The Imperial pass has been blocked. Legate Iola Brygos glared at the fallen rocks, boulders, and water that had been diverted to block the mountain range’s lowest point. The Zarek was nearly a hundred longstrides wide at its thickest, and up to three thousand paces high at its peaks. The lowest point was at nine hundred twenty seven paces high, on a narrow valley pass.

The Empire had made treaties with the Avos to keep that pass sacrosanct. Zarek should not have altered the elevation, nor should it have done so now.

But there were whispers in Misttyre that the Avos was dead, and that something else controlled the mountains now. None of the diplomats sent managed to summon the Avos, and the one time one of its children came, it merely swiped all of the offered Chaos shards, told the group to avoid the southern mountain, and left.

A pity she hadn’t been there otherwise she would have wrung answers from the Stonetoise.

Still, she needed to bring the Imperial remnants to the secondary Gemheart. There were dozens of villages and estates in Eastern Rumiga, and most of the populace was crammed into a smaller region now. Some of Rumiga City’s evacuees tried to use the Chaos Channel, despite the fact that it was blockaded outside. She knew that the chances of their survival was low, and the fact of the matter was, they were more likely to have been captured by the Asheron Court than escaped. And once in the hands of the Chaos Lords in the Chaos Sea… Well, they either became playthings, fodder, or butchered.

She prayed to the Ancestors that those who fled into the Channel would live, but she knew they were probably worse than dead. And now, she had to focus on what she could do.

The Ivalans down south surged past the Aegeas Plains, suffering numerous…catastrophic casualties in the process. Except, it wasn’t their warriors that paid the butcher’s bill, it was the strangely weak Chaos Lords that came with them. Rumiga’s home guard was decimated. They lost nearly thirty percent of their numbers before they broke, even though they claimed more lives in return, they still broke. And with the trenches in Aegeas overtaken, filled in, and remodified, that territory would be impossible to retake in the short term.

Iola could have done it. She could have waltzed into the battlefield and unleashed her Crystal Domain, broke the plains, buried their trenches, and slain their warriors…

She could have done that but she didn’t. Because if she did, then the Federation’s Grandmaster Binders would rally to fight her, bypass her position, and visit the same destruction upon her people. Common knowledge required three warriors one rank lower to match one above. Match, but not kill. Against those odds, Iola wouldn’t have been able to finish the fights quickly, and if she were matched against three, the stalemate might have lasted days before something changed.

Legion intelligence had the Federation’s Grandmasters at five. Not all of them were leaders of their city-states, and some were mercenaries under long term contracts, or agents from the Coalition of Independent Planes. More importantly was the Threefold Treaty between the Empire, the Xylarchy, the Coalition. That no Knight Dominus, no Domain Lord Binder, or a Royal Geist Holder should engage those below Knight in battle, unless it was in defense of their holdings, forces, or subordinates.

The treaty wasn’t strictly enforced, in truth, but could be claimed as a cause of war, cited as a reason to demand heavy reparations, or simply as justification for mass murder. Then again, the treaty had been in place since the first century of the Empire’s existence, and was simply part of the norm. More importantly was that Anima Pride would not allow one to easily harm someone who was radically weaker than the self.

Well, she still could start a massacre, but she’d rather not have that on her conscience. And more importantly, it wouldn’t really matter if she did kill all of the Federation warriors in the Aegeas Plains.

No. The Fate of the plane lay in securing the Gemheart and in repelling the Chaos Duke’s advances. And to do that, she had to bring her Legion to the Watchtower. And so, she had to clear the Imperial Pass.

Sighing to herself, Iola expanded her Domain. Earth and stone was not Crystal, but the latter came from the earth and was a kind of stone. Her Domain clutched at the stones, the boulders, mud, and dirt, and slowly shifted them to the side. Slowly, because she didn’t need to rush that much, and because if she forced speed, her Will would exhaust faster than she could replenish it.

At the same time, she used her inlaid Facet, the very first one she did after her Atavism Ritual, a humble technique called Move Earth, which had been enhanced and upgraded, refined and change, enough times during her ascent to qualitatively change it to Earth Manipulation, to shove the rock piles away from the road. She used it to raise stone slabs up, filled the sinkholes and gaps, until a couple of paces of road was clear.

Her Concept level was at Reperta, two levels above basic Ennoia. She was close to reaching Dominus of Crystal which, if she achieved, would put her on the upper levels of Knight Dominus. She needed that level at least to have a chance at becoming a Knight Imperius, even if it was unlikely to ever happen.

She didn’t know which would be more frustrating, reaching the door but not having the key to unlock it, or not even seeing the door in the first place. She was young for a Knight Dominus, not even a hundred years old, but according to their biographies, Imperator Sadiri had ascended to her level at a hundred and ten, while Imperator Dillon had done so in his two hundreds.

Iola was well beneath that age, but she knew that breaching Reperta to Dominus could take centuries.

She worked for the rest of the day, managing to clear nearly a longstride of road. The mountain range in the pass was only twenty longstrides compared to a hundred at the extreme north or south, but the road wasn’t straight through. It was actually closer to fifty longstrides of winding road before it would reach the opposite village of Horswick.

Ten days later, and another ten longstrides, Iola stopped when she felt something. Turning around, she yelled and cursed loudly when the mountainside collapsed on the road she already cleared, trapping her in between. The cliff rose up a couple of hundred paces up from where she was on either side, and she knew the terrain beyond that was just as rugged. And from the way the mountain was still shuddering, who knew if those cliffs wouldn’t collapse too.

Grumbling to herself, she turned around and began clearing the way back. She used the extra boulders to shore up the mountain wall, and then sank her Domain into the sides and converted the loose rock into crystalline matter. Hopefully it would hold up the walls, or maybe it would cause it to collapse in large chunks. Either way would work.

The mountain rumbled again just as she was halfway through the blockage, and this time, it collapsed on top of her. Swearing loudly, she Willed the stones to a halt just above her and shoved the things to the side, creating a pocket of air around her position. She held still afterwards, shoving what her Domain could reach from landing on top of her. A few minutes later, she jumped up, touched the rock ceiling and moved right through, as though she was a fish in water.

A dozen paces of boulders and mud later, she surfaced. Her Domain stabilised her footing and she glared at the Imperial pass. It was…gone.

More than a week of effort, wasted. She was tempted to let loose, to simply use her Domain to mow down the mountains, but her Will and Intent would be sorely depleted by then, and who knew when the Chaos Duke would strike. Perhaps he already had. The Avos wasn’t answering, and was more than likely dead. She should head over to the Watchtower instead of trying to keep the refugees safe. If she hadn’t sent Duchess Kinnock ahead, she would have abandoned her post here.

She was worried that the Chaos Duke would recover enough to taint the second Gemheart, but the Watchtower was actually more secure than Rumiga City. As long as it drew power from the plane, it would serve to keep that chamber secure.

Still, the path to the west was blocked and she didn’t know how to clear it. She was no Sorceress who could alter the fabric of reality to pave the way. She was a Knight Dominus, one with power over crystals. She could form them from nothing, or alter existing stone, but she had left her Earthmelder days far behind. She would be effective as a Knight level Earthmelder, but no more than that.

Well, maybe she should go kill Federation warriors after all. Or…attack the Chaos Fortress that was spewing those strangely weak Chaos Lords. Either way she had to get back to Misttyre.

She skipped over the boulders, bouncing off each sharp peak to the next, devouring dozens of paces with each leap. Once she built up speed, she formed thin crystalline wings as well as a tail behind her, and leapt as high as she could. The narrow pass created a wonderful wind tunnel that allowed her to glide, though her wingspan was almost seven paces from tip to tip.

She didn’t really like flying, preferring the solidness of the earth beneath her feet, but sometimes she enjoyed the exhilarating speed.

As she flew higher than the mountains, she beheld the wide vistas of the plane. Clouds gathered near the peaks, dropping a blanket of cold snow. The path had wound its way southwards, and she was roughly a couple of longstrides south of Misttyre, but with her crystalline wings incapable of doing anything other than glide, she actually couldn’t stay above the pass for too long. As she neared the foothills, flashes of light caught her eye. Black smoke rose from the hillside, and she could see the town of Milford, between Misttyre and Rumiga City, was under attack by a large contingent of Haveenian troops. And to the north, she could see a horde of barbarians making their way south. They were only five leagues from Milford.

“Burning Moon,” she muttered.

Misttyre was locked down, and Legion Agminis was spread thin. There were five thousand legionnaires there, as well as more than double that in militia and nobles’ house guard. Milford was Viscount Lawson’s town, and she could see his warriors clashing with the Ivalans.

With a snap judgment, she determined that she needed to head off the barbarians. That horde could go either way, but if they pincered Milford, the town would be doomed.

She angled her wings to the north, but not a moment later, she yelped as a black crescent of Animus screamed towards her.

In the blink of an eye, yellow crystal shards materialised and deflected the crescent. Iola glared down at a large man standing on a hilltop carrying a battle axe. King Garamus. And not far away, she saw a heavily armoured man. Autarch Ivala. Grandmaster Binders both. Her last battle with them had resulted in the Gemheart being tainted.

Anger spread out from her core, and she veered towards them, materialising hundreds of yellow crystal shards around her. The barbarian horde could wait. If she let these two men attack the town, or the village, there would be far more casualties.

The shards slammed down and Autarch Ivala interposed his armoured body in front of Garamus. Steel against crystals, but she was a Knight Dominus while he was a Grandmaster Binder.

At the end of the crystal rain, Autarch Ivala’s armour had dozens of dents. If not for the fact that his armour was seamless and without gaps or flaws, he would be bleeding on the ground now.

Iola landed with a crash on an opposite peak. There were only two of them here, and it was the best time to reap their lives.