The Religious State of Airis was born as a branch of another organization, but it broke free of the original in order to reach its own objectives. Both the State and its mother are mainly ruled by religion, their citizens make faithful prayers at certain times from morning to night, several times a day, seven days per week, while their beliefs unite the people the just like the old ways.

And, just as times past, the people faithfully follow their rope thin set of rules, developing the ability to follow any kind of order for the sake of the State.

Using numerous ways and versatile speech, the State is capable of anonymously adding people into their ranks, converting them into their religion and infiltrating their new blood at any desired country, ready to massacre - or terrorize - at their will.

And this method has proven to be effective, with European citizens fearing for their lives day and night while they walk through the streets - or even at home, at some places -, afraid of being shot down or blown up by a hidden extremist, this fear further aggravates Europe, whose population is swiftly turning xenophobic - for good reason, by some accounts.

The State's objective, however, could only be a dream if this was everything it had to sustain itself. The main reason for their successful rise to the level of a nation, or an empire, was thanks to many secret dealings happening behind the scenes that most of the world powers took part in - including some inside of the United Nations.

Having a secret backing - even if not a direct one -, the State has managed to become a fearsome power in but a decade, the conquest of half of Airis being one of its most noticeable feats. This unexpected growth, on the other hand, has put the world powers on edge, who turned ever so hostile to the State by the day.

That is why when the Nations, by striking an alliance with Russia and having the permission - acquired by political pressure - of Alassad, officially declared war on the State, no citizen was surprised. Instead, they started guessing things and events about the ending of this 'war' and occasionally forgot about what the topic was about.

Most of the comments about who would come victorious, though, predicted the powers' unavoidable win, while some random usually said that the State would win because of reasons.

All who grew interested in this development were unavoidably thinking that there could only be two possible endings. Unavoidable was that everyone would be surprised when the news of a 'power ranger' - term originated due to the powerful grandmasters coming from the union called Rangers after the end of the middle ages and a famous tv show - heavily struck both sides, the State's by stopping their attacks when they were the closest to reaching Alassad's palace; and the Nations' by destroying their ships guarding the coast, who were supporting the main forces through drones and whatnot.

But surprise would be the minimum that people were going to be feeling after realizing how fatal a variable could be inside a battlefield.

However, for one person, the problem was that for one: there should have been no such variable; and for two: someone 'important' was inside that ship.

Not even a week after Nicola's attack on the Nations' ships using several explosives at certain places of the ships that were flocking with people, killing hundreds in just an instant, Theodore; the Grandmaster; entered the territory of Airis. Originally one of Englass' generals, he has now entered as part of Nations' forces to defend against the mysterious "power ranger" that is threatening both sides, he never mourned the death of his son, for his body has not been found yet.

But as fate would have it, their side were not the only ones willing to go to such lengths, The State has dispatched its own grandmaster to defend against Nicolas. And so, the peace slowly crumbled away.

Military bases are not the only ones in possession of internet, and Nicolas was - like everyone else - well aware of this, the earlier visit to the extremists' domain was both to acquire easy access to 'on live' military satellite; and to push back their main army that was merely half a dozen cities away from Airis' capital, Damasco; the explosives used at the Nations' ships was just a nice bonus.

And thanks to the internet of a friendly neighbor who happened to be playing cards outside of his home, he also knew that the Nations' were already responding, and although they did not specify which means they would use to punish him, it was obvious that grandmasters were the only answer. It would also make sense if the State moved similarly, so he was also expecting that.

The wheater was cloudy at the city of Aleppo, but although the gray clouds tried to hide the sun away, they could only cast a light shadow on the ground instead of ruining the otherwise bright day.

The buildings below the sky and above the ground were, as always, terribly damaged; all of their windows were broken, with cloth covering some while leaving others fully opened to the wind, rubble filled the streets and alleys of the entire city along with destroyed cars and deep holes. It was hard to imagine that this hell was home to millions of people, even while there were no attacks happening at the moment.

Nicolas wanted to stretch lazily while looking at the children playing in the water filling a random hole in the ground a square away, but he ultimately settled at looking at the silent clouds covering his face with their shadows, the lack of artillery raining from the sky was thanks to The State's mission of reaching Damasco, which led it to temporarily ease on the attacks at the city. However, that focus was - ultimately - in vain as he himself put a temporarily but decisive stop at their rush to the capital, it wouldn't take long for Aleppo to once again be the target of the extremists, along with the Nations' and Alassad's.

Nicolas lowered his gaze, his vision passed through the wide variety of hundreds of different designs of buildings and their windows. If your objective is to secure land, then you have to send troops, Aleppo will soon be a war zone again so every side should have sent their own units already, his role would be to - once again - attack everything and everyone that carries a gun.

His body broke into smoke and flew along with the dark and dreary currents of the wind, although he had no eyes in this form, Nicolas could see the backs of multiple snipers hiding inside the buildings here and there throughout the city, some were as close as a few hundred meters of each other while others were as far as kilometers apart, but they were all caught in his trap, and no matter how simplistic and lazily made it was, his targets were fated to die.

And die they would, what was once dark dust in the ground, swiftly turned into metallic spears that carefully aimed at the unsuspecting snipers' vitals; of course, there were several people in each unit, some units even had a dozen people in it, but nothing would change. Several spears shot like an arrow at the shooters, some pierced heads and splattered brain tissue on the walls, some punctured hearts and quickly formed puddles on the ground, others destroyed lungs and forced pained screams to erupt from the victims' throat.

Not everyone in every unit died, the survivors quickly reported their casualties with horror on their voices and begged for orders of retreat, their eyes darting everywhere in their rooms in search of an invisible murderous monster, until... nothing. Their ragged and rough breaths filled their empty surroundings while every sniper spread around the city heard the order to exit the city - an unlucky bastard was told to stay put and was immediately killed in a manner similar to the first row, Nicolas understood that call as an order to die, so he helped the poor soldier in his unfortunate quest.

As the victims A to J ran as fast as they could, the proper countermeasures were being taken, the perpetrator was instantly recognized so the grandmasters moved instantly.

A few hours later, Theodore dropped off from the helicopter which landed outside the city and quickly headed to the far distance, to the city of Aleppo. The grandmaster was dressed in the pale-blue urban uniform of the UN, holding a black colored FN Scar, he used a bandana with the same color as his uniform instead of a helmet and wore no bullet-proof vest, it would have been useless for him anyway.

He watched the city in which his enemy resided, unlike that hateful and unknown person, however, he seemed detached from the chaos spread in front of him, as if he wanted to turn away and find his peace.

However, that peace was in the past, and he could not go back now.

The steps of the man led him to the massive city filled with devastated buildings that were short of skyscrapers. Looking from far away, Aleppo's fate seemed bleak and tragic, but his feelings did not change due to this sad sightseeing.

Soon, Theodore entered the borders of the city and quickly flew past the residential area, most streets were pretty long and straight, this stayed the same even when he reached the center of the city, where the biggest buildings weakly stood, waiting to fall.

He slowed down his pace, his gaze scanning a hundred floors per second of the buildings around him, which only meant two or three per second, meaning he had to take his time and walk slightly faster than a normal person. He soon found UN soldiers' dead bodies inside a random building where - coincidentally - the road happened to span for a few hundred meters straight.

This was certainly that.

Theodore calmly unlocked his rifle and made sure it was toggled at the single fire option, he then let his aura spread a few hundred meters square around him while some small bit enhanced his bullets. From his experience, a rifle could shoot bullets at a speed of one to two thousand meters per second, 10-20 times his full speed and with a force that would definitely hurt him if he ever got hit.

"BANG!"

Came the enemy's bullet towards him, it was so fast that it was only thanks to the aura he let free a few moments ago to check his surroundings that he could react and transform his aura into a transparent green shield, protecting his body. The bullet hit the shield but the sound of metal scraping was drowned by the thunderous scream of the AK in the distance.

Theodore immediately hid behind a building with his suspicion confirmed, the enemy was not a grandmaster nor an archmage, or else he would have felt some power inside the bullet before it could have reached his "field of view" and dodged it.

This meant he had an advantage, Theodore's bullets were enhanced and his enemy's were not.

Theodore took a deep breath and ran to the other side of the street, where there was an alley leading close to his target's position, he ran while accurately shooting five bullets towards the origin of the first shot. He frowned when he saw that every single shot was hit in the air and instantly exploded, bullet fragments flying everywhere.

He was facing a monster.

After safely arriving behind more buildings, Theodore moved between twists and turns of alleyways before jumping inside a random building and leaping from one building to another, every single window was destroyed, so he didn't need to break a new one with his body.

Here and then, he would pass by some locals laying down in hopes that there would be no stray bullets aiming for them, those people were ignored by the grandmaster, who kept running towards the sniper's location.

Arriving at the place, his aura instantly caught someone jumping from building to building - just like he himself did before - in order to create some distance. Since the opponent was slightly slower than Theodore, 'it' couldn't run from his detection range in time.

Theodore didn't hesitate to run after it but he still chose to hide behind cover from that thing, taking his time to slowly close the distance. Although it took a long time for him, it actually only took half a dozen seconds to catch up to that monster.

It entered another building and this time Theodore followed right behind, it noticed his presence and looked back while turning to enter a room, giving the grandmaster an instant to see its appearance.

It looked like a normal person, except for the dark cloud of something that formed from and fused with its body, Theodore could see a strange light from its eyes, it seemed to carefully scan his entire being and leave no stone unturned in its search for his weakness, he could swear he saw a flash of excitement from those same eyes, but didn't dwell on it.

He entered the same room as that thing and took out a handgun from the holster in his leg to shoot at it and his eyes went wide after entering the room.

That thing ran to the corner and jumped off the building and far away in an instant, revealing the fact that it was in fact just as fast - if not faster - than the grandmaster himself, but what really caught Theodore off guard were the plastic explosives that he couldn't detect before entering the room. It seemed to even have that kind of ability.

Without having any time to think, Theodore hastily formed a barrier in his front, but still received extreme damage. The impact of the explosion ignored the shield and struck at his internal organs while fragments ripped directly at his protection, some passing through and embedding themselves at his skin.

The already frail building collapsed from the explosion and fell on his head, burying him inside tons of rubble. The thing that made such a trap left the place without looking back, the fact that a grandmaster was hard to kill solidified inside of its memory.

Minutes came and went and after an indeterminate amount of time, Theodore rose from all the rubble. Taking a look around, he confirmed that several buildings fell along with his and that the prey had already managed to run away.

Feeling the pain coming from his entire body, Theodore focused his attention on himself. Several pieces of shrapnel dug into his body, while not fatal for him, it sort of itched; the biggest damage came from his heart and lungs, they were almost squashed by the impact and would probably take a week to heal, thankfully there was nothing permanently impaired.

Theodore let out a sigh but instantly frowned.

He forgot for an instant that this was the perfect moment for the States' forces to deal a strike at the UN, by ending his life, obviously.

Holding his rifle that - thank God - was still working, Theodore reflected at his own situation, how laid back he had been during all of this. He supposed that part of him still didn't believe that his son had died... that there was still hope for something.

"Sigh"

Feeling more lost than angry and depressed at all of this, the grandmaster took aim and prepared to shoot.

After almost losing one of his "clones", Nicolas confirmed the danger of facing grandmasters, part of him wanted to test himself against archmages now, but he didn't want to get studied and countered later down the line, so he left it as a what-if scenario.

Anyway, his goodbyes to this land were all done. Thanks to the UN's movements, the empires that had lost the Grand War two decades ago became wary and envious, filling the Nations' mails with questions and threats while preparing their weapons and eyeing their neighbors.

For almost twenty years, the world has been in a state of false peace, the empires were oppressed due to the Treaty of Versailles while the UN - previously called Triple Entente - thrived in arrogance.

In Nicolas' opinion, war became a necessary evil, and it was about time that the name "Grand War" got numbered.

"It all starts with a small spark", Nicolas laughed for a bit but was ignored by the massive crowd that watched the UN representatives with emotion and greeted them with loud cheers.

It was time for an assassination.