Some say rulers are born rulers, but… they couldn’t be further from the truth. From the flames of war and destruction of the land, many arose to ever greater heights as fate would have them. Though many have succeeded, countless have failed because such was the way of war.

And when the longest war of humans and demons ended, the tension between those two races only grew until yet another conflict sparked from the embers of hatred. Many deemed a cause worth dying for, yet another reason to spill blood of innocents, soaking the already crimson painted earth.

In the far corner of the eastern nation, many kilometers away from the royal capital of Arcadia, there was a single minded young woman wielding a worn and scratched longsword with bleeding determination, her aquamarine eyes had an eerie light blue glow around her irises that emitted a faint light amidst the dark entrance of the cave. A serious male voice echoed from within.

“So, we finally meet, Leona Crossford. Or should I call you, Princess Tactician?”

The loud snap of fingers light up the place with floating bright orbs of light, illuminating the wide hallway of carved stone. Through squinting eyes, she saw only a few meters ahead of her, the figure of a man shrouded in darkness so deep not even light could reach him.

After getting accustomed to the bright light, Leona looked around. It was painfully visible that her travels had worn her.

The knife-cut blonde disheveled hair was tied back to a short high ponytail with both uneven bangs hanging close to the side of her face along with a messy fringe curling up to the left of her forehead. She wore a washed out green military garb with sewed patches of different colored cloth around her forearms with one fingerless glove on her left hand and a dull steel gauntlet on the right. Her legs were covered by thick green pants which was also part of the overall uniform, but her left thigh had a blood stained cloth tightly tied around it. The high leather boots were the only part of her clothing that seemed somewhat new.

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The longsword she carried emitted a faint silver glow, as if it had magic within the metal, though it was extensively used, shown by the plethora of scratches and marks on the metal but even so, there wasn’t a single dent in the blade itself, which only meant one thing.

“You are a swordswoman through and through eh?”

His voice seemed to come from the amalgamation of darkness, from it a few strings of the void seemed to seep from within tainting the surroundings with a dark red miasma. Nevertheless she wasn’t afraid, if anything that only made her steel her resolve.

Upon tightening her grip around the handle she raised the blade perpendicular to her body with both hands, a most unusual stance for a knight. From within the darkness, the man laughed.

“Very well, you’ve shown your determination.”

Another snap of his fingers prompted two female figures to appear from the curtain of shadows behind him before walking back into the darkened hall they just came from.

“Leona Crossford, tactician of the Great Kingdom of Arcadia.“

The right-most female figure held a spear made of dark red energy, much like what the man had cloaked himself with. She gripped the shaft with both hands spaced out by almost an entire arm’s length as she pointed towards the young woman. While the other unsheathed a curved blade from seemingly out of thin air, assuming a battle stance with the weapon perpendicular to the ground.

“We guardians of the greatest hero shall test your mettle. Come!”