The sun is setting, streaking the clouds with red and orange. This mesmerizing sunlight enters a small room filled with books, files and documents through an open window. All of the reading items are piled around a man who is reading one of the many documents. He is sitting on the hard wooden floor, taking advantage of the sunlight to illuminate the pages he’s reading.

The man is wearing a gray, short sleeve undershirt, beige, corsair pants up to his waist and is extremely well built. His eyes are quickly clearing each page of the document in front of him, eyes with purple irises and black slit pupils. At the sides of his head are pointed ears, nearly hidden by long, golden hair streaked with red at the sides.

Additionally, a set of spiral horns appear on the sides of his head. This man is not Alin. He is named Alin and currently he is reading in preparation. The door to Alin’s room opens and into the room walks a beautiful woman in a black dress with long, white sleeves and a skirt going down to her feet. Her hair is long, blood red and unkempt.

The figure of her dress shows her small-medium breasts, shapely thighs and a gorgeous rear. Her head has pointed ears, as well as two less imposing, almost cute, white horns on the sides, like dragon teeth, and a medium-length, white horn sprouting from the center of her forehead, curving upwards. She has some important news at the moment.s

“Sir, our researchers have given high-probability confirmation.”

“Hm.”

Alin raises his eyebrows without shifting his gaze from his reading material.

“This morning, our atmospheric sensors detected their arrival. A few minutes ago, after conducting some thorough verification, our personnel in Celestial Detection confirmed that, in all likelihood, this is a 98% real event. They arrived in a western subregion of Enkel, called Ystria.”

“Alright, give me the details of the area later.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there an estimate of how many arrived?”

“The researchers haven’t been able to make solid estimates, however one of our magic physicists made an educated guess of over 200. Assume what you will.”

“Sigh, more of a likelihood that some will slip through our fingers then… For an active summoning facility, I can assume around… a thousand to two thousand holy knights, a dozen or so archbishops and… will there be…”

Alin stares at Heliaye with anticipation and she feels his gaze pierce her soul like a hot knife through butter. She nonchalantly averts her gaze from his face.

“Y-Yes sir, it is doubtless that there will be a cardinal there… However, it may be too much to expect the pope himself will be anywhere nearby. He likely wouldn’t use teleportation to reach there immediately. He might take about... three days to reach there himself. We have a general radius in Enkel where we can place him at the moment and from there to Ystria, assuming perfect travel conditions, three days is a rough estimate, five with poor travel conditions. Maximum a week.”

Alin leaps to a standing position with grace,

“That’s perfect! How long would he stay with the heroes, you think?”

“...Disregard him, sir. Frankly, it would be wise to disregard the Cardinal as well.”

“Alright, I know that they can eject at all times but still, depending on how we play things, we may be able to capture them.”

“That seems unlikely unless our assault team is small enough and skilled in covert operations.”

Alin slumps his shoulders at Heliaye’s honest assessment.

“Hmmm, ugh. Anyways, how many soldiers can we dispatch to raid the facility?”

“Most of our soldiers are still stationed at the southern Wilhem theater, defending against the HSF Navy. It’ll take a few more days to annihilate their vessels.”

The HSF Navy is the branch of the Holy Sapioran Federation military responsible for naval operations. However, human beings have a difficult time maintaining their vessels in the water except for their most heavily fortified magic ships. As a result, they can be quite easily dispatched in a real war scenario. It is unclear why humans would even attempt a water incursion, other than sheer desperation.

“The Enkel food and water situation must be getting more desperate, huh...”

“Furthermore, I moved a large number of soldiers to the northern Wilhem coast in order to guard against a bilateral siege. Right now sir, we don’t have enough available soldiers for a large-scale assault against over 1000 holy knights, not to mention the archbishops and cardinals.

“How long would we have to wait for that business at the Wilhem southern coast to slow down, a rough estimate in clear terms?”

“Approximately 2 weeks. Estimated casualties on our side, dead and injured, about four hundred to a thousand. Estimated casualties for the HSF assuming total annihilation, approximately three thousand to four thousand. The admirals and generals aboard the human vessels would have probably flicker-ejected by the end of it.”

“Fuck. Ok. What about teleportation?”

“Our quick travel technology has been improving but it doesn’t compare to their side just yet, so, in the best case, it would take our warrior mages working for two weeks straight to send the number of soldiers we’d need for Ystria.”

“What is the likelihood that our fine ‘heroes’ will be moved from the summoning facility by the time an assault can be launched?”

“The logistics required to transport that many of them to a new area would require at most a week of preparation. It is good fortune they arrived earlier than estimated though, otherwise the Federation’s preparations might have already been made to roll them out today. The point is that when they leave the summoning area, our teams might not be able to track them throughout Enkel.”

“Hm.”

“Sir, they don’t know we can track the initial summon point yet, so now would definitely be the best time to strike.”

“Don’t patronize me, Heliaye, I got that part.”

“I apologize.”

“It’s fine. Alright then… what percentage of heroes is likely to escape in the best-case assault?”

“Depends. If a cardinal is there, it’s possible that all of the heroes can be transported if they use the cardinal’s teleport artifacts. However, it is unlikely that enough items will be manufactured and distributed to the heroes this early, especially if they have a number over 100. Assume that in the worst case, all of them could escape and in the best case, dozens could still make it out of there.”

“Sigh. Fine… Hey Heliaye... do you know why it’s so hard to find heroes who wish to defect to our side?”

“...I’ve been assuming that the humans have some kind of compulsion magic for their heroes. We don’t really know enough about the perdition mark of the hero…”

“No, no, if they had magic like that, the heroes would all be perfect slaves without wills of their own in the first place… You may be a little young to know this but heroes aren’t just random people summoned from the other world. They’re all warriors.”

“...huh?”

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“Highly trained, elite of the elite warriors… from that world. It’s one of the main reasons why they’ve given us so much… trouble in the past.”

“How… does that work exactly?”

Alin smiles brightly. He is fascinated by the heroes to some extent. He had spent a few hours yesterday reading his mother’s notes about the heroes and how they were summoned. He knows the current heroes far better than they currently know themselves, or so he believes.

“That world has war just like ours does. The proxy of Sapiora on that world formulated a method to get the heroes to side with the humans here. They offer the otherworlder warriors divine salvation from certain death in a losing battle over there, as well as total victory over the enemy battalion or company or whatever. In exchange, these warriors agree to follow the will of Sapiora and accept the terms of his summoning proposal to them. The holy warriors he picks would never break their word in that circumstance, almost respectable in a way.”

Alin walks back and forth in the room while explaining these fun facts.

“Wow, more planning goes into hero selection than I thought…”

“Those monsters are pretty smart. Think about it. If you just selected random people who didn’t know what was going on, you’d get traumatized individuals useless in battle, ripped away from their families and friends, forced to live in another world. What you need are the already dead. Warriors prepared to die.”

“Huh…”

“Ok, Heliaye, enough talk. Prepare my weaponry. I think it’s clear that the only course of action is for me to embark–”

“Hold on a minute, sir! D-Don’t be so–”

“Heliaye…”

Heliaye freezes at the pressure emanating from Alin. She falls to one knee and bows her head in solemn deference.

“I deeply apologize, your majesty.”

“...don’t call me that… I’m sorry, I just… I-I have to know, Heliaye. I have to know where they are. If the cardinals or even those worm archbishops protecting those machine heroes can give me a clue, we have a chance at victory but if… if we don’t… my mother would never forgive me…”

“I apologize, sir. I will accept my death.”

“Shut up, Heliaye… fucking hell… You know I didn’t raise you children to die for me, right? I raised you to live for me, and to die for this nation. Would the other generals also offer their lives to me just because I raised my voice?”

“...y-yeah probably, sir…”

“...Just remember the stakes here, Heliaye. If we don’t find them, we don’t have a shot at victory.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alin explains his plan to Heliaye, requesting a map of the Ystrian forests from her. He plans to leave immediately within a few hours and on foot.

“By foot… sir, you may not… you may not like this idea but… could you bring Herma with you?”

“What?”

“It might make it easier to travel there and escape if you had an aerial escort.”

“Haven’t I been clear? You want me to bring Herma for this? A high danger mission like this? Aside from the fact that they’d really only slow me down: Heliaye. I refuse to use Herma for espionage or escort missions. Dragons are a part of us, they’re not pets and not tools or weapons… Herma is my beloved…”

“Sir, what if we ask them? They may be willing to–”

“No, Heliaye, leave it at that.”

“...I apologize. Sir… can you really do this yourself? I understand your strength… however…”

“Divine General Heliaye, call me by my full title.”

“...your majesty. You are the Immortal Emperor of the Supreme Azazelin Empire. Child of Heaven. Our beloved ruler.”

“I will extinguish them in my name. I will extinguish all of the false prophets–”

Suddenly, the door to his room opens. Someone relays a message to Heliaye and leaves immediately. Heliaye’s expression darkens. This news… she relays it immediately to Alin.

“That’s… Follow me to the weapons enclave.”

Alin commands Heliaye to accompany him to the underground holding of all of the weaponry that Alin has at his disposal. Within this area, there are knives, swords, spears, glaives, bow and arrow sets, all beautiful and all mastered by Alin, over the decades. The weapons here are made of various materials such as gold, silver, tempered wood, celestial iron or Mythril.

Alin takes three artifacts, an icepick referred to as the painless artifact, Azazel steel armor, and the Sword of the Silent Fall. He would need them for what comes next.

After grabbing his weapon, Alin travels with Heliaye directly to the Wilhem theater. Due to the nature of the emergency, Alin commands Heliaye to use body strengthening and endurance magic in order to reach the speeds necessary for the trip. After Alin lends his hand here, Heliaye will take care of things so Alin can head directly to Ystria.

After all, the outcome of this battle is grim at the moment. According to the news that Heliaye received, after his warriors had annihilated the fleet and started salvaging the ships, there were a number of magic bomb traps in all of the destroyed ships. Many of their ships vessels were destroyed and multitudes of Acquaen creatures were either killed or incapacitated in the aftermath.

It didn’t take two weeks to destroy these ships, they were too fucking weak, that should have been suspicious in itself.

Normally, their navy had help from the water-beasts of the Omicronian oceans, the Acquaen creatures, an integral part of the Imperial navy. Sea beasts, some almost as massive as small warships, would carry out magically enhanced sonar analysis through human ship hulls that could detect anything within ship hulls, including explosives and suspicious magic formations. Then, the warriors would carry out appropriate countermeasures if there was anything odd.

The creatures of Acquae had given an affirmative signal to proceed with an annihilation campaign where the ships are sunk and salvaged. Heliaye explained to him that the explosive devices were kept far below the decks and were kept in sonar proof rooms or containers. Humanity had a breakthrough in their magical sonar technology and used it to carry out such a ploy.

Currently, a second fleet is coming after the first suicide fleet, in order to retake the port. Alin and Heliaye reach the theater within two hours of receiving word of the bombs. They can see with their own eyes now that the second fleet is quite a large armada of ships indeed, each of them capable of protecting themselves from the Acquaen creatures protecting the oceans.

“Heliaye, what is the worst case scenario of this battle?”

“If this port is retaken and held, they can make an ingress into our taken night silver mines. Our current defense of this region is small because we always have this port and the port town. My current estimate is that the war would be extended a half-year, should they be able to retrieve night silver weaponry and armor.”

“Ok, we can’t have that. Luckily, I don’t sense any heroes in this area. I’m going to have to make a move here. It’s a bit risky. I might be delayed about a quarter day before finding the heroes while I replenish my magic power. Would this be acceptable?”

“Please go ahead, sir! I believe that would be a solid decision at this moment, we need those night silver mines and we need the humans to not retake anything. Your intercession at this moment would greatly boost the morale of our remaining troops in the port town.”

“Honestly, of all the times to pull something like this, it had to be today. Truly lucky, these vermin.”

Alin has decided an approach to deal with the armada of ships attempting to retake the port. He takes the Sword of the Silent Fall and immediately starts rushing out onto the water. Using his truly divine speed, Alin rushes towards the first ship in his way. This was a good plan. The only thing that could stop them is the intercession of the emperor himself.

Of course, they truly underestimated his concern for his people and his willingness to intercede on their behalf. With a swift slash of his sword, Alin proceeds to cut through the first ship, bisecting it across the surface of the water. All he has to do at the moment is to buy time for his warriors on the shore to board the reserve vessels and fight off the rest of the ships.

Any more than that and he would take longer to deal with the heroes providing more opportunities for their escape. One by one, Alin slices through the ships in his path like a force of nature, rather than an emperor. Most of them simply fall into the water and Alin disregards them. It is only a matter of time before the ocean creatures reject the humans and consume them.

As he cuts down ship after ship, his rage starts floating to the surface. His men were killed because of human ingenuity. If only he had complete control over his nation, he could proceed with his extermination campaign, but even the citizens of the Supreme Azazelin Empire do not wish for wholesale human extinction. Even when they do things like this…

Even after what they did to his mother…

Soon, Alin completes his task. His warships start leaving the shore and proceed to deal with the rest of the ships. A third of them remain out on the waters, completely demoralized.

“Heliaye, we need to make preparations. This could be a sign of…”

“I know, sir, but still, their pope hasn’t been replaced yet.”

“Vildir Patheon…”

“I don’t think this is a sign of a new order. This is a sign of the ability of humanity to remain ingenious, even while they continue to be ruled by the useless nobility. But… I do have that worry myself. What if he has awoken already? We all have that fear after all.”

“Yes… Very well, enough of this, Heliaye. I’m going to launch today against the summoning facility with full power. I’m going to use the painless artifact or my sword to dispatch the heroes, the holy knights and the archbishops. I’m going to bring the cardinal back with his limbs amputated if need be. And, when I return... we’re going to launch our City of Reid invasion.”

“The timeline is going to be moved up?”

“Yes. I need plans ready for the quickest route to kill him while he continues to sleep. The time for waiting is over.”

“Sir. Please wait--”

“Heliaye. At this moment, I ask you: obey. For the sake of my mother’s empire, obey.”

“...Yes, your majesty.”