[Chapter Size: 2700 Words.]
Third Person POV
Verden.
...
...
The impact finally brought the enormous giant boulder to a stop, now buried deep in the ground. The horses that had managed to stay standing eventually calmed down after a long while of the entire region trembling, although half of the army had already lost their mounts and were still on the ground trying to recover.
The tremors still continued faintly through the earth. It was possible to feel them while the echo of the collision continued to make everything vibrate.
The experience of witnessing that enormous mountain of stone crashing into the ground would be something none of those men would ever forget for the rest of their lives. They would tell their children, who would tell their own children, and so on. After all, what they had witnessed should not have been something a human was capable of doing, and the result was there, embedded in the ground.
They had witnessed a power that not one of them could even believe existed.
"A judgment... The judgment of God," the men said among themselves as they continued staring at the massive cloud of dust rising in the distance while the gigantic boulder remained before them all.
"The gods have judged the Black Soldiers." That was what they were beginning to tell one another.
The king, standing off to one side amid that scene, swallowed hard. That was certainly beyond anything he had ever seen. Whatever had happened earlier in the middle of the camp, whether it had been that blue skeleton or the summoning of that enormous boulder...
The war was over.
And so everyone would say that a god had simply destroyed the Black Knights by sending a meteor from the heavens.
"My king... what should we do?" one of the knights asked, approaching cautiously while still looking at the enormous shattered boulder.
"We can do nothing but observe."
"What if another stone appears from the sky and comes to attack us?" another man asked, with the same fear shared by all the others.
The king could see it on the face of every one of his soldiers. They all waited anxiously for orders, while some were already scanning the sky for any sign of another meteor falling upon them.
"If that thing decides to attack us, there will be nowhere to run. We will simply die."
The king had barely finished speaking when a sorcerer emerged through a portal. He was one of the survivors of the chaos in Aretuza years ago, who had been forced to flee after the Wild Hunt's attack.
The sorcerer remained staring at the enormous boulder, sensing that the entire atmosphere had changed since it fell. Even the king noticed the overwhelming shock written across his face while his hands trembled slightly.
"My king..." he said, with obvious fear.
"Have you ever seen anything like this?" the king asked.
He shook his head. "This is beyond anything I have ever witnessed..." His voice was consumed by fear.
"I understand your fear, just like everyone else in the army. Look at what happened... That thing ended the war and destroyed the entire Nilfgaardian army we had been trying to push back for months," the king said with a serious expression.
"What happened here was a warning. And since we were not attacked, it means he is an enemy only of the Nilfgaardians, for which we should, in a way, be grateful. After all, we are not the ones being crushed." He paused briefly before continuing.
"Either way, go with a few companions and find out exactly what is happening. Inform the kingdoms about what happened here today," the king ordered.
The sorcerer merely nodded. The appearance of two dead kings in the North had already been enough. The King of Redania and the King of Kovir were no small matter. Now... this.
The king needed to know more.
The Forest of Brokilon was still trembling from the impact. Scouts from the dryads were quickly dispatched to investigate what had happened. The boulder could no longer be seen above the treetops. They would have to leave the forest to find it.
The women of the tribe returned a short while later, informing Queen Eithné of what they had seen. The woman simply swallowed hard.
"It was him... He did this." Now, it was no longer an illusion. It was real.
Farther north, the King of Temeria soon received news of what had happened in the south. He immediately dropped his wine goblet as he listened to the reports.
"What are you saying?" he shouted in alarm as the sorceress recounted everything that had happened.
"Madara Uchiha and Cirilla were seen today appearing at the military camp. They simply walked past our soldiers, told everyone not to interfere with them, and proceeded to the enemy camp, where they began slaughtering all twenty-five thousand Nilfgaardian soldiers, my king."
"They did it alone. Not just Madara... The girl is also incredibly powerful. We had no idea. Princess Cirilla displayed a mastery of magic that no one can explain. None of our sorceresses has ever witnessed such power in the hands of a single mage. Not even Tissaia and the other great mages have demonstrated anything comparable."
"I say this because it was not Madara who generated that power. We were able to feel Chaos... We felt Chaos simply dancing around her."
The report left the king completely bewildered as he stared at the sorceress before him, wondering whether all of this could truly be real.
Then a chill ran down his spine. The news from the North had arrived yesterday, and now this. It was easy to understand what it meant.
Two kings dead, beheaded on their own thrones, along with most of their guards. Radovid had been found with the entire throne room covered in corpses. Even his advisors and guards had been spared no mercy. Meanwhile, the King of Kovir had suffered an attack and later received nothing but his own head falling onto the throne.
It did not take intelligence to understand what was happening. The greatest fear of the kings of the Northern Kingdoms had returned. Not even the war with Nilfgaard was as alarming.
They had returned. And this time, they certainly did not seem to possess the same patience they had years ago.
"It seems that the fool in the south thought it was wise to announce that he had found Cirilla and intended to marry her." Foltest could not help but grumble. If the real Cirilla is that powerful, the Southern Empire is going to have problems... But it also makes one wonder about their relationship with those two...
"Tell me, how is our relationship with Madara Uchiha and Cirilla?"
The woman swallowed hard upon hearing the question. "We do not have a good relationship with them, my king."
"Given everything that has happened over the past few years... I do not believe they see us in a favorable light, Your Majesty."
"Tell me something. If they attack us... do we have any chance of defending ourselves?" he asked.
The woman frowned and shook her head with a worried expression.
"If that happens, Your Majesty... I'm afraid not. Nothing in this kingdom can stop them. You saw what they did to an entire army. They could wipe out this city with ease, and if they wanted to kill you, there would be absolutely nothing we could do," she replied honestly.
The king could not help but shudder. At any other time, he would have had her arrested for saying such a thing. But he knew reality was very different.
This was no joke. Madara Uchiha and his wife had returned.
They had already killed two kings, executed their targets, and destroyed an army of twenty-five thousand men in a short time. Now, that force was marching across the Continent.
"Damn it... Please, try to get in touch with those sorceresses you mentioned. Arrange a meeting immediately. We need to make a peace agreement. We have to reach some kind of understanding. I don't want to be spared, just like my family," he said.
This had to be discussed immediately.
Queen Meve was still observing all the destruction left behind. The enormous crater where small forests and mountains had once stood remained before her. At some point, the gigantic sphere had disappeared.
No one knew where the enormous boulder had gone, but everyone felt a faint tremor coming from far away. Almost imperceptible... Yet she noticed it.
The thought that Madara had simply hurled that gigantic sphere somewhere else made the queen frown.
"They have returned..." one of the queen's advisors said.
"They also claimed that they are not our enemies. They came only to liberate Cintra and restore its government." Meve responded to those words by simply closing her eyes.
She could only be grateful that they were not her enemies.
Thorne was still staring at all the devastation created by the battle. He was trying to process everything that had just happened.
Just moments ago, he had still been fighting the Black Soldiers, who continued conquering more and more land. His kingdom was small, and they were losing the war. Now that Queen Meve's forces and Temeria were occupied with their own territorial conflicts, Sodden had been left almost entirely alone to face Nilfgaard's army.
He had believed this would be just another battle.
Until someone unexpected appeared. It was difficult to forget that person.
Her beauty remained unmatched across the entire Continent. Her platinum hair and bright green eyes were impossible to mistake. She appeared without any warning, causing Thorne's entire royal guard to immediately draw their swords and point them at her with hostile and wary expressions.
Where had she come from?
"Princess Cirilla..." His voice came out almost as a whisper, not out of fear of the woman, but because it was completely unexpected to see her appear after so many years without any news of her or her husband. Many had said they were dead.
"Hello. I've returned. I see the problems with the Nilfgaardians have reached this place as well," she said calmly, crossing her arms as if she owned the place.
Her guards did not like that attitude. But Thorne knew very well that this woman was not someone they could deal with easily.
"If the Princess of Cintra..." his loyal advisor murmured.
Those words carried far more meaning than they seemed. If she had returned, then...
"My husband came with me as well," Cirilla replied simply, completing everyone's thoughts.
There was no warmth in her voice. Only coldness. Thorne stepped forward and made a small respectful gesture.
"Princess Cirilla... have you come to help us?" he asked.
Sodden needed help more than he wanted to admit, and above all, her husband's help.
"Yes. But don't make that face. I imagine you're expecting my husband to be here as well. He went to deal with another problem. He's fighting the Black Army in Verden while I came here." She quickly glanced toward the enemy camp.
"There are only five thousand men, right? I intend to deal with them." She said it as though it were of no importance. "No one is to interfere in this battle."
The men exchanged glances. "Wait, Princess Cirilla..."
He barely had time to finish speaking. She simply vanished in a flash of green light. Her message was clear. No one was to interfere.
Thorne immediately ran outside, accompanied by his advisor and several soldiers. As soon as they stepped out, they began hearing screams coming from the battlefield. The men pointed toward the Black camp in complete shock.
When Thorne looked in that direction, he nearly choked.
A green flash had appeared in the sunny sky.
The next instant, a massive explosion engulfed the enemy camp. No one could explain how she had done it.
Cirilla merely raised her sword with both hands above her head and spun it while releasing an absurd amount of Chaos energy.
Moments later, an enormous green bolt struck directly into the enemy army.
The explosion simply annihilated everything.
It was the same kind of explosion she had created in the forest years ago. Now, however, she was capable of producing it simply by concentrating an immense amount of energy.
Thorne and his men could hardly believe what they had witnessed. The entire camp was consumed by the green energy.
Everything turned to dust. Then... silence.
It all happened so quickly that almost no one could comprehend what had occurred during the first few seconds.
But everyone's breath caught in that instant. No one could believe their own eyes.
The enemy that had tormented them for months... simply disappeared.
Cirilla reappeared before them once again. Everyone took a step back.
Even Thorne looked at the woman, wondering whether she could still be considered human.
His father had once wanted him to become that girl's husband, driven by his foolish ambitions against everyone's wishes, in order to seize Cintra for Sodden. That had ended up provoking a completely unnecessary war for Sodden, which they had lost disastrously.
Thorne could not help but swallow hard. What kind of monster would it take to be the husband of a woman like her?
Well... The man no longer believed that anyone besides Madara was qualified for that.
The woman standing before him was no longer even remotely that little girl. Nor that proud princess from years ago. She was simply the kind of woman who could decide the fate of the Continent if she wished.
Or if she ever fought with her husband, whom Thorne knew was just as powerful. He simply had not expected that she, too, had reached such an absurd level after all these years.
In any case, something appeared beside Cirilla a moment later, making Thorne's eyes widen even further.
"Lord Madara..." he said immediately.
Madara merely looked him over for a second. "It's been a while, Thorne. How have things been?" he asked in a calm tone, as though he did not care in the slightest about the enormous explosion his wife had just caused.
"We were at war, as you can see. But your wife just massacred our enemies a short while ago."
Madara nodded, completely unimpressed. "Well, we just destroyed the army in southern Temeria. We also eliminated the army that was attacking Lyria and Rivia. I personally went to destroy the army attacking Verden, while she came here. With that, the entire enemy army has disappeared from the North."
All the men who heard those words felt a chill run down their spines.
Many still remembered the war from years ago. They remembered Madara facing one hundred and fifty thousand Nilfgaardians, how he had destroyed an entire army by summoning that blue giant capable of slicing through mountains.
Now... He said he had destroyed Nilfgaard's entire army as though it were absolutely nothing.
Well, to him, it truly was nothing compared to the war years ago. There were not nearly as many soldiers this time. There had been twenty-five thousand in Temeria, fifteen thousand in Lyria and Rivia, five thousand in Sodden, and another ten thousand in Verden.
After losing one hundred and fifty thousand men, they had still not fully recovered from the damage they had suffered years earlier. Even so, Nilfgaard had managed to gather an army of approximately fifty-five thousand men, one-third of its original strength, in just a few years. It was a considerable number, and Emhyr had never abandoned his ambitions.
What they had not expected was to face the same man who had destroyed their army years ago.
Cirilla walked over to her husband and took his hand.
"Lord Madara... Princess Cirilla... please, have a drink with me. I would like us to talk," Thorne requested.
Madara listened but shook his head at Thorne's request. "Perhaps another time, Thorne. We still have things to do. We'll be heading to Nilfgaard soon."
That made Thorne's eyes widen. "Does that mean..."
"It means we're finally taking Cintra back," Madara replied.
Cirilla immediately squeezed his hand in a silent gesture of support. Madara took advantage of the contact and used the Hiraishin.
The two of them disappeared before the entire high command of Sodden.
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