The colosseum was a mess.

Captain Aziz shook his head as he watched Colonel Marie and the leader of the Assembly’s forces converse in low tones. They were accompanied by the delegates of both sides, but from the looks of it, none of them had expected something as absurd as that…boy to attack and overcome every single Knight and what looked like the only Lord-class individual of House d’Artagnan.

Every single member of the hastily-created guard unit had been obliterated by that small boy. He had been fighting well, but against the fourscore Knights and a Lord, that little assassin should not have stood a chance. But he had.

Aziz’s eyes fell on the black scars that occupied the centrepiece of the colosseum. If he was at the correct vantage point, these scars would look like a giant tube that had spread out like water when they hit their target, but the man wasn’t foolish enough to go any closer. There was something ominous about these scars, and his instincts were telling him to keep at least a hundred metres away. And well, no one dared to go near them after a foolhardy Knight entered the dark void.

Said Knight hadn’t returned, even until now. Of course, there was a chance that he’d found some great treasure there, but the chances of that actually happening were smaller than Aziz himself being the ruler of the Five Lands tomorrow.

Anyway, these rifts hadn’t been that dangerous at the start, but these dark rifts had grown like the tears in his old tunic, increasing in size over time. An absurd notion had entered his head when he noticed them growing — was there the possibility that these rips would grow large enough to consume the city and beyond one day?

It was a scary thought. After a few minutes of scaring himself such thoughts, the captain turned to look at the men behind him. Most of them were from Thunderbolt Battalion’s Fourth Company, the guys lucky enough to have been chosen to accompany Colonel Marie, while the others busied themselves with solidifying a defensive line that split the Southern Continent into two spheres of influence. Hans, commander of Fourth Company, was working his heart out as he tried to arrange a shift system for his troops — a task made so much harder by their desire to stay near the colonel.

No one knew whether this meeting was a red herring or not, so the Republic had decided to prepare for a sneak attack in case the Assembly was playing some tricks. At the same time, the leaders in the Republic were finalising their laws, state organs, and whatever other issues that had to do with governance. Aziz didn’t really care about them, so long as he and his men were getting paid and equipped. Politics and governance just didn’t appeal to him…and generally, to those of Thunderbolt Battalion too. The men and women of Thunderbolt had joined not to secure a ladder into politics, but because they had a cause they wanted to defend.

His men, however, were yawning and stretching without giving any care to their surroundings. After the sudden eradication of over twenty Knights and a Lord, the Assembly had requested that the Republic take over security for the next few hours.

As a show of good faith, the Republic’s delegates had acquiesced to their request, which was why Captain Aziz and his men had been floating around aimlessly for the past three hours.

Of course, the legitimate guards of Lumari weren’t slacking off either. They had left in pursuit of the mysterious assassin, after he fired off that final, devastating blow. After all, that assassin had taken more than enough injuries to kill any normal Knight, and after that final attack, he had to be weakened enough that even a Soldier could kill him.

That was the gist of the logic used when the Assembly’s delegates ordered a pursuit. Aziz agreed with it, although from the looks of it, the assassin probably had a support network somewhere, given that he’d disappeared after the attack. And as far as guards went, the bunch that had been sent out probably wasn’t the right men for the job.

He’d seen them smashing their way through into houses in search of the assassin, which wasn’t going endear them to the civilian populace anytime soon. For all intents and purposes, the assassin was probably well-hidden by now.

Aziz’s eyes lit up as Colonel Marie flitted over to him.

“So? What did you guys decide on?” asked the captain. “Are we still going to float aimlessly like this for the rest of the day?”

“Yes.” She shook her head. “The assassin seems to have destroyed something very important to Lumari. The big shots of House d’Artagnan are panicking, and with the death of the Assembly’s elites that were dispatched here, they want us to take over security.”

“Important?” Captain Aziz looked at the centre of the colosseum. “What’s important about this stage?”

“I’m not too sure either, but apparently, it’s something from the Age of Gods.”

The Age of Gods…Aziz racked his brain for a moment, before remembering that it was the term officially used to refer to the era when the Cardinal Champions were summoned, when the Human God was still on Orb. Colonel Marie had made him do an extensive read-up on history a month ago, and she wouldn’t like it if he’d learnt nothing from it.

“So it’s something created by the Cardinal Champions?”

“Probably, I guess. Or maybe from the Human God himself, given their panic.” Marie laughed. “Nice to see them getting all flustered once in a while.”

“Oh, they will be for the next few months,” said Captain Aziz. “I’ve been talking to the boys on the new shift, and in the seedier areas of Lumari, there’s a whole bunch of dissidents clamouring about. Sounds like a new tax was enacted this afternoon.”

“To repair this place and to compensate the losses of…” Colonel Marie’s voice trailed off. “What in the world?”

The colonel’s eyes widened, as she looked at something behind Captain Aziz. The man turned around to follow her gaze, and nearly fell from the sky at what he saw.

“What the hell is that?”

A giant mass of red light had appeared to the north. It was so large, that despite the fact that Aziz could tell that it originated from thousands of miles away…or even further. And yet, a voice within the captain’s heart told him that the origin of the light came from somewhere above the Central Circle.

Scintillating rings of light began to scatter outwards from the mass. The absurd sight reminded him of the ripples created when a stone fell into the pond, and he took a deep breath as the feeling that his instincts were right hit him.

Something was coming.