Everyone woke up early to prepare to leave. The tavern prepared everyone a meal that would send them off with a lot of energy. Steak, eggs, and bacon. Everyone wished them luck as they left. Upon exiting the gate all four units were there waiting. Bwoire was still angry at Calmantos. In his hand, he held a set of Irium Shards. “Pour your chi into each. There are no special means of communication, with each person’s chi attuned to each one you simply need to speak with the intent on reaching the person or people.”

The shards were small, the size of the tip of a finger. They each poured their chi into it at once. After that, they collected a shard. Anarion placed his in a backpack he had for supplies. “We are going to end this war in a week. Don’t become careless, if you encounter a foe beyond your capabilities call for help. The Irium Shard also acts as a tracker.”

Everyone readied themselves. "Unit five, head out," said Calmantos. Everyone started running for the border between Terath and Rotal. Once they were a good kilometer away from Holsten Bwoire said "Don't exert yourself on this first fortress. I suspect that the real battle will happen when we reach the central fortress." Everyone nodded in agreement. They picked up their pace. A forest is an indicator they have passed into Rotal.

The entire country of Rotal is a Temperate Forest. There were giant Sequoias and Redwood trees. There were also cedar, pine, spruce, and fir trees. Their terrain was rather flat, making it easy to travel on. However, as they passed into the forest an ambush awaited them already. In the trees were a few dozen archers. Bwoire could hear the bowstrings as they fired.

“Find cover!” yelled Bwoire. Anarion stomped his foot to the ground and made an ice wall to surround them. The arrows clashed with the ice wall. “Thanks, Anarion”, said Falcon. Amma and Ithilious were slightly taken back by the sudden ambush. “Well played Anarion,” said Bwoire. “I’ll take care of these archers, you lot stay inside here until I am done.”

There was a small opening on the roof, however, no archer could reach it unless he climbed up the ice wall. Bwoire jumped through it to discover dozens of arrows flying at him. He spun in the air and extended his hands. The arrows melted mid-flight. Bwoire sent spikes of ice in each direction an arrow came. They all hit their target.

“You can come out now.” Anarion shattered his ice wall with a single punch. “Let’s get moving,” said Bwoire. They continued to move towards their destination. It was approximately fifty kilometers from the border. Once they were five kilometers away a small unit of Oren caught wind of their movement and started following them. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks.

The Oren caught up. There were one hundred or so of them. No archers, just warriors. Bwoire was about to engage them when Amma stopped him. “I’ll take care of this.” Amma rushed in towards the small group of Oren. She was ruthless, cutting down each Oren with care and precision. She decapitated Oren, disemboweled them, severed their limbs and even cleaved a few in half without effort.

After she finished killing the Oren she pulled a small towel out of her backpack to clean the blood off her face. She approached Bwoire and put his hand on his shoulder "We can fight too. You can rely on us, don't feel you have to do it all by yourself." Bwoire sighed "Those are just Soldiers. You could potentially be fighting Oren Swordsmen. You shouldn't waste any energy on small fights like this."

Amma yelled “That was nothing. I am fine, we will be fine.” Calming down a bit she said “We’ve been training hard. We’ve been feeding out Katarn chi for the last month and have noticed an improvement. Stop underestimating what we can do.”

Anarion looked Bwoire in the eyes. “We’ll show you how powerful we’ve become. Stop treating us like a house of cards, we won’t crumble under the weight of this war.” Falcon and Ithilious nodded with approval. Bwoire sighed. “Fine, do as you please. I will ask you to let me handle this upcoming fortress. You can show off in front of my father.”

They continued to advance towards the Northern Fortress. Opposition met them every step of the way but they cleared through without any issues. After a larger group of Oren Anarion was somewhat annoyed. “Units one, two, and four do your fucking jobs! We’ve encountered at least twenty five hundred Oren.” Through the shard, you could hear Saren’s voice. “Don’t boss us around you worthless failure.”

Amma yelled into her shard “Saren, you call him a worthless failure again and I’ll fucking castrate you.” Through all of the shards, you could hear Calmantos “Enough with the banter, we’ll pick up our pace and take out all of the intercepting forces.” They were still twenty-five kilometers from the Northern Stronghold. Everyone picked up their pace, it was a smooth run to the Northern Fortress.

The entrance to the fortress was through a massive clearing. The fortress was built out of stone. The stone was covered in moss. Still hiding behind the tree’s Bwoire said “Get ready to guard yourselves, the four of you stay here.” Bwoire ran towards the fortress with everything he had. A volley of arrows flew his way but he melted them all with Fire Elestran.

He got close enough. He started transforming his blade into its fourth form. The earth within a twenty-five-kilometer radius began to shake with ferocity. The stones which made the fortress began to separate and crumble. One hundred thousand Oren Soliders and all of the other residents of the fortress were floating in the air with the stones just from his transformation, the earth continued to shake. Bwoire’s physical form changed to lighting.

He lifted his hand to the sky, a massive bolt of lightning came crashing down on the fortress. Even the units who were going village to village had to protect themselves from Bwoire releasing his fourth form. The entire fortress was gone. There was nothing left but ash. There was a crater on the ground hundreds of feet deep. Bwoire reverted his blade back to its first form.

Through the shard Calmantos yelled “Bwoire, I said no innocent casualties.” Bwoire responded. “There are always innocent casualties in war. The Northern Fortress is gone. Unit one, meet us here and we’ll proceed to the next fortress.”

One hundred thousand Oren troops. An unknown number of innocent civilians, reduced to ash in an instant. Calmantos arrived on the scene shortly after. He was furious. “Bwoire, this was unnecessary.” Bwoire yelled “This whole fucking war is unnecessary! You are a fool if you think no one innocent is doing to die in this. At least I gave them a quick death.” Calmantos sighed “We are going to take the next fortress without reducing it to ash. Got it?”

Bwoire said, “Yeah, I got it.” Falcon wondered what brought this on. Before they left he approached Calmantos. “What’s going on, even I thought this was a little extreme.” Calmantos sighed. “Bwoire gets like this in war times. He lost someone very important to him during the great demon war. I’m not going to tell you about it, because it is his story to tell. I’ll try to keep him in check.”

Without any further conversation units, one and five proceeded to the Eastern Fortress. It was over two hundred kilometers away, the terrain was considerably rough on this route. Bwoire’s mood grew increasingly worse as the continued to travel.