Anthill Liberation Part 2
The clouds above Anthill split open.
One moment, the sky was dull and choked by despair. The next, it was bright golden light. A singular, piercing beam of Light punched through the atmosphere directly above the central square, carrying with it a resonance that vibrated in the marrow of every living thing below.
"W-what is that?!" An Enforcer looked up, shielding his eyes as the light intensified. "Is that... Light Magic? At this latitude?!"
Before his question could be answered, the beam fractured. It split into hundreds of individual spears of concentrated luminescence, each one tracing a lethal arc toward the ground.
[Judgement Rain].
"What the-?!" The Priest overseeing the prisoner line barely had time to gasp before a javelin of light pierced his chest, vaporizing his heart instantly. There was no blood, only a scorch mark and a collapsing body.
"Gah! He-help!"
"I yield! I yield!"
Across the square, similar scenes erupted in terrible synchronicity. Enforcers tormenting civilians, mages gathering mana for defense, archers on the rooftops—they were struck down with terrfying precision. The beams ignored the cowering prisoners, the weeping women, the huddled children. They sought only the sinners.
In minutes, most of the cultist Enforcers were burnt into ashes by the holy fire.
"I-I can't move..." The surviving Cultists froze out of fear and shock as the light faded, revealing a figure descending slowly from the heavens. She floated not on wings, but on currents of visible mana that wrapped around her like ribbons of white silk. Around her, the radiant geometric prisms pulsed with the heartbeat of a miniature star. As her staff touched the ground, a shockwave of cleansing air swept the stench of rot from the square.
Judge Renalla looked through her golden visor, her voice booming without the need for a shout.
"This madness ends now. By the authority of the Holy See, and the grace of the Radiant... consider yourselves judged."
Silence hung heavy for a heartbeat. The remaining Cultists, those lucky enough to have been spared the initial volley, stared in slack-jawed horror.
"W-we're just doing the job... W-we have no choice!" One of the cultist followers managed to squeak. "T-they hold my family! Please spare me!"
As if hearing his plea, Renalla simply raised her hand. The ground beneath the man's feet suddenly swallowed him, encasing him in blocks of light.
"This will restrain your movement for awhile. Stay still."
Some other cultist followers also began to kneel and beg her to save them from the grasp of the Eclipse.
However, the masked Enforcers weren't happy about this.
"How dare you reject the Eternal Eclipse, you ungrateful bastards!" But before they stepped closer, a flash of light fell from the sky like a lightning bolt, smiting them instantly.
Renalla stood amidst the chaos with her face remained neutral.
Just then, the sounds of clapping hands traveled across the area. The sound was slow and mocking, cutting through the awe-struck silence.
From the balcony of the Town Hall, a figure leaned casually against the stone railing. Estella Aria offered an appreciative applause.
"Such a great entrance! Just as perfect as always!"
Renalla turned slowly. Her gaze locking onto Estella as she floating down.
"It has been a long time, Estella," Renalla said. "I see you haven't lost your flair for the dramatic. Or your taste for cruelty."
"And I see you're still the Teacher's Pet," Estella sneered, landing gently a dozen paces away. "The 'Prized Student of the Pope,' descending from on high to burn the heretic. Tell me, Renalla, do they still give you gold stars for every heretic you execute? Or did you graduate to shiny medals?"
"I execute justice, Estella. Not for stars," Renalla countered, her voice hardening. "I execute monsters. Which is what you have become."
"Monster? Hah... Hahahahah! That's rich coming from the woman who just vaporized people from the sky. We are two sides of the same coin, 'Ms. Perfect Student'. You kill for Order. I kill for Evolution. The only difference is your God has better PR."
Renalla gripped her staff tighter. "We were friends once, Estella. We studied the same texts in the Grand Sanctuary. We swore the same oaths to use magic for the betterment of mankind."
"You still don't get it, do you?" Estella said, her voice dropping. "You're still blinded by the subjective 'Justice' that you didn't even see what the Sanctuary was doing. I am merely doing what they have been doing all this time! But do you know why they kicked me out?"
"Because you were conducting illegal experiments!" Renalla shot back at her question. "You were vivisecting creatures! Creating abominations! You tried to fuse Lumite with living flesh in ways that defy nature!"
"Exactly! I studied the Lumite Assimilation! The truth of the Lumite itself!" Estella shouted, spreading her arms wide as the violet aura around her flaring angrily. "And they deemed my research heretical! They cast me out because I dared to ask why biology must be limited! They were afraid, Renalla! Afraid that I would make their precious prayers obsolete!"
"So you turned to the Eclipse?" Renalla asked, pity warring with disgust in her tone. "You joined a cult that worships nothingness just to satisfy your ego?"
"The Eclipse gave me resources! They gave me subjects! They gave me the freedom to pursue the Truth! And do you know what I found?"
A satisfied grin carved itself on her face. "Lumite is not a divine gift, nor is it native to this world. The Church has planted this lie for millennia for their own sake! To make themselves relevant!"
"You know, Renalla? The Lumite we know is mostly dormant... They passively turn their surroundings into another Lumite for thousands of years... But the active ones?"
Estella continued, "They react with the Lumite traces inside you, turning your body into a new vector for their duplications... The Assimilation Sickness... It's all because to them, to Lumite, WE are prey! A host for their growth! And the Church kept this secret for years!"
Renalla was stunned. What is she talking about?
"You're delusional, Estella."
"No, I am enlightened!"
"And what does that have to do with these people? They have nothing to do with your twisted research!"
"Sacrifices for the greater good! To achieve the next step in evolution!" Estella declared with conviction. "Homo Lumina! A being fully integrated with Lumite but retaining their will! That is the future! And for that future, a few broken towns and weeping peasants are a small price to pay!"
While the two powerful mages argued in the square, radiating waves of opposing mana that made the air shimmer, a figure watched from the shadows of the Town Hall entrance.
Edward pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long, weary sigh.
This is going to be catastrophic.
He leaned back against the doorframe, watching Estella rave about evolution and Renalla preach about divine justice. The irony was so thick he could taste it.
Look at them, two geniuses of the Sanctuary. The top students of our generation. One so obsessed with order she became a celestial executioner. The other so obsessed with change she became a mad scientist leading a death cult.
"We really are no different, are we?" he whispered. "We all justify our atrocities with some grand ideal. God. Science. The greater good. In the end, it's just powerful people deciding who lives and who dies."
He adjusted his mask, feeling the weight of the situation settle on his shoulders. The debate was over. The violence was imminent. And as much as he hated Estella's methods, she was his ally. And losing Anthill meant losing the war.
"I can't go out there... Renalla would recognize me instantly," Edward said before casting a spell to make him invisible. "Time to 'welcome' our other guests."
____
While the west quarter of Anthill town was being leveled to the ground by two high-level Mages duking it out with Renalla dropping light spells like laser and Estella bending space-time like origami, the northern perimeter was experiencing a different kind of chaos.
"Get in formation! Shields up! Don't let them breach the barricade!"
An Enforcer Captain tried to rally his men. They had stacked crates, carts, and the rubble of a demolished bakery across the main road leading into town, creating a choke point designed to stop cavalry. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pikes bristling, a wall of indigo robes and fanatical resolve.
They expected horses. They expected a charge. They expected the thunder of hooves.
What they got was a sound like a hive of mechanical hornets trapped in a tin can.
VRRRRRR-PUT-PUT-VRRRRRRR!
"What in the Abyss is that noise?" a pikeman muttered, squinting into the dusty horizon.
Suddenly, a small, dark sphere arched high over the barricade. It looked harmless, like an oddly shaped potato.
It landed right in the center of the formation.
"Watch ou-!" someone yelled, but it was too late.
Magnesium powder and mana-charged crystals ignited instantly. A blinding white flash washed out the world, followed by a sonic screech that felt like an icepick being driven into the ear canal.
"MY EYES! I CAN'T SEE! THE LIGHT BURNS!"
The Enforcers screamed, dropping their pikes to clutch at their faces. The formation dissolved into a writhing, blinded mass of confusion.
And then, from the dust cloud, the nightmare arrived.
Asep drifted the Davidson Mark I around the corner sideways. The three-wheeled abomination roared, its twin-cylinder engine pushing the chassis to approximately 30 miles per hour.
"SURPRISE, MOTHERLOVERS!" Asep bellowed, one hand on the handlebars, the other holding a freshly lit cigarette.
In the sidecar, Karl was having the time of his life. He braced himself against the recoil of the pintle-mounted repeating crossbow that Treste had been modified, fed by a top-loading magazine box.
"HAHA! EAT BOLTS! GET SOME! GET SOME!" Karl shouted, spraying quarrels into the chaotic mass of blinded cultists.
The effect was instant. They easily pierce against the lightly armored infantery, knocked men off their feet, and sowed absolute panic.
Asep gunned the engine as he aimed for them.
"Speed bump ahead!"
"Hit it!"
The trike slammed into a cluster of disoriented pikemen. The heavy iron bumper hit them hard. Bones snapped, robes tore. Men were sent flying like bowling pins.
He spun the handlebars hard to the left. The trike whipped around in a tight donut, the sidecar lifting off the ground slightly as Karl reloaded quickly.
"Reloading! Circle back! Circle back!" Karl yelled, slamming a fresh magazine into the receiver.
"Copy that! Keeping the pressure!"
Asep accelerated again, driving parallel to the barricade. He used the vehicle's momentum to clip the edges of the wooden structure, shattering supports and sending crates tumbling down onto the defenders. It was vehicular manslaughter turned into an art form.
"They're not even fighting back!" Karl cackled, loosing another volley into a group trying to regroup behind a wagon. "This is unfair! I love it!"
"It's called 'Combined Arms Warfare', Karl!" Asep shouted over the wind. "Or in this case, 'Run them over until they stop twitching' warfare!"
Behind them, the rumble of genuine cavalry approached. Zachary and the coalition had crested the hill, witnessing the carnage with a mix of awe and mild horror.
"By the Radiant..." Stark muttered, watching the trike do another drift through a pile of cultists. "Is that... legal? In war?"
"War has no laws, Stark," Zachary replied. He watched Asep lob another flashbang into a building where archers were trying to set up. "Only winners. And right now? They are winning."
He then raised his sword.
"Vanguard! While they are distracted! CHARGE!"
With a thundering roar, the heavy horsemen surged forward, sweeping into the breach Asep and Karl had torn open, ready to finish what the strange vehicle had started. The "welcome party" had officially been crashed.
____
Edward had planned for knights. He had prepared for mages. He had even, in his darkest calculations, prepared for a siege.
He had not prepared for this.
"What the hell is that thing?! How could it move?!"
He skated down the main thoroughfare of Anthill's northern district, a ribbon of jagged ice forming beneath his boots as he moved. He moved with impossible grace, gliding over debris and mud like a phantom, his indigo robes flapping behind him.
Ahead of him, about fifty yards away and rapidly gaining distance, was the loudest object he had ever encountered.
The three-wheeled abomination was bouncing over the cobblestones, kicking up dust and chaos. In the sidecar, the maniac with the spear was reloading again.
"Hey, Ice-Freak! You missed!" Karl twisted around in his seat, aiming the repeating crossbow backward. "Have another spicy meatball!"
Edward scoffed, flicking his wrist. A crystalline wall of ice erupted from the ground in front of him, thick and translucent. He expected the bolt to shatter harmlessly against it.
Instead, it exploded upon contact. Not just with fire, but also with a concussive blast of compressed air and shrapnel. The ice wall shattered into a thousand razor-sharp fragments. Edward was forced to swerve violently, his ice slide banking hard right to avoid the debris cloud.
"Explosive bolts?!" Edward hissed through his teeth, his composure fraying. "That's cheating! Where did they get explosive bolts?!"
"It's called 'Alchemy', you uncultured swine!" Asep's voice drifted back over the engine roar. He drifted the trike around a corner, the rear wheel clipping a fruit stand and sending cabbages flying. "And 'Science'! Try reading a book instead of a grimoire!"
Edward's eye twitched behind his mask. The insult stung almost as much as the shrapnel grazing his cheek.
"Uncultured?! I studied at the Grand Sanctuary for a decade!" He roared, thrusting both hands forward. "[Frost Lance Barrage]!"
A dozen spears of condensed ice materialized in the air around him, humming with lethal cold. With a gesture, he launched them like missiles.
The spell screamed through the air as they tracking the fleeing vehicle.
"Incoming! Twelve o'clock high! Wait, six o'clock!" Karl screamed, ducking into the sidecar.
Asep glanced in the wing-mirror—a polished piece of brass mounted on a spring. "Hold on to your butt!"
He slammed on the brakes and jerked the handlebars left. The trike went into a controlled skid, spinning 180 degrees. The Frost Lances slammed into the cobblestones where they had been a second ago, erupting into geysers of ice shards.
Before the trike even stopped moving, Asep gunned the throttle again. The vehicle shot off down a side alley, leaving Edward to glide through a cloud of useless ice dust.
"Get back here!" Edward shouted in frustration, banking hard to follow them. He conjured a new ice ramp, launching himself over a pile of rubble to cut the corner.
He knew it was bait. Every tactical instinct in his brain was screaming Trap! Trap! Turn back! Secure the town hall!
But the sheer indignity of it...
Here he was, a high-ranking sorcerer of the Eclipse, master of Cryomancy, being outmaneuvered by a strange vehicle and a bandit armed with exploding toothpicks. It was personal now. He didn't just want to kill them; he wanted to freeze that noisy engine into a block of solid ice and shatter it with a hammer.
"You think you can outrun me in my own element?" Edward growled, summoning a pair of ice-skates directly onto his boots. "I am winter itself!"
He surged forward, gaining speed to chase them. The alleyway was narrow, the buildings looming high on either side. Asep was weaving the trike through laundry lines and trash piles, the engine whining in protest.
"He's gaining, Asep!" Karl warned, firing blindly over his shoulder.
"I know! Just keep him angry!" Asep yelled, flicking his cigarette butt at the pursuing mage. "Hey, Elsa! Nice dress! Does it come in men's sizes?"
"DIE!" Edward screamed, abandoning finesse for raw power. He started freezing the ground ahead of the trike, trying to slip the tires.
But the slime-coating on the wheels held. The trike skidded, corrected, and kept going.
They burst out of the alleyway into a wider area. An open plaza near the edge of town—an old lumber yard filled with stacks of timber and rusted saw-blades.
Asep slammed the brakes, bringing the trike to a screeching halt in the center of the yard. The engine sputtered and died, silence crashing down like a hammer.
He and Karl hopped out, scrambling for cover behind a massive pile of oak logs.
Edward glided into the yard a moment later, slowing to a stop in the center. He looked around, his breath puffing white in the chilled air. He raised his hands, gathering a massive sphere of freezing energy.
"End of the line, rats," he announced, his voice echoing off the wood. "Nowhere left to run. No more tricks. Just—"
Suddenly, a twig broke. Not near Asep. But from above.
Edward looked up.
Perched on top of the highest stack of lumber, silhouetted against the sun, was a Renjiran archer. And next to her, another. And another. The rooftops surrounding the yard were lined with them.
And behind the log piles, grinning bandits popped up, leveling crossbows and slings.
"Welcome to the killbox, ice-boy," Corgan stepped out from behind a saw-horse, holding a truly massive arbalest. "Hope you like being a pincushion."
Edward's eyes widened behind his mask. "Oh."
Ah shit... Should've brought an extra pair of painkillers.
"Tch!" He quickly summoned a pair of thick ice walls to cover his front but a heavy arrow managed to pierce through his thigh.
"Gah!"
He almost fell to his knee, but he gritted his teeth as he reinforced the wall's integrity.
"Do you think this is enough to stop me?!"
"No. We know you're tough." Asep's voice echoed.
Suddenly, a canister fell down from above and landed inside his walls. Followed by another, and another.
Wait... These are...
"SMOKE OUT!"
BOOOM!
Thick, white smoke engulfed his vision. He coughed violently as the acrid smell of sulfur entered his lungs.
"Fire!"
"GAAAH!"
Arrows, bolts, rocks, and even rotten tomatoes rained down on him. His ice shield cracked. His robe tore.
"DAMN YOU ALL!"
With a roar of pure rage, Edward unleashed an omnidirectional blast of cold and freezing the smoke instantly. The ice shattered, sending shards flying outward like shrapnel.
The bandits yelped and ducked.
Edward stood in the center, panting, bleeding from a dozen wounds, looking like a cornered animal.
"I... am... Edward the Frost-Binder!" he snarled, blood dripping from his mask. "I will not fall to RABBLE!"
From behind the log pile, Asep peeked out, holding a lit molotov cocktail.
"Cool story, bro. Here have a drink." He said as he threw the molotov to him. The bottle shattered against Edward's chest and the alcohol ignited instantly.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Fire and ice. The eternal struggle. Edward screamed, thrashing as he tried to extinguish the flames with his magic, but the accelerant clung to his robes. He stumbled backward, flailing blindly.
"Now! Pile on!" Corgan shouted.
The bandits swarmed. A dozen men tackled the burning wizard, beating him with clubs, maces, and rocks. Dignity was gone. Magic was useless when you were being dogpiled by angry men armed with nothing to lose.
Asep watched from his cover, lighting a fresh cigarette with the burning remains of a lumber stack.
"Heh, how it feel having your ego shattered?" he murmured while slowly exhaling a satisfied cloud. "But this is just a beginning."
____
The West Quarter of Anthill had ceased to be a town. It was a crater of violently conflicting mana.
The clash between Renalla and Estella was less a duel and more a natural disaster confined to a city block. Buildings dissolved into dust and light. The cobblestones were either vaporized into glass or twisted into non-Euclidean shapes that hurt the eyes to look at.
Renalla hovered in the air, a beacon of blinding, geometrically perfect order. Her [Radiant Aegis] formed a sphere of golden honeycombs around her, deflecting the chaotic spatial distortions Estella threw at her with resounding chimes. With every flick of her staff, she rained down pillars of condensed light, trying to pin the elusive sorceress to the ground.
"Yield, Estella!" Renalla's voice boomed, magnified by the air itself. "Your Arcane Arts cannot penetrate the purity of the Light! You are fighting gravity with feathers!"
On the ground below, Estella danced.
She moved with a fluid grace, weaving between the scorched craters. Her robes were singed, her hair wild, and blood trickled from a cut on her forehead, but she was laughing.
"Yield? Oh, Renalla, you boring, wonderful fool!" Estella cackled, dodging a beam of light that turned a water trough to steam beside her. "I'm not fighting to win! I'm fighting to impress him!"
She spun, her hands tracing a complex violet sigils in the air.
"[Spatial Shear]!"
An invisible blade of distorted space lashed out, carving a deep furrow in Renalla's barrier. The golden honeycomb flickered but held.
"Him?" Renalla frowned, genuinely confused amidst the carnage. She launched a counter-volley of [Luminous Spears]. "Who is 'him'? Solus? That false idol?"
"Solus? Ha! That old fossil only cares about his throne!" Estella dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand, effortlessly teleporting ten feet to the left to dodge the spears. "No, no! I'm talking about my darling! My beloved anomaly! My Asep!"
She clasped her hands to her cheeks, her eyes turning misty and dreamy as she thought about him.
"Oh, Renalla, you should see him! He's rude! He's violent! He blew me up with a firebomb! And he has zero Lumite in his blood! Zero! Can you imagine the offspring? The genetic potential?! We're going to have a honeymoon in the ruins of the Sanctuary!"
Renalla stared down at her former friend with a conflicted expression. "You... you have completely lost your mind. Prioritizing lust over logic? You are truly lost."
"Love is the ultimate logic, Renalla! Evolution demands procreation!" Estella shouted, her mood swinging back to murderous in an instant. "And since you are trying to kill the mother of the new race, you are officially an obstacle to progress!"
Estella stopped. She stood still in the center of a crater, her smile vanishing. The playful madness in her eyes hardened into something cold and terrifyingly lucid.
She raised both hands. One glowed with deep, unstable violet light; the color of corrupted spatial magic. The other glowed with a swirling grey—the color of the Void, of pure nothingness.
"You think your Light is absolute?" Estella whispered, but the sound carrying clearly over the roar of magic. "You think energy cannot be destroyed? Let me show you what the Sanctuary was too afraid to publish. Let me show you the truth of the Void."
She brought her hands together slowly.
The space around her warped and groaning in protest. Light itself bent. Sound muted. It was as if reality itself was holding its breath.
"Positive mana... meets negative space," she chanted, her fingers interlocking. "Matter... meets anti-matter."
A small, perfectly spherical orb formed between her palms. It wasn't really black, because black is a color. This thing was the absence of color. It was a hole in the world, throbbing with a terrible hunger.
Renalla's eyes widened behind her visor. Her instincts screamed a warning she hadn't felt in decades. Danger. Absolute danger.
"That spell..." Renalla gasped. "Estella, stop! You'll destabilize the local reality!"
But she ignored it. The singularity became more and more dense, and now, it was no bigger than a regular pebble, hovering at the tip of her index finger. It was small, yet it contained the power to destroy the foundation of the world.
"[Hollow Break: Null Point]."
Then, she flicked her finger.
The orb shot forward with terrifying speed, erasing the very friction of air so it made no sound.
Renalla raised her staff. She channeled every ounce of energy she had into her defense. "[Divine Bastion: Absolute Clarity]!"
Layers of golden shields, hundreds of them, materialized in front of her. A fortress of light meant to withstand the breath of dragons.
The orb hit the first shield.
There was no explosion. No crash.
The shield simply vanished. Erased from existance.
The orb punched through the second layer. The third. The tenth. It devoured the mana, devoured the light, devoured Renalla's defense like fire eating paper. It simply deleted everything in its path.
"Impossible..." Renalla stared as her ultimate defense unraveled before her eyes.
Something is wrong...
She thought, before her brain finally processed the information.
She tried to dodge, but the orb had its own gravitational pull. She tried to move, but her body felt so heavy. She tried to cast teleportation, but the orb jamming away the coordinate.
I can't escape...
She closed her eyes and accepting her fate. So this is the end... Forgive me, Master... I failed to bring justice.
But she felt something wrapped around her waist. Rough and tight.
A rope.
"Gotcha!"
"Huh?" Renalla's eyes snapped open.
Before the orb could touch her, she was yanked violently to the side. The world blurred as she was pulled through the air with bone-jarring force.
The invisible orb missed her by inches. It continued its trajectory, silent and unstoppable, until it hit the bell tower of the town hall behind her.
There was no debris. The bell tower didn't crumble. A perfect, circular hole simply appeared through the entire structure, as if God had taken a hole-punch to the building. The masonry, the bell, the air inside—it was just... gone. Nothing remains. Not even a residual energy.
Renalla slammed into a pile of hay and crates on a nearby rooftop, rolling to a stop.
Breathless, she finally looked up to see her savior.
Standing on the edge of the roof, his cape billowing in the wind, was Zachary Valente. He held the other end of the grappling line, his expression grim. Beside him stood Stark, panting heavily.
"That was too close, Judge," Zachary said while offering her a hand. "Next time you want to duel with a dangerous person, maybe don't do it alone?"
From the ground below, Estella stared at the hole in the bell tower, then at the empty space where Renalla had been. Her face twisted into a scowl of petulant annoyance.
"Rude!" She stomped her foot. "You ruined my finisher! Do you know how hard it is to calculate the null-vector on the fly?!"
But her tantrum immediately ceased a few seconds later as she realized something.
If Zachary is here... That means Edward failed? That moron... Whatever. It also means HE has arrived.
"Zachary!" Asep's voice rang out from the street below. The trike roared around the corner, Karl hanging out the sidecar waving like a lunatic. "We cleared the north! Edward is... uh... getting intimately acquainted with a mob of angry bandits!"
Estella's head snapped toward the sound. Her eyes locked onto the trike. Onto the dark-skinned man driving it.
The scowl vanished. The anger dissolved. Replaced instantly by that terrifying obsession.
"DARLING!"
She clasped her hands together, ignoring the army of mercenaries now pouring into the square behind Zachary. Right now, she was joyful to see him.
"You came back! You brought friends! Oh, implying a group activity? Kinky!"
She spread her arms wide as if welcoming him.
"Come! Embrace the Eclipse with me! Let us consummate our union amidst the ashes of the old world!"
Asep stopped the trike. Looked at the crazy woman in the middle of the crater, then up at Zachary on the roof, then at Renalla dusting herself off.
"Zachary," Asep called him out, his voice panicked a little. "Can I go now? I have a feeling my presence here endangers my chastity!"
Zachary just sighed while drawing his sword then looked down at the love-struck, world-ending sorceress.
"Sorry, Asep, but I think you're the only one she'll listen to. Or chase. Either way... Everyone! Bring her down!"
Estella sighed, again and again... Her date was ruined. But facing this Coalition was bad for her right now. Her energy was almost exhausted because of the toll of unleashing that forbidden spell and she only had enough left for a single teleport to the Deep Sanctum.
"Hmph! Why is everyone in this town so rude! Can't you see a couple having a reunion?"
With a huff, she summoned a violet portal.
"But fine! Since my energy is low, I'll let you off the hook for today."
She stepped into the portal, but left her head poking out and winked at him.
"I love you, my Darling! Next time we meet, I'll definitely take you home!"
And just like that, the crazy lady vanished. The portal closed with a soft buzz, leaving silence in the devastated square.
Asep slumped over the handlebars of the trike and groaning into his hands. "Why me? Why is it always the crazy ones?"
On the roof, Renalla dusted off her white robes. She turned at Zachary, then at the hole in the bell tower, then down at the complaining man on the strange machine.
"Commander Valente," she said, her voice steady but her hands still trembling slightly. "It seems your... unconventional allies are as effective as they represent. You have my gratitude."
Zachary sheathed his sword. He looked out over the town of Anthill. The cultists were dead, captured, or fleeing.
"Don't thank me yet," Zachary replied. "The surface is clear. But the mines... the roots are still deep. And the true darkness is still waiting."
"Boss, that Edward dude has been captured. Should we execute him to avenge Bob? Apparently, he's the one behind the Greenpasteur incident." Stark asked.
"No," Zachary's eyes narrowed. "He's a high-ranking member. He has intel. We interrogate him first. Find out everything he knows about Solus. About the Eclipse's motives."
"Understood. Let's prepare to go back to Loriana."
Stark nodded.
As the Coalition forces began securing the town, rounding up survivors, and putting out fires, Asep remained on his trike, lighting a fresh cigarette to calm his nerves.
The mad scientist is gone for now. And worst of all... she thinks we're dating. It was infuriating, really.
He turned up at the sky, where the golden clouds were beginning to fade back to grey.
Yeah. This is definitely going to be a problem.
____
The oppressive atmosphere in Anthill town began to dissipate, replaced by cheers of victory.
The liberated people swarmed the wagons like ants, eager for bread and water provided by their saviors.
Meanwhile, Zachary walked calmly to the makeshift holding cell; a repurposed root cellar of a nearby tavern. Two Nord mercenaries stood guard, crossing their heavy axes as he approached, only to step aside with respectful nods.
Inside, Edward sat tied to a sturdy oak chair, his hands bound with anti-magic cuffs that glowed with a faintly to suppress his Arcane Arts skill. His once-pristine indigo robes were torn and stained with mud, blood, and the remnants of rotten tomatoes. His mask was gone, shattered during his "intimate acquaintance" with the angry mob, revealing a face that was, frankly, a mess. Both eyes were swollen shut in a grotesque parody of sleep, his lip was split, and a particularly nasty bruise bloomed across his cheekbone.
Zachary looked down at him and chuckled. Not to gloat nor humiliate him. It was just pity.
"Look at you, Edward. The Frost-Binder. one of the top graduate of the Grand Sanctuary. The last surviving member of House Thornfield. Reduced to a punching bag for bandits."
"Laugh all you want, Zachary. But this isn't over!" Edward snarled. His voice, once smooth and arrogant, was thick and slurred. "You may have won this battle... But the war? You've already lost."
"Why are you doing this, Edward?" Zachary pulled up a crate and sat opposite him, leaning forward with elbows on his knees. "I thought we settled our differences during the civil war twelve years ago. We were on opposite sides, yes. But I respected you. I thought you had honor. Now you're kidnapping civilians? Torturing children? Leading a death cult?"
"Honor?"
Edward laughed with a wet hacking sound then spat a glob of blood onto the dirty floor.
"You talk of honor, Zachary? You? The man who stood by while my family was butchered? While my father's head was put on a pike? While my mother begged for mercy and received only a blade?"
His swollen eyes tried to open, to glare, but managed only a pathetic squint.
"Because of you... because of your king, my House is gone. Extinguished. Erased from history as 'traitors'. Do you know what it feels like to be the last ember of a dying fire? To wake up every day knowing you are a ghost?"
Zachary's expression didn't waver. He didn't flinch.
"Oh, I know exactly how it feels," Zachary said quietly. "House Valente was executed too, Edward."
Edward paused, his rant caught in his throat.
"My father. My uncles. My cousins. They were all purged by Prince Finlay to root out the traitors. They were 'traitors' too." Zachary continued, his voice steady as a calm sea. "House Valente... We were one of the 'Old Families', weren't we? Roots stretching back to the Occupation Era. When the Holy Empire ruled this land. We kept our titles when King Sigismer declared independence thirty years ago. We pretended to bend the knee. We smiled in court while sending letters to the Emperor in secret."
He leaned back, looking at the ceiling for a moment.
"We were rot, Edward. A cancer eating the kingdom from the inside. We hoarded wealth while the common folk starved. We played politics while the borders burned. And when the Civil War came twelve years ago... Finlay did what he had to do. He cut out the rot."
"You... you defended them! I saw you on the battlefield!"
"I defended Ardenia," Zachary corrected sharply, his eyes snapping back to Edward. "Not my family's corruption. Not their greed. I fought because I saw what that war did to the people who didn't have crests on their shields. People like Stark. Like Eve. Like Karl... Like Bob."
Zachary stood up and paced the small room.
"I spent my youth in the mud with them, Edward. I ate their stale bread. I watched them bleed for a war they didn't start. I learned that loyalty isn't about bloodlines or ancient titles. It's about the person standing next to you in the shield wall."
He stopped in front of Edward, looking down with cold clarity.
"I accepted the purge. I accepted the death of my kin because I knew they were guilty. I chose the Kingdom over my name. I chose the future over the past. That is the price of stability. That is the cost of peace."
Zachary leaned in close, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"But you? You couldn't let go. You clung to your dead name and your bruised ego. You joined a cult that wants to burn everything down because you couldn't stand to build something new on the ashes. That's not tragedy, Edward... That's just cowardice."
Edward was silent. His shoulders slumped. The fire in his voice died, replaced by something brittle and hollow.
"Cowardice..." he muttered. "Perhaps. But cowardice keeps you alive, Zachary. Heroism just gets you killed."
"Then I'll die standing," Zachary replied, turning to leave. "Which is more than I can say for you."
He signaled the guards.
"Take him to the wagon. We'll bring him to Loriana. We'll see if a cell clears his mind."
____
-Deep Sanctum - Throne Room-
The air in the Sanctum was always cold, but today it felt particularly frigid. The violet rivers of corrupted Lumite flowed sluggishly, casting long, dancing shadows on the obsidian walls.
Solus sat on his throne, his chin resting on his hand. His crimson eyes were fixed on the kneeling figure before him.
Estella had returned. She was unharmed, her robes pristine again thanks to a quick change, but she looked annoyed.
"So," Solus began, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. "Anthill is lost."
"A minor setback, Your Grace," Estella said dismissively. "The experiment yielded interesting data regardless. The integration rate of the Thralls was higher than expected. And the Coalition... well, they brought interesting toys."
"And Edward?"
"Currently a guest of the Castalia Company. Probably nursing a concussion and a bruised ego. He'll crack eventually. He always was soft."
Solus hummed, tapping a finger on the armrest. He was visibly unhappy with the result. Just recently, he had gotten a messenger informing him about Idomay's death after her reckless attack on Loriana.
"And Idomay is dead. Killed by that silver-haired woman during the assault on Loriana. My Overseers are dropping like flies, Estella. This is becoming... inconsistent with my schedule."
"Idomay was a brute, she relied too much on muscle and that ridiculous mace of her. No finesse. No vision. Her death was inevitable."
"Perhaps. But it leaves a vacancy," Solus leaned forward. "The East District needs a new Overseer. Someone capable. Someone ruthless."
"Find me a candidate. Scour the ranks. Check the prisoners. Check the gutter if you have to. But find me someone who understands that power is not just about swinging a hammer."
Estella sighed, standing up and brushing invisible dust from her skirt.
"Fine. I'll host auditions. Maybe I'll find someone with actual brain cells this time."
She turned to leave, her mind already drifting back to Asep and their "date."
"And Estella," Solus called out, stopping her from taking another step.
"Yes, Your Grace?"
"The next time you engage the enemy... try not to spend the entire battle flirting with them. It reflects poorly on our organization."
"No promises, Your Grace. Love is a battlefield, after all."
She said with a smirk and walked out, the heavy doors closing behind her, leaving Solus alone in the dark with his schemes and his dwindling patience.
___