In the camp of the Heroes of the Empire of Light, the air was thick with conflicting thoughts. Among the ranks, there was a division. Half of them had abstained from the battle at Lyrnessus, not out of cowardice, but because the battle felt meaningless—a pointless expenditure of energy. Some simply couldn’t muster the interest to engage in a skirmish that offered no immediate reward.
They hadn’t come to this war out of any deep-seated loyalty or purpose, but rather at the beckoning of Hera. Liphiel had made it clear: gaining the favor of a goddess like Hera could offer unimaginable benefits. She might even be their ticket back to Earth. That promise alone was enough to bind them to her cause.
In addition to Hera’s influence, there was another reason stirring among the Heroes—the myths. These heroes were no strangers to the legends, tales of gods, demigods, and mortals destined to triumph in epic battles. They believed, or perhaps convinced themselves, that fighting on the side of the Greeks meant fighting on the side destined to win. To them, it wasn’t a gamble; it was a sure thing.
Victory was preordained, or so they thought. Joining a war where the outcome seemed written in the stars was enticing. The allure of being part of a destined victory was too strong to resist.
However, beneath that confident exterior, there were whispers. A few of them, though they would never dare voice it openly, harbored doubts. This wasn’t Earth. These were not mere myths playing out in front of them. And there was no certainty that this war would end the way the stories told. The realization gnawed at the edges of their thoughts, but they kept it buried deep.
Inside one of the many tents scattered throughout the camp, the air was stifling. Aisha, one of the Heroes, slipped quietly into a specific tent, her movements careful and deliberate. The scent of healing herbs and the sterile tang of medicine clung to the fabric, almost overpowering. On the bed, resting, her arms and head swathed in bandages, was Gwen Lawrence.
She lay there, exhausted, her body aching from the recent battle in Lyrnessus. Though Liphiel’s healing magic had mended her wounds, the fatigue remained—a deep, bone-weary exhaustion that no magic could wash away. Even Iphlea, Gwen’s trusted companion, lay limp beside her, clearly just as worn out.
As soon as Gwen spotted Aisha at the entrance, her expression soured. A frown pulled at her lips, and she grumbled, “What are you doing here?”
Her voice was rough, edged with annoyance. Gwen hated being seen like this—wounded, vulnerable, bedridden. It was an affront to the image of strength and pride she clung to.
Aisha, unfazed by Gwen’s irritation, took a step closer. “Just checking on you. What happened?” she asked, her tone soft but curious.
Despite their prickly personalities, Aisha and Gwen shared a bond—an odd relationship born from their shared status as loners. They weren’t best friends, but there was a mutual understanding between them, a silent respect for each other’s solitude.
For a moment, Gwen didn’t respond, her jaw clenched, eyes staring ahead. The tent’s silence felt heavy, broken only by the occasional flicker of wind outside. Aisha pressed on, a small frown forming. “Was it Hector? Aeneas? Or maybe that Amazon queen, or Atalanta?” She listed off the names of the dangerous warriors in the Trojan’s side, the ones Liphiel had warned them about.
Gwen’s hands tightened into fists, the knuckles going white under the strain. “None of those,” she muttered, her voice carrying a deep bitterness. Her grip on the sheets tightened as the memories of the battle flooded back, unbidden. “His name was Heiron…”
Aisha’s brow furrowed. “Heiron?” The name wasn’t familiar to her. She didn’t recall Liphiel mentioning him.
“He… he’s a monster,” Gwen continued, her voice trembling, not from fear but from the humiliation of being so thoroughly outmatched.
Aisha stood there, stunned. Gwen was always the proud one, the fighter who never backed down, never admitted weakness. To hear her call someone a monster—a being that had so easily bested her—was shocking. Gwen, with all her strength and pride, had been broken by this mysterious warrior.
“He didn’t even flinch,” Gwen spat, her voice rising with a surge of frustration. “One of my strongest attacks… combined with Iphlea… and he just beat it off. Like it was nothing.”
Gwen still had trouble comprehending what had transpired during that fateful battle. She replayed it over and over in her mind, her disbelief mingling with frustration. It wasn’t just the fact that she had been defeated—after all, in war, losses happened—but the manner in which it had occurred felt surreal. She had witnessed it firsthand, yet part of her still refused to believe what she saw.
Heiron had been untouchable, cloaked in an otherworldly armor of ice that encased his arms, clinging to his skin like a second layer of flesh. It shimmered with an unnatural coldness, effortlessly absorbing the full brunt of her attack. Gwen had thrown everything at him, a combination of her strongest offensive spells and Iphlea’s immense power, yet the ice remained, unyielding, untouched.
And then there was his attack.
Celestial Rank, he had called it, a term foreign to Gwen’s understanding. She had never heard of magic ranks being named like that before. The sheer force behind his magic was unlike anything she had ever encountered. It had taken her down with frightening ease. That rank—Celestial—echoed in her thoughts. How had she never come across such a classification in all her years of training?
“Did you tell Liphiel about him?” Aisha’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“Yeah,” Gwen replied flatly.
Of course, she had informed Liphiel. There was no way someone like her—one of the strongest Heroes, accompanied by a powerful sylph like Iphlea—could fall in battle without it drawing attention. Liphiel had been displeased, to say the least. She was irritated not just by Gwen’s defeat, but by the emergence of an unknown, unpredictable threat.
Heiron wasn’t someone they had anticipated, and the mystery surrounding him unsettled Liphiel deeply. She had immediately set off to gather information, determined to uncover who or what this Heiron truly was.
Gwen’s brow furrowed as a thought tugged at the corners of her mind, a distant memory trying to resurface. “Do you remember that guy?” she asked suddenly, her voice hesitant.
Aisha raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
“You know… the one in Uteska. The one who killed Radakel in a single blow,” Gwen clarified, her voice quiet, as though she wasn’t sure she should even bring it up.
Aisha’s expression didn’t change, but she nodded. “Yes. What about him?”
Gwen hesitated, her fingers twisting the edge of her bandage absentmindedly. “He was using ice too, right? I… I think that…” She trailed off, her thoughts running wild. There was something there, some connection that she couldn’t quite grasp. She shook her head, dismissing the idea almost as soon as it had formed.
“Nothing.”
It was impossible, wasn’t it? The man who had defeated Radakel in Uteska had been a demon, a figure from Tenebria, far removed from the battlefield she had just fought on. What would someone like him be doing in a place so far from his homeland? It didn’t add up. And besides, Gwen had encountered plenty of people wielding ice magic before. There was nothing unique about that.
But still… something about Heiron nagged at her. His mana, his energy—it had been different, unplaceable.
What Gwen couldn’t know, what she couldn’t possibly have guessed, was how much had changed since that battle in Uteska. Nathan, the one she remembered as the ice-wielding demon, had undergone numerous transformations since then, each one reshaping not just his appearance but his very essence.
His mana had evolved, twisted by the forces he had encountered, and now it was nothing like the energy Gwen had once felt. And, beyond that, he no longer looked the same, his appearance altered dramatically after enslaving Amaterasu. The man she had fought at Lyrnessus, Heiron, was not someone she could recognize—not anymore.
“Take care, then,” Aisha said, cutting through the silence. She didn’t press further, sensing Gwen’s inner turmoil, and without waiting for a reply, she turned and left the tent.
Outside, the cold night breeze greeted her, brushing against her skin and making her hair dance in the wind. The chill in the air felt refreshing, almost cleansing, after the stifling tension inside. She took a deep breath, letting the coolness calm her mind as she wandered away from the cluster of tents that housed the other Heroes.
As Aisha wandered further, the surroundings gradually changed, and before she realized it, she had entered the territory of the Greeks.
“Look!”
The call came from a group of Greek soldiers lounging near a fire, their eyes lighting up as they caught sight of her.
“It’s one of those women from that Empire!”
A few of them chuckled, nudging each other, their eyes lingering on Aisha with lascivious gazes.
“She’s super hot!”
“Hey, cutie! How about playing with us tonight?” one of them jeered, standing up and swaggering toward her, emboldened by the laughter of his comrades.
Another chimed in with a lewd grin, “We’ll make you feel like a real woman!”
Their voices were a cacophony of insults and uninvited advances, their vulgarity hanging in the air like a thick fog.
She moved with a steely grace, her dark eyes fixed ahead, refusing to dignify their taunts with a reaction.
But then, her feet came to an abrupt halt.
Something…or rather, someone had caught her attention.
Amidst the noise and the dim glow of campfires, her gaze settled on a solitary figure, standing apart from the other Greeks. Unlike the boisterous soldiers who had tried to get her attention, this man radiated a silent, strong presence. He was dressed in the unmistakable armor of a Spartan.