00:20; 12th year of King Mawa’s Calendar; Edge of Shina Province; Eastern Border of Toro

High noon…

Within an ordinary garden inside an ordinary compound, an extraordinary man of great stature dressed in clothes made of thick blue fur walked around the garden while watering the plants. The blazing hot sun of high noon did not deter him and his thick clothes did not make him uncomfortable. For 10 minutes, the man watered the plants in silence before sitting down at a table in the middle of the garden.

Steaming hot coffee was waiting for him on the table and yet again the heat did not deter the man. He downed the hot beverage in a single gulp!

“Coffee from Axum is really something special.”

“I wonder how Jire is doing right now. He should have already begun his journey back home.”

As this man, whose face and demeanor alone could compel an entire army to surrender, mentioned the person named Jire, an almost imperceptible smile could not help but break out on his serious and hardened face. It was clear that Jire was someone he cared for and was proud of.

Sitting in the hot noon sun, he could not help but reminisce about the past. It was as if he was talking to himself but behind him, an almost transparent silver-blue figure stood still while refilling the cup every time the staunch man downed it with one gulp.

Who was Jire?

At just 5 years old, Jire had chosen his own unique path of martial arts. He refused his esteemed father’s training and even when his father hired numerous renowned masters to teach him, he had rejected them all. He even directly rejected his father, the Great General’s ways.

In front of his father’s threatening aura, the 5 year old was not even moved. The general who was so used to enemies giving up just by sensing a hint of his aura could not believe it when his powerful aura failed to even make the corner of 5 year old Jire’s eye twitch. Not even the whole eye, just the corner! At that moment, the Great General who could move the masses without even speaking or fighting felt like empty air in front of this child. This was a child whose willpower knew no bounds.

However, who really was Jire?

Beyond his identity as the General’s son, Jire was a special child. He was a child who showed not even a hint of fear when he first saw death. On that night, Jire had just turned 6 years old. He joined his father on a journey to his maternal home; a visit to his grandparents. Passing by the border separating two tribes, the young Jire had witnessed a tribal war break out. These types of abrupt tribal clashes were all too common in Toro and the entirety of the Zika world. They were mostly clashes over territory and resources. The winning tribe would carry the loot and the loser would concede even more of their valuables and land.

On that night, even more people would have died if his father had not stepped in. However, dozens of people had still died despite the general personally acting to stop the conflict. Some lost their lives right in front of the Jire, but even when facing their killers, the young boy still had no fear. His fearlessness reached the point that the look in his eyes even scared these experienced warriors.

However, beyond the fact that ‘fear’ and ‘Jire’ would never be mentioned in the same sentence without the word ‘no’, who truly was Jire?

Jire was a spearman to the core. It could be said that his dedication to the spear was unsurpassable.

Despite his extremely powerful bloodline, Jire had shunned it and sealed it swearing never to use it. This was the main issue that had caused conflict with his father. However, this was the one thing Jire could never compromise on. His bloodline was something he absolutely hated and the spear was something he absolutely loved. His future path as a warrior was clear.

As expected, the Great General had also been adamant that his son develop all his strengths including his bloodline but something had made him finally give in. This was Jire’s talent; a talent so great that calling it divine talent was almost an understatement.

Throughout history, there have been many warriors touted as untouchable. Through their excellent reflexes and incredible speed or their expert predictive abilities during battle, these characters gained the reputation of untouchable warriors. However, compared to Jire they were nothing.

Jire’s talent was so great that it was enough to silence his father. After the boy had shown his talent, the general decided not to interfere with the path his son had chosen.

As a martial artist, it was accurate to say that Jire could not be touched in close quarters combat.

According to his father’s guess after training with him, his son could predict an opponent’s moves beforehand to an exaggerated degree.

“My guess is that he can dodge up to 136 combinations and alterations even by opponents who are much faster than him. He can account for up to 136 futures of his opponents’ possible moves making his precognition one of the strongest ones in the Zika world if not all of history.”

“Gasp.” Even the transparent figure serving the general coffee could not help but exclaim. This was an absurd claim and an even more absurd level of talent.

“What? You doubt it?”

“It is too shocking!” The transparent figure replied with shock and disbelief in his voice.

“It is indeed too shocking but this is my guess after sparring with the child and falling into a quagmire. I was so embarrassed that I almost cheated and used my energy and domain power to lock the brat down. I could not even graze the corner of his shirt in a contest of pure martial arts!”

The transparent figure was even more shocked when he heard that even the general was a victim of Jire’s terrifying talent. While he had seen Jire grow up, he was one of the many masters that had been ruthlessly rejected but the boy so he had never been part of Jire’s training sessions.

“Predicting an opponent’s moves in combat is not rare. However, other warriors with precognition usually account for only 1 possible future move. As long as a higher level warrior realizes that their opponent has precognition, they can utilize martial combinations to fool the future and overcome the prediction.”

After taking another sip of the hot coffee in a big gulp that emptied the entire cup, the Great General continued his explanation as his cup was refilled.

“In an instant, an expert martial artist with fine control over the smallest aspects of their body can execute dozens of martial combinations making their next move completely unpredictable. However, Jire can ‘see’ even beyond that! There is almost nothing in this world that can fool that child’s eyes.”

Apart from his borderline divine talent of precognition, Jire was also extremely talented in martial arts. At his age he was already a Spear Master on the cusp of attaining the Spear Grandmaster rank. This was a great accomplishment among other children of his age such as Mwana.

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The two men who were conversing and reminiscing about Jire were people who held illustrious positions in Toro’s military.

Jire’s father was given the title of Blue Smoke General. He was one of the 7 Great Generals of Toro and he guarded over the Eastern Border at Shina. His full name was Adze Moshi wa Samawati and this was usually shortened to General Moshi by those who knew him. His last names “Moshi wa Samawati” represented “Blue Smoke” while his first name Adze was the name of a type of vampiric creature. The general was someone who possessed Adze vampiric powers due to possessing this bloodline.

Naturally, Jire’s full name was Jire Samawati. However, people nicknamed him as Sama Jire.

The reason Jire hated his bloodline so much was that it was the cause of his mother’s death. The Adze was a terrifying vampiric creature that sucked blood and spread disease. It was also known for its great transformation abilities. This creature had both a humanoid form and a transformed form that looked similar to a giant firefly.

During the day, Adze were indistinguishable from regular humans but at night, their thirst for blood would overwhelm them causing them to attack not just humans but any living breathing animal.

The reason General Moshi had not pushed back too hard when his extremely young son chose to seal his bloodline was because even he hated this bloodline. Moshi was the son born from the unholy union between an Adze and a human. This was an extremely rare phenomenon as most recorded pregnancies between Adze and humans in the Zika world had ended with still births. However, Moshi had survived. Nevertheless, his survival came at the expense of his mother’s life. According to the midwives, the fetus had literally sucked the life out of the mother due to the Adze bloodline. As a young man, Moshi swore to never pass on his bloodline. He chose to live a life of celibacy as he knew it was a death sentence for any woman to be pregnant by him.

However, a temporary moment of weakness and decisions made when drunk and inebriated destroyed Moshi’s oath. Jire’s mother had just been an ordinary brothel lady and by the time Moshi found out she was pregnant with his child, it was too late to do anything. Just like his father before him, Jire’s vampiric bloodline had killed his own mother. It was natural for the boy to hate this cursed bloodline. Unlike his father, he went further than an oath to celibacy and chose to completely seal this evil bloodline.

The second man in the compound who was serving the general was his right hand man. He was someone who had followed Moshi from long before he ever joined the military. These two men could be called brothers due to their strong bonds forged through shared experiences.

Muraika was a man who had earned the names “18 Winged Archangel” and the “Archangel of War” on the battlefield. Just like Moshi, he was considered a mixed-blood who possessed the bloodline of the Fallen Angel race; a race of refugees that came from outside the Zika planet.

People like Muraika were considered beast-men, Halflings, half-castes, or mixed-bloods for their appearance but most of these words were usually used in a derogatory manner. While humans desired the powers of beasts and mythical creatures, it was only when they came in the ‘neat package’ of an outwardly human look. If you looked too different, it was almost impossible to escape discrimination.

Due to possessing the bloodline of the Fallen Angel race, Muraika had a total of 18 wings in 9 sets [2 at each side of his head, 6 at the back, 2 at sides of the waist, 2 at the knees, 2 at the ankles, 2 at the elbows, and lastly 2 at his wrists]. The 2 wings at his wrists could transform into feather swords or an arm guard that would combine with the 2 wings at his elbows. Most of the wings could wrap around his body in battle forming a translucent silver-blue armor. Apart from his wings, he also had the unique ability of blending in with nature, erasing his presence, and even turning completely invisible and undetectable.

Moshi and Muraika had similar experiences and troubles when they were young causing them to bond. They had met as test subjects in some shady experimentation facility where mixed-bloods like them were studied in order to find ways to perfect human bloodlines. Naturally, all the advancements concerning bloodlines in the Zika world had been built on the corpses of countless test subjects such as the two of them over thousands of years. After all, techniques like Bloodline Transplantation could never be perfected without numerous tests. This was a ‘dirty secret’ that those in power in the Zika world knew.

After their escape from the experimentation facility, the two men had fought and struggled till they rose to their current ranks in the military. Naturally, for them to succeed against all odds, their power was fearsome. The Blue Smoke General had the ability to turn into blue smoke and teleport anywhere in the battlefield. Additionally, although he rarely used the Adze powers, he had a terrifying control over anything concerning blood.

As a result of his overwhelming might, General Moshi was appointed as one of the country’s 7 Great Generals who guarded the most dangerous areas of Toro’s borders.

The location Moshi established his military’s stronghold was the Dead Man’s Swamp. This was a swampy region connected to a stream of the Eastern Befuddling River – the river famous due to the ogre-like Amanani that inhabited its depths.

The Dead Man’s Swamp was one of the danger zones along Toro’s borders. On the Eastern and Southern borders of Toro which lied along the Black Dragon Mountains, there were 3 extremely dangerous zones each guarded by a Great General. These were the Dead Man’s Swamp, Demon Veil Valley, and Dragon Spike. However, Toro’s northern border was relatively safe thus there were no Great Generals stationed there.

As for the West, there were 3 Great Generals posted at the Western border due to the conflict with Kiziba, Madi, and the Skyfeather Kingdom. These 3 enemy kingdoms were ruled by King Kisitu, King Rukidi, and King Mateso. The 3 kings were the eldest living sons of Kagona, the former legendary King of Muwawa. Kiziba and Madi already had great military power and as for the Skyfeather floating island, it was also a looming threat over the west in a literal sense.

Further, rumors of the ‘True King’ rising in Sese had made the Western border even more chaotic. In fact, one Great General was transferred from the south’s High Mountain region to guard the west. This meant that the south which previously had 2 Great Generals guarding over both the High Mountain region and Demon Veil valley now only had one Great General.

“If a demonic uprising really happens in the Demonic Region to the south, we are screwed.”

Moshi could not help but sigh when he thought about the state of the country. To him, leaving the Southern border to one Great General was an extremely foolish idea. It was like guarding one’s back but leaving their front completely unguarded.

“Now the conflict in the West is bubbling with talks of a legitimate heir so of course no one at the top cares about Demons or Amanani anymore.”

However, when Muraika started mentioning ‘talks of a legitimate heir’, Moshi quickly shushed him.

“These are not things we should be talking about. We only need to do our job. Leave those other matters to the chiefs and politicians at the capital.”

“Now that you mentioned the capital, did you hear the latest talk from the capital?”

“What? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Early this morning there was a secret report from out team in the Capital. Apparently from a team of 12 experts who travelled to Sese, the Wind-walker was the only one to return!”

Moshi could not hide his shock when he heard this news. Naturally, he had his own information channels and knew a bit about the things that went down in the Capital. In fact, Muraika was the man in charge of this information network. This right hand man was not only formidable in battle but also an expert in spy-work.

While General Moshi did not know the exact mission that the 12 Martyrs of Death were tasked with or who exactly was on the team, he knew that this was a team of experts comprised of convicted prisoners each of them with strength similar to his or only slightly below him.

“What?! For them to be wiped out, their opponent’s military and combat strength was definitely not a joke. We will probably be called to the Capital soon to discuss this. No wonder General Lima was moved from High Mountain to the west. A rumor of an heir would not have that effect but the military might to wipe out the 12 Martyrs would naturally spook the Capital into making such a rash decision.”

Within a few sentences, General Moshi was able to analyze the situation and get to the core of the issue.

“Haaaah, it is just stress all over. I hate summons to the Capital the most. I hope Jire can return home safely before then.”

“Don’t worry your son will be fine.”

New Words

Muraika – Angel

Adze – Vampire

Moshi wa Samawati – Blue Smoke

Jire/Jere – ‘Tell me’

Lima – Till or Cultivate land

Martial Combinations – Method of overcoming prediction through the minute control of the body as well as completely abandoning martial arts forms.

Kiziba, Madi, Skyfeather kingdom – The 3 Kingdoms ruled by Kato’s 3 older brothers: Kisitu the 2nd eldest son of Kagona, Rukidi the Conqueror, and Kabaka Kin Mateso.