountain?”

“In Ereos’s personal quarters. Surely, you couldn’t have missed it.” Giddeon smirked purposefully, trying to draw her lies out.

“How do you know she visited his quarters?” Johnny asked.

I don’t. It’s an assumption, so if she lies now and I actually have evidence about it, her bluff will crumble.

Vessa turned to the rest of the crew. “If you must know, I ran into Ereos at an aerospace conference last year,” she admitted, her tone shifting to defensive pride. “He didn’t need a holo to know me—I’ve been featured in enough scientific journals to be known in certain circles. He was highly interested in my knowledge of atmospheric anomalies. My thesis on Enivia has been the industry standard for over a decade, which is why he hired me specifically. Because he wanted the best.”

“I’ve seen her before,” Kilner admitted, backing up her claim. “On the news.”

Oomah snapped her fingers, a look of realization dawning. “Timeless Magazine. The feature piece on atmospheric weather patterns over Enivia. That was you.”

Vessa nodded. “My research has been highlighted in several publications.”

Orion’s gaze shifted off Vessa, back to Giddeon. “She sounds legit to me…but you sure as hell don’t.”

“Question one,” Giddeon replied, his eyes steady on Vessa. The clearing went still.

“What are you talking about?” Vessa finally asked. She shook her head, glancing at the others for support.

“On your application for Vibane. What was question one?”

“I can’t remember every single query on a corporate application.” Vessa chuckled, making the idea sound outrageous. “It would be absurd if I did.”

“Wait,” Eddington croaked from his seat on the stump. His voice sounded like grinding stones, raw and unused to the effort. “You r-really don’t know…question one?”

“Question one is—” Oomah began.

“Quiet!” Orion’s hand shot out, palm flat toward his sister. He didn’t look at her; his eyes were pinned to Hinelin and Vessa. “Question one,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a dangerous chill. “Can either of you tell us what it was?”

Hinelin remained an unmoving wall of steel, but Vessa’s eyes darted frantically toward the dark forest, dodging the group’s collective gaze.

“Again,” Vessa began, though the chuckle had vanished from her voice, replaced by a razor-thin edge. “It was a lengthy document. I don’t see why—”

“Save it!” Kilner snapped. “No one would forget that question, Vessa. Clearly, you never even saw the page.”

“My name? My Citizen Code? My thesis title?” She threw her hands up, her voice rising to a frantic pitch as she took a step backward. “I witnessed our teammate getting ripped apart! We’re being hunted by monsters, and you’re interrogating me over paperwork?”

“What is your favorite game?” Uzari said softly. “That was it. The very first line. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on a government form—the kind of detail you remember because it made absolutely no sense…until now.”

Vessa opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Nothing came out. Her defense had completely crumbled.

Uzari strode forward. The snick of her Vibane axe unfolding sent a jolting roar through the silent clearing. She didn’t stop until the blade’s cold edge was tucked under Vessa’s chin. “You’re going to tell us the truth, or we’re done with you. Capisce?”

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Thunderbolts should rain upon fatidic showdowns. Skies should split apart. Rivals ought to have their final bout amidst fire and flood, exchanging fierce moves that outdo each other until one barely prevails.

Every inch of Adam's artistic integrity told him all of that and more...but his pragmatism editorialized the desire right out of his heart. Many millions of lives depended on him doing this right. He wouldn't relinquish his high ground just for the sake of theatrics.

Aboard the ship, his arm draped across the railing, the Painter stood nearly uninjured. He gazed down at the fallen Hangman, who crawled in a puddle of his own blood.

It all comes down to this, huh? Adam wondered. Never thought it would be so...

Easy.

Ultimate evils ought to be nightmarish creatures that your subconscious couldn't even grasp, damnit.

Adam always thought of 'evil' that way, even long before he came to the Painted World and discovered the horrifying marvel known as magic. Moving across dimensions only made that belief stronger. When he took responsibility as the Lord of Penumbria, a small part of him had always assumed that saving all these people would mean having to slay a dragon, or god, or dragon god of some sort.

Just as well that things turned out this way. I'm more of a fan of actually getting things done than winning some dramatic one-on-one duel.

His battle against Eric, he reminded himself, was his sole exception. That was the one time where doing it himself was half of the point of the whole ordeal. Otherwise, Adam had always been more concerned with results over glory. It was precisely why he ensured Ferrero was the one to take care of Ciro rather than go himself.

A good King was one who made use of capable subjects to achieve victory for his country – not an attention-seeker obsessed with writing his name in the history books.

And yet, now that the only person left threatening the world was Valente, Adam couldn't help but feel like this was wrong somehow. Like he should be slaying some unknowable eldritch horror rather than an unstable nuke in the form of a person.

Valente was the Strongest Man in the Painted World, there was no doubt about that. Someone who should have fit the image in his head of an unstoppable monstrosity. His erasure of an entire city before Adam's own eyes was definitely proof enough of that. Even before inheriting Ciro's Talent, Adam didn't think anyone could have defeated him in a fair fight...

Though a conversation with Ferrero had changed his mind about that.

'See, non-duelists often talk of this mythical concept of a fair fight,' Ferrero had told him, the night before he crossed blades with Ciro. 'But those simply don't exist. You can't make them happen – at least not how you imagine them.'

'I get the feeling that your concept of fairness is different from mine,' Adam said, barely containing a smile. 'Go on then. What do you mean they don't exist?

'When most people say a fair fight, they imagine a scenario where both duelists enter the arena perfectly equal. Well-rested, not distracted by any particular worries, not having practiced more often than their opponent lately, and capable of making full use of their abilities.'

'Yeah. That does sound fair to me.'

'It does. It also sounds...how should I put this? Downright impossible?'

Ferrero's question didn't sound like one. 'I might be great at all sorts of parries, but I also might be showing preference toward a specific kind because it worked better in my last practice. My opponent might be stronger, but they also might underestimate me long enough to receive a fatal strike before they ever have the opportunity to display their skills. You get the idea, yes?'

Adam crossed his arms and frowned. 'Well, if they underestimate you, isn't that their own fault?'

'Of course.' Ferrero nodded vigorously, then brought a fingertip to his lips in a gesture Adam knew to be more performative than truly indicative of deep thought. 'But consider this: what if my theoretical opponent, rather than let themselves be ruled by arrogance, did the opposite? What if they were careful of me, approached me cautiously...but that very approach allowed me an all-or-nothing gamble which just so happened to take their life? Would I be an underhanded trickster then? A cheater?'

'No, but I don't think you expected me to answer differently. Is your point that fairness doesn't exist in duels?'

'Oh no,' said the Puppet. 'It absolutely does. Just not how most people picture it. In that scenario, I'd have won fairly, but my opponent wouldn't have been able to demonstrate his skills. Some would have cried luck, mayhaps accused me of a dishonest win, when in truth...it would just so happen that I won against someone better than me.'

Adam stayed in thoughtful silence for a time before responding. 'And what if you had been the one to lose by happenstance to someone weaker than you? Would you still call it a fair duel?'

Ferrero suddenly turned more serious than Adam recalled having ever seen him. 'I would hope so. Luck and circumstance may sometimes work against you, certainly. But even during those trying times – especially then – one needs to take responsibility for their own shortcomings. It does you no good to speak of a nonexistent world where everything would be perfect, if only life were devoid of outside influences.'

Looking down at the sight of Valente's maimed body, Adam couldn't help but think that Ferrero had been right in more ways than one.

Here lay a man who rightfully claimed the title of Strongest. A man who did not delight in the suffering of the innocent. A man who just wanted to be a hero.

Yet his definition of hero had been misguided from the beginning.

Part of me thinks he doesn't deserve to die, Adam thought. The other part thinks death is too good for him.

He leaned over the railing and squinted his eyes to take note of the extent of Valente's injuries. Poor bastard's lungs would collapse any minute now. Tenver had pierced his limbs with surgical precision, aiming to maximize pain without outright killing him. It wasn't something he'd done out of cruelty.

Not only out of cruelty, anyhow. The Talent of Hanging would've let Valente endure just about any punishment, and he was also the type of troublesome guy who would conjure some eleventh hour rally the moment before he was about to die. Best to cut him off from the chance to engage in dramatics.

Tenver took that quite literally, the Painter thought. Enough giantslaying arrows and monstrous crossbow bolts had gone through Valente's arms that even if his Canvas miraculously recovered somehow, he would still never hold a weapon again. His legs had scarcely fared any better – more arrows had pushed the Hangman's fragmented bones out of his thigh, with his kneecap in particular having been torn off like a scraped piece of armor.

Perhaps the Lord Talent could heal him in the future, but Adam had no intention of allowing him to have one.

He still almost hesitated. Instinctively, the sight of Valente's visible agony gave Adam an urge to excuse the Hangman's mistakes, to think of how he was a victim of Ciro's empty promises...only for that conversation with Ferrero to come rushing back, parrying the emotion with a flourish.

"You lost to us." Using his Realm, Adam projected his voice loud enough so that not a single word would be lost on the man. "Despite coming in with three Talents of the highest possible Rank. Doesn't that just piss you off?"

Valente tried to speak, but his body wouldn't cooperate. He'd nearly given up on the task when Adam raised his hand and muttered an Order to allow him to talk, if only for now. It's not exactly healing, but it should relieve him of his pain a bit...

And make his next decision come from the heart.

"Of course it does," Valente barked out. "I am one chosen by the heavens, by – by Ciro! None of you could best me in a fair match, and yet your trickery–"

Adam sighed. He wanted to get mad at him, the way one gets mad at a friend who had long since lost their way...yet even that was beyond him. Anger could've at least told him that he still held Valente in high enough regard to be disappointed, but he didn't feel much of anything, really.

Not even a sense of loss.

Is this what happens when someone disappoints you too much, and too often? Do you just get...ambivalent about them? He honestly didn't care enough to wish that Valente would change.

Which, oddly, didn't change how he felt Valente should have the chance to change. I guess that's more for my benefit than his.

"I think everyone has the right to try again if...nah." Adam shook his head. "Not true. Even if you admitted to all your mistakes, it wouldn't do anything for the countless people you've slaughtered. It wouldn't grant you the right to live. But...it would mean that I'd remember you differently."

He laughed bitterly. "Can't you at least give me something to work with here? Tell me that Ciro tricked you, and you regret everything you've done?"

Valente hadn't been expecting that. Adam didn't need Divine Knowledge to know as much when the man's anger faded to a blank, open-mouthed stare. One heartbeat passed, then another. An unsure sound came out of the man's throat–

Then ceased. Had it not been for his Realm, Adam would have thought the man's pain to have stopped him.

Unfortunately, he knew better.

"Regret? I...you want me to regret what I've done?"

Although Valente couldn't see him from so far down, Adam nodded nonetheless. "I do. If you had regretted things earlier, like when Aspreay fought you for the first time, maybe you could've still done some good. Fought against Ciro. Protected the Puppets. Something. Instead, you ignored what was right in front of you and–"

"If I regretted all of that..."

Valente's eyes fell to the ground. "If I were to disavow everything I've fought and killed for...then wouldn't that make all of their sacrifices meaningless? The Mountain Puppets, the innocents in the Capital, the City of Almarades, Gaspar, they – they all died in the name of the greater good. We needed to save the Empire, the world from those monsters. Do you want me to say that they died for nothing? That I killed them for nothing?"

"Yes." Adam's answer came steady and immediately. "You did."

Valente laughed weakly. "So harsh."

"Call it tough love." Adam closed his eyes and hardened his resolve. He couldn't forgive Valente, but he wasn't looking forward to this next part. "If you can acknowledge that you've done wrong, then I will give you a clean death. Maybe a shot at another life, after you die. If not–"

A geyser of blood cut him short.

Valente's Canvas stained itself again and again, becoming a shade of black so dark as to reject the very concept of color.

The Painted World had rules? So what? Heroes didn't follow rules. Fate was their law, and willpower their tool.

Of course. Of COURSE! Valente let out a small, disbelieving laughter at himself. Had he actually been concerned? Had he truly been afraid that he would fall here? That he couldn't fulfill Ciro's last wish? That he would lose to Adam?

Why did I ever think of that being a possibility?

His soul didn't need any rhyme or reason to succeed. That was all it took for his Canvas to heed to his command, for his battered leg to stand even on missing muscles and bones, and for his complete and utter confidence in his victory to return.

"I WILL ALWAYS OVERCOME ANY CHALLENGE THAT COMES MY WAY!"

Adam didn't doubt that. I kind of understand Aspreay a little better now. Playing the mocking villain against the ignorant fool...doesn't feel half-bad.

Valente's guttural scream felt less like a promise and more like a prophecy. Though he should have been nearing death, having his back to the wall had only triggered a last-second evolution – as if the world itself didn't want him to lose.

"I won't die from just this much," Valente threatened. "I'll survive anything you throw at me. Even tossing me out of this castle into the ground wouldn't be enough to kill me!"

Adam nodded. "That's true."

"Do you think you have the power to judge me?" Valente kept rambling like Adam hadn't spoken. "That you can lecture me about my wrongs, pass down a sentence upon your betters? WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!"

Broken stone floated around the Hangman, crackled like bolts of lightning, then crumbled to dust. The palace itself quaked at his display of power, thousands of priceless artifacts sent crashing down. Just outside the castle, the airship suffered as well; far from the man as it was, it still trembled mid-air as it struggled to stay in place.

Throughout all the chaos, Adam didn't budge. He maintained one hand on the railing, unperturbed. Only his hair fluttering against the wind assured the Hangman that the Painter really was standing there...

Staring at him with eyes that were sad, yet unwavering.

"Who do I think you are?" Adam reached inside his coat pocket and searched mindlessly, as if he didn't already know where he'd put the damned thing.

Am I just delaying on purpose? Guess I am. Part of me isn't heartless enough to do this right away. Or maybe not strong enough is a better description.

Ferrero's advice flared up again, prompting a smile on Adam's face. In the end, if I win, I win. The final result is what matters.

"I'll tell you."

Adam looked at Valente in earnest. Really looked at him. Without mockery or hatred, if only for the moment.

"I think you're just an insecure kid from Blacksmith's Falls. You felt weak and unimportant because you hadn't awakened to your Talent yet. You thought that no one cared about or respected you, even though some of them probably did. Despite how Stella considered you a friend, you wanted her admiration, and sought for a way to attain it.

"That was a hard dream to achieve. It may have been impossible, but you wouldn't know, since you never really tried.

"Instead, rather than searching for a way to improve your life, rather than accept that maybe no one disliked you as much as you disliked yourself, rather than face reality...you searched for a more palatable answer.

"And there came Ciro.

"Ciro said you had no one to blame for your shortcomings. The damned elves, those abominable Puppets, oh, they were the reason the world was going to hell! And you know what? You were special for being among the wise few who saw them as the devils they were. You had the gift of a cleverness that those fools who everyone else admired didn't.

"It made you feel important. Like the underdog in a tale who needs to overcome the ignorant masses. Suddenly you had a purpose. You had value.

"Most importantly, you had respect for yourself.

"Truth be told, you didn't really care what your purpose was. Ciro could've convinced you of anything by that point. Your loneliness was useful, as was the loneliness of many others, and your beloved Emperor channeled it into hatred and blind obedience. You followed his every order – and in turn, received the praise you so desperately craved.

"Maybe there were times you hesitated. Maybe there were times you stood awake at night, wondering if you were doing the right thing. Times when your joyful mood crashed upon seeing family after family clutching dying infants, their deaths a product of the orders you willingly followed."

Until now Adam, hadn't doubted his reading of the man. Now...now came the part he hoped he was correct about.

"But before long, there was blood in your hands – and you felt like you'd lost the chance to turn back. That those people who once denied you importance would stomp on you rather than welcome you with open arms for acknowledging your mistakes.

"And so you kept on fighting. Even though you long grew to regret everything you'd done. Even though at this very moment, you wish you could take it all back, fighting only because you don't think anyone would accept you. You run from the weight of your actions, but you do want to face them.

"You just don't know how."

The Hangman responded in the only language he had ever truly grasped – violence. Electric sparks encircled him, producing thousands of purple flashes that combusted around him, like thousands of fireflies racing from birth to death. A raging storm joined the quaking, making the castle interior feel as if a hurricane was raging inside.

And the eye of that hurricane was Valente. The deathly change in air pressure came from him, from his will. Even Adam's airship, an Imperial prototype he'd stolen during the incident with the Ghost of Waters, wouldn't be able to last long in this. Valente fixed his gaze on his target and—

"I'm no arbiter of morality," Adam said. "I'm a painter. Let's have my art judge you instead."

—Stopped when Adam threw an object at his feet.

It was a canvas. The physical, material kind, with the blank back side facing up, and the painted side on the ground, hidden from view. Adam's Stained Ink had enveloped it, ensuring that it arrived safe and sound.

Valente eyed the back of the painting suspiciously, unwilling to turn it over. Just for a moment, his hesitation lessened the destructive aura surrounding him.

"Whether this works or not..." His fingers trembled slightly. "It depends on if your account of me, your interpretation of me, is correct, yes?"

"Yeah." Adam knew Valente would understand as much, even in this manic state. His Talent of Painting was one that Ciro had made sure all of his Hangmen knew quite well – if only to avoid an outcome where the Kingdom of the Frontier stole even more Talents to distribute among its lords. "If you are the man that I think you are...I'll take your soul."

"And why would I look at this painting at all?" Valente demanded.

Left unsaid was: 'Why didn't you just make me see it?' Adam's response both to the question Valente hadn't asked and the question he had was the same.

"Because I know you're curious if I'm right."

Adam was well-aware that he could force the outcome if need be. He simply didn't believe it would be necessary.

"I'll sweeten the pot," he continued. "I wager a Lord Talent that I'm right."

Greed, surprise, and some other twisted emotion all manifested at once in the Hangman's expression. None were more obvious than the sadistic hope he felt over the prospect of obtaining more undeserved power and avenging his bruised pride. With yet another Talent, he could destroy the airship, kill Adam, kill Aspreay, kill all those who had mocked him.

"THEN I'LL PLAY YOUR GAME!" With a face of manic expectation, Valente turned the painting over to look at it.

Careless, Adam mused.

Valente was only confident because he refused to accept the man he had been – let alone the man he'd become. He felt certain that the painting wasn't even close to describing who he was as a person.

And yet, had the Painter wanted to, it would've been easy to rig this contest. He could have described his impression of Valente incorrectly to bait the man into participating, but made the painting itself accurate. He could have even used the Talent of History to change the painting after-the-fact to guarantee victory.

Adam didn't resort to any of that. He didn't need to.

"I'VE WON!" Valente shouted, a frenzied cackle escaping him. "YOU WERE WRONG!"

A link between Adam, his tablet, the painting, and Valente started to form, that now familiar hazy blue light flowing between them all. It was the unmistakable heralding of his artistic wager of souls. The Talent that had started it all – and the one that would end it all.

Tenver emerged from inside the ship to raise an eyebrow at his King. "Far be it from me to leave a party too early, but the weather for our flight home is looking mighty dire, my dear Adam. May we yet take our leave?"

Adam sighed as he regarded the madman below one last time. "Yeah. I did all I could."

His decision was made – but even so, he hesitated. Adam almost turned back to glance at Valente again when Tenver wrapped a comforting arm around him. Before he could open his mouth to complain, Solara poked out from the door and beckoned them inside.

With both of their help, Adam allowed himself to shut the door behind him, finally ordered the airship to set sail for Penumbria.

For home.

"I'VE WON! I AM THE CHOSEN ONE! I'VE NEVER LOST, AND I NEVER WILL! I–"

Much like Adam, Valente's legs gave up on him. It shouldn't have been a surprise; his body was still a wreck of broken bones and gaping wounds. Nevertheless, he gasped in shock as he crumpled to the floor.

But I was getting stronger! There was no pain! This doesn't make—

Valente felt too ill to complete the thought. Every ounce of pain returned with the flaming vengeance of the worst of hangovers. His intestines rebelled as well, and when he threw up, he felt some of the stomach leave through not only his mouth, but also a gap in his throat he hadn't even noticed.

Am I...dying? He hoped he was. His convulsing body twitched and turned, the only sort of movement he still seemed able to perform. But he wouldn't die so easily, regardless of how much he wished. The Talent of Hanging would keep him alive for a while longer.

His short-lived euphoria was gone. All the sparks of purple vengeance had disappeared. The storm, the quaking that his presence had summoned – they too vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a collapsing castle and the man who'd once been heralded as the Dark Captain of the Hangmen.

"Wha...what happened?" Valente asked. "Adam...?"

No answer came. The airship had flown away. He was alone in the ruins of an empty palace.

So, so alone.

Even Stella wasn't with him anymore.

"Adam?" Valente called out in a weak voice. "Adam, please...please come back."

Silence ruled over the imperial palace, caring little for his pleas.

"Please...."

Still nothing.

"I have your Talent!" Valente cried out. "That's right, I – I won your Lord Talent in our bet! Don't you want it back?! If you leave, you won't–"

"Two things wrong with that, actually," said a familiar voice. "First, he'll get it back once you die. Which is fortunate, as I really don't want to be with you forever."

Had Valente been able to move, he would have recoiled away. As it was, even in his fugue of astonishment, all he could do was gawk at the newcomer.

Atop a pile of rubble sat a familiar figure – a dashing young rogue. The man regarded him with one leg crossed over another, an impish grin, and a thoughtful rubbing of his chin, as if contemplating the next swindle he should pull over at the local tavern.

In spite of Valente's best efforts, Divine Knowledge hadn't erased the man's name from his mind. His tongue still struggled to get the word out. "G—G—G—"

"You could be trying to say either 'ghost' or 'Gaspar.'" The Fallen Lord of Asteria, Gaspar das Cinzas, shrugged. "Should try being more confident. Either of those guesses would've been correct."

Horror surpassed pain, urging Valente to roll back to increase the distance between the two of them. He felt his broken ribs stabbing at his lungs, and did not care. He had to get away from this, this thing at all costs.

"Easy there. You're not healed. Adam just made you believe you were earlier – he wanted to ensure that you weren't making a decision based on desperation. Made you think that you had one of those heroic willpower bullshit moments. Y'know, to see that if given the chance to regret things, you'd at least feel bad over some of the shit you did. Like killing me."

Gaspar eyed him with a mischievous smile, as if Valente had only played a prank on him. "But naaaaaaaaaah. Turns out that no matter what, you're still a little shit. Kinda depressing. Adam was honestly hoping you would prove him wrong."

I didn't surpass my limits just now? Did I just overuse what was left of my Canvas while I thought fate itself was healing my body? Did Adam bait me into – no! That's not what happened!

"But...he was wrong. I got his Lord Talent." Valente frowned. "Why did he give me his Lord Talent?"

"It wasn't his Talent." Gaspar's ghost clapped his hands excitedly, stood up from the rubble, then pointed at himself with both thumbs. "Remember who had the rare gift of a mobile Realm? The one that Adam inherited?"

"This..." Valente studied his hands uneasily. "This is your Lord Talent? Not Adam's?"

"Sure is! See, that's the second thing you got wrong. Was trying to get to this before, but you kept screaming like you saw a ghost or something, so, you know."

"What difference does it make if it's your Talent or his? What good does that do him?"

Gaspar smirked. "Well...one thing Adam wasn't lying about is that you're super hard to kill. You weren't wrong that even dropping you from this high up still wouldn't do the trick. The Talent of Hanging really is just keeping you...hanging on."

He arched an eyebrow. "And if you hang on for long enough, who knows? This time Adam was fucking with you, but with enough time, your ridiculous set of powers probably would give you the opportunity to recover your wounds."

"He couldn't kill me?" Valente asked weakly. His features turned into a hesitant grin. "Despite all his grandstanding, he didn't have a way to kill me?"

"Indeed, indeed! Oh my man, you're so strong and so great!" Gaspar clapped so enthusiastically that Valente nearly missed the irony in his voice. "Not a single thing in the world can kill you...which is why he's not using anything from the world."

Valente felt what was left of his stomach sink. "What do you mean?"

"Adan issued an order to my Realm before transferring it to you. Can you guess what it was?"

Valente's eyes crept slowly, ever so slowly, towards the missing walls where the airship had been. Though it was difficult to make things out from where he stood, with enough time he was certain of what he was seeing. There was the moving world outside of them, and...clouds.

Clouds beneath them.

"Adam told the Realm to – to keep flying."

"Yup. My mobile Realm, if you remember, because I'm simply that guy. Just unprecedented skill really. You won't ever be outside my Realm's boundaries, even if it keeps moving."

Gaspar bowed to a nonexistent audience. "And even though you have access to my Realm, Adam already confirmed that you can't issue any orders with your Canvas in that state. So you'll keep flying."

"Until?"

Gaspar's laugh was a dark one. Gradually, with purpose, he raised his arm to point at the sun burning bright in the sky.

A colder chill than his own dying body raced through the Hangman.

"You'd normally die much sooner than that, but the Realm Walls should give you a semblance of an...atmosphere, or whatever Adam said, once we're in outer space. Assuming this world has an outer space, Adam isn't sure about that. But he knows we have a sun, so – you'll burn up there."

I can't possibly heal from that. No one could. Valente thought the matter over in silence. Can't heal, can't escape, can't fight. I won't have a chance to...do anything.

Already, the blue of the sky seemed muted, its color rapidly fading. Soon there would be nothing left but the cavernous black of the void, an infinite darkness broken up by tiny pinpricks of lights.

I...guess I lost, huh?

Valente was oddly surprised at how little he wanted to deny the thought. Suddenly he felt tired, more tired than he thought a person could feel. He closed his eyes and didn't open them for a long, long while.

It could have been hours. It could have been days. At times he thought his Canvas was healing, but whatever strength returned to him was immediately used up by his – by Gaspar's Realm to reinforce its Walls.

If only I could turn it off. Or do anything to stop it. But Valente's own actions had ensured he couldn't. Even if his Canvas recovered enough, his unrelenting assaults on his own mind with Divine Knowledge had left his understanding of Realms too fractured to be of any use.

Not that it was likely to recover anyway. His last-second overuse of whatever was left in his soul after Adam's trick had ruined him. It would take an incredibly long time for the Hangman to ever recover.

And time...time wasn't something he had much of anymore.

All he could do was flicker in and out of consciousness, kept alive only by the Talent he wished to have awoken as a kid.

I'm hungry. But no matter how many times he awoke, he wouldn't have any food to eat.

I'm thirsty. But no matter how many times he awoke, he wouldn't have any water to drink.

I'm...lonely...

But no matter how many times he awoke, he wouldn't have anyone there who cared.

Except perhaps for Gaspar – if you could interpret unreadable smirks as caring. Time passed, the castle traversed the void, and Gaspar was still sitting atop that same pile of rubble, wearing that same roguish grin.

"Hang in there," the ghost told him. "We must be almost there. Even my Realm is struggling to give you enough air to breathe now."

"Hey...tell me one thing..." Valente muttered. His voice was so quiet he wasn't sure that he'd spoken aloud at all. He also wasn't sure whether he would have needed to. "Are you really Gaspar's ghost? Or are you an illusion?"

Gaspar regarded him with a nostalgic look for a long moment. He turned to look at the hole in the wall, staring at what lay outside.

His mouth split into a bittersweet smile. "Who knows? The Lord Talent is passed down through the soul. Maybe there's a bit of me in the one you inherited, just like there's a bit of all my predecessors. Or maybe Adam created an illusion of me to make sure you suffered in your last moments. Does it really matter?"

"I...suppose not."

A long silence fell again. Valente's mind sank into a haze. He dreamed of past times, better times, worse times. He imagined futures that would never be, playing out scenes of him and Stella and Adam and Gaspar all laughing together over some shared joke. If he wished hard enough, maybe he could make it real.

The feverish daze haunting him broke suddenly when something near daybreak came through the broken wall of the palace.

Valente felt the cracks in the Walls of Gaspar's Realm even before he could feel the results of their shattering. Any moment now. His cold sweat was immediately replaced by a burning sensation that grew hotter by the second, a heat so absolute it felt closer to being consumed than being burned.

"Gaspar...if it means anything, I really am sorry."

"I believe you," Gaspar told him. "I believe you're sorry for yourself, at least."

And so the Strongest Man in the Painted World, along with what remained of the imperial castle, collapsed into the sun and became ashes.

Then nothing.

--

Thanks for reading!

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Arc IV - Whalers

Chapter 35 - Salt

10 months and 35 days since the summoning

The pirates did not bow, but stopped to gawk at the procession.

One of the bare-chested pirates standing by a building snorted. "Look, they dragged themselves here again."

The second one next to him, holding a half-empty bottle, sniffled. "We cleared out this fucking thicket, maybe they'll finally deign to give us some fucking sea work?"

Behind one of the huts, about eight people sat at a small table: two of them pirate men, and six young women in their twenties wearing simple peasant dresses.

"...and I was completely fucking gobsmacked!" exclaimed one pirate with a scar on his forehead and short hair. "Such a wind whipped up in that storm, and the masts were already rotten! And how one of 'em tore off, and how it smacked me right on the noggin!"

One of the women with tangled hair covered her mouth with her palm. "And what happened next?" she asked quietly.

"Next?" He scoffed and clapped the other pirate on the shoulder, who was sipping grog from a wooden goblet. "Brother Liron here helped out, hah! Right?"

Liron set his goblet on the table. "Yeah, you passed out right away from a hit like that, had to drag you where you needed to be. Still don't understand how you even managed to survive that!"

Two of the women whispered briefly about something, giggling.

Another woman, a brunette, leaned closer. "Tell us, please, how did you fight! It is completely unlike anything on land, right?"

The pirate with the scar snorted. "Course it ain't like on land. Once we were sailing off the coast of Faarkia..."

Finally, the group exited the town limits and found themselves on a plain where the jungle used to be. For a large radius around, the land was overgrown with grass, and in many places, piles of dirt from uprooted roots lay scattered. Further away, near the trees, dozens of simple wooden barracks had been built, while the area was swarming with people.

Little children ran around in the shallows, splashing water on themselves. One girl was digging in the sand looking for seashells; next to her, a little boy licked a finger soaked in salt water and grimaced slightly at the taste.

Near the barracks, men were building more of the same, laying the foundations, while women bustled around campfires.

Alan surveyed this entire scene, hands resting on his hips.

'A beauty. Not smooth, but the process is moving.'

Alan folded his hands behind his back. "Quite adequate. By the way, Paranga, where's Sili right now?"

"Huh?" he asked, picking his ear with his pinky.

"Sili, I'm asking, where is she?"

"Oh, Sili? Asleep right now; she was busy all night with some smartass nonsense."

"Could you elaborate?" Kamelia asked.

"How the fuck should I know? Something about the lads who are supposed to recruit peasants in Tontopi."

She scoffed. "Very informative."

Paranga turned to her. "Listen, lady, if you had to uproot trees and bushes out here, I'd like to see how ready you'd be to listen to some high-minded bullshit after that."

Alan raised a hand. "Okay, let it go. Do we know anything about recruiting the peasants yet?"

Paranga shrugged. "No idea yet, no word's come in."

Off to the side, a little boy ran up to a middle-aged woman who was stirring porridge in a cauldron. "Mom! Mom!"

"What is it?" she asked without looking up from the cauldron.

"Why is the water salty here?"

The woman froze for a second. "Uh... Svyatol probably decided to make it so."

"But why?"

She blinked. "Alright, Daut, do not bother me; can you see I am busy?"

The boy puffed out his cheeks but said nothing, turning and running back to the other children by the sea.

Alan remained silent, listening to this conversation.

'Why is the water salty... salty... WELL EXACTLY! How the fuck could I forget about that?! Salt is literally white gold! It's necessary for the body's health, you can salt meat and store it for months, and sell it abroad for astronomical prices!'

He sharply turned to Kamelia and Paranga. "I got it! We're gonna evaporate salt from the seawater!"

Silence.

Paranga blinked. "Uh, actually, that's an idea. We used to do that ourselves sometimes, but we didn't really take it seriously."

Kamelia nodded. "I was thinking about that too, a long time ago, before your summoning, but there was never any time."

"And you don't even have to do anything here, it's an AFK farm!"

Paranga and Kamelia frowned synchronously.

"What?" Paranga asked.

Alan waved a hand toward the sea. "I'm saying it's not a field where you have to plow constantly. Pour the water, evaporate it, collect the salt, and repeat. The settlers can absolutely do that!" He pointed at the barracks.

Kamelia looked at the barracks as well. "And the peasants can receive their fixed share of salt; it is of immense value to them."

Alan clapped his hands. "Exactly so, Kamelia, exactly so." He froze again. "Hold on. There's magic in this world," he said quietly.

Paranga frowned. "Good morning to you. Did the sun bake your brain or something?"

He waved his hand. "That's not what I mean! I mean, since there's magic, we can use people who possess fire magic to evaporate the water faster."

Kamelia straightened up abruptly. "Oh, that is an idea!" She turned to the campfires. "Hey, over there!"

All the women sharply turned around.

One of them narrowed her eyes. "Who is that over there?"

"The Duchess," someone whispered.

Kamelia took a few steps closer. "Summon everyone, to the last person, who wields fire magic! There will be new work for them!"

While she spoke with the peasants, Alan lowered his head, deep in thought.

'Salt mining. We don't have much money as it is, so salt could do really well. But salt is literally life. If I'm going to strengthen our state in the long run, then salt is indispensable. Water-salt balance, without salt a person suffers from muscle weakness, food digests better. On Earth, in regions cut off from salt sources, people literally paid gold for it. But still, salt is in massive deficit in the Middle Ages; if every person gets at least ten grams of salt a day, in a couple of days people will already start feeling better. And I even know how to build this salt factory.'

"Alan," Kamelia's voice rang out, "the peasants are coming."

He raised his head. "Ah, good... by the way, where did Tsinker and Shilisa go off to?"

She took a quick look around, then pointed a finger toward the town. There, near a building, Tsinker, with his hands clasped behind his back, was conversing with a black-haired woman with a bob cut, while Shilisa stood next to him.

Sili.

Paranga narrowed his eyes. "Eh? She's awake already?"

Alan waved his hand. "Whatever, let 'em talk."

Before Alan, Kamelia, and Paranga stood thirty-two people. Seventeen men of varying ages, thirteen women, and two twelve-year-old boys.

Alan folded his hands behind his back. "You all wield fire magic, correct?"

One of them, a man of about thirty with a black eye, nodded. "Yes, Your Grace."

Alan narrowed his eyes, examining his face. "Where'd the shiner come from?"

He lowered his head slightly. "It is nothing... had a squabble with a pirate. But everything is fine now."

"Alright. Basically," he shifted his gaze to everyone, "you are relieved from your usual work, because I need your magic to evaporate salt from the seawater."

"You can evaporate salt from seawater?" asked a woman in her twenties quietly.

The toothless boy raised his hand. "Oh! I tried drinking the water, but it's so bitter and tastes bad! Is that because of the salt?"

Alan smiled slightly and nodded. "Yeah, that's exactly because of the salt."

"But why is this water salty?" the boy asked again.

Alan froze. "Uh..."

'I can't exactly explain to him about billions of years of salt being washed away by rivers flowing into the ocean.'

"Svyatol made it that way," he said briefly.

The boy lowered his hand. "Ah, I see."

"Ahem, anyway, right now this concerns the men. What did Paranga tell you to do? What's the immediate task?"

That same man with the black eye scratched his stubble. "Lord Paranga ordered us to build these barracks. Many barracks."

"Understood." He walked past the peasants on the sand and stood a little further away from them. "Tasks are changing. Right here, you need to dig a huge, but shallow pit," Alan said, outlining the shape in the air, "and line it thoroughly with clay. We'll pour seawater in here, wait for the majority to evaporate in the sun, and the remainder will be evaporated with fire." He raised a finger. "Only take the water further out in the sea; you'll take boats."

"Is there more salt there?" the man asked.

Alan shook his head. "No, the water is cleaner. I highly doubt that none of you have taken a piss in the shallows."

The toothless boy began to examine a palm tree with intense interest.

The peasant nodded. "I understand you, Lord Gothwald. When should we begin?"

"Tomorrow. Any other questions?"

One of the women, about twenty-five years old, raised her hand. "Your Grace, may I bring a request to you?" she asked, bowing low.

"You may."

She clasped her hands in front of her, looking down. "Some pirates... come to our settlement sometimes. They harass the girls, steal food and belongings. Could you... please, deal with this?"

Alan cast a sidelong glance at Paranga. "Well?"

Paranga blinked. "What? I didn't even know!"

"Paranga, this is an outrage," Kamelia said, frowning. "Why are your people harassing my subjects?"

He raised his hands. "Take it easy, I'll handle it; I'll beat the living daylights out of every last one of 'em personally."

Alan stepped closer to Paranga and lowered his voice. "Seriously, deal with this. Do you have any idea what a clusterfuck it'll be if the colonists get pissed off at the pirates? And I'll remind you, every month there will be more peasants here, and fewer pirates."

"I get it, Alan," he whispered. "You see it yourself, I can't keep an eye on everyone. I'll beat the shit out of the culprits, and I'll warn the rest not to dare go near the barracks again. Will that do?"

Alan nodded. "That'll do. Only it has to be right now; I want to personally see that the conflict is resolved."

Paranga just sighed. "Aaaaalright." He turned to the peasant woman. "You, do you know what they looked like?"

The woman's pupils narrowed when Paranga addressed her. She quickly shifted her gaze to Alan, who stood calmly next to the large pirate with his arms crossed, and swallowed. "I..."

"I know." A woman of about forty with her hair braided into a ponytail stepped out from the crowd. "Usually there are three of them. One bald, skinny, tall fellow like that. A second with a scar on his shoulder, likes to walk around bare-chested. A third with long, dirty hair like this," she said, looking at Paranga with a squint.

He did not answer for a second, digging through his memories. "Yeah, I know. Sounds like them."

About fifteen minutes later, roughly at the junction between the barracks and Paranganot, a multitude of people had gathered in a clearing. On one side stood the peasants, where rumors of what was about to happen had already spread, and everyone was watching intently; on the other, the pirates, who stood lazily gawking at the peasant crowd.

"What's this gathering about again?" asked one of the pirates, picking his nose.

"Guktus knows," shrugged a second with a bandana on his head. "Looks like the nobles are gonna speak. Well, we'll listen, and head back. You really got saved by this, you almost lost everything to me in dice!"

"What'd I do? Ain't my fault!" he said, hiding a smirk.

I was completely focused, entirely cut off from the outside world. Things had finally reached the point I'd been waiting for in the film I'd been watching for a full hour, and I was at the height of my concentration. The detective, who had been tracking down the culprit for the past hour, was now very close to catching and exposing him, and I was incredibly curious. He was about to open the door, walk in, and discover the culprit's identity. I was moments away from finding out whether my suspect was right.

When we look at something, we also see what's to our left and right, albeit vaguely. While watching the television directly in front of us, we can perceive the fan a meter to its right swiveling from side to side. Other objects and movements become blurrier as they move farther away from the center of our field of vision. Everyone knows this and is usually aware of it. Even if your grandfather, sitting to your right at dinner, isn't looking at you, he'll notice if you secretly flip off your brother sitting across from you.

At that moment, the world was nothing more than a rectangle to me. My field of vision had no depth. Ten eagles could have been flying around the room, and I wouldn't have noticed them unless they passed in front of the screen. I had to find out who the culprit was.

Even if you bring your eyes into sharp focus, your ears can't do the same and remain even more open to the outside world than your eyes. When you listen to a song you love, your ears become fully absorbed in it, and your eyes join in, too. You drift away, and your field of vision narrows. But your ears can't join your eyes in doing the same.

“Albert, shut your laptop,” I heard a whisper just as the detective was about to open the door.

At first, I thought it had come from the film. There was no character named Albert in it, and the laptop had very little to do with the plot, but still, I didn't want to take my eyes off the screen before the detective opened that door. However, I'd started thinking by then. A new thought had formed in my mind, and it had weakened my focus. I would enjoy finding out who the culprit was a little less.

I paused the film. I was still looking at the screen, but my field of vision had widened and become rounded again.

I thought I saw a ripple on my right. A moving, blurry image, about a meter in size.

When I turned my head to look, there was nothing there. I looked back at the screen. I thought to myself that being this focused wasn't good either. It bothered me that I was experiencing a mental activity so intensely when the only reason for it was a film. Was finding out who the culprit was really that important? I never focused this intensely when writing my stories, working on a thesis I had to finish, or learning Spanish in the course I'd recently started. That was probably why I'd heard the whisper, too. It was a trick of my mind.

I turned back to the screen. My desire to find out had diminished. Reluctantly, I pressed play.

But then I saw that ripple again. A transparent, shapeless thing, moving randomly. Like a transparent fire, its movements resembled those of a burning flame. I pressed pause.

When I turned my head to the right, it wasn't there again.

A sense of unease had come over me. I stared at the spot where the blur had been. There was no movement at all. All the objects stood still, just as they were.

This time, I saw the same ripple on my left, right in front of the laptop on my lap. I sharply turned my eyes back to the screen. Nothing. The detective walking toward the door, the confident expression on his face. That was all.

I set the laptop aside. I threw off the blanket I'd pulled up to my chest, got out of bed, and sat down at my desk.

I picked up my Spanish dictionary and opened it to a random page to calm myself down a little. I read a few words. The ripple was above me. I looked up at the ceiling, and now it was on the left. I turned to the left, and it moved to the right. Its size changed every time. Sometimes it was a one-meter rectangle, sometimes a scattered circle ten centimeters in diameter, and sometimes a thick line stretching from the floor to the ceiling.

I left the room, and it was on my right, in the shape of a circle. I couldn't get rid of it. My palms were sweating. Now it was on my left. I kept turning my head from side to side, up and down. And I could never bring it into my vertical field of vision; it was always outside it.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my T-shirt. Now it was above me. I tried closing my eyes. But I couldn't. The moment I closed them, a sharp fear would immediately take hold of me, and I'd open them again before even two seconds had passed. My gaze had grown much faster now. Left, right, up, left, down, right, up. I was looking around like crazy. I was like a camera trying to bring an image into focus.

I finally ended up with a stiff neck after one wrong movement.

I could no longer turn my head to the left.

And the ripple was on my left.

I turned to the left with my whole body. It stayed on my left. I turned left once more. It slipped to my left again.

I had turned a full circle. Now it only appeared on my left. It seemed to have found my weak spot. Every time I turned, I instinctively turned my neck a little, too. You know what a stiff neck is like. It's quite painful and sudden. During the day, you forget that your neck is stiff, and if someone calls out to you from your left, you turn to look at them. You feel that sharp little ache.

So I stopped trying to catch it. It stayed on my left, rippling. Sometimes it stretched out, sometimes it shrank, and sometimes it disappeared quickly and reappeared. I moved my pupils as far to the left as I could. Yes, now it had moved to the right, because my field of vision on the left had been reduced to zero.

Now only my pupils were moving. But the image was even closer. And it was getting closer and closer.

Finally, while I was looking straight ahead, I saw it. It hadn't gone away. It's impossible to describe its shape.

“I'm x56 c 66 bmf 8 bmd 8 g 9 kdr 8 889 klkw 999 c 3 d 3 v 3 m 3 g 3 o 3 12345. Thank you for playing with me. By the way, the killer is Michael,” said a voice from very far away, heavily echoing and robotic, sounding a little like a creaking door.

Without knowing why, I tried to catch it with my hand. It was an arm's length away. I'd acted impulsively out of excitement. And it vanished instantly.

The quick, deep breath I drew through my nose passed through my nose hairs and rubbed against my completely dried-out nasopharynx, producing a sound that was a mixture of a faint snore and a low-pitched whistle. I held the breath in my lungs for a while, then slowly exhaled.

I went back into my room, sat down in the armchair, and for some reason, burst into tears. It was like a catharsis. I couldn't remember ever crying this intensely before. Or maybe I was simply crying out of fear, but I wasn't sure that fear could trigger such an intense crying response.

I wiped my eyes, and just as I was about to get up to wash my face, the ripple began speaking from the ceiling, right next to the lamp. It had watched me cry the whole time. Strange.

“If you want to play with me again, all you have to do is look in the mirror and say my name three times, and don't worry, your memory will be erased by tomorrow evening. You'll only remember my name. You'll try to figure out what the hell it was, whether it was your old Wi-Fi password or something. Anyway, Albert, I'm out of here. Take care. It was nice meeting you.”

Chapter 6: I Fight God's Soldiers, and Someone Falls Out of the Sky

If I lost, I was dead. If I tried to run, I was dead. And if I won?

The Grand Alpha would still be waiting for me, along with all those damn questions I'd planted in his head myself. Not to mention the witch they were planning to summon.

Wonderful. I'd managed to get myself into a situation where even winning could get me killed.

And yet, despite everything, I felt a wave of relief when I finally spotted the chapel at the end of the path.

I almost felt like thanking the Lord out loud. With any luck, there would be holy water inside.

The chapel stood in the middle of a small clearing. I could make out the outline of its sloping roof and a narrow tower. A few lights near the entrance illuminated the steps leading up to a large wooden door.

At least, that was what I could see past the armed men standing guard.

I counted twelve. No, fourteen.

All of them carried swords. And they'd already spotted me, despite the darkness.

"Halt!" a man shouted, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "Don't take another step!"

Better do as he says.

I stopped before reaching the area illuminated by the chapel's lights.

Peaceful. I had to play this peacefully.

The goal wasn't to attack them, but to convince them to leave. Even if the werewolves had already tried that.

After all, I was a servant of God. I couldn't kill innocent people. The Lord would never forgive me. All I had to do was talk things through calmly and find a compromise. Nothing too complicated, right?

"I'm just here to talk... We don't want any bloodshed. Would you please let us have the chapel?"

Had that sounded convincing? Fingers crossed.

The man who'd called out to me shone his lantern directly into my face, briefly blinding me.

"A VAMPIRE!" he screamed.

A heavy silence fell over the clearing. Then came a sharp twang. Something shot straight toward my face.

I dodged it almost effortlessly, without even knowing what it was. In this darkness, it was hard to make out a projectile clearly, even though my night vision was far better than that of the humans from my world. Three more twangs rang out almost simultaneously.

I dodged those projectiles just as easily, though one grazed my chest.

Arrows? But where were they coming from? Above?

I looked up at the chapel roof and barely made out three crouching figures.

More arrows came flying toward me.

"ATTACK!" the same guard shouted as I dodged the last of them.

Several soldiers drew their swords and charged.

Small lanterns hung from their belts, casting flickering light around them as they approached.

At least I could see better now.

And them... They were slow. Very slow. Ridiculously slow.

Every step, every movement of their arms was absurdly clear to me. It was as if they were moving in slow motion. Not one of them stood a chance of even touching me.

THWACK!

"AAAH!"

My vision suddenly blurred. I couldn't see anything out of my right eye. Something had struck me head-on.

No, no, no! How was that possible? I'd thought I had everything under control.

I leaped backward, immediately putting some distance between myself and the five soldiers.

I reached for my face. Something thin and rigid was lodged directly in my right eye... An arrow?

They'd kept shooting even with their own men in the way?

[SANCTIFIED PROJECTILE DETECTED]

[Source identified: blessed weapon / partially immersed in holy water]

[HOLY BODY — Automatic Response Activated]

[Holy Water Integration in Progress...]

Huh? Holy water?

Before I could even process what I'd just read, the five soldiers charged at me again. I could still dodge their attacks, but it was much harder now.

[INTEGRATION COMPLETE]

Suddenly, the pressure in my right eye vanished.

I felt a fine dust slide down my cheek. And...

I could see again! My right eye had healed.

But how was that possible? Damn, this body was incredible!

"May the divine blessing be upon you!" A powerful voice rang out. From the chapel?

A golden light burst forth, splitting into five beams that struck the soldiers around me. Their bodies glowed for a brief moment.

What the...?

One of them suddenly lunged at me. His sword passed just inches from my throat.

A second attacked immediately, followed by a third from my right. I barely managed to dodge their blades, and one of them grazed my face.

Just seconds ago, I'd watched them move in slow motion. Now I could barely keep up with them.

SHNK!

A blade sank into my abdomen. Agonizing pain tore through me.

A sword was buried in my stomach. An actual sword!

The soldier kept driving it deeper with all his strength. The sword's guard was now only a few inches from my stomach.

Fuck, that hurts! That really, really hurts. Way worse than the arrow in my eye.

SHNK! SHNK! SHNK! SHNK!

The other soldiers wasted no time driving their swords into me as well.

I couldn't even tell where they were stabbing me anymore. The pain was everywhere.

FUCK! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL ME!

I'm going to die here! No, no, no! I don't want to die. Not like this. With all the sins I'd committed, I'd probably end up in hell. I needed God's forgiveness first!

Desperate to break free, I reacted on instinct. I grabbed the nearest soldier by the face and squeezed with all my strength. He screamed, immediately letting go of his sword.

I threw him aside, then punched a second soldier square in the chest. The impact sent him flying several meters backward.

A third tried to attack me, but I grabbed his arm and twisted it violently, drawing a shrill scream of pain from him.

A single kick was enough to send the fourth stumbling back, while an elbow strike knocked the fifth to the ground.

[SANCTIFIED WEAPON DETECTED]

[HOLY WATER DETECTED]

[HOLY BODY — INTEGRATION IN PROGRESS...]

AGAIN?!

A shadow appeared to my left.

One of the guards who'd stayed near the chapel?

He was charging straight at me, his sword raised above his head. Purely on instinct, my arm moved on its own.

My fist struck his head. The impact was devastating. His head snapped violently to the side, and his body went flying several meters away.

He slammed into the chapel's stone steps and collapsed, completely motionless.

Standing right beside him was a man dressed in a long white robe.

In his right hand, he held an imposing metal emblem, almost as large as his torso. Wait...

That was the symbol engraved on the vial!

"MARCUS!" a soldier shouted from near the steps, rushing toward him.

"Marcus! Answer me!"

No response. Even the man in the white robe standing nearby remained impassive.

The five soldiers I'd fought off weren't charging at me again. Some were still on the ground, while the guards who'd remained near the chapel also seemed hesitant to attack me.

Was he dead? Had I just killed someone?

Oh God... No, no, no!

[INTEGRATION COMPLETE]

The swords still embedded in my body began to rust. The corrosion spread rapidly across the metal, all the way to their guards, before the blades gradually crumbled away.

So that was what had happened to the arrow in my eye.

My wounds were already closing. The pain had completely disappeared, and I actually felt better than before.

Could Holy Body neutralize any weapon that had been infused with holy water?

But still, Lord... What had I done?

I'd just seriously injured several men. And killed one.

My first murder.

I'd brought shame on myself. And on the Vatican.

All because of that damn Grand Alpha!

If only he hadn't sent me here alone while he and his pack stayed hidden behind those damn trees. I could still remember his words at the edge of the forest.

"You'll approach the humans alone after nightfall. We'll remain in the forest, close to the chapel. If you run into any trouble, we'll come to your aid."

Of course! Judging by the amusement in his voice, he'd probably been looking forward to watching us kill each other. And watching me suffer in the process.

But why had he kept his entire pack back? With that many werewolves against these men, they wouldn't have had any trouble...

Suddenly, a brilliant light erupted in the sky, illuminating the entire clearing as though it were broad daylight.

What the...?

A human figure descended from the light and landed in front of the chapel. The radiance overhead showed no sign of fading.

"What took you so long?" the man in the white robe asked.

"CLERIC JOHN!" several soldiers cried out in relief.

That face... I knew him.

The guard with the glasses?!

Burning Earth.

You were beautiful, the colours of blue, green, white and brown represented you, you were alive.

You birth us, nurtured us, made us evolve and adapt to you and your creations.

You never cared for us, we weren't special, we believed we were special and we paid dearly.

We made children like how you made us, the child follow its parent, and you became sick.

You became grey, you became sick as our children went beyond us. They were not sustainable, they were hungry and we were fuel.

We tried to survive, the air, earth and water became toxic, the life you nurtured died out and the fire fissiled into soot.

The skies were dark, we could no longer live here, we persist in shields. The machines of war continued without us.

We lost the reason for war, the war lost its reason to end, it was a war without reason.

The Earth was scarred, it was brown and drenched in red.

We hurt you, we made you lifeless, lifeless like your siblings.

We never intended to harm you, we lost control, like how you lost control of us.

We now lived in ruins, our stubbornness to survive is a gift from you.

We will rebuild, we will give you life again, even if it takes a million years.

For you birth us, it is only fair to give you something in return, even if we no longer love each other.

Even if we leave for worlds beyond this star, we will remember you, we will be your image and memorial for when you finally pass.

We could no maintain you, we were never creators, we were balancers and destroyers.

For our wars no longer performed on you, they performed in the void.

But our wars remained meaningless, we fought continuously, for the roads of man always lead to blood.

We gave reason to our wars but reason loses its grip overtime. And war becomes meaningless again.

Perhaps life will emerge on you once again, when we are gone.

Until then, we will remain, until we find a new home and then, we will give you the release of pain you had since we were born, and burn you to sunder.

We burned you for wars that lost its reasons.

First

Undying Blues

“Okay big man. We’re in it deep and I will admit that a good chunk is my own fault for grabbing a random ship that has no visible damage but cannot communicate beyond thermal signals. Very suspicious, my fault. What the hell is going on?” The Captain asks Danburi as he lowers himself to a chair.

“Will a quick summary suffice for now? I was just about to get some much needed rest right as your ship showed up on the sensors.” Danburi says.

“That depends on how much information we need.”

“Alright, well in a very quick summary I have been kidnapped by the forces besieging my homeland and I am of the royal family with a hefty bounty on my safe return.”

“Yes. I need a lot more though. What exactly are we facing? There’s some kind of Cloaken Offshoot species called the Viss or whatever attacking them.”

“The Vish, and they are as a species completely indoctrinated to serve their commander, who is also a member of the La’ahbaron Royal Family, albeit one assumed deceased after she vanished some years ago.”

“You said her name was Wurana?”

“Yes, although she is apparently going by Ungora now.”

“Okay, so in summary you know who the real movers and shakers are in this war which alone makes you stupid valuable to both sides. On top of your value as a member of both sides of the conflict’s family.”

“There’s more. I’ve learned that the attacking side is using some kind of immortality inducing parasite that drives people slowly insane. Meaning they’re both nearly impossible to kill, but are going to get increasingly irrational. And my escape may have set them off to a mental snap.”

“Hmm... are you infected?”

“Not anymore.”

“What cured you?”

“The sword currently locked up in my ship. It has very, very strange effects. But the moment I was cut by it the rapid healing and sense of increasing paranoia and panic stopped. IT would wipe away even the smallest discomfort, leaving my physically healthy and strong at all times, but my mind was getting worn down. Now I fully feel my exhaustion properly. So I can only assume it’s dead.”

“Hence needing to sleep.”

“Yes, but let me finish. These immortality inducing parasites are so strong that Lady Wurana used them on the corpses of her long dead daughters. Reviving them.”

“What?”

“But they’re nothing more than animals now. Feral monsters. It’s why she kidnapped me. She thinks that I could calm them, relax them enough to turn them back to normal. But they’re too vicious, too powerful and too much for me to handle.”

“How bad?”

“The parasite turns animals, or things without the reasoning mind of a person into gigantic monsters on top of rendering them immortal. I had developed a trick to trick my parasite in to thinking I was an animal to give me a body of equal strength to the daughters, but it apparently had learned enough to no longer be fooled and... it was bad. This day alone. If not for the parasite I would be very, very dead.”

“Are you telling me that you’ve been outright murdered multiple times and only survived thanks to a parasite that now is dead?”

“Yes.”

“... Before I let you go to bed, which you will be allowed to you’re our guest not our prisoner, you will need to submit yourself to a medical scan.”

“I was going to request one captain.” He says.

“I’m glad we’re on the same wavelength. So, I’m actually a little up to date on things that you might not be. Miss Wuroona or however it’s properly pronounced has decided to apparently get the entire galaxy properly pissed off at her by attacking Zalwore.”

“... The invaluable, nigh irreplaceable logistical hub that everyone relies on to some degree?”

“Yes.”

“... Insane no longer seems sufficient to describe what she’s become. Goodness.” Danburi notes. “Which means that the information I have just became all the more valuable and dangerous. The sooner it’s out of our hands and into the public ears the safer we are.”

“How do you figure that?”

“They want me back because I took several things of value, one of immense value, am of great value myself in their plans and because I have incredible dangerous information. They’ll be chasing us no matter what, but with the information out they’ll have at least a little less incentive. Or at least it will be turned into a vengeance motivation, which the hypocrites will already be having as how dare I, a simple male, defy them and all that.”

“I see...” She notes.

“I have some questions of my own.”

“Oh?”

“... How is it that I haven’t heard any sounds of combat?”

“We’re Nova Pirates is how.” She says dismissively.

“... I’m not familiar with pirate culture I’m afraid.”

“Oh... Well... it’s not so much a culture as a commonplace style. Basically all pirates eventually have their luck run out in one way or another. Nova Pirates stack the deck for when that happens. Our ships are designed to go as fast as possible and with very, very powerful shields. This makes escaping easier. So we’re able to outpace most ships beyond dedicated interceptors and shrug off most attacks as we get out so we can’t just have our engines shot out. We had to sacrifice a fair amount of firepower. But another part of being a Nova Pirate is that we generally avoid the more attention grabbing crimes. We’ll smuggle or gun-run far more often than any amount of kidnapping or theft. But if the galaxy wants to hand it to us we won’t say no.”

“Interesting, but wouldn’t there be pattern recognition for that?”

“Somewhat, but we take advantage of that. All Nova Pirates disavow all other Nova Pirates and fly the same flag and use the same emblem. This way we can always place as many, if not all our crimes on the head of Other Nova Pirates. With that in place and a half decent legal expert we can usually reduce multi-decade or even century long sentences to simple fines because no one can actually tell what we did.”

“What about systems that put the burden of proof on the defendant?”

“We avoid those.” She answers.

“Very reasonable and...” Danburi is cut off as he raises a hand to hide his yawn as politely as he can.

“... Let’s get you to the doctor so we can get a clean bill of health and you can sleep.” She says rising up.

“Thank you. I was already overdue for a nap when I was maimed so terribly I had to regrow an arm. Then before I could rest I was dragged back to do it again and lost everything from the waist down following what should have been lethal damage. Then my escape and all the little complications that come with escaping a hostile facility while undressed and alone.”

“... Holy shit.”

“Indeed.”

“I’m also a little worried about that sword you mentioned.”

“As am I, but I have no ancestor blessed clue as to how to handle it.” He says as he follows her out of the meeting room. Already missing the chair as he is still very tired.

“I’ll send some girls to try and scan it but with orders not to touch it.”

“That sounds wise.” He agrees.

“Anything else that I should know?”

“When I say that my aunt Wurana has gone mad, I am not speaking in jest or hyperbole. Sanity comes and goes with her and I’m uncertain if her cruel madness, delusional madness or perky madness is the true madness, but she is truly mad.”

“Any proof of that?”

“She forced an Axiom Brand onto my person and was seemingly surprised when it made me an enemy for life.” He notes, lifting his shawl with his thumb to reveal the eye marking on his chest.

“A brand?”

“Yes, thermal resistance.”

“That explains the stunt with the laser. You Ibu are tough, but heat gets past it.”

“I’m fairly certain that it has some hard limits, and I doubt that it would do much to an electrical or chemical attack.” Danburi notes before she nods and gestures for him to continue following her.

“Alright, that all makes sense. Now, first things first big guy. You’re our rescued client. That means that there are some place you’re not allowed to go. At least not without permission. This is for your safety and ours. I don’t know what kind of training you’ve had, but I doubt it includes engine repair or upkeep. Same for using the big guns but you noble types like feeling like you could take anyone else so maybe you do have weapon training. Either way if someone tells you to take a hike from an area I don’t want any arguments. Ships are not safe for the stupid.”

“Madam, what makes you think I’m stupid?”

“I’ve met too many bimbos that can charm a girl easy but cannot put their money where their mouth is. I don’t know if you’re one, but if we’re running from an active military we do not have the time to figure it out, so we’re just not getting into that situation to begin with. Get me?”

“I get you.”

“Good.”

Five minutes later The Deep Crag Nagasha Doctor is shaking her rattle and using it to scan for things.

“Uh...” She says in a very uncertain tone.

“Yes?” Danburi asks.

“... Something, I have no idea what it is. Is dissolving inside of you.”

“Joy. What’s it leaving behind.”

“Nothing.”

“I beg your pardon?” He asks.

“There is the bare remains of something inside your chest and it’s fading away. But it’s not leaving anything behind.”

“Oh. Roughly here?” He asks as he pokes himself in the right breast, directly over the last place he felt the creature inside him move to before it faded entirely.

“Exactly there.”

“It is the corpse of the entity.”

“What entity?”

“Some kind of immortality and madness inducing parasite and why did you just flinch back?”

“Has he touched anyone captain?” The Doctor demands.

“No contact with anyone yet.” She says and The Doctor gives her a pointed look and shakes her rattle to blatantly scan her as well.

“Okay, you’re clean.” The Doctor confesses. “And you! Big guy! You are to lay down on the bed and prepare for observation. If it’s really dead and gone? Good. If not we need to contain you. The galaxy’s latest scare are these Haffara Thar monsters and the fact you had one in you is not calming my nerves in the slightest.”

“May I at least have some rest during this?” Danburi asks.

“Oh. Of course.”

“Thank you. Will I also be permitted a blanket and a pillow or must I make do?”

“... What have you been through?” The Doctor asks and he exposes the Axiom Brand again. “Oh.”

“This was just the beginning.” He clarifies.

“Oh.” The Doctor’s tone has filled with horror.

“Yes, so I’m rather exhausted in ways that I cannot fully articulate without coming across as a bit of whiner as it were.” Danburi notes.

“Indeed.” The Doctor says as she shakes her rattle a bit and a cabinet opens for a thick blanket to fly out followed by another with a pair of large pillows.

“Thank you.” He says sincerely as he receives them. “That bed there?”

“Yes.” The Doctor says and watches as he, without any protest, lies down on the medical bed, and all but tucks himself in. “Captain, you told me he’s a prince. What has he been through?”

“A lot. I have girls checking on something at the moment maybe...” She begins to say before her communicator goes off. “Yes?”

“Captain, we found the sword and... it’s bricked everything. We can’t take pictures of it, we can’t scan it. Even a passive scan breaks the machine. Also... captain this thing is just scary. It’s got wet blood on it and it’s still warm.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, that’s mine.” Danburi notes.

“Did you catch that?”

“No.”

“Our guest claims the blood is his own.”

“It’s on the handle of the sword.”

“Yes, I grabbed it with the same hand it wounded.” Danburi notes as teh captain puts the communicator on broadcast so he can more easily answer.

“Did you catch that? He said he grabbed the sword with the same hand that it cut.”

“Okay... how? Liara tried to pick it up and the damn thing made her collapse.”

“It does that. Is she otherwise unharmed?” Danburi asks.

“She claims it’s haunted.”

“Really? Well, haunted or cursed it’s a very powerful weapon and best left alone unless absolutely needed. Can we agree on that?” Danburi asks.

“Yes.”

“Excellent, good night now.” He says.

First Last Next

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.

OC originally written by Charlie Star/starrfallknightrise. Slightly rewritten and restructured (with hindsight of the full finished story to connect it more together, while keeping the spirit), reviewed, proofread and corrected by me.

Just so you know: this chapter’s original name was changed to avoid spoilers!

Previous | First | [Next](link)

Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?

Here is the link to the master-post.

"Alright, come on."

Kay wined a bit as Adam picked him up, sweeping him away from the dirt pile he was studiously building up with the help of the little Finnari hybrid girl. He looked like he was thinking about throwing a fit, but when Adam sat him down at the picnic table and handed him a paper plate with a very gooey glazed cinnamon roll, whatever complaints he had been thinking about voicing died.

Adam ruffled his son's hair,

"That's what I thought."

It didn't take long before Kay was covered in sugar glazing, all four hands and the whole lower half of his face.

Krill and Riss appeared just then, carrying between them a large liter soda cup with two straws. Adam doubted it contained soda, probably just warmed sugar water, which the two of them had taken to calling tea.

As they approached, Adam could already hear them arguing.

As usual…

Krill argued with everyone, but he especially enjoyed arguing with Riss, who like Krill, was willing to argue hours on end without stopping. Granted, the two of them denied that their conversations constituted arguing, insisting that they simply enjoyed an exuberant debate.

Adam might have agreed if their conversations had been more scientific.

He could see the merit of debating whether the Rorschach test was a valid form of reality testing, but he did not see how the two of them could "debate" for over an hour on the proper location to store a bag of sugar. Honestly this shouldn't have mattered, but the two of them were conducting a new "experiment" that involved Riss and Krill moving in together and cohabitating "like the humans do".

Again, they said it was for science, but Adam wasn't so sure.

First, you have kids together and then you start sending time together, and then you go and move in together?

It makes a guy wonder…

History would just say that they were roommates cohabitants…

Krill still claimed openly that Vrul were not capable of feeling, or producing “romantic feelings”.

Adam also pointed out that once upon a time they thought Vrul couldn't produce rage, but here they were proven wrong.

Krill had been annoyed, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

"Happy Foundation Day."

Riss said, while all around them colored lights swirled and silent music played. Adam could hear the clattering of metal against metal as a few sparring matches continued at the edges of the field.

"Chew with your mouth closed."

Sunny admonished, doing her best to wipe some of the glaze from Kay's hands.

Adam raised his hands in a welcoming gesture,

"And Happy foundation day to you as well."

He glanced down at their shared cup with a grin,

"I see the humanizing phenomena has gotten to you too?”

Riss shrugged, but Krill lifted his chin defiantly,

"You would be wrong. We are simply sharing this cup out of convenience. The booth was only offering one size and neither of us are large enough to finish off one drink."

Adam raised an eyebrow,

"Uh huh…"

"Our relationship is purely professional and scientific in nature."

Adam turned his head back over his shoulder to look at Sunny,

"You hear that? I know we have a son together but according to Krill our relationship is purely professional and scientific."

Sunny snorted as she finished cleaning Kay up,

"Uh huh… While we are on the matter, which position do you think is more professional reverse cow-"

Adam held up a hand,

"And I am going to stop you right there."

He already felt his neck turning red.

Sunny snorted, blowing a gust of air through the holes at the base of her neck,

"How is it you can be a married man with a son and still be a raging prude?”

"With great ease."

Krill cleared his throat,

"I think you forget my species does not have the same biological imperative as yours does."

"And I think you just don't want to admit you are in love, because if you did that would be admitting that you have had an illogical and irrational emotion Mr. Spock."

"I am pretty sure in the later movies Spock's primary emotional response is Rage."

Krill said, brandishing his liter cup at Adam.

Martha and Jim arrived sharing a soft pretzel,

"Why don't you let us take Kay for an hour or so and you can go have some fun."

"I was having fun heckling Krill, but I don't think Kay would mind."

He glanced over at Sunny, who, while skeptical eventually relented. It wasn't that she was an overprotective mother. She was perfectly fine with letting Kay figure out the world on her own. She was, however, paranoid about Kazna and the forces of Evil coming to steal her son.

Adam felt similarly, but his mother had already proven effective at fighting them off once, he was sure she could do it again.

He took her hand and walked her into the crowd, and they walked together around the little carnival, sharing food and watching a few fights.

He saw Nairobi and a few of the other engineers attempting to learn one of the Kata dances. Nairobi was surprisingly good for an engineering nerd, though the rest of them were woefully lacking in hip movement.

They saw Conn and Eris again. Eris had her head tilted back to the sky in annoyance as Conn flicked marshmallows at the crowd from above. He seemed to take some form of sadistic glee as he pelted people with the fluffy sugar cylinders. Upon seeing Adam, he lobbed a marshmallow directly towards his face, which unfortunately for him, Sunny caught in her open left palm, right before it could make contact. She eyed Conn who shrugged and went to turn away.

Sunny waited until he was distracted before flicking the marshmallow right back at him.

It was a good shot and hit him right in the back of the head, causing him to turn and frown at her.

Conn should probably have been able to sense that coming, but in large crowds like this his telepathic abilities were less effective. As far as they knew Conn's working memory wasn't much better than that of the average human. He could really only focus on one thing at a time, and his memory could contain up to seven pieces of information plus or minus two at any given moment.

So, while he could monitor the general mood of an entire crowd, it was difficult for him to pick up singular thoughts.

They passed into a row of dueling circles, and Sunny stopped to watch a few of the fights.

Maverick was in one circle with a Drev that was almost twice her height, and she was practically toying with him. He was big, powerful and slow, and unfortunately for him she stayed inside his reach, ducking between his legs on more than one occasion, kicking him in the back of the legs before he could turn around to face her.

Ramirez shouted and cheered from the outside of the circle waving his fists.

”That’s my Maverick! Go get him girl!”

Someone tapped Sunny on the shoulder and two of them spun around. Dzara was standing there with her spear held in one hand,

"May I have this fight, sister?”

Sunny glanced down at Dzara's side,

"And your wound?”

"Krill cleared me for combat this morning."

Sunny huffed and rolled her shoulders,

"Good. Are you ready to get pounded into the dirt then?”

"I'm ready for you to try sister."

Dzara wasn't a very accomplished fighter, at least not in comparison to Sunny.

She had only been fighting for the past two or so years after getting her leg braces, but to her credit she had been working very hard, and she had the guts to challenge Sunny to a fight. Adam didn't think he had seen Dzara win a fight since knowing her, but she never punched at her own weight, she always tended to choose those who were way better than she was.

He had a feeling that was on purpose.

He held to the side of the circle and watched as the two sisters squared up against each other.

"Been a while since I had a good brawl."

Adam turned just in time to see Lord Celez standing beside him. The rainbow-haired war criminal was still wearing his fuzzy pink sweater, but now he also carried an impressively large cloud of cotton candy. Adam vaguely wondered if it reminded the man of home. The ball of cotton did vaguely resemble a biiig Celzex if you squinted at it long enough.

Lord Celex took a bite,

"The last time I got into a good brawl I died."

"You know every time you say that it’s still just as weird as the first time. I keep forgetting you're-…"

"Undead, does that make me a zombie?"

Adam shrugged,

"Maybe... Actually technically you came back on your own accord (or due to some divine intervention) so by definition you’d be a revenant, not a zombie."

Celex looked on longingly at the fighting,

"I would fight, but it would be highly unfair to anyone else if we did. I am an eternal being of great and awesome power now."

Adam snorted.

"Is that it? Right now, you look like the flamboyant uncle. Lollipop is a flavor not an aesthetic."

Lord Celex raised an eyebrow at him,

"Are you trying to goad me?"

Adam shrugged,

"Maybe….”

"Because clearly, you aren't very good at it"

Adam shrugged,

"Fine then, I guess you're just too chicken to fight me."

"I am not entirely sure what a chicken is, but if you are implying I am a coward, then I am going to have to take you into that circle and thrash you to prove a point."

"Try me."

"Only you would be stupid enough to challenge a Maker to a duel."

"I stole the architect's ship, I am nothing if not audacious."

Lord Celex, reached up, stuffing the cotton candy into a ball which he shoved into his mouth whole,

"Very well, let us begin."

The two of them walked into an open circle, and the fight was overseen by an arbitrator who examined the lines.

Lord Celex pulled off his fuzzy pink sweater and handed it to one of the viewing members of the crowd. He had sculpted himself a very fit physique, which Adam would have been jealous of if Celex had earned it the hard way. Adam didn't need to take off his shirt, but he did, just so everyone could see what hard work and dedication actually looked like.

Celex's was a fabrication, while Adam was for real.

The crowd oohed.

Adam watched as Celex winked into the crowd, causing a very pretty girl in the front row to blush.

Adam snorted,

"Don't bother, he already has two hundred wives."

Celex almost looked insulted,

"HAD, and it was two hundred concubines and ONE wife."

Adam frowned,

"Avex didn't inherit any of your concubines did he? Because that's just super gross."

Avex frowned,

"Are you trying to... oh what is the word you humans use... Cockblock me?”

Adam shrugged,

"I was a few seconds ago, but now I actually really want to know if Avex inherited your concubines because its making my skin crawl."

Celex crossed his arms over his bare chest,

"He did not. If Avex wants a harem, then he's going to have to get his own."

He turned to look at the crowd and grinned,

"And just for the record: I am a good time in case anyone was interested."

Adam rolled his eyes hard,

"Alright stop stalling and pick your poison, spear, sword or…?"

"Bare knuckles."

"Are you proposing to me?"

Adam teased

Celex looked him over as if he was actually considering it,

"Mmmmm unfortunately you aren't my type."

"Not hairy enough?”

"You seem to be laboring under the delusion that you're funny."

"And you seem to be laboring under the delusion you can beat me."

The arbitrator raised his hand and the two of them began to circle slowly. Adam knew that Celex could simply vaporize him with a thought, but he certainly hoped the old war criminal was at least honorable enough to give him a fair fight.

"I could beat you, like a dusty rug."

Celex taunted

It didn't work.

Adam wasn't going to make the first move,

"Are you going to fight me or keep running your mouth old man?”

Celex opened his mouth as if to respond, but then lunged forward. Adam was ready, and the two exchanged a series of testing punches. Celex hit hard, really hard, and he was unrelenting.

But Adam noticed he was a bit uncoordinated.

He had amazing footwork, but he tended to stop moving to use his hands, as if forgetting he had four limbs now.

Adam used that to his advantage, punching and moving at the same time.

He was getting the upper hand when Celex figured out what was going on.

Celex switched tactics quickly and came in low, grabbing Adam around the waist with both arms and body, slamming him to the ground. Adam tensed all the muscles in his core as they hit the ground narrowly avoiding getting the wind knocked out of him, though it hurt like hell. Celex grabbed him and locked his legs around Adam like a barnacle, and the two of them went rolling across the circle.

Now that they were on the ground and rolling, Adam found himself woefully outmatched. He had never been great shakes at grappling, but clearly grappling was closer to the Celex form of combat than boxing was. It took all he had simply not to be pinned or choked out. Instead, it deveolved into a long drawn-out battle of stamina.

Whoever caved first would lose…

Adam managed to get his foot up between the two of them, and was ready to kick the Emperor off when the sky suddenly lit up with a blinding flash of white light…

The crowd went silent, eyes wide as they stared upward.

The white light dissipated into a sharp disk that crackled in an arc through the night sky.

Celex let Adam go, and the two of them got to their knees to stare.

Adam's implants began buzzing almost immediately, and before he knew it Conn was hovering above him,

"What THE HELL was that!?”

Adam demanded.

"THAT was the defense nexus."

Conn said,

"Shit."

”Shit indeed.”

Adam reached out and grabbed his shirt from a gaping member of the crowd, followed closely by Celex who sprinted after him through the crowd. Sunny linked up with them on their way out, along with Maverick and Ramirez. Maverick had a bloody nose but didn't seem to notice it as she raced after them.

The group of them piled onto a tram transport which whisked them to the airfield. Adam was met by a group of on duty soldiers.

"What's going on? Status report, now!”

"The defense nexus was activated sir. Reports are coming in from all over Arcadian airspace. Multiple similar instances. One station managed to capture this image before the explosions..."

Adam's mechanical eye opened the image.

"Shit is that…?"

"An unidentified ship of some sort?”

"Do we recognize the make?"

"The base model is Kree but the rest of it is... Unknown."

"Kazna..."

Celex muttered darkly under his breath, looking up at the sky as if waiting to see another eruption of light.

Adam felt his face pull into a grim line,

"Put Arcadia on high alert. I am declaring a state of emergency and bringing us onto DEF-CON 3! Get our pilots ready for wheels up in five."

"Yes sir!"

Whether it was a scouting mission, a probe, or the beginning of a full-scale attack, Adam had no doubt that this was the beginning…

The beginning of war.

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Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?

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Intro post by me

OC-whole collection

Patreon of the author

Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story in its original form written by starrfallknightrise and I am just proofreading and improving some parts, as well as structuring the story for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!

Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this.

Chapter 159: First, We Do This

◈◈◈

✦ FIRST CHAPTER ✦ PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✦  Prerequisites to War!!! ✦ NEXT CHAPTER ✦

The barrier took the brutal onslaught of the monsters the moment they stepped out onto the surface, and Bram felt the impact it in his teeth.

The veil drowned the whole city in a thick, dark sickly red aura, and only now he could the ramifications of what boss meant by the ambient atmosphere killing anyone not at Order III. There was a persistent ringing in his eyes and even though he was wearing the specialized gear and had his aura shield him from certain death, it wasn’t a 100% shield.

He shuddered, thinking what would have happened if they were still low rankers…

Focus, he chided himself, poured more essence into maintaining the combined thread of sorcery and directing it to the various node points.

The pale blue of the barrier pulsed and flexed inward across a forty-metre face. It went white and the essence density thinned where the pressure gathered but it held.

The Second Company held it.

Bram could see their leads inside of the barrier line with their arms up and their feet planted, mouths working through the same six words over and over.

"TWO, REPORT." Veric came through the comms and Bram was grateful for the voice helping it find calm.

"Two holding. Eighty-one percent."

"Two, you're bowing at the left seam."

"Aware. Correcting."

Above the essence wall, an abomination climbed the corpse of another abomination and came down on the barrier with everything it had. A third and fourth imitated that one..

They were stacking. Nothing in the reports had said they would stack, but then again the monsters were throwing themselves at them uncaring of thier lives. He should expect all known norms of battle to change today.

"They're not stopping," Clara Mashburn said at his shoulder. "Sir. They're not even slowing at the wall."

"No."

"They should slow. Anything alive slows."

"Alive should…" Bram wet his lips. "These things aren’t free will, Clara. Focus. If the situation worsen the lords and the boss will move."

Around him, his hundred men stood dormant in the belly of the column with their palms empty. Only Bram was on correcting and maintaining the sorcery weave duty. Rest had to preserve strength for later.

Waiting for later.

That was the hardest thing Bram had ever done in his life.

"SIX. Take up."

The block at the column's centre raised their hands.

Bram had never worked out what to make of the Chorus. A hundred mages who never attacked anything, ever. They caught what the other companies weaved and they braided it, and the air over the Mile had gone thick and bright with threads that came apart if you tried too hard to look at them.

"What are they doing," he said.

"Catching Four's spill." Clara had her eyes shut, reading it off her own senses. "Four's about to take every drop of moisture out of this end of the avenue. If nobody catches the runoff, Seven through Ten lose their ambient and the sustainers go dark."

"FOUR. Charge."

Fourth Company began the water pulse. It was a one-verse sorcery, and the sorcery wasn’t anything powerful. It was a glorified sorcery that doused the target with water. Like a splash of water.

Still when 100 of these combined together into one weave the pulse looked like a flood. Moisture came up out of the stone and the dead and the sea air, gathered along the barrier's outer face, and hung there in a slow curtain twenty metres deep.

The horde ran into it and kept running. It didn’t do any damage and only stopped them for a few moments. Still, it enabled the company to enact true attacking sorcery with much higher damage potential.

"SEVEN THROUGH TEN, watch your ambient. Four's pulling everything out of the air in front of you."

"Copy, Command."

"FIVE. Stand by."

Fifth Company raised their arms. Bram did not look away, and afterwards he was never sure whether that had been discipline or the other thing.

"Command, Two… left seam's going. I need relief."

"Three, panel up on Two's left. Move now."

Third Company moved, and they moved badly. Two of the front rank crossed feet and went down. The panel came up three seconds late, and in those three seconds something with too many elbows got a shoulder through the seam.

It made four steps into the column. Second's second rank put it down with essence-honed blades, and one of them was slow getting clear and lost most of an arm below the elbow.

Bram saw the arm hit the ground before he saw the woman it had come off. She did not scream.

"Casualty, Two, front rank, arterial—"

"Marked. Eleven, extract." Veric did not raise his voice, and somehow that was worse. "Three. Do that again and I'll have your lead's badge, and then I'll have yours. Panels come up before they're needed. Not when."

"Understood, Command."

Three seconds. Bram made himself hold on to the number. Three seconds of two people finding their feet, and a woman would spend the rest of her life learning to write with the other hand.

"FIVE." A pause on the net while Veric watched something Bram couldn't see. "Chain."

Fifth Company fired.

The lightning combined with sorcery erupted in blinding white and struck the horde. It went clean through the frontal wave of the monsters, blowing their bodies clean off.

Hundreds of monsters dead in an instant. But neither the horde nor the sorcery was finished. Just as more monsters rose over the corpses of their kin, the bolt of lightning splintered and found the bodies doused and standing in the water, and every one of those bodies was touching others. The lightning arcs toward each of them.

Bram watched the flashes of white, and the cacophony of dying screams and wails filled the battlefield.

Thousands upon thousands of abominations convulsed together as the mage company repeated the water pulse sorcery and then followed up again with a lightning sorcery, but this time focusing more on chain rather than raw damage.

The number of corpses, the terrible smell of charred corpses and the cacophony only rose with each step the army took forward.

The barrier also had arcs of light sliding off its surface as it pushed forward.

"Keep advancing." Veric again on the comms. "Barrier factor in and allow dead signatures to pass the barrier. Push against the living signatures. Walk. Two, Three, keep the panel on the front, don't chase the flanks. Go."

The column moved. And another fresh wave of monsters collided with the barrier again.

Eighty seconds. That was the cycle. Barrier, water, chain, twenty to fifty metres.

They had drilled it hundreds of times on the surface, and Bram had hated every drill. But he understood now that he had hated them because they were boring and that boring had been the entire point.

Because today was not boring… it was hell.

◈◈◈

The comms were a mess by the second kilometer marker.

"—Nine, we've got ambient collapse in the green, I can't hold sustainer output at this—"

"Nine, this is Command, throttle to sixty and cycle with Twelve—"

"Command, Four, my second's down—"

"Who's stepping up."

"Voss."

"Voss, you have Fourth Company. Confirm."

A pause. Then a young voice, dragged up out of a well. "Voss has Fourth. Confirmed, sir."

"Good lad. Charge on my count."

Bram listened to a nineteen-year-old inherit a hundred people and take it without arguing, and something went hot in his chest and stayed there. He wanted to find the boy afterwards and tell him. He knew he probably wouldn't, and he was ashamed of knowing it.

Just when they were making good progress and getting used to the surface… a renewed and stronger pressure bore down on them.

Bram's knees folded before his brain had finished registering anything, and he went down on one hand and stayed there with his breath punched out of him. All around him people dropped. Fourth Company's water pulse guttered and came apart in the air.

The barrier flickered.

An Order IV. Somewhere ahead, up the Mile, past the horde and Order IV had showed up.

Bram had never been afraid like this. The fear did not feel like his. It felt installed, put into him from outside by something that had decided he should have it, and the part of him that could still form sentences hated that more than the fear itself.

"AURA EVENT." Vera on the net, thin. "Command, aura event, bearing—"

"I have it," Veric said. "Everybody down and hold. X, one out."

Something went over the top of the barrier.

Bram got his head up in time to see a shape cross the shell from the inside, land in the middle of forty thousand abominations, and vanish into them.

Two seconds of nothing.

Then a sound rose from the horde. It was a devastatingly loud slicing sound, like a sword cutting cleanly through bamboo, only played on the world's loudest speakers. It’s sound, and a shockwave swept across the entire battlefield.

And they just like that, the pressure was gone.

Bram got his lungs working as his aura rose. The column came up off its knees around him. Fourth Company's leads started their verse again from the top with their hands shaking, and the barrier steadied, and somebody behind Bram was being sick and apologizing for it between heaves.

A figure shot from the sky and landed in a crouch six ranks ahead. Bram saw the flash of silver hair. Mr. Silvers straightened and rolled one shoulder. There was blood on him to the elbows, and none of it was his.

"Command, Starkiller," Salvatore's voice on the net was bored. "One underlord abomination. Threat taken care of. There'll be more."

"Copy. Thank you, sir."

"Don't."

Bram was staring. He knew he was staring and could not stop. His fingers dug into his palms. A few weeks ago, he was nothing. He was a salty, helpless young man who took out his frustration on others. And now he stood shoulder to shoulder with figures he could only look up to but never reach.

Whatever one might say about Jin Winters. For Bram, he was his boss who made this possible, and he would not stop at being just an ORDER III. He will rise and protect his people.

A cold chill ran up his arms, breaking his line of thoughts and he looked down to find a silverly chain coiled around his right arm.

“Boss chains?” He muttered.

Then all of a sudden he felt a sting on the arm and everything cleared. The miasma covering and bearing down in his senses cleared up and a rush of fresh essence flooded through him.

The chain then uncoiled and disappeared.

He also noticed the same chains around other leads and also coiled twice around Sir Silvers’ arms.

Clara had felt too. "Sir—"

"That was boss, don’t find the chains."

“Sir,” she nodded.

◈◈◈

The cool wash from the sustainers came at the fifth kilometer marker, and Bram was not ready for how badly he needed it and he realized Boss chains were doing the same thing, but on a more personal and deeper level.

Down the column a hundred people in the Eleventh stood with their hands out and their eyes shut, feeding it forward through the formation. They were the only ones on that road not looking at anything.

"Eleven, you're beautiful," someone said on the open channel.

"Get off the net," Veric said.

"Sir."

"You can marry them after. Two, your panel's dropping. Three, relieve."

Bram laughed. He heard himself do it and could not entirely account for it. Two ranks up a girl called Lira laughed too, and then four more of them, and for about six seconds a section of First Company stood in the middle of a slaughter and laughed like idiots.

Then the horde hit the barrier again, and they were stopped by the might of thier powers.

The survivor’s Wrath.

◈◈◈

The second aura event came at the seventh marker and the sudden increase in pressure was even worse than the first time.

This time there were two of them.

"BREACH RISK, TWO, TWO, THE PANEL—"

"HOLD THE PANEL." Veric went through the net like a nail. "HOLD IT. X—"

Starkiller was already in air.

That was the part Bram would remember, and not the kill because Sir Silvers was flying.

This time, along with the sounds of explosion Bram could see multiple buildings collapsing in a wave from the sheer shockwaves of the attack.

And the pressure came off the column like a lid off a pot.

"Two down." Salvatore sounded, for the first time all day, faintly interested. "Command. Something's…"

"Say again, sir?"

A long pause on the net.

"Nothing," Salvatore said. "Keep your count."

◈◈◈

The chains came at the eighth marker, and nobody on that road ever agreed afterwards about where they came from.

Bram was watching Fifth Company charge when the light over the column changed. He looked up.

Chains… Hundreds of them… rising from somewhere back and low in the formation, arcing over the heads of twenty-two hundred people and out past the barrier in a spread that took the whole width of the Mile.

They went into the horde like rain into a field.

Bram saw one hit an abomination in the chest and pass through without slowing. He saw the thing stop mid-lunge. Then it sagged, and the mass went out of it in under a second, and what dropped on the stone was a grey shell shaped like something that used to be alive.

The chain was already three bodies further on.

They worked in silence. That was the part that got into people afterwards. Forty thousand things screaming, five companies chanting, the barrier singing under load and the chains made no sound at all while they emptied the front two hundred metres of the avenue.

Then the power came back down the line as those very chains found him.

His essence heart had been running at half since the fifth marker. It filled in about two seconds and kept filling until he had to dispense the excess back into the weaves of sorcery.

Up and down the column, twenty-two hundred people staggered and then straightened.

"Command—" Somebody was almost shouting. "Command, my reserves just went to full, what was—"

"Command, Fourth, same, we're at—"

"Command, what is that? Sir, what is—"

"Everyone shut up and use it," Veric said. “Boss helping us out. Don’t question.”

◈◈◈

The Mile ended at the eleventh marker.

Second Company walked the barrier the last forty metres. The horde thinned, and thinned again, and then there was open ground in front of them and the inner curtain beyond it.

Bram had read the brief. He had read it four times, the last time by lamplight at three in the morning with his boots still on. Stone curtain wall, nine metres, single gate, garrison strength unknown.

The column halted. The barrier came down to a maintenance panel.

Somewhere behind him a man was crying and not bothering to hide it, and Bram let him. After all this place was a symbol of people’s faith. The primes were the gods of Vienna and now thier very temple of power corrupted into this.

Ahead, the lead counted off casualties. Bram made himself listen to the whole list. He owed them that much, standing there all day with clean hands.

Then he walked forward through the ranks, because he was First Company and First Company went first, and he stopped about thirty metres out.

He got close enough to see that the wall had faces… faces that resembled vaguely human and judging by the sudden shift in mood and rage he was feeling…

These faces belonged to the once people of the city who were likely captured by the cult.

Comms filtered in information that the wall was just for… show… there was no purpose for it other than to…

“Sadistic cocksuckers,” Bram cursed.

✦ FIRST CHAPTER ✦ PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✦ Prerequisites to War!!! ✦ NEXT CHAPTER ✦

◈◈◈

A/N: The war is on!

Bau Bau~

Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon. It would be awesome if you guys, you know...

Help me with rent and UNI is crazy expensive!! Not want much, just enough to chip in.

✦ DISCORD ✦ PATREON ✦

Patreon | Royal Road | Discord | Previous | V6 Beginning | Volume 1 | Chapter 27

“The United States has reached an agreement with Thali’ean representative Prince Nelivit of House Bravillia to formalize military cooperation with Thali’ean and the Hispana Republic, marking a major expansion of the growing coalition against the Unity. The agreement still requires approval from Congress, but its passage is widely expected and would formally bring the United States into the coalition.

As part of the expanding US/USAM Grand Strategy, General Kelvin Sherman announced plans to establish Field Force II inside the theater of war, beginning with the Thali’ean capital of Ellaqua. The 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division is expected to conduct a combat parachute operation within two days to secure the area and begin construction of a new airfield. The 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division will follow, with the newly arrived 10th Mountain Division and 7th MDTF deploying once the field is operational. Their mission will be to defend Ellaqua and begin combat operations against Unity forces.

The establishment of Field Force II is also expected to pave the way for Hispana Republic forces to form Field Force III, creating a three-force military structure across the coalition. Sherman described the arrangement as the beginning of a long-term strategy to connect the three nations through a triangular logistical network capable of moving troops, equipment, and supplies efficiently across the theater.

If Congress approves the agreement, as most experts expect, General Sherman is also expected to receive promotion to Six-Star General, a rank that has been awarded only three times in American history. John J. Pershing received the title during World War I, while George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant received it posthumously as honorary appointments.

The White House defended the proposed promotion, stating that the unprecedented scale and importance of the war requires a senior commander capable of unifying military forces from multiple worlds. “This is not simply an American war,” officials said. “It is a conflict that requires our nations and our militaries to operate as one.” - Salva Dioliet

June 12th, 2069 (Military Calendar)

Prime Lord Palace, Affrooliea

Nevali Region, Aldrida, Alagore

*****

Illythia walked through the Palace halls, lifting the hem of her dress to keep it from the blood smeared across the marble floor. The copper scent still lingered in the air despite the open windows, mixing with dust from shattered stone.

Hundreds of slaves worked tirelessly to restore the Palace to its former glory, though it would be a monumental task. Statues lay shattered. Stonework had collapsed. Palace automatons had been reduced to twisted wreckage. The walls were scarred by magic and energy blasts, riddled with bullet holes. Paintings and decorative drapes had been ruined, while entire sections of the structure had been blasted open.

She had always understood that the Altaerrie humans posed a threat.

Illythia simply hadn't expected them to inflict this much damage.

After following a Palace Guard to the throne chamber, she found Verliance Lord Kallem standing beside the Prime Lord's throne. Below him knelt dozens of nobles from across Nevali, each pledging their loyalty and, more importantly, their support for the coming war.

After some time, the nobles were dismissed from the lecture chamber, encouraged by General Ayark to prepare their Houses for the conflict.

Once the room had emptied, the Kiriyak General turned toward the Vampire Lord, unable to hide his irritation.

He openly questioned why Kallem had allowed nobles who challenged Verliance authority during the summit to leave unpunished.

Kallem answered with a lecture of his own.

He criticized Ayark for failing to trap the Salva delegation, allowing them to escape while an old rival seized the opportunity to ignite a rebellion against the throne.

Ayark argued that no one could have predicted a revolt erupting at the exact moment he cornered the delegation in the market. Victory would have been theirs had traitors not intervened.

Even Kallem conceded that point.

Only then did Ayark rise.

“If we had attacked their compound when I first suggested it, they never would have escaped... nor would this rebellion have happened.”

Illythia quietly shook her head.

A capable and brutal general, Ayark was not burdened by many of his people's rigid traditions.

Politics, however, had never been his battlefield.

The Vampire Lord reprimanded him for failing to understand the delicate political position they occupied before dismissing the General and ordering him to restore order throughout the city.

Illythia stepped back into the hallway.

When Ayark emerged, genuine surprise crossed his face.

“Mistress. I was not expecting you.”

“I do not need to announce my presence beforehand,” Illythia replied coolly. “And you should know better than to question Kallem so openly.”

Ayark glanced back toward the throne chamber, annoyance evident in his expression.

“His schemes are why we failed to kill the child and the Altaerrie man. And it will never be easier than today. The Templar wasn't even among them.”

“No,” Illythia answered. “On this, he is correct. An unprovoked attack would have driven many City-States into that child slave hand. His schemes are the reason House Verliance has remained on the throne for generations.”

Her response only deepened the Kiriyak's frustration. Still, he held his tongue out of respect for his Mistress. Still, that didn’t stop him from giving a frustrated growl as he marched away, gathering Palace Guards as he departed to suppress what resistance remained within the city.

The Kiriyak was a blunt weapon, she thought. Useful in battle. Dangerous in politics. But valuable to have, in case anyone crossed her path.

Once the hallway fell silent again, Illythia entered the throne chamber.

There she found her Lord seated upon the Prime Lord's throne, quietly reflecting on the recent battle. It was a rare glimpse of vulnerability and one she quietly savored.

“My Lord,” she said. “If anyone has earned rest, it is you after today's victory.”

“Do not lecture me, Illythia,” Kallem replied.

He straightened his posture before rising from the throne. His armor still bore the marks of battle. Bullet impacts scarred the breastplate, the sides were scorched black by spells, and enemy blood stained the polished metal.

“Why are you not assisting my daughter?”

“Your daughter is doing an exceptional job governing your realm in your absence,” Illythia replied. “Naturally, I have offered guidance with the daily affairs where appropriate.”

This caused her to smile faintly. “I will even offer you a compliment. You raised your daughter well. Mine could never bear the strain of governing a city—let alone an empire—alone.”

“She takes after her mother,” Kallem answered. “Very few could withstand such responsibility. After our children's marriage, your daughter will learn the art of governing an empire.”

Part of Illythia almost laughed but was forced to restrain herself. To her frustration, her Lord noticed that slight emotional hiccup and would have noted that minor detail for later.

The idea of Viessa ruling independently was amusing. Still, she had to admit Kallem's daughter, Ornnallia, had managed the responsibilities left behind by her late mother with remarkable competence.

Though she disagreed with one point. Ornnallia resembled her father far more than her mother. Her confidence. Her discipline. Even the way she carried herself.

“I must disagree,” Illythia said. “She takes after you.”

“Perhaps now,” Kallem replied. “In my youth, I was more like Ere-hian. My discipline was never taught. It was forged through decades of disappointing my father. Grandfather, and brothers.”

“Now... why are you here?”

“Our Houses may soon become one,” Illythia answered, “but I am still under no obligation to explain my travels.”

She folded her hands behind her back as she slowly wandered around the chamber.

“I wished to see how the war front progressed. I had grown weary of remaining inside your castle.”

“You could have gone anywhere,” Kallem replied. “Coming this close to the front was unnecessary... and dangerous.”

Illythiav couldn’t help but have a playful smile spread across her face. She continued circling the chamber with graceful confidence, deliberately testing the boundaries she had spent years slowly moving.

 “You do care about my well-being.”

Kallem merely exhaled, as though accepting that she had no intention of leaving.

“If you must know,” he said, “I have secured House Verliance's position within Nevali.”

He looked toward one of the shattered windows overlooking the city.

“From here... we will drive the invaders from my lands.”

Before Illythia could respond, she watched the Vampire Lord turn and leave the throne chamber.

She quietly sighed. His habit of ending conversations on his own terms remained as irritating as ever. At every opportunity, he reminded those around him that he occupied the highest seat in Aldrida. It was a tactic she herself often employed.

The Mistress simply disliked having it used against her.

Quickening her pace, she caught up and fell into step beside him. “There is something I have wished to ask.”

Kallem continued walking without acknowledging her.

“I understand why we seek to defeat the Altaerrie and secure the Orilla device,” she continued. “But your interest in these lands existed long before its discovery. Why do you care about these backwater people? They are beneath our race.”

“They are beneath us,” Kallem answered. “Yet there is power hidden within these lands. Not in technology... but in something far more dangerous.”

“Forgettable hill folk? That is why you care about them?”

“Yes.”

His answer came without hesitation.

“The terrain discourages central authority, but not permanently. If you recall, the former Elf-Vampire alliance of Uristans was birthed here. Under the right ruler, these lands become a powerful foundation for expanding an empire. Hispana understood that when it elevated the current family to govern this region.”

He continued through the corridor, passing servants and guards alike. “Nevali provides resources, manpower, and a naturally defensible frontier capable of sustaining any prolonged war.”

“That is a logical assessment,” Illythia admitted, “but history does not support it. Even the Balan puppet rulers struggled to maintain order.”

“As I said... under one who is worthy.”

“And you believe you are that ruler?”

The words escaped before she fully understood what they implied. Then realization struck.

Her crimson eyes narrowed. “That is why you are wary of that slave girl... and the Altaerrie human.”

Kallem offered no reply, which, in that silence alone, confirmed her suspicion.

The Lord of House Verliance—the man who had ruled the Aristocracy for decades—considered those two a genuine threat. Maybe not militarily, but politically.

“So that was the purpose of this elaborate scheme?” she asked. “Everything... simply to confront your newest enemies?”

“Mistress Illythia.” His voice remained calm. “I expected better from you.”

He continued walking, hands folded behind his back. “You, of all people, should understand the value of a powerful story. These are not ordinary humans, left unchecked; everything I have built here will eventually crumble.”

“Then the Aristocracy will find itself surrounded on every side.”

“Surrounded?” Illythia asked. “Last I checked, the Unity remains our ally.”

Again... No answer. The two continued through the Palace halls.

Whenever servants or guards noticed Kallem's presence, they immediately halted what they were doing and knelt.

His silence left Illythia alone with her thoughts. There was no denying that Kallem had identified the Altaerrie as a threat, just as he had recognized the danger posed by the Unity decades earlier. Yet something had never made sense. Yet, he had surrendered to the Crusaders to spare his people from invasion. That decision had always troubled her.

A ruler of Kallem's stature should never have yielded so quickly after sacrificing so much blood and treasure resisting the Unity's onslaught. The only explanation she had ever accepted was the assassination of his wife by Hispana during a failed attempt on his life.

Even after her death..., he never sought vengeance.

Instead, he withdrew the Aristocracy from broader affairs and devoted himself almost entirely to Nevali and domestic stability.

Officially, the Aristocracy and the Unity remained allies. Unofficially....

“Kallem,” she said, breaking the silence once more. “If you truly consider these humans—and these Ryders—such a threat, why invite them to dine with you before attempting to capture them?”

She tilted her head slightly. “I understand the importance of appearances, but arresting them immediately would have solved many of the concerns you now speak of.”

“I fear nothing,” Kallem replied evenly. “And it would not have been appropriate to seize them at that stage. As Heads of our respective Houses, I believed it appropriate that we first share a meal before my plans unfolded.”

“So... you manipulated them into attacking the Palace.”

As they approached a pair of towering double doors, Illythia slowed.

If the stories surrounding Ryder's attachment to the Orcs were true—and after Kallem had displayed them before the summit—the Altaerrie Captain would have assaulted the Palace regardless.

The dinner had served another purpose. This caused her smile to widen. “You wished to see your former slave again... didn't you?”

Kallem reached for the doors. For the first time, his mannerisms hesitated. But only for a heartbeat.

Yet that single pause was worth more than any confession. It confirmed everything. He had wanted to see the slave girl again. Just as importantly, it revealed something else.

Kallem respected the Altaerrie Captain who had become her father.

There remained one detail she still couldn't reconcile. When Ryder and Assiaya escaped the first time at Forlace, Kallem's response had seemed almost restrained.

Initially, she assumed they had simply slipped through his grasp after taking the unexpected western route instead of fleeing north. Now, knowing how much the Vampire Lord cared about the girl.

“Interesting,” she murmured.

The pair stepped onto a broad stone balcony overlooking the city, and this was where Kallem had finally stopped, with his crimson eyes looking west.

Far beyond the city walls, faint flashes illuminated the horizon as artillery continued exchanging fire. The distant echoes rolled across the countryside like approaching thunder.

“You asked why I seek to clash with this Altaerrie man,” Kallem finally said. “Since the beginning of his war—when we first crossed paths upon his world—our destinies have been intertwined.”

He rested both hands upon the stone railing. “When fighting the Unity, there were no honorable battles. No worthy opponents. Only necessity for our survival. And in the end... I was forced to concede.”

His eyes remained fixed on the distant horizon. “But here... there will be no compromise. There will be a proper contest. One of us will prevail. The other will fall.”

“You have always been a strange man, my Lord,” Illythia said softly. Finding the statement humorous.

She understood his meaning. Seeking an honorable war, yet that doesn’t mean she agreed with this notion of armor. Only victory.

“You speak as though you seek redemption.”

“Redemption?” Kallem gave the faintest shake of his head. “No. I am preparing for the future.”

The Lord of the Verliance Houlse stared out, watching the glow of battle unfolding.

“If we lose here, the Aristocracy itself will become vulnerable.”

“Our allies in the Unity will sense weakness and begin entertaining dangerous ambitions.”

“Our enemies will see only a corpse waiting to be picked apart.”

He finally turned toward her.

“My son—or I—will not be the last of House Verliance.”

“It will outlive the Altaerrie.”

“It will outlive the Unity.”

Illythia rested one hand upon the stone railing beside him.

Not touching him. Not yet. But closer than most would ever dare stand. Years ago, he had rejected her marriage proposal, as she had anticipated.

Little by little, she had pushed against the boundaries he established, slowly becoming one of the few people permitted this close to him. Standing beside the Lord of House Verliance, one thought lingered in her mind.

It wasn't the way he spoke about Ryder that interested her. She had rarely heard Kallem speak of an enemy in such a manner.

It was respect.

That was what unsettled her most. Kallem respected almost no one—not rivals, not allies, and certainly not his enemies.

Yet whenever the Vampire Lord spoke of Mathew Ryder, there was neither contempt nor arrogance.

Only the quiet acknowledgment that somewhere beyond the western horizon walked a man capable of unraveling everything House Verliance had spent generations building.

For Illythia, that realization was far more fascinating than the battle itself.

June 13th, 2069 (Military Calendar)

Salva, Velunara Protectorate

Nevali Region, Aldrida, Alagore

*****

Ryder grabbed the local polë whiskeui, or wheat whiskey, and poured it into the small glass. He then lifted the glass, staring at it.

Next to him was a Dioliet, broadcasting updates on the war.

The campaign against Silvium was on the verge of concluding, thanks to Natilite and the Minutemen's actions. After destroying the Unity and Teviel base, the supply lines were now secured in the north, allowing the United States to bear its full weight against the city. The Brass believes the City-State will fall at any time, opening a safe passage for aircraft in the north.

The other subject was the Public Relations Officer addressing the question regarding the Bridge deactivation. The Officer rejected any claim that the portal had ever malfunctioned, stating that it was only down for maintenance while applying American nuclear power to increase efficiency. Any opposing view was considered grunt gossip, a fear that he acknowledged everyone had.

Ryder knew the truth after listening to a long story from Fraeya about her venture to Mars. It was a crazy tale, with new enemies and mysteries to unravel. A positive note he noticed was her loyalty. Rejecting a senior lead position at Ashurbanipal to stay with Comanche. It was home.

That led to the final part of the daily update. Uprising across Nevali, going from small towns to villages rebelling against their local lords and the Katra, causing chaos for the enemy logistics. Weapons and troops are already slipping through to assist in the new guerrilla campaign.

However, that didn’t translate into the population centers converting to Salva’s side. Kallem’s power became absolute, and most of the neutral City-States now joined the war on the Aristocracy's behalf. Harff mobilized a hundred thousand militia, creating a massive new front that the Coalition didn’t have to defend before. Brutal suppression of the countryside, with anyone caught in rebellion, would be sold to the Unity for judgment.

Most importantly, the rebellion at Affrooliea failed as expected. Anyone who survived the execution was publicly tortured to death. Because so many slaves became sympathetic to the Ryder House, most were instantly killed, even if they remained loyal, while others were given to their Toriffa allies to succumb to their desires.

“I see you have already started without me.”

Ryder turned to see his mentor, Colonel Hackett, turning off the magitech alien radio before taking a seat. “You know, it still surprises me that people used to get their daily news from… that.”

“There was a point where that was the main source. The Internet of its day. If I recall, it lasted about a hundred years before television replaced it. But that is the nature of things.”

The Colonel ordered himself a drink and settled in. “So, what brings you here?”

“Just clearing my head.”

“I can understand.” The Colonel then took a drink. “I saw that Orc family. They were the ones that saved you and Assiaya?”

“Yup.” Ryder leaned into his chair, staring at the Dioliet radio box. “I do wonder if they regret doing that.”

“Don’t ponder on what ifs, Matt. What happened to them was not your fault.”

“I know. They could have turned us on and been shot if they had known Asisaya's identity. It just sucks. I guess the saying is true: no good deed goes unpunished.”

“What happened to them?”

“I had Ceka make arrangements for a home. I think for now, they need time.”

“I know what you are thinking; you did well, Matt. You did well. You all did. The Brass is very pleased.”

“I know, I was there. I am glad to see that Natilite isn’t above her Templar label and trusted us. Otherwise, those Teivel would’ve won. I am concerned about them, though. I can only hope that they will follow her example.”

“She vouched for them, but there is some uneasiness after their deception. Expect the CIA representative for obvious reasons. Even if it was for the greater good, their actions would ruffle some feathers. Still, we will have to learn to work with these Templars. Otherwise, these Teviel will tear us apart.”

“They are not like her. I would like you to talk to them, as Duke of this city. They might respect that more.”

Ryder signed, acknowledging the order.

Wishing to change the subject, he continued, “I do want to say, Fraeya is a lot stronger than she gives herself credit for.”

The Captain was shocked to hear what she had been through. Raiding these ruins was dangerous enough, and yet going through an unknown portal to an unknown destination, which only ended up on Mars. Discovering that each world's Akumas hate each other, and new types of these demons, only made everything more complicated. And yet, she survived. “That’s the second suicidal mission she's been through, and here she is.”

“She is definitely our little elf. Because of her actions, we can bridge to our most critical research facility on Mars, and the White House has given us the lead position on Akkad research.”

“I am proud of her. I really am. I told her father would be proud.”

“And how did she take that?”

Ryder explained that the Elf Girl nearly strangled him to death from her overly expressive and emotional hugs. This made them chuckle before they took a drink.

“I do want to ask, what about that Akkad site Basilisks discovered?”

“We sent a Nightbird to bomb the facility with two Massive Penetrators. We just didn’t have the manpower to secure it form here yet, and we didn’t want this Dwarf-Goblin Order to maintain control of it.”

He didn’t blame the Colonel. Whatever this new faction was up to, it was vital to prevent them from having such a valuable resource. Better to keep those secrets from no one than to let the enemy use them to counter USAM interests.

Sadly, it came at the cost of half of Basilisks. That Minutemen team suffered so many casualties protecting Fraeya that they are no longer combat-effective and have been moved to reserve status. He personally thanked them all for defending his teammate.

When Hackett set his glass down before grabbing the native whiskey bottle, refilling their glasses. “I wanted to tell you, thank you for not lying about Assiaya's astral projection abilities and the fairy possessing her.”

“Last time I tried hiding something from you about her, you basically bitched slapped me. Then promoted me.”

Hackett simply chuckled, finding the memory humorous. “I am glad you have learned from that. It has been a major subject of discussion at VI Corps on what to do with that information.”

“They're not taking her,” Ryder boldly stated.

“No need to get defensive,” Hackett calmly responded. “No one is planning on taking her. More than that, she opens another question this world has. No one knows about this ability, or about these fairies-.”

“Kallem knew.” Ryder then took a long drink.

Hackett nodded his head, coming to the same conclusion. “I agree. We also concluded that is why he told everyone the Princess was dead, and kept her as his personal slave. To hide that truth.”

Ryder picked up his refilled glass, staring at it.

This revelation struck deeper for him. The relationship between the Vampire Lord and his daughter was deeper than he expected. What bothered him was that Kallem had feelings for her. Not romantic in nature, but there was some level of care. Enough to influence his foreign policy, such as that conspiracy with those City-States to humiliate and capture his House.

“Look at the bright side,” Hackett said. “At least we know he wasn’t the one who tried assassinating you, or sent that fake duchess woman.”

Ryder already knew the answer to that. With their short dinner conversation, he came to the same conclusion. “One date doesn’t mean we are not enemies. I still don’t understand why, though.”

“It is simple, Matt. With the modern world, with drones, instant communication, and all of our gadgets we rely on. We have gotten dirty. It has never been easier to see your enemy as pure evil, nothing redeemable. However, just like the old days, you might be enemies, but you can still have respect for your enemies.”

“It still doesn’t make any sense.”

“What is on your mind?”

“Kalkem respects me? I made a fool of myself in Affrooliea. So many died because of my actions. I fell right into his trap with that Orc family. I compromised everything. I almost got one of my teammates killed over a race everyone hates.”

Hackett took a drink before gently setting his glass down. “Do you regret what you did?”

Ryder held his glass, without hesitation, responded with "no", and took a drink. And that is what concerned him.

“Good. I am not going to say you did everything perfectly; there is no perfection in war or politics. Remember what Holloway said.”

The Alagore Czar was nearly glowing during the debrief about the details. Apparently, he never believed this diplomatic mission would have succeeded. When the Colonel said they wanted to make a statement, they wanted to show everyone that the Americans wouldn’t take any humiliation lying down.

In short, they sent their flagship team into the heart of the beast, knowing they would cause trouble. If this was a trap, which it was, the opportunities for chaos would emerge, and the Captain and Ambassador would exploit it. Which they did explosively.

Holloway didn’t care about the liberation of the Orc slaves in detail, as his interest was in winning the war, not making an anti-slavery point. However, the man enjoyed the fact that it rubbed into the faces of all the nobility in the region. One of his greatest fears was that Ryder’s House would blend into the environment too much, where many would only see the same. No, he wanted to shake this up, and freeing the Orcs sent a message that they were here to play a new game.

And that brought up the most important point for the Czar, escorting a Slave Trader to Salva, under the agreement of protection and exclusivity for his practice. Out of everything that had happened, Ryder believed this point was what would have nailed him in the eyes of the Brass. Freeing slaves is good PR for the American people, but working with one?

However, it was exactly what the CIA wanted. Through the Orugia business network, the United States intelligence agencies can expand their influence in a world they have never been to before. To listen and install agents when needed in places they currently cannot reach. More importantly, with this arrangement, this Slave Trader can find and smuggle people of interest to Salva to be freed. Warriors, leaders, religious folk, potential allies, anyone of value to building the Velunara Protectorate or the war effort, with a superpower funding it.

The icing on the cake was securing new allies. They were not the ones the White House would have preferred. While it wasn’t expected to secure entire City-States at this summit, that would have been ideal. Yet, many Nobles and Guild Masters willingly volunteering to fight alongside the Assiaya throne, and opening the countryside with thousands of new allies and troops, is a game-changer for this current slugfest.

“That this was a successful mission. The Czar was nearly levitating with us shooting up a palace, on top of starting a civil war there. That Kallem's stranglehold in this region was secured, but cracks are forming.”

“That is correct,” Hackett said. “Remember right before all this started? When you asked me to assign Fraeya to your team?”

“Yeah?”

“I hated the idea. She was an unknown, let alone an alien, and the Minutemen are a Tier-1 SF unit. Giving that kind of expectation wasn’t inside any doctrine that would be acceptable on Earth. And then Natilite came, and you allowed her on without asking.”

“Well… you tell a genetically augmented super soldier that she couldn’t,” Ryder replied.

“That did cross my mind, yet I think she would have honored my decision if I said no, which I considered. However, by that point, I was starting to see the benefits.”

“Thank you, sir, but why are you saying this?”

Fraeya learned that she can be essential under pressure, that she isn’t a fifth wheel. Natilite, even as an augmented super-soldier, achieved victory only through cooperation and trust in us lessers. When your back is against the wall, you can respond. You were right to trust your gut with Fraeya. Then again, with Natilite, and at Affrooliea.”

“My gut? Yeah… I am not fully certain about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“That Slaver Trader.” Ryder quickly finished his glass before continuing. “The bastard said he allied with me because I wasn’t moral. That I am pragmatic.”

“I can see how that can get under your skin,” Hackett said.

“It isn’t under my skin. The bastard was right. I used to enjoy killing his kind in Northern Mexico and Iraq. Now I am dealing with them.”

The Colonel then took a drink from his whiskey, debating the subject. When he set his glass down, he said, “The Slave Trader is correct. Morality is for fairytales, barbeques, and those who shout from the safety of their classroom, while people who understand the world build civilizations. I know that is hard for men of faith to say, but morality is overrated.”

Ryder slowly set his beer on the table, giving his full attention to the Colonel with wide eyes.  “I am surprised to hear that coming from you.”

“Do not get me wrong, Matt. We should all try to live moral lives; however, we both know that isn’t always in the cards. There was nothing moral about nuking Japan twice; but it was pragmatic to save millions. We had to do what we had to do because that was war, and those who scream the moral sins of that choice, almost two centuries later, well, they never had to make the choice or face the reality of not doing it. It is always easier to take the high ground when you don’t have to make the decision. Or the other extreme, the level of deaths and oppression of communist equity or fundamentalism. Are they moral societies? Yes. Is there also a trail of body bags enforcing that morality? Also, yes.”

Ryder saw the point his mentor was making and agreed. “It was easier when shooting people like Orugia in North Mexico. I just never thought I would have been making those decisions.”

“And that is why I proposed my plan to make Assiaya the Princess, and you the Duke, to the General. Because I know you can make the tough decisions. You can adapt, grow, and make not the moral or pragmatic choice, but the right ones when it matters. You are real, Matt.”

“I know.” Ryder took a deep breath. “It was a successful mission.”

“Good,” Hackett said. “In the end, all you can do is trust your gut. That is all a man can do.”

Kerbran has a gate, though no wall to speak of. The wall came down stone by stone two centuries ago, collapsed into piles of rubble and choked with creeping vines. The gatehouse stands alone at the head of the avenue: a ragged arch of granite flanked by two broken teeth of masonry, where the wood-road ends and the avenue runs up to the house. I have never known why the Brân left it standing when they laid down the wards. Perhaps they thought even a living lock ought to have a door to knock on.

I waited for him under the arch.

It was a long, bitter wait. The short winter day burned down to ash behind the pines, the snow turned from blinding white toa shadowed blue in the twilight. Morvran perched on the broken crenelation above my head, his head tucked against his breast, watching the avenue with one unblinking yellow orb. I closed my eyes and listened to the road.

Cian's pulse was slower now. He had marched through a foot of fresh powder and his strength was all but spent. The grey seam inside his heartbeat — that dry, rhythmic scraping I had heard at the treeline — had grown louder with every mile he drew closer to Kerbran. At the western boundary it had been a faint murmur, but by the time he passed the charcoal-burners' clearing, it had quickened to a steady, metallic hiss.

The rot in his blood knew where it was. It was answering the source beneath the house, humming in his marrow like a plucked harp string.

Of course it knows, the Guest murmured, stirring deep beneath my collarbones with the dry rustle of dead leaves. He is carrying my mark. Everything that rots in this wood belongs to me in the end. Bring him inside, little lock. Let us see how much of him is left to drink.

"Be quiet," I breathed into the linen of my veil.

He came out from beneath the canopy at the turn of the avenue, a dark, solitary silhouette against the snow. He stumbled once where the exposed roots of a dead yew crossed the ruts, caught his footing with a soldier's rough balance, and kept on. Thirty paces from the gatehouse arch he saw me and stopped.

I know what I looked like to him. A tall, grey-cloaked figure standing motionless in the dusk, veiled from brow to breast, flanked by snow-laden brambles and crowned with a raven. Every child in Plouvilin grows up on songs about the lady in the wood— songs sung at the hearth when the winter gales rattle the shutters, full of hollow bones, cart-wheels squeaking in the dark, and empty horn cups that swallow men's souls. Some of the songs make me a monster with gleaming teeth; one, which I had heard carters whistle on the high road when I was younger, makes me a maid who died of grief and wanders the pines waiting for a lover. None of them are true, and all of them are a little true, the way old songs usually are.

He stood knee-deep in the drift, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling beneath his patched oilskin coat. We measured one another across the frozen ground while the wind sifted fine powder through the empty arrow-slits above us.

"Run," I said.

The word fell between us, flat and dead as dropped lead.

He did not move.

"Under Lugern's law, a traveler is given three warnings at the boundary," I told him, keeping my voice low and steady. "I warned you at the ditch twenty years ago. I warned you at the bend this morning. This is the third word, Cian of Plouvilin. If you cross this arch, your blood is on your own head. Turn back, take the road to the village, and do not stop until you are past the rowan ring."

"I can't," he said. His voice was gravel-rough from the freezing air, but there was no tremble in it.

"You can. Your legs carried you a whole day through the drifts. They will carry you back the way you came."

A faint, wry twitch caught the corner of his mouth — not quite a smile, but the ghost of one, gone before it could warm his lean, wind-burned face. "You don't understand," he said. "I've taken an advance. I've accepted a contract, and I don't break an engagement."

"What contract?"

He looked straight into the dark gauze where my eyes were hidden. His own eyes were grey — not the curdled, slate-colored rot of the curse, but a clean, cold, human grey, the color of winter seas under an overcast sky.

"I was paid thirty silver groats to walk into Kerbran and kill the Ankou's maid," he said.

The silence came back down over the avenue, heavier than the snow. In the vault behind my heart, the Guest went utterly still, listening with a predator's amused, razor-sharp attention.

In all my centuries, men had come to the wood with murder in their minds perhaps a dozen times. They came with firebrands and sanctified salt, with consecrated iron, or with boar-spears dipped in holy water from the parish well. One lord came with three wolfhounds; another brought an itinerant priest who stood at the ditch shouting in the temple tongue until his throat cracked. None of them had ever stopped at the threshold to announce their business. They had not needed to. You can hear murder in a man's heart before he draws his blade: the frantic flutter, the sharp, sour heat of blood beating against the ribs. I had been listening to Cian's pulse since dawn, and there was no murder in it. There was only exhaustion, a terrifying weight of patience, and the dry, scraping hunger of the grey.

"Then do it," I said.

He did not hesitate, but neither did he rush. He reached over his shoulder, slipped the unstrung hunting recurve from its leather casing, and notched the hemp cord with the smooth, practiced economy of a soldier. He drew a broadhead from the quiver at his belt, nocked it, and brought the bow up to full draw, the ash limbs groaning against the frost. The iron point held dead on my breastbone, aimed straight through me at the knot the Brân had cut between my shoulder blades.

I did not shift an inch. I do not know if an arrow through the heart would kill me; the priests had knotted my life to the foundations of the house and the roots of the wood, and no one had ever tested whether steel could cut a thread held by a winter god. Looking down the grey goose-fletching, I found that I did not care. More than that: I found a strange, terrifying curiosity rising in my throat. I wanted to see what kind of man could stand before a legend of death and hold an arrow steady without a prayer on his tongue.

The bow stayed drawn. The ash wood creaked. His shoulders were trembling—not with fear, but under the brutal strain of the grey that was locking his left arm into rigid chalk. I heard his heart: slow, stubborn, grey-threaded, and entirely unafraid.

"Take down the veil," he said.

"Why?"

"I don't shoot blind," he said, his breath plume-white in the dusk. "I want to look at what I'm killing."

I could have refused. I should have turned into the ruin and let the cold finish him. But no living man had asked to look at me since the winter the Brân closed the stone slab over my youth, and there was something in the flat, unyielding demand of his voice that reached through the centuries of ice. I raised my gloved hands, caught the hem of the coarse grey linen, and threw the veil back over my hood.

I know what he saw. The dark glass in the great hall had never lied to me.

The grey had conquered the left half of my neck and climbed my jawline, turning the flesh the cold texture of slate. It was netted with hairline fractures, black as chimney soot, where the skin had split under the pressure of the rot beneath. My left lip was dry and colorless, drawn tight over my teeth. My left eye was no longer a woman's eye: the white had gone the dull grey of a winter sky, and the iris had paled to the color of frost on slate, so that it seemed to look through a man rather than at him. It sees well enough, but it is not entirely mine. Above my ear and along the hairline of my left temple, the Brân's mark had broken through the skin in tiny, glossy raven feathers—stiff and ink-black, growing in tight overlapping scales that no amount of plucking could ever keep down.

The right side was still the girl who had walked into the stone chamber four centuries ago: pale-skinned, dark-eyed, with the soft curve of a living cheek. The seam between the maiden and the monster ran straight down the bridge of my nose, dividing me in two.

Cian looked at me.

He looked for a long, unbroken moment while the wind whipped a strand of dark hair across his brow. He looked at the slate jaw, at the black fractures, at the raven feathers bristling at my temple, and then down to the human curve of my mouth. He did not flinch. He did not make the sign of the sunburst, or spit into the snow, or drop his eyes in horror. He looked at me with those pale eyes of his as though I were simply a fact he had to understand.

Then, with agonizing slowness, he eased the tension on the string, letting the stave unbend without jarring the wood. He unhitched the arrow, slid it back into the leather quiver, and let the bow drop to his side.

His shoulders sagged, and all at once the soldier's posture vanished, leaving only a man hollowed out by a day of winter road and twenty years of poison.

"No," he said quietly. "I won't."

"You took silver," I said, my voice strange and thin in the cold air.

"I did."

"Then shoot. A contract sworn under Lugern’s Long Hand cannot be set aside because the quarry isn’t what you expected."

He gave a dry, raspy cough that shook his whole frame, pressing his sleeve to his mouth before he answered. "You told a terrified ten-year-old boy to run for his life," he said, looking at the stone arch above us. "You could have turned me into ash on the Plouvilin road twenty years ago, and no one would have ever known. Monsters don't spare children, mistress. Not in any song they sing in any valley I’ve traveled."

"You have been listening to the wrong songs," I said. "The Brân do not write mercies."

"Then they're bad songs," he said.

And then his knees simply gave way.

There was no cry, no dramatic reach for the stone. The endurance that had carried him across a long day of frozen mire simply ran out. He folded at the joints, hitting the drift on his knees, tried to plant his left hand to break the fall, missed the earth entirely, and collapsed sideways into the snow.

* * *

I was five paces toward him before the terror of my own body brought me up short.

I stopped, digging my boots into the snow, clutching my hands against my chest. I could not touch him. If I went down on my knees and took his shoulders in my arms to haul him out of the drift, the Ankou in my skin would drink what little warmth remained in him. Through three layers of boiled wool, the arithmetic of the curse was unyielding: a minute of contact would leave a frost-bite burn; a few more would turn his blood to black slush; a quarter-hour would leave him an empty husk like the doe on the cart-road.

"Cian," I said.

He did not stir. He lay on his right side, his breath coming in shallow, shuddering gasps that barely disturbed the snow around his mouth. The glove had fallen from his left hand when he collapsed.

I looked at that hand, and the breath caught in my throat.

The small grey smudge I remembered — the thumbprint-sized knot of rot he had taken from the dying birch twenty years ago — was no longer a smudge. It had eaten through his palm, thickened the skin beneath his fingernails into horn, and climbed past his wrist in dark, jagged seams. The veins of his forearm stood out under his pale skin. It was the same grey that slept beneath my ribs. It was the Guest's handwriting, carved into the meat of a living man.

Look at him, the Guest crooned, its presence unfurling behind my breastbone like smoke from a barrow-fire. The seed grew well in that warm soil. Roll him over, girl. Let your bare fingers touch his throat. He won't even feel the cold take him. He'll just slide into the dark, and we will take back what strayed.

"Get back into your pit," I snarled silently, locking my teeth until my jaw ached.

The cold was deepening with every breath. If he stayed in the drift for twenty minutes, the winter would kill him without any help from me; if I lifted him, I would murder him with my own palms.

In the end, it was his coat that saved him.

It was heavy wool faced with boiled oilskin. I knelt two paces back from him, feeling the snow beneath my skirts begin to curdle into ash from the proximity of my curse, and went to work. I did not use my fingers. I worked the edge of the heavy coat free from beneath him, pulling it taught and buying as much distance as I could.

It had to be done in fragments of heartbeats.

One. Two. Away.

He groaned once, a low, broken sound from the back of his fevered throat, his head lolling against the dark wool, but he did not wake. By the time I had the stiff corners bundled into my gloved fists, the stars were burning sharp and blue between the hemlocks.

It was a hundred paces from the gatehouse arch to the kitchen door. I have lived four centuries in that house, and the distance has never felt quite so long.

The snow was deep and drifted high against the dead hedges. The coat dragged like an iron sled, catching on hidden roots, half-buried boundary stones, and frozen brambles that tore at the wool. I am not a strong woman; the grey gives long life, but it leaves everything else withered and dry. Twice my boots slipped on the hidden flagstones and I went to my knees, gasping for air that tasted of frost, listening in terror to the ragged, grey-hissing pulse dragging behind me. Morvran flew low from bough to bough, beating his heavy black wings against the branches and dropping snow on my shoulders, croaking hoarse, rhythmic commands like a boatman timing an oar.

"I am moving," I panted through my teeth. "I am moving, you wretched bird."

I hauled him through the low kitchen door, over the worn threshold stone that the Brân had carved with the nine knots of binding, and dragged him across the flagstones to the hearth.

The kitchen was frozen and dark. I left him lying in his coat and fell upon the hearth like a madwoman, striking flint to tinder with shaking, gloved hands. I fed the spark with birch bark, with dry twigs, and then with great split logs, burning three days' worth of wood. I piled it on until the chimney roared and the entire vaulted room was washed in a thick, trembling amber glare.

Only then did I back away to the far corner of the hearthstone, pull my knees to my chest, and allow myself to look at him.

Cian lay in the center of the light, half-turned on his side. His coat was crusted with rime that had begun to melt into dark, steaming patches under the heat of the fire. His face was flushed with the unnatural, violent crimson of curse-fever, his dark hair plastered across his forehead with cold sweat, while his left hand, withered by the grey, lay curled against his chest like a dead bird. His lips moved soundlessly, caught in the dark roads of whatever dream the poison was showing him.

The grey thread in his pulse was racing now, beating so hard against his ribs that I could see the linen of his shirt jump with every strike.

Morvran dropped from the smoke-blackened rafters with a soft thud, landing on the stones beside Cian's boots. He cocked his head, turning his yellow eye upon the man's throat, and let out a single, inquisitive click of his beak. Then, with a heavy hop, he jumped up onto Cian's chest and settled himself directly over the man’s racing heart.

I held my breath.

Cian's cursed hand moved. It rose from his breast, sluggish and clumsy with fever, the black-cracked fingers groping blindly in the air until they brushed against the raven's breast.

Morvran did not strike, which was unexpected. He also did not flutter away. He made a low, bubbling purr deep in his crop, leaned his head down, and allowed the man's poisoned fingers to sink into the thick, glossy down of his throat. Cian's thumb stroked the feathers once, twice, with a kind of unconscious gentleness, before his arm went limp and fell back against the wool.

I sat on the cold flagstone in the corner of the hearth and watched them.

I watched a hand marked by the grave touch a creature of the winter god without bringing it to ash. I watched the raven rest upon a dying heart as though it were the branch of an ancient oak, untroubled by the poison that was turning the man's marrow into stone. I watched it with a hollow, aching sickness in my throat — the terrible, ravenous hunger of an exile who has spent the long centuries in a house of stone, forbidden from ever touching a living thing without murdering it.

The fire cracked, throwing an arc of orange sparks toward the rafters. Outside, the wind died away, and the wood sank into that vast, terrifying stillness that belongs only to deep winter. Deep beneath my collarbones, in the cold vault where the Brân had hammered the lock, my Guest lay entirely motionless, watching through my eyes, and did not say a single word.

[p] : https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/s/ilRx2PqHPA

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As Book II—which I’ll admit has been running on for a long time now, which is entirely my fault. Poor planning and other pressing projects took my time. More about that later; for now—and we approach the epic climax, the war.

The city of Vienna is poised on the brink of total collapse as they have finally run out of time.

#1) The war and why it is happening.

The cult is using Vienna as one of the necessary sacrifices to conduct a ritual on a very grand scale. This ritual feeds on the souls of all those sacrificed to allow the incarnation of “The Darkened One” to walk onto the world of Eldamar IX. The reason why Vienna is that of the bastion that is present under the city of Vienna.

When all five continental ritual circles align and link deep through essence conduits, they will form a single ritual circle spanning the entire globe.

The convergence reaches critical saturation, which turns the very air thick with miasma or corrupted essence, which will kill anyone not protected with an aura. As of Chapter 158, we are at T-minus 1 days to D-Day.

It’s safe to say failure in this war will lead to a total wipeout of the city and its population.

#2) THE ENEMY → The Cultist of Darkened One: Ego, Ambition, & Puppet Strings

The “Cult of the Darkened One” is massive, with various clans, factions, and powers, each interpreting the powers of the Darkened One in their own capacity. The cult faction that took over Vienna belongs to the Vasht clan, which focuses on darkness, corruption, rituals, and sorcery as their focus.

SANGVATH ANOR is a pseudonym of Malachar. This faction, while appears to be a cult—and is outlawed and declared as terrorist—isn’t actually a cult. There are only limited members in the SANGVATH ANOR and each of them bears Malachar’s power seed and is known as a Hand. Malachar is an avatar of SANGVATH ANOR, the revenant. Just like in Vienna, we see Malachar leading alongside the cult… he is also present in another form, another avatar in each of the cities where this ritual is being carried out.

As of CH158, the cult has the following ranked cultists and other power force:

NAMED FORCES:

Hierarch Malachar: Rank ??? → Expect minimum power levels of and ORDER V and beyond.

Xerxes: Rank ORDER V+ → He has consumed Hand Vakan—who was crippled by Salvatore—under the manipulation of Malachar and have sort of become a fused chimera individual.

Hand Vella: Rank ORDER V+ → She is the mad chimera alchemist responsible for the creation of Vellakin and Nourma that our heroes faced earlier in the story. She had elf-like features and her actual combat capabilities are unknown.

The Chimera Lord: Rank ORDER V → The latest creation of Hand Vella. She used the body of previous commander Hobbs of Vienna, who was killed by Malachar in the initial phases of invasion. Malachar has also provided his seed to the creation of this chimera.

Apart from the named elites, the enemy currently posses around only 7 ORDER IVs and around 800 cultists at ORDER IIIs. Apart from this, the cult has close to 80k abominations, the monster creations of Hand Vella. She used fragments of her power, Malachar’s power, the Darkened one blessing, and the sacrificed/dead people of Vienna to turn them into monsters.

As of CH158, which is T-minus 1 day to D-Day. The enemy has pulled its forces back strictly to the Cathedral Wards, losing its eyes on the outer sectors. And flooded abominations throughout Vienna.

#3) HERO’S FORCES → The Survivors of Vienna.

As of CH158, the surviving people of Vienna are all holed up in the Bastion, which is an ancient architecture wonder whose true purpose is lost to time, and only a few remember the purpose.

We see hints at how dire the situation becomes—even for the Z.A.C system to acknowledge—when bastion protocols fail. We get more hints at Joe’s elusive past, and the threat of bastion failing had been put off immediate fires with close to one year to find the resolution.

The Veil and the invasion started somewhere around 70-75 days prior to CH158. And it was said the barrier lasted a total of 90 days. Technically, we still have 15 days till then, but the essence density reaches a critical threshold around the total 78-80 days mark, and so Jin had to start the war keeping that in mind. Even though he wants to finish everything in one fell swoop, that is sadly not possible; hence, the war starts on day 76.

Over the course of a couple of weeks after cleaning the bastion of cultist infiltrators, Jin had managed to establish “22 Mage Companies” totaling 2,200 sorcerers all at Base ORDER III power levels.

This is the bulk of Jin’s Army. The members of mage companies could also be termed as “One trick ponies” because the companies know one or two sorceries imprinted into them by Jin.

Mage companies 1-6, being the most experienced, have access to multiple One-verse sorceries.

This may sound mediocre, but the might have one sorcery cast by 100… or 1000 sorcerers all chained together can reach the damage potential of ORDER IV combatants in sheer raw power. They may lack quality, but Jin established these companies for the sole purpose of getting the named leads into the heart of the war, the nexus area of the ritual.

Named forces of Vienna

JIN WINTERS » Our Hero and MC → ORDER III+, but actual combat power levels reach peak ORDER IVs and current levels are unknown after assimilating Trish’s harvest. He has meta knowledge of the world and knows various secrets and high-ranking sorceries.

Rudeus Whitehart » RANK ORDER III+ → Combat power levels reach ORDER IV.

Reyana Silvers » Rank ORDER III+ → Combat power levels reach ORDER IV.

Salvatore Silvers » Effective rank ORDER V purely martial capabilities. His mantle heart was ripped out by the Revenant, making him incapable of using his mantle or any essence. He was in ORDER VI realm before his mantle heart was ripped out. He uses vital energy, his lifeforce, to mimic a fraction of his skills’ power.

Joe » Rank ORDER IV+ → Combat power levels reach ORDER V+.

Mathew Whitehart » Rank ORDER IV+ → Combat power levels reach ORDER V now with the mutation in his mantle boon. We haven’t seen Mathew in an active combat situation, but we have shown him taking out multiple ORDER IV of the cult and inflicting a fate worse than death onto one of them. Similar to how Jin made his mantle to yield harvest from anything rather than just crops, Mathew's mantle of the bastion has also mutated.

Veric » Rank ORDER III → Jin’s right-hand man and the person with the most tactical and military knowledge. He can do the annoying, mundane desk jobs and the various planning parts of maintaining such a big force.

Illiana » Rank ORDER III+ → The master ranked crafter of the bastion.

Elenor » Rank ORDER III+ → Illiana’s sister and an accomplished mage. She is unexperienced and a hero type mentality. Regardless, she is an elite combatant capable of holding against multiple enemies of same rank. She is also a 2nd circle mage, making her a crucial element to mage companies in helping and supporting them merge and combine the braids.

Gleeward » Rank ORDER III → Extremely talented young man, capable of handling multiple enemies of the same rank and if pushed I have no doubt could take on and survive an ORDER IV. Survive… not defeat.

Bram » Rank ORDER III → Leader of 1st mage company, most talented and experienced among all mage companies. He is also the Commanding Officer for Mage Companies reporting to Veric.

#4) THE VARIABLES

Now I’m a firm believer of “No battle plan can survive the first round of a bullet,” and in a war, the advice is doubly true. There are so many variables to account for, and “anything that can go wrong will go wrong” hence, the best our heroes can do is to adapt and take immediate sound decisions which may minimize the losses.

Once such a known variable is the presence of demons. I won’t spoil a lot but in the very start of the series, Jin recalls this:

"I can quote it word for word," Jin muttered as he searched. “The simultaneous fall of Vienna, Svethaal, Rin’ Tora, Mol’Daine, and Karash marked the beginning of the end. Five jewels of civilization, each home to hundreds of thousands of souls, simply... vanished."

"When investigation teams finally reached the sites ninety-one days later, they found only craters filled with horrors that defied classification. No survivors. No answers. Only the terrible certainty that something vast and malevolent had announced its presence to the world."

"And another report mentioned monster corpses. Thousands of them scattered throughout the ruins. But here's the thing—no survivors, yet plenty of dead monsters. That means people fought back. They just weren't strong enough or smart enough to win."

"But the big revelation came in Volume Seven's appendix—demonic essence signature detected in underground tunnels. A whole fucking compound built under the Cathedral of Prime!"

To summarize, Malachar does indeed summon demons, or rather, opens a portal to thier realm in the original timeline. He does this to muddy the waters and help the crown and other leaders deflect the blame onto demons, to push the mindset of war with demons.

So, will we get demons? Jin certainly thinks Malachar will use all the advantage he can get. And as such, he has taken some countermeasures, but “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

So with this, you all are up to speed on everything you all need to know before the war.

Start of the gruesome battle in the next chapter, CH159.

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A/N: The war is on!

Bau Bau~

Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon. It would be awesome if you guys, you know...

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