A man dressed in the armor of the Lionheart Town City Guard burst into the main chamber of a huge manor. The lower half of the building was fortified with stone and it was so large it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to call it a Castle or Fortress rather than just a manor. The guard’s boots scuffed on the smooth stone tiles and he dropped to his knees in front of a man who was busy admiring a large painting on the wall.

A look at the painting would quickly draw a comparison with the man standing in front of it. He was busy running his hand over his short goatee and admiring the painting of himself. The guard didn’t lift his head, it was now a well known taboo not to look at the City Lord’s face. He could only hold up his hands, with cupped fists and call out to him, “Forgive me for disturbing you, my Lord. There is an emergency from the gates! Five people have arrived demanding you come out and the guards can not stop them!”

The man looking at the painting was startled from his revelry and turned over towards the guard with a sneer, “Just five? Who are they? Where are they from?”

“Please forgive me, Sir. They did not say, but they are not wearing the uniform of any of the great powers. They are dressed very strangely. They haven’t killed anyone yet, but we are unable to capture or harm them in any way.”

“A bunch of nobodies trying to use me as a stepping stone, huh? What exactly did they say?”

The guard felt cold sweat pouring down his back and staining his forehead, “If I were to repeat such things I…”

“Just say it.”

“They… They…”

“Out with it, man!”

The guard started to repeat the youth’s words and after he said ‘kiss this grandfather’s feet’, the City Lord was already visibly shaking with rage. When the words were finished, the man gave the city guard a kick. The guard flew backwards like a rag doll and smashed against a stone wall of the large room, unconscious and only barely clinging to his life. Without another moment of thought, the City Lord strode from the room while barking out loud orders.

What followed next was akin to kicking a hornet’s nest.

The whole city of Lionheart Town seemed to come alive as City Guard members swarmed up onto the walls, the large crossbows in their hands were their stingers, striking out at the group outside. The five young folk weren’t foolish enough to face all of that firepower and retreated back outside the range of the guards on the wall. Inside the city, messengers were running everywhere as the local influential people gathered information on the situation while others plotted in the dark, wanting to see if this was the best time to undermine the City Lord. The full might of the City Lord’s personal faction was suddenly brought to bear, with large squads of City Guards gathering in all the important points in town, suppressing the other local factions to prevent them from getting any ideas.

That was only the beginning as the City Lord’s personal army was then put into play. The City Guards were the local police and perimeter defense, while the true might of the City Lord were the three Legions of the Jade Horde that lived in and around Lionheart Town. One of them was constantly garrisoned next to the City Lord’s Manor while the other two lived in military camps only a few miles outside of town. Not only were magic tools used to message the two external legions, even physical riders left Lionheart Town to deliver orders. Surprisingly, the five attackers didn’t care in the least, not moving to intercept even the riders let alone the faster and harder to catch magic tools.

Within just a quarter hour, the five found themselves facing three whole legions of the Jade Horde. Three thousand soldiers now bearing down on them, using the city wall to act as the fourth side to a square around them. The five had plenty of time to flee from the two legions wheeling around them and could even see the closer third legion leaving the city and forming up to complete the perimeter. They seemed worried about the five of them escaping, so the legions had formed a square with a thousand yards on each side, giving them a huge buffer of space.

At that time, the five offenders still didn’t seem very worried, their faces completely calm, even cold. Some of them began to point out a few of the Jade Horde members and then they all shared a cold gaze. The same loudmouth who spoke at the gates stepped up again, reaching up to fluff his white fur collar before yelling again, “If it isn’t the Strongfist Brothers! Three useless monkeys, following around a pathetic excuse for a City Lord and cleaning up his crap!”

The three in question were each sitting next to the Legionnaire’s of the three Legions. They were mounted on those bright silver Vulture Gecko’s and leading two hundred cavalry. According to the plan long ago, Sage had aimed for half of each Legion to be normal infantry, along with two hundred cavalry and three hundred archers. Twelve years later, it seems his plan had long been implemented, they no longer suffered from a shortage of equipment and mounts.

The three insulted men gave an order of their own. They outranked the Legionnaire’s in charge of the three legions, as the three of them shared a single position in the Seven Stars. Even though they’d broken to Core Formation, they were still looked down upon by the other members of the Seven Stars and treated as a single person. Abbot Kunga still hadn’t broken through and formed his core, yet he was still seen as superior to the three brothers. They also knew that the other Seven Stars looked down upon Qian De, the rich jerk who bought his way in, but because of his wealth the Seven Stars always treated him with great dignity. The Strongfist Brothers were always left at the bottom of the pecking order when it came to their internal politics. They always had to hold in their anger and stay humble in front of the others, but now some no name nobodies were here insulting them?

The three Legions of the Jade Horde clanked their halberds against their shields and started to advance towards the five trapped in the center. They tightened the encirclement slowly and carefully, turning the thousand yard square into a five hundred yard square. As they moved, the soldiers started to change positions. The front line of soldiers stayed in a shield wall, but those in the back started to form up into formations. Their armor started to glow, a dozen took a hexagonal shape and those around them formed into spiraling lines. Three of these formations formed up behind each of the shield walls, one each for the archers, cavalry and infantry. Given their different roles, they were free to swap formations separately from the others. Such coordination would be astounding among normal troops, something only the most highly trained and elite troops could pull off, but it was a very normal thing for the Jade Horde and the source of their reputation.

It’s just too bad that the five they surrounded didn’t care at all. They didn’t move when the troops surrounded them. They didn’t move when the troops started to move closer, and they didn’t move when glowing defensive formations began to spring up around the Jade Horde. The troops reached the five hundred yard mark and stopped. Then, those in the back lifted their crossbows into the air and released a volley of bolts. Finally, the five severely outnumbered people moved.

Well, one of them did. As before, the short one lifted his sword and gave it a large wave. Energy spilled forth from the tip of his sword and up into the sky, swirling around and forming clouds in its wake. Just like that, the weather changed in that small area and the troops of the Jade Horde could feel the cold winds blasting against them. Snow fell from newly formed clouds and the winds picked up as a tiny blizzard formed above them. The furious wind and snow clipped the wings of those falling crossbow bolts. The short and stubby arrows seemed to lose their punch. The five standing in the center faced their backs together and they didn’t even bother using weapons. Waving their hands to bat away the hundreds of bolts falling down on them like rain.

“Hey, is that it? You guys are a joke!”