"No, we've explored many different ways, but other sectors are not here in this era," Dogma repeated the last word.
"Nothing confirmed. We seemed to have no other way," said Garen with a shrug. His indifferent smile made the already tense atmosphere even worse. Although he was a genius, the people around him considered his personality and did not want to hear his opinions.
"I don't think you care, and maybe you don't even care if you can go back to the future or not," Eva retorted, turning around to glare at Garen. Though she had addressed the golden-headed glib, everyone knew she was suspicious of his best friend Sonata's intentions as well.
"If you're planning to hit our commander, stop it," the cowboy hat-wearing Silencer interjected, scowling at Eva.
"What, you think I'm scared?" Eva stood up, appearing ready for a confrontation. However, the man who had been previously silent also stood up, maintaining a calm demeanor.
"May I kill them?" Kestrel looked at Erith with a bloodthirsty glint in his eyes.
"Hey, cut it out with that kind of joke," Sonata chided his friend, patting him on the shoulder. "We're all on the same side."
Erith chuckled softly, while Sonata brushed it off as a joke. Still, Erith's release of the most violent killing intent made it clear that he was not to be trifled with. Anyone from the opposing party who dared to cause trouble would meet a swift end at his hands.
"Alright, let's talk about this once more after we've successfully opened the door," Eva suggested, trying to steer the conversation back on track.
**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**
At the same time that Sonata had assembled in Sector One, the war between Etezia and Revarent had already commenced, with a large army led by Tales stationed in Reflinton since the previous month. When the royal army led by Cerise arrived, the full-scale war had begun.
Atezia's soldiers were divided into two main groups: a traditional army comprising knights, priests, archers, and a handful of paladins and mages, and a former Chaos warrior army that had now become the main force of the country. Combined, they had at least half a million troops.
The rebels and ex-military-turned-thieves had been suppressed entirely. With the belief that major cities were secure, Cerise had deployed most of her troops to camp in the border towns.
"Nottingville has only about fifty thousand troops. If we can capture this city, we will gain an advantage over strategically located places and be one step closer to Algrad," Tales pointed to the map. Nottingville was one of Revarent's major cities, and everyone knew that it was ruled by the Golden Skeleton King, the right-hand man of the Skeleton King Kronox.
"That's almost a fifty thousand-strong skeleton army," Kivric Parakos protested. "We should first retake all the small villages along the border."
"What are you afraid of with the Undead? We'll start the battle in the morning and won't prolong it until night," Tales countered confidently.
"They're not the only Undead," Alkaiser disagreed. "In the major cities, there are mercenaries, Boarmen, and Devals that Revarent has raised as well."
Talez's anger boiled over. Alkaiser, an old comrade with whom he had fought alongside for years, had betrayed him by siding with the swindling ex-nobles of the Parakos Family. Had he too succumbed to cowardice like these foolish nobles? Tales could barely contain his fury at the thought.
"I want to lead the army north as quickly as possible to aid Algrad," Cerise declared, causing Tales to smile skeptically.
"Is that so, Your Highness? And what about dealing with the smaller group first? When will we get to Algrad and Necropolis?"
"I agree with Lord Parakos. We should attack the areas where we are winning first," Tales stated, shaking his head in contrast to Kivric and the nobles who were nodding in agreement. He smiled instead of holding his tail like the others.
Alkaiser furrowed his brows, trying to guess the plan of his superior. "And what is your plan?" he asked.
"I will send a group of skilled operatives to sneak north, empowering Algrad to buy us some time," Tales replied confidently.
"But if you send too many people, they might get caught, and if you send too few, it will be useless," commented one of the nobles.
"Or if the Revarents decide to send a large army to suppress us, even our best operatives won't be able to hold them back," Tales thought out loud.
Cerise knew this all too well. If the Revarents focused their efforts on a large city, their chances of success would increase, but the people of Algrad would suffer greatly as a result. She could only pray that this would not be the case.
The Revarents didn't pay much attention to the small villages that Atezia could take back. Markel did not see the value in a few villages, and he was confident that getting them back would not be difficult. Their focus was on destroying the large cities, which were the bases of enemy forces.
One ancient but always effective strategy was corpse attacks. The Revarent' Undead army never had to worry about germs, but with humans, who were already fragile, the plague was just as dangerous as the atrocities of war.
The Revarents began collecting corpses, whether they had been transformed into undead or not, using them as ammunition for their catapults.
The bodies were shot over the city walls time and time again. While most of them were torn apart, they did not turn into Zombie. However, the germs that came with them still worked at full capacity.
"The Immortal Army at Night," "Pesticides that Affect Only the Living," and "Generals with Superhuman Powers" were the ultimate weapons that made Revarent almost invincible.
**-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**
Over the next few days, as the sun beat down on my head, Briden led his Death Knights and lurked on a hill. They were all shrouded in black cloaks that looked like a cloud of smoke.
Briden's group had been sent to intercept the advancing Atezian soldiers, and after waiting since last night, their target had finally appeared. About a hundred soldiers were walking towards them, unaware that the enemy was lurking in the shadows of the forests and cliffs.
"One hundred, no more," one Death Knight reported to Briden.
"Perfectly sneaky. This should be enough," Briden sneered and signaled to his followers.
Suddenly, the Death Knights appeared all around the traveling army, but they showed no signs of shock or panic. They knew something like this would happen sooner or later and were prepared to fight.
Briden stepped forward, pointing disdainfully at the soldiers. "You fools. Lord Dark Jester had already anticipated your move and sent us to trap you."
"There are plenty of safe routes for humans," one Death Knight remarked.
The Atezian soldiers exchanged looks and smiled. Even surrounded by a larger number of enemies, they remained unfazed. Briden and the Death Knights began to taunt the soldiers, suggesting that they might not be real Atezian soldiers.
"Sonata said you wouldn't dare send a large army to attack us. Most likely, you're just drones with no real connection to the ongoing war," one soldier said, raising a fist to signal to everyone waiting for orders.
"If that's the case, we should be more than enough to handle them," another soldier chimed in, removing her helmet to reveal long hair that fluttered in the wind. Briden realized that she was a woman.
Rather than a full-on battle between the disguised imperial soldiers and Briden and his Death Knights, only five soldiers moved to engage with Briden. They were known as the "Elite Five," the five soldiers closest to Sonata and second only to the Silencers in terms of danger.
"Psychic Crush!" the female soldier shouted, revealing her face. An invisible psychic wave radiated from her hand and covered one of the Death Knights, crushing its body. In an instant, the undead figure was destroyed, leaving behind only a small sphere the size of a human head.
At that very moment, the other Elite Five also sprang into action.
One of them teleported to the rear of Briden's trusted henchman and used the ridge of his hand, infused with spiritual energy, to cleave the Death Knight in half.
Another extended both hands forward, but this was not the same as the Undead Control spell that Sonata used to employ. This Elite Five member instead implanted false information into the minds of their opponents, directing them to turn on each other.
Briden cursed under his breath. "If Sonata had come alone, I would definitely have been in trouble. But are these guys really stronger than I thought?" he wondered aloud. Suddenly, he felt an unseen force lift him off the ground and compress his body into a tight ball. Just as he thought he couldn't take any more, the psychic girl ceased her attack, and Briden was released from her grip. This happened once his subordinates joined the fray.
The sound of an engine's roar filled the air. Briden noticed that the ground, only a cubit away, had begun to show traces of tank tracks. He had seen this before. What was truly frightening was that the tracks stretched for a considerable distance, yet no vehicle was in sight.
"Wow, this is new. I think I'll opt for a floating car next time," chuckled the female soldier. It was then that Briden realized they were not alone. There were other groups of people or vehicles present, but they remained invisible to his eyes.
The battle between Briden and the Elite Five continued as the war raged on in many other places simultaneously. The flames of war spread rapidly and showed no signs of being easily extinguished. Group after group of Atezian soldiers were dispatched to the battlefield to annihilate Revarents completely. Meanwhile, Sonata sent his underlings to fan the flames of the conflict.