Today Hoss welcomed the arrival of the empire's army, people gathered on the side of the main street threw flowers at them as the officials paraded towards the citadel.

The Esha empire sent two armies: the first was one of their standard armies, the Third Holy Legion, the second was an elite team called second Purification Brigade.

The base component of a standard army of the empire was a team of nine soldiers and one cleric, the cleric was a low-rank member of the church and had the duty of commanding the soldiers from the back and supporting them with holy and life spells.

Ten teams formed a centuria, so ninety soldiers, ten clerics, plus one paladin and one priest. paladins were individuals with extraordinary strength, they were usually nobles but sometimes also adventurers or veteran soldiers and had the duty to lead the centuria from the front, act as an example for the soldiers, and raise their morale. The priest was the one that actually commanded the centuria, giving his orders to the clerics and the paladin, and they also had to support the soldiers and the paladin with their spells.

Five centuriae formed a cohort, so four hundred fifty soldiers, fifty clerics, five paladins, five priests, plus one high-paladin and one high-priest. A high-paladin was essentially a stronger paladin but it rarely was a veteran soldier or adventurer, they were usually nobles, while a high priest was the one in charge of the cohort.

Then, finally, ten cohorts formed a legion, so four thousand five hundred soldiers, five hundred clerics, fifty paladins, fifty priests, five high paladins, five high priests, and one commander, five thousand sixty-six in total without counting the logistic's staff.

The legion was composed only of infantry, horses would be impractical against the league and its allies, which used few but very mobile and strong units.

Although warriors were the majority they weren't the only type of soldier, there were also magicians, archers, scouts, and magic swordsmen. Each type of unit was teamed with others of the same type, and different kinds of teams were distributed on the battlefield by the commanding officers

All the legions had the appellative holy, but it was just a formal name, they had nothing of holy in them.

The legions' soldiers were usually mostly conscripts since the empire usually relied on the strength of numbers buffed by their clerics and fed by their huge agricultural production, but since Hoss had only so many supplies and it would be hard to ship too much cargo here, they sent only one legion.

The Third Holy Legion wasn't just any legion though, it had only professional soldiers and many veterans.

And about the Purification Brigade, initially, I didn't find too much information about them, I just found out they were an elite, independent team composed of a variable number of members of the church called purificators, and weaker, but more numerous soldiers called martyrs. After asking some questions to various merchants in taverns though, I found out they had a very bad reputation in the empire, the purificators were all veteran soldiers gathered from all walks of life: mercenaries, commoner soldiers, adventurers, sometimes even bandits, anyone was fine as long as they were strong. They were technically part of the church, but only their commander was of noble birth and all the others were people that just couldn't live any other way. People destroyed by war and rebuilt as monsters by the empire, they were known for their crimes of war and unruliness, but their misdeeds were ignored, as long as they stayed in the brigade. They were usually used for the toughest duties and it was believed that this time, it was to kill Zaven's champion, Belisar, the strongest man on the continent.

The martyrs instead were criminals sentenced to death who were offered a way out, all they did was act as a meat shield for the purificators. Martyrs and purificators were dressed in the same uniforms, but they distinguished themselves by drawing various random symbols with illusion magic on their uniforms, of which only one was common to all the purificators. The symbols changed every battle and this way there was a chance a purificator managed to kill an objective by hiding among the martyrs while concealing his magic power. It was possible to recognize stronger people even if they tried to hide their power, but it was difficult to do in the middle of a battle.

We watched the officials enter the citadel and then followed Alua inside to meet them. We entered a room adorned with precious mobiles and ceremonial weapons hung to the walls. Twelve people were sitting on a round table and behind eleven of them, another person was standing still.

The ones sitting were the five high-priests, the five high-paladins and the commander of the Third Holy Legion, and the commander of the Purification Brigade. The ones standing behind them were young nobles from the empire acting as aide officers for the officials of the legion.

The first man to whom I concentrated my attention was the commander of the Purification Brigade, he was quite burly and had a scar on his face but his look was neat and his demeanour was composed. What caught my attention the most was his glance, he had a firm and intense glance, but it didn't seem threatening at all. He didn't look like a bloodthirsty heathen, but never judge a look by its cover, I guess.

The second I looked was the man seated in the central chair, the commander of the legion.

He looked like an ordinary man but he had a confident stance and a firm look.

“Allow me to present you the empire's hero, Mark, and Hoss's heroes, Oliver and David.”

Alua said.

The legion's general then said:

“Well, I can feel you have a good amount of strength, I am Var Denzar, general of the Third Holy Legion and this is Ces Brigh, my aide.”

The young man behind him made a step forward and did the military salute.

“I am Ces Brigh, I look forward to working with you, heroes.”

He was quite a feminine-looking man, he had not many muscles and his shoulders were quite thin shoulders, on top of all that his hair was long. He was looking at us with interest, but he didn't seem nervous at all.

We all made the salute to him and the general.

Then it was the brigade's general's turn.

“I'm the brigade's general, call me Brom.”

He ended it with just that. We saluted him too and then every other official started presenting themselves and their aide in turn.

There wasn't much that caught my eye in those men and women, the only interesting-looking ones were Brom and Ces.

Those two continued to stare at us from beginning to end, probably to measure our ability to react to distress, one with a stern look, one with an entertained expression.

After that we all left, the officials had to meet some other nobles of the citadel so they stayed in.

I and Mark headed to the training room for some extra training and he asked Oliver if he wanted to come along, he agreed to spar for a bit and followed us.

Roxanne and Lae were already waiting for us, Roxanne was wearing training clothes, while Lae was in her usual maid uniform.

Mark has been teaching Roxanne the basics for the past few weeks, it wasn't much time but she had been training on her own whenever she found the time. She hadn't any chance to hunt any monster though.

She stopped chatting with Lae and took up her wooden sword and shield, she was aiming to become a pure warrior, one focused more on offence rather than protection.

While Mark trained Roxanne to deal with ranged attacks with the help of Oliver, I went over to Lae. She seemed more cheerful lately, I think having Roxanne by her side was helping her a lot.

I started my training too. My objectives now were two: improve my use of the hellflame attribute, and unlock the necromancy attribute.

I needed to master the hellflame attribute as soon as possible since once this war was over I would also lose most of my value until the next one, and since I showed to be difficult to control, Hoss could become a dangerous place for me once the war would be over. At that time I'll need to be able to flee and fend for myself.

Once that is done, I'll also need an army, and becoming a necromancer was the fastest and most reliable way to gain loyal subordinates. Since I'm a magic swordsman, I won't be able to build an army as strong as the one of a pure magician, but I will be able to cover up most necromancer's greatest weakness, their lack of self-defense capability. I will also be able to first go all out with my hellflame and demonic martial arts and then heal myself while being protected by my minions, that would be a strong strategy, although a dangerous one.

Right now I needed to train more in the hellflame attribute first, but I couldn't do it in broad daylight, I managed to train a little in my room like I used to, but now the best I could do was train my fire attribute to bring its harmonization as close as I could to my demonic attribute's.

I started practising my fire magic, first using Flamethrower, then Fire Ball, then I tried a new spell, Fire Mine. This spell was self-explanatory, it was a spell that lasted for a certain amount of time and exploded if someone went near it. It consumed more mana than just inscribing a fire rune on a stone and throwing it, but it was invisible and I could move it more freely. Right now I still needed to chant an aria, but eventually, I'll become able to use it without chanting.

Arias weren't required for spells, they just helped the magician to create the mental image of the spell, they saved you a lot of mana at the beginning, but with practice, the difference became littler and littler. Chanting also added you a not ignorable amount of coolness.

“Oh cursed flame of wrath, bathe mine enemies in thine ire, slither unseen upon them and chastise them for their foolishness, Fire Mine.”

This aria was my own creation, I was very proud of it.

A lump of fire mana went out of my wand and I commanded it around the training ground and then made it explode away from everyone.

After a while, Mark left Roxanne practising on her own and asked me for a spar, it was now a habit of ours to spare at least once every training. Oliver also decided to watch our spar and then go away.

I and Mark took position. He then used Flash Leap to charge at me, I enhanced my reflexes with fire ki and deviated his swing with my own, I hurt my wrist a little doing that, but it was necessary to win. I tried to hit him, but he infused his shield with earth mana and blocked my hit, he then tried to hit me with the hilt of his blade but I dodged, jumped backward, and created a thin barrier of flames in front of me. Using our spells all out was still out of the question, but by infusing very little mana we could just hit each other and just pretend they were the real deal.

He backed away and shot a light arrow from behind the fire wall, I dodged that too and then created a cloud of black smoke around me.

Mark created light around him to block me from approaching with Shadow Leap and then started throwing light arrows inside the smoke, I wasn't there anymore though. Instead of using Shadow Leap to approach, I jumped to the ceiling and then used the first step of Shadow Leap to stick my boots to the ceiling. That was the only part of that martial art I used, I then used a lot of fire ki to jump towards Mark.

He was caught by surprise couldn't react in time, I just passed by him, but he knew that in a real fight, I would have cut his head off.

“It seems I still can't beat you, how the hell do you come up with something new every time?”

“That wasn't that complicated, you should expect everything in battle, mana and ki can create a lot of unexpected situations.”

While I and Mark were talking, a third person butted in.

“Are you still settled on joining this madness, Mark? There's still time to change your decision.”

It was Erian, it seems she entered the room while we were fighting.

Today her expression didn't show her usual polite gentleness, her expression was blank, it seemed she was trying to create some distance between us.

“I am, I have no other choice.”

“You could just decide to stop trying to become strong at all costs.”

“I can't do that.”

She paused for a few seconds, she still didn't show any expression. I used to find her attractive, but lately, I've been feeling that less and less and today I didn't feel anything by looking at her.

“Then I have nothing to talk you about, I hope you at least don't become as deranged as that man.”

She looked at me with disgust. I just stayed silent, her disdain didn't touch me.

I touched Mark's shoulder and said:

“Remember, you have to make sacrifices to obtain the power to fight the fate over the ones you love.”

I and Mark looked at each other.

“So, should we spar some more? We'll depart in a day, we won't be able to train much there.”

I said.

“Good idea.”

Oliver then said:

“I think I'll train some more too.”

“Selfish fools.”

With those words, Erian left the room and we were left to our training.

We trained until it was time to eat.

That evening I returned to my room and meditated about suffering while circulating hellflame ki in my body.

Several events from my past resurfaced from my past and they brought pain with them. I used to seal away at that pain or ignore it, but now I could turn it into a weapon, so I instead welcomed it and nurtured it. My pain was now the best weapon I had to defeat fate so if I had to deepen my wounds to become stronger so be it. I continued playing those memories over and over, my breath became faster and I started sweating. I felt the hellflame attribute boiling inside me and continued on.

Suddenly I started feeling panic rise up on me, I felt frail and powerless, now I couldn't stop those memories anymore, I was trapped inside them.

I felt myself falling apart like all I built just broke and I was back to the weak me. This wasn't new to me though, I've been repeating this process since I learned the hellflame attribute, I knew what I needed to do.

I increased the hellflame ki inside me and used all the mental strength I had to change what I was seeing.

The younger me grew claws and fangs, his eyes became red and he started emanating hellflame fire. He then jumped on the people in front of him and start tearing them apart. Now euphoria joined the mixed feelings I was feeling, the more I felt afraid the more violent the younger me became. I pushed my mind to the limit and felt the broken pieces of me come together in a new, stronger form, I glued them together forcefully in the form of that demonic me.

When I felt I was starting to lose the grip on myself and my mind was becoming lighter, I slowed down, I reduced the hellflame ki I was circulating, and eventually, I stopped.

I breathed out, this was a very intense exercise I discovered by training by myself, it was a bit risky but I felt my harmonization growing each time.

The form the younger me assumed was always slightly different, but it always had some kind of beastly appearance and it was always very strong. That was the power I sought, the power to fight fate and never be afraid of it ever again. I didn't want to lose myself though, I needed to remain human while obtaining the power of a demon, that wasn't easy, but I had no other chance but to do it.

I threw myself on the bed out of tiredness, I looked at the moonlight, it was the perfect night to call Kaguya, but I didn't want to do it.

I didn't call her again once since the night I went into overflow, I didn't want to rely on that thing again.

I needed to learn to fend for myself, I couldn't rely on a ghost to find relief, I needed to create real bounds. That way I would also feel stronger emotions, and stronger emotions meant stronger drive and strongest demonic attribute.

Calling her would make me weak right now.

I resisted the urge and closed my eyes, the loneliness felt heavy, but I had to endure it. It took longer than usual, but eventually, I fell asleep.