2188 - Marshal!
On a certain planet in Middle Sector 100...
*Clang*
The planet was ablaze with war. Its original inhabitants had all been evacuated in time or killed... No one remained but soldiers, and many of them.
A few years ago, the war between the Multi-Centennial Cradle Empire and the Seven Thrones Empire had reached its peak, with the conflict reduced to two key planets.
One of them, Peon and his special forces men had managed to completely secure, erasing any enemy ground presence on it.
As for the second, the Seven Thrones Empire was desperately trying to fully occupy it to regain some of the prestige they had lost, but something strange happened there.
A soul shard of Lord Robin appeared and ordered everyone to evacuate the planet.
And even more strangely... the soldiers of the Seven Thrones Empire accepted his words and left.
And the Emperor of the Seven Thrones, Maylam, Guardian of the Major Wind Law, did not take this insult lightly.
On the same day, he issued orders to gather all the retreating forces from that planet, pull back all troops engaged in skirmishes on other planets on the sidelines, and direct them all toward a single new destination: Planet Arkathion.
The colossal war had nearly ended with the victory of the Double Hundred Cradle Empire. By withdrawing the enemy's armies, all those planets fell into their hands without any issues. Moreover, they moved to devour more and more planets of the Seven Thrones Empire without the slightest resistance.
The Seven Thrones Empire truly had only two strongholds left… their capital, where their ruler, who refuses to show himself even to this day, lurks, and here, Planet Arkathion, which is witnessing the largest single-location battle the sector has ever seen.
Chaos
Chaos
Caesar stood on a platform neither too high nor too low, watching a massive battle unfold before his eyes—a ground battle between Martial Emperors like himself, millions of them.
Above them, vehicles hovered, pounding each other, while the World Calamities and Nexus States fought fiercely, with no one willing to retreat. Meanwhile, the mysterious Royal Spirit Masters of the Double Hundred Cradle Empire occasionally moved to hunt some enemies, then returned to stillness to conserve their precious Spiritual Units.
The number of Nexus States and World Calamities under the Seven Thrones Empire was staggering; they had been forced to condense their war onto a single planet due to the damage suffered by their armies and fleets, yet the numbers of their Nexus States and World Calamities had not diminished much.
Hundreds of them tore the sky asunder.
Dozens of Nexus States, users of the seven Minor Wind Laws, had not come today to jest.
Their numbers, their strength, and their weapons exhausted the Nexus States and World Calamities arriving from the wings of the Double Hundred Cradle Empire, but it was not enough to push them back entirely, especially with the royal spirit masters protecting them.
And in the midst of all that chaos, Caesar was not invisible...
Standing there in his golden armor striped with black, his black cloak emblazoned with a golden fire mark fluttering behind him... his half-lidded eyes wearing an expression akin to boredom, and his heavy, grim aura that forced everyone to keep their distance from him... made him appear in his natural place, a leader.
A leader who seemed unwilling to be here.
“…” Caesar raised his head slightly. He could see Peon beginning to wreak havoc on the right flank, but instead of feeling joy or taking any action, he continued standing, staring in that direction with a rigid expression.
Then he closed his eyes…
But he did not see darkness.
The battlefield still lingered in his mind; he could still
see
everything, though not in the same way.
What he now saw was a moving image of black and white, where the soldiers were white threads moving in a world ruled by darkness. In the midst of those threads, there was a flame in the chest and a glowing lamp in the head.
Some threads were struck, parts of them severed, and even the flame weakened or strengthened depending on the state of the battle.
But as soon as a flame went out or a lamp faded, everything else vanished.
Everything turned into black smoke and rose to form something like a cloud—a cloud darker than the world around it, a cloud containing tens of thousands of terrifying, screaming faces.
The abundance of clouds produced every moment made Caesar see the battlefield as a dense fog, a fog that affected the remaining threads, pressing them, slowly suffocating them, pulling them toward itself.
Before that horrifying scene… finally, a smile spread across Caesar’s face.
Then he began to do something.
No one around him, not even his enemies, saw what was happening…
But he saw.
A black cloud crept from his leg to beneath the platform, then found its way toward the battlefield, quickly settling at the most heated spot of the fight… there where Raiden fought alongside Martin in the front lines against the Marshals of the Earth Army.
Then Caesar thought: <The Last Breath>
Hooo~
The cloud crept from under the feet and then upward like a gust of summer air.
Bam
Bam
Bam
Bam
The Marshals and Generals of the Earth Army fell instantly without resistance, without a scream, without an extra heartbeat.
Those who were giving orders, those who were leading an assault, those who were engaging one opponent… all of them dropped dead in their places.
"What's happening?"
"Be on guard!!"
Raiden and the other leaders of the Army of the Empire of the Cradle retreated in terror; they had never witnessed anything like this before, and to their knowledge, they had no one or nothing capable of such a feat.
But the dead… they had been carefully selected.
"..?" When he thought of this, Raiden immediately turned toward Marshal Caesar.
The Flame of Death was not supposed to cause a phenomenon like this, but he surely knew what had just happened since he was the—
"Marshal!!"
Raiden shouted in panic when he caught sight of Caesar's appearance.