Redemption and her group step from the gate to see a couple of crying O.E.L. agents along with their direct officer, who is scared stiff.

“What’s going on here?” Librarian Caefern, the agent escorting the knights, asks without compassion.

“W-….”

“Out with it.”

“The overlord! Th-the stories are true: he’s real!”

“Of course he’s real! Now where did they go?”

The officer points the same way the knights are looking. Practicing magic for so long, one simply becomes “attuned” to certain phenomena—the presence of overwhelming magic, for instance. Order knows Chaos’ magical signature better than anyone. She could be sleeping miles away, and feel his movement by inches in her tormented dreams. There's that—and the notable group of heavy, sharp tracks leading that way.

“That way, sir.”

Caefern nods lightly. “Yeah, definitely seems that way. As you were,” Caefern admits. “Anything else to report?”

“A question, actually, sir.”

“Yes, they’re witch knights; the rest is classified.”

The officer flinches in awe, his full helmet mask hiding the shock on his face. “Wo- uh, roger, sir.”

“As you were,” Caefern reiterates as he steps off with the knights, allowing them to take the lead after that small formality. “So he is here, then,” he asks as they weave into the treeline and away from the camp.

Redemption nods. “He’s here, that’s for sure.”

“Can you give me the metric?”

Daniel nods in the direction, cluelessly assuming the meaning of the word 'metric'. “That way.”

Caefern sighs. “Great. So if we keep walking, how long until we reac-” He’s cut off by Glory’s sharp scoff.

“Walking?”

“Well I just assumed we-”

“We’ve wasted enough time,” Order says, “We need to maintain a close enough distance to engage, but far enough not to have him turn around and deal with us first. One kilometer should do it,” she affirms picking up pace to a sprint beyond Caefern’s wildest reckoning.

“That’s the Chaos Slayer I know!” Glory shouts stepping it up along with her, the other two following suit; when it comes to Chaos, after all, everyone knows Order has whatever degree it is that’s past PhD.

Caefern runs the best he can, but technology at this age isn’t comparable to magic from the most mystically-talented dimension of all The Omniverse.

“I… *huff* we’re not supposed to use our adrenaline shots for this… *puff* Could we maybe *phew* slow down a little?”

Order slows down— only to pick up the librarian and sling him, a fully-geared, armed, muscular soldier of a man, wholly around her shoulders like an apron with a pastry for the picnic. “If you slow us down we’re leaving you, you understand,” Order says calmly.

“W- Well Ywn wouldn’t appreciate that gesture.”

“Right,” Glory says with a smirk as they dash at the speed falcons dive, “which we would care more about if he didn’t already let us through the gate.”

“But… but what about getting back?”

“Recall magic will work just fine,” Nias says, adjusting his glasses to keep them on his face. “We’ll construct a one-way, two mark translocator instance and translate us one by one until we get to Order, who can do the process by herself… or at least I heard she can.”

“She can,” Redemption says, his tone betraying how obviously impressive that is to him that she can practically leave anywhere at any time so long as she has the mana prepared and the time to put together her side of the translocator spell.

Caefern sighs in embarrassment, “Ma’am, couldn’t you just like… enchant me or something, to run at your speed?”

Order shakes her head. “I wouldn’t dare take a magic instrument with me for this one.”

Glory looks over to Order with a squinted eye. “Wait, n’ why’s th-”

“Meeo,” she answers bluntly.

Clarn takes a moment to mull it over, but he quickly draws back in realization. “Ahh, right, right, of course.”

“Well,” Caefern looks over to Nias, “what about him?”

“His wand is different,” Order answers as she swerves perfectly between a pair of trees with him in tow, “all you need to know about it is that one of Chaos’… minions, can basically use other peoples' instruments… from a distance.”

“Wait… what?” Caefern mutters in disbelief.

“It’s as I said, librarian.”

“So… so theoretically this minion can spew fire from another mage’s wand, with the magic attuned to it?”

“That’s right. Nias’ wand class is too low to push out any magic that would be a legitimate threat to the mission.”

“As in mission, I assume you mean a threat to you three knights.”

Order doesn’t answer this one, so Caefern continues with a new line of questioning.

“So how about Chaos, then? What do I need to know?” He asks.

“Nothing,” Order says with perfect blankness. “We’ll be doing all the fighting and talking. That rifle of yours would only be helpful on necromancers.”

Caefern laughs at the thought. “Ma’am, please. This is a Ywnron mk.one. It’s the most advanced weapon ever created. These babies could cut through a building if I’m using the right rail-power setting. I’m also equipped with anti-magic rounds to boot, so if it could shoot down a dragon, it could shoot down Chaos.”

Glory hums pretentiously. “Anti-magic rounds?”

“Correct. Blows a hole in any magic-based target.”

“So just bullets treated with ethnite?” Nias asks.

Caefern suddenly feels like he’s the one that doesn’t know what the word “metric” means. “Uh… yeah, sure.”

Nias glances over to Glory, who shakes his head. “Librarian, eh, Caefern, was it?”

“Yes?”

“That’s bullshit. Your ammunition wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“But they split through anything,” Caefern argues.

“Right, but it’s not actually enchanted,” Nias notes. “Unless it’s enchanted with suraint or something in that wing of ballistics, Chaos can redirect the shot.”

Caefern drops it the second Nias brings up two or three terms that are completely and abashedly beyond him. “Right, my bad. Rondi at the highest,” he says, quickly backing out of the now-awkward topic.

“This place is teeming with necromancers,” Redemption says plainly.

“W-where?!” Caefern exclaims, looking around quickly.

Order nods. “It seems like they’re waiting for something.”

“Us to relax,” Glory says with a spooky, almost humorous tone.

“Speaking of,” Order adds. “We’re going to have to match their pace until they get into a large fight, probably not until Oa.”

Glory sighs. “Ranalie,” he starts, “Let’s just agree to disagree and hit the bastards when it’s the right time.”

“Problem there, Clarn,” Redemption says, “is we have some people in the group that would have problems agreeing on just when the right time would be.”

Glory scoffs as they near the end of the wood. “We’re throwing ourselves away, I’m tellin’ you. The longer we wait the less surprised he’ll be.”

“He already knows we’re here,” Redemption says.

“H-he does?!” Caefern almost squeals out the words.

“Of course he does!” Glory snaps, “I’m sayin’ we should hit him earlier than he’d expect because he wants us to wait. He’ll be planning on dealing with Oa, and us, at the same time. It’s obvious reverse psychology.”

Redemption fumbles with his words for a moment before responding. “Well… I would say you’re over estimating Chaos’… erm… practical intelligence, but I really don’t know for sure.” He glances over to Ranalie. “We have someone that’s an expert in it, though.”

“Uh, depends,” she mutters.

“And how’s that, dear?” Redemption asks.

“He’s not always together.”

“We all know that, thanks,” Glory says crassly.

“So much so that he sometimes forgets things like his motivations.”

Glory’s brows raise in surprise. “W-…well damn, so he could suddenly just decide not to hate us?”

“That’s right… it’s really pathetic to see.”

“Fitting for a monstrous cretin like him,” Redemption states firmly. “If we were lucky he could forget where he lived and go make a home in Trench.”

“…Right,” Order says with a softness that’s almost sad. “…There are buildings up here,” she observes when the necromancer town comes into view.

Redemption places his hand upon his blade’s hilt. “Be on your guard, everyone. Our first battle begins n-” he stops himself the second the massive, massive pile of burning necromancers come into view. “By Reinen’s own walls….”

“Chaos,” Order says.

Caefern, rather infamous among his fellow librarians for always having something to cut back with, is strangely quiet as he surveys the field of corpses.

“He… he certainly beat us to the punch,” Redemption says, lifting his visor to look over the thousands of bodies.

Nias shudders. “I read of his devastation from my histories… but seeing it firsthand like this… it’s like looking upon the legends themselves.”

“That said,” Order notes, “unless you want to go against that, Clarn, we should take our time and wait.”

Glory sighs. “Any of us could have done this. Nothin’ that impressive.”

Redemption laughs. “Sure.” Daniel’s sarcastic smirk wipes itself clean the second the group hears footsteps. In front of them, a burning figure limps out from the square. It’s a necromancer, caught in fire and missing an arm, but still alive, its metallic skeleton granting it the strength to walk. It lumbers to the side of one of the houses, and without ceremony or warning begins writing on the wall using its burning, ashed arm as a pencil.

“STOP THE OVERLORD TONIGHT. WE WILL ATTACK AT THE MOON’S HIGHEST POINT. DO THIS AND WE WILL LEAVE YOUR REALM FOREVER.”

The writing completed, it falls over, the fire finally overtaking its spine and dropping its body into a heap.

Everyone is silent, all at once disregarding the message outwardly amidst the group, but each beginning to think the words over carefully in their minds; what if they attempted to kill Oa as well?

Nias inhales to speak, but thinks better of it; this dilemma is best left for the knights — they are the moral paragons of The Western Kingdoms, after all.

“Let’s go,” Order says plainly, turning from the message and regaining her sprint with Caefern over her shoulder.

The group follows along closely without a word, as Glory doesn’t care to argue when his mind is made up, and the others trust her judgment entirely.

They’re all tempted by the idea. If they have not thrown their true force at Chaos yet, perhaps they could work with the necromancers in the night to finish the job — Glory especially likes the idea; he hates waiting, even if such waiting would hold his life from the brink of certain doom, like right now.