Walking out of his immortal palace, Blue gazed into space, watching a beam of light carry his dwarven race through a tear in space. Peering into the tear, Blue saw the plane they were being transported to and mused.

“Hm, so that’s the place they are being sent to. Guess I’ll pay a visit to make this go smoothly.”

Once the location was found, the blue specter took a step and disappeared from the doorway of his immortal palace.

In the next moment, he appeared in another part of the void, where space anomalies tore open and sealed shut constantly, creating rifts. Using his God’s Eyes, Blue peered into the rifts of space to see a figure sitting cross legged, impaled with strange translucent metal chains.

The figure gave off an air of ancientness, their golden hair covering their emaciated naked body. The most striking thing about the humanoid figure was the nine tattered tails chained and constricted behind them. Despite the figure’s weakened state, the figure raised its head. Their eyes primal and full of life, the figure opened its mouth.

“What do you want, newbie? Shouldn’t you be enjoying that detestable game? It’s that time correct?”

“I’ll cut to the chase, old fox. My people have come into contact with your ‘remnants.’ I want access to them so lend them to me.”

“Heh. Hehe. HAHAHAHAHAHA.” The ancient figure began to laugh hysterically for a long while before going silent.

Their tone became cold and without emotion, “You think, with your little power, you can ask a favor of me? In your dreams. Go play your little game with those fools. My power will not be used by someone so beneath me.”

Although he was being berated by this old thing, Blue showed no hint of anger.

“Old Fox, if you do me this boon and if I win this game, I’ll see to it that your sentence is lessened or even waved. Doing me this favor would be better than spending another twenty epochs here.”

Raising their head high, the old fox mocked, “I don’t want to be free. If you can kill a certain meddling elf goddess then I’d throw you my support. Otherwise, nothing you say can interest me.”

“Name.”

With a toothy grin the old fix barked, “Major Elf Bitch Aileas.”

“Consider it a promise. As long as you help me she’ll die, I’ll even swear my divinity on the void if you support me.”

“Heh. I figured you would say n-- Wha? Are you insane? You, a puny newbie god, think you can kill an ancient?”

“Yah. I need to win this and I’ll do anything to do so. If I just need to kill an ancient then I’ll kill her. ”

“Haha… You might be crazier than me, youngin’. Fine, I like you kid. You have until the end of the epoch to kill the bitch. I’ll throw my full support behind you as long as you swear to the void.”

“Fine. I ...”

***

Light gathered around the dwarfs, rat-kin, and animals as their visions were obscured by mist. A strange and complex magic circle formed underneath their feet, locking them in place. Every being within the dwarf village, including the non-combatants, were swept up in the light as a message appeared in their heads.

Transporting to Stone Village.

Yet Urist saw a line a little different from the rest.

Stopping time.

Transporting to Stone Village.

Objectives:

Required: Kill High Necromancer Malous Required: 50% of your forces must survive. (Hidden) (Hidden) (Hidden) (Hidden)

Notice: Death within the fragmented world does not mean true death.

Notice: All those killed in action will be transported to the hall of damned and will be able to be redeemed for future events after rewards are allocated. Those not redeemed at this time will be held until the next event. If not redeemed upon the completion of the next event, their souls will be forfeited and destroyed.

As the message branded itself into his mind, Urist barely noticed the cylinders rising up to encase him and the others. Outside of the cage of light time began to slow down to the point that the wind, water, plants, animals, and even the sunlight seemed to freeze in place.

Then, once everyone had been gathered within the light, a tear in the fabric of space appeared above their village. As if drawn to the hole, the pods of light containing Urist’s people shot up towards the tear in space at an absurd speed, vanishing within the hole in mere moments. Strangely, nothing else in the base moved towards the tear in space.

With every living being in the village was gone and time itself seemingly halted, only silence and a frozen landscape was left behind.

***

How much time has passed? Has it only been a few moments, or have a few hours gone by?

Urist’s thoughts raced as the blinding light around him faded away to reveal his surroundings. It took a bit of time before his eyes adjusted, but eventually, he was able to see that he and his group were now standing in the middle of a simple village. He would have studied the buildings more closely if he hadn’t noticed that he and his people had been surrounded by a large group of individuals wielding knives.

No, not people exactly. Why do they have fox ears and tails? Also, why are they so heavily armed?

The fox-kin, as he dubbed them, varied in size, but none were taller than the average dwarf. Urist noticed that the parts of their skin that weren’t covered by their fur clothing were either covered in various scars or warpaint and sometimes coated in a mixture of both.

As Urist studied the agitated lot, it took him a moment to see that there were in fact taller fox-kin further in the back, but those ones were worn with age.

Are these children and their elders? Where are their parents, their sons, and daughters? Does this mean that rescuing the adults of this tribe is one of the hidden objectives?

In the midst of his thoughts, one of the taller children wearing a bone necklace with feathers in his orange hair pointed at him with a bone dagger.

With cold eyes, the boy snarled, “For our parents, we will kill you invaders! Attack!”

The boy charged at Urist as soon as his words fell, not giving the dwarf a chance to say anything. Seeing him and a few other kids rush at him, Urist unsheathed his battle dagger.

“Subdue them!”

Urist commanded as he prepared to parry the charge and tackle the kid to the ground.

If I can subdue him I could hold him hostage and halt this needless battle. He’s just a kid, so this should be easy enough.

Having made up his mind, Urist readied himself. Seeing the invader take a stance to defend, the feather boy smiled coldly. As he was about to enter the Urist’s attack range, he vanished without a trace.

Shocked, Urist suddenly felt the presence of imminent death from behind him. Sweat drenched his neck. Without hesitation, he dodged to the left and turned to see a dagger flash where his neck used to be.

Teleportation!

He dodged?!

As such thoughts passed through their minds, Urist was the first to react. With his free hand he grabbed the feather boy’s legs while he was in mid air before slamming him down into the ground. The force of the slam dazed the boy and made him let go of his knife.

Leaping onto the boy’s back like a monkey, Urist grabbed onto his hair with his free hand and pulled up while placing his dagger on the boy’s neck.

This sudden clash and abrupt resolution stopped the fox-kin in their tracks, as they were unsure what to do with their leader captured.

Roaring like a deranged animal, the boy screamed, “Kill them! They killed our parents! As acting chief of the village, I order you to kill them al- ugh!”

Urist shoved the boy’s face into the ground to shut him up, and turned to the group of kids staring at him with murderous intent.

Urist cleared his throat and opened his mouth, filled with righteous fury, “We’re not invaders. In fact, I’d say we’re here to help. So if you could all sheath your weapons, we can have a nice, civil chat. Or your ‘chieftain’ here might be… manhandled.”

Urist had hoped to disarm them with words, but instead saw their bloodthirst increase, the whole lot seemingly ready to jump on their group within a moment.

Seeing the fuse about to be lit, Urist’s mind began to race. Gotta be fucking kidding me. As soon as we appear we’re attacked? How do we come to an understanding? Do we really have to hurt these kids?

As he was about to give the order to subdue them, a voice rang out behind the crowd.

“All of you stray your hand! They are not our enemy!”

The group of kids turned to the voice, still pointing their daggers at Urist’s group, who were ready to throw down at any time.

Urist looked over and began to study the new arrival . He was old and wrinkled with one dead milky eye and lifeless red hair. He had lost most of his teeth and yet wore elaborate furs filled with and decorations. Clearly, compared to the children around him, he seemed to stand at a higher position in this village.

Seeing all the attention drawn to him, the old man started talking again while pointing at Urist's group.

“Look at them! Even if they suddenly appeared, do you see any of those bone people in their group? Heck, even their clothing doesn’t match those detestable robes. Also, they don’t smell of that foul rotting stench. Have you youngsters become so enraged that you can’t tell criminals and innocents apart? I expected more out of you, Sage. I know that you lost your father, but your mother might sti--”

Full of rage, the boy below Urist pressed against his hand roared at the elder, “You don’t know shit old man! When I get out of this fucker’s grasp I’m going to gut you! Then I’ll--”

“>Disable<.”

When Urist spoke the line, mana flashed in his hand. In mere moments Sage’s head fell powerlessly to the ground as he became paralyzed.

Getting up from the powerless boy, Urist coughed into his hand, “Excuse me, Elder, for using magic on the boy. He’ll be able to move around in a few hours after it wears off, but I assure you we mean no harm. Can you tell them to sheath their weapons? We’ll do the same and hopefully, we can talk over a cup of tea about why we’re here. How does that sound?”

Staring at the limp Sage that still had eyes full of anger, the Elder shook his head in disappointment, “Although it should be the chieftain's decision, since she is indisposed, as the head elder I’ll accept your offer in her place. Children, please sheath your weapons for now so we can talk.”

Urist only half listened, still stuck on the fact that the person below him wasn’t a boy but rather a young girl.