Excerpt From The Legion's Scholarly Manual On Casting—

This brings us to a core issue of casting: the size of one's psy pool.

I do not see one's core as a subject to focus on when talking about casting, and that is because it can not be controlled.

While some data suggest that heritage and breeding impact the potential of offspring, it is ultimately up to chance. Even the oldest families, who have selected mates based on the potential of the offspring for generations, produce children that are less than average in terms of psy reserves.

The only thing I can say about breeding is that elves have a higher level of control than an average human, while humans have larger reserves of psy on average. This is a well-documented fact.

This is a pity because while many aspects of casting can be overcome with certain levels of control, there are hard lines on what one can achieve.

But then there is the question, how large does one's psy core need to be in order to have the potential to reach the thresholds of the higher tiers of a discipline?

The answer is we don't have a standard.

More accurately, the only device we have that can measure the psy injected into it is complicated and expensive while not being that accurate, placing it beyond the means of most.

Since looking inward is by its nature subjective, people give all kinds of answers to the size of their pool that can never be compared, even if they somehow end up with similar descriptors.

Instead of expensive contraptions that all have slightly different scales and run on mind cores, we are left with instructions that spend their lives judging the potential of our youth.

Determining their fate.

**********

She was wrong, oh so very wrong.

The choking, lung-searing smoke would not kill the beastkin. Kathren knew that for a fact. At first, it was just the faint smell of burning wood, fur, and flesh, a pleasant experience if she ever knew one.

But then the center of the smoke plume shifted to cover the Middle Fort. Which was… awesome. If she could suffer through it and live, so could they.

Clenching her abdomen, Kathren suppressed the cough building up inside of her, threatening to double her over.

Squinting her eyes, the blurry sides of her vision moved inward as tears gathered, attempting to wash out the irritating grit of the ash and smoke. Her refusal to blink, as that meant taking her eyes off the surrounding shadows, meant her body was bound to lose the fight.

And her mind was losing the mental fight as her mental weariness built.

All around her, hazy forms moved, and every time one came close, she braced her shield for an attack and arm to lash out as her mind searched the mental links checking if it was an enemy.

It shouldn't be. Kathren was, after all, in the third line of the formation, but one could not be too careful in a battle. Especially a battle consumed by smoke.

Kathren knew the figures to her front and sides were legionaries, but she couldn't see anything but deceptive shadows beyond them.

When the smoke first started rising, the beastkin on the Western Bridge quickly made up their minds. Not that they really had a choice.

Those at the bottom of the bridge had finally gotten their shit together, were reinforced by another century, and were making steady progress up the bridge. If The beastkin didn't have someplace to defend, they would be smashed on a two-sided assault or forced to jump into the river. Not ideal options to have.

Attacking what amounted to a battered century, holding a gaping hole in a wall, was their only real choice.

As they charged the gap, a stroke of luck followed the beastkin, and the smoke shifted. Or the tit fucking fire grew to the point to smother the entire network… Kathren mentally cursed.

Regardless of the truth, Kathren and the others had to fight… again.

"By the void… I'm tired." She said, using a priceless breath to complain. She had to keep up the legion tradition and reputation, after all.

Kathren hadn't even done anything since the current fight started, but the smoke was making her breathe like she had just sprinted a ten-mile run. Which was only making her wheezing gasps for air worse.

"Crack-boom! Cracacaca—boom~!" The world shook as tingles of energy ran over her body, and the noise bombarded her ears never stopped, drowning out everything else.

Kathren stumbled forward from the wind slamming into her back before it blew the smoke away. A wave of relief like she was just handed a bottle of mothers bain from an alchemist after a… drunken night, as she sucked in a breath of fresh air.

With the smoke gone, Kathren was surprised to see only thirty beastkin still alive and fighting. A number that was abruptly lessened when two knights rushed out of the lines of legionaries pressing the back ranks of the beastkin, cutting into them.

Throwing a look over her shoulder, Kathren's eyes widened in shock.

The rumbling, occasionally arcing, storm clouds overhead had finally shown their full fury. And that fury was otherworldly.

Lightning rained down onto the Norther Fort like drops of rain.

Every second, hundreds of bars of lighting fell from the sky.

The entire fort was tinted an azure hew, and the attack, for what else could it be, just kept going. Thousands of bolts seared their way from the heavens to the ground, and at some point, the sound in her ears stopped, but she could still feel the constant pressure of the bolts striking the earth, thrumming against her skin.

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She did not look away or even move.

Then one last set of bolts lanced into the fort, and everything stopped.

For a single second, everything stopped.

Then the world turned azure. Above the Triad, lines made of lightning formed upon the bottoms of the clouds, flooding the world with light.

A massive circle with inner rings connected by intersecting lines intermingled with strange symbols.

Like a death sentence, the weight of its existence bore down like the blade of an executioner's sword on everyone in the Triad.

Then five rivers of lightning as large as the Rush surged into the center of the lightning formation as they flared from the distant horizons in a fraction of a second.

And in the center, it gathered into a churning ball of power.

As if the river of lightning were absorbing the dark clouds themselves, the storm front, once stretching far beyond what could be seen, was quickly disappearing at the edges.

"It's absorbing the clouds…" Kathren thought or whispered — she could not tell which at this point — in growing horror.

The last of the clouds were consumed, showing the night sky overhead but none of its stars as the light filling the world was too bright.

Then the massed lightning released a pulse that lifted the dust covering the ground twenty feet into the air as it struck and nearly pressed Kathren to her knees.

Little sparks of lightning danced between the particles of dust, and the air held a tension that prickled at the skin, raising her hair on end.

Then a roar of animalistic thunder sounded, heralding a supreme being into the world, as a creature exited the ball of death, mouth wide as it descended.

Kathren had never seen its like before. It wove its way through the air like a snake along the ground. It even had scales covering its length. But no snake ever existed that was two hundred feet long and as wide as a house.

The scales of the creature were like looking up into a summer's day, but power roiled beneath their surface. Two sets of short arms hung at the front and back of the creature, while the spine had a mane of lashing hair at the head and a ridged spike afterward. The head of the living lighting looked slightly feline but had a long snout filled with arching teeth and long whiskers.

As the creature exited the sphere, the lighting ball shrunk in size until all that existed above was the creature weaving its way through the air.

It circled high above several times, then trumpeted its power to the world before streaking to the ground, lightning bolts shooting off from its sides as if lashing at the world itself.

Then she felt through her feet and saw the Middle Fort shake with a faint, deep rumble. It was like the earth itself was groaning.

What might have been a rock flew up into the air for seconds before it all seemed to stop, then there was a flash to her left.

At the walls of the Western Fort, the creature had turned into little more than its head but had grown larger than the walls.

Mouth wide, the creature arched across the river until hitting the wall, where the lashing wires of lighting inside ripped apart the stones of the walls scattering them.

It traveled hundreds of feet, tearing up the wall as it went before finally dissipating.

In its wake, Kathren could see a furrow in the ground until it ended at the base of a bridge. Its stone blocks were charred black and slightly melted, but there was no mistaking it as a bridge over the Rush.

Kathren only stood in stunned silence, looking at the last remnants of the destruction wrought on the forts.

She could not hear anything other than the ringing in her ears, but she knew no one was saying a word.

Now was a time to bear witness to the end of an era.

**********

Slumped in his seat, Ponta slowly reached up to his lip before moving it away and looking at the tips. His fingers were coated in blood.

Long seconds passed as he looked at the scarlet liquid, even moving his thumb to rub it between his fingers.

I knew there would be blood. Sacrifices have to be made in war… But so much is already split. And with far more to follow… A weary sigh escaped his tired lips as the old pain in his chest flared with new life.

A delicate hand, one that would have been better used to hold a teacup or paintbrush, came into his vision. He followed the scarred and calloused hand to the arm and then the face of the woman it belonged to.

She was in full legion frontline gear, steel breastplate strapped on, bracers on her forearms, shin guards, and leather armor with a harness under the armor. If the weight of the armor meant anything to her, it didn't show in her movements as she crouched down in front of Ponta.

Quineeta was the image of grace, able to rival anyone he had seen in the stately balls thrown by the nobles of Olimpia.

He could see the concern on her face. It was the combination of the slight wrinkles of her brows and the creasing at the corner of her eyes. Few people would know her well enough to see it, but he could.

They had served together for decades, and it behooved one to recognize the emotions of one's subordinates.

"Legatus Valee!" She shouted a little too loudly, eyes flicking to the blood running down his face, "Are you alright!"

She was outside when the… Can it be called lightning? A creature made of living lightning? Never seen anything like that from a Knight Electro.

Coming out of his thoughts as Quineeta shook him again, she opened her mouth to speak as he cut her off.

“I’m—" mouth too dry to speak, Ponta wet his lips before speaking again, "I'm fine, Prefect,"

Sitting up as she moved back, he looked at the table in front of him. A map showing the Triad was laid out on the dark polished wood, with little figurines marking cohorts and centuries' positions scattered along and within the walls. Knights had their own figures, as one could turn a battle by themselves if used right.

Coming to his feet, looming over the table again, he looked at what he had wrought.

They needed more information. Too many miraculous reports depicting beastkin performing fantastical feats had come in. If they were facing a new breed, they needed to be ready. To know what they could do.

So he called up the militia. He sent out calls for aid. He positioned his legion for the worst-case scenario, that of losing the Western Fort.

Cross would send their legions to help us retake it. And losing the Northern Fort would effectively mean cutting themselves off from the Cradle. And stop us from sending out a force to attack supply lines. Not that I believed the beastkin would have one at the time, but it was the right tactical decision.

Ponta got the information he wanted and far more. The price, heavy as it was, might be small by the time this was over.

Adjusting his armor and wiping off his nose with a handkerchief handed to him by his valet, he lightly set his hands onto what felt like lacquered wood, but he knew it really wasn't. The slightly cool surface was like ice prickling at his clammy skin.

He almost wished it actually hurt, as something of a penance. For what he did. What he will do.

Lashing out with a tendril and hiding the minor eruption of pain it caused him, he wiped the figures from the Northern Fort and those manning the northern section of the wall on the Western Fort off the table and onto the ground.

Legatus Ponta Valee had held onto his fracturing Union long enough to know that a fourth of them were dead. And for those who weren't dead, most were incapacitated, making the point moot. The Northern Fort is gone.

Knocking the figures of half his legion to the ground — the only display of rage he would allow himself — he looked at his precept and the telepaths in the room. "Form a new Union, and pull everyone back from the Western Fort. We will hold the Southern Fort."

Shocked silence filled the room. No one had ever heard of half a legion dying in a night outside of ancient stories.

"Understood!" Commanded Valee, causing everyone to snap to attention and respond.

"Yes, Sir!" they chorused together.