The council stretched deep into midnight. Voices had run dry, but at last, everyone knew their role. The villagers dispersed—some to sharpen blades, others to steal what little sleep they could.
For Aexl, the night ended differently. Lyssa herself guided him up the carved stone steps toward the second floor. Juvia had excused herself early, claiming fatigue, though Aexl suspected it was the beer… or maybe the way she'd flushed whenever their eyes met.
At his door, Lyssa thanked him in a voice quieter than usual, then turned sharply, vanishing into the inner hall—her golden hair trailing behind her like a banner.
Left alone, Aexl collapsed onto the straw-stuffed mattress. His mind felt like lead, yet his body pulsed with restless energy. He chuckled under his breath.
"Stamina of a General, huh? On Earth, they'd just call it insomnia."
With a sigh, he reached for the smartphone resting on his coat. The black screen flickered alive, washing the dark room in cold light.
And there it was.
[ Mission Accepted: Bloodline of the Wolf ]
Condition of Completion:
Kill the Worg rider scout (0/5)
Break the incoming expeditionary Orc Force (0/500)
Capture Orc fortress (brokeshield)
Bring Selene and her mom to Lunavark to claim the buried birth rights
Reward:
Gain the Lunavark as your territory
Gain 5 Ability Points
Gain the Ability Commodore of the Sea
The glowing text hovered in his vision, heavy as destiny, sharp as a knife. Five hundred enemies. A fortress. A buried bloodline.
Aexl let his arms flop wide across the bed, staring up at the wooden beams above. Then, with mock solemnity, he raised both fists toward the ceiling.
"Selene's reward better be damn worth it!"
His laughter broke the silence of the room—half exasperation, half thrill.
The game had truly begun.
A gust of wind swept through the room, flinging dust into his face as if Gaia herself mocked his hesitation. He squinted, coughing, then noticed the window hanging wide open.
Dragging himself up, Aexl moved toward it. Beyond the sill stretched the night—the broken walls, the moonlit ridges cradling Eldenthyr, the forest shadows where danger lurked.
He exhaled slowly, breath misting in the cold air.
"…Seriously. This better end with Selene either conceiving an army… or at least wrapped in a towel," he muttered, recalling how her beauty struck him every time their eyes met. His lips curved into a thin grin. "And most of all—me, conquering this world."
But then he paused.
His chest tightened. Heart pounding—not from battle, but from the weight of choice.
His fist clenched against the windowsill, veins taut, the sound of his heartbeat loud as war drums.
"I didn't ask for this… but maybe I was meant to come here. If I walk away now, they'll die. If I stay, I might die."
The Ephone buzzed in his hand.
Aexl looked down.
The screen shimmered—then pulsed with a glow that bled into the dark like a second moon.
A new button emerged at the bottom, blinking steadily.
[ Battlefield Overlay Unlocked ]
His thumb hovered. He tapped.
A spectral blueprint unfolded above the phone, ghostly and glowing. Not the rough sketch he'd seen before—this was sharper, alive, like an RTS map carved from light and intent.
It stretched wide, from Eldenthyr's battered walls to the cliffside entrance where the orcs now rested. Blips pulsed in steady rhythm: tree lines etched in pale green, jagged ridges in cold white, narrow bottlenecks glowing faint blue. At the valley, a crimson arc swept forward, crawling toward the village.
"A… five-hundred by five-hundred tactical map. Real-time. Zoomable." His whisper caught in his throat. "Just like War Dominion I… autobattle or manual. But this time… no screen. Just real."
Lines began sketching themselves across the terrain, as if the system anticipated him—barricade points, fallback routes, ambush zones. His thumb slid across the interface with practiced rhythm, tapping, swiping, and rotating. The battered phone felt less like a relic and more like a command console.
A 3D model of the cliff wall spun into view, contour lines shimmering like veins. He zoomed on a narrow pass. Elevation highlighted the choke.
"There. Perfect. Classic delay tactic… funnel the flow, control the tempo."
He tapped again. A blue line stretched outward from Eldenthyr. A red line crawled down from the orc encampment. Their markers crept closer. Fifteen hours. Sundown.
"They'll reach it by nightfall," he muttered. His jaw tightened. "Too far for us… too late to capitalize."
He leaned back against the window frame, eyes fixed on the wasted opportunity. The perfect trap. Left untouched.
Still, he didn't stop.
He pinched the map, dragging his view outward. The terrain spread, valleys and rivers peeling into place. Then the grid broke.
A gray haze seeped in. Thick. Impenetrable. The map refused to render beyond the cliffs.
His brows furrowed. "What…?"
The fog shifted, swirling like a living wall. No enemy units. No terrain. Just blank interference.
"Fog of war." His voice was flat, bitter.
The phone pulsed again, the haze pressing harder against the edges of the known map.
"Tch. Figures." He jabbed the screen, irritation simmering. "Can't have it too easy."
He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. Strategizing blind was never ideal. But he'd played worse scenarios.
"Alright then…" He summoned the War Dominion IX overlay. "Let's see what cards I do have."
[ War Dominion Menu]
► STATUS ........... View Commander Rank, Buffs, Bond Effects
► UNIT TAB ......... View Current Units [CLICK TO OPEN]
► MAP OVERLAY ......... Tactical View / Enemy Movement / BATTLEFIELD [NEW]
► RESOURCE COUNT ...... [LOCKED] (Requires Settlement Upgrade)
► COMMAND OPTIONS ........ [LOCKED] (Reach Village Level 6)
► TAVERN/MARKETPLACE ....... View to Purchase[CLICK TO OPEN]
► QUEST .......... Active Missions / Bond Events [CLICK TO OPEN]
► WAR DOMINION MANUAL .... Tactical Glossary / Terms of Service [CLICK TO OPEN]
His finger hovered across the glowing options.
[Status] → Skip.
[Units] → 17 units of Eldenthyr Guards, Tapped renamed Valkyrie Unit there you go
[Map Overlay] → Same as before, fog and red arcs crawling toward Eldenthyr. Skip.
[Resources] [Command Options] → Both grayed out, padlocked like a childproof cabinet. No choice there.
Then his thumb froze.
Something he had seen before in any War Dominion build.
[TAVERN / MARKETPLACE]
Curiosity itched at him. He tapped.
The Ephone buzzed. The screen flickered, then stabilized into a clean menu.
[ Marketplace ]
[ Coins: 10 Command Coins ]
[Weapons] [Artifacts] [Scrolls] [Resources]
Aexl swiped into Weapons.
Empty racks — nothing under 10 Command Coins.
He swiped into Artifacts.
Price tags: 12,000. 9,900. Even the cheapest scrap gleamed with five digits.
He swiped into Scrolls.
6,700. 4,800. A ragged piece of parchment — 20 coins.
His lip curled. "Not even enough to buy toilet paper…"
His balance blinked at the corner: [10 Command Coins]
A sigh hissed out of him. "Truly Hell difficulty."
He backed out, thumb dragging over to the next tab: [Taverns].
The panel was loaded with a faint shimmer. Three tabs revealed themselves:
[Taverns]
[H-Lords] [Specialist] [Gatcha]
He tapped Specialist first.
[ ??? ]
[ ??? ]
[ ??? ]
Blank silhouettes. Locked.
Then H-Lords.
The same. No forms, shapes hidden in shadow.
[ ??? ]
[ ??? ]
[ ??? ]
Aexl groaned, head tilting back. "Of course. Locked. Always some hidden condition…"
Finally, he tried Gatcha.
The screen transformed into a gaudy spinning wheel, glowing gold and crimson.
[ Recruit Spin – 1,000 Coins / Pull ]
Random Chance: Normal → Epic Units.
He stared at it in disbelief.
"…What is this, a mobile game scam?"
The button pulsed invitingly. His coin balance mocked him in the corner.
[ Command Coins: 10 ]
"Difficulty: Hell. Truly Hell," Aexl muttered, dragging a hand down his face. "At this rate, I'll be dead before I pull even one squirrel unit."
With a flick, the gacha wheel dissolved. The Ephone pulsed, shifting back into the Battlefield 3D Overlay.
The room fell quiet but for the hearth's crackle. Shadows pressed into the corners, yet the projection carved the table with cold geometry—ridges, treelines, bottlenecks, all rendered in merciless blue.
Aexl snorted under his breath. "Thank God this smartphone doesn't need charging." The corner read it plain: Battery: N/A. One less thing to worry about. At least Gaia didn't come with outlets.
He set the phone flat. The map flared upward like a warboard, clean and precise. His fingers twitched—old reflex, the same motion he'd used in countless operations, sliding tokens across maps, sketching vectors with grease pencils.
Only this time, the stakes weren't pixels.
This was his battlefield.
Pulling a chair closer to the window, he let the moonlight bleed into the glow of the Ephone. It almost felt like his old command post—radio chatter replaced by the hum of the device.
Aexl exhaled, elbows braced, eyes narrowing on the red arcs crawling toward Eldenthyr.
"No units. No generals. No scrolls. Fine. Then we fight with what we've got."
His finger traced the ridges, lines unfolding into chokepoints, fallback routes, barricade marks. Instinct took over—part gamer reflex, part soldier's grit, the blend that had carried him through battlefields and sleepless nights alike.
And for the first time since arriving in Gaia… he almost felt at home.
Aexl squinted toward the crumbled wall, voice dropping into a whisper.
"The villagers… they have pointy ears. Maybe… elves?"
The thought sparked, and his eyes lit up.
"If they are, this could be like Agincourt. Archers versus armored knights. Longbows against arrogance."
A grin tugged at his lips as he remembered history class—or at least the parts he actually paid attention to through turn-based strategy games.
"Tension? Morale?" He scoffed softly. "Yeah, we've got that in spades. Fear, desperation, and just enough hope to make a dramatic comeback."
His gaze slid past the village, narrowing toward the jagged cliffs where a ruined castle clung like a barnacle to stone. Its spires were snapped like broken spears, battlements sagging into mossy rubble. The whole place looked like it had lost a war, then a century-long roofing contest.
And yet… it radiated possibility.
"That place screams forgotten relics," Aexl murmured, eyes glinting. "Abandoned loot. Ancient gear. Or, at the very least, one chest with dramatically glowing weapons guarded by a dusty skeleton who still takes his job seriously."
He chuckled under his breath. "I'd bet my last Command Coin there's something usable in there."
Movement caught his eye. Out in the fields, something absurd strutted across the torchlight. A massive bird—goofy eyes, metallic-feathered sheen, body big as an ostrich. Dozens of them wandered the village grounds like oversized poultry.
One turned, chest puffing proudly.
SQUAcckk!
A honk more ridiculous than threatening.
Then it bolted.
Aexl blinked as the bird blurred past, vanishing through the gate in seconds. His smirk returned.
"What speed is that? Big as an ostrich, but twice as fast…" His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Are they mountable?"
The grin faded. He leaned back against the chair, jaw tightening.
"No time for that. If I can't fight the horde head-on…" His fingers tapped the warboard, dragging lines across terrain.
"…then I'll fight smarter."
Aexl's eyes swept back to the battlefield, snapping from one detail to the next.
Thick forests pressed against both sides of the trail—overgrown, shadowed, untouched for years. Perfect ground for ambushes.
Huge boulders lay half-hidden in tall grass, unmoving like sleeping beasts. Fallen logs, half-rotted fences, even a dried-out ravine—nothing ideal, but every scrap could be used.
His mind raced.
The Ephone shimmered, then expanded outward, casting a dome of faint blue light that wrapped the room in ghostly terrain lines. Topography unfolded around his position—slopes, tree clusters, road bends, elevation shifts—all etched in luminous geometry.
And then he saw it.
At the near entrance of the Forest of Overgrowth, after the open field, the ground rose—a slope stretching nearly 6 kilometers, climbing fifty to a hundred meters in elevation. A natural funnel, narrowing into a hill choke.
Aexl zoomed in, then out, tracing the contours with his fingertip. His pulse quickened.
"…The Hot Gates," he whispered. "A Spartan choke. Force them to take the road. Funnel them in. Break five hundred with fifty."
His lips curved into a quiet smirk.
If you can't win with numbers, you win with position and quality.
He tapped the ridge, highlighting marks for archer nests. "Tommorow, Let's see what these elves can do with their shooting prowess."
The grin lingered—until a sound cracked through the stillness.
Soft. Suddenly. Too close.
His smirk faded, breath catching in the quiet room.
The grin lingered—until a sound cracked through the stillness.
"—haaah… hhhahh—"
A woman's breath. Shallow, uneven. Like someone had sprinted through the night and stopped just outside his door.
Aexl froze, head snapping toward the noise.
"…Panting?" he muttered.
The hearth's crackle suddenly felt too loud, the map's glow too bright. All he could hear was the ragged rise and fall of breath—hot, desperate, and undeniably feminine.
"Hhhahhh… ahhh… nnnhhh…"
Not fear. Just out of breath.
And far too close.
"haaah… hhhahh… haaah… hhhahh…"
Aexl stiffened.
No—wait. Not pain. Not running. Different.
He held his breath, the silence of the night making every sound clearer. Slowly, he rose from his chair, ears straining.
"Hhhahhh… ahhh… nnnhhh…"
Slower this time. Almost deliberate.
He moved across the room, pressing his ear to the wall. Nothing. The floor. Nothing. The bedframe. Nothing. Finally—the door.
The voice pulsed clearer, dripping through the wood. A woman's voice.
Who the hell would be sprinting through the hall at three in the morning?
He flicked his eyes to the Ephone. 3:00 a.m. glowed on the corner of the screen.
He eased the door open. No locks. No noise in the hall. Just rows of doors—four on each side—staring back at him like silent witnesses.
"Hhhahhh… ahhh… nnnhhh… I can't take this anymore… feels like I'm going to die…"
The voice cracked into words, feminine and trembling.
Die? Aexl's pulse spiked. Suicide? Despair? After everything—failed summon, no army, hopeless odds... it made a brutal kind of sense. Plans were words; fear was heavier.
His instinct kicked in. No hesitation. He'd seen this too many times in another life.
He didn't step into the hall. Instead, he moved like a shadow... slipping out the window, noiseless as a cat. Bare feet found grip along the roof tiles, body flowing low, fast. One wrong move and he'd startle whoever was inside.
He reached the next window, dropped low, and peeked in.
His breath caught.
"…Juvia?"