Centurion Atticus had been selected for the trip into the World beyond the Gate. This morning, he had gathered together his army from their camp, and had charged through the gate, through the other side. Finding... nothing.

The Gate had appeared on a plateau, with steep cliffs surrounding the edges. There was no easy way down, and so he was stuck waiting up there along with the rest of the army as the engineers and mages carved a path downwards. The only thing he could see from here was a lush and fertile plain, all covered in tall green grass, and few trees. A flat and fertile ground, perfect for farmers. Too bad it was useless for him. The gate had been used before, in order to plunder and raid other worlds. Previous places had rewarded the soldiers with strange artifacts, precious stones and metals, and all sorts of slaves.

This time, it seemed to be different. The whole place seemed deserted. No places to raid, no slaves, and nothing to steal.

This angered the men, who were expecting to gain riches and valuables from the expedition. Although they did not express it directly, he could almost hear the grumblings and complaining emanating from the camp. He could feel their frustration. Even the command staff around him were annoyed, as they spent their days doing nothing. As the days went by, and the engineers slowly built a rampart for the men and horses to get down from the cliffside, he began to feel stir-crazy. Would the gods, please, just send someone or something to them? It would be nice for anything to happen. Anything!

3 days later, as the sun rose, he got his wish.

The scouts saw it first. 2 large clouds of dust, coming from 2 opposite directions from the plateau. As the 2 opposing groups of men approached, he realized 2 things. The ones coming from the north, bore blue and white flags. The ones from the south, they had orange and green flags. Their weapons were different, too. While the ones from the south had ordinary weapons like swords, spears, and shields, the some of the soldiers from the north had strange staffs they pointed straight in front of them. It seemed that the 2 opposing armies were about to clash with each other. And he had a front-row seat to the show.

It was 6 hours, until the battle commenced. That was when everything went wrong.

The first shot was a beam of light from a faction wearing blue. It struck the ranks of the green, sending them flying from a massive explosion, as if from a mage. A crater was left, at least a meter deep. That was when both sides started to move.

Men moved like blurs, leaping across several leagues to clash against their opposite number with a shower of sparks. Warriors wielding polearms, swords, hammers, or just their fists, blurred against each other like flowing water in a delicate dance of death. There were men wielding oversized axes twice their size, and others held blades longer than they were tall. The clashes between weapons were punctuated with explosions as the air itself shook as a thousand perfectly executed strikes parries were carried out in a second.

And that was not all. As the battle raged, magic began to appear. Shining crystals were used by many of the warriors on both sides, which conjured the elements to bring mass destruction to the areas around them. Hurricanes threw men and equipment like ragdolls, while large showers of earthen spikes appeared to skewer opponents from the ground. Rivers of flame manifested, transforming men, horses, and such into ashes and left roads of glass where they had passed. Warriors were there one minute, then smashed into paste as if an invisible giant hammer had struck from the heavens to destroy them, or flung into the sky never to be seen again.

It was like nothing he had ever seen before. He had seen mages fight before. He had seen them take time to cast, and the damage they could do. This was nothing like it. The spells were instant, and the annihilation total. Flames raced, and earth turned into shrapnel. The lush plain was trampled, burned, and crushed beneath the battlefield, and was slowly turned into a wasteland. The ground was littered with spikes and craters. And despite the carnage being thrown around, there were still people fighting. A man, struck by a rock thrice his size, was not reduced into a red paste but instead smashed it to pieces with a war hammer. A girl, flung several leagues by a hurricane, got up as if nothing had happened, and raced back into a fight. Warriors took blows that should have slain them ten times over, and continued fighting, while their own blows shook the earth and made the air vibrate. So familiar…

With a gut-wretching turn, he looked at the battle again. The soldiers weapons; arrows, swords, spears, and the elements they were throwing at each other weren't killing each other directly. Every single man that was struck had the swords bounce off their bare skin. That strength, endurance, durability, and skill...

These were several armies of apostles and archmages, all using their full power, trying to slay each other. But that was impossible. There were scarcely more than a dozen archmages in all of Falmart, and no more than a hundred apostles… There must be at least thousands of both down there….

And they had come to plunder them.

Leaping to his feet, Centurion Atticus ran back to the camp to get them to flee. He did not like to think what the armies would do to him if they should find out his true intentions.

A/N: All credit goes to Rickion Invictus of SB, who came up with this idea