The odor of burned flesh still lingered on the wind.
It filled my clothes, my skin… my soul.
I perched upon a bitter, ragged stone at the center of the battlefield. The ground beneath me was no longer as it was as always. It was a charred crust of blood and ash, glassified by flames and death. Everywhere around me were contorted dead bodies of shadow beasts and shattered armor constructs half-submerged in the mud, their dead flesh whispering the silences of screams which would never be heard.
Neron.
He had been careless, indeed. Too loud when stealth was called for, too hasty when prudence was a sharper blade. But Neron was also the one who'd always laughed before anyone else after a battle, the one who could wrest a joke from the jaws of despair. And now, that laughter was muffled; silent, silenced by the Rift.
I looked at my fists, clenched them tight until the knuckles ached.
War doesn't care who it claims.
It only gives you the pieces.
Pieces like me.
I thought this and my world was the battlefield when I was with the Dark Unification Army. I thought that our enemies were just on the other side of the Rift. I was wrong. The truth… the truth is bigger, more horrible.
The omniverse nexus isn't infinite chaos. It's a map.
A map carved out in five great regions: the Central, East, West, South, and North Mathiverses. Each one has an infinite number of universes, greater than anything could count. I was born in the West, but my universe was just a blank spot on the emptiness.
Outside of those regions lies something more. Something greater.
The Chaos Region.
It surrounds all other regions.
No Central power ventures into it. Not because they don't want to but because they can't. Distance is irrelevant. Directions are a concept. Reality itself is malleable, unforeseeable. There is but one race that can traverse it at whim.
The Andhakars.
We… they… dominate the True Void. They stalk from universe to universe as if the boundaries of existence were no limit to them. And in that endless darkness, beyond the rims of all other living things, live creatures older than the oldest. Voidborn creatures with power but without wisdom. Creatures of power to annihilate stars, but without the desire to speak.
That is why the Andhakars ruled alone.
And our Emperor; the only one blesses by the One to unite all of the lands of the elements sits upon them all. His will is law in the True Void, and his reach extends into all of the Mathiverses.
He bestowed the West upon Syrelle's husband. The Governor General of the West, Field Marshal of the Western Field Army. That man wields more power than most gods. And yet…
Even gods are not as they seem.
Back in my home universe, they instructed us to revere them. Kneel, obey, quake. But the truth is, they are just higher beings. Max High Rank 5. Their potential is Peak Rank 5 if they're lucky. To the Union, though, they are not gods. They are resources. Tools to be enslaved and wielded against the Chaos Region.
And me?
I'm a chess piece.
A tool placed here to warp these "gods" to the Union's will, to make them fight for a war that they did not start, against an enemy they have never glimpsed. My responsibility is to break them, bind them, and send them on.
I am supposed to accept that.
Because the thing about chess pieces is....
If they make it across the board, they don't stay pawns.
They change into something else.
A piece can still kill the king…
If it learns when to strike.
The wind howled through the rubble, carrying with it the remotest scent of ozone from the Rift. I stood up, tightening my cloak about me. The war wasn't over yet.
And when my time is up… the Union won't treat me like a pawn.
They'll treat me like the hand that breaks their throne.