"Mono/Dialogue"
'Inner thoughts'
Narration
[Message/communication apparatus]
Date: 25th January 1920 NWC or 647 AU.
Location: Aquysor Fastharad (Forgotten Sea)
POV: Narrator
Freddy eyes the horizon from his position in the conning tower. His promotion is more or less guaranteed, but his being radiated shows no joy or interest. Not truly. He crossed his hands, turning his view towards the LST carrying the Arganean who shall be returning home.
“What do you think?” His question was directed to Paleniskos, sharing the same look of interest and perhaps nagging concern. “Without a doubt, they are spirited, but the situation on the ground would be unpredictable.” The green-eyed captain uttered while checking his watch, time showing it was an hour before they arrived at their expected position.
“Thought so. Unless she and her cronies do their work well, the Arganean will be bogged down. For one, we are unsure how many of them are going to side with the King.” That will be the crux of the matter, it is less about gunning down enemies in front of you, and how much manpower will be expended dealing with ‘adversary in blue’.
“I understand your concern, sir. However, I saw no fault in the pn. His Majesty will require tangible benefits of moving to his side, and arms and prowess would be a potent tool.”
“A tool that generates awe in the same breath one would inspire fear.” He leans forward, the cawing of seagulls above, the soft rustling of the wind on his fabrics, and the fpping of the fgs calm down. “Our grasp is tenuous; our people have no stake to deploy ground forces, notwithstanding Madam Olga, of course.”
“... Do you think it will work? Isotionism had been entrenched in our psyche, but the ck of a rivaling power at the moment roused the unspoken ember for conquest. One wrong step, and we will be stepping on the center, and perhaps biting more than we can chew.”
“Normally, I should admonish you for cowardice, but we know how gun barrels between ordinary Regalian have little intimidation factor compared to the Grasdivi.” A small smile floats onto his lips. “This whole mess would have been finished before winter ended if we weren’t so battered.”
“Many mented the same, and Autarch’s politics are fring up. Just yesterday, my assets spoke of a scuffle between workers and managers, another split in opinion between engineers that ultimately affects one's livelihood.” They dared not speak the unspoken truth, even if the chance of someone listening is close to zero.
‘Her Grace meant well... but even though there was a guarantee of support from our government, those with competitive spirit and ambition will rig things to their favor. No tiny favor more guaranteed than her gaze…’ His mind veered onto the bitter underside of his beloved homend.
They are trapped for so long, tormented by monsters beyond dimension, and must make do through unforgiving winters at the best of times when Lady White comes for a visit. These hardships had been influential in keeping the people united.
Now? There are factions for everyone. All of them held Cylene Renoir as the icon of their drives. Relentless drives breed competition, and competition soon came to a boil with fertile nd awaiting colonization.
“We were never adventurous, and the smattering of colonies we do possess were in that bsted Icefield. In a way... we could be this world’s Victoria.”
“Replicating the United Realm would be daunting; suicidal even. We do not have enough fleet and national power to expand in the near future. Victoria is a juggernaut like no other. It will take an awful lot of miracles to even begin trying to change the current world order to be our liking.” Paleniskos replies before turning his vision to another ship where Arganean soldiers are stationed. He spotted that same woman, her face full of wonder and calcution.
“Then we have someone of her caliber... So quick to adapt, so young too. You remember, right?”
“I can never forget. When I asked her about what she would do when given 12 assault rifles, she insisted on giving them to the artillerymen.” Her answer was truly memorable; instead of giving them to the frontline unit or bodyguards, she chose artillery that should have been safe behind the line. “She argued that the forward recon unit, which is her second-best pick, would not truly work. Simply due to its inherent nature.”
“Aye, so giving the best protective arms to the artillerists had lifted some concern. Artillery wins war before airpnes become the next deciding factor; even then, no one will argue that striking beyond visual to be the best form of tactical advantage. Aircraft require extensive maintenance after sorties.”
“Heh, our Ligers have no such thing. It is a one-way trip for most of them... if only our drone technology is as sophisticated as UFSNE, we won’t be spending too many young men...” His hands gripped the railing hard, even as his face remained frozen in that performative smile. “The war had altered our people; they will not accept any more humiliation.”
“That was because there’s no alternative. We are pressed on all sides; it was a miracle we held on that long.” He held his chin, caressing it as he was reminded of more instabilities ever since they arrived in this world. “Her Grace had yet to move against the Patriots either.”
“A good number of them had surrendered, like the opportunists they are, and must be toiling in some forgotten mine... was not what I had in mind.” Freddy’s sigh was loaded with an intense mix of emotion. To him, these ‘rebels’ are the truest expression of Regalia. Men and women who see nothing other than the objective and obstacles.
He was reminded of when he was an Ensign on shore leave due to injury. He was close to the pce where a hospital ship, under the international Red Cross banner, was just finished helping to contain the spread of disease. It was around the fifth year of the war that some sembnce of honor remained.
That moment of peace was spectacurly dashed by Frostnd Patriots, whose zealotry for their home pushed them over the edge. He was there, bleeding and injured once more, as the Patriots shot anyone who moved for a few minutes before recording their manifesto to the world that no one shall be spared.
This damaged Regalia’s credibility further, with many starting to regard the Autarchy as a failed state filled with extremists. NIIO chomped at the chance, and they got what they wanted: justification. With that horrific incident circuting the world, suffice to say, many more nations and factions looked down on Regalia, although the war happened due to NIIO’s boundless greed for conquest and glory.
‘Now these terrorists will be under her control… gods save us.’ Freddy raised his face towards the heavens, wondering if this war would devolve into another quagmire. Another atrocities… another Frostnd Patriots…
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Location: Isle of Fallfiore, Helicar.
While the men and women are concentrated at the Old Fort, the backline that had been the backbone of Raegova’s resistances are breaking at the seams. The cold and harsh winter had cimed many, and tensions shimmer. In one of these destitute vilges, mostly inhabited by humans without visible ‘beast blood defects’, gathers.
These men and women were refugees forced to leave their homes due to a multitude of reasons. Some were even forced to leave their family behind. Many were promised that Raegova is protecting a King who owns the crown. That was a long shot, but it was better than seeing Imperial’s brutality against them and how much they lost.
All started with one thing they cked: Hope.
Hope that was based on a rumor, that’s their drive. It was not baseless; Zorphal’s body wasn’t shown to the masses, and there had been eyewitnesses that a rge fleet was moving east, towards Fallfiore. It was under pursuit, but they seemingly managed to slip through their pursuers' net.
Scores of men and women whose vengeance burns bright, briefly forget their disdain for the ‘accursed prince’ if it means they can seek revenge. These sorts of people will willingly stand with someone they hate when it’s convenient, and abandon them once the aim was achieved, or worse, stabbing their benefactor in the back.
This is how these men and women always are, casting aside their norms and upbringing when the time is right. Worse? Their grievances weren’t completely unfounded. Many had lost and were forced to watch their family and loved ones put through hell on earth, to watch hopelessly as naked corpses were strewn about to feed vultures and crows.
Anger is a powerful motivator, and revenge is a great moral guidance when it comes to control. So their tenets and cores were suppressed with the cold certainty of their suffering to mean something. A bid against fate itself that their deaths must have been in service to a greater purpose.
Thus started the great march east when the shield shattered, and the Imperial army flooded through the Western Arganean fortress. A grinding, relentless march of refugees and militias, before they were joined by scattered soldiers, knights, and nobles. There’s a lot of frosty eyes against each other, suspicions, and hates even when sharing the same fate.
Cshes between differing opinions are a daily occurrence, one underlined by the colpsing order around them. Arganea’s death blow was not the Royal Family’s kinsying galore; it was the loss of hope and trust from its people. Everyone is doing their damnedest to keep their family safe, and in doing so, closed their hearts due to understandable suspicion, doubt, and lingering fear.
It is the real refugees who suffered the most, being forced into a constant state of heightened unease caused by porizing ideas on what was the purpose of this migration. Desperate and disparate people who had nothing but clothes on their backs and what meagre belongings they managed to save.
Many of them have little desire other than to see the next day without Imperial’s army and Inquisition breathing down their neck. Disunited front would be the st thing they want, but as, fate is cruel and toys with lives forevermore, perhaps it will never end.
However, these negative emotions could be directed with the promise of revenge or at least something worth all the bloodshed. They could entreat with the King to rebuild the shield, and this time it will be upon a much smaller front, enough that they could have time to rebuild.
Power of the Crown had been mythical in its usage, and even if Zorphal proves clumsy, as long as someone stands beneath the crown, a shield, their wall against the outside world, could be remade.
Then… Such hope was proven false. There’s no King. There was never even a rumor of Raegova owning or controlling anyone beyond this accursed Isle. Undoubtedly, rage and despair cwed at the refugees. There’s no salvation; it was all a foolish daydream. After such profound disappointment, they found themselves trapped on an isnd too small to support itself. Enemies everywhere, and there is little to do but wait for a slow death.
They are angry. Exhausted. Desperate.
“We can’t do it anymore! The winter had ravaged our crops, and we must keep on levying our hard-earned stores to those beast blood louts!?” A man angrily smashed his empty tankard on the table. There’s no ale or beer, just water. There’s no such luxury for those who have lost their home far to the west.
“Hear! Hear! What are we even fighting for?! That damn hellspawn had done nothing to protect us, nothing! We fed his armed force of brigands, whores, and thieves! These arms had been toiling ceaselessly, and for what?! A fluke?! An empty stomach!?” While some fan the fme of dissatisfaction and fear, there are still those who tried to force some sembnce of unity.
“Then what are we going to do?! March to the citadel and demand our crops back?! What then would put us between those conquering mongrels and traitors?! Think, you misbegotten piles of drunkards, think!” His angry reminder only stoked the fmes higher between those who were against or supportive of the idea. Those on the fences were forced to watch as unity frays at a speed that beggared belief.
“Oh sod it, dwarf! You were nobles, right!? Then what in all hells had you done?! Running with your tail tucked between your legs?! What had we been paying all these taxes for?! What would my daughter’s death been for? Why should we listen to a hellspawn?!” Shouts and jeers follow his pronouncement, men and some women began squaring up with all sorts of items they could get.
“How dare you! It is due to us that you, muck-gathering peasants, could live! Without us, you would all be hounds fed!” His face flushed in anger, one hand gripping the worn-out sword, his pte armor had been rusting due to months of limited maintenance. “You cowards are not without fault! Once the shield shatters, all of you scatter like vermin!” Tension continues to boil; smaller but no less passionate arguments ring around the taverns.
“Don’t be hasty! The Imperials will not care about-” He was cut off by a thrown mug from somewhere. “Damn you bastards!” He pulls out his bde, and from there, chaos erupts between reluctant loyalists and exhausted rebels.
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“What?!” Raegova unched himself off his seat, already shaking the trembling messenger with blood red eyes. It was not merely anger; there’s a healthy dose of fear in those ever-resolute gazes. “Rebellions are happening across the Eastern hamlets?! What manner of other madness do they want!?”
“M-Milord, rumors abound that these folks are tired and hungry. The provision wasn’t-” Raegova let go of him, perhaps a bit too roughly. “You’re dismissed and head onto the battlements! Only the Divines know what those Imperials will do.” The messenger saluted and left the room, letting Zorphal’s only true loyalist crash onto his seat, hand cradling his temple.
“We can’t keep this up.” He turns to his side, seeing Nasza, who entered from another door. She wears nothing but a generous clump of bed sheet, her face marred with anger and exhaustion, mirroring what the messenger told them about the rebels’ motivation. “What other demands do they want? Those cowards ought to be grateful we only took half of their harvest! Our men are bleeding for them!”
“That’s what confounds me… I heard reports that only a few died of hunger, but how could this escate like this? It doesn’t make sense.”
“What is there to make sense of? We stand vigil on that cold wall, in this damned fortress for months, and those pieces of horse dung can’t handle a little hunger?”
“Nasza…”
“No, you should have listened to me!” She walks up in front of him, her finger pointing at his chest. “You should have listened… we should have hanged those lousy louts. Saved much grief.”
“That will be unwise. People will fear me, and those who fled the Imperial Army’s clutches will doubt our intention. Commoners and nobles lost their confidence in the Royal Army and His Majesty. That won’t do, if by any chance he returns…” His baffling acceptance of the sheer impossibility of it wasn’t completely unfounded.
Rumors of dead soldiers, sporadic uprising, and solidifying defiance gave him hope that the situation wasn’t as hopeless. He had sent some of his scouts to search deeper into Imperial-held territories. They found traces of battle and ruined camps, mass graves, and equipment that were found periodically in a haphazard manner.
However, the number of destroyed settlements skyrocketed with refugees flooding Northern Arganea, straining the protectorate and making it overly reliant on the empire. If she refused her own people from entry, her legitimacy would take a big hit, and she’s already desperate to gain some. Her position was worsened by her marriage to Darelio, the first step that would subsume the Arganean Royal Family into the Imperial bloodline.
Ionie is pressed by time and needs, pleading for help to the people that had destroyed her Kingdom (with no small effort from her own betrayal), making her intensely unpopur. She cannot afford to prolong this any longer.
These mean two things: a big event was set in motion, and that the Imperial will finally throw what they can have by spring to break this Old Fortress. The Empire needs to snuff out the highest point of resistance to completely break the rebels.
“Then we should leave; flee this hopeless war.” She cut him off, no longer interested in grappling and harping about some outsiders’ motives. “We can still leave this godforsaken isnd, we can! Just the two of us!” She pleaded hard, but Raegova shook his head.
“I can’t. These people, many of them, still believed in my cause. Besides, His Majesty chose me to be the bearer-”
“Zorphal is dead!” Her roar shook the room, her unvoiced thoughts spilling forth with tears in her eyes. “You can’t keep doing this! We have little cause, not enough supplies, and now those ungrateful, disgraceful, bastards are revolting!”
“We can deal with them. I will see to it personally. If Princess Ionie truly held the crown, she would have done something far worse. She is the type of person who will separate her heart from her actions.”
“… See?” Her forlorn expression crystallized into a gaze full of hurt and bitterness. “You know her… I always knew that, and at times I never cared… but you never really knew me. You spoke of her with such conviction despite my entreaties… Do I even matter?”
“…” Raegova goes silent, his clenched fists faltering under the barrage of her honesty. Nasza doesn’t let up. “We have a chance for a better life out there… it is meagre, but I beg of you…” She caressed her belly, eyes full of tears that were held back by sheer fortitude. “Think of them… think of our child… are you going to consign them to a life where they never see their galnt father?”
“… I have prepared a way out, yes.” A flicker of hope shone in her eyes. “Then let’s leave this forsaken isnd! Anywhere but here, anywhere but close to those self-righteous monsters! Anywhere where the manner of your birth will not be judged-”
“For you.” Raegova cut her off, his expression frosty with guilt and determination of a man who was entrusted with a dire expectation. “There’s an alcove to the North. I had prepared a gryphon for you to settle onto. There’s only one, and that means you will have to go on without me.”
A dead man’s promise, but the fire in his eyes spoke of something greater to achieve… even if he needs to hurt the one he cherished. Nasza’s voice died in her throat… tears flowed down her cheeks… and a snarl formed on her lips. “… You won’t dare… You can’t cast me aside… You won’t…”
“I am sorry.” His quick reply stoked the embers of pain and disbelief in her voice. “Is this your answer? You spend an entire evening formuting a single letter’s response… but you don’t even try to think my plea through?”
“Matters of the state concern the people. My connection with you rendered all intrigues null.”
“You cimed so, but did my words mean anything!? By any conceivable metrics?! Had you been using me for my own body!? Was I wrong in trying to love you?! You dared to steal my heart, and then return it in broken, shattered pieces?! Answer me!” Raegova's lips remain in a thin line at her barrage of accusations. He doesn’t do much but sit and let her vent her grievances.
He knows that his defenses will be futile in the face of this well-deserved verbal shing; anger from the pce of hurt so nostalgic it felt like 40 years had not passed. So, he stood up and took his sword, tucking it back on his belt. He turns to her, lips remain pursed tight into a line, but his eyes show the deeper conflict between loyalty to the country that might no longer exist, and this woman who brought him joy.
… He chose the state.
The state that had been bringing him both purpose and grief. A state where his mother was toiling ceaselessly because her love for it trumps her hatred and disappointment with her own treatment. A state where he met this beautiful woman whose horn almost nicked his eyes a few times… Raegova left the room for the war council; he had a war to win or at least keep it in a status quo, for he believed in his convictions and instinct.
Two parts of him that had kept him alive through the years rise through the ranks despite the intense scrutiny… and made him the man he is. The man who shared personal counsel with the Royal Family and is the King’s Steadfast Shield, who was tasked with holding their st piece of territory… for a miracle.
A foolhardy and downright insane choice. Such is this man, a good soldier, and an absolute worst family man. Nasza’s fming outrage at his departure patters into nothing in the face of her love’s stony silence. With hesitant, hurt steps… she withdraws from his office, her shoulders shaking as she anchors her arms around her body.
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“… There they are…” An Imperial Flying Corps commander muttered as his enhanced magnification gss spotted the flight of twelve Arganean Gryphons and six wyverns, flying at all due haste further westward. One of his subordinates and colleagues approached, and he handed her the monocur so she too could behold the sight.
“They are taking in the bait… I was uncertain that the Kinsyer would be true to her words… but I suppose she does deserve her due credits.” The commander hummed as he look the side, his own flying corpse; well-rested and fed, preparing the final stretch for the unch from their Sea Roost.
“True, true… but we must take into account the unforeseen upsets.” Her voice carried a soft, low timbre. A gash running across her lips and leaving an ugly yet oddly beautiful scar. “We must not be compcent, unlike those Southron louts who can’t even be relieved upon.”
“Indeed, now, let’s send them to the next world.” He raised a hand, and the ship he was upon detached from the nd it was nestled, the bow’s catapult strung up high, and a wyvern with its body curled prepared steadily for the unch.
“I do not quarrel with you beast bloods, it is just business.” He dropped his hand, and the first Wyverns were shot into the air. Their curled-up body, like a ball, slowly unveils like a terrible beast that blotted out the sun. The pulley and crane mechanism had been fed through the intricate use of industrial-grade machinery powered by magical stone to keep up the momentum.
More and more catapults were shown, each a marvel of technology aided by the arcane, to be pushed to the very limit. One turns to six, and six becomes eighteen with barely a whole minute passed.
It was a speedy process, one that took no longer than ten seconds, and unched the wyverns onto a parabolic arc above 300 feet from the sheer force of unch. Normally, such an audacity would have been detrimental for the wyvern, but these are the sleeker naval wyvern created not to spout gouts of fme but to neutralize their opponent in one ugly air melee.
Their adversary notices their charge and soon diverges over to meet the foes over this stretch of coastline. Arganean, leading this unit, bit his lip till it bled; his palpable sense of defeat must not spread to that of his men, but he knows deep down that they are being outmatched and outnumbered.
‘Bsted it all… we shouldn’t have left the concentrated safety of our stronghold, the rocks and cliffs will render any other method impossible… and yet...’ He was not able to act out his line. He had been ordered to assist in putting down the rebellion that sprang up behind the frontline, a haven no longer.
He understands the General’s line of thought. ‘We cannot abandon them; if we do, then all this bloodshed will be null before the time promised to us.’ He spoke of the st part with both conviction and resignation, one st moment to steel his trembling hands and thundering heart.
“Men! Protect our wyvern riders, let their fmes be the equalizer! For the King and the Crown!” He galvanized his men with untold fervor and fury, transforming dread into a heroic drive to die a worthy death. The Wyverns climb higher as the Gryphons, outnumbered, fan out in a crescent to contain the incoming wedge of foes.
Soon, cws and beaks, tails and fangs, cshed and bit with the savagery of knightly combat bereft of propriety. Sharp cws tore through a wyvern’s scale, drawing blood and nourishing the earth and ocean below with a sacred offering. Another had collided into a snaking brawl, wyvern’s elongated neck curls like a fist around a neck, their respective riders use an assortment of javelins, axes, and other projectiles to hurl at the enemy.
Yet the Wyverns are in position above, they fire-clothed lung and oily throat soon smolder into bzing fmes coating over the mucus of bile. This is one of the nd wyverns’ advantages: the ability to spit fme and provide support.
Six of those fming gout-bile raining down from the heavens, one of them struck the entangled imperial wyvern, freeing the gryphon. More soon came, but there are simply too many of them, and once most of the Arganean gryphons are locked in a deadly melee, their compatriots leverage their speed and lithe form and come for the kill.
The Gryphons were known for their maneuverability, cws sharpened to a steel edge that can maim a foe far stronger than it; thus, these less armored versions of proper wyvern should have been to fell. Yet they have one gring fw: their natural defenses are poorer, and their speed is far too low to compete, making them a capable brawler but ultimately fragile force. That is the very same exploit.
These wyverns only need to deliver one or two bites and swipes of tail, if not a complete dragging of cws onto the softer skin of the gryphons. These simple tactics were done so the wyverns above could barely keep up and protect their compatriot, a tactic that does wonders when they have archers and arquebusiers' support.
Such is a luxury at the moment, as the death cries of these majestic beasts fill the air. One of the gryphon knights even had the misfortune of being eaten alive by a wyvern, his armor, made of light steel to keep weight down, offering little reprieve as his bones crunched and spines snapped like twigs.
Disadvantages aside, the gryphons put up a heroic fight; a st stand with corpses of their foes piling up in a macabre game of scale. One of the gryphon bite open a wyvern’s neck, crunching the nape and snapping the neck before spitting away the dangling snake onto the sea.
Its other compatriot skillfully adapts, using their plummeting speed to cw away at the wyvern, which, in a moment of pained fury, let go of the choking wrap. More stupendous moments of valor came from a knight who jammed his sword into a snapping maw of a wyvern, causing the creature to bleed and trash even at the cost of this knight’s own arm.
Valor and fury, purpose and grit, all cshed as they fight on for what they believe in. In any other world, these gregarious warriors would have been nobodies, respected or not. A world that never was as bodies turn to corpses, and shrieking of righteousness cshed with the need to do right.
As Arganean wyverns circle above, they too are not let off the hook. Another contingent, flung from god knows which hidden alcove, had been steadily creeping past by using the wind, tides, and csh of men to enforce a cacophonous illusion.
They struck hard, using the cloud as cover and smmed onto the bewildered, outnumbered riders of their foe. As the gryphons were outnumbered more than half their number, the wyverns were forced to fight triple their number.
It was proving too much for these valiant men and women, for no amount of fireball would be useful should they enter a knife range. The worst of their plight had just revealed itself: a fleet of Ionien Royal Marines and Halciadonish one forms a mighty city of wood and steel, perhaps close to one hundred carracks, war galleys, dromons, and four towering galleons with cannons mightier than ever.
A force that is moving not towards the ft beach where they were repulsed, but to the jagged cliffs for who knows what. That, however, rings an arm bell. This might be mind games, this might not. Information remains scarce, and the war is turning faster than one could conceive it to be.
“Retreat! Back to the Old Fort!” The Arganean Commander reluctantly turned his gryphons around, with two or three of his men performing rear guard duty. The casualties were horrific, but they must bring this information back to Raegova.
This is not a forceful assault for a speedy end that had been done months ago; this is a meticulous way to force Raegova’s hands. The entire might of the Imperials is bearing down upon their lonely shore, clinging to life and hope, which is dimming to be lost mercilessly under the tide of time.
“Scatter if you must! Flee and inform the General!” He turns back, joining the rear guard as he brandishes a sword set alight by arcane might. A thunder that coalesced onto steel, ripping and tearing his own body, yet he fought with ferocity that shall earn him a seat at the table of his ancestors. Futile vainglory is still a glory for a dead man.
Forced to abandon their commander and the attempt to aid their friend to the west, the survivors could only stare at the corpses of their comrades to be washed away by the salty waves. This is not mere abandonment, but a clear, painful move to preserve their thinning strength.
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“Divines help us.” A Men-at-arms voiced hopelessly at the sight of armies, tens of thousands he thought, arrayed across the strait. Banners of purple, gold, white, green, and blue all under the great sigil of a lion on a crimson field.
The defenders hurry onto the battlements, arms are distributed to boys or girls as young as in her twelfth. Heated sands and precious patches of oil are hauled onto the strongpoints, arquebusiers hastened onto the walls as non-combatants provide support in making clumsy, desperate arquebuses lead balls from anything they can melt down.
Folks with expertise crank up the production of arrows, spears, gunpowder, and more despite the gnawing hunger evident in their lithe form and trembling muscles. Raegova himself had abandoned the council in favor of leading from the front; his capable staffs are tasked with wrenching miracles from an avanche coming their way.
It was then that… a sharp fsh of blinding light erupts from Argonume’s direction. Runic inscriptions, unknown letters, and cascading words of power that could not be read by those who were not blessed with proper intellect.
Men and women of Argenea had seen this same light. Steady, spindly hands ceases its frantic moves. Legs reaching onto post to post stopped dead where they stood. Faces of desperate concentration crane towards this shared sky to observe the coming of death.
Their hearts shatter, and many drown in supplications and prayers. Just as one would herald the coming of salvation, it too can become the st scenery one shall witness before the sweet memory of sunrise eternally seared into their psyche.
A shining beacon. A rge pilr to plead upon divinities for deliverance. Towering, white light that soon melts into a continental tidal wave to sweep upon the bodies and mind of those it chooses to bless. Shining beacon coaxing light from heaven to bathe upon the army of the Imperials and Protectorates; a cocoon slowly form but that would not be the end of this majestic dread.
The strait across the old fort soon dries up as a nd bridge made of ice is formed. Sea parted, frozen to form two walls, by the one where the crown was borne upon. A crown that had granted them the immense prestige and prowess of watching the dead forgotten sea. The crown that had been a subject of awe and reverence turned into yet another tread upon belching engines of war.
Soft, translucent veils fell onto the combined army… and thus, they march onto their st battle. Protected by the same light that had been proven more than a match for Imperial technology almost a year ago. Fallfiore’s struggle had only just begun…
[END OF CHAPTER]
Author’s Note:
Yo there, this is me, myself, and I, the author who wanna say happy new year for those doing their things and… yeah… damn, I am so bad at congratution, lmao.
Anyway, from here onward, we will finally witness the start of a proper war. What to expect? Well, I deliberately scrapped some scenes to make it ambiguous, but perhaps it gets too ambiguous now… but oh well? The show must continue.
Update, as whatever the fuck, really, I am kinda busy grinding irl.
Ciao.
