“The bombs may be obsolete, though. We’re at the level where we can handle demon kings.” I had to correct him, though I could see such a physical bomb as a powerful tool on the Sun-Rings. If we could blow it up, we didn’t even need to rely on Hawa’s divine weapon, whatever that was.

  Alka paused as the bombshell just hung in the air. After a few seconds, he spoke again. “I really do need to get to that [dream academy] and have a recap of what happened in the past seventeen years. I missed out on a lot.”

  “Yeah. In a way.”

  At about that time, the door to the pod opened, and the rest of the domain holders gave Alka a big group hug. It was a strangely nice feeling to see my domain holders give Alka a hug.

  “It’s really you, isn’t it?” Stella laughed.

  Alka rolled his eyes as if it was obvious. “Maybe. Maybe the real me died that day and what you see now is a perfect replica.”

  “It is a perfect replica, physically,” I answered. “But his soul is the same one.”

  Stella grinned. “Good enough, I guess.”

  I allowed my domain holders to have half a day to catch up, and then Alka, as he requested, had a long few days digesting the events of the past seventeen years in my [dream academy].

  We needed to hold the worlds for a period of time.

  At least for one or even two demon king cycles. Alka had a lot of ideas in his mind after he reviewed the data, and one of the first things he did was calculate whether we could blow up the Sun-Rings with his new ability.

  Our initial information was fairly encouraging. It would leave a rather big hole, and the Sun-Rings were such a massive object that it would likely survive. If we could make bombs equal to ten times my current mana, it should leave a large crack. With Edna and Lumoof’s ability to fend off the demon kings, we could potentially destroy the Sun-Rings if we hit it multiple times.

  I wasn’t sure if it’d be enough to destroy the strange demonic barrier that blocked our view of the inner demon realms, but we would have to try.

  “So now that you know what’s up, what do you plan to do?”

  The dwarven master alchemist laughed. “Let’s just say I have some dreams I suddenly feel like fulfilling.”

  “Oh, all right, what will it be?”

  “I’ll make a trip to Delvegard,” Alka said with a stereotypical dwarven grin. “That seems like the best place to get me up to speed and relive some of my fantasies.”

  Lausanne, the world of Magisar.

  Lausanne stood on the edge of their newly built city. There were few demons these days. In the past few months, even more demons were slain, and increasingly, their once-skeptical refugees and escapees from the towers began to see the merit of their ways.

  There truly was nothing like power.

  Sadly, not everyone saw it that way.

  “There’s a planned rebellion to push us out, milady,” one of her subordinates reported during a regular weekly meeting. The actual Valthorn force deployed on Magisar wasn’t large, only a hundred to two hundred. The Valthorns’ extensive weakening of the demons, together with an alliance of the mages that supported the battles, gave the local tower masters the wrong idea.

  The tower masters presumed that the Valthorns only comprised two hundred to three hundred or so mages, and they were thinking of overwhelming the entire Valthorn force during one of the battles against the demons.

  In some ways, the Valthorns supplied the ingredients for the Tower Masters to plan the rebellion. The destruction of various demonic hives meant the disruptions were removed, and the old [message] networks were restored.

  So the tower masters, eager to regain control over the entire world and place as the rulers of the world, quickly plotted with their peers.

  In their minds, ten thousand mages across the ten or twenty or so towers would be enough to take on two hundred or so Valthorns. In order to make it happen, the tower masters would all deploy some secret teleportation scrolls to launch the attack together.

  “Why do people do things like this?” Lausanne sighed as she heard the full scope of what the Valthorn spies had discovered. “Do they truly think they’ll win?”

  “They might, if the tower masters themselves arrive,” one of Lausanne’s assistants answered. “They don’t quite understand the full scope of our strength.”

  Both Ebon and Hoyia were redeployed to other worlds, and she looked at the report again.

  “At least half of their mages will die if we let this attack happen. That’s a massive waste of magical talent,” Lausanne said with a sigh.

  “I think we should haul up the tower masters. Let them know what exactly they are facing.”

  Lausanne paused as she thought about it. “Is that the best course of action? I mean, how can we truly solidify our impression on the Magisarians that we truly mean to help them.”

  Each of them suggested different ideas, but was there really a way to stop the conflict in such a way that would show them the gap between the two forces? Something that would truly show the Magisarians that in a real “war,” there really was a huge gap?

  Something that would truly spare them the enemies?

  In the end, Lausanne thought of a few different ways to solve the problem, but ultimately, the solution was some variant of Aeon’s Perspective.

  Fear.

  She hated using fear to convince others, but there were times there was no choice.

  Fear was a survival tool, and for those scheming against them, it would save their lives. There were those who didn’t think it through. Perhaps the hold of their old system was too strong.

  It was hard for people to change overnight, what more such a large, cultural change.

  Fear was a fence. It would keep them safe. Conflict was inevitable; sometimes, this conflict was peaceful, and sometimes, it was deadly. As Aeon’s envoy to these worlds, they had an incentive to keep things peaceful.

  It was kind. She knew and spoke to some of the Magisarians that would rebel. They even fought together briefly during one of the earlier attacks on the demons.

  She tried her best for the charm offensive to convince their minds that choosing Aeon was the right choice. But in the end, the presence of the domain holders on Magisar was fairly temporary, and only a few felt what it was like to stand before them.

  She double checked and, together with her team, came up with a plan. One that would allow the archmages to go all the way, only for it to fail at the last moment.

  The tower masters wanted to strike during one of the larger offensives against the demon hives. They saw that as their last window of opportunity where quite a few of the Valthorns would be gathered in the same place. Three thousand mages of the various Magisarian Towers were supporting the attack, and at the same time, about six thousand more mages from across the field.

  Lausanne was there, as were ninety of the other Valthorns deployed to Magisar, prepared for the battle. Only about half of them knew of the coming betrayal, so the other half that didn’t would be updated at the last minute and sent into the demonic hives first.

  “Lady Lausanne.” A Magisarian mage came over; there was a trembling in his hands. “Will we launch the attack on the demons soon?”

  Lausanne looked at the hive as another Magisarian mage walked over. He was one of those who joined the refugee camps. Yet somehow, the tower masters promised him great titles, positions, and wealth if he cooperated with their schemes. She would’ve understood if it was someone like Lezzan, the old leader of the refugees that decided to side with the tower masters.

  Some of those left not because they were against the structure of society, but merely because they did not benefit from it.

  The Valthorns played the political game of Magisar and won the right to rule through their magical prowess. Alas, the game was there only when it benefited them. Already, the Tower Masters whispered how it wasn’t meant to allow foreigners to come and claim the Towers, even if it was never formally written down.

  Lausanne looked at the demonic hives. It was quite far away, and the mage’s pulse was ragged. He hadn’t had much sleep.

  The demonic golem hives were crowded; there were the large, demonic golem champions. “Yes. Soon. This is the last demonic hive. What’s left is only the king, and we will get to that soon. Are you ready?”

  The mage gave a nod, but his body language was unnatural. He knew today would be the day the natives would try to flush out these “invaders.”

  “It will be a glorious day. The day of the last hive purged from Magisar,” Lausanne explained. “Maybe it’ll be recorded as the Battle of Nothlend’s Valley.”

  The native mage could only nod.

  “Maybe you have another name for today?” Lausanne teased, and she felt the native mage tremble. There was something he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. “Relax, it’s just a joke. It’s just the first step. Rebuilding your world is going to take a while.”

  Lausanne sighed and tapped the Magisarian mage on the shoulder.

  “Change is hard. Removing threats doesn’t mean Magisar is ready to be a member of the wider world, and the society must be ready to contribute, just as it will receive aid and rewards for doing so.”

  She wondered whether he would hesitate at the last moment.

  The archmage Blackmoore led the charge into the demonic hive, as the Valthorns struck first. They always did. The native army’s role was just to support the Valthorns’ assault.

  She glanced at a corner and sighed. The mage bowed as he tried his best not to expose their plot. “I must go prepare, Lady Lausanne.”

  He didn’t. It was a shame that someone she thought would be receptive to change still wanted the old order.

  Lausanne sighed and felt a familiar hand on her shoulder. “A good try, Lausanne. But do not worry, they won’t be harmed in the little demonstration.”

  The elf nodded. She led the rest of the deployed Valthorns. “Valthorns!” she shouted as the rest of the Valthorn force gathered around her. “Let us destroy the last demonic hive!”

  The small group of high-level Valthorns roared, and they all charged into the demonic hives. Only Lausanne and another Valthorn stayed back. The scheme had begun as she felt the activation of teleportation spells. The army of the local Magisarian mages grew as hundreds more mages joined the existing army, and then the tower masters appeared.

  She had to focus to feel them moving around. They didn’t shine like the Valthorns.

  “Attack!” The shout came from behind the lines, and Lausanne closed her eyes. She turned and saw a trembling mage, the same mage that spoke to her, and their eyes met. The mages launched a volley at the demonic hives. The hives were done for, anyway.

  “Attack the invaders.” The second volley was the key signal.

  The mage steeled himself, and yet Lausanne stared into his eyes and said, “You don’t have to do this.”

  He did, anyway. He raised his magical staff, as did many others, and they all launched a spell, this time aimed at the Valthorns.

  The spells were fired and smashed into Lausanne’s protective wooden shields. The tower masters flew overhead—they were armed with all their best weapons—and a battering of spells smashed into Lausanne’s shields.

  “Die, invaders!” they said.

  Lausanne’s shield held. They underestimated the sheer gap of power between them.

  “No one is hurt yet.” Lausanne heard the same familiar voice in her head. She nodded.

  The Valthorns that knew of the betrayal quickly moved to protect their peers that didn’t. Lausanne emerged at the center of a heavily damaged crater and looked at the tower masters. “So this is what you’ve elected, Tower Masters?” Lausanne said with a smile that terrified the Tower Masters.

  One of them had a look at the grin on her face and knew they had fucked up.

  “You’ve brought quite an army to support this attack, and yet your attacks fail to even get past my shields,” Lausanne declared. In truth, very few in the world could. Her shields came with Aeon’s special blessings, and that meant her shields were always above and beyond everyone else’s; only those in the domain could match her.

  Lausanne walked toward the group of thirty or so tower masters. Many of these floating Towers had a few tower masters, and not all of them were here. They were wise to do so.

  “All you’ve brought is an audience for your execution,” Lausanne declared as the tower masters panicked. The second wave of spells smashed into her shields and did nothing.

  The mood in the thousands of mages present changed.

  “You must wonder why we are strong,” Lausanne declared.

  Lumoof’s invisibility vanished right next to her, but his presence was zero. He hid his powers.

  “Tower Masters, come,” Lausanne declared. “Show me the nerve of your resistance. The fire that possessed you to fight us.”

  The tower masters did, and a few of the ringleaders shouted, “Don’t fear her! She’s just taunting us!”

  Their spells gathered, and just then, a wave of anti-magic spread throughout the entire valley. Lausanne nodded at Lumoof briefly; the [anti-magic aura] meant not many would be hurt.

  “Come,” Lausanne said, as the army of mages realized quite a few of their magical equipment and spells were not functioning.

  “What—what’s happening?” The disbelief in the army.

  Lausanne withdrew a spear of anti-magic, a pure glass weapon. To the magic-sensitive Magisarians, it was akin to staring into a whirlpool that drained magic from around it.

  The tower masters had to use higher-tier spells that were unaffected by the anti-magic aura. They all smashed helplessly into Lausanne’s anti-magic spear. She walked toward them menacingly, while the lower-level mages were rendered not much more than regular, magic-less foot soldiers.

  Her physicality meant she reached them, and she gave them a punch. Their shields were useless; all it took was a light poke by her spear and its magical energies were sapped. They were not built for rigor.

  The army of mages watched helplessly.

  “These are your Tower Masters,” Lausanne declared as she flung the bloodied Tower Masters on the floor. “They led you to believe you had a chance.”

  She glared.

  “All of you are just fodder. They are more than prepared to see three quarters of you die, just so that they can stand atop of your world once more.”

  The army of mages of Magisar were generally below Level 60.

  And yet, to Lausanne’s bewilderment, they raised their weapons. She saw in their eyes those who dared to fight them. If only they used that daring against the demons instead of them.

  “Even before those who are twice your levels, do you really want to do this?” Lausanne asked, and those present were shocked. “You might still think you have a chance against me?”

  She looked at the group of tower masters, and they were still somehow defiant. Their spells blasted into her wall of wooden shields. Those who followed them attacked with their own weapons. Some of them held hero-items.

  A waste of such good weapons in the hands of lesser mages for the purpose of a power struggle.

  Why?

  Were they unfair to them? All they did was round up their army and cobbled them together into a unified fighting force. And yet they used that opportunity to rebel against them instead.

  She glared at the Tower Masters, and they did not relent.

  She saw courage. Misplaced courage, in the heart of the mages who believed they were fighting an occupier.

  Were they occupiers? Lausanne knew they were not.

  Yet somehow, despite their spies and allies, the tower masters managed to convince so many mages that they were. That these mages and wizards were freedom fighters.

  Courage. They were driven into a frenzy as the tower masters continued their attack. She could feel them use some kind of magic that blessed the mages under their banner and raised their spirits.

  Words would not do now.

  Lausanne’s eyes looked into those mages that stood against them, despite being so outclassed. They believed her reluctance to hurt them as a sign that they had a chance.

  So brave and yet so foolish.

  She felt sad for them, because she did not really want to use Aeon’s presence to crush their spirits. She had seen those broken by Aeon’s presence, and it was hard for them to find their courage again.

  Yet the alternative was death. The alternative was a spell that would hurt them. Or a perpetual guerilla rebellion as these mages continued to believe their chances.

  Lumoof waited. It would be her call as the temporary leader of the Valtrian Magisar Division.

  She weighed the odds in her heart and finally relented. “Lumoof, let us show them who stands at the heart of our organization.”

  Aeon’s Avatar descended, and the air instantly turned oppressive. The tower masters gazed at the sky, only to see darkness. The sun was blocked, as the towering presence loomed over the entire army.

  “With each rebellion, and each resistance, the perceived value of your world to us diminishes,” Lausanne declared. “Those of us here are trying to prove that your world still has value and thus should be trained to be a part of the bigger war.”

  In the face of something like Aeon, somehow everything just stopped. The mages looked in foolish courage only to find an abyss of stars looking back at them.

  In Aeon’s Avatar, they saw the cruel reality that they never stood a chance.

  In that moment, Lausanne rushed ahead and grabbed one of the mastermind’s robes and pulled him up. They were vulnerable. The Magisarians were never a physical kind, and next to Lausanne, this much was clear. Lausanne was a slim elven woman, but her limbs were all strong, dense, and flexible.

  “We’ve known of your schemes for a while,” Lausanne declared loudly to the man’s face, but its intended audience was everyone else. “It is quite convenient that you’ve identified those with rebellious tendencies for us.”

  The army of mages all panicked, but they had no words. They were unable to. The pressure that pressed on them was now too strong.

 

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