It took some time for Rhea to properly set up even what she would trust to serve as interim oversight for the Western Church. Fortunately, while Dimitri didn't want to waste time in reclaiming Fhirdiad, he felt a break to rest and resupply was warranted. The Rising Sun Company could probably retake Fhirdiad on their own, but if they wanted to save as many lives as possible, the appearance of overwhelming strength was as important as overwhelming strength itself.

Eventually, she managed to get the Western Church into a state where she could be comfortable leaving one of the Cardinals in charge for now. Tomorrow, the procession would set out for Fhirdiad.

The conference call had been set back up, and Rhea had informed them of the basics. "What about you? Anything of interest?"

"Petra and I are working on withdrawing the occupation from Brigid," Edelgard said. "That's going to take time and careful planning, though. At best, it might be done by the year's end."

"Nothing much on my end," Claude said. "I think we have time to tell you about Florin..."


When the eastern front of the Adrestian army reached Florin, they realized they weren't the only ones. Bergliez and a regiment of his men were approaching the city from the north. Most likely, they had caught wind of an Iron unit being out in the open and were hoping to catch it.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only other army approaching. Nemesis's army was on the horizon to the east.

"It's too bad we can't just let Nemesis wipe out those Iron scum, and attack his army once they've softened him up," Leonie mused.

"Unfortunately, that runs the risk of letting Isocrates fall into enemy hands," Lorenz said.

Cyril then pointed out someone at the head of the Kingdom of Liberation army. "Who's that?"

Seiros looked where he was pointing, and growled with rage. "Epimenides."

"Epimenides?" Shez asked. He saw who Cyril was pointing at, and realized, to his horror, that he did recognize the man. "But that's..."

"That's me!" Arval said, unheard by everyone but Shez.

Indeed, he did look a lot like Arval. Just like Arval, he was a pale-skinned, youthful man with white hair, orange eyes, white markings on his face, and white robes. Unlike Arval, though, he wore a strange orange, spiked crown, as well as a matching ornament on his back that sort of reminded Shez of a pair of wings. He had the same unearthly aura as Shez did when he was in his Awakened form, and he was floating in the air. If Shez had to describe the impression Epimenides's appearance gave, it was one of pure magical power, not too different from Zelda when she had sealed Dark Beast Ganon, except while Zelda's power was definitely Light magic in nature, Epimenides's was pure Dark.

Shez didn't think Epimenides looked like a god. But he could see why the people of the Kingdom of Liberation, who hadn't seen the things he had seen, would.

"How is he connected to me?" Arval asked. "I don't remember being him. Am I him, but with amnesia? Or his reincarnation, somehow?"

"We'll figure it out later," Shez thought to Arval. "Right now, we need to focus on the battle."

Still, this was definitely something to be concerned about.


North of the city, Ashe was watching Nemesis's army. "That's a lot of soldiers."

Claude scoffed. "They're outnumbered, twenty-three Rising Sun Company members to none. We've got this."

That did raise his friends' confidence, and he pressed on, ignoring the pit growing in his stomach. "Everyone! Do not engage Silvia or Ian Konstantin! I have a plan for handling them. But if you have a chance to kill Merrett Riegan or any of the high-ranking members of Nemesis's army, do it!"

"I really hope this works," Claude thought, as they pressed forward.


As the armies clashed, Epimenides entered the fray with power and fervor. His dark magic killed Adrestian soldiers, battalions at a time.

"That. Is. Enough," Lycaon said bitterly, having come to confront Epimenides.

"Lycaon," Epimenides said. "After decades of facing each other's armies, we finally meet."

"Indeed," Lycaon said bitterly. "Now leave my men be."

"If you want your men to stop dying, why continue to fight?" Epimenides said. "You understand putting the needs of the many first. I just want one family destroyed, and I don't care about Adrestia beyond that. Are all of your people's lives not worth more than those of one family? I would be glad to let you and the nobles of Adrestia join—"

"I don't know what's more asinine. You, or the blatant horseshit spewing out of your mouth," Lycaon cut him off, leaving Epimenides gaping like a fish. "Just one family? You would never stop at one. If left unchecked, you will kill more and more in your vain attempt to rebuild your fallen empire. No. The only way this war ends is with you or myself dead."

Epimenides scowled at that. "Then die." He threw a powerful blast of dark energy at Lycaon, intent on destroying him completely.

Instead, the blast was simply devoured by a wall of darkness that appeared between Epimenides and Lycaon. Epimenides scowled further. "Hubert."

Shez entered his Awakened form and teleported behind Epimenides to try to attack him, but found himself under attack by an Agarthan warrior with hollow cheeks and short, teal hair that was just beginning to recede. "Well, this is interesting. You're an Adrestian warrior, but your sword, your facial markings, they look a lot like Epimenides's. Why is that?"

"That is interesting," Epimenides agreed. "Nicodemus, see if you can take this one alive."

"Easy to say, not so easy to do," Shez said. He attacked Nicodemus with both swords, hoping to get a quick kill. Unfortunately, Nicodemus seemed to be just as skilled a swordsman as Shez.

Meanwhile, Epimenides summoned a sword to his hand and tried to attack Hubert, but Link caught the blade on the Master Sword. "So this is the holy sword whose blade scarred Nemesis and whose hilt took his hand?" Epimenides asked. "Let's see how it fares against me."

And Link quickly found himself fighting for his life.

In his prime, before the Calamity, he might have been able to pull off a victory against Epimenides. Might have. But he was only at around half the strength he was then. Link was defending himself well, to be certain, but he didn't know how long he would be able to hold out.

"Chromatic Raijin!" Constance called, and several blasts of multicolored lightning struck Epimenides just as Link missed a block. And for once, it was Epimenides who had to scramble to block Link's attack.

"You stay out of this!" Epimenides blasted a beam of darkness at her, only for Hubert to appear in front of her and block it.

"You want me to get serious? Fine," Epimenides fumed, preparing a much more powerful spell. However, before he could unleash it, a wave of white-hot fire appeared and rushed toward him.

Constance was the one who saved her teammates, along with Lycaon and a few other Adrestian soldiers nearby. Cryonis: Ninth Circle, the spell she had created with her Cryonis rune, was just powerful enough to parry the part of the attack sent towards them. Epimenides managed to shield himself and Nicodemus from the part aimed at him as well.

However, dozens of Imperial, Kingdom, and Agarthan soldiers were not so lucky.

Epimenides stared in horror for a moment, before spotting a white-haired woman in black armor. "Silvia," he breathed, before his face contorted into a rictus of fury. "You're dead."

He flew to face his new target, while Nicodemus, likely realizing he couldn't defeat so many powerful fighters on his own, ran in a different direction.


Further south on the battlefield, Seiros spotted Nemesis.

The wicked king had replaced his left hand with a huge steel hammer, one that few other humans would even be able to lift. He had scars that he had not had when she faced him last. But his cruel eyes were the same.

"It's Seiros!" he bellowed. He charged at her and attempted to sweep her away—or more likely, sweep half of her away—with a swing of the fully-extended Sword of the Creator. She leapt over the swing, then warded off his attempt to attack her with a Thunder spell.

She quickly made it into attack range and tried to attack Nemesis. And she quickly realized that might not have been the best idea. Nemesis was just as strong as he had been during their last encounter. Every one of his blows, whether from the Sword or his hammer, felt like a house falling on her shield, or trying to parry cannon fire with her sword.

"You're still terrified of me, aren't you?" Nemesis asked. She tried striking at his neck, only for the Sword of the Creator to catch hers. "You've trained, grown stronger, but none of it matters, because when you see me, you still remember me as I was that night, when I killed your family. If those two boys and the girl with the boots hadn't showed up, I would have finished the job."

"Shut up!" Seiros shrieked, throwing a Thoron blast at him, which he simply blocked with the Sword of the Creator.

"All these decades, and you never stopped being that scared little girl, crying for Mommy," Nemesis said mockingly. "It's almost funny how pathetic you are. Almost."

He swung the Sword of the Creator at her again, and when she tried to parry his swing, he extended it. She had to hastily move to ensure the Sword of the Creator wrapped around her sword rather than her.

She tried to yank her sword in hopes of pulling the Sword of the Creator out of Nemesis's hand, but he swung at her with his hammer, forcing her to let go of her sword instead.

"Don't worry," Nemesis said mock-sympathetically. "I'll be glad to reunite you with your mother."

Seiros quickly thought through her options. The Immaculate One was an option, but she had gotten badly hurt last time she had tried using it against Nemesis, and her current range favored Nemesis more than it did The Immaculate One. The alternative, however, was fighting Nemesis with magic, a shield, and her fist, which seemed equally unwise. Nemesis swung both of hi weapons at her at once, and while she just managed to block them with her shield, she was knocked to the ground.

As Nemesis went to finish her off, though, a yellow arrow hit his hammer hand, and electricity flowed through it, visibly causing him pain. While he was briefly distracted, she felt someone grab her and start moving away from Nemesis...through the air.

Panicking, she turned to see who had her, and thankfully, it wasn't Epimenides, who was still searching for an effective angle to attack Silvia of the Storm. Instead, it was Cato, who was casting Wind spells with his legs to walk on air. Nemesis fully extended the Sword of the Creator and aimed at Cato's head, but he managed to dodge. It did cut off a piece of his hat, however.

"I liked that hat," Cato grumbled.

Once they were out of Nemesis's attack range, Seiros gave Cato an order. "Drop me and launch yourself into the air." Cato didn't question her, and dropped her. She instantly changed form, allowing Cato to land on her back, and used her Aurora Breath for one last chance to try to kill Nemesis.

Unfortunately, he managed to dodge, and she had to move quickly to avoid the Demonic Beasts that tried to attack her. She made it back to the Adrestian column with only minor injuries from arrows and magic. She turned around in time to see the Church golems attack the Demonic Beasts, and used her Aurora Breath again, this time on several of the Kingdom of Liberation soldiers, before changing back.

She saw Cato take off his ruined hat and drop it on the ground angrily. "Leave Nemesis be," he told her. "Our priority should be rescuing Isocrates."

"Fine," Seiros grumbled.


Silvia had been fighting with Epimenides for several minutes, but she was beginning to falter. It was clear she wasn't going to win this battle. Not as she was now.

It didn't matter, really. Ohm hadn't explicitly said she was supposed to die here, but she knew that was what he wanted.

"Ian, go. Save yourself," she said, one last time.

"Not without you!" he protested.

She sighed and prepared to change into her true form, knowing she wouldn't be able to change back. The blond swordsman Epimenides had been fighting before he started fighting her tried attacking Epimenides from behind, but Epimenides turned just in time for the sword to cut his face rather than slicing through his neck.

"Wait!" That wasn't Ian. She looked to see Khalid, the Almyran man she had met in Crescent Canyon.

"I figured out what Ohm has on you," Khalid continued. "You're a manakete, aren't you? And you're dying?"

"How did you find out?" Silvia demanded before she could stop herself.

"The Nabateans know about the disease you have!" Khalid said. "And they know how to treat it! You don't have to die here! You owe Ohm nothing, certainly not your life! You can be free!"

"Free..." she said softly. Khalid had somehow either found out about or guessed almost everything exactly right. But he didn't know about Ohm's hostage. If she abandoned the Order, someone important to her would die.

But if she did, someone important to her would still die.

Now, at what might have been the end of her life, the choice was perfectly clear.

"Ian, that question you asked me before the battle..." she said. "I have an answer." The aura around her disappeared.

But then she felt the worst pain she had ever felt hit her. "I think not," Riegan's voice taunted. "Now be a good weapon, fulfill your purpose, and die."

By sheer willpower, she held onto her human form just long enough to throw Ian to the big man with Khalid, who caught him. After that, everything went black.