Gabriel evaded the downward slash once again. After dying twelve times in a row at her hands. The young man had gained a modicum of experience on her attack patterns.

Shit!

Another attack evaded, much closer this time, in fact, so close that he felt blood trickle down from his left arm.

And another still, this one a horizontal slash.

The rest of the fighters didn't even spare them a glance, too focused on facing the monster raging over them.

Come on, man! Why am I evading? Hit back, for fuck sake!

A stab toward his head, barely evaded by moving a step to the side, let his last drop of patience tickle the vase ver. Gabriel threw away every ounce of restraint and started fighting back. The man was actually rather pissed at the whole situation, his patience resources stretching to the very end.

The girl looked surprised when he, the passive one who hadn't tried to hit back once, suddenly started retaliating.

Though, which obviously didn't find its target, the spear was much too slow for putting serious pressure on her. Yet Gabriel grinned when she correctly evaded but remained in too close a range for him.

He backed down one step, feigning surprise. That was when the girl tried getting inside of his range to destabilize his core defenses made of close dodges.

It was clear from her face when she dashed over and slashed horizontally that Gabriel's subsequent instantaneous retaliation and burst of speed was not in her calculations.

Summoning the Energy stored in his Meridians and flaring them over his legs to then push the whole of his body into the next strike, he activated Burst Attack for a frontal stab directed straight at her neck.

The girl parried it, but it was too close for comfort. The hit slide on the upper-right edge of her kite shield. Cutting her right cheek with her surprise.

That was when she got serious, and she used…

Meridians, of course! But how long can she sustain it? Let's see!

With a visible increase in speed given by her doubled Power, she shot forward, her sword shining white.

Gabriel backtracked, carefully avoiding any of the incoming troops, with his Enhanced Sense, which precision was significantly increasing the more he used them to perceive the girl's physical and mental reactions.

She attacked then, with another dash, this one much faster and yet, not enough for Gabriel's planned escape plan.

Burst Attack plus Built to Fly, and he shot toward the sky, trying to stay close enough to the ground not to attract the enemies' attention.

The girl's face betrayed surprise. She was not expecting that kind of Skill, probably believing the man would be a melee fighter in front of her.

Gabriel let built to fly end prematurely, dropping toward the ground, the girl run at him just as he did so.

She intercepted him with another Meridians-imbued dash. He was not the only one able to control Meridians with finesse, as it seemed.

But Gabriel was different from a regular man; he had been subjected to death hundreds upon hundreds of times. He did not grow scared in the least when she got enough inside his spear's reach, successfully avoiding any possible stab counterattack.

The young man smiled.

From his hand, a blade of darkness shot forth, cutting her right hand's thumb off.

The blade was intercepted by the spear's shaft, and not having any object to discharge the force that built up when it connected to the spear, it bounced back, falling from her grip.

Expecting a shield bash, Gabriel backed away and gave her a fully empowered kick on the shield. She did not expect it and ended up falling with her back to the ground.

Thirteen Mana to pierce through her fucking tough skin with that blade. I wonder if, in real life, it would be a good trade.

Rotating his spear and with a manic grin on his face, Gabriel walked over to her. Raising his spear high once he got near her. She scrambled back up.

"What are you? A warrior, a ranger, a mage? How can you have all those signature Skills? Have you gone jake-of-all-trades route? You know it's just a sure ticket for dying young? But most importantly, what the hell do you want with me?" She roared at him.

Gabriel did not answer. He kept walking forward.

"What are you?" She shouted back, angry, though, not scared.

"I'm the fucking Herald, alright? Now let me tame that fucking attitude of yours!" He spat back, recognizing the stress in his voice.

Then he saw it. A look of disbelief, quickly changing into hate and then… scandal?

"The Herald! You should be the Herald!? Don't make me laugh! The Heralds are down there, fighting the monster which would wipe the floors with us, simple soldiers, you are nothing!"

What? What's she saying? Is this some sort of joke from the mayor?

That moment of distraction was all she waited for. She ran at the man, entering his defenses with her dash and- popping out of existence when a random laser-looking beam came from the sky hitting her.

Partly absorbing the laser's power, the girl's body was enough to give Gabriel time to evade it.

Shit.

Gabriel looked at the remains of the elvish girl.

There goes my target… Gabriel sighed.

Liz had been turned to a mashed potato on the side of the road for a while. At least she was resting in his core now, resting for both of them if he was lucky enough that her rest made him recover some mental fortitude.

Was she saying for real? Gabriel thought about the girl's last few words. If this… thing… is really based on a memory, maybe the mayor has used that as a frame for his upgraded version, but does that mean that there were real Heralds there, or is it something he added just for show?

Gabriel knew that this question was something the mayor would have to answer sooner rather than later.

But for now, the only thing he could do, given his target demise, was training some more. Hopefully, training actively instead of passively. The thought of having to subject himself to the Glory of Kings' gaze wasn't appealing to him in the least.

Gabriel shrugged. In the last week or so, he had kept experimenting with the girl, piercing through her Aura's defenses and barging on her psyche.

He had finally figured out the last piece of information he lacked, the real Magic behind the whole process.

As Olive had explained to him. The two bases of Magic were Hard Magic and Soft Magic.

The Dark element, together with Light, Fire, and Ice elements, belonged to Magic's type defined as Hard Magic.

They could be used directly to affect a target, cast, and summoned, immediately affecting the world.

Soft Magic, instead, was tied to the elements of Earth, Life, Wind, and Water.

Soft Magic was not meant to be directed at a target. It was meant to be "shaped" and the consequences of shaping would then affect the world.

One could not ask, for example, to 'water a target.' They could instead form a wave of water to throw at it. Though the difference between Hard and Soft Magic was subtle, it was not hard to figure out.

With Hard Magic, one could effectively put a target on fire, freeze them, corrupt them. In the case of Light Magic, he had next to no idea how it worked or what it did, yet Olivia said it belonged to such a school.

The Dark element affected its target directly. And as corruption eroded the Aura, bending which he was starting to feel more and more akin to a form of control, more than what the mayor had called it, was simply an over-complex form of corruption.

Gabriel had finally realized that he would have to imbue his very thought with the idea of it, the concept of control. And once he had managed to pierce through the target's defenses, he could subject them to his empowered will.

It was not a joke, not in the least, or at least, not for him.

Gabriel was tired from having spent the last thirty-six soulscape days almost totally inside of the Memory, getting back only for his need and to use his Pools resources.

He slept inside of the Memory when he really needed it, on the ground, or faking death before he got inevitably killed. Yet finally, his temper overflowed.

He targeted a random soldier in the army, some sort of blue-skinned Orc with big tusks, and proceeded with the plan.

The first step was always the piercing of the Aura. The Orc's Aura had a quality to it. It was tough and did not extend for more than a few feet from its body, much different than the one he used to fight.

Probably some Perk for defense.

Then, getting closer, he pierced the target's Aura with a bit of struggle on his part, actually quite a lot of effort, given the fact that he had to use above one hundred points of Mana to get through the sentient's thick Aura.

His maxed Epiphany had been limited nonetheless. It was still a Basic Skill, which showed a maximum of fifty feet of range.

The Orc did not notice.

It was weird. Actually, it had been since the start of the second phase of the training. The girl, too, didn't notice when he pierced through her Aura. It seemed both she and the Orc lacked control over it, or something more.

The first part of the approach always worked; what came after that, though, until then, had always been a failure.

He imbued his will with Mana. It was a weird practice. He had to think about projecting his thoughts forward and over the target. It had not been easy to realize; in fact, Gabriel had chosen to subject to the Glory of Kings' attacks over and over again, studying all the parts of the monster's approach.

If everything at all worked since he started training with corruption, it was thanks to his Mana Manipulation Perk. He wondered what kind of training it would have been without it.

Mana imbued thoughts were incredibly weird as a concept, but after all… what did he do when he enveloped the surface of his body in Mana? Wasn't that just another form of Mana display? He thought it was. Then, what was the difference between the two, other than the physical aspect of it? Yet, what was the meaning of physical laws in a world with Magic? The answer to all his questions was that he simply didn't have to think of adhering to his self-imposed laws and… roll with it.

The thought imbued waves of Mana were not perceptible, at least to his senses. They washed over the Orc, which was fighting something that looked like an elongated imp, and took him out of his battle stance. The imp ran away, changing target.

At the same time, another important detail he had managed to gather from looking at the Glory of Kings, the tendril of Spirit that from his core or soul would have to connect to his enemy's spirit, formed in his chest. Though as it had done every single time since he had managed to reproduce it, it squirmed around uselessly, unable to push through the boundaries of his body that, for some reason, restrained it.

The Orc looked at Gabriel, confused.

What Gabriel was transmitting to him through his waves of Mana was an order to follow him and assist him in battles.

Gabriel pushed and kept pushing Mana to flood the Orc with his will, his target's Attributes were much higher than him, and his defenses once more magnified them, yet what was most predominant was the target's will. It was not an Attribute. Something like will couldn't be put into numbers, though he remembered the first time someone had instructed him in Attributes, it had been Garena.

She had told him that some cultures thought about Stamina like fuel, a gauge to how much one could sustain his own willpower or something of the like.

And his target was resisting, weirdly without backing away, or retaliating. He simply resisted until his sword lowered, and he… nodded to Gabriel.

What? Did it work? Really? Just like that? It was the first time it did.

This guy's will must be made of glass! Well… I've spent a few hundred points of Mana, though… this thing would be impossible at my level, though I don't know how Attributes fit in this. Mine must not be high enough.

The Orc drew closer. "Lead the way," he said, and Gabriel had no idea what to do. He stood there, unmoving, staring at what he considered 'his new orc follower' until from the side, a barrage of Magic missiles hit them, and Gabriel opened his eyes to the start of a charging Army.

"Move!"

"You sleeping!?"

"Get the fuck away!"

"Advance, soldier!"

I can't believe it actually worked… I did it! It took me… I don't know how long… sincerely, but I did it!

Then his arms fell, But why the fuck did it not work with the Elf? What was I doing wrong? She's a fool, or am I… am I misinterpreting things? Could I have been mistaken? But where could I- Of course… of course, it's the difference in the reality which we've lived in, isn't it? I thought she was a pushover, one of those pricks trying to climb the social ladder… but we're talking about Pre-Christian era here, of a different world… different cultures, and all stemming from the psyche of that damn mayor. I wouldn't be surprised now if what I thought was just a young pushover would instead be a strong-willed woman aiming to become someone.

"Damn…" he shook his head, "I need to rest a little."

Simply willing it, Gabriel found himself in his real body.

Getting up, he nodded at the meditating mayor without expecting an answer and left.

Gabriel soon did his business and, once again, trained with his Skill, Built to Fly.

With all the experience he had gained in Epiphany, it was only natural for him to expect something more from Built to Fly and his other Skills. No, he could feel there was something more for them. He just needed the patience to discover it.

***

Days had gone by since the arrival of the Druid's Champion and his party; however, nothing had changed.

The Tyrant's might did not diminish; they kept coming, systematically eliminating all of the turtle's respawning Champions and Paragons with surprise attacks and advancing over the Turtle Boss' lair.

Their spawn rate was absurd. They renewed after night, even their three Paragon Tyrants, while it took one entire week to respawn one single Paragon turtle, the turtle's only real means of defending.

Tyrants outclassed the turtles completely; they had simply to evade their focused elemental rays, and the game was theirs.

Dustille knew that their respawning speed was tied to their fewer numbers, but the fact that they were not connected to their spawning point in the Hole for even a day was not only unusual but unheard of.

The druid's Champion left after a couple of days, searching for answers, and kept coming and going to who knows where and to do who knows what.

The Giants kept leveling up, and at some point, the whole of Kanceldom's Tier 3 and above people alternated in the farming of Armored Tyrants. Dustille and her Raid, captained by Larry and the members of her party, plus most of the original parties that had remained blocked inside the Dungeon when the war first started, had received the honor of staying as long as they wanted, if they wished so. Most of it was in honor of the party members, which they had lost during the initial surprise assault.

Deaths had been few, especially after the little human, Darte, had taken command of the operation. However, Darte had renounced his role taken by an equally capable person, another human named Jiao Liu.

Dustille monitored the northwestern edge lake, where the wall of rocks met with the forest, when she saw a black dot move among the trees.

Though it could easily be a Tyrant, since the hour of their attack was ripe, the size, the pace, and pretty much everything else did not match.

Neither did it match any of the Giants currently present in the Dungeon, which meant that the dot could only be someone from the non-giants, inhabitants of Kanceldom or otherwise.

She couldn't know if it was interest or something else which drew her to follow the dot. What she knew was that by the time she reached her target, she found him intent on studying something left on the terrain.

Her eyes focused, magnifying the traces the little shadow was studying.

Wolf tracks?

"Did you see him?" A voice asked, a young voice, maybe that of a kid, it came from behind her.

As the Giant readied her bow and turned, her eyes noticed the lack of the dark figure, which had been studying the tracks a few moments earlier.

In one smooth movement, she had pointed her arrow in the voices' direction, though whatever it was that had spoken, it was no longer there.

Fast… Dustille understood then that she had to be decisive. The shadow most certainly outclassed her, and though seemingly not intent on battling her, she knew that her setup did not stand that much of a chance against classes stemming from the thief or the scout root. She had to focus her senses solely on finding the person.

It was but a second of full immersion in True Vision, while at the same time bolstering her other senses to the limit that her Sixth Sense made her turn ninety degrees to the right. And for almost a second, her bow pointed directly at the small shadow's chest.

It reacted swiftly. Before Dustille released, the shadow was upon her, his grip tight around the arrow's just shot projectile.

The shadow had stopped it, though it had frozen his hand doing so, now a dagger dug in the skin of her neck.

Dustille swallowed hard. They were at an impasse.

Who am I kidding, he could kill me right now, and I wouldn't even be able to retaliate.

"Nice senses, I hadn't thought I'd have to assault you to make you stop," said the shadow.

His cloak of darkness faded away, revealing a tiny and cute human, a kid, Darte.

"Division commander! What are you doing here?" She asked, a little surprised.

"I'm following tracks, as you might have guessed," he said. The dagger had disappeared by then, and he had removed his hand from her weapon set and was now cracking the ice which had formed.

"This is cold as hell," he said.

"I thought you, humans, thought of the afterlife as a hot place." She said.

"It's a figure of speech. Though not mine. Now tell me, have you already seen those tracks around here?"

"Wolf tracks? Of that size? It might be some variant, lucky spawn, given the circumstances, but I doubt it will hold, looking for the pelt?" She asked.

"Those are not the tracks of a variant wolf of the forest. Those are the tracks of a Spirit wolf, it's one of my people, and I need to find it." The young, little man studied her for a second, making her uncomfortable.

"What?" She asked.

"I thought you might give me a hand in the search, but you lack Spirit Sight. You would not be able to recognize them," he said, shaking his head and sneering.

Rude, She thought, but the whole situation was weird. The little man was known as a genius, but he had left the Raid's direction to look for a Spirit wolf? What was going on?

"I've got… many senses, including," she hesitated, but her senses told her it was worth it, "including a Skil..., Seer Disposition."

Darte seemed taken aback.

"That's surprisingly weird for a ranger, but very welcome. Can you keep up with my regular pace?" He asked.

"If you don't abuse your… dashes, I can follow you."

"Very well, Dustille Allgood. Then let me tell you something interesting," he said with some surprise from her, "if we manage to track this damn wolf, we'll be on to what is provoking this weird war. And it'll be a revelation."

***

It took Gabriel fourteen soulscape days to form a small battalion. There were thirty-seven men and women of all races under his control.

The hardest part of the process had been finding people that his current will could bend, and that managed to show at least a modicum of their own following, so he looked for weak-willed officers. Once the officers were under his, constantly perfecting control, he could have them muster their man and

Of course, Gabriel had decided to control them through leadership more than fear or utter thought control, not only because it was much, much more comfortable, but because he wanted to teach himself to show restraint.

Leadership didn't exactly come easy to him, but he was learning, while experience about the battle ahead was the key factor that would make everyone, even those not under his direct control, trust his every decision.

The bigger the following, the easier convincing any next one to follow him got.

He had understood that when he showed himself as a no name, no skills, low-leveled soldier, he was almost all of the time required to brute force his will on his target to bend him or her to do his bidding, while when he showed with a direct following, with supporting officers and a show of respect that went much beyond what someone of his low caliber could have, then all it took him to bend someone's will was but a nudge.

At a certain point during, there was no need at all to keep supporting his control through Mana; only his compulsory need of not getting them killed would require him a sliver of Mana support to reign in some bad decision or unsafe behaviors.

However, his battalion lacked white tunics healers.

Not only were they immune to every form of his simple Dark Magic, they even felt his, barely noticeable, nudges over his following and intervened to stop him. They could pick up Dark tainted Mana in an unnatural way.

Others that gave him problems from time to time were mages. Those pure mages type most probably had a Perk to see Mana or something he realized, thus coercing them directly amounted to his own death, eighty percent of the time, another ten percent had them laugh at his face, while the last ten percent saw him get arrested and then executed on the spot, all while the mage entirely canceled his Mana casting or channeling.

Interrupting Mana’s usage or outright stopping it was a terrifying eventuality that he hadn't thought of. Not every mage had it; thus, he couldn't say if it was a Perk or simply some higher use of Mana or whatever. What he knew was that it pissed him off when it happened, a lot.

Other than that, Gabriel trained by fighting every kind of opponent he could. Most of the time, it ended in him dying for the overwhelming difference in pure Attributes or finalized Skills. A few times, he managed to win over his opponents despite that.

Finally, after having raised his bending abilities to a certain level, Gabriel acknowledged that he could not accept the Glories of Kings' might.

If it all revolves around will, what the hell is their will made of? He thought. What kind of ability can give such utterly overwhelming power over another person? I've seen them bend people with a level depicted by three question marks like it was nothing. It's simply incredible… there's no direct confrontation with them.

If there only was something which the Glory of Kings lacked, it was that. Thank god! Its abilities could only affect one person at a time, not more, never more.

Gabriel felt ready to start a more intense drill to see how much this battalion he had created could affect the battlefield, yet before that, the last thing he felt he needed to do, after having suffered much, and sharpened his new traits, even more, was proving to himself that he could tame his initial target.

He didn't know why he felt he had to do that, but he needed to prove it to himself.

Gabriel would face her alone. He intended to make her his first direct subject. And so he walked over her corruption powers, ready to pierce her Aura.

I'm so gonna enslave you now!