Firewatch paces back and forth, clutching the Meteorite identification card, while Adam stands next to the captured Ursine soldier on the ground, who had been attempting to free himself from the rope. Despite Adam's attempts to calm her down, she remains agitated.

"Stop doing that, will you? Let's take a moment to collect ourselves," he implores, but his words fail to soothe her.

"Calm down? Calm down!? Half of the refugees have been captured; how can I stay calm?" she exclaims, panic, fear, and dismay filling her as she worries about their fate.

"Listen, thinking on it won't solve the problem. Take a deep breath and clear your mind," Adam advises, pointing his finger at her, ensuring she pays attention.

Firewatch pauses, taking slow, deep breaths through her nose, attempting to relax her nerves as Adam continues, "Good... now."

He knelt before his captive, his eyes looking lifeless, while the man gazed at him warily, expecting the worst – torture with a knife, sword, crossbow, or anything else.

But none of that happened.

Instead, Adam gripped the man's head, forcefully opening his eyes and shaking him violently as he yelled, "WHERE ARE THEY!?"

"!?"

"ANSWER ME!"

"F–UCK YO–U–!" the man shouted at Adam, defiance in his bulging eyes and uncontrollable head shaking.

"WHERE. ARE. THEYYY! I SWEAR IF YOU–" In that moment, as Adam peered into the soldier's eyes, a flash appeared before him.

He was transported to a scene from the past, witnessing his missions: a night in a refugee camp with their escorts. Hidden movements in the trees, quiet footsteps, and a soldier calling the man to the front when it seemed safe, appearing to be the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant ordered his team to ambush the group after using hidden drones to neutralize the escorts.

But their plans were thwarted by Meteorite's exploding bolts, which accidentally hit one of their own soldiers, causing an explosion. The Lieutenant then redirected the drone to weaken the snowpriest who had just awakened, the elder's hands gripping a hammer capable of bringing down giant trees or destroying massive boulders.

Adam observed their battles attentively; the Ursus team fought with terrifying strategy, managing to defeat or even kill powerful opponents like snowpriest, Sami hunters, or Kazimierz knights, despite their plans being thwarted.

Next, the lieutenant interrogated the escorts and the snowpriest to locate the other half of the refugees from the town. One of the Sami hunters with half-antler spat out that the refugees had already left before the invasion, which angered the lieutenant, leading him to punch the hunter in the jaw. Meteorite calmly explained that the hunter was telling the truth.

Curious about the presence of the Sarkaz, the lieutenant grabbed her collar and questioned her. She revealed herself as a mercenary and proved it by showing him an identification card, which he verified before receiving a radio call from his captain instructing them to take the prisoners back to their hidden camp.

Following this, Adam observed as they headed towards a thick forest with a giant trees, where Firewatch and he had passed earlier, and discovered a camp filled with Ursus military.

Suddenly, Adam's vision and senses returned, and he found himself gripping the lieutenant's head tightly, nearly tearing off his other ears in the process.

"–DO IT! KILL ME, I DARE YOU!" shouted the Ursus lieutenant in anger, attempting to provoke Adam, who blinked in surprise.

What the hell?

"COME ON– *BONK!*" Frustrated with the man's behavior, Adam had enough and decided to use his bag, containing his laptop, to silence him.

As the chosen man rubbed his forehead, the visions remained vivid in his memory. He knew the captured refugees were not far away, and he hoped they were all still alive. He needed to inform Firewatch about this immediately.

But how? Should he be direct with her?

...

To hell with it.

"Firewatch, they're keeping the refugees behind the giant trees where we were chased by this team earlier..." The mention of refugees immediately caught Firewatch's attention.

"Wait– behind the gamla that we passed earlier? How did you know about that?" She questioned, ignoring the fact that he had referred to her using her old group name, and instead, curious about how he acquired the information since he was yelling at the lieutenant ridiculously all the time.

"Uh... My Arts allows me to see everyone's past; that's how I know where he took the refugees... I think..." he admitted, not entirely certain about the nature of his own powers.

"Okay...?" She looked puzzled, having never encountered anyone with that Arts before.

"...Let's just go, alright? We already got what we wanted," Adam said, though Firewatch wanted to inquire further. Nevertheless, she shook her head, sighing in resignation, and they both began making their way back to that place.


"...There are only twenty-three bodies, including their escorts,"

"Are you certain you're not overlooking two others? The intelligence report mentioned eighteen civilians, four Knights, and three Hunters,"

"Unfortunately, no," the warrior replied, his voice muffled by the respirator. "We meticulously counted them, and the total is exactly twenty-three men and women; the civilian and hunter are still missing."

In the freezing forest, three out of ten Emperor Blades stood, surrounded by frozen corpses belonging to half of the refugees and guards from the nearby town. The remaining refugees were captured by regular soldiers and taken to the camp.

The Emperor had directly ordered them to investigate the death of an elafian man a few years ago on the Ursus border during the Sami migration. The man had been carrying a scroll indicating that one of the tribes planned to migrate near Kazimierz and Ursus.

Someone had killed the messenger.

The Ursus side had no suspects either; the army had thoroughly checked every member of their soldiers' logs. Even when their viscount threatened numerous nobles, they all denied any involvement, which raised suspicions.

Further evidence supporting this theory was the wound on the messenger's neck, which appeared to have been caused by a small knife—a weapon not commonly favored by many Ursus.

Out of paranoia, the Emperor kept this close secret to maintain stability in the relationship between Sami and Ursus. He wanted his most trusted people and soldiers to investigate the cause before it escalated, but fate had other plans.

The nobles saw an opportunity for Ursus to expand its territory and claim the land and Sage for themselves. They accused the Sami of settling there without their consent, using it as a Casus Belli.

Fortunately, the killer has almost been found, it was a male... Only that now he's gone with another civillian after his group of refugees were massacred it seems and somehow be able to escape from it.

"What do you think caused this? Do you think it was the corrupted or that abomination?" one of the Blades asked, surveying the once greenish forest, now scattered frozen and filled with ice shards and black crystals embedded in the trees.

"I doubt it was that abomination," another Blade said as he appeared to be the leader of the group, "The creature who slaughtered everyone in here, has an ice affinity." he took out a black crystal from one of the trees and inspected it, finding it covered in black miasma.

More importantly, why the corrupted suddenly appeared so far away from that cursed place.

...

"Let's leave this place and tell the rest of the team, ask the snowpriest instead," the leader said, discarding the shards near something that disguised as a rock. Unbeknownst to them, giant shards began to appear from the sky.

"Sir, the captain wants to execute the refugees back at the camp, including the snowpriest..." the Blade leader was mildly annoyed, though his face remained hidden behind the mask respirator.

"That fool! Does he know that one of them is the key to stopping this war? We need to–" The Blade leader's words were cut short as he witnessed the sky filling with shards and crystals. He looked shocked and confused as to why the frozen monster was still present–

Amidst the shards, a single artificial eye made of ice, created by Arts, appeared, gazing at him before vanishing when he noticed it. The owner of the eyeball seemed to mock his incompetence as an Emperor Blade.

Suddenly, the Blade leader realized that they had fallen into a trap set by the messenger killer. The killer knew the Ursus were investigating the incident, and he was trying to cover his tracks.

Connecting the dots, the Blade leader arrived at a grim conclusion.

The killer was the one who lured the demon into one of the Sami tribes, making it one of the four that migrated near the Ursus border. He was also responsible for killing the messenger. He knew that these actions would trigger a war among the countries later in the future.

Moreover, the corrupted being that killed people in this area did not come from that cursed place; it was actually the missing civilian who had transformed into one of them. The killer had orchestrated this, turning the missing civilian into that monster with the fragment and allowing it to slaughter his own people here.

The killer had anticipated the arrival of the Emperor Blades, and he had been present at the camp with the last wave of refugees. While these refugees had already been dead for four days before the invasion began.

Now, he knew why the rest of the team had not been contacting him for the past few hours.

The game had been rigged from the start.

The Blade leader yelled at the others, "Contact everyone that–!"

...

From that moment on, only silence filled the air as their bodies lay frozen amidst the other victims. The surrounding landscape was enveloped in a black mist


A white kuranta assassin shot an Ursus patrol member right in the head with her bow; the man fell to the ground, his next comrade was stabbed by the Silverlance knight, killing him as he had been trying to alert the others with his walkie-talkie. Roy walked over to the dead patrolman and took the communication device from the dead man's hand.

The radio in his hand picked up static, crackling with life and saying many loud words that appeared to indicate they would set up camp and move to another location.

"Seems they're in a hurry," the Lazurite says in amusement.

"Then we best take this opportunity amidst their chaos..." The Silverlance knight said in a calmer tone.

Upon hearing the radio clearly there was one word that caught her attention, Platinum said, "Monstrosity? What are they talking about?" as she prepared the arrow once more.

"Maybe they were scared of us?" jested one of her assassins.

"Save your comedy for later, but now–" the knight words were cut off the moment two youngsters, the same age as Platinum, each carrying different weapons, appeared before their vision; the elafia had a dark green long hair, wearing a hunter's outfit and carrying a crossbow, while the young man wearing a black jacket, a bag on his back, and a scimitar in his hand, his eyes looking at them in great surprise.

When they arrived in front of the teams, both parties were staring at each other in silence. Meanwhile, the young man wanted to speak something but decided to hold it off.

Adam doesn't want to say something stupid, so he'd rather let Firewatch take the lead since she's the one who knows about these kinds of things.

"...Good morning, I supposed you want to rescue the refugees too?" asked Firewatch politely at them, breaking the awkward silence.

"What are you doing here?" asked Platinum bluntly at both of them.

"I'm here to save my people," she says. "I was one of the guerrilla group members from the town." Firewatch explains that she was also one of the townspeople who held back the invasion when it happened.

"The militia? What about him, is he part of your town's defense?" one of the Silverlance knights asked, looking at Adam.

"Uh, no, I'm kind of in the trapped tourist situation right now..." said the mentioned man awkwardly.

"A tourist?" The male Lazurite chimed in. "A bit weird for someone to take a vacation here... Oh, so you're one of them." His counterpart, Monique, who stood beside him nudged him hard on his gut, clearly she is pissed he referring to that.

"...Uh, no...?" Adam didn't get what he meant by that.

...

The Silverlance knight brought a fist to his helmet and coughed loudly, saying, "I would like to remind everyone that we're all on the battlefield right now," then he looked at Adam, "You have a sword in your hand, so I expect you have the capability to fight."

"Yeah, I do..."

"Good, get ready."

Having said that, they walked into the woods that lay beyond the towering trees that hid the Ursus camp. They split up, some heading north while others went west. Adam and Firewatch with the assassin squads who would release the captured people quietly in the back of the camp, while the Silverlance pegasi took the rest of the Ursus army's attention, and Roy grinned at the young man. The latter felt unease at what was to come.

The leader of the clean-up squad stopped mid-stride and patted the young man on the shoulder, "So, where did you come from, my friend?"

Adam just shrugged and said, "I don't have a home; sometimes I just go from one place to another."

"A traveler, sightseeing the beauty of the world?"

"Yeah, let's go with that."

"We're here," Platinum cut them off before continuing the session. The party arrived at the clearing and saw a bustling crowd of soldiers who were preparing to move away; some of their tents were folded, while the equipment boxes were in disarray, as if they were in a hurry.

Near the edge of the field, there were multiple cages filled with the people from the hometown, the militia, and the regular knights.

"Alright, what's the plan?" Then an explosion came from the front of the camp where the Silverlance Pegasi Squads were located, startling the Ursus soldiers in the vicinity. "Well, that does it," Adam continued as he and the others were preparing their own weapons and jumping out of hiding.

The nearest soldier flinched at the sudden appearance of the Armorless Union member; he shouted before being struck by an arrow. The other soldiers saw this and dropped what they were doing, pulling out their weapons and charging into the battle.

Chaos ensued on both sides, as the assassins used their bows to kill the others, while Adam himself tried to hold off the Ursine who was attempting to stick his axe to his face.

He then slid the axe past his head, missing by mere inches from hitting his face. Adam quickly kneed the bearman in his head, the soldier was stunned at his attack before stumbled back. After that, a corrosive arrow flew through the air and killed him instantly.

"Get the people out of here, man! Let my guys handle it!" yelled Roy as he prepared the arrow, pulling back on the string and shooting once more.

The outsider snapped out and ran towards the cage, while many of the Ursus soldiers tried to chase him off, but to no avail, as the assassins killed them during the process. Adam arrived and looked through the bars; many people were looking beaten, and some of them were even scared.

The anomaly saw the lock and brought the sword to it. The padlock was hard to cut off; he tried multiple times before the steel finally gave way, without knowing the edge of the weapon turned fading black and then disappeared after that.

The elafia came carrying an artillery crossbow behind him as she threw it at the Sarkaz. The moment civilians, knights, and hunters left the cage quickly, Meteorite caught her own weapon easily; she looked at her friend–acquaintance, who had a cold expression on her face before speaking.

"Do your job properly next time."


AN: Being worshiped... this variable will be one of the reasons for his greatest challenges since he will greatly disappoint and anger some of them, there will be consequences and benefits afterwards.

Adam even hinted in the earlier chapters that he just wanted a normal life, but sadly he couldn't, so he'd rather stay out of the trouble if he could, including being worshiped by them. This will be a first lesson for Adam.

A Fanaticism.

Keep in mind again, this story is not about a worshipped messiah uniting and leading Terra as one, it was meant to be somekind of a wandering man or sage, meaning Adam will get to see other characters and OC's while traveling the world. I gave the messiah title, to the Doctor.

Thank you all for reading this. OpMadmann, over and out.