* What's mana? Luce asked, not seeming bothered by the sheet explaining his new legion.

* Oh, you got mana? It’s good, it is rare though but not uncommon. For you to unlock it is lucky. Mana is something that flows through all of us some have more some have less.

Even monsters can have some to a certain extent. They can use it to hunt or to call different allies or just to outright ravage everything, like the dream freer a few years back.

Luce remembered the dream freer. He had had a friend who had fallen victim the creature. He remembered when his old friend had started being brainwashed and being radical and extremist trying to kill and destroy everyone who disagreed with him. Some say the god of war, Emklaw, had created the dream freer, but the sources were questionable.

* For example, she continued, I have a mana pool of 2350 I need a big mana source because I am a wizard. But yeah, I am going to let you discover the rest on your own.

Luce was by no means a weak man, but neither was he strong and the awakening of the Legion had given him an unfound strength and he felt well and strong.

* Well, the sun is setting, I am going to part now. Goodbye Luce, say goodnight to your parents for me, they should be home soon.

* Thank you again Wizard. And yes, I'll pass the message. Luce said bowing down.

Luce felt drowsy from the day's activity, he took the small box Bruce had given him and hid it in the forest right next to the family house behind a tree in an abandoned rabbit hole. Then he went back to his house and went to bed.

He heard the crashing footsteps and the sound of clanging metal as the knights and adventurers passed. The screaming of children, men, and women. All were fleeing the knights and adventurers. The king’s men had come in the night when the moon was highest in the sky. Nobody knew why they came, and no one would likely live long enough to find out.

He heard the crashing of metal against the door and woke up in a jolt. He went to look out the window and he saw knights. Not one, not ten, hundreds rushing into every home tearing furniture killing innocent civilians. The screams tore through the night as a symphony of agony started going up from the neighbor's house.

He ran to his parents' room only to find some knights trying to knock on the door. He sprinted the other way, he knew that if they found and caught him, it would be the end. As he ran, he heard the door finally give in and a knight barking order. The next sequence of events was quick. As he arrived at the end of the corridor, he opened the back door to the garden. jumped over our fence, fell, and smashed his face against the cold hard dirt ground of the forest that was next to our house. When Luce's head kissed the ground, he lost consciousness.

Now he had woken up and in front of him stood the ruins of what used to be a loving home. Now torn to the ground by the men of the king the remnants of the structure were piles of ash and a few stone bricks here and there. As he searched through the rubble for his parents with no high hopes of finding them alive or even finding them. As he lifted one of the bricks, he saw a ring. It was the one Luce's mother always wore. But if she always wore it, then, that meant, no. He was hallucinating, or it was a bad dream, he was going to wake up in a few moments. But as the sheer weight of reality of what happened came crashing down, his knees buckled, no longer able to support his body.

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Tears, all he remembered were tears. They all came flooding down. He didn't know how long he had stayed there, in the rubble. Minutes? Hours? Days? It didn’t matter. They were all he had. He never went to school, that was for the nobility. No friends except maybe Bruce, no extended family. His parents were all he had. All he had. Now he was stranded here laying in the whitened ash, coughing as it came into his lungs.

He felt alone. No one to greet him when he woke up, no one to be mad at him when he broke a plate, no one to comfort him when he was sad. No one was there for him for the first time in 16 years.

As the sun set below the horizon and the stars started to appear he trudged through what used to be a once pristine village. half his face covered in ash making him look like he was crumbling away.

Now, only remains of once pristine mansions. Cadavers were loitering the floor. So much that he felt like he was walking through the lake of the dead. A river filled with the remnants of once living beings.

Grown men, small children still clutching their parents even in death, women, old men, and women all too slow to escape the genocide of these dogs. Limbs could also be seen. The fingers cut off people for torture, arms, legs, and heads.

As he continued down the avenue bodies started to get less frequent. Amongst the dead there were a few soldiers with the royal ensign marked onto their helmets.

Our king had sent these men. Why? He had always talked about ruling in peace, equality for everyone, his people were the real rulers, and some more nonsense. We all gobbed it up like soup. He wasn't born when he first became ruler. Luce's parents told him that before he came to power war was a common thing in these counties. and when he stepped up from a low-ranking noble family and took the reins. things settled down and wars became less and less frequent, to the point of stopping completely. And everyone trusted him.

Now he saw that we should not have. As bodies still sprouted up as very gruesome flowerbeds.

He heard a clang of metal. He ducked and hid behind a barrel as two knights came up from a corner street remnant.

- So, how many d’you got Prog? the first knight asked.

- Jus bout twelve how many you get? The man named prog responded.

- Twelve?! Wow that’s very good for you. I only got nine.

As the men disappeared into the darkness, he snuck the other way. Hoping not to get caught because the consequences of that would not be too good for him. As he walked on arms and feet alike, he heard more talking noise. And he hid in the shadow of a carriage.

- Yeah, so as I’m having my time the… the knight stops to contemplate the carriage I’m hiding under. Woah look at this carriage mate.

He started to walk towards it. In the light of the moon, he couldn't see the knight, but he did notice a long stick attached to his side, a sword. he started to back off.

- I could sell this baby for a few hundred shires.

As he continued to head in Luce's direction Luce scuffled back faster

Crunch.

he had stepped on a hand. It makes a dry crunching noise, and the knight stops. In a panic he grabbed the nearest thing to him and put it over himself. The knight looks under the carriage. He could see his blue eyes almost glowing. They were wide open, any smile from selling the carriage was gone, replaced with a blank expressionless face.

He stared. Continuing to fix Luce and the bodies around him, not being able to locate the source of the crunching sound.

* Mate, you alright over there? His friend asked

* Yeah, all good I thought I heard something. He responded.

The guard went around the carriage and said:

* Man come here I think something is still alive here.

His friend jogged over and when he had arrived the other knight pointed directly at Luce