A man sat at a round table. He was one of thirty people, dressed in large billowing cloaks and favouring large white beards and white hair. And their faces were so pale they almost looked like plain white paper. There were three females there as well, and one was sat at a seat of honour when compared to the others. Their hair was white as well.

"The Ma'la have formed a treaty with the children of Burn. The suspicion is they will attack us first."

"Are you sure?" the woman on the seat of honour asked.

"Yes," another person answered. "It was predicted that once they finished their infighting, they would look to expand their influence outwards."

"And? Which dynasty won?"

"The Clearseas. The Ma'la are under one banner now. They will look to unite the rest of the world in their image."

"And the Burners think they can coexist with their natural opposites? How foolish," another man spat, and Rafe felt the vitriol and ridicule of the man he was occupying.

"We cannot win against those two, can we?" the female leader asked.

No one answered for a time. Then the man Rafe was occupying stood up. Rafe could feel his emotions, but he couldn't read the man's thoughts clearly. He couldn't just read the history of Primus that easily.

"We could certainly challenge the Ma'la, but an alliance with the Burners…. What do we do?" Rafe's mouth asked, even though he hadn't ordered it too.

"We await the wisdom of the Northern Wind," the whole table chorused, Rafe joining them.

The woman, who had looked so big and regal and very impressive earlier now folded in on herself. Their hair might have been naturally white, but hers helped hide her advanced age. Hers was a tired sigh.

"There will be sacrifices. Let the young evacuate the Sky islands. The rest of us shall fight a retreating battle towards the opposite direction. Just so you all know, this is a sacrifice for the survival of our people. We will most likely die."

"And the skies?" someone asked, and Rafe looked at the North Wind with some mild curiosity.

"Those fools do not know the reason for the old agreements. They think us haughty for staying here, for isolating ourselves in the sky. They know not that this world needs all of us in harmony. Let the Sky beasts ravage their homes. Maybe they will learn."

Rafe's host was an important minister or some such. He had to lead. Lead a war. A war in which thousands of their people died. And the man's heart, with his people, slowly died.

On his hundredth floating island battle, Rafe's host died after he threw himself to battle against a talented flame sword.

****

In his next life, Rafe was in a smelly, dark, and lonely alley. It did not take him long to find a puddle on a well lit street, and to look into it and see himself. He was dirty and his face was lined with black stains. He touched one, seeing a line of grime fall off his face. His hair was green. Dull and dirty, but green. In this kingdom, buildings had a way about them.

The wind Elemenoids Rafe had been with at first lived in the skies. They lived on islands that floated among the clouds. They built simple wooden structures. It was why the fire mages had been especially effective against them. They'd burned their homes and let the fires spread naturally.

Now the Earth were going to be attacked, it seemed. Rafe knew now what was happening.

The water kingdom had taken over the planet. It was why Helare Clearsea was the princess of the whole world. He wondered what seeing it from all these perspectives helped with though.

"Did you hear?" a woman whispered to a friend as they rushed past the dirty orphan. "The Oenthurst Kingdom was destroyed."

"But didn't they have the indestructible Stormwalls guarding their capital?"

"They did. I hope our king knows not to try and bargain. Just open the gates and let them in. Maybe they'll make him a Duke of the new world or something."

They did not. Rafe did not participate in the war this time. He just watched, ignored as he was. He got information. A lot of it. Apparently, the gods had been quiet.

Dust to Dust, Gaia, Terra. All the gods of Earth had not been heard from for years. Only the Ma'la could still count on miracles from their gods when they prayed hard enough.

The king had apparently tried to surrender. He and his closest confidant, the prime minister, had been killed and their heads displayed to the capital before the attackers continued their charge.

Rafe did not understand. What was the war about? Was it about race, religion? Was it a war to obtain more land? Maybe they were fighting over some lost resource?

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But then again, did it matter? Did warmongers ever need a reason? To spread our religion, some would say. Our god's greatest rule is peace and love. Now, please die. That is what our god of peace and love needs from all of you.

Rafe started to wonder, towards the end. Why this vision? It was especially gruesome, and buildings were exploded and women and children were killed in their homes if they could not run, but Rafe still didn't see what was special about this particular vision.

That was until they came. Creatures big and small. Leathery and feathered. With carrion on their breaths. They swooped down on the now open city. And no one was an exception. Not the attackers. Not the defenders. Not the innocent bystanders. And not Rafe's host.

****

He was of the Ma'la the next time he woke.

"I can't believe these barbarians. There is a reason this world is ninety percent water," a man garbed out like a priest preached. "For Ma'la's sake, we will wash these sinners' cities of Earth away."

"Funny he says that," the soldier next to Rafe whispered. "Wasn't the royal palace built by these same barbarians? And most of us can't survive in houses of ice, so…are we barbarians too?"

"Of course not. We have Ma'la's blood flowing through us," Rafe's host answered, and Rafe could feel the man's conviction.

That was just great. Rafe had somehow found himself a fanatic. Everyone loved a good fanatic.

"Either way, this is the last city. The largest city," a ginger haired woman came up behind them. "After this, the Ma'la will rule the world."

Rafe's host exchanged glances with his neighbor.

"Of course," Rafe's host said. "Together with our allies, the Burned."

The woman snickered. "Right," she said.

Then they all three settled into a kind of awkward silence.

"Well, at least with how exhausted your army is, we've bought ourselves enough time to survive," she said before she sauntered off.

Rafe's host and his neighbor shared looks again. Like they knew some sort of secret this woman would probably never even consider.

It was a poorly kept secret. Everyone knew the Ma'la and the Burners would clash at the end of this world war. Probably the Burners had been preparing for that clash as well.

The Ma'la though. The masters of water. Water which occupied the largest percentage of the planet. They had feared the winds a little, as air was even more ubiquitous than water. Which is why they had washed them away first.

Now they were in the last stages of dealing with the mud people, as they derogatorily called them.

At some point, the long train of soldiers stopped moving and they settled down to camp. But it was still pretty early in the day. As early as noon. Rafe's host and his neighbor speculated on what could have caused them to camp early, coming up with no promising theories so far.

That was when the rumours started. The mud people had finally gone mad. They had refused to open the gates this time.

"Don't they know it will be worse if they don't open up?"

"I guess it's better to resist a little?" one of the Ma'la said uncertainly.

"No it's not. If they open the gates, we'll only destroy and loot their houses. And kill maybe half the population. If they anger us, there is no telling what we might do," another fanatic spoke up.

Rafe wanted the whole war vision thing over and done with. He was tired of these callous assholes and how they justified their actions.

When the first day of camping ended and they were still waiting, Rafe started to get worried. But he realised the emotion was not his own. It was his host's. His host was worried about whatever the mud people were scheming.

And he was not the only one. A pervasive sense of trepidation had spread across the camp in the space of three days.

"Apparently, they have all the priests of the Dust god. And Gaia, and all the archmages too."

That was just one of many rumors spreading as to why they had not yet sacked the city.

They had cornered the mud people, as they liked to call them. The mud people had tried to surrender more than once. They had not been allowed to. Now they had been driven like cattle to their last sanctuary.

On the seventh day, the magically reinforced gate was broken through. The invaders shouted their superiority. They shouted their frustration at being denied for so long. They shouted their defiance of the terror that bullies felt when their victims fought back.

But then they poured through the gates around the walls which were falling one after the other. And the streets were empty, the houses deserted. There was not a soul in the outer districts of the largest city on Primus.

Running through a ghost town was ominous. More ominous than being held back at the gates for seven days by seemingly nothing and no one.

As they ran, the soldiers found themselves running faster. More frantically they tried to run from the outer districts. They tried to run toward the inner districts in which they'd hopefully find some people to vent their anger on.

The middle districts were empty. Maybe they shouldn't have run this deep into the ghost city. For Rafe's host, in his mind he'd come too far to give up now.They needed something to show for their work.

And then Rafe's host reached the boundary to the inner noble district and the royal palace. There everyone who reached paused. There they saw the mountains of corpses.

Not the billions that should have been what was left of the Earth Elemenoid population, but the hundreds of thousands of special people the rumours had refered to. The archmages and priests and the greatest users of Earth and all its associated elements on Primus.

The first question Rafe's host heard wasn't where the rest of the population could have gone. It was why they'd wasted their time attacking already defeated foes.

"Victory does not taste all that sweet when you do nothing to earn it!" someone shouted, trying to feel the ominous silence.

"Then again, we were simply born superior. What is the value in resisting when there is not a single chance of winning?" someone else questioned, setting off another wave of laughter.

They laughed. And Rafe saw the nervousness, the trepidation they'd been feeling start to vanish.

And that was exactly when a brown and green light shot into the sky. The millions heavy joint army had entered the confines of the city by now.

It was unlikely the Earth users were going to use an explosion, as the fire users were their opponents. So what was this trap they'd set? Rafe waited for it with baited breath.

And then it stood. And it was almost alive. It had an aura. No, it had thousands, hundreds of thousands of auras meshed together to form the aura of a great being. A being greater than anything on Primus.

"Did they…transfer their souls to a lifeless golem?" Rafe asked himself. "And is its aura…something that could crush me with a flick of its finger?"

Because it was far past the E grade. And it was almost solid. He could feel the Earth, and mud, and dust, and grass, and glass, and sand. He felt like he was being buried.

Then the creature raised its hands and the buildings imploded. Stone rained down and smashed the invaders into oblivion. And that was just the beginning.

The golem moved. It flowed through the Earth, really. Flowing towards the kingdom of the Ma'la.

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