The lands around were ruined as the night lights shined upon the debris of the ruined buildings and disrupted flora scattered around making the incident look like a disastrous natural disaster. From a brief glance it was easy to misinterpret that the small town that was hidden by the darkness was once bustling with people making day-to-day trips. No one could’ve ever suspected that this place was once inhabited months ago.

Such a sight wasn’t fully abnormal. Cities and towns of civilizations past remained lost to time within the frontier. Dependent on who was observing such ruins it was even a common sight.

This, however, wasn’t a commonality. This was nothing but a graveyard within the Federation’s southern border. Whoever had created such a place full of death and destruction had survived and faded away into the distant memory of time.

Spreading its rays of light, the clear blue-black sky reached the furthest corners of the forest-covered graveyard. The dense greenery shined in the moonlight painting a beautiful, oil-like painting of vivid colors and emotional hues. Though the lands contained the bodies of eons past, it was a landscape that one could simply label as majestic.

Running through the forest, animals both familiar and unknown pushed through the greenery and revealed themselves in moonlight one step at a time. They walked away from a central spot in the middle of the ruins; alert, their mission was to escape from something that pursued them with every hoof that pressed into the mud below their feet.

Stalking in the darkness, a being filled with bloodlust quietly followed their prey. Grotesque and un-Godly creatures stepped forward behind the cover of the stone and brick buildings. Their human-like bodies were covered by small, torn clothes and worn leather armor, their eyes feasted for a fight.

Standing opposite of them was three figures cloaked in silence. Unfamiliar weapons unlike the wooden clubs and bludgeoning bats remained fixed upon the seemingly harmful targets revealed by the heavenly sky above. Welding such weapons, the two followers stood behind their leader as he remained invisible to the enemies ahead and to the allies behind.

The leader was none other than a younger man who stood in green fatigues as his weapons remained pointed at the beings displayed before him eighty meters away. His weapon compared to the monsters was well refined and required basic understandings of precision and accuracy. Its purpose was to take away life, then it would return to the purpose of self-defense. He looked upon his foes and studied them as they slowly walked towards him. A small collection of deer-like animals had gathered just in front of him, and he was waiting for a conveniently trap to be sprung by the unsuspecting monsters that were beyond the definition of abnormal.

Leading the smaller gremlins and goblins, a large, red-skinned giant with a single eye stepped forward and behind the cannon fodder. He was their leader no doubt and would prove to be the first target to eliminate before any harm could come to the natural wildlife that had token back their lands from the equally monstrous humans.

Though he could see the enemies before him clearly, the man could feel the hidden monsters hiding amongst the ruins waiting for the moment to strike if any trouble came to be during the hunt that played out under the cover of night.

At least he faced seven. At most it could be guessed around fifteen.

Stabilizing his weapon on a small branch, he aligned the sight atop the weapon onto the priority target. His gloved finger slipped inside the trigger guard and lightly decompressed the slack off the trigger. His breaths were calm, and out of the corner of his eye he could see his teammates doing the same as they stood in a horizontal line within, he pitch-black trees.

His lips separated and his vision was fully clear as he committed…

A muffled supersonic crack emerged from the end of his weapon followed by a rush of gas escaping the blocky object attached to the barrel. Through the sigh he had atop his weapon, a splatter of blood was just barely visible, and the large red monster fell to the ground with its head burst open as if a small rock had pierced it at incredible speeds.

Crying out in horror, the sounds of the goblins around the fallen leader was soon replaced with cries for war as they looked in the direction where the rifle’s shout emerged from. Pinpointing a general direction, the surviving monsters began to rush towards the man that fired his weapon.

Adjusting accordingly to the horde that sped at him, Mike faced the wave fearless as he, Simon, and Richard began to engage the six.

As led touched their skins, the elastic surface was torn to shreds as blood and body matter spilt out. Compared to human bodies the goblins were frail and slim enough to be ripped apart by the powerful rounds being fired. Though it wasn’t silent, death had come from them all as they fell to the ground one-by-one until the smell of blood and feces were all that remained.

Right on schedule, five more targets emerged from the ruins. Thankfully with smaller numbers, the ever-growing fire team emerged from the trees as they stepped forward in a single line.

Sixteen riflemen. Five monsters. The odds were more than even…

Though only eight rifles fired, the hail of more than thirty bullets tore the monsters to shreds coating the darkened ground in a layer of crimson blood and leaving nothing but silence once the echoing sounds of the gunfire faded into the vast forest beyond which covered all to be seen. Stepping over the first batch of corpses that were made, the sixteen gunmen fanned out into four fireteams as they covered the ruins the monsters emerged from.

Side-stepping the freshly made bodies on the ground and holding his rifle against his shoulder, Mike silently walked with his fireteam as they passed by the last of the dead and stepped into the ruined village. Nothing moved as he scanned the darkness through his night optical device attached to his helmet; thankfully the Federation had been able to reverse-engineer a way to charge the devices the Rangers had outside of their weapons sight batteries which were substituted for specially made mana crystals.

This was the new normal for him. The blended world between technology and magic once beyond his imagination was an every-day thing he dealt with.

His breaths were calm as he stopped the men under his command and turned back to his sister fireteam which had rendezvoused with the other eight back at the center of the village. Only the sounds of their boots pressing into the mud and dried glass flooded the air as they moved to the other’s location with speed an efficiency. Each man moved as if they knew that each enemy was dead, and to be fair, they were beyond recognition with the damage done to the enemies’ bodies.

“That’s the rest of them.” Major William of the 19th Air Combat Regiment stood against a burnt stone wall as he played with a small silver coin in his hand.

“Three groups in ten miles…” Lieutenant Patterson whispered just loud enough for the rest to hear his words. “Something happening?” He wasn’t speaking to any one in particular, the words he spoke was more him rumbling over the thoughts that had clouded his mind since the platoon-sized element encountered the first group of six monsters at the entrance of the forest. Ever since the mission to establish contact with Kingdom forces on the southern border of the Federation began, there was an unsure directive that was contradicted by several high-ranking officers: Engage or prevent engagement. That’s the conundrum that was placed before the soldier on the ground.

The first twenty minutes of the operation were brisk, nothing but simply hitching a ride on a transport headed for one of the frontline bases. However, when the sun set and the first trial began near the border of the Federation, they were all but cut off from their superiors due to an unknown mana-based pulse that happened frequently within the forests they walked. It was in no way their mission to investigate the pulse, select mission units were responsible for much, but to say it was a hassle to deal with was an understatement.

“A long as we don’t get caught by one of those groups, we’ll be fine. Extermination teams from the Army are supposed to handle the assignment, but the Navy and their sailors might snatch it with their gunships not far away.” Lieutenant Ingrid said checking that a bullet was chambered within his small, metallic weapon.

“Leave it to the OMFS to fight those bastards, we’ll take the initiative to make sure those knightly bastards don’t get far.” The Major said. After a moment of silence, the man rose from where he laid and stepped forward towards the opposite side of the fountain they surrounded, “C’mon we have to get there soon, else a war is on the horizon.”

Stepping off one at a time, the men began the treacherous journey once more through the endless path that stretched the entirety of the blackened forest ahead.

This was no spring vacation; everything was balanced on this set of events that could go quickly sour. Lecca knew that much as she breathed shakily in the cold wind as the pressure at the front of her heads and over her eyes faded. Nullification magic: Her version was the ability to use the bodily fluid which contain magic to alter her body. Such a principle was primarily used to create weapons of pure magic, but during times like this she used it to achieve in-human abilities that any science would call “abnormal” or “supernatural”, not that the very existence of magic was otherworldly…

“You keeping your head on straight?”

Jolting from the sudden words spoken to her, Lecca rushed to dull the pain on her eyes as she turned to the man beside her, Lieutenant Patterson. The rays of moonlight occasionally breached the canopy of trees they walked under in the center of town, and the baggy clothing he wore made a surprisingly small amount of noise due to the material it was made from. Atop his head was the form fitting helmet that she saw with all the Rangers, and the “NODs” attached was flipped up for the moment as he navigated the darkened forest with the large amount of moonlight that broke through the canopy above.

“Lieutenant?” She asked in a soft voice recalling that Patterson liked to be called by his rank.

“After all we’ve been through? Just wanted to check that you’re still in one piece.” He said keeping his silent gaze upon the endless trees that now stretched before the sixteen gunmen.

“I believe so… After the Kingdom summoned you, a part of me wanted to believe that the world’s problems would disappear.” Lecca admitted this holding back a heavy sigh not wanting to show any weakness to her fellow soldier.

“You know Mike already shared with us a theory about the Demon Lord that we were supposed to be hunting, but he also brought up Simon’s weird theories to behind how you even summoned us in the first place.” Stepping in sync with the other operators, the Lieutenant kept his voice steady as he maneuvered around a small branch, “I’ve always wondered, but how did your kingdom even summon us in the first place?”

The princess grimaced at the memories that hovered throughout her mind; the pictures of the small, suffocating room was something she wished to never have to see ever again in her life. Clutching her hand, she could feel the grainy substance that was used to stabilize the spell to summon the “Holy Knights”, the very same men she and her family had forced into a conflict not of their own, yet here she was standing beside them as a fellow warrior. Conflicting emotions were the least of her problems, but it occupied her mind like a shroud. Beyond the physical environment she could practically feel within the confines of the forest entrance, her breath quickened as she fought to remain over control of her body. The flashing images and cries of a language not her own attacked her over and over in this familiar darkness she occupied. Before her was the very same room that started this whole story, and she reached out towards it as the lights that summoned them drew her allure and began to take away the sense of touch.

She was the one that started this story, didn’t she? This is why she now brushed her throat after realizing she was near the point of wheezing for air with her silent breaths.

A clear sentence came to her mind, “Even as a member of the head family, they failed to share even such information on where the stabilizing powder came from; The spell in itself was an art that never correlated to the existing with the current records.” The kingdom’s finest secret was never the Royal Treasure or the Royal Court documents that only few had access to, it was the summoned Heroes and Holy Knights that always acted as the ominous allure in the lands she had once lived and grew up in. “There was a special group of knights that were responsible for guarding the secrets of the summoning ritual and assassinating anyone who ever grew close or had the knowledge of how the operation was performed.”

“A unit of knights? Were they present when we were summoned within the room?”

“Not that I know of. As far as even rumors go, they don’t exist in any formal or informal manner.”

“What about the unit that attacked us within the fringes of the Frontier?” Slowing down from the center of the formation, Captain Thompson made himself known as he just strayed in front of the two soldiers he now interacted with. “They did interact with us, even had us by the balls, yet we survived an encounter.”

“Yeah, those bastards were scary…” Patterson said while biting his lip.

“Even I don’t know about them…” Lecca admitted as the other troopers within the platoon began to close on a narrow pathway created by two large cliffs. A cold wind blew through the passageway and sent chills down the princess’s back as she stepped forward with Thompson to the Major who was inspecting the scene using the scattered moonlight rays.

Before the men stood the short, claustrophobic path that only stretched ten meters. “We can only go one at a time.” The Major said as he stepped aside allowing one of his men to step forward. With a rifleman passing through the crevice, Thompson waited in silence as he maneuvered to the other side over the span of thirty seconds. When he arrived, the man lifted a thumbs up indicating that he immediate area was clear for the second person to pass.

Simon was the next to step up creating a cycle between the two squadrons present. The young private took his time and met up with the other soldier while exchanging words that could not be heard on the other side. Each taking turns the fourteen out of the sixteen had crossed and waited to leave only Thompson and the Major left. Placing his gloved hand on the rock, the man behind Thompson coughed gaining his attention. “Hm?” He hummed facing the man with a half-bothered expression.

“Are your men ready for a mission like this?” The Major’s words provided an interesting question to the captain provided the circumstances that had led up to this, but the timing felt off as they were now deployed to the middle of nowhere.

Taking his hand off the rock, Thompson stood in place before turning around and lowering his arms by his side. “What do you mean?” He was surprised by the man’s sudden change of demeanor citing the time he had spent in the plane with the Major’s squadron.

“The few missions I’ve been deployed to the Frontier for have left me with many questions. We can’t predict what will happen out there, I think you of all people should know this.” Speaking in a low-gravelly voice, the Major provided his mind as he walked towards the rocks placing himself in between. “That talk your lieutenant had with the girl… If what she said was true, then I don’t know what we’ll be walking into with this escapade. Keep your head on a swivel for this one, captain.”

Thompson didn’t know how to feel after he heard those words.

He didn’t know how to feel when he was pulled off assignment and forced into a newly made rag-tag group of Rangers that were all put together from other platoons that had massive casualties from the campaign in Africa. He didn’t know how to feel when he was put under question by the Military Police due to his involvement with the disappearance of a platoon of Marines in the deserts. He didn’t know how to feel when he was put into Task Force Spare and given the mission to perform a high-risk mission into the city of Peshawar… Even with everything he had been through in his life, the one thing that remained constant was his uncertainty about his own emotions no matter what happened.

Something that he could at least remember was the talk he had with Sergeant Randall when they were still on Earth. The talk of being court-martialed was something that crossed his mind many times, and now more than ever did it seem like a soon-to-be reality that he was waiting to happen.

He didn’t know why such irrelevant thoughts clouded his mind.

Moving forward and grasping the same rock he forced himself between the two rocks determined to reach the other side. His gear brushed against the enclosed walls; his battle belt, helmet, plate carrier, and Federation rucksack all scraped against the surface making him breath slowly as he moved with the intent not to damage or destroy anything he might need within the next twenty-four hours.

“Fuck.”

Reaching his hand out, he grasped several bulges on the rock allowing him to direct his movement towards any opening that allowed him to shift throughout the environment without much difficulty. The time spent moving the ten meters felt like an eternity, and each breath he took felt shorter as he looked beyond the men waiting for him and into the endless black void that was created by the thick foliage ahead.

Lifting himself over a small spot where he couldn’t walk, Thompson eventually reached the other side and entered the wide-open space that allowed him to move freely as he chose to stretch his arms and bend his legs. At the exit he had just walked through, the platoon had created a half-circle with rifles held in the low-ready waiting to be raised in every direction within 180 degrees.

The captain enjoyed the moment of silence before the Major raised his voice.

“Everyone, check your ammo and gear.”

Not many moved except for Mike, Simon, Richard, and three others. They were the shooters that had been working alongside each other to eliminate the patrols of monsters they came upon within the unknown regions just near the southern border.

“We need to figure out where the hell we are. Lieutenant, got anything?” The Major said as he turned to Ingrid. The younger man pulled out a map and Lieutenant Patterson walked over with a compass in his hand. It only took a minute, but the two men’s combined efforts were easily able to determine the platoon’s location based on the town they had passed within the last fifteen minutes.

“We’ve gone off course about a half-klick to the west. If we head southeast, we’ll be back on schedule before the next check in.” Lieutenant Ingrid said packing away his map into a small pouch on the olive-drab harness he wore.

“Good.”

Rising from the shadows and stepping off into the pitch-black darkness, the men moved through the woods leaving only the trace of their footsteps in the mud and dirt scattered below their feet. To say that they were ghosts that haunted the night was a misunderstanding; each operator that walked in the night were no more than normal men that stood up to the plate when it came for things they wanted to protect.

Lecca came to understand this. Each step was a lesson waiting to be shared.

It wasn’t long before the group found themselves standing at a clearing. Only three-hundred meters had been traversed before a foul stench emerged from what looked to be a barn of some sorts in the middle of nowhere. Whispers were spread amongst the men not under Thompson’s command, but silence soon returned as the Major directed his men to secure the site.

Moving parallel to them, Mike led his fireteam to the front of the barn. His rifle scanned over the large door still in place, and the white-hot phosphorus night vison within his goggles painted several dead bodies in a god-like haze as rays of moonlight touched their bodies and clothing that looked like that of the ancient Roman and Greek civilizations of Earth’s past. As his men covered each of the bodies around him, the Sergeant slowly walked up to what appeared to be a deceased male. He nudged it with his boot, but of course nothing happened as his eyes spotted a large gash in the man’s back.

“What the fuck happened here?” He heard Richard whisper as the Major and Captain Thompson moved to the front entrance with their men behind them.

Kneeling and scanning the entire body below him, Mike froze when he spotted the man’s face. Though the effects of Hypostasis, Rigor Mortis, and Algor Mortis had set in, he was disturbed to see several maggots and bugs crawling out of the man’s ears, pointed ears. Before he could raze his voice, he scrambled to his feet as the men at the door broke it open with a breaching hammer.

“Left clear!” A soldier called out.

“Right clear!” Another called out.

“Room cleared! Major?” Lieutenant Ingrid shouted as the other men still outside closed on the entrance to the barn.

Stepping inside and looking around the enclosed area lit only by a single lantern high above where two of his men stood, the older man took a quiet breath as his focus drew to several shadows shifting within the darkness. “Horses?” He said with a confused expression as he turned around and looked at the dead bodies that Mike and his men guarded.

Blinking several times his eyes gentle glowed within the darkness. He held so called “dark” magic, but to him it was nothing but another tool to help him complete his mission. From where he stood, he could clearly make out the dirt covered, blood crusted skin that each of the bodies had cover them. Each wound was highlighted in a gentle golden glow only through his eyes; his breaths became silent as he slowly watched the bugs and maggots scour the bodies looking for edible pieces to consume.

“Boss?” Ingrid stepped forward with a conflicted expression. “There’s enough horses for us all…” He said quietly.

Processing the information provided to him, the Major remained silent as frustration distorted his previous calm and collected expression. “Everyone, mount up!” He ordered in a loud voice. He turned to a horse near him as he grasped for the bag sitting on his back, “We have less than one day to get to the contact point!”

As he brushed his hand against the horse’s nose, his steel cold gaze never left the bodies on the ground as he grasped the reigns.

“We need to move!”

Publicly Available Information: 3rd Air Combat Corps, 13th Air Combat Division, “The Ravens”:

In warfare there is nothing honorable or just. There is only winning and losing. There is only living and dying. The Ravens don’t worry about such matters. Their only mission is to overwhelm and effectively take over enemy positions. The only battles they win are those that flip the odds within their favor.

Comprised of cut-throat Air Combat soldiers that have seen classified military combat within the last 30 years using the latest and cutting-edge military technologies, Ravens take to the skies to bring death to the enemy and stop any attack with the insight the men have on the ground.

Being the Federation’s premier Air Combat Infantry Regiment, only the enemy knows that when the croaks of the men call out to their dead comrades, the only fight—

—Is one fought by the dead.