While Ieros prepared to meet the pirate coalition fleet, the Teryo were marching from their ancient home deep in the North, countless leagues from Seris to the Great Reaches, a place that was nicknamed the Top of the World. They followed their creed to protect all premen calling upon them to serve the last preman, Ieros. Beings whose flesh and bones had long since withered away, they were husks of armor controlled by a shadowy manifestation of their will. A shadow of their previous existence, thus why their manifestation was a transparent black in color, a shade. Shades were a relatively rare existence, for it required a great will to remain upon Agleon with the end of one’s physical body.
But these were the best of the best of the best of damn best, their combat strength was enough to rival that of a god’s but unfortunately, their mortality was a rather severe limitation. Although their bodies were trained to the point where steel couldn’t harm it at all and adamantium merely bruised it, their blood was still spilled by the weapons of the gods wielded by their children, angels and demons. Even with their great strength, they could not defend their city which fell to holy fire. But they remained, holding the line so that the People could retreat.
But the People soon lost the power of their ancestors, thus losing their status as premen. While they slowly lost their status as premen, the Teryo still fought against the angels and demons who were commanded by the gods to destroy the Teryo. They held, their souls rejecting death, their absolute loyalty to Premanity denying them the right to die. But nevertheless, the divine and hellish power of the gods’ children did not kill but fully destroyed many of the Teryo, only four hundred out of a thousand surviving against the onslaught. But in return, they slaughtered many angels and demons, their corpses making up the mountains that surrounded the city in modern day.
The city never was in the mountains but in a flat plain but with the corpses of the angels and demons, large mountains of corpses were created which decayed and returned to earth. Thus it would come to no surprise that these mountains were rich in rare metals, the armors and weapons of angels and demons. Although they have lost their form through the years, they were still rather valuable although no human had yet to stumble upon them for the mountains, still permeated with divine power, were home to magical monsters, creatures that were far more powerful and intelligent than regular monsters.
They rose to defend their territories from the passing Teryo but stopped once they saw and sensed them, they had never seen these creatures before and were puzzled as to what to do. But as they were not hostile to the monsters, they let them pass unmolested. The Teryo moved on, ignoring the monsters and heading to Ieros. As they were beings that had surpassed mortality, they no longer needed things such as rest or food. They would march till forever if need be. They could run but they marched at a medium pace, to hurry things was not wise. But even with their tireless march, it would still take a year for them to reach Athera, for there were many mountains and valleys between them and Ieros.
Monsters were of no concern, they would be slaughtered before the Teryo who were able to fight against the armies of Heaven and Hell. Of course, Ieros had not yet sensed them, for he merely thought them to be exceptionally ancient shadows, not the shades of warriors past. But even these invincible warriors had a leader, one who was exceptional, even among them, one who was able to slay an arch-god and an archdevil. His true name was secret but he was given one by the gods, Eversor, the Destroyer. He was one of the reasons why the gods and devils decided not halt their campaign against the Teryo, for he struck fear into the hearts of the primordials’ children, the fear of Death.
Death, in fact, was rather grateful to him, she would not have been able to collect such powerful souls otherwise. Light and Night both recognized his power as well, each offering him immortality but he refused, his loyalty to the People would not be swayed by such things. Besides, he has already achieved immortality, although his current form does not possess as much power as his body of flesh, it was still quite formidable and his infinite stamina more than made up for it. In fact, his power could be contested with that of the Subjugator’s although he may not be as strong as the Subjugator, experience, and skill more than made up for that particular gap.
Speaking of which, the Subjugator studied Eversor, deciding that its purpose may never be fulfilled. But it was alright with that, it did not matter to it whether it had to help the Surveyor or not. It only had to do so when absolutely necessary, if it was never absolutely necessary then it was content to merely carry out its orders, to remain until it inevitably became one with Darkness once more.
But the Teryo weren’t the only things on the move, the Crystallum, creatures whose bodies are made of the finest gems. The dwarves had finally uncovered the names of these crystalline beings from ancient texts that had been passed down from generation to generation. The hardly legible inscriptions described them as being highly intelligent although incapable of physical communication. But it is said that to those that they deemed to be worthy, the Crystallum had displayed telepathic abilities, communicating through images rather than words. The very few dwarves who had managed to speak with them only say that they had spoken with the Children of Agleon, born of Agleon’s Heartstone.
The Heartstone, something that exists in dwarven legend yet now appeared to be the truth by the appearance of the Crystallum. It is said to be a magnificent gem of such great beauty and proportions that the mere sight of it would paralyze one with awe. In fact, one might faint because their mind cannot handle the magnificence of the gem. It also was a wealth of great energy, for it was the heart of Agleon who was also blessed with Life of sorts by Light. Although not like humans, Agleon was very much alive, although it relied upon its children to protect the Heartstone and if need be, to meddle with mortal affairs.
With the appearance of Ieros, masquerading as a preman, Agleon was very much interested in mortal affairs. It was also aware of the fiends that were burrowing out from its flesh and sent the Crystallum to stop them. Of course, not even the Crystallum could stop all the fiends although they were successful in stopping many of them. But as the fiends continued to progress to the surface, the Crystallum also followed, their bodies of sharp crystal piercing through bedrock with infinite ease, slashing apart the skin of the fiends which is said to be stronger than even adamant.
Truly, if they were involved in the war of Heaven and Hell, they would have been a power that could not be ignored, their bodies, rather than blocking attacks, simply cut through it with their razor-like edges. Their bodies literally cut through any attack, leaving them unaffected. But of course, there was only a limited amount for Agleon could only spare so much of its lifeforce, if it spent too much then the biosphere of Agleon would fall apart.
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As the battle between the Crystallum and the fiends raged on, the monsters of Ortus were beginning to set their sights upon the continent of Occasus, at Athera’s rich Eastern Coast. Of course, there was the pirate empire but the Empire of Auster had a great army which conquered a full half of Ortus. But as the remaining half of Ortus was under the rule of the mighty Saurians, Auster had decided to let the East of Ortus remain free for now.
Although the might of Auster was great, it was not great enough to conquer the Saurians, the descendants of the mighty dragons that once ruled Agleon. Although having lost the iconic wings, these Saurians were still a majestic sight to behold, their appearance similar to that of Earth’s ancient dinosaurs. Darkness had actually wondered if he should have sent his fragment to this small blue world, although he eventually decided that Agleon was a better choice. Earth was filled with mortals that feared the unknown and if by some accident the Surveyor revealed itself, the experiment would be ruined. Anyways, only those of the purest blood still retain the ability to breathe fire or whatever element the dragon they descended from commanded. Of course, there were those that looked like the iconic T-Rex as well as triceratops and the mighty giganotosaurus.
But they were not all, there were also pterosaurs which ruled the skies, some of which that were so large that their wingspan reached over twenty meters in length. They were also equipped with razor-sharp beaks that were capable of slicing through steel and scratching adamant. The scales of the Saurians were also no laughing matter, it's highly resistant to both physical and magical damage. Of course, they were of a lesser material than that of a dragon’s scales but they were still not to be underestimated, for the mightiest of the Saurians could withstand the attacks of all the mages on both Occassus and Ortus almost negligible damage taken.
Indeed they were a mighty race who believed that might is right, the mightiest leading the herd. Currently, the title of strongest clan belonged to the Giganotosaurus Clan, the largest and mightiest of all Saurians upon land. These large creatures shook the earth with each step and their thundering roar put fear into all lesser creatures. There were also the rulers of the skies, the Dimorphodon, fierce creatures that mainly used swarm tactics in order to combat creatures on the ground, their sharp teeth and talons a great nuisance alone but are fatal in the hundreds.
Truly, the Saurians were masters of land, sky, and sea, a power that even the mighty Austerian Empire was afraid to tamper with. And Auster was no pushover mind, its founding race, the Satorians. Much knowledge of them has been lost to time as they were a secretive race, purging all records that even slightly mentioned them from libraries and killing scholars who knew too much. Yet they continued to rule Auster from the shadows, their thirst for conquest was not yet quenched so it turned its attention to Occasus, the continent in which Ieros is currently residing.
It prepared a fleet of ten gigantic sky turtles, which were the size of small cities, being sent to conquer Occasus. These graceful giants were perfectly able to cross the Scisma Ocean, possessing nearly infinite stamina as, despite their appearance, they were incredibly light for creatures of their size. They possessed enormous organs which converted water into hydrogen which was then stored it its great shell, which was far larger compared to its body than that of a regular turtle's for it had to make space for both its body and air for it to float. They only needed to flap their fins every once in awhile to redirect their course.
As for what they ate, they drank from the ocean, swallowing many fish as well as valuable water which their hydrogen-producing organs would in turn convert into hydrogen, releasing the oxygen back into the air. Of course, these sky turtles couldn’t remain in the sky forever, although because they hardly ever needed to use energy to move, they had very slow metabolisms. But whenever they needed to land, they would head to the ocean, an instinctive clock ingrained within their body, warning them whenever hydrogen levels were low enough to be considered dangerous.
They would then gently land in the ocean, swimming like regular turtles as they would drink massive amounts of seawater. As hydrogen was produced, their bodies would slowly rise from the water until they fully left it, reaching the heights of the clouds where, if they needed to, they could inhale to create extra hydrogen, although the yield was incredibly small. Truly, these were magnificent creatures, the mere sight of which would strike awe into any.
Atop their magnificent shells were large fortresses in which smaller monster races could live in to defend both themselves and the sky turtle. It was mostly due to these creatures that the Austerian Empire was able to conquer so many lands, their sky turtles able to transport entire armies with great speed. As for how they were controlled, there was a race of monsters named the Loquimi, a race that excelled in the art of telepathy, so much so that they could bend the minds of others to their will. They controlled these majestic beasts, the weak mind of the sky turtles unable to resist the commands of the Loquimi.
Aside from the sky turtles and the Loquimi, Auster had more forces at its command, such as the Ursus, a race that resembled bears with fur that could resist both magical and physical attacks to a high degree as well as possessing great strength which would prove enough to smash a large boulder into dust. They were elite units of the Austerian Imperial Army because of their great strength and survivability.
Then there were the Avem, a race of large avians whose wingspan was more than ten meters in length. They were scouts of the battlefield as well as fearsome fighters, their sharp beaks and claws able to shred through steel with ease. Their feathers were also like wood, able to deflect regular arrows with ease although the bolts of siege crossbows possessed enough power to pierce through. But nevertheless, they were a force to be feared, for they could also lift boulders and drop them upon the enemy, causing great damage from above at heights in which arrows and bolts are unable to reach.
And still more were the Crimex, insect-like creatures which resembled ants in shape although their forelegs were that of a mantis’s, its shell hard and sharp enough to sheer through iron and heavily damage steel. Of course, there were different classes of Crimex, each class possessing its own queen which would produce them by the thousands if not millions. They were the main force of the Austerian Imperial Infantry because of the their insanely high proliferation and the fact that they did not fear death, only having absolute loyalty to the queens and by extension, the Satorians who ruled the queens.
They were the main reason why the Satorians were able to conquer half of Ortus, the neverending swarm of insects the size of a cow with a shell that was resistant to physical attacks and moderately resistant against magic. Although one by itself was relatively weak, that did not matter as these creatures always fought in armies of over ten thousand, overrunning their enemies with their sheer numbers, their fear of death nonexistent because of their absolute loyalty.
The numbers of these forces that would be heading to Occasus numbered in the millions, the total of which would reach five million, the ants making up 75% of that number. The remainder was filled in by the Ursus and the Avem as well as few of the Satorians’ chosen elite forces but due to the Satorians’ excellent abilities to hide knowledge, not much is known of these elites.
Truly, a great and formidable foe has appeared before Ieros, perhaps one might call them a worthy challenge, a foe which he can release his power without restraint.