From a grassy hill, a fortress had been created. A cloud of flies became an army of imps. Imps became regular monsters. Regular wildlife had been turned into King monster, and a King had changed into a Throne. A force like this, which could shake the entire Warring States, had come out of nowhere. This was high-level summoning!

Solera quavered a little bit as he looked at the demon army kneeling in front of them. If they wished to kill every single soldier from Eden here, they could probably do it. Was this the power of Sky?

“Welcome to Land, comrades.” Skadi’s voice boomed out. “You may rise.”

The Throne rose, its feline-like eyes looking upwards. The moment it saw Skadi, it hurriedly knelt again.

“Lord Skadi. This one is ashamed.”

“Ha ha!” Skadi laughed. “In Land, no matter what size we are, we are equals. Rise, soldier. It is time for you to choose a name.”

“A name…” The Throne looked excited. “As the first soldier to Descend, my name will be the Vanguard!”

“Excellent. That goes for the rest of you.” Skadi’s eyes swept over the rest of the monsters. “As members of Land, all of you will get a name from the codex!”

Without exception, every single monster eagerly roared. Solera watched on, a little confused. Did spirits not have names, even in Sky?

“Lord Skadi!” The Vanguard remained kneeling. “Where are our enemies? We will crush their artifacts and drain them of their power until not even a single iota is left!”

“Patience, soldier!” Skadi laughed again. “First, we must secure this fortress.”

He turned around to face the human soldiers. “Friends! Before, we were surrounded on all sides by the United Duchies, with nowhere to turn our backs! Now, with our compatriots from Sky here to assist, we will not be afraid. We will defend ourselves as well as our homeland behind us. Airborne to our west and tigers to our east? Let them come! We will kill them all!”

Cheers rose from all around Solera. But when he looked around, he could see countless worried, nervous faces. It seemed that they were less at ease than they were before the Sky spirits had Descended.

*****

“They’re demons! Insidious, treacherous, and devious.” Verreaux paced around the room, a dark look on his face. “It’s clear that they are not under our control. At any moment, they could backstab us. Macaw, how can you be all right with this?”

Macaw downed his alcohol. “Didn’t know those southerners got to you, too.”

“The Halo cult has nothing to do with this!” Verreaux snarled. “You and I were raised in the Bamboo Tower. You know how spirits are! Sky warps their souls. Not a single one of them is sane.”

“Heh. You’re right.” Macaw smirked. “I hope we summon some more. The Halo cult might even send some immortals over.”

“Macaw, you… does your hate run that deep?” Verreaux growled. “You would ignore your own experience just for that? If the Halo cult said one plus one was two, would you also disagree?”

“Are spirits that bad?” Solera frowned. The spirits at the Grove, without exception, were docile creatures. Imps even served him breakfast and made his bed! He had never seriously considered the idea that spirits could be malicious.

“Yes, Solera.” Verreaux wiped his brow. “The Bamboo Tower is where Eden’s summoners are trained. Go there, and you will see. How many minds have been broken by the spirits they summoned? How many families have lost children to rogue monsters? Too many to count.”

Solera didn’t really know what to say to that.

“I have a problem as well.” Chianti spoke up after a moment. “That King Tiger already had a spirit possessing it. How was the Throne able to seize control away from that spirit while undergoing its mutation?”

“Brute force.” Chip said calmly as he read his manual. “Only a very large and very capable spirit could do it. Thrones are at the very least the size of a full-grown man, and this one had the control over itself to pull it off.”

A spirit the size of a full-grown man? The spirits that had become imps were perhaps the size of a grain of sand at most! Solera marveled at the astonishing difference in power between them.

“Look, this is all beside the point.” Verreaux sighed. “I really don’t want to stay in the same fortress as that monster army. I don’t trust Skadi, either. He is the definition of fishy.”

“Well, we take what we can get.” Macaw drank again. “You heard the news, right? The Lynx has arrived from the other side of the Duchies along with her tigers. Which spirits do you prefer, theirs or ours?”

Verreaux looked at Macaw for a while. “Yours.” He grabbed the bottle out of Macaw’s mouth and chugged it all.

“Uh… let’s go get our stuff, then.” Chianti scratched her head. “Now that it’s daylight, the United Duchies can probably see that massive tree from a hundred kilometers away.”

The fortress was located at the center of the tunnel system. It was not as large as Fortress Hickory, but even if it wasn’t at the top of a hill, it would still tower over the rest of the trees in the forest. The grass growing on the hill had turned into thick, tubular vines that seemed to be able to detect Solera’s movement. A group of Vigors were forming the earth around the hill into a series of trenches and barricades. The King Eagle circled overhead, scanning the lands below.

At the base of the fortress sat the King Gorilla and the King Snapjaw. The gorilla was dumping bags of fruit into its mouth, while the snapjaw grazed on stalks of wheat laid out in front of it.

“Where is all our food coming from?” Solera asked as he watched another hundred pounds of food drop into the gorilla’s throat. If Skadi wanted to dig in for a siege with these monsters, they would be finished rather quickly.

“Look at the hill you’re walking up.” Macaw chortled as he waved his hands at the grass surrounding them. “During the summoning, the grass on this hill was mutated to grow food. As long as there’s power in the dirt, anything that grows here will reap the benefits.”

“Yeah, but grass doesn’t grow fruit.” Solera said, slightly annoyed. He was from the Grove, he knew how farming worked. “I’ve never heard of grass growing food.”

“Don’t listen to Macaw.” Chianti snickered as she pushed a wall of grass out of her way. “He’s drunk. I’m assuming Skadi or whoever planted seeds all over this hill prior to the summoning.”

“I’m not drunk!” Macaw shouted. “If spirits went into the plants, then they can mutate it. Hell, they’re listening to us right now!”

He tugged on a stalk of grass. Immediately, the stalk whipped out, landing a glancing blow onto Macaw’s body.

“See? I’m not drunk.” Macaw groaned, stumbling away. “You’re drunk. Not me.”

“... Fucking idiot.” Chianti started laughing. Solera couldn’t help but smile at Macaw’s antics as well.

The Kings paid Solera’s group no attention as they climbed up a vine hanging off a branch of the tree. It was as if they were too small to be noticed, like ants. Discomfited by the thought, he turned around and climbed up the rest of the vine.

The interior of the fortress was much like Fortress Hickory. Even the stair layout was more or less the same, only on a smaller scale. He traced his finger along the wall. Back at Fortress Hickory, he had sliced straight through the wall after using the power crystal. Now that he had the chance to see the material again, he was doubly impressed.

Seeing Solera touch the wall, Chianti scratched it a few times.

“You know, Hickory probably wasn’t made out of siehnti after all. Sky stuff, more like.”

Macaw took out his sword and swung at the wall a few times. “Can’t tell the difference. Nobody ever told me what Sky artifacts or siehnti looked like, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh, look, that’s the mess hall.” Chianti started walking towards the room which had been the command center back at Fortress Hickory. Solera could see the humans were taking up one side, while the monsters occupied the other. Despite the sheer amount of people, nobody was talking.

With only the sounds of chewing in the background, Solera grabbed some meat and rice before taking a seat in an open area near the border between the humans and the monsters. Several meters away, a cluster of imps were devouring a pile of drumsticks. Their sharp teeth tore straight through the meat and left marks on the bones, causing Solera to shudder.

“This silence is kinda weird.” Chianti muttered as she sat down next to Solera, who had already gone through more than half of his plate. “I’ve never seen a mess hall like this.”

Solera bit into a hunk of meat before shoveling rice into his mouth. “Me nheether.”

“You’ve been talking a lot more.” Chianti smiled, lifting a hand into the air and waving at Guinness. “That’s a good thing.”

“Uh…” Solera hadn’t noticed it. “Okay.”

“Oh, not that again.” Chianti rolled her eyes as she speared some peas on her fork. “Hey, you know how to maintain your sword, right? If it rusts, it-”

A howl sounded from across the room, cutting her off. Solera turned to see an old man with short white hair and his bird familiar confronting one of the humanoid monsters. The bird’s wing was torn, and bleeding. A group of nearby humans had stood up, their hands on their weapons.

“What… is the problem?” The regular spoke slowly, with a nasal voice. It seemed to have trouble speaking, probably because it had originally been an imp. Furry hair covered its entire body, and its nose had a spiky horn-like appendage protruding from it. Solera guessed that it had been a bee before it was an imp.

“Fucking goblin, who do you think you are?” The white-haired man snarled. “You want to devour Krel, and there’s no problem?”

The regular tilted its head, staring with its bulbous eyes at the white-haired man. “It is not from the Gar-den. What is the prob-lem?”

Solera could see Verreaux making his way towards the site of the altercation, a worried look in his eyes. The group of humans had grown to include around fifteen people, all staring down the regular.

“You… you motherfucker. This is my familiar!” The white-haired man shouted. “It’s not yours to eat as you please, you savage!”

Several regulars stood up to join the lone regular, one of them a two-meter tall monster that towered over everyone present.

“Watch your mou-th.” The regular growled. “I don’t like your… attitude.”

“Let it go, Scarlet.” A soldier patted the white-haired man’s shoulder. “This filth cannibalize each other all the time. It’s just a way of life for them.”

“I want repayment for my falcon!” Scarlet jabbed a finger at the regular. “You think you can just bite into its wing and get off scot-free? This is Land, not some savage netherworld! You better fix this!”

“Land trash.” The two-meter monster drawled. “Annoying like imps, but bigger.”

The monsters around him sniggered. The imps chittered indignantly, but continued to watch the spectacle.

“Hear this, infant.” The two-meter monster stared straight into Scarlet’s eyes. “We are not your subordinates. We are not like other spirits. We are more powerful than you. Therefore, you are our subordinate.”

“Excuse me?” Scarlet’s face had turned the color of his namesake with anger. “You, a spirit, would actually profess yourself to be my superior?”

All the monsters began to laugh. After a few seconds, the two-meter monster recovered, and began to speak again.

“Even the imps have better sense than you. Do you-”

“Enough, everyone.” A rumbling voice reverberated through the entire mess hall. A blur came out of nowhere, stopping in the middle of the group of humans and monsters. It was Skadi, wearing his easygoing smile again.

“We’re all on the same side here. You can already see the United Duchies outside, and you’re still bickering over these trivial things.”

Skadi chuckled. “Well, they say the closest bonds are forged in battle. I’m sure after we all kill some together, we’ll be good friends. How about it?”

Without hesitation, all the humanoid monsters knelt.

“As you command, Lord Skadi.” The two-meter monster said. “Savard is ashamed to have disturbed you.” It glanced reproachfully at the regular that had started this dispute.

“No worries.” Skadi smiled, turning towards the humans.

“Let’s go, Scarlet. I’ll get Kres treated.” A soldier pulled Scarlet away, and the group disbanded.

The mess hall returned to its quiet state. Solera finished his brunch as quickly as he could to escape the uncomfortable atmosphere.