Nuan was a beautiful place. A tranquil mesh of nature and humans living harmoniously. It wasn’t just some concrete jungle. The relaxing songs of the morning birds, the white noise that was the rustling of tree leaves swaying in the gentle winds, the murmurs from an appalled crowd after many of the royal guards were executed for failing to stop us from entering the Heaven-Wind Temple. Like I said, a beautiful place.

Not a single inn accepted us, so for the couple weeks we had to wait, we would sleep in the dark tunnels, like every other proper homeless person in Nuan. At least we did it in comfort thanks to transmutation.

“No one anywhere wants anything to do with us,” Bianca complained. She enjoyed still going about and at least conversing with one or two random people. But now that Mr Sword Sovereign knew who we were and was fuming at what we’d done, his fear affected everyone. No one wanted to lose their livelihood, or their lives rather, because they helped us by doing normal business. “It’s depressing as hell. Hope gramps is okay.”

August nodded, “I’m sure he is. Hey this is probably a stupid question but, don’t you have any other family? Uncles? Cousins? Y’know, distant ones.”

“Nope,” she sighed, a lot more open to us now that she exacted her revenge, “sister killed them all. She wanted to make a point.” Her eyes looked at me, “You had indirect sex with that.”

I began to feel like hurling again, “P-please don’t remind me. It was disgusting.”

“Yeah, I bet. Listen uh,” her voice went soft, “sorry for coming onto you like that back then. The truth is, it felt like she was taking something away from me again and I couldn’t stand that thought.”

My mind’s gears took a while before they turned. Oh… “Sorry for what?” I grabbed my pants’ crotch, “Maybe I liked it.”

She took a couple seconds before a loud guffaw split my ears, “Yeah, sure you did,” she replied sarcastically.

A frustrated groan came from someone, “I can’t wait for this to be over,” Aaralyn complained. Before leaving for Nuan, I placed a Light Link on her. Turned out, Fred – that’s what I began calling the all-powerful Sword Sovereign – turned against her because he thought she’d committed treason. Well, after killing her way out of Whitemane, I guess you could say she did. When I sped back to her, she had already dragged her blooded and battered self away from a trail of corpses, sitting somewhere below a bridge and bleeding out.

He was doing everything he could do outside of the direct no-harm rules that a pending Firmament instilled. They were the moves of a coward.

“Who will you live with by the way?” I asked her, the thought suddenly hitting me. “Not that I don’t want you by me, I’m just wondering. Who’s cooler between me and the fat one?” I pointed at August.

“She is,” Aaralyn pointed at Bianca.

“Hah!” the sword girl gloated.

“Tsk, tsk! I’m a blacksmith. A strong and reliable man, forging weapons and armour through hard work and sweat. I’m a warrior, a sword-wielding tough guy with no fear. He’s a guy that shoots sparks at you from afar and wears dresses. At least I’m cooler than him, right?”

Aaralyn rubbed her chin, “Well, when you put it that way…”

“Oh c’mon! You guys will fly your asses back to Methelia!” I folded my arms angrily and turned away.

Aside from our chitchat, all that we did was train here and there, and snoop around the city to try and dig up information, but that didn’t go so well. There wasn’t much to do really. We just, waited around. But to be sure Ulanos wasn’t planning anything stupid, I sent out two clones on the biggest ports of Ulanos to monitor their activity. It seemed they really recalled their men from other countries. Methelia remained nice and peaceful.

~

The fateful day came around eventually. According to Aaralyn, the Firmament really was like the holy ground of all that Ulanos stood for. Not even the Sword Sovereign could defy its rules. It made me wonder what exactly they would do against someone who was literally the strongest of the entire country. Apart from that, your entire reputation will shatter if you dishonour the code of the Firmament. He couldn’t directly touch us, no matter how bad he wanted to kill us. Well, he did send assassins after us before, so there were workarounds to the rules.

At noon, whilst the sun was highest, brightest, hottest, we gathered at a coliseum. This was some gladiator shit. Tens of thousands of people lined the seats to spectate this day, but of course, mostly military people occupied the spaces. Even at the endgame, the harsh realities of life were present.

Fred’s family, who seemed to be quite the loving bunch, was adjacent to Aaralyn, Bianca, and I. Yes, there were stares from them. But the stares of the crowd on both parties made it even more awkward. This is really happening, huh? Wonder what’s goin’ through his head?

August King, strongest warrior of Methelia stood against Frederick Bartholomew, strongest warrior of Ulanos, in a fight that decided the fate of both nations. Perhaps my composure was due to August’s strength, but a little sliver of doubt was kicking in the back of my mind. Ulanos knew the traditions of the Firmament quite well, and respected it to the highest degree, even more than that of their Sword Sovereign. Fred’s family was ready and willing to accept what would happen if he died, they were willing to take it and never fight back.

Was I? Could I say I had the strength to deny myself the rage that would explode out of me if I saw August die by a piece of shit ruler who not only sent assassins our way but lives by the idea of profiting from death? Could I watch him in the eyes while he smiled at me without losing my mind? Could I relive the helplessness the witch made me experience when she put me through my first powerup? I knew the answer, and my conscience wouldn’t like it.

The Sword Sovereign walked out into a deafening round of applause. August, not so much. There was a lot more booing than anything else, especially when he donned the dark deathly armour. I forced him to wear it despite his qualms about it. I could tell it represented a part of him he didn’t exactly want to remember, but I’d be damned if he got a sword stuck in his neck because he didn’t want to wear some armour.

“Why are you doing this?” a voice on my right wiggled into my ear. It was a woman, one out of three or four. Her voice was a little trembly, but soft. It sounded muffled, like she didn’t even want people to read her lips. In fact, she didn’t even look at me.

I smiled, “Are you happy, ma’am?”

“No. Brother is in a Firmament with some nobody,” she replied, a hint of much expected choler stirring in her tone.

Hmm? ‘Some nobody’? Does she live under a rock? I cast Hawk Eye to better see his family, who stood right next to me. “Sweetie, your brother is…” I trailed off on purpose, and some of the other women perked their eyes, glanced to the left at me without actually moving their heads, or furrowed their brows a little. So, they’re all listening somehow. “Hmm, that’s some interesting magic. Well, seeing that I got the whole family’s attention, I guess I don’t have to have this conversation twice, huh?”

They all turned to look at me, children included, even those who weren’t his family, like councilmen and advisors. The last remaining general also got caught eavesdropping.

“Guess we got caught. Never mind that. Please, continue.”

I sighed a little, yawned, and took my cloak off. It was a little too hot and stuffy. “From what we’ve seen, your brother’s an ass. But I guess the grand culture of Ulanos is more to blame. We’re not some resistance party trying to usurp the throne, no, nothing like that. The rumours about us killing Ulanos people are true. Yes, we are Methelian. We’re only here to ensure our country isn’t taken over by you guys. For efficiency’s sake, it would’ve been better to continue killing en masse. But once we discovered the Firmament existed, we chose that as the lesser evil.”

“Lesser evil?” she turned her head, looked me right in the eyes. Not too covert. In fact, she walked a bit in front of me and faced me properly. She was about to say something, then stopped, “I guess it is the lesser evil.” She shrugged a little. “He didn’t explain much to us, but it was obvious what this was about. I’ve another question, Methelian. Should your ally win this fight, what will he do?”

“His very best.” What an obscure answer that was. But damn, that was a heavy question. I didn’t exactly know what August was thinking, but I could guess. The way he visited families of those deceased through the Firmament already told me enough.

The Firmament official, after his customary explanation of the rules, took his sweet time strolling off. That period always seemed like the worst. A moment where neither fighter could do anything but glower at the opponent with eyes full of angst. This time however, there was no such hatred, at least not anything the crowd could feed off of. August put his helmet on, completing the mimicry of the apparition I once saw the witch metamorphosize into.

A wave of fear washed over me the minute the official left the arena. Some people fainted, some trembled like crazy. August just used Mind Break in a densely populated area, then disappeared. Dispel released me of its bonds, but man, I nearly pissed myself. So that’s what it feels like. Man, fuckin’ scary.

Fred slumped to one knee, but suddenly dodged a strike from August. I didn’t even see when the blacksmith moved. I went into a quadrupling of Timedials just to see August move, and it still felt pretty fast, but at least I could track the movement once I paid attention. I set Hawk Eye to a good enough zoom and watched intensely.

August’s longsword barely defended against Fred’s dual swords. Almost every second, in my own time dilation, a ringing was heard. Fred’s sword lashed against August’s armour incessantly. I can’t imagine the jarring noises that must’ve been heard by the rest of the crowd in a normal time flow. To hear that after being stricken by Mind Break was probably extremely befuddling.

August’s attacks would miss, every one of them, but he didn’t seem affected by any kind of magic. That wouldn’t make sense at all, Fred must’ve known not to bother with magic. So, if August was uninhibited by magic, why were all his attacks missing. Why the hell was the Sword Sovereign so damn fast? This didn’t make sense.

Every slash was half-assed. Yet, all the attacks Fred made had connected with his armour. They were weak and light, but consecutive hits in the same place would prove troublesome. I sighed, then grunted in frustration. The Sword Sovereign’s attacks needed another stack of Timedial to properly discern.

If I do this now… I thought of the stupendously long time I’d have to stay in a warped time flow and shunted the idea. Yet, I couldn’t stop myself from doing it. Curiosity of what was going on got the better of me. Timedial increased again, bringing itself to five stacks. I knew I was going to pass out like crazy, so I’d go to the spirit world and wait for the side-effects to let up afterward.

Spectating the most important fight in Methelia’s history was now a lot easier. Fred’s insanely fast and consecutive attacks were only divided by a dodge every few time-dilated seconds. The armour was being worn out, with small gashes and dents appearing in places where Fred targeted repeatedly. But, despite their extremely intriguing gravity magic that I wanted to learn, despite their muscle-enhancement magic, despite the wind magic, the most bizarre of Fred’s attacks were their direction.

If he attacked directly in front of you, the strike would hit directly from behind. It was as if a mirrored reflection of himself attacked you from another position at the same exact time. To make things worse, he could control if the mirrored attack would actually mirror. So, at times, his sword would hit you as it usually would, and at other times a cut out of thin air would bare its fang against you. Quite an interesting technique. Ah yes, on the subject of technique – the Sword Sovereign’s was different.

In Ulanos, there seemed to be the general fighting form practised and taught through the generations. But that fighting technique would evolve from that to a simple martial art if you were to become a Sword Paragon. Above the Sword Paragons, were the assassination unit that served directly under the Sword Sovereign himself. Bianca was apparently part of that unit, but she kept it secret. Her training was never finished though. These assassins would be the experts in the sword martial arts that Ulanos so loved. Their movements were small, giving no openings and having no extra flare. The fastest, simplest attacks won every time, as long as proper form was used and the strike was aimed well. The assassins, even stronger than Sword Paragons, were nothing compared to the Sword Sovereign.

What made his technique truly unique, was that he never fully conformed to that of the usual. Assassins were the best at totally mastering the form behind any movement they made, but it was as if they were bound to these movements. They couldn’t deviate, or perhaps found that there was never a need to. Fred, however, deviated and switched up his sword’s trajectory, his pacing, even the damn direction his eyes looked in. For a lack of better words, he was unpredictable. The movements he made were obscure and hard to track.

Things weren’t looking good for August. The armour was being beaten into, until Fred ran his sword right through August’s side. He hit that part so many times, it eventually left an opening.

They both paused, their bodies not moving an inch. August spat some blood out, and immediately after, Fred followed. This, doesn’t make sense. August hadn’t laid a finger on Fred, but somehow, he was injured. The sword got yanked out, and they both fell to a knee.

The crowd couldn’t understand what was going on. The lingering effects of Mind Break, coupled with the speed the two combatants moved at was probably nothing more than a blur. I couldn’t imagine how the officials would determine that the duel was just, but I guess they didn’t need to. In truth, once a Firmament started, the only rule that existed was that the fighters weren’t allowed to directly target anyone aside from the other fighter. Other than that, there were no rules. Whoever didn’t die was the winner.

With the sight before us, no one could guess who the winner would be. They both looked equally messed up, but that would change in a few seconds thanks to August’s health regeneration enchantment. He picked himself up quickly, holding the injury until it closed up.

“I’m sorry but, isn’t there some way to avoid this?” Fred’s sister asked. “Please.”

“Why ask that now?”

“Why?” a quiet storm rumbled in her voice. She pulled on my shoulder to get my attention, then placed her lips close to my ear. “He can’t win, please. His ability to move like that only lasts for a few minutes.”

Hmm? Looking at them fight now, the Sword Sovereign did indeed slow down a little, but he was probably still too fast for those without Timedial’s point of view to see the difference. So, he was in some sort of buffed mode. Hmm, even out of it, he would still be stronger than the assassins.

“Well?!” the woman persisted.

I made a clone, “Here, you can use this guy to speak elsewhere in private. Hurry up and make a decision before the fight’s over.” She nodded and my clone flew out of the coliseum with her.

My focus went back to the fight. Fred still connected with a lot of the attacks, but they weren’t in any compromised spots of the armour. After a while, I saw August face his longsword directly upwards. Just at that split second, my clone transferred his memories to mine.

Shit! This fight had to stop, and I knew that the last time August held his sword upright like that, he used all the quintessential energy his body could handle. Not even the Sword Sovereign with whatever buff he used would be able to defend against that.

Voidwalk consumed my body into the void and I flew down at August. Before I got there, I used Invisibility then removed Voidwalk, that way, he could actually hear me saying “don’t kill him!”, but words were too late. He was already in the motion. Instead, I stacked as many Purist buffs as I could whilst his iridescent blade descended. A focused Convergence slowed that enchanted blade enough so that Fred could dodge. Using it on August himself wouldn’t make too much sense, considering his magic resistance.

“What was that?!” Fred inquired, snarling a bit. “Distract yourself not. Do not disgrace my honour by going easy on me!”

I looked at Fred, the same way August did – piteously. That was a defeatist statement he made. It was one we looked upon with scorn as well, but not because it was a defeatist way of thinking. We hated it because we saw time and time again the grieving faces of fallen Firmament participants’ families. “You’re so damn selfish, you rather die honourably than live with a little shame with your family. Well,” August gripped the handle of his sword, “that’s fine by me!”

“August! Don’t!” I yelled out, not even trying to hide my presence this time. “August!”

The blacksmith still continued, swinging his longsword with the idea of separating the Sword Sovereign by the waist. Fred relaxed his stance and smiled contently; he was ready to face death. Before the blade could collide, I blasted August away with Divergence. He smashed into the brick wall of the arena.

“What are you doing, Eric?!” he fumed, then bust out of the wall, going straight for Fred. His blade was mere inches from its target, but I stopped him again. He turned his head towards me slowly.

“You know the implications with what you’re trying to do, right?” he gave me his full attention.

“Yeah. Besides, you’re going to have to learn some things from him. Can’t do that if he’s dead.”

“Hmm, suppose you’re right, bud,” August shrugged and continued closer to where the official was.

I flew back undetected to my previous spot, earning a “thank you” from Fred’s sister.

Some minutes of discussion later, the official announced what happened to the crowd. “Ladies, gentlemen. Due to the very reason behind the Firmament being knowledge directly from the Sword Sovereign, the challenger, August King, has requested a non-mortal Firmament. In considering the surrender of the Sword Sovereign, it has been decided that the request will be granted.”

The official reworked the contracts, and had both fighters sign off on it. It was to confirm that Frederick Bartholomew did indeed lose to August King in a Firmament, but was allowed to live under the special circumstance that the loser needed to pass on knowledge along with whatever else he owned.

The crowd was deathly silent. I’d assume we’d hear some kind of booing or cheering, but there was nothing of the sort. “Thank you, again, Methelian. I guess this means your friend is now my brother,” Fred’s sister said.

“Hmm? Oh yeah. It does mean that, huh?” I laughed a little.

A week or so later would make it four months being in Ulanos, and it would also mean that August swore in as head of state of an enemy country that was many times bigger than ours. He was now an Ulanosian Sword Sovereign and a Methelian blacksmith at the same time. All the paperwork went through. The coronation was weird as hell, but people began warming up to him after he spoke of his plans to stop all wars and only allow the military minimal funding. Truly, when he spoke of this, I wasn’t surprised. But what did surprise me was how easy the masses just ate his words up. They were starving for someone to say those things to them.

He began with the promise of focusing on self-sufficiency through the agricultural industry. And guess who was supposed to ensure that all the major farmers were properly equipped and on their feet in just two months’ time? Yours truly. Guess whose job it was to help with works and repairs, maintenance, and upgrades on government facilities like hospitals, clinics, and whatever government structure you could think of? Me. Until Ulanos could get back on its feet and sustain itself without the use of picking up arms, my life was going to be hell.

Thankfully, during all this time, August surrounded himself with trustworthy and reliable people who would eventually take the burden off of him. But for the first two months of being Sword Sovereign, he literally made every decision. His entire day was filled with reading and signing documents, making peace treaties with countries previously taken over by Ulanos, and sleeping. He had no time at all to practise any spells, and neither did I.

I was the real mule here. Major roads were finally properly paved. Business flourished. There were jobs available to the vast majority in just those two months. The following two months were much of the same, but people honed their craft, giving me a lot less work. Besides, the first two months I’d already constructed and revisited many architectural marvels suited for a country of this population. If by now, people still hated us, then it was because we murdered by the masses at first and nothing else. We did so much for those people in those four months that they probably had forgotten about the blood on our hands.