“We will surrender. Just please, have mercy upon our children!”

Fifty-four leagues to the northeast of the Haussian city of Davenhold lay a great looming hilltop surrounded by a winding, man-made moat. The small fortress city of Camomile sat quietly atop its body, its aged stone walls pressed right up against the idle banks of the artificial body of water that encased it, which boasted a width equal to the length of four large carriages. A broad wooden drawbridge framed in dull and dented steel had been drawn and tightly sealed, above which dozens of huddled heads could be seen poking up from the battlements atop its foremost wall. A handful of prominent local officials had gathered to address the host of battle-torn disciples that had suddenly appeared upon their doorstep, over fifteen thousand black-on-scarlet silhouettes that now completely surrounded the settlement.

“Renay, instruct them to lower the drawbridge. We shall take their offspring back to the sect.”

At Sersa’s word, a long-haired girl of about eighteen years of age stepped forth and regarded those atop the walls with apathetic calm. “Lower your bridge, throw down your weapons and allow us into the city. Do this and your children shall be spared. If you do not comply within the next ten seconds then all of you will die regardless of any change of heart on your end.” Her voice rang through the air, clear and crisp as all movement atop the battlements came to a halt.

Unlike the last four townships, the people of Camomile surrendered without a fight. Since the day that she and her fellow disciples had succeeded in taking the principal city of Davenhold in Hauss’s southern region, she had led her forces northward on a conquest of the local townships, though the subsequent confrontations were anything but simplistic. The people of this kingdom were almost as fierce in battle as they were frightened by it, nearly every man, woman, and child willing to lay down their lives in order to protect their loved ones and homeland. Tens of thousands of disciples were killed during this time, though reinforcements from the second wave had finally arrived to assist the vanguard of the invasion.

As deacon to the great elder in charge of the Haussian Acquisition, she now commanded over forty thousand of her bloodthirsty brothers and sisters, including several others from the Core. At the onset of their march to Camomile she had sent a separate army to conquer another city to the west, which returned victorious at the day’s end despite the fact that their numbers had dwindled by significant margins.

For all of their martial superiority, the disciples of the sect weren’t a cohesive group like the local armies that roamed the countryside to hunt them down, not to mention that they lacked the heavy armour and abundant weapon supply that the Haussians boasted. Even so, their sect uniforms were woven with special fabrics that provided the protective equivalent of hard leather, though such defensive capabilities didn’t do much to offset the strike of a sharpened sword. Still, there wasn’t one among them that was unable to use at least one martial skill whereas only one in several hundred among the local forces might have mastered one of low quality, almost always a member of the aristocracy.

It had been over a month since they had taken Davenhold, a bloody victory that had preceded the fall of the kingdom’s second largest city by a week. Another metropolis had been seized from the Haussians, and the horrific conquering had served as a numbing prelude to the fall of the entire northern region.

A joint effort between disciples from her master’s domains and those from the great elder Marcus’s had succeeded in taking the Haussian capital just days after the northern counties had fallen to those from the Ashen Forest domains, an obscure territory that bred a certain discipline that was particularly sinister even within the sect. Martial siblings from that area of their territory were difficult to reason with and even more hungry for the horrors of war than those from the other domains, for they cared not how lost they became in their lust for cultivation, how depraved of awareness and reason they devolved into due to the tantalizing effects of their perverse technique.

Several million displaced and dispossessed people had retreated to the eastern regions of the kingdom where the Continental Merchant Association had fielded a powerful army of over eighty thousand soldiers to protect the fleeing citizens. According to the great elder, similar forces had been fielded in all of the kingdoms that had been targeted in the first wave, an intervention that applied heavy pressure to the sect’s forces.

A rough battlefront had formed that loosely divided the kingdom in half from top to bottom, though the line’s trajectory veered southeastward as the entire southern region had been conquered by the forces from Castle Blackrock and the Marshide, the vast armies that she now led. Managing so many malcontents without any experience had proved much more difficult than she could have ever anticipated, as most of her initial orders had been ignored or mishandled. She had eventually killed a group of five martial brothers for insubordination in front of the entire force. Such a scene had repeated itself many times over since that day, though now with much less frequency.

She had founded a war council that consisted strictly of the most capable individuals among their ranks. Coincidently these were the ones least likely to directly subordinate themselves to someone of another faction, not to mention one of the outsiders of the sect, the Red Thorn of Castle Blackrock that had never once lost a duel for provisions to the true siblings of the inner court and even the Core.

Sersa had just concluded an assembly of her provisional council that she had called for in order to address their next plan of action, as the great elder was currently away from her war party attending to private matters. The council consisted of thirty of her more powerful martial siblings, including Renay, her personal assistant, as well as Havel and Kane, sons of the master of Castle Marshide, Elder Rothman.

It’s a shame that he’s lived this far into the campaign, Sersa thought as she stared at Kane from atop the tallest of Camomile’s spired towers. The boy’s wavy blond hair was thick with blood spatter, as was his dampened set of black robes. His irises had regressed into tiny dots of dull blue amidst a heavily bloodshot backdrop. He was in the midst of refining a muscular man of middling age, his hand buried to the wrist within his chest cavity. Screams of agony combated lustful cackles until the man’s voice dried up in his throat and his emaciated legs gave their last kicks.

Once the man was dead, Kane walked over to the woman that was lying unconscious at his side and then gently slapped at her face until she slowly came back into consciousness. She stared at the shrivelled corpse with hallow eyes that soon came into focus as she recognized the rustic pants and shoes that adorned the dead man’s body. He waited patiently for her to gather her wits about her before scaring her with a sadistic smile and then plunging his hand into the confines of her heart, though Sersa wasn’t interested in witnessing the tragic end of the woman’s short-lived life and so quickly leapt to another rooftop.

She sat upon this new perch for an eternity, her eyes on the city of screams that sang sorrow until the dying hours of the day. She hadn’t moved in all that time, forced herself to sit quietly and witness the atrocious acts that she did nothing to prevent despite having the full authority to do so.

The events of this day, like the many that came before it, would be represented as triumphant and glorious to the others back home once the disciples in charge of transporting their fresh supply of resources began to share news from the warfront.

“I never would have believed that we had so many brothers and sisters within the sect,” a levelled voice said from behind her.

It was early on into the next morning, a bright sunrise obscured by white cottony clouds. The last of the city’s inhabitants had either been transported off into the countryside or drained of their inner energies during a terrible death that had been replicated many times over by the time the last life was lost. Over forty thousand people had disappeared overnight, at the cost of around eight hundred disciples.

“They hide much from us, Havel.” Sersa didn’t turn to regard the young straight-postured man that had just appeared behind her. “Based upon my conversations with the great elder, I’d say that at least a million disciples have been mobilized within Hauss and the surrounding kingdoms.”

“Surely that’s too generous an estimate?” The young man came to stand beside her, his blond hair clean of gore, a much more welcome shade than that of his demented sibling. “Several hundred thousand, for sure, but I can’t see the total surpassing that.”

She gave her arm a vague wave. “We’ve almost forty thousand in our ranks, with about half as many running rampant with aimless aggression. With those from the Ashen domains to the north and the great elder’s forces in the central region, in addition to the rest of those from Castle Blackrock, there should be around two hundred thousand at the very least.”

“And if we assume similar numbers within the Brimhaven and Maen, the total should be about three times that number, unless…”

“Unless more kingdoms have been invaded than we think. I am quite sure that Alsai has been targeted as well.”

“Have they mobilized the entirety of the courts? Why would they do such a thing?”

Renay’s voice rang throughout the area as she directed all of the disciples to leave the quieted streets of Camomile, a mean task considering that the multitude of disoriented youths were still reeling from the withdrawals of their ravaging blood-highs. It was time to move on to their next target, a far off city nearly twice the size of the empty shell that they would soon leave behind.

“What do you know of the fall of Mour?”

She fixed the black-robed boy with a cautious glance.

“As is the case with our current Acquisition, it was taken by the hands of the sect’s disciples, many of which died during its conquest.”

“Do you know how many disciples took part in that campaign?”

Havel maintained a thoughtful quiet before giving his head a light shake. “My father mentioned that only a hundred thousand disciples remained once all was said and done. He then wished me luck, and here I find myself atop this tower with the Red Thorn that my brother has always detested so much.”

“The great elder told me,” she said quietly. “At the close of our last conversation, his eyes suddenly lit up as if he’d just then recalled an old joke, and he told me.”

Havel’s voice was heavy. “How many?”

“At least a million.”

“But we were just a fledgling sect in those days. Father said—”

“What your father said is true. Considering his age, he was likely one of the survivors. Now he is a seated elder in charge of a grand domain within the sect.”

Neither of them spoke as they watched the massive throng of youths pour out of the city to take up loose ranks in the nearby fields.

The young man eventually shrugged his shoulders and let out a light laugh. “It seems that our great family has run into the problem of too many mouths to feed.”

“That is only part of it,” Sersa said quietly. “Once Mour fell into our hands, the number of seated elders rose sharply. Do you understand what I’m saying, Havel?”

He bowed his head, poise and confident. “If we wish to…address certain issues within the sect, then we must survive this Acquisition, yes?”

Sersa noticed a small cloud of dust upon the eastern horizon, at least a thousand infantrymen bearing the standard of a local baron that she scarcely recalled from the information that the great elder had provided her with. It soon became apparent that the small army was fleeing a war party of disciples that was slightly larger than the target force.

“Come, Havel. It’s time for us to cultivate.”

“And the war party?”

“I’ll assimilate them with ours, of course.” If she took control of the opposing war party then not only would she gain a substantial amount of much-needed followers but she would also be able to monopolize the kingdom’s soldiers for Havel and herself.