There was a full week before the hostage exchange, and while there wasn't technically a cease-fire, there might as well have been. It was one of the reasons I pushed the time back even further, under the guise of giving them time to transport the hostages. In that time, we fully finished repairs on our ships, restocked our weapons, outfitted Nayana and Nayamere with even more fortifications, and built transport… Boxes? Giant boxes that wyverns could carry that each fit about 32 people across multiple stories.

Finally, the day arrived, and everyone stood by with nerves of steel. On the contrary, rather than fighting nervousness at all, it was almost like they were excited. I don't know how it turned out that way, but… Apparently, I was some great hero that sacrificed my own feelings for my men and their families, and once again, the loyalty of my men went up considerably. 'I bet I have Airsidh to thank for this… Wouldn't it be more accurate to say I'm an unfilial child who has no loyalty to my king?'

Because the general can only be at one place at a time, I appointed one admiral in charge of the naval forces at Nayana, and the other at Nayamere, with Philly leading a detached force responsible for using cavalry and operating the mechanisms constructed at the mouth of the bay. In some sense, any form of negotiation was a sign you were stepping towards less fighting… But at the same time… It was also the most volatile part of a war, where neither side was willing to back down. Compile that with the fact I opted to only do a partial exchange, and they weren't getting everyone back… 'So… Will they fall for the bait? Maybe not for us, but they must be feeling the tension.'

I stood atop the wall and stared out over the approaching force. They were escorting a large number of hostages… That alone was technically reason enough to bring so many troops… They were probably also being cautious to make sure we upheld our end of the bargain, but it was certainly enough to at least try and launch a siege too. 'It's too early to tell…'

"Siya? Uhm… What's going on?"

I turned over to see Hara anxiously standing, prepared to defend the wall like I ordered, but… Oblivious to the situation somehow. 'I suppose leaking information to the "prisoner" wouldn't be ideal, but I'm surprised she didn't find out. With my arms sternly folded over my chest, I looked back over the barren field as they marched the prisoners to the forefront. "A hostage exchange. We give them their people and they return ours."

She suddenly turned pale as her breath got caught in her chest for a moment before becoming shallow.

"You're afraid of going back, aren't you… After helping the enemy so much… Not to mention failing, getting captured, your command being wiped out, and of course, even Rokai losing and trying to get you back."

Her eyes fell to the floor as her body started to shake, making me hesitantly step towards her on reflex before stopping myself from giving her a hug. 'She really looks like a scared little kid… I probably shouldn't have said all that…' "You can relax… They wanted you back, but I decided to keep you… Although that's exactly why I'm expecting a fight… It never feels good to grasp at the ocean… And come back with a handful of sand…" I turned around and marched to the back of the wall, leaning over the railing. "OPEN THE GATES!" I yelled. 'Let's get this started. If worse comes to worse, we not only have an advantage… But in terms of strength, we will decimate them… I have more than one secret weapon this time. It's not like before, where I'm just picking up broken pieces… This is an entirely different war…'

The gates opened, and Al handled the exchange of prisoners. Of course… They weren't happy when they found out Rokai had lost an arm, and was still hardly able to use the one he still had… But hey… They never asked… Despite that, it went surprisingly smoothly. All 20 commanders and the 4 regiments comprising another thousand soldiers were all peacefully returned and immediately escorted away from the wall and towards Nayamere, where they would regroup. Even without them, we had the ideal number of troops there, any more would make it crowded.

"S-so are we not fighting?" Hara asked, trembling in fear.

'I've been watching them closely… Despite only sending this many troops to the gate… There is an entire army sitting right behind that mountain…With just the escort, it would be iffy, but if they brought that many…' "We're definitely fighting…" I rested a hand on her shoulder, making her jump at first, but then finally stop shaking a moment after. "I'm not going to make you fight them, but I'll definitely make sure you won't be going back with them either."

I knew she was scared of the empire, or… At least anxious… But I didn't expect to see her smile when I said I wouldn't let her go… 'I even lied and said they wanted her back… Was her life that hard? A sage? Seriously… nothing in the empire makes any sense…' Once everyone was inside, we closed the gates and began scrambling to prepare for war.

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"You really think they'll attack?"

'Maybe I should send her away… She probably doesn't need any more trauma from her people being slaughtered like a highway of grapes popping under a car.' I turned back to what would soon be a battlefield and slowly took in the orange sky and quiet rocky plains. "If it's a bluff, then that's fine too, but with the exchange having gone through any unspoken cease-fire is now completely over. It wouldn't be unreasonable for them to come at us, but they won't make it obvious… From what I've seen so far, they aren't stupid… But they aren't that smart either. Most likely, that's exclusive to this legion. The sage seems to act a bit childish, and it shows in their forceful movements as well."

I saw an eagle and reached out my arm for it to land on, taking the message with a single word on it. "Understood." 'My people certainly have a way with words… Especially compared to the empire. Well, I guess at least I know everyone got the message to prepare for battle.'

Walking over to one of the soldiers, I handed off the bird. "Send out all the letters." 'With every step up, I'm evolving this ability of mine… But I can feel there is more to it. I'm already king… But… No, I'm more like a regent right now, or a duke… If I can somehow hit that extra step up, that would be great… What I really want is a faster response time on my orders. Birds are nice, but the messages are still slow… Of course, I only say that because I'm comparing it to a video game where I tell someone to move and they move…'

"The flow of mana…"

I couldn't sense or see it, but I could see the way her eyes appeared as she stared with a finally calm expression as if she didn't understand what the flow of manna shifting meant… 'They started moving… And they aren't going away from us…' I turned back to my troops and jumped up onto the back battlement, sitting down and dangling a leg off the wall, amplifying my voice with magic. "LISTEN UP!" Everything fell dead silent, even the wind stopped at the sound of a dragon's command, and the wyverns raised their heads, standing tall on their perches. "I heard General Ulf and his command came back from the dead to give these guys a hard time! A personal mentor of mine, along with his command, also came back from the dead to keep fighting, all just so they could injure Rokai, which gave me the chance to sever his arm and defeat him. Even the lousy monsters these idiots kill come back to get revenge. I saw it myself as they lost thousands to undead krakens on the coast. Now don't get me wrong, it's pretty great, but I'm sick of our people dying!"

I paused and raised my head to the far tower behind us, and then to the sky and fields behind it that stretched on forever. 'I guess… Now's a good a time as any…' A soft wind filled the silence, and I stood up, raising my sword high into the air and stabbing it into the stone before tying a new flag to it. A dark moon with a white light, half blackened by the abyss, with the sun shining behind it just barely visible. Ironically, it fits in well with my family's colors of orange, red, and white. Of course… The symbol, by and large, was probably lost on all of them, but the flag was pretty, and the giant one I draped from off the wall was even better.

"An eclipse the color of rust…" Hara muttered, as if she of all people actually understood.

"It's 500 of us against 5,000 of them! So each one of you better kill at least 10, and if you do die, you better come back and kill another 20 so that you're the only one that goes down! Do you hear me?" 'It's asking a lot… If a general shouted that at me, I'd probably desert… But knowing the kind of people that live here…'

A loud cheer echoed through the valley until the ground began to shake and the very earth trembled. The moment the first empire soldier came around the bend, the war drums banged from our towers, and I shot an arrow that must have been half a mile away, splitting his helmet.

"Siya, do you have any idea what that symbol means?"

I chuckled, turning back to Hara at my side. "Well, hey, if the people here are so willing to defend this land that they come back and die for it twice… I might as well embrace it… The undead legion seems fitting, doesn't it?"

She blankly stared back at me. "Th-the riftwalkers weren't just relentless, though."

"It's true that most turned into demons… But when the frost moon entered the abyss, it became more common for them to become undead, with nowhere for their souls to travel to after death, they simply returned to their bodies and kept fighting… Even those that turned to demons ended up becoming lost spirits that still follow and relentlessly hunt demons."

"H-how…"

"Let's just say… I read it in a book somewhere…" I slowly lowered my bow. "That empire you came from… They should have figured it out the first time… Or do you think the ghosts haunting the north so you can't use the land are a coincidence…"

Massive flaming boulders were thrown from trebuchets behind the wall and decimated the mountain range, opening up sight lines for their army up to a mile away. The empire's forces began to charge, but her movements were hampered at every turn. Before long, monsters swarmed them from behind, and as they approached the wall wyvern's breath scorched them like burning oil running through a pipeline.

By the time they made it over a thousand of them had already died, even with their mages desperately trying to put up barriers. 'It was good that I kept Rune and Vive out of this one…'

The wyverns fell back before they were snagged by nasty spells and just before reaching the wall, Kylo's white breath completely melted their siege tower, leaving a pile of burnt ash on the ground, breaking through even the magic barriers they had cast around it.

As he did so, I let out my roar, followed by the screeching call of the wyverns, and the fear set in like honey slowly sinking into milk. In a last-ditch effort, the sage summoned all the magic she could to obliterate the wall with a massive barrage of boulders that defaced the mountain even further, but with Hara able to take manna from me… And 15 wyverns… She never stood a chance…

All the mages attacked the wall together, but still the barrier was unyielding. Ironic though it may have been… My side had better magic… Though… I wasn't expecting Hara to actually be a part of my side…

With no other options, they began scaling the wall with their mounts and ladders, charging up to their inevitable deaths. A shot from our bows didn't just pierce armor but took off limbs, and a swing from our greatswords could decapitate three men at once… Their mounts were surprisingly dangerous… And the riders even more so, swinging spears enchanted with lightning… But in the end, they could only do so much… Trying to climb vertically up 50 feet in that kind of situation… Had they had a better commander, maybe things would have been different.

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