WIEDERGEBURT Act VII: Chapter 10

Despite the protests of some, measures to evacuate the city progressed smoothly. Every Spiritualist pitched in to help load supplies onto a caravan, and even some of the non-Spiritualist did what they could to lend a hand.

The caravan consisted of five thousand wagons. There were fifty thousand people living there, and so it would be five people per wagon, or thereabouts. This was a rough estimate I had given based on the amount of people I could sense. However, ten thousand of these people were Spiritualists, and I was certain most of them would be walking alongside the caravan as bodyguards.

Before coming back in time, back when I was the leader of Brave Vesparia, I had often escorted caravans. It was a relatively common quest. There were many Demon Beasts roaming the Northern Plains, not to mention bandits and other malcontents. Merchants and noncombatants often hired sects like mine to protect them during their travels.

Yet I had never been part of a caravan that was this big.

Transporting an entire city was a massive undertaking.

It was a little unfortunate that we didn’t have enough materials to make many storage rings. If we had, then Kari could have crafted a couple hundred of them and transported all of our supplies like that. As it was, some of the wagons were being used to transport dried meats, water, and various herbs and other essentials. We were leaving the livestock here. It sucked, but we wouldn’t be able to care for them while traveling through a desert that didn’t have food or water for hundreds of kilometers.

“It looks like we are ready,” I said.

Alexis grunted from where she sat in the lead wagon. “We had better be. If we’re going to do this, then I don’t want to wait around for several more hours.”

“Someone is impatient,” Kari joked.

“Shut it,” Alexis snapped.

“I understand how you feel though.” Fay was standing on the wagon, looking back at the massive caravan behind us. She struck a pretty heroic figure as the wind caught her hair. “It’s been ten days since we began preparations to evacuate. It took a long time. I’m sure Morden hasn’t been sitting on his laurels while we were preparing all this. If possible, I would like to leave now in the hopes of losing him.”

“Where’s Raul?” I asked.

“He’s with Sana and Lilac.”

The immediate answer made me smile. I had a talk with Raul the other day about choosing to either accept or reject the feelings those two had for him. I would support his choice, no matter if he chose one of them, both of them, or none of them, but I did tell him in no uncertain terms that he should not leave things as they are. It wasn’t fair to the women who loved him. And it wasn’t fair to him.

It looked like he had made his choice.

There were still some last minute checks being done. Earland, Qawuin, Zane, and Aliya were traveling through the caravan with several hundred other Spiritualists, checking the supplies to make sure we’d have enough for the journey. I almost smiled when I spotted the familiar face of Ronia tagging along behind Zane and helping him. It was good to see those two were still together and happy despite our unhappy circumstances.

Queen Medusa was also with us at the head of the caravan, but she was gazing ahead of us, into the desert, her eyes narrowed like she was trying to peer into the future and see what troubles lay ahead. King Menes stood beside her. He did not have her majesty. However, what he lacked in poise, he made up for in presence. I thought they made a surprisingly good match.

A shadow passed by overhead. I looked up as Siv swooped down and landed beside me.

“How’s it look?” I asked.

“Everyone but a few people have joined the caravan,” Siv said, her brow furrowed. “I do not understand why some people refuse to leave.”

I shrugged. “I don’t either, but some people are just stubborn. They do not want to leave their home even if it means facing certain death.” Sighing, I tugged at my bangs. “I saw a lot of that during the Demon Beast Invasion in my past life. Sons and daughters trying to drag their stubborn grandparents to safety even as the Demon Beasts swarmed the city. It’s stupid, but what can you do?”

Siv didn’t say anything. I don’t think she knew what to say, so I just placed an arm around her waist and pulled her into a hug.

A few minutes after Siv appeared, Commander Ashten and Lin arrived at the scene. They were in charge of the caravan itself. Lin had a lot of experience managing large amounts of people, while Commander Ashten used to head the Midgard Spiritual Knights, the largest peacekeeping force within the entire Northern Plains. I thought they were the right people for the job.

“All of our supplies are loaded, Darling.” Lin came up to me and grabbed my other hand. It was the fake one. “We can leave at any time.”

“Right.” I turned to the small woman sitting in the wagon. “Alexis?”

Alexis sighed like I was asking her to do something bothersome, but she still grabbed the horn at her side and put it in her mouth. It was a horn belonging to the A-Rank Demon Beast, Sand Unicorn. It was an odd name that came from the single horn on its head, but it was actually more of a sea horse than a unicorn. It lived deep beneath the desert, traveling through both sand and underground rivers.

Taking a deep breath, Alexis blew into the horn, which was the signal to all the wagons that we were about to begin moving. Commander Ashten hopped into the wagon next to Alexis, grabbed the reigns, and cracked it with a shout of, “Hya!”

The caravan began moving slowly. It was unfortunate, but because the caravan was so large, moving any quicker than this would be impossible.

To help cover our tracks, I used the earth element to remove any trace of our caravans passing. It was my hope that Morden would come to the city, discover it empty, and be unable to find us. Of course, I was banking on the fact that we would be far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to use the Concept of Life to sense where we’d gone. I had a range of about fifty square kilometers. Morden had a greater grasp of this concept than me, but surely his sensory abilities didn’t extend beyond a hundred square kilometers.

That was my hope.

I think the biggest issue was the Lightning Giants, who were so massive the very ground rumbled when they walked. It was easier for a group of fifty thousand small humans to sneak around than it was for one thousand massive giants. If the Sekbeists did find us, they would probably do so because of them, though I did not have the heart to tell them that.

The first day of traveling was tough for many of the refugees, who had just started growing used to life in the Lamia city. The sweltering heat of the sun left them exhausted in unable to move. We had to limit the amount of water they could drink since there wasn’t enough for everyone. I was fortunately able to help with that since I could use the water element to pull water from the underground river, but if we were located in an area with no river… well, my ability would become useless then.

I think the only good thing in all this was that Demon Beasts weren’t a problem. Even if my wives and I weren’t there, this group had so many Spiritualists at the Third and Fourth States of Spiritualism that they could take care of an entire army of Demon Beasts. Not that it ever came to that since I made sure to crush any Demon Beast I sensed coming up on his before it could arrive.

When the sun began going down, Queen Medusa ordered us to stop and set up camp. We didn’t pitch any tents. No one wanted to deal with the time it would take to set them up and take them down. Speed was our greatest ally right now, so we simply set up several cooking stations where people could get food and everyone slept in the wagons.

I was given a wagon for my family. It was cramped because one of us had a second meter long snake tail and another had dragon wings with a two meter wingspan, but we made do. I think it helped that I didn’t need to sleep much. Instead of sleeping, I would often spend my time patrolling the perimeter. Sometimes one of my wives would join me, but I think they were still getting reacquainted. I would occasionally return to the wagon and find them discussing things I was sure no man was meant to hear.

Like that, one month passed. However, we still had a long way to go before we reached the Northern Plains. Anything could happen during that time.

***

Morden frowned as he looked at the city that his canon fodder had overrun. There had been a few people within who had been killed since they had no use, but everyone else seemed to have disappeared.

It was clear to him the group had left. They likely realized it wouldn’t be long before he returned and run off with their tails tucked between their legs. While that did appeal to his sense of pride since it meant they recognized his power, it also meant he would have to track them down—and he hated that. Why couldn’t they have just stuck around and died?

“My Lord…”

Morden looked into the eyes of a massive slave with bulging muscles, green skin, and crimson eyes. The humans called this creature a Warlord. He snorted at the idea. There was nothing lordly about his beast, but he supposed to a human, even one of the slave caste was intimidating.

“What is it?”

“We have not discovered anything here. I believe everyone has left.”

“No shit. I had no idea. Thank you so much for telling me.”

The slave flinched, but Morden was no longer paying attention as he closed his eyes, stretched out his perceptions, and blanketed the entire area for several hundred kilometers with his Spiritual Power. He felt like he might be stretching himself a bit thin. Sweat formed on his brow as he extended his perceptions further and further, hoping to find any trace of the humans. It was no use. He couldn’t find them.

Morden clicked his tongue. “It seems they have traveled too far for me to sense. We’ll have no choice but to search the Endless Desert. Fortunately, we know where they are going.”

“Where are they going, My Lord?” asked the slave.

“Isn’t that obvious?” Morden smiled. “They are going to the only place they can afford to. Now get our troops ready. We march now. Anyone not ready to leave in fifteen minutes gets left behind.”

***

It was a quiet night. The vast array of stars shown overhead, while the numerous dunes created dark hills that stretched out beyond my line of sight.

I walked through the caravan with Siv at my side. She said she wanted to stretch her wings, but I think she merely wanted an excuse to spend time with me. It was something we hadn’t been able to do much of. Lin and Fay were still taking up most of my time, and since I had not seen them for eight years, I still wanted to spend as much time with them as I could.

“It seems like another peaceful night,” I said.

“Yes. But we cannot let our guard down. We need to remain vigilant for enemies.”

“You’ve become quite the soldier, haven’t you?” I said with a chuckle.

Siv blushed bright red as I placed my hands on her hair. This was probably another part of her attempts to become stronger, but Siv had been keeping a constant vigil for incoming enemies. During the day, she would travel ahead of our caravan to make sure we weren’t walking into an ambush. At night she would take part in the patrols. I wondered if she might be pushing herself too hard, but I didn’t say anything because I understood how she felt. She was doing her best. So I would support her as best I could.

“Do you think we lost him? Morden?” asked Siv.

“Hard to say.” I tugged at my bangs and thought about our enemy. “Morden might have underestimated us, but he isn’t an idiot. I’m sure he’s already reached the city. He probably knows there’s only one way we can go. The question is whether he’s going to try and catch up to attack us from behind, or if he’s going to bypass our caravan to head us off.”

“Morden’s army is bigger… but it’s probably more mobile,” Siv said.

“Yes. That’s exactly it.”

I was certain that Morden had already brought in reinforcements. There could be no other reason to explain why he hadn’t attacked us yet, and the Sekbeists greatest advantage had always lay in its greater numbers. I didn’t know how many Morden had now, but I was betting it would be an army several times bigger than our own forces.

However, even if his army was bigger, he would still be able to move faster. We had a lot of noncombatants with us and were moving around in five thousand large wagons, which hindered our mobility. Even the weakest Sekbeist was still several times stronger than a human who hadn’t even reached the First State of Spiritualism.

I sighed. “All we can do is keep moving and—”

“Eryk?” Siv looked at me with worry when I stop.

“I sense several lifeforms heading this way,” I said.

“Underground?”

I shook my head. “They are traveling above ground. Over there.”

I swerved around and pointed in a direction that was close to but slightly off from the direction we had come from. Siv looked at where I was pointing.

“Should we get the others?” she asked.

“We should be enough,” I said. “It’s just a small task force. Let’s get rid of them now.”

Siv and I took to the skies and flew toward the life sources quickly. We traveled high in the air to avoid being spotted and looked down. It did not take long to spot the black shadows against the sand dunes. Even if it was dark, they were easy to see because of the shadows being cast by the twin moons.

Just like I said before, there were only a dozen of them. Six Warlords and six Elites were walking standing on a dune about two kilometers from our caravans position. I was certain this was a reconnaissance squad meant to locate us for Morden. There was also no way they hadn’t spotted our caravan by now. Several of them were gesturing wildly toward its location.

I looked at Siv, who nodded once, and then swooped down like a bolt of lightning. Siv didn’t hit the ground but swerved at the last second and swung her now clawed hand into the face of a Warlord. The beast squealed as her claws tore his face to shreds. Those cries, however, alerted the others to our presence.

“Shit! They found us already!”

“Dammit! Someone hurry up and contact Lord Morden! Tell him that—ack!”

I removed my hand from the throat of my enemy. Ignoring the blood on my fingers, I pressed my hand against the sand and manipulated the shadows on the ground. The shadows quickly shot out and skwered five of the remaining eight Sekbeists. During that time, Siv sent several wind blades into two more Sekbeist, then killed a third one by smashing it flat with her tail.

Very little time had passed, but all of the Sekbeist were soon killed. I stomped on the ground and let their remains sink beneath the desert. I didn’t want there to be even a trace of them for our enemies to discover.

“Let’s go back,” I said to Siv. “We need to inform Alexis and the others about this.”

Siv nodded and followed me as I flew back to the caravan. While she went off to let my other wives know about what we had discovered, I traveled to Alexis’ wagon, where I found her and Commander Ashten sharing a drink.

They looked quite comfortable sitting there, slowly sipping some kind of alcohol from a pair of surprisingly expensive-look glasses. One of them must have brought this with them during their escape from the Northern Plains. Well, far be it for me to begrudge what they decided to take. I was sure some people felt like alcohol was more important than their own life.

“Eryk,” Alexis grunted and glared at me. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah. But before I get to that, please tell me you’re not drunk.”

“You know as well as I that Spiritualists at my level can’t get drunk.”

“I guess not.” Shaking my head and deciding to just forget about what was happening, I said, “We have a problem.”

***

After getting Alexis and Commander Ashten, I found Queen Medusa, King Menes, Qawuin, and Raul, and had them all follow me to an empty area near the caravan that I converted into a makeshift meeting hall. It wasn’t much. I just created a table and several chairs like I had done for the last two meetings. Everyone I called plus my wives sat around the table, and Galdr and one female Lightning Giant who introduced herself as Foll sat next to our table so they could listen in.

“So the Sekbeists have already located our caravan?” Queen Medusa murmured. “That bodes ill.”

But I shook my head. “I don’t think Morden and his army knows where we are yet. The group Siv and I killed was a small scouting party, and we killed them before anyone could leave to inform Morden of our location. However, it does seem like he was able to calculate where we are traveling with a great degree of accuracy. I’m sure this won’t be the last time we run into a scouting party.”

“Then I believe what we should do is obvious,” King Menes said. “We’ll have to create our own group to travel further out and catch any incoming enemies before they find our caravan.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I said with nod.

“You can leave location scouts to us,” Siv added.

“Siv?” I asked.

“We will find them before they can find our caravan,” Siv continued, staring at me. There was a pleading look in her eyes like she was asking me to go along with it.

I nodded once, then turned to Queen Medusa and King Menes. “Leave finding the Sekbeist scouting parties to us. The Concept of Life lets me sense life within a fifty kilometer radius. I should have no trouble finding Sekbeists.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Alexis said. “Our hands are already full keeping the peace. I had to break up an argument the other day when someone accused another of drinking more water than he was allotted. Things are only going to get worse the longer we’re on the road, so having someone who can take care of this will be a huge weight from our shoulders.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of leaving everything to Eryk and his wives.” Commander Ashten muttered, only to sigh seconds later. “But I agree with Alexis. If you can do this for us, it would be a huge help.”

“Of course,” I said. “We are more than happy to help you out.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lin sighed, only to wince when Kari elbowed her. “What this princess means is that she would be more than happy to render her assistance.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving everything to Eryk,” Kari added. “I’ll begin patrolling at night and leave the daytime to Eryk and Siv. Fay and Lin will join me.”

“We will?” asked Lin, only to flinch when Kari smiled. “Er… ah… yes. Of course. This princess will be more than happy to help you patrol.”

Fay shook her head and smiled in amusement before adding, “I would be happy to help as well. We’ve come all this way, and it would be a shame if we were unable to reach our destination.”

“We will help as well,” Galdr added as he gestured to himself and Foll.

With our decision made, everyone broke up. The next day, Siv and I would begin scouring the land for any signs of Sekbeist scouts. I hoped nothing would happen. That we would reach the Northern Plains with minimal troubles, but my instincts were telling me otherwise. I had a bad feeling that we would be in a for a fight by the end of all this.

***

“Damn you—urk!”

I sighed and stepped away from the Sekbeist Elite after removing his head from his shoulders. The body fell to the ground with a solid thump. Glancing to my left, I found Siv take out the last two Sekbeist in this scouting party. She had blown one into bloody chunks with a single punch and the other had been sliced apart with wind blades.

This was the fourth scouting party we’d come across today.

Another month had passed and our journey continued to take us toward the Northern Plains, but it would be at least six more months before we reached our destination. I wished we could go faster. This would have been much easier if everyone was a Spiritualist or could fly, but I knew that was unrealistic thinking. We had to work with what life had given us.

One thing I had noticed about these patrols was that all of them came in groups of twelve. I didn’t know if that was a significant number to the Sekbeists. It seemed like eight people too many to me, but most Spiritualists squads were only formed of four people total. Larger groups were only needed when taking on more powerful enemies, and at that point, it usually meant a hundred Spiritualists would be participating.

I shook my head.

“Let’s head back,” I said to Siv.

“Yes,” Siv agreed.

As we began traveling back, I thought about everything that had happened since we discovered the first scouting party. Myself, Siv, and the Lightning Giants had spread our formation out to catch scouting parties before they could find us. We used the Lightning Giants as marker points because they were easy to spot even from a distance.

We didn’t find any Sekbeists for another two days after that first scouting party, but just as we had relaxed our guard, two more scouting parties showed up. We dispatched them quickly. However, three more had shown up the next day and four had appeared the day after that.

It was clear to see that Morden was getting closer and closer to discovering our caravan—if he hadn’t already. I was beginning to think he might have already found us and was sending out scouting parties as a simple form of harassment. Perhaps he was hoping to wear us down before overwhelming us with a massive force. That once again made me wonder how large his forces were. We had wiped out his first army, but it was clear that he’d been able to replace them somehow. Maybe he’d had a few hundred thousand in reserve?

“Eryk. Siv. Welcome back,” Kari greeted us with a smile as she summoned a pair of water bottles from her storage wings. “Did you find anything?”

Siv smiled as she accepted the bottle and took several deep gulps. A small trail of water ran down her elegant throat, and I was reminded that it had been two months since I had been truly intimate with any of my wives. That alone was enough to make me resentful of the Sekbeist.

“Just another patrol,” I answered with a sigh. “This is the fourth one today. I can’t help but wonder what Morden is planning.”

“Who can say,” Kari said, shaking her head as though telling me it was useless to try and understand the mind of a monster.

“How many scouting parties do you find at night?” asked Siv.

Kari tilted her head and hummed in thought. “We ran into six scouting parties last night. I guess that means they are traveling more at night than during the day—not that I blame them. I wouldn’t want to travel in this heat if I didn’t have to.” After saying this, she grinned. “By the way, Eryk. I think I have created something that will help us.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Follow me.”

Kari led me and Siv back to the wagon. Lin was sleeping on one of the long benches when we arrived, while Fay was driving the wagon. The redhead greeted us when we arrived. My other wife remained sound asleep, but I decided to let her since I knew she had been working hard.

“This is what I wanted to show you.”

Kari sat down and summoned something from her storage ring. It looked like a tiny obelisk. It was dark black and covered in millions of tiny squiggles. I realized only after observing it carefully with light enhanced eyes that all of those squiggles were actually runes—hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of runes combined together, forming a massive array that had been compressed into a tiny surface area of about thirteen centimeters.

Siv and I sat down with me in the center. Almost the moment we did, Siv leaned over and placed her hand on my shoulders. She closed her eyes and fell asleep. I didn’t blame her. She had been doing everything in her power to help out, to be useful, but I think that was eating her stamina. My smallest wife just wasn’t the sort who enjoyed getting out there and being in the public eye like this.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I made this by compressing millions of grains of sand together. I’m not sure why it turned black like this, but the real fruits of my labor lies in the rune array.” Kari smiled proudly as she thrust out her chest. “Do you remember the rune array the Sekbeist were using to block my Spiritual Techniques?”

“You’re talking about the one on the Siege Towers we destroyed in Vindenkent, right? What about them?” I asked.

“The rune array they used was very similar to this one,” Kari explained. “I was originally trying to recreate that one, but whoever created that rune array was a Grandmaster. The rune array was guarded by several dumby arrays that made it impossible to figure out which one was the true array. Since I couldn’t recreate it, I applied what I knew to create this.”

“And what’s it do?” I asked.

“It creates a shield that cannot be penetrated by people or Spiritual Techniques,” Kari explained. “What you do is channel Spiritual Power into the rune array, which will create a barrier two square kilometers large.”

“I can see how that would be useful,” I said.

“Right? The only problem is the amount of Spiritual Power it requires to activate.” Kari bit her lower lip for a moment before placing the object on the wagon floor and leaning against me. “Only someone with Fay’s Spiritual Power can even activate it, and she’d only be able to keep it active for about half an hour. It can also be overloaded if someone like Morden came along and released an attack on the same level as his final attack during our fight. However, it should prove useful against an army of Sekbeists, and multiple people can channel Spiritual Power to activate it, so it should still prove useful if we get attacked.”

“It will definitely prove useful if we’re attacked.” I agreed, though I sent her something of a wry smile before adding, “But I really hope we don’t need to use it.”

“So do I,” Kari confessed with a wry expression of her own.

***

Another month passed. By this point, I was certain Morden knew where we were and was simply sending his scouting parties to harass us. We were now lucky if we only ran into six scouting parties during the day, but we usually had to fight a lot more. The Lightning Giants were thankfully a big help in fending them off. Sekbeist Slaves were weak and could be dealt with easily by someone at the Fourth State of Spiritualism, which all the Lightning Giants were.

At the moment, I was sitting in the lead wagon with Alexis, who held the reigns. Each caravan was pulled by three Struts, a bird-type Demon Beast that was generally docile and therefore easily domesticated. This batch had brown feathers and white plumage, which was the normal appearance for Struts born in desert environments. Siv was also on the wagon, but she was sunbathing on the roof.

“I feel like we’re coming close to the end,” Alexis said after a moment.

“Do you mean we’re close to reaching our destination?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Close to a confrontation with that Sekbeist you wanted to avoid. We’ve run into nine scouting parties for the past nine days. It’s clear he’s found us by now, but he’s waiting for something.”

I had to agree with her. “In that case, I guess the only thing we can do is keep our eyes open and be ready for anything.”

“I hate all this waiting,” Alexis admitted. “This tension I feel right before a battle is one of the few things I never liked about being a Spiritualist.”

“Then why become one?” I asked.

“Didn’t have much choice.” Alexis grunted. “I come from a poor village with barely any food and strained resources. It was remote and surrounded by powerful Demon Beasts who’d made the territories around us their home. Everyone who lived there was trained in Spiritualism because there would always come a time when we needed to fight. It was either become a Spiritualist or die for me.”

“Sounds rough.”

“It was rough, though it was also because I was so talented that I reached the Third State of Spiritualism at fourteen years-old. My life was better than most people thanks to that. Course, being so powerful brought its own string of troubles.”

“I’ll bet.”

I never did learn much about Alexis’ past. She used to be a very private person and always kept people at arms length. Not even Erica, her right hand woman, had known much about Alexis’s past. Rienhard might have known more. I had the sense they’d known each other for a very long time. However, asking Rienhard about Alexis’ personal life felt rude.

“I’m sure I’m not the only one with her own sob story,” Alexis said after a moment. “There’s no point in feeling sympathy toward me.”

“Who said I feel sympathetic,” I muttered. “My life has been just as difficult as yours.”

“Whatever.”

“And what about Rienhard? You’ve known him for a long time, right?” I asked.

“I met Rienhard after my village was destroyed by a rampaging S-Rank Demon Beast,” Alexis admitted. “I was passing by when he and his party were on the verge of being slaughtered by an A-Rank Mutant Kong. Killing A-Ranks was pretty easy for me even back then, so I just decided to lend a hand, but after that…”

“After that?” I asked when she trailed off.

Alexis grimaced. “Well, let’s just say he became pretty enamored with me.” I raised an eyebrow and she rolled her eyes. “I don’t mean it like that. He didn’t fall for me or anything, but he did admire my strength. We weren’t so different in age, but I was much stronger than him.”

“Ah. And did you help him?”

“Only after he spent an entire month following me around.”

I snorted to contain my laugh, but Alexis heard it anyway and glared at me.

It was pretty easy to talk with Alexis, who had a habit of not mincing her words. I remembered how she’d been walking on eggshells when we first met. She had been overwhelmed by the amount of raw power that my wives and I possessed. Now that several years had passed, she no longer treated us like people to be wary of. I liked to think she thought of us as friends.

When the conversation petered out, I began to pay more attention to the passing scenery, which was little more than sand dunes. I used to hate the Endless Desert. This place had brought me nothing but pain for so long. In my previous life, I had led my battered people into this place, hoping to escape the Demon Beasts that were chasing us, and everyone except myself and Kari had died. Those bitter memories remained with me even now.

I wondered if we were better off in this timeline. True, I had saved Nevaria from the Demon Beast Invasion, but it wasn’t like that was the end of our troubles. We’d had to put down rebellious factions, fight off an extremely powerful man who’d been possessed by the Sekbeist Overlord, deal with an army of Sekbeists, and at the end of it all, Nevaria still ended up being destroyed. It almost felt like Nevaria’s fate had been destruction all along. Had my actions really amounted to anything?

I shook my head.

I couldn’t think like that.

It was true that Nevaria was gone, but so many more people had survived its destruction. If I hadn’t gone back in time and changed everything, more people would have died. I also wouldn’t be strong enough to deal with the current threats we were facing. The Sekbeists Lords would have surely arrived in this realm at some point. If they had arrived and I was still as weak now as I had been back then, nothing would have been able to stop them from slaughtering us. We also had Tora, Chloe, Fray, and her Valkyries with us. I could not forget about them even though we had been separated.

In the end, while some things had not changed from my previous life, some things had, and those changes were for the better.

“Eryk!!”

Siv suddenly shouted seconds before a massive explosion of lightning tore through the sky and struck the ground several hundred meters in front of us.

I leapt to my feet as Alexis pulled on the reigns to halt our wagon. All the people behind us also hurried to stop their wagons, lest they all run into each other. I took to the skies with Siv at my side and looked at where the lightning bolt had struck. It had come from one of the Lightning Giants. They could see much further than us by sheer virtue of their size.

Siv sucked in a deep breath as I stared in consternation at the army that had been situated in front of our caravan. It did not look to be the same size as the one we had annihilated, but that was like comparing oranges to apples. We were still only had about ten thousand Spiritualists and one thousand Lightning Giants. Meanwhile, the army arrayed against us and now circling around to flank us on three sides was at least five or six hundred thousand strong.

And standing at the head of this procession, wearing the ugliest smirk I had ever seen, was none other than Morden.