“What a pain,” Captain Aziz muttered. “Guard duty at this time of night really sucks.”

He stifled a yawn, but enough of it was heard by the small squad behind him, who began to follow suit a few seconds later. Most of the Squires floating around him had learnt their lesson about how boring aerial guard duties were, and a few of them were already sitting around a makeshift table to play games.

There were around eight such groups of five each, but most of them were playing a social game called Skulls. The game had made its rounds around the Republic’s military shortly after the ceasefire went ahead, and it had found support from both the Assembly and Republican forces a few days later. Captain Aziz, however, didn’t really know who the distributor of these game sets was, but rumour had it that Skulls was a new creation of a crime lord in the Southern Continent.

At any rate, it was a game that people could pack up and set up quickly, which was admittedly what soldiers needed when push came to shove. And it was better if they were playing games with each other, rather than being half-asleep.

They were looking over a vast expanse of scorched, no-man’s land. Once, it used to be called the World’s End chasm, but now that the God of Fire had occupied it, negotiations to end this pseudo state of war were on the cards. For one, Liamar had showed no signs of expanding his territory beyond the natural chokepoints that divided the chasm from the Five Lands. And the fact that there was literally nothing of value in the World’s End chasm, other than it being the spot where the entire Ark City had vanished from, had contributed to the willingness to negotiate.

Occasionally, people clad in flaming red armour would swoop by, but other than exchanging glances, nothing happened. In addition, Captain Aziz could swear that one of them — their leader, from the looks of it — had waved in greetings whenever the small group swooped by. It was like they were alive or something, rather than being just mindless puppets of the Worldshaper.

This thought, however, didn’t really make him feel any better. If anything, the notion that he’d been fighting against equally sentient beings just made him feel all that worse when Captain Aziz thought back to the battles that had happened before the Worldshaper was forced out of the Central Circle.

“You seem preoccupied by something,” someone said quietly. The captain turned, and immediately saw Colonel Marie, who was a metre or two behind him. Her hair danced in the wind — she hadn’t tied it into a bun, which was probably why none of the others realised her true identity.

“I’m always occupied by something,” Captain Aziz replied. “If you’re here…you can’t sleep? Or…?”

“Both, I guess.” The colonel stared up at the sky, which was tinted red. Even the dark nights couldn’t blot out the influence the elemental gods had on Orb — their assembled presence on the world had created an indelible mark on the skies themselves. “I’m uneasy about our current state of peace. The State Council and the Assembly are of the opinion that the Worldshaper intends to hunker down at the World’s End chasm, but I’m not too sure about that.”

“You think he’s fortifying his territory to make his eventual attack easier?” Captain Aziz asked quietly. “But that would imply that the God of Fire is afraid of us. Or at the least, he believes that we have the ability to pose a threat to him and his Divine Kingdom.”

“The North schemed a familiar spirit of the Human God to death,” replied Colonel Marie. “I think that’s a lesson good enough for the great gods when it comes to how insidious we people are when it comes to killing those who are stronger than us. And the Northern military is thrashing Thasvia’s forces quite handily.”

“The Breath-Maker? How?”

“Through overwhelming firepower, apparently. The Mortal Light Dynasty forced her to the negotiation table half a month ago, where the former’s diplomats strongly stressed the need for a harmonious co-existence,” replied the colonel. “Of course, they did that by threatening to raze her Divine Kingdom to the ground with their newest artillery weapons, and then promised her a good chunk of the ocean if she were to agree.”

“That’s news to me,” replied the captain. “Where did you hear that from?”

“The brass. Like I thought. They didn’t give you the memo, did they?” The colonel rolled her eyes. “This has been rather old news, relatively speaking. And why we’re so confident in negotiating with the Worldshaper. Do you still remember what that Major Igor said when we visited them a year ago?”

“Which part? He said a lot of things.”

“He said that their ultimate goal was to defeat both the Human God and the Demon God, remember?”

“Uh-huh.” In truth, Captain Aziz wasn’t able to recall that instant, but if the colonel said it, she probably was right. After all, he had been too engrossed with the new developments he’d seen back then, so whatever the major had said slipped out of his mind a while later.

“But where does that leave the elemental great gods?” Marie asked.

“Homeless?”

The colonel’s mouth twitched. “They carry their homes whether they go, so it should be rootless. But jokes aside, the North is clearly preparing to face the Human God…and the Breath-Maker is the first of their conquests. And they’ve contacted every organisation in the Five Lands above a certain size to offer them aid, no strings attached, to help them push back the gods.”

“What kind of grudge does the North have against the gods?” Aziz asked, confused. “Why are they going so far?”

“It actually boils down to the legends surrounding the Mortal Light Dynasty’s founding mother, I think. Give me a moment while I try to remember them.” Marie’s eyes glazed over, and Captain Aziz turned his attention to the soldiers that were still playing Skulls. Some of them, however, had noticed that their vice-commander was talking to a girl, and when the man turned to look at them, the soldiers made some heart signs back.

The captain really wanted to see their expressions when they found out that he was talking to Colonel Marie. Rolling his eyes, he sat and waited, while the soldier-historian worked her memory Art.