Moonlight flooded the clearing.
Helial was lying on the grass with his eyes closed, letting the gentle wind caress his skin. Suddenly, a metallic noise broke the quiet of the night. The boy was not in the least frightened, on the contrary, he opened his eyes idly and smiled; in front of him a black armour had appeared, reflecting the milky rays of the moon on the stalks of grass around it. The silence did not seem to bother the metallic figure, who looked at the boy in front of him.
"I see you've finally decided to accept my invitation," said Helial.
Before he even got an answer, Pseudonym covered himself with black flames and rose up into the air. His majestic figure towered over heaven and earth, impossible for ordinary mortals to reach.
"You have to get here first," said the legendary warrior of Orma, with superhuman calm, "otherwise the request you made me would make no sense."
Enchanted by his opponent's movements, Helial stood watching him for several seconds.
...
A few days later, in a watchtower outside Orma's walls
"After a year of unnecessary conflict, I'm glad that those worms have come to ask for an audience, with their heads bowed," said Cesar, furious.
That bloody war had taken countless lives from the enemy, but killing Undead would ever bring to life the valiant Goblins who had fallen during the countless clashes that took place. For every lost soldier, Cesar's heart ached. Orma's strongest Immortal had fought so many conflicts, overturned the Senate, subdued Orma, but had never been responsible for unnecessary bloodshed of his subjects. Even when he had taken control of Orma, declaring himself the first true King since the foundation of the Senate, he had not spilled even a drop of blood on the streets.
The sins of his enemies had been forgiven, their debts cancelled.
Now, because of those two unclean creatures in front of him, Cesar was full of hatred and resentment.
He had been forced to fight alone against them, but he had reduced the two enemy Immortals to bloody puppets. After all, what could he have done? Aure hadn't helped him much and had done the bare minimum.
Fortunately, the difference between the Immortals of the Undead and the Trolls and Cesar was the same between heaven and earth.
"In between the endless threads of death, the Great Lady has yet to find the thread of your life, luckily for you," snorted Kari, the Immortal representing the Undead. Being the strongest of those monstrous creatures, he was also their King. In his arms, the Undead kept his head, quite battered, since it could in no way attach to his spine.
Although the Lichs were the ones with the most talent for Mana Cultivation, Kari was a Headless Horseman, a very strong and almost indestructible Class in hand-to-hand clashes. Thanks to his enormous defense, strengthened by Lostro, the King of the Trolls, the two Immortals had managed to fight Cesar and Aure. Despite being frighteningly at a disadvantage, it would not have been easy to take their lives.
But if they had made even a single error, the two immortal enemies would have found themselves incinerated and not even their bones would have remained.
The meeting had been set in a keep outside the walls of Orma. Welcoming his enemies in the heart of the city would have been too great a risk, because they could have taken advantage of this in order to move against the King.
Moreover, Cesar had feared that he might lose his temper. If he had raged in the centre of Orma, he would have risked burning half the city to the ground. The keep for the meeting had been cleared.
Cesar invited Aure and the other two to sit down, then turned his back on them and filled a glass of wine, which he began to sip looking at the horizon. The pink rays of twilight warmed the limbs of the King of Orma for a few last moments. The King closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling.
There was a very long silence, interrupted only by the rattling of the jugs of wine.
"Your majesty," said Aure in a very formal tone, "don't you think it would..."
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"Silence!" shouted Cesar.
Aure, amazed by his behaviour, remained silent and frowned.
Cesar's limbs continued to tremble with anger. It was paradoxical that Aure, after making the minimum contribution to the war, wanted to hurry so much to find an agreement with the enemy.
"Kekeke, I wonder how you managed to become an Immortal with that soft heart of yours, old man," laughed Kari from the head he held in his arms. His features, deformed by the drooping and bluish skin, opened with smile of rotten, black and sharp teeth.
Lostro, belonging to a race of warriors, did not like politics. After all, even the most intelligent of the Trolls was nothing more than a Troll. Once he reached Immortality, Lostro had acquired much more humanoid forms than his fellows, but had maintained the typical height of his race, measuring four or five meters. His body was a thousand times harder than steel and his fists could have razed mountains to the ground as if nothing had happened, transforming the landscape of entire continents.
Lostro's absolute indifference to politics was clearly visible when he turned to Kari and asked him, with a grunt, what the reason for the meeting was. Kari, the Headless Horseman, was the strategist of the Undead and Troll deployment. He had suggested the truce.
"I know you can't wait to be in peace again, you coward," laughed Kari rudely, turning to Cesar, "and yet, you will have to endure for a long time, unless you have enough guts to accept my proposal."
Cesar raised his chin slightly, inviting him to continue.
Kari banged his fist on the table several times like a lunatic: “AHAHAH! I knew it, I knew it! He really wants peace! AHAHAHAH!”
Kari couldn't hold back an even louder laugh and opened his arms, making fun of his opponents. But his head, resting on his legs, threatened to roll on the floor, and the Undead had to resign himself to putting aside the theatricality of his actions.
Cesar felt the blood rise to his head, but he decided to endure for the good of his people.
He approached Aure and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it so tightly that his fingers went deep into his flesh, while he snarled through clenched teeth, telepathically passing his voice to Aure: “Maybe the Sect of the Worthy still believes that Orma's problem are Humans. Orma's problem are those who act like Kari. Caring only for their pride and for an empty idea, such as prestige, they don't know what's best for their men. This is why, Aure, that I am the King and you aren't, because the more we let ourselves be soaked in peace, the more we lose sight of the value of life. So we want to become monsters, to taste the blood of our enemies again without taking care of anything else.
And shedding blood will force us to bleed our men to death. The more we bleed out, the more the unity of our people will be lost. Today the Humans, tomorrow the Undead, and when we'll hate the Goblins themselves, what more could we hate?"
Cesar's words felt like a hammer on Aure's heart.
“I'll tell you: nothing. We will slaughter each other, because some are weak and others strong. So, let the bloodshed begin, and may the sky become scarlet, right?"
Taking a deep breath, the King's eyes regained incredible clarity. “No, the most important thing is to keep a people united. That your men and you would hate me was predictable. But your lives are intertwined with those of other Goblins. When the big shots of Orma will stop waging war to each other and reunite the people, allowing them to rise above race differences, then Pseudonym, Helial and Circe will be the real representatives of the Goblins. The day that the Goblins will be represented by a human, that day Orma will have won its biggest fight."
Those words reminded Aure of a time long gone, in which Cesar's words had enlightened his soul and had been the bulwarks of his youth, the ideals that Aure had promised to follow forever.
At that moment, he thought of his son Comodo and inhaled deeply. He had sent his son away, in the midst of a conspiracy, to save his life, instead of forcing him to fight for the lives of others.
Even if Immortal, didn't Aure have the right to make mistakes?
But how many Goblins had died because Comodo had not participated in the war?
And according to what teachings had your son been brought up?
Had he told him that his life was worth more than an entire people, he who always reminded him how he should make of honour and dignity his daily actions?
Even if Immortal, didn't Aure have the right to make mistakes?
Yes, he had made a lot of them.
He had made too many of them. He had betrayed the people of Orma, Cesar and all the ideals for which he had always fought.
The most ridiculous thing to think certainly is that there are no simple solutions to complex problems. A frequent misunderstanding concerns the impossibility of changing oneself and others with a word. One word, maybe tow for the toughest ones, is enough to upset a person. And it is precisely the people capable of being upset with a word those destined to become warriors whose fame will resonate for eternity.
How many warriors have received this teaching from a young age: “Your heart must never waver, it must be as strong as steel. Always believe in your ideals, never give up"?
If, at the beginning, Aure had tried to be strong and hard as steel and had deprecated Cesar's softness, now he no longer agreed, as he later wrote in his diaries:
Today, while we were discussing the final outcome of the clash, Cesar showed me a new way, which I had not considered at all. If I survive this sea full of weaves that I have woven myself, then I will destroy the bottleneck that has kept us chained for so long.
If it is cowardly to flee from one's soul because of a few words, I will be able to tell only once I will cross the Styx. But, as long as I am alive, deciding to change for a thought, a syllable, will be what distinguished this hoary Immortal.
We can change Orma's fate with one word, Cesar, my brother, and we will.