Anrosh looked over the side of her airship as they crested a mountain range and entered into a new territory. She expected the view that greeted her; she had read about it for days in almost every report that passed her desk. They flew over a giant hole, looking as if some giant had reached down and scooped out the world. Even Anrosh’s eyes couldn’t see much in the darkness below, but she knew that this was now a new and massive entrance to the Under. Half of an entire mountain range was missing. A river was spilling itself down into the darkness, a new waterfall. The landscape of a territory that had remained unchanged for over a thousand years had been altered in a moment. Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on novel⟡fire.net She noticed how the people on the ship around her grew quiet, absorbing what they were seeing. Destruction on such scale wasn’t quite a common sight for most of them. Anrosh had the advantage that she had seen the devastation Ryun was capable of. The ship reached the city, passing through unopposed. Anrosh stepped off the airship as soon as it landed in the center of the city. Her airship wasn’t the first that had arrived here, a few had gotten ahead days before. A small flotilla kept its position above the city, though it was obviously not much of a deterrent. That was the two that had attacked the territory and had somehow gotten Faris to turn on the Exalted Empire. Anrosh hadn’t come immediately, she had trailed behind with the bulk of their forces as they executed an unplanned offensive to push through the enemy lines and reach their newly occupied territory. Unplanned being the key word there. Their plans assumed that their battle lines would reach the Faris Kingdom four months from now. And that was just the edge of the kingdom, their estimates assumed another two months of fighting to reach the capital, which would then be followed by another three weeks of intense siege to take the city, at least. Instead, she was woken up in the middle of the night with the news that Erdania and Ryun had attacked and taken over the heart of the Faris Kingdom. If she hadn’t been trained on how to handle the crazy things that Ryun did, that might’ve actually stressed her out. Instead, she spent an hour watching her aides, strategists, and commanders, along with the emissaries of other sects, all lose their collective minds as their carefully ironed out war plan was thrown out of the window. Then she spent another hour calming them down, then issuing orders for restructuring and redeployment of their lines, and gathering of a force large enough to break through the enemy line and reach Faris. Which had been made a lot easier by the apparent disarray of the enemy. The loss of Faris and their bases had hit them hard, most of their supplies were routed through here, which was why it was one of their main targets. Now, she stood in the middle of the city she had had nightmares planning an attack on. She looked around and took in the sights. It didn’t look like a city that had been conquered. A group of sect warriors walked up to her and saluted. “Sect Leader,” they greeted her. Anrosh focused on them. “Where is he?” The leader of the group shifted and answered. “Master Erdania has sent us to escort you to her.” Anrosh sighed. “So he’s hiding,” she said, knowing full well that he could hear her. She could always tell where Ryun was; it was part of the whole Herald thing. Her sense told her that he was all around her, meaning that his being was expanded. Even without that, he would still be able to hear her. The fact that he hadn’t just appeared in front of her the moment she came in his range told her enough. He was sulking for some reason. “Lead the way,” she said to the warriors, then followed. They escorted her to a large mansion in the center of the city that was guarded by sect people, though she spotted a group of Faris soldiers down the street. Still, it seemed like there wasn’t much aggression or resentment from their side that she could see. People walked around normally, with smiles on their faces. Perhaps they were grateful that they were no longer under the empire’s rule. If what she had read in the reports was true, then that was very likely the case. Anrosh entered the mansion and was led to a large living room. Erdania was lounging on a couch, eating some kind of fruit. Anrosh walked over and plopped herself down next to her. “So,” Anrosh started. “You didn’t tell me your plan.” Erdania shrugged. “It was kind of a spur of the moment thing.” Anrosh blinked, then stared at the other woman for a few seconds. “Right.” She opened her mouth, then closed it. Anrosh wasn’t dumb. She knew Ryun enough to know that there was a reason why she wasn’t told. He never kept things from her. “Why is he sulking?” Anrosh asked instead. Erdania’s face grimaced. “He’s… annoyed that he didn’t get to kill everyone.” Anrosh frowned, then the air around them, or rather Erdania, shook slightly. “What?” Erdania spoke to the air. “That’s why.” “What happened?” Anrosh asked. “They surrendered, killed the Exalted Empire forces in the city while we were attacking their base outside.” “And that is a bad thing?” Erdania gave her a look but didn’t elaborate. “Of course it’s bad,” Anrosh sighed. She did understand what Ryun wanted, why he felt like he was deprived of some kind of outlet for his desire to make those who struck at him and his pay. But Anrosh could also be grateful that he didn’t need to kill innocents. “Well, from what I can gather it was an impressively well executed attack,” Anrosh started. “This territory was very well defended, at least according to what we gathered.” Erdania raised an eyebrow. “It was well defended… but, I think that there are few places in this world that can withstand our attacks. Few people that can oppose us. It was… easy.” Anrosh knew just how high they’ve reached; she had benefited from that too. She had been uplifted, then taken farther than anyone such as her could’ve ever hoped to reach. Higher than some who had climbed up there on their own. It just went to show how high Ryun had reached that Anrosh herself loomed over most others too. Perhaps that was what sharing inspiration was always meant to achieve, a thing like what the two of them had. “Are you going to talk to me?” Anrosh said finally, speaking to the air. Ryun didn’t answer her, and Anrosh tried to decide how long she was willing to let him sulk. She did have a war to run, she couldn’t spend too much time here. Then, the air in front of her shimmered and a portal opened up in the center of the room. Anrosh looked at the gate that lead to Ryun’s inner territory, then glanced at Erdania, who threw another small fruit in her mouth, then got to her feet. “Come on, we can talk in there.” Anrosh narrowed her eyes, wondering why this nice and cozy room was insufficient, but then she shook her head and followed after Erdania. Ryun owed her some answers.