— CONTESTED BORDER, NAAH’MI MOUNTAINS, YEAR: 7298. SEASON: NEW BEGINNING.

  Ninjaro nodded in satisfaction. Everything was going well on Forger’s Keep’s side. He would not dismiss the Eye of Immuna, which kept watch over the battlefield, but his attention was increasingly drawn to Isiro’s Hammer.

  “300,000 men are sieging Isiro’s Hammer, with multiple casualties on both sides. Are you certain I shouldn’t go for support now?”

  “Not yet, Ai’esha. Not yet. You’re not someone we can easily deploy, you know what your force is meant to do… or do I need to repeat it,” Ninjaro cooly questioned.

  Ai’esha grimaced. Her white lashes fluttered. The albino woman let out a heavy breath and repeated a sentence she heard a thousand, thousand times. “You are a special commander in charge of interrupting unexpected situations and confronting the Chosen of Madris.”

  She let out an annoyed harrumph, gesturing with her chin at the display that showed Forger’s Keep. “Isn’t the Chosen of Madris present there? You won’t let me go support Mojo and Asan, nor will you let me go to Isiro’s Hammer. Things are picking up there; the Edryans will certainly use that as their breakthrough point. Mojo and Asan are handling themselves. Isiro’s Hammer could use the reinforcements,” Ai’esha grumbled.

  She had watched the ongoing battle at Forger’s Keep and quickly grew bored with the display. It seemed like both the Federation and Edryan were simply displaying who held more wealth in how they fought one another. Even now, the battling Eranko barely tickled her desire for a good show. That was not the case with Isiro’s Hammer. She looked over at the screen displaying the battle, her attention rapt in the ongoing skirmish.

  A red sky, artificial clouds with crackling lightning, and stormy wind. Two forces fought fiercely as Edryan sieged the very keep itself. Large red flaming balls flew through the sky, impacting the ground with explosive force. Bodies tumbled, shattered, and torn from the attacks. Red blood flowed, spilled from the hands of slain Edryans and Federation soldiers alike.

  The Edryan Queendom had poured its forces towards Isiro’s Hammer, intending to break the stronghold. It was the logical reason. The passage was larger, nearly thrice the size of Forger’s Keep, forcing the Federation to defend more ground. Two armies fought outside the keep, the Federation forced by happenstance to confront the Edryans outside the safety of their doorstep. For how could they stay inside and watch as the Edryans prepared a grand spell, gathering magic to crush the keep in one fell swoop?

  Goddess Fall Punishment.

  That was the name of the spell interrupted by the approaching Federation army. A Divine spell that summoned the fallen weapons of previous Edryan soldiers to eternally rain upon an area, desecrating it until none remain. They had even flattened a smaller mountain top and exposed the casters in full view of the base. If that wasn’t a provocation forcing the Federation to deploy a force, then Ninjaro wasn’t sure what was.

  Isiro’s Hammer held the personnel for it and the room for hundreds of thousands more. The keep was designed to be box-shaped, like a hammer’s head. It had two large walls on both sides with an open interior that held room for over 300,000 men to be stationed in formation. If the stronghold fell, it would directly lead to the City of Ibadan—Ninjaro’s home.

  If.

  Ninjaro held the situation under control.

  “We suspect he’s there; we just haven’t confirmed it,” Ninjaro responded. His eyes were resting on the battle at Isiro’s Keep. He’d already poured more armies into the defense of the base, with nearly half a million soldiers residing outside of it.

  “Look at the number of troops stationed at Isiro’s Hammer—over 800,000 men with over 100,000 already fighting the Edryan forces. What help would you do in this situation—relax, Ai’esha, everything is still in a state of control. You are meant for situations we don’t control or aren’t certain of—situations where the Chosen of Madris appears or something of significant strength below that of the Path Walkers.”

  His cousin grumbled but kept her peace, her eyes locked onto Isiro’s Hammer as the battle intensified.

  Ninjaro was overall relaxed, or that was the demeanor he allowed his subordinates to see. He was worried, yes, worried for his home, which made him all the more detailed when it came to making actions. He could not miss. He could not hesitate.

  Ninjaro wasn’t allowed to lose.

  Ninjaro isn’t allowed to lose.

  Too many people relied on him. The burden was heavy, but he was a Hero. He would carry it even if he couldn’t. Ninjaro’s focus remained on Isiro’s Hammer, watching the situation with steady, firm eyes.

  Everything is going well.

  Everything is…

  Ninjaro glanced at the display showing Forger’s Keep. The Eranko continued to battle against the Imperius Army.

  Good. Everything is going well.

  His eyes began to slip away, returning their attention to Isiro’s Hammer. It seemed the Chosen of Madris were sent here to gain some experience, nothing more, from the way they were behaving. After all, who would play with the lives of their soldiers, their people?

  Wait, look again.

  Ninjaro paused, his slipping eyes returning to Forger’s Keep. An errant thought forced him to take a closer look. He leaned in, gazing at the diamond formation of the Edryans, his eyes slightly narrowed, recognizing that specific variant of the formation as one meant for charging. He released a breath, preparing to turn away. Perhaps a hurried mistake from the rush of the Eranko. Everything was fine, the Eranko battled against the Imperius Army, who remained in a diamond formation. Ninjaro breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was…

  His thoughts paused, gaze trapped on that perfect diamond formation. Not one done from a desperate hurry. One done with time to spare—with purpose.

  The Eye of Immuna shook, desperately. It glanced up, and time slowed for Ninjaro in that moment. Had Ninjaro been a normal mortal, one who hadn’t been trained since youth, fed on precious elixirs, and achieved the greatest of classes and feats for his generation, then perhaps his attributes would not have been sufficient to catch the sight of a small figure releasing the power of the sun from his fingertips.

  The display went black.

  Ninjaro’s breath caught. The constantly updating Strategic Command Center grew quiet. Ninjaro’s mind drew a blank, then a careful calculation entered his thoughts. Clues and figures he saw over the past hour replayed within a single second. From start to finish, he analyzed and replayed the battle only to come to the conclusion that a single mistake had not been made.

  Mojo…?

  Asan…?

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  Mojo and Asan…?

  Mojo and Asan…???

  Mojo nodded in satisfaction. Another Imperius soldier had fallen. The Eranko were getting more efficient in combat as time continued.

  Asan watched closely, fingering his God-slaying bowstring. His eyes remained on Helios, a slight smirk on his lips. He still had to avenge his previous loss. The battlefield would be a good place to settle it.

  “Less than five minutes, and ten-some Imperius Soldiers have fallen,” Mojo stated. He was satisfied as chinks in the armor began to fracture, but still slightly miffed that only a negligible amount of deaths occurred. What likely happened was the Erankos would hit against armor, batter chest plates, but miss the vitals. Each Edryan soldier was directly connected to a golem whose health would be drained far before his. They had checked the health points of those in the very front, and their golems’ Life Points did indeed decrease. Unfortunately, before one could get to a critical point, the soldier’s group would switch with one behind them.

  Several rounds of this had passed while the bodies of the Eranko were beginning to pile up. They were beast and although they could be directed by the wizards of the keep, those directions couldn’t be complex to the point of setting multiple objectives at once. They weren’t thinking creatures. They couldn’t cheat. They couldn’t lie . They could only press forward until they were told to stop—or until they died.

  “It’s ok, cousin,” Asan asserted. “We cannot expect an elite army under the Chosen to fall like dry brush to flame.”

  Fortunately, it was impossible to create multiple forces of this level. The higher the rarity of food, equipment, pay, and more would be astronomical to upkeep. Asan didn’t believe the Edryans could all be equipped like this. The realm would have fallen long ago.

  What annoyed him was the versatility of magic he saw. Each soldier can enchant their weapons without using Affinity Crystals—able to wield whatever element is assigned to them. The Federation recycled drained mana crystals before imbuing them with an element and embedding them into equipment. Asan had yet to see any sign of the sort. Perhaps that was why the vast majority of the continent’s warriors preferred to take a path of unlocking Energy to confront those with Mind.

  Another Imperius soldier fell, but the initial excitement displayed by the defending soldiers had long since diminished.

  “Yes, we cannot but-,” Mojo choked, as a sudden warning triggered in his mind.

  “Cousin,” Asan shuddered out, right as he spoke. His senses SCREAMED —his mind fired off and forced his neck muscles to turn up.

  “Where,” Mojo questioned, but Asan didn’t possess the time to respond.

  Five fingers…

  Five fingers were splayed outwards from a figure high in the noon sky. The sun nearly blinded Asan, but darkness covered his eyes, allowing him to see through the light. Five fingers glowed with majestic might, mana gathered on his palm as if the very world fed him its power. A star fell, no, a sun, no, perhaps something between both—dropped as if as light as a feather or heavy as a world. It blinded Asan, forcing him to gaze away. Soldiers rushed to him, tightly piling themselves before him, an elite guard belonging to his family with levels no lower than 250.

  Sound stopped, not because it left, but because it was forced to. A heavy aura radiated downwards as if the weight of a mountain pressed down on the keep.

  A star fell.

  It’s light like that of the sun.

  Its radiance is beyond sight, beyond what one could look at. Forcing all vision away as if to ask: are you worthy?

  Sound returned, the roar of an explosion disguised as a dragon flattened Asan and the soldiers of Battle Terrance One. A clear sound, like glass shattering on a stone floor, rang over the keep—remnants of the destroyed barrier that covered Forger’s Keep.

  Asan forced himself upward, or perhaps it was the supporting hands of his soldiers. A Cure Potion stumbled its way into his mouth, pulled from a storage ring with practiced ease. Asan forced his eyes open and his ears to hear once again.

  Five… fingers… gripped a longsword that was carved from starlight itself. The figure descended, the sun as its mount, sunlight steps seem to guide it down as if from the descending from the Astral Above.

  Asan continued to stumble, both in body and in mind, uncertain of exactly what to do. His mind was rattled, and too many debuffs affected him in a short time for him to fully shake them off.

  His eyes remained unblinking, watching that figure descend as if ordained by a power he could not understand. Asan trembled, disbelief in his eyes.

  Da…

  Da…

  demigod?

  His mind whispered, afraid that if such a thought escaped, then it held no choice but to be true.

  How? How? He should be on the battlefield—the decoys… HOW?

  I checked… I… CHECKED!

  I… HOW?

  No mistakes were made, no decisions led to fallacy. But… Asan could not understand how?

  He cannot be one. I refuse. I REFUSE!

  Confidence clawed at him, years of training fighting their way through the slog in his mind. But thick molasses-like thoughts attempted to drown them, pulling them deep beneath the sea like sirens from the depths. Singing an enchantment over his mind and drowning him in despair.