In the beginning, all was peaceful and calm... And then people began reaching for powers not meant for mortal hands.

  * * *

  Damien hovered above a land soaked in fire and ash.

  The earth had been redesigned, craters existing where once smooth land used to be. Mountains were shattered, reduced to rubble by errant techniques. And the rare little streams and lakes that had previously dotted this desolate patch of land were now nowhere to be found, evaporated and redirected entirely.

  The air was thick with ash and fiery haze, hot from the cataclysmic clash that had just taken place. The heavens rumbled with groaning thunder and forking lightning as dark clouds shrouded the sky beyond.

  The city he had risen to protect stood a fair distance behind him, battered but still standing, a witness to the battle that had taken place. The only reason it still stood was less about the strength of its protective formation and more about the individuals who had come to its defense.

  With clenched teeth, he glared at his enemy, whether in anger or disappointment, he didn't know. The realization that he had been played, reduced to a fool by his enemy, stung almost as much as the initial incident that had caused all of this.

  His grip tightened on his spear.

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  This was not how he had pictured this climax. For ten years, he had envisioned scattering all that his enemy had built—taking their cities and dismantling their armies. He had pictured a vengeful descent, raining calamity down on them until they were forced to kneel and atone for all that had been done to him, all the loss and turmoil he'd been forced to suffer.

  And here it was, his moment of victory, there for the taking, only to be snatched away, again!

  Damien breathed in.

  It wasn't like he hadn't seen this coming. The possibility had been there, in Menoe’s suspicions and the sudden change in how the Empire operated. Heck, all he'd needed to do was be a little bit more patient and take a much closer look and he would have figured this out long ago, but he hadn't. He'd rushed right into it, hungry for revenge, only to be slapped with the greatest realization of all.

  His enemy had always been ten steps ahead.

  Now he stood high above the land, faced with an enemy he knew not how to counter. How was he supposed to fight an enemy who hadn't come in his full capacity? How was he supposed to deal with something he hadn't, for a moment, predicted would happen?

  He recognized now that the only reason he still stood alive was because of the World's mandate.

  The result of this battle had gone beyond any projected scale. He wasn't the only one affected—the entire world had been deceived. The enemy they thought they could keep at bay had been multiple steps ahead all this while, a sleeping lion waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Could he face, alone, an enemy the world had once failed to defeat? How was he going to face an adversary that had been growing fat while the whole world sat, unaware?

  “You feel that,” his enemy said. “That little crack forming in your certainty? Good, let it widen.”

  With grim acceptance—and a little bit of excitement— Damien stared at his enemy and prepared for the war beyond.