Chapter - "The Great Schism"

A crowd of people was having fun in a cozy room of a tavern. Everyone was doing their own business that, if you give it a thought, is common for everyone - having fun, enjoying life, conversations, gossiping and getting involved in absolutely useless and baseless arguments. All of this was heated up by the drinks that blew the mind, food that kindled the insides. The crowd was united by a common happiness. Interrupted by the sometimes when someone crossed the boundaries of what was permitted by society. But then the older comrades simply, but effectively cooled him, throwing the body with broken bones out into the icy cold of the fierce everwinter.

In the midst of the cheerful, uncontrollable chaos, two figures stood out. They did not participate in the fun. They sat in the eye of the storm, frozen in the pose of the Thinker, straining every convolution and using all their strength not to yield to each other.

One of them, a two-meter tall man, his skin as white as snow, and muscular beyond human strength, wore orange shorts that did not match his appearance and a black sleeveless shirt emphasizing his great power. Long grey hair reached his shoulders, casting a shadow on his face. It prevented the opponent from reading anything from his face.

His opponent was a short, slightly overweight man. He sat quietly on a wooden barrel, with his head resting on a small child-like fist. Unlike his opponent, who had to bend in half so that they could be on equal ground. His clothes were a symbol of Luxury. Fur and skin of rare creatures, a thread made from metal extracted from human blood. One can die with piece in his heart after seeing such luxury and consider himself among the luckiest creatures ever.

The pair sat opposite each other, trying to win the game of tactics and thoughts - chess. They paid no attention to the chaos raging around. They paid it no attention. They were focused on following the slightest movement of their opponent. Even breathing was under their strict control, so as not to show any thought or intention. The players perfectly controlled themselves, endowing their faces with the mimicry of a soulless doll and a body of stone. Without blinking they looked into each other's eyes.

But everything has its beginning and the end. Not moving a single figure, a short man rose his hand and put it down on the table. One action crushed the table with a chess board into dust. 

- Deceiver.

The man playing with him straightened up, making a loud and prolonged sound, as if there were no bones under his skin, but only leather straps rubbing against each other. After that, he slowly rose above the floor, floating and spread his arms across.

“I am innocent” said the posture. But his underheighted opponent knew that something was not fair. Slowly he pushed the air in front of him. The white-haired man, whose body covered the layers of armor, was thrown away from the tavern after one this movement. Like an arrow his body was shot out of a tavern.

White body of light was dragged through hundreds meters of solid rock. It impacted the  giant wall of metal, producing an ear-shattering noise and blowing away all the rocks in vicinity. The surroundings had no time to cool down. The man in white armour stood up, shook himself, and then smiled broadly. He knocked on the wall that stopped his flight and caused a booming metallic ringing. Again he smiled even wider than before, almost tearing the corners of his lips. But the smile vanished as his chess opponent appeared out of nowhere. Underheighted player grabbed the white-haired man and slammed his face into the metal wall in attempt to make the two of them one. The white-haired man went limp after such a blow, but withstood slowly sliding down the wall to the ground. Blood spurted from all the cracks of his armor. It was a one-sided beating.

- Be gone from my Kingdom! - Thundered the voice of the underheighted man. As he again landed his fist on the man he called “Deceiver”.

The small fist touched the body of the white-haired man. The shocwave that followed split the earth and created a colossal funnel. The underheightened man’s power literally split the gray-haired man, raising a deafening rumble, as if someone had struck a huge metal bell.

When the noise subsided and all the dust settled, the short man saw that the hole hundred meter deep had formed after the impact. But for some reason, it the funnel was cut in half as the other side was taken by the colossally huge, perfectly flat black metal piece.

“Damned Blind,” said a luxuriously dressed man, gently brushing off specks of dust from his shoulder. - I forgot again that you can't play peepers with him ...

***

A couple of days after an extremely scandalous and sensational event, visitors of one inn were already discussing the last fight and its consequences. Someone complained that the fight was too bad, someone didn’t like the fight itself - they say, there’s little “noise”.

This event, which took place on the south-western continent, is called the "Great Break", which initially divided one single continent, on which two equal states settled - Honoris and Parvificentia, into two.

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Both states were opposites of each other - Parvificentia, wearing red colors, was distinguished by its aggressive militarism and ease of making radical decisions. They chose a red eagle as their symbol, spreading its mighty wings. At the same time, the state of Honoris did not solve problems so radically, looked for workarounds, made concessions and adhered to democratic views. They chose a blue owl as their symbol.

So what is the “Great Break”? Why did it happen and why is the small inn so important? This disaster happened during the largest conflict between the states of Honoris and Parvificentia. Two huge armies, the last and largest forces on both sides of the continent, gathered in one place to begin the decisive battle. A battle that will make its winner the ruler of the entire continent. It was carried out in the middle of the continent - where there was almost no vegetation, and the land was considered the smoothest of all lands.

The soldiers stood impatiently, waiting for the moment when the commanders would give the command, and the long-awaited battle would begin. The officers squeezed the reins of their horses, knights and mercenaries with volunteers who fought for the idea, kneaded their hands, stomped the ground, shifting from foot to foot; the old warriors clattered with their teeth and shoot looks at the enemy with blood-hungry eyes. When about an hour passed, many began to lose their composure. They started to realize that many would die. They felt the impending danger, until the stagnant silence was broken by the long low hum of the command horns calling for battle. They thundered throughout the area, bringing the armies to readiness and frightening the birds nesting in the trees. But the first echo of the battle horn only signalled the readiness for battle. Everyone was waiting for the second one, calling into battle. But it came faster that the previous one. When the horn rang for the second time, the ground shook as hundreds of thousands of warriors rushed into the long-awaited battle.

The first to break forward was the cavalry, colliding and giving ground to the foundation for the mountain of corpses, which was yet to grow. Then, the cavalry, which had broken through, was met by spearmen, supported by simple infantry. It was they who finished off the remaining horsemen. And now the moment has come for the greatest part of the battle - the infantry rushed to join the general bloody feast.

They shouted battle cries, rose weapons in the air. Many clutching their teeth. Yesterday they had calm conversations in the camp. They shared plans about how they do not want this war, about how their wives and children have been waiting for them ... At that moment, when the armies almost crossed the barrier of dead horses, the earth trembled even more, and a small body fell on it from the skies, causing a shock wave that scattered everyone who came close enough to the centre of the battle and crushed those who were already in the centre of it.

When the dust settled, and the calmed warriors grew a little bolder, they saw a underheighted man dressed in luxurious clothes. He shook off the dust, stroked his bald and square head, and then was about to say something, but one of the knights interrupted him:

- On whose Authority do you interfere in our battle ?! - exclaimed this middle-aged man, who was one of the commanders of Parvificentia, who most of all yearned for this battle. Blood covered him from head to toe, and the sword was already slightly cracked from the process of non-stop landed blows. - Leave immediately!

- On whose Authority? - calmly asked the man. Instead of bursting with anger, like all normal people, he turned grey, resembling a stone, and then noisily breathed in air through his nose and spoke. His voice boomed above the battlefield, bursting the heads of those too close to him and ears of those standing far. His voice belonged to an enormous giant, not a small underheighted man that is only feared by weaklings: - On the Authority of the strong, I intervene in this senseless battle!

After that, the man stomped his foot, immediately splitting the battlefield in half. The crack began to grow, becoming larger and larger, until the land was divided into two equal halves. The trees were uprooted, and birds fell from the heavens. Silence descended onto the battlefield. The lull, sustained only on a emotional whim, was interrupted by a resounding roar that surpassed the previous one by tens of hundreds of times.

- The mountains! - shouted one of the soldiers, who saw how the mountains that surrounded the battlefield on both sides split in half. Then the earth shook once more, so that it could later open up into one colossal all-consuming abyss, which devoured both armies without a trace.

This event was called the "Great Break", which had no reasons - only consequences. Terrifying, nightmarish consequences that took countless lives. The continent, which was once considered a single whole, was divided into two halves, between which an enormous sea lay.

While Honoris remained not only unharmed, but entered an era of prosperity, times of sorrow reigned in the kingdom of Parvificentia. Now defenseless against the blazing westerly winds, the kingdom lost almost all the vegetation on the continent. Once fertile lands turned into a vast desert. Honoris, who had lost most of the battles and was in distress, got what he deserved when the dominant and atrocious kingdom of Parvificentia, who had broken the once-established peace, fell into decay. However, each of the states received its own half of the continent.

The time has come for peace negotiations, to which the Red Earl of Artificium himself forced both sides. He appointed the time and place of the negotiations in his own city, which was in the centre of the Parvificentia.

At this time, King Honoris, who looked like an old man in his youth, tried to deal with the worries that had fallen upon him. He had to provide support to the population left without husbands and sons. He had to ensure the delivery of provisions to the starving Parvificentia. And he had to listen to numerous reports that came every day with no end.

One day Honor the Second sat in the throne hall, listening to the reports from all over the kingdom. He raised his eyes, exhausted by the many hardships of a new life. The messenger was trying to tell him something but he could not hear words. The king closed his eyes for a second, breathed in and out. Half of his mouth paralysed by the stress lay down and the other smiled. Soon the noise subsided and only then Honot the Second was able to distinguish the words of the messenger:

- Your Majesty! News from the Vassals has come!