“Quick progress,” said Zeke, kneeling at the edge of the forest. The tree line was almost a mile away from the river – and subsequently, from where the beastkin enslaved by the Knights of Adontis were building a bridge – but he could see everything perfectly well.

And it was enough to set his blood to boiling.

The beastkin were not as malnourished as the ones back in Heartwood. However, they had still clearly been mistreated, as evidenced by the fact that their fur was patchy, and they’d been denied the dignity of clothing. To the people of Adontis, that probably made perfect sense. Animals didn’t wear clothes, after all. However, to Zeke, it was just further evidence of how far past redemption those people really were.

If they couldn’t even afford their slaves the dignity of clothing them, then they were too far gone to pull back. So, Zeke had no reservations with doing what needed to be done.

After he had met with a war council composed of kobolds, centaurs, and a few other representatives from the beastkin and formerly enslaved miners, he’d set off across the Mukti Plains, crossing the river where he’d fought the naga. From there, he’d headed west along the tree line until he’d found the intended location of the bridge the Knights of Adontis would use to cross the river.

They’d killed all the naga within three miles of the location, so they thought they were completely safe. However, Zeke had already set his gate up, and an army composed of tens of thousands of kobolds were only moments away. All he needed to do was give them the signal, and they would pour out of the gate and swarm the knights.

“They have the benefit of free labor that they consider completely expendable,” said Sasha from nearby. She and Pudge were stationed behind one of the Old Growth’s massive trees, so they were entirely hidden from even the most attentive of Knights. “They also have vast experience.”

“How long will it take you to cast the spell?” Zeke asked.

“Three minutes, at least. Five at most.”

“And how close do you need to get?” was his next question.

“A hundred yards. I can probably do it if I’m a little further away, but my control will suffer,” she answered.

“If you get closer than that, will it help?”

“No.”

“Alright, then,” Zeke said, looking back at the bridge site. The construction proceeded rapidly, but it still wasn’t completed nearly as quickly as he would have liked. He was impatient to get the battle underway, and every moment he watched the mistreatment of the beastkin slaves, his frustration grew even more potent.

Yet he pushed it down, deep enough that it wouldn’t affect his actions. They had a plan, and he had no intention of deviating from the strategy they’d all agreed on.

“It was your plan in the first place,” Eveline reminded him.

“I know.”

“I’m just saying that –”

“I know what you’re saying,” he interrupted. “Just leave it. I’m not in the mood for you to point out my flaws.”

Part of that was due to the anticipation of the battle that had him on edge, but most of it came from the fact that the plan forced him to watch the indignities being heaped upon the beastkin. Yet more frustration was the product of knowing that, soon enough, some of his people would die. Even if everything went perfectly, there would be casualties, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

But heaped upon even that pile of disparate frustrations was the idea that, soon enough, he would pit himself against an army of human beings. Once, he’d been one of them. So, killing them – however justified those actions might be – felt different than killing a few monsters or dwarves. It wasn’t rational, he knew. And the Knights of Adontis deserved whatever punishment he could dish out. Yet he couldn’t escape the realities of his emotions.

“Humans kill humans all the time,” Eveline reminded him.

“And I’m supposed to feel bad about that,” he said.

“So, are you upset that you don’t? Or that you do?”

“You’re looking in my head. You tell me,” he stated. Zeke had killed plenty of human beings, but it was almost always as the result of them attacking him first. But the Knights of Adontis had done nothing to him before he’d given the orders to destroy Heartwood. He was the undisputed aggressor, and he was having a little trouble wrapping his head around that.

Or maybe it was like Eveline had intimated, and he was having issues with the fact that he didn’t feel nearly as bad about their impending deaths as he should have. Zeke knew about his own monstrous nature. He’d felt hovering over him for so long that he’d grown accustomed to its presence. However, there were times when he wondered if his demonic half was exercising a subtle influence over his decisions.

In any case, Zeke continued to watch as the bridge took shape. It was constructed of wood and stone that had been molded by people with skills appropriate to manipulating the materials. Apparently, those sorts of non-combat skills were quite common in the wider world, even if Zeke himself hadn’t encountered that many. That was largely due to the fact that he spent most of his time fighting. A battlefield was no place for a craftsman, after all.

“You literally have hundreds of craftspeople – or craftskobolds, I suppose – working in your city,” Eveline reminded him.

“I do?”

“How else do you think those farms are producing so much food? Or the goods you saw on display in your Market?” she responded. “There are hundreds of kobolds who have already taken crafting classes. Didn’t you know that?”

“I…uh…”

“You didn’t even think about it, did you?”

“I did not,” Zeke admitted.

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At that, Eveline let out an exasperated sigh. “You are really bad at the whole ruler thing,” she stated. “And I’m not just needling you here. You need to get better, or you need to find someone to handle that kind of thing.”

Zeke couldn’t argue with that assessment, but in his defense, he’d never asked to be in charge of thousands of people. He also knew that he simply wasn’t suited for that sort of thing. He was good at fighting. That did not qualify him to make decisions that would impact so many people.

“Doesn’t matter. They are your responsibility. The moment you took them in, you committed yourself to it. Now you have to make it work, one way or another.”

He didn’t respond to that statement, mostly because it wasn’t up for debate. He knew he needed to be better. He just wasn’t sure how to do that. Killing things and fighting had always come naturally to him – even going back to his first days in the troll caves – but leadership was something else altogether.

For a long time, Zeke watched the bridge slowly take shape, and in the meantime, he pondered ways to be a better leader. To her credit, Eveline didn’t interject or offer any snide commentary on his thoughts. He definitely appreciated that, even if it made him slightly suspicious of her motives.

Eventually, the building crews finished, and when they stepped back, Zeke saw a sturdy stone bridge that stretched across the river. If it had been back on Earth, it would have been quite a feat of engineering – probably even impossible, because it didn’t have the support structures typical of non-magical bridges – but in the Eternal Realm, it was just ordinary.

The moment the builders finished, they were ushered back to the nearby camp, and the Knights of Adontis mounted up and thundered across.

“Now?” asked Sasha, who’d been building her spell for the last couple of minutes. Zeke felt the mana stir, but it was more subdued than Sasha’s usual efforts. She had been practicing, it seemed.

“No. Wait for it,” he said, holding up a hand. He watched as the mounted Knights rushed across, leaving their support personnel and foot soldiers behind. They reached the other side of the bridge in an equine stream that emptied into the grassland beyond the river.

But even as the first wave took up positions on the other side, still more – thousands – flooded the bridge, and their progress slowed to a crawl. Soon enough, the bridge was packed end-to-end with a slow-moving train of mounted knights.

Zeke remained stationary as he watched. Hundreds of knights on the other side soon became thousands, and yet, he still didn’t call for the attack. Finally, once half the knights had reached the other side, Zeke said, “Get the kobolds. Thirty more seconds, Sasha.”

Pudge sprinted into the nearby gate, returning only a second later. Within seconds, a stream of kobolds came flooding out of the tower’s mobile gate. Still, Sasha didn’t cast her spell until, at last, she let it loose.

The river roiled into frothing waves. Then, the very earth shook. And finally, the wind swirled. By the time the knights took notice, it was too late. A tidal wave erupted from the river, then crashed into the bridge, rocking it down to its very foundations. In normal times, that wouldn’t have been enough to damage it. However, because of the earthen component of Sasha’s spell and the way it had weakened the supports on either end of the bridge, it completely collapsed.

The Knights tried to escape, but the spell took effect far too quickly to allow for that, and the bridge crumbled beneath them, spilling the knights into the river. They wouldn’t drown. Most were far too powerful for that. However, that had never been the point. Instead, Zeke merely wanted the force scattered and separated for the next part of his plan.

Before the proverbial dust had even settled, Zeke embraced [Triune Colossus], fueling it with his own mana. At the same time, he turned back to the gathered kobolds – more than a hundred had already amassed, and there were plenty more still streaming out of the gate – and shouted for them to charge.

With that, Zeke led them from the trees. To his left, there was Pudge, and to his right, Silik sprinted into battle alongside him. Somewhere in the rear was Jasper, though if everything went according to plan, the bard wouldn’t actually enter the battle. He was there for support.

So, with Jasper’s songs singing through him, Zeke raced across the open ground. The infantry that the knights had left behind tried to mount a defense. They activated skills and sent various magical projectiles arcing toward Zeke and his kobold companions. However, they barely got a single volley off before the attackers crashed into them.

They never stood a chance, especially with Zeke leading the way.

Still, there were thousands of them, and even if they were far less capable than the kobolds on an individual basis, they were still trained warriors. So, after that initial surge, the lines ground to a standstill. The defenders even pushed back a bit, leveraging their shields to create a mana-infused wall.

Yet it wasn’t enough.

The second wave hit just after the first, and the third just after the second. The kobolds weren’t endless, but to the defenders, it probably seemed that they were. Bright lights flashed as the lizard-people brought their own skills to bear, and the sky became a kaleidoscope of colors as the defenders tried to counter with their abilities.

Meanwhile, Zeke advanced, swinging his hammer with workmanlike efficiency. He didn’t use any skills other that [Cambion’s Awakening], largely because he wanted to keep them in reserve so he could efficiently counter any champions that might present themselves. But none came, and so, he slaughtered any man or woman who dared to stand up to him. Some put up a better fight than others. That was inevitable. Yet none could truly counter his strength, and so he felled them in droves.

The same could be said for Pudge, who was far less circumspect in the use of his own skills. Every now and then, he would disappear – the first part of his latest skill, Zeke knew – and then, a moment later, a dozen or more enemies would erupt into lacerations that sent blood and gobbets of flesh flying into the air. After that, Pudge would suddenly reappear and continue on fighting even as his previous victims fell dead.

At the same time, Zeke was vaguely aware of what was happening on the other side of the river, where the centaurs were adding their contribution to the battle as the swept in en masse to attack the reeling knights. One-on-one, the Knights of Adontis were a match for the centaurs, but their numbers were far too few to truly put up a fight. And with the river at their backs, there was no escape from the savage centaurs.

It was a slaughter.

Zeke had always known that was what was coming. The plan wasn’t terribly complicated, but he’d known it would be effective. Because, while Zeke often floundered when it came to the leadership of his budding city, he had no such issues in battle. He understood tactics in a way that surprised even him. That talent had manifested in the early war against the giants, and he’d honed it over a dozen battles. Now, he was a veteran commander, and he intended to use that well-earned skill to wage war against their latest enemy.

The battle didn’t end with a sudden fight against some ultra-powerful rival. Instead, Zeke’s force slowly wore the enemy down until, at last, they tried to flee. They were unsuccessful, and the kobolds ran each and every one of them down until, at last, they completed the slaughter.

On the other side of the river, the centaurs engaged in a similar activity. However, their battle was much less lopsided, if only because the Knights were more powerful and better trained. As such, they put up a decent, if ultimately doomed, fight. Eventually, the centaurs finally overwhelmed the armored Knights, then let out a collective cheer that carried across the river, where Zeke and his people had already commenced with looting the slain infantry.

Meanwhile, a few of the beastkin who’d been rescued from Heartwood, approached their enslaved brethren and made it clear that they were not going to be killed alongside their former masters. From there, they all approached Zeke, who used his Path of Arcane Destruction to remove the power from their brands.

Once they were freed, a few kobolds and beastkin took over their care, ushering them into the tower where they would be healed in the Crimson Spring or set up in the Residential District so they could be fed and clothed before settling into their new home.

It was an arduous process, but ultimately worthwhile.

Not only had Zeke and his allies struck the first real blow in the war, but they’d also rescued people who needed it. It had cost lives – on both sides – but it was worth it.

Or that was what Zeke kept telling himself. Only time would tell if he was on the right side of history.