"WHERE IS KING RAGNAR?!" A dwarven mander's scream tore across the battlefield all of a sudden. "He was fighting the Villain! WHERE IS OUR KING?!"
No one answered him.
The dwarven mander grabbed the nearest elf by the collar and shook her, but the woman crumpled in his grip with tears streaming down her face and nothing behind her eyes except the golden warmth still ringing through her blood.
"SNAP OUT OF IT!" Another dwarven officer on the coalition's left bellowed at the elven line dissolving around him. "THE BATTLE ISN'T OVER, FIGHT!"
His words bounced off a thousand backs already turned toward the sky.
Whatever the elves were seeing was invisible to every other race on the field.
There was no golden light, no warmth, no ancestral voice in the blood of anyone who wasn't born an elf.
To the dwarves and Fujimori, hundreds of thousands of their allies had simply broken after Quinlan spoke a few words, being weeping messes.
They were dropping their weapons and gaping up at the man in the sky with the glazed devotion of addicts getting their fix, and the only word any of them had for it was brainwashing.
But exactly because of this, the battlefield didn't share the collective elven paralysis.
Dwarven steel found Quinlan's soldiers, and the Fujimori banners hadn't wavered once, their soldiers pressing harder into every opening.
…
Alexios laughed.
He'd stopped being surprised somewhere around the fifth impossible thing Quinlan Elysiar had done in the past month alone.
The shock had worn through entirely, ground down by one absurd display after another until outrage took more energy than the King of Vraven had left to give, and what remained on the other side of all that exhaustion was just amusement.
Pure, bone-deep amusement at the fact that this arrogant young man could not stop bending the world to his will no matter what anyone else did to stop him.
"Simply can't help himself, can he?" Alexios shook his head and raised his longsword toward the Fujimori elders closing in around him, grinning. "Orchestrating these scenes must be in his blood."
His gaze swept across the elves crumbling throughout the melee. "He truly is Devil of the Drug Department. Bastard just drugged an entire race."
Then his eyes landed on the elders. "Lost a lot of allies all of a sudden."
Chizuru's blade settled into a low guard. "Elves always were mere backliners."
Alexios chuckled and twirled his longsword in a lazy arc. "Yeah, sure, whatever helps keep your inner peace. At your age, it's important to keep your heart rates down."
"We're younger than you!" Tatsumi, the youngest of the five Fujimori elders, shouted, and was ignored as Alexios stepped forward.
"I've been able to tolerate a lot of things these days, but there's a limit. Letting that bastard up there be your executioner is one such thing I won't permit."
His sword leveled at the Fujimori line. "The joy of lopping your heads off is my privilege."
Tatsumi moved into formation at Chizuru's right. "You speak as though you're on his side. Need I remind you, Alexios? You and the Primordial Villain are arch enemies."
"Arch enemies?" Alexios's eyebrow rose. "I can't stand his guts and he absolutely deserves to get roughed the hell up. But to call him my arch enemy?"
He swung his blade experimentally, checking if it lost any sharpness. Then he looked at the man, and his voice lowered. "You're talking about the man who took great care of my daughter when her father was lacking."
"No!" Tatsumi snapped. "I'm talking about the man who is single-handedly endangering the Valorian family's hegemony!"
The amusement on Alexios's face dimmed into quiet calculation, and the grin that remained had nothing funny left in it.
"What about your role in Ayame Fujimori's enslavement?"
Hozumi's voice came from behind Chizuru's shoulder, dry and unhurried, the eldest of the five speaking for the first time. "All our records indicate the Primordial Villain is a most vengeful man. You signed Ayame's enslavement with your name. Do you truly believe he won't kill you for it? Won't enslave you and your lineage?"
Alexios stopped smiling and began walking forward, the lazy ease bleeding out of his posture with every step.
The air around him pressed outward, the soldiers nearest to him stumbling as the aura of the Warrior King of Vraven rolled over the Fujimori front with the weight of a near thousand years of rule behind it.
"All of that," he said, his voice stripped of levity, "is my business."
His eyes swept the elders. "You have betrayed the crown. You sided with the nation currently invading my lands. No matter how you twist my life, no matter what you dangle or threaten, one thing will always remain constant."
His longsword's tip lowered toward Hozumi. "You will be executed. Your lands seized. Your ancestral titles revoked. Your family names struck from the records of the Valorian court, and every holding you've built across the generations handed to the crown."
His gaze moved on to Chizuru. "I will bury the Fujimori clan so deep in history that your next generation won't know you ever were more than filthy street beggars."
"Alexios!" Chizuru's voice rose. "I understand all your anger, and we're willing to make never before seen concessions, but don't forget! We did what we did because our hand was forced. You know that. Our deal about the Heavenly Restriction-"
"All of our deals are null and void!" Alexios roared and launched forward.
"You will die of old age within months at the latest!"
"Then I can finally get some rest!"
Steel met steel across the Fujimori front.
Lilith watched the collapse sweep across the field with eyes that couldn't help but move back to Quinlan, as if pulled by gravity.
"He certainly knows how to make an entrance... What a showoff," she scoffed, but for once there was a small smirk on her face as she spoke of the man who had taken so much from her.
…
On Bronnya's back, Void's eyes were open.
That alone was worth noting, because the Void Mage kept them shut through entire battles at times. The violet irises found the man in the sky and stayed there, lazy and unblinking, as the aura rolling off him washed over her and settled somewhere behind her ribs.
"...Warm," she murmured. The quiet curl at the corner of her lips said everything she wouldn't, and her eyes drifted shut.
Her hat tilted forward and fell off, forcing Bronnya to catch it and plant it back on her skull.
A moment later, with a tired sigh, Void spoke again: "You should back the gramps up. Three young women, watching an old man fight alone. Shameless..."
"Hah?" Jallen's brow rose a fraction. "You mean WE should back the king up? The FOUR of us?"
"No. You." Void adjusted her hat. "Recharging."
Jallen's expression flattened another degree, which was impressive given where it started.
She knew full well that the Void Mage had more than enough mana in reserve to fight at full strength for many more minutes and had simply decided she'd worked enough for the time being.
"Scar will scold you," Bronnya said over her shoulder.
"It's just a short break..." Void murmured, then conceded, "If she pouts too much, I'll get on my knees and apologize like those frantic elven women are doing to the big guy. Their kowtows are immaculate... worthy of study..."
"You really have zero shame," Bronnya muttered.
Void said nothing, and her breathing had already evened out.
...
On the eastern front, Kaede's sword arm had stopped mid-swing.
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