The skies over Bastion were clear of any clouds, it had drizzled that morning, painting the world grey like a renaissance art work a few hours earlier, and now the sun shone with its full strength over the domain of Bastion. In the streets of capital of the titan blade, initiate workers swept the roads and opened stores, wares were being displayed for the residents of the city to patronize, but everyone could feel the undercurrent. Transport ships bearing different emblems and crests had started arriving that morning from the far reaches of the continent Asa.

Outside the walls of Bastion, in the lush landscape that was devoid of any monsters, Samantha, the mage on the path of the six-sided mage stood on a piece of rock that levitated above the ground. Her grimoire opened in her front as she began muttering a spell, aether coalescing around her as she had gotten to the stage where aether shards were no longer needed. The aether refined into mana around her blew in a wave and settled into the ground in the form of a large circular rune. The grounds began to vibrate as birds took to the trees and loud roars could be heard in the distance coming from the forest that occupied half of the domain.

The red zone that served as the domain of the titan blade was as big as a state, over 200 square kilometers of land and Bastion only covered half of it. The rest was a sprawling lush jungle and landscape devoid of any human taint, the remnants of the old humanity buried far deep underground, it would take an excavation effort to start finding traces of whatever city had occupied the land previously. The quake stopped and started all over as large circular walls of stone rose from the ground up, its middle hollow as in the form of a coliseum. In the middle of this growing structure was Samantha, eyes closed as she channeled her advocate rank strength into building the structure.

The quake stopped to reveal the round structure, with a tap of her foot on the stone she floated on, the rock dropped to the ground, fused back with it and a red sigil blazed to life around her. An intricate carving began to draw itself in a large circle beneath her, slowly becoming the crest of the titan blade himself. She paused, taking a deep breathe and surveying her surroundings before her grimoire opened another page, immediately the gigantic circular structure began to morph in a hazy dark light, like a shroud over the structure. She flicked her hand and the shroud went away to reveal a glossy dark glass-like structure with rows and rows of chairs around the structure, in the fashion of a true coliseum being built.

The circular crest that lay beneath her flared to life as ten glass forged chairs grew around her on the plat form, behind the chairs were tall poles that seemed to serve the purpose of holding banners. Samantha sat on the platform in exhaustion, looking at her handwork. The path of the six-sided mage was a unique and intricate path, the only user being Samantha herself. She had proven her worth during the last legs of the crisis Bastion faced, earning her path that gave her dominion over six fundamental aspects of nature, Fire, water, air, earth, lightning and metal. Any skill that falls beneath those elements where are domain, a broken path that many an initiate had pleaded with her to teach but to no avail.

Samantha glanced towards the giant walls of Bastion that had been rebuilt, her eyes furrowed in thought. No one had seen the titan blade after he declared victory a day before, vanishing from the public like a ghost, he had left a message for all the advocates of the world, or at least on Asa. They were to gather for a conference in Bastion, to discuss the future of the planet. The message had been delivered by a stoic looking Mrs. Martha through a video message that played over the continent, and if the rumors were through, the whole world. The victory the natives of the world had won was one worth celebrating, but despite the victory and with minimal losses, the whole realm was quiet. News coming from the other sect cities sad the celebrations were done in a hushed manner, only far flung cities like Raju and the Lumino, the city of the now growing Luminian theocracy, a new religion had celebrated in a large manner.

Samantha had watched as the sect leaders belonging to the clan gather after the battle, they had discussed in a hushed tone in the absence of the titan blade, everyone had been surprised about the turn of events that happened during the battle. The introduction of a new player known as an abyss and a blighted one was a whole new ball game entirely, of course only the top echelons of the clan knew of it, to the rest of the inhabitants of the domain and the sect and allied cities, it had been an attack of the invading sects.

She sighed and stood up, arms folded as a subtle wind blew across the structure,

“Do you think he’s alright?” she said aloud, turning to her side where Annika, the advocate and sect leader of the storm bringers sat on the dark glossy chairs that surrounded the platform with the crest of the titan blade,

Annika sat with her legs tucked beneath her, her blue eyes staring towards the walls of Bastion also,

“Hard to say he feels guilty” Annika replied with a sigh,

The city titans’ storm had flawlessly against the sect of the piercing blade, although losing a few initiates and even acolytes, Annika had driven the fear of the sect into the hearts of the invaders. The battle had lasted for over an hour, the sects hardly breaking through the blue crystalline walls of titans’ storm, in the end the storm bringers had seen more initiates who were on the very edge of the initiate rank ascend to the rank of acolyte. Annika summoned her spear from where she sent it to, running her hands through its length,

“Either way he’s bought us valuable time, time we can use to solidify our hold on the world as a whole” Annika said,

Samantha nodded, if there was one thing they had done right in the whole rollercoaster of events that had gone down, it was the fact that humanity had been given a serious head start, and they would exploit it, all thanks to the titan blade.

(*)

Ife had been built to serve as the capital of Bastion, it also served as the capital for all the sects as a whole, and the crown jewel of that capital was the castle dominion. Dominion, named suspiciously after the blade of the titan blade was a solid work of art and military power, not like Moyo had a say in the matter as he had been ceremoniously shut down by unilateral vote from all the sect leaders as a whole. It was built with gold and mithril, a large structure that occupied the middle of Ife itself in its own acre of land.

High above, inside the uppermost rooms of the castle dominion sat Moyo, staring out of the window as he watched the people go about their new lives. Kids ran across the streets with speeds seen on an athlete, some floated about on fluffy clouds that served as transports while some just flew, if their paths permitted such of course. A wide array of paths had been springing up for a while now, humanity building paths that suited their lines of work, most of them not even geared towards fighting in its entirety. Moyo was proud of what they had accomplished together, humanity had risen from the destruction that had wiped out their civilization, starting all over in some weird parody of a post-apocalyptic dystopia, just this time with powers.

He glanced down at the rolled parchment in his hand that had been delivered through what they had discovered to be a courier service of the archailect, some sect known as the path of the thousand distances, a path geared towards long distance communication. Moyo had been puzzled why the sender hadn’t delivered the message to him through his HUD, but as he saw the golden color of the paper, its golden seal and the aura it gave off that was significantly higher than an expert, he understood the discreetness of the sender. Sighing as he rubbed his hand on his face, glancing back down at the throngs of people and also the ships that were arriving at the landing bay just on the outskirts of Ife, Moyo sat back down on the wooden chair in his quarters.

When Annika had suggested a royal quarters for him, Moyo had vehemently protested, it w as one thing to build a castle as a symbol of power, it was another thing to start treating him like some royalty. As such, he had allowed for the room that was as big as an apartment floor to be sparsely furnished, meaning apart from the chair and table that sat in his room, a large bed that Moyo had no idea what he needed for, he rarely needed to sleep, nothing else adorned the room. He had been careless the day before, he had fought as he always did, with no care in the world, but this time, people had actually paid for his oversight. Moyo had watched from the top of the castle, his expert sight turning the bonfire lit night to day as the families of those who had died in the battle as the blight spread say a final goodbye to their loved ones.

Powerless and with his throat locked up with words, he had silently watched, the citizens of Bastion casting furtive glances towards the castle, as if watching and waiting for their lord to come wake the dead. He had come to realize at that moment that no matter how strong he was, Moyo just wasn’t sure he was suited to rule. He was a titan, to protect, to be the wall that whatever evil came for his planet crashed upon, not rule over people, but he couldn’t just leave all these behind. A knock on the door of his room jarred him back from his errant thoughts, flicking his hand as he sent the parchment back into his spatial storage space, he expanded his realm to feel who was outside his door, recognition on his face as he answered wearily,

“Come in” he said,

Mrs. Martha entered his room, the sect leader of the hands of Anansi looking as quiet and stoic as ever. She sat on the chair opposite him, keeping quiet as she observed him,

“You blame yourself” she said,

“I shouldn’t had dragged them into such a dangerous scenario”

“You do realize that if that entity hadn’t arrived, the plan would have gone on without a hitch, right?” she replied,

“Still doesn’t excuse the fact that I could had drawn the fight outside of Bastion entirely, I wanted to play with the advocates, show them the difference in our might even with my core shrouded as an advocate and I messed things up” he countered,

She sighed, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, Moyo had heard bits and pieces of the news about what the hands of Anansi had done behind the scenes and he was caught surprised, which to be honest, he shouldn’t had been, Mrs. Martha had always shown herself to be ruthless whenever she wanted to be. When the advocate of the crimson rose had left the majority of his acolytes and initiates at the city trellis, he had left them to a ghost city with no life in it, except they had been wrong. From the accounts of those who had gone back after the battle, they had seen the bodies of the enemy sect members slowly breaking to aether, alive. Whatever enchantments or poisons the hands of Anansi had employed ensured the sect of the crimson rose suffered an agonizing fate.

It turns out the stealth abilities of the hands of Anansi were proving to be rare indeed as the acolytes and even initiates of the sect had been able to hide themselves from the presence of the advocate and his elite acolytes, coming out to main and terrorize the sect members that were left behind to hold the city. As if that wasn’t enough, the sect of the hands of Anansi had actually raided the ships of the ten sects that had arrived on their planet, carting away tons of coins of all ranks, all tiers of dungeon cores, valuable weapons, artifacts, entire chests of valuables that they had been tossing into dimensional bags that were invisible to the senses, something about being woven with the threads of Anansi.

Without a doubt the clan of the titan blade was filthy rich, so rich that he was sure he could outfit every stronghold on the planet with enough dungeon cores to create a kingdom, spend enough coins to raise all the acolytes of their clan to a rare evolutionary path. Mrs. Martha had shown him the underground vault of the clan that served as the foundation of the castle, the amount of diamond coins that overflowed in the room alone had made his eyes widen. He glanced back at the enigmatic woman who had served as his steward from day one, he never did figure out what she wanted. Mrs. Martha had always been acting from the shadows, which was understandable as her path wasn’t really suited towards battle but espionage, but still, she had sacrificed enough to his cause that he had a tingling feeling that she wasn’t actually working for him, he was working for her.

The elderly woman smiled at him,

“Uh oh, I know that look” she said,

“What look?” he asked with one eyebrow raised up,

“The look where you’re trying to figure me out” she replied,

Moyo kept silent, it had never been revealed if the path of the hands of Anansi had a mind reading ability, but Moyo had been on the look out for any signs of such, it was oddly weird had she always knew what he was thinking. He subtly wrapped his authority around himself, probing to see if any sort of power from Mrs. Martha was in contact with him but sensing none, his eyes giving nothing away. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, resting back on the chair and turning her gaze up to the ceiling,

“I never did tell you my story, did i?” she murmured,

“I didn’t want to pry” Moyo replied as she chuckled,

“I was a primary school teacher in a UN funded school in Ghana, a village known as akrofu, voluntary work and all that” she started as Moyo just stared at her,

“Loved the little kids, most came from villages with hardly any form of literacy, it was rough at first to get them to understand me and then start teaching them, but I had my ways, plus the parents were a bit skeptical of a white woman coming over and opening a school nearby” she continued,

“Overtime, as I immersed myself in the vibrant and beautiful culture, I found out that the children weren’t as illiterate as I thought, I had made every white person’s mistake since they set foot on the continent of Africa, used my way of life to judge others” she said glancing at Moyo who let out a soft smile,

“See the children were wise and smart, they had ways to get around any work I gave them, quick with their hands and when I finally brought a laptop to class for the first time, they took to it with such enthusiasm that it left me breathless. I went to the village head who told me the story about a wise trickster spider god who always searched for the next source of knowledge while pretending to be dumb. It took me a while to realize the kids were sending emails to my other account, I hadn’t thought them that” she said, Moyo raised an eyebrow,

“It turns out the whole village were the farthest thing from illiteracy, they had been visited by a long time by other charitable organizations which I would had known had I or someone on my team bothered to check. They knew English, they knew how we operated whenever we came to their lands, they just pretended to be naïve while learning all that they could from us, adding it to their knowledge while never revealing too much of theirs to us” Mrs. Martha said with light in her eyes,

She laughed as she sat up,

“Those kids were my life, my reason for living. Abina, agyei, kofi, addae and osei, I remember their names, their smiles when I showed up with sweets or snacks or some new learning material. The sweet smile on the little girl addae’s face when she brought me whatever piece of fruit her mother had given her that day, and I still remember when the archailect hit, and I was left with nothing but an exploding building and the severed parts of the children’s bodies as I had survived only because I stepped out to go get the surprise cake I made for them on their graduation” she said as anger began to lace her words,

Moyo could see her aura boiling as the hazy outline of a spider, the path of Anansi began to form, again he felt the shiver of thinking of Mrs. Martha as an expert. She wiped the tears off her face, still staring at him,

“I ran, ran as fast as my feet could take me to avoid seeing the look of despair on the faces of the parents, for some fucked up reason the archailect didn’t phase me away to another position as it finished the countdown” she continued as Moyos’ eyes widened at the curse word,

“I decided to take the path of the spider, of Anansi in honor of those wise kids. A tribute to the children that were as much my blood as my unborn kids I never had, I never got the chance to save them, I never had the power to save them and I didn’t even try, but you did. You, Moyosore titan blade built an empire, on your strength alone you liberated a whole world against forces arraigned against it, and here you sit, wallowing in self pity because of an incident that wasn’t in your power to control” she said with steel in her voice,

Moyo tried to talk, to protest the accusation, but a raised eyebrow from the advocate on the path of the hands of Anansi shut him up with a click. She continued,

“You are the proof that humanity would and will survive in the face of adversities, and I’d be damned if I let that light go out. It is why I chose to move from behind the scenes, I would cross the boundaries your conscience would hold you back from, I would do what needs to be done, subtly remove any obstacles that would stop the titan blade from advancing even if it requires my life” she said softly, leaning forward towards Moyo,

“Who are you?” she asked him,

“Moyosore, son of akinlawon, the titan blade” he replied,

“Good, and when you step out there today, what do you represent?” she continued,

“The will of humanity, I am the wall that would shield humanity from the rage of the archailect”

“And does a titan doubts his decisions?” she asked,

“no” he simply said, the word carrying his unyielding will and authority with it”

“Good, the fact that you feel bad about the death of your people shows you are worthy of the position to rule. However, the titan cannot stop, he must always advance, you must crush whatever obstacle is in your front, cut down whatever foe lays in your path and leave it to we your followers to permanently make them disappear” she said as Moyo smiled, she reminded him of his master,

He brought out the parchment, showing its content to her as her eyebrows rose up,

“So, I guess this is related to your stay in the dungeon?” she said softly,

“Indeed, it is a debt I must pay” he replied,

“a tournament huh, a whole month in something known as a nexus point, the same nexus point Urguth and his followers rebelled over?” she asked,

“Seems like it” Moyo replied,

She glanced at his for a minute and rolled it back up,

“This changes nothing, as soon as we settle this debacle that’s about to happen, you hop on your way, I expect you to come back stronger” she said,

“you really want me to leave the clan alone?, even as the sects might return anytime soon?” he asked,

She chuckled,

“your fears are understood and appreciated, but you do realize that if you don’t let us grow by ourselves, we won’t get strong enough?, the archailect isn’t a forgiving place, its why we’re about to have this…meeting?” she said,

Moyo sighed as he scrubbed his hands over his face,

“I know, I just can’t bear to see more people die and standby” he groaned,

“You are getting stronger out there so you can protect us on earth or rather C-102” she replied,

“With or without you, humanity would survive, you’ve done us a great deal by buying us time to get stronger, now it’s time for you to get stronger yourself, or have you forgotten your goal?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye,

“No, never” he ground out,

“Good, we’ll discuss this with the rest, but today is for our world” she said as a knock came from the door,

Moyo told the person to come in, the door opened to show Josh, the vice sect leader of the titans’ sentinels,

“Hey boss, um, Idris told me to inform you that it’s time” he said,

“we’ll be out in a minute” Moyo replied as Josh nodded and closed the door,

Mrs. Martha sat back on the chair, arms folded,

“So, are you ready my lord?” she asked,

Moyo stretched his hand to his katana dominion as it flew into his palm, hilt first, he stood up and stretched, grabbing his cloak that had been made for him and draping it over his shoulders,

“let’s go meet the leaders of our new world” he said