The Lake Calderans took a few steps back, disgust filling their faces. Tristan had found one of the few tier three warriors on the Forest Caldera’s side. The man was over equipped with tier two artifacts. He could only guess that when the Lord of the Underworld had slaughtered the Stone Caldera not everyone had produced elementals, some would have created artifacts.

A tier two earth spear, boots, hard hat, and work jacket gave the man enough power to overwhelm the two warriors who had tried to stop him. Only the hard hat was made of metal, but it gave a substantial boost to endurance and made it impossible to blind the man with dust. All the artifacts were worn over mythical beast leather making the man nearly unkillable.

Nearly was not enough. Tristan had jumped up behind the warrior from the trench side. The Forest Calderan put up a fierce but brief fight. Tristan let the artifact dig into his armor and placed a palm on the man's chest. He attempted to infuse decay straight into his heart, but he felt resistance. Not wanting to waste time he backed off and found the mythical beast leather. It was susceptible.

Tristan did not let him suffer, killing him as soon as a gap in the armor was formed. Unfortunately, that did not stop the soldiers from seeing a corpse fall to pieces. Dead things rotted better than living things after all. He escaped the fearful stares of the soldiers, leaving the artifacts behind for whomever was willing to wear them.

He found another group of Forest Caldera men. They had used the elementals like shields, stabbing past them to keep from being shoved into the trench. The dozen or so people looked terrified, just like those from the Lake Caldera. None were high tier, so Tristan created a blade for the lamp post. He had realized that while he had no experience with a scythe, he was well versed in the axe.

The thirty-pound weapon was overkill for most humans, but it still took a few strikes to get through an elemental’s armor. He started to run at the group. One of the men in the gathering started waving frantically for him to stop. Tristan was not bloodthirsty, but he was also not going to listen to a group of people who viewed his corpse as free labor.

“Wait!” Bruce yelled.

Tristan skidded to a stop, violently jerking the trajectory of his blade into the ground. The heavy weapon came to a sudden stop digging a furrow in the dirt. A shuddering sigh came from a few of the Forest Caldera soldiers. Tristan looked back at Bruce waiting for an explanation.

“A temporary truce has been called,” Bruce answered, “Let them get back across the trench.”

Tristan wanted to argue, but now that he had time to check, the soldiers in the middle of the formation were hopping back across. Turning to Bruce he asked the obvious question, “Why?”

“Luke tore apart the other elemental lord, evidently that caused an issue with their chain of command,” Bruce shrugged.

“Siren didn’t kill Custodian?” Tristan asked. That should have caused a much larger issue with any command structure.

“No, but I was not told what happened,” Bruce was a warrior and healer, not a messenger, it was logical that time would not be wasted explaining plans to him.

Tristan growled. They had struck first and now that they weren’t guaranteed victory they ran and just expected to be let go? Tristan tightened his grip on Vulcan. Sighing he took a step back.

Looking over the retreating men he watched them go. Somewhere in the skirmish, he had fallen into a kind of haze. It numbed his feelings and shoved his hesitation aside. He had not enjoyed the killing, but it became a choir to complete not a task to dread. Thinking back he could not even remember the faces of all the people, which was strange, he did not do his job cleanly. Twenty, maybe more, definitely more if elementals were included.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I need to go find Siren or someone in charge,” Tristan needed to do something. If he stopped then he would have to think about today.

Bruce nodded, retrieving his spear, “Go ahead, I can make sure this lot leaves.”

Most soldiers had simple jobs. They moved forward, they poked the enemy, and they grouped up. A lone spearman was a dead one, but any tier three was usually better trained, better armed, better armored, and had a better body. They would reinforce weaknesses and as there was a little under four hundred of them, they were the Lake Caldera’s greatest advantage. Likely they were the only reasons that the plated elementals had not overrun the breaches.

Tristan and the other tier fours were in an odd spot. This was the first time since the Grand Ancestor ruled that there had been enough of them to be relevant in a battle. The Caldera averaged one for every ten thousand people before Tristan was sent to the mine. From five, the number had jumped to over a dozen. Commander Blacklake had decided to use them to remove war machines and somehow overlooked the cannons being set up.

He let the blade of his axe drag in the dirt behind him. It was a construct and if it broke he could just make a new one. People got out of his way, most were dirty, but Tristan looked like he had taken a bath in someone’s blood. Not entirely untrue. He was about halfway to the commanders’ location when someone did not get out of his way.

Tristan glared up at the interloper, only to see that it was Kale of all people, “What do you want.”

Kale looked good for an old man. Most of his scars were still present, but he stood with an equal amount of weight on each leg. The healing reservoir must have healed his limp. It still did not explain why the man was standing in his way.

“Boy, you need to calm down,” Kale said. His tone was not condescending, but Tristan struggled not to take the words any other way.

“Why,” Tristan made to walk around Kale, but the man stepped into his path.

“Just because you’re tier four now does not mean you can stop me,” Tristan threatened. Kale was not among the people who had gotten a force, that did not mean that Tristan was impervious to him, but he had a significant advantage.

“Are you that eager to keep killing?” Kale asked.

That stopped Tristan, but he was not calm at the moment. It took him a few moments to take control of his anger, and let his more logical mind take hold “Explain.”

“You are just letting your emotions out, you are covered in blood, and you are not in control,” Kale obliged Tristan, “Everyone here can feel your killing intent.”

Tristan blinked, killing intent. He had only felt it once when facing down a pissed off Hadrid. It had never crossed his mind that he might have it as well. Though he was pretty sure he would know if he was causing people to instinctively fear him.

“Siren never gave you the intent talk?” Kale asked.

Tristan slowly shook his head, “No, I haven’t spent much time with him, especially after I beat him with a stick inside a fire pit.”

Kale raised an eyebrow, “This is the bare overview. At tier three we infuse our intent into the construct we desire. At tier four we don’t just make constructs, we infuse with a touch, and it carries our intent. Think of it this way the feelings in your heart bleed into your kern, which can take the internal emotions and push them outward.”

That made a limited amount of sense. However if it worked like Kale said, it would scale with tier. His mind went back to the servant in the memory he had from Vulcan. The man had been sweating just from being in Vulcan’s presence, which would be odd as Vulcan was a very laid back person. However, the Steel Saint had not outright crushed the man with his mere presence and he had not sensed Reverb’s killing intent even when the silver-haired mercenary was about to cut off the servant’s head. There was a way to control it, and Vulcan was either unable or unwilling to do so.

Tristan shouldered his axe, maybe not dragging it would help. It would at the very least avoid creating a tripping hazard with the tiny trench.

“So, what’s the solution?” He asked.

Kale smiled, “There is a saying ‘With the harvest of the heart, a man’s hands build his life.’”

“That sounds like temple garbage,” Tristan deadpanned. He was not going to take any advice from a group that thought he was a demon.

“No,” Kale laughed, “It’s from my father, it means whatever you fill your mind with will grow into actions. It is why Siren is so set on doing what is right, if he fills his mind with it, then his actions will follow.”

Tristan was calmer now, but it was due to having to stop and talk. It had nothing to do with heart harvesting, which was something that he did want to get around to. He had three elemental hearts that needed to be processed.

“Can I go now?” Tristan asked. He tried not to sound whiny, but the way Kale’s face fell he assumed that he had failed.

“As you said, I can’t stop you,” Kale stepped aside and let him continue.