Chapter 3: His Absence Felt
"Solomonia was a giant, and watching it fall, we knew we were next." — Alexander the 6th.
When Ares left, turmoil followed. The emperor was furious, losing his greatest asset. And with a war on the horizon, the Great Zalfarian Empire was facing its darkest times since Alexander the 3rd.
The problem was that no one ever took Kendrick seriously enough until it was always too late. How a warlord who had conquered tens of nations could be underestimated remains a mystery.
Everyone thought Solomonia would at least slow Kendrick down. Although it was not as large as it was mighty, it was an ancient nation that had maintained its borders in the middle of the bellicose Western continent. However, Kendrick crushed it like a bug.
There are three things one needs to understand about Kendrick's modus operandi in order to understand his success.
1: Kendrick is a demigod to his people. He is the Conqueror of the West, the Man of Autumn, and the Ninth Son (or Sword, depending on the translation of Lundkirk's aboriginal tongue). His military might is absolute, and the loyalty of his troops is unquestionable.
2: Kendrick kills children. When he takes over a nation, he bathes in the blood of every single royal and oligarch. No one that opposes him is left alive. In Lundkirk, you are either willing to die for Kendrick or you are simply willing to die.
3: Kendrick is not concerned with wealth. His wealth is for the people, and therefore, the people are for him. He redistributes that which he gains from his conquests and lowers taxes.
If Zalfari were to die and the Side of Ares be burned, those three things would likely be the cause. Other reasons include his heart-thrumming rhetoric, unyielding ambition, and unwavering focus to minimize damages even when winning.
Alexander the 5th recognized the might of Kendrick and tried to negotiate. He sent a message that included a compliment on his rise through the ranks. Kendrick responded, "You have me confused. I did not rise through the ranks. I recreated them. To answer your question, I do not negotiate with rapists. Prepare to die." Additionally, he advised not to bother writing a testament, as there would be no one to receive it.
When the leaves turned orange, Kendrick launched his first attack. It was fast and measured. It was a message to the people of Zalfari: "Give me your emperor's head or suffer the consequences."
That is how the Zalfarian War began.
Meanwhile, not much is known about Ares' travels. All accounts of them are fractured reminiscences Ares occasionally shared with his closest associate after his return, Gabriel.
He traveled by land, avoiding the waters due to the uncertainty they presented. Surprisingly, he traveled west at first. Supposedly, he knew nothing of the Eastern continent and wanted to see the world outside of Zalfari. He went and saw the central mountains of Solomonia, the masked theater of western Szahang, the cracked orange landscape of southeastern Lundkirk, and the metallic waters of northern Calipeidos.
Then he crossed over to the Eastern continent by a connecting passage in the north. He loved the Thropes. Perhaps the only thing that let Ares sleep was the thought that his son would be raised in such a wonderful place.
Indeed, it was when he met Clara that his life truly changed. Ares once described her as a spirited but calming woman with silky hair and beady eyes. He remarked that she had a certainty about herself and a firm will behind everything she did, like she knew herself absolutely and wouldn't apologize to anyone for being what she was. It was what Ares admired in her. When Ares once said he did not understand what such a woman saw in him, Gabriel looked the godly man over and laughed. He seemed to take that as an insult somehow. Gabriel was too afraid to ask why.
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A year after Ares' departure, Alexander the 5th put into action the largest search for a single person in history, sparing an enormous amount of resources to find his ultimate weapon as a last-ditch effort against the Conqueror of the West.
When they stumbled upon him in the Thropes, the war was in its second year, and Zalfari was losing. However, Clara had recently become pregnant. Ares was faced with an impossible choice. To save his nation or to be a good father.
This is where Kendrick's modus operandi betrayed him. Kendrick's targeting of the royal bloodline meant that Ares' son would be a target as well, and if Kendrick conquered Zalfari, the rest of the world would follow, and all targets would eventually be snuffed out.
That swayed Ares. He departed the Thropes, leaving his son with only a name: Aurelius.
And so began the decade in which Ares single-handedly provided more resistance to Kendrick than the previous fifteen nations combined.
***
Chapter 4: His Return Revered
From the beginning, it was clear Ares was a changed man.
"His face was different and so were his eyes," Alexander recounted. "His jawline had grown less sharp, and eyes no longer pierced you as much as they passed through you. His essence usage was also different. While in the past he flaunted his seemingly endless reserves, he had grown to stick with the bare minimum. I no longer understood him. I had grown closer to my father, and as Ares' and his relations soured, a ravine opened between me and Ares. One I never closed."
Though Ares had been away from battle for some time, he was as proficient as ever. Soldiers in Lundkirk were advised, "If you see the Zalfarian God of War, place your testament in your boot and say your prayers."
The problem was that he'd developed empathy. Everyone quickly learned not to talk to him after a battle. The emperor was the last to learn.
Once they argued with such ferocity, the emperor resorted to throwing a cup at Ares. Ares slashed the glass right as it left the emperor's hand and showered him with red wine and shards of glass. The emperor proceeded to command his guards on Ares. When they hesitated, he hurriedly called them off to avoid having to punish them for insubordination.
"He talked about that moment for the rest of his life," Alexander the 6th said before imparting the following wisdom: "All royals should understand their chief enemy is never external. Those with power are always their own worst enemies. So it was with my father and his father before him. All I can hope for in my position is to avoid that fate."
"One would do well to remember that Kendrick is neither king nor emperor. He is simply a man followed by men," he added.
If the emperor's relationship with Ares had been better, it is possible they could've lasted longer against Kendrick.
Ares working alone caused problems. He sometimes used enhancers and was left out of commission for weeks, if not months. No end to the war was in sight, and Ares saw that he was making no progress. That is when the idea for the Elite Troop was born.
A group of 100 soldiers trained personally by Ares. According to Gabriel, the Elite Troop was meant to take over his duties so that he could return home.
Ares talked of home often. It seemed like he didn't think about much else. He wanted to send letters but figured it would've been torture to be sent messages once half a year. It would be like reminding them of his absence every time they'd come close to forgetting.
"I once suggested that he bring his family to Zalfari," Alexander the 6th said. "He glared at me so ferociously that I still get chills thinking about it."
Despite the changes in his demeanor, Ares was still terrifying. It is doubtful that it was purposeful. He had a temper and scared people into an inability to explain themselves even if they had good intentions. That never changed about him. On the contrary, as he mellowed with age, it just made his moments of fury all the more terrifying.
Furthermore, on his essence usage, it had not just changed in its minimalism. He had completely rid himself of orthodox teachings. The aphoric arts (setups) seemed dead to him, and even traces of motionless arts were scarce. He used essence in a way that could only be compared to the ancient thaumaturges.
People had thought the thaumaturges to be myths but became believers when they saw Ares work.
Ares did not bend the essence to his will like all other modern essence users. Rather, the essence moved with him. Not in the conventional sense, though. It was not as simple as a slash following the swing of his arm. No. Ares could blink, and something would shatter. He split the world with his will.
That was what became his mythical technique: Divide.
However, what seemed to be his connection to a world outside the reach of others—the ethereal, as he called it—isolated him. The first years after his return, before the forming of the Elite Troop, became a showcase of what extreme loneliness and bloodshed do to a person who does not have his emotions tucked away.
"My father said, the better the human, the worse the soldier," Alexander recounted. "Those few years revealed the darkest side of Ares, which prompted a response from Kendrick that took the war to a new echelon."
If there was a hell, that was it. For the rest of his life, Ares regretted those years.