Empires | Arc 3 | Chapter 4 | Steel Against Bones

Taglia and Makisa lead the group deep into the jungle separating the two continents. They arrive at a secluded clearing where the tall grass has been deliberately flattened. Scattered bedrolls, shawls, and backpacks indicate this is their camp. Though it sits less than a hundred meters from the Royal City border—close enough that the faint hum of human interaction drifts in from the west—the camp feels entirely isolated. Sunlight actually pierces the thick canopy here, dappling the small campfire burning in the center.

Everyone takes their seats, and that clears who is with who without a single word spoken.

Taglia sits on the western edge, his back facing the Royal City side, with Makisa positioned firmly at his right. Directly opposite him, claiming the eastern edge from where they came, sits Lesca—a silent, instinctual anchor to her territory. Leon takes the space to Taglia‘s right and Lesca‘s left, creating a triangle of sort. Maven sits beside him on the Royal City side, caught exactly in between him and Taglia. Friling positions himself at Leon‘s right, not for ego, but for utility; he begins shedding silver feathers from his Raphael’s Wings, letting the plumes turn to healing dust as they fall over Leon‘s griffin-inflicted wounds. Jarrod takes an angular position on the eastern side, on Lesca’s Left.

Maven scans the tree line. The camp is dangerously open, yet throughout their entire march, she hasn’t heard a single snapping twig or predator’s call. She looks quietly at Taglia. She doesn’t know how he did it, but his mere presence has completely sanitized the jungle of wild creatures.

A heavy silence blankets the camp as Taglia draws a hunting knife. He begins skinning the griffin meat, peeling the hide back like a heavy coat. He is entirely unbothered by the quiet, completely absorbed in the labor.

Lesca, naturally, is the first to shatter the peace.

“Okay, I have a question. Who is she,” Lesca points directly at Makisa, “and are you two……” She hesitates, clearly aware of her standing, but her blunt territorial instincts take over. “……fucking!”

Before Taglia can even process the question, Makisa snarls. “Fucking….. oh please, do you know how many germs his dick has given how many whores he fucks?”

“Okay, that’s harsh,” Taglia interjects, stopping his blade and pointing the tip toward Makisa. He turns his eyes to Lesca. “No, we are not fucking. And I do not fuck whores. I occasionally indulge in persuading high-status ladies.”

“So I was one of those persuasions?” Lesca asks, point-blank. Zero hesitation.

Taglia holds her gaze for a long moment. The silence stretches, thick and heavy, before he replies with a quiet calmness. “No….. you were more.”

He drops his eyes and goes back to ripping the skin.

Lesca is physically taken aback. She gulps, the witty retort dying in her throat. The rapid tonal whiplash—from Makisa‘s grotesque germ comment to Taglia‘s surprisingly heavy but casual confession—leaves the rest of the group collectively sighing.

Sensing his window, Leon leans forward. “How do you know Maven?”

Before Taglia can speak, Maven answers. “I told you, he was my father’s protégé, and we kind of grew up together.”

“Would you let him answer?” Leon snaps. “All you say is this, but I want to know more.”

Makisa glares at Taglia. “So she was your first time, huh?”

Taglia smirks, keeping his eyes on the meat. “Nope. And not that I tried.” He shoots a subtle glance at Lesca, who is actively eyeing him, daring him to drop another line like that. Taglia chuckles, finally lifting his head to look at Maven. “But she always had sharp boundaries.” He finishes the sentence with a wink. Maven acknowledges it with a quiet, knowing smirk of her own.

“Then who is Makisa to you?” Jarrod asks, trying to map out the connection.

Taglia looks at her. And she at him.

At the exact same time, they deliver their answers.

“Something like a sister,” Taglia says. “He is like a father,” Makisa says.

The moment the words leave their mouth, both of them snap their heads toward each other in pure shock.

“Father?” Taglia asks, genuinely offended. “How old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know, thirty-eight,” Makisa answers casually.

“Fuck me sideways,” Taglia groans. “You’ve been with me for no longer than a decade. I am twenty-nine.”

“Hey, compared to my eighteen, you are still a father figure,” Makisa shrugs.

Taglia stares at her, utterly defeated by the math.

“Enough of this chattering,” Leon growls. Friling‘s healing dust has finally settled. Leon cracks his neck. “Maven tells me you are stronger than her father. Prove it to me.”

Taglia looks at him with an amused, lazy smile. “And why do I have to prove myself to you?”

“Because Maven also said I am equal to your power,” Leon declares.

“I didn’t say any such thing,” Maven quickly interjects.

Leon ignores her entirely. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is, if you wanna save your spot, you have to fight me.”

Taglia tilts his head, genuinely bewildered by whatever he is talking about. “What spot?”

Lesca abruptly stands up, pointing a manicured finger directly at Makisa. “You and me first. Then everything else.”

“Taglia, we came to you not for this, but for a grave reason,” Jarrod cuts in, his voice carrying heavy authority. “And we are not doing anything else until that matter is settled.”

The tone silences the group. They all remember the burning meteros falling from the sky.

“So dramatic,” Makisa scoffs.

“As you may have heard, a couple of weeks ago, a guy named Chaos and his group attacked Titan City,” Friling explains, stepping up to support Jarrod. “He left after sending a couple of meteors toward us.”

“Which I destroyed,” Leon interjects. “With Maven’s help,” Lesca corrects sharply.

Taglia glances at Maven, offering her a proud, silent smile.

“The guy we fought was named Intellectual,” Jarrod continues. “He had a gravity-controlling Heat called Domain of the Shepherd’s Wisdom.”

“Kind of like an old library reader type name,” Makisa quips.

Ignoring the snark, Jarrod presses on. “He challenged us before leaving. He said he will be coming not only for us, or our city, but for everyone else. Why? We don’t know.”

“But what we do know is we are vastly outmanned here,” Lesca adds, her tone dropping its usual arrogance. “We need all the powerful people on our side, and the only one we know is you.”

Jarrod quietly exhales, deeply relieved that the Goddess of Death actually aligned with his diplomatic pitch.

Listening to the apocalyptic stakes, Taglia offers a genuine smile, then drops his gaze to the dirt. He might be contemplating the fate of the world, or he might just be bored.

“So will you join us, or at least give us your word that you will be our ally when the conflict does decide to show up?” Friling asks.

“Done giving your argument?” Leon demands. He stands up, mirroring Lesca. “Now let’s go.”

Taglia throws his head back and lets out a booming laugh. “Everyone has their own reasoning to be here, and I am honored that the reason revolves around me.” He stops laughing, his eyes locking onto the quietest member of the group. “Mave, what is your reason? You are the most silent one here.”

Maven meets his gaze. “I am only trying to keep the sky intact so that everyone else can gaze upon their favorite stars.”

The sheer poetic weight of the line silences the clearing. Even Leon‘s heavy, aggressive breathing evens out.

“Master’s words….” Taglia whispers. The amusement drops from his face, replaced by a rare seriousness. “Fine.”

He looks across the group. “How about this. We fight, as this guy said,” he points lazily at Leon, “and she,” pointing at Lesca, “supported. Whoever secures the most wins will listen to the other group.”

“It’s not a game, Taglia,” Jarrod warns.

Makisa draws a slow, lethal smirk. “Don’t worry…… you won’t think it’s a game after it ends.”

Because the jungle is too cramped for high-velocity combat—and to strip the group of any environmental disadvantage—they begin the march back toward the open grasslands. As they walk, Jarrod strictly commands the group not to harm the ancient trees unnecessarily.

Leon mutters. “Tree hugging cunt,”

Makisa and Lesca roll eyes in rare, unified disgust.

“What a fascinating creature you are,” Taglia says to Jarrod with an amused smile.

Hearing the feral criticism, Jarrod simply folds his arms and shuts up. He doesn’t need to defend his pride to adrenaline junkies; he just needs the board set. He does what a wise person does and quietly follows the group.

---

“Me and her go first,” Lesca declares as the tree line thins.

“Like hell you will,” Leon snaps. “I came here all the way for this.”

“Then let us fight first, and decide who should take the turn,” Lesca replies without even looking back.

The air begins to thicken, but Friling steps between them. “Leon, think about it. You recently fought a pack of griffins. Your wounds are healed, but your stamina might not have. Let Lesca fight first. It’s not like she is fighting Taglia, so there is no competition.”

Leon grinds his teeth. He hates the logic, but the tactical angle is undeniable. Fighting second doesn’t steal his prey.

“So it’s settled,” Lesca announces to the silence. “First duel takes place between me versus Makisa.”

Makisa simply smirks at Lesca‘s back.

They breach the tree line, stepping into the sunlit grasslands. Maven takes the center of the field, acting as both guide and referee. The rest of the men fall back into the shadows of the canopy. Leon stands rigid, arms crossed. Jarrod clasps his hands calmly in front of him. Friling keeps his hands in his pockets. Taglia, meanwhile, walks furthest back and lazily drops onto his ass in the grass, resting his hands on his knees as he stares blankly at the field.

Lesca and Makisa step into the sun.

Lesca takes a slow breath. In a fraction of a second, her eyes flood with blood-red malice. She raises her left arm. From the soles of her boots, a wave of maroon blood and bone dust surges across the grass. As it crosses the halfway point, the wave violently shapes itself into four sprinting skeletons.

Makisa draws both of her tantos. She sprints forward.

One step.

Two step.

SHUCK.

She vanishes. Before anyone even registers a third step, she materializes entirely behind the skeletons facing Lesca. The four skulls slide cleanly off their shoulder and falls into the dirt.

Friling‘s eyes widen. He looks back at the Taglia. “You had to struggle with one skeleton. She just cut down four of them. Is she stronger than you?”

Taglia doesn’t even look up. He smirks at the grass. “When she wants to be.”

In the field, Makisa spins her blades, boasting. “That’s it?”

Lesca isn’t impressed. A dark smile creeps across her face. “You forgot they are not livings.”

She raises a single index finger. The severed skulls instantly dissolve into maroon goo, leaping back onto the neck joints and solidifying into skulls again.

Makisa sighs. She sheathes the tantos, draws her primary katana, and leans forward into her Iaijutsu stance. She exhales. There are no steps this time. She simply leans one inch further, and—

SWOOSH.

She disappears, materializing behind the skeletons once again, back to her previous spot. Before she even stands fully upright, the four skeletons are cleanly severed at the knees, elbows, waists, and necks, scattering across the grass in pieces.

She turns to Lesca. “If you keep on doing this, the battle stretches out. Give me everything you got.”

Lesca smiles, a genuine, terrifying expression. “I guess you earned that.”

The Goddess of Death hops backward, creating distance. She throws both hands into the air, palms facing Makisa. Her eyes turn hemorrhagic red. Thick, gooey, honey-like maroon blood begins to violently purge from the pores of her skin and the beds of her fingernails.

“Swan’s Song of the Red Lake.“

She chants the Heat like an ancient curse. The blood hits the grass with a sickening, boiling hiss. Instantly, fifty towering skeletons erupt, locking into a massive, five-row teams between her and Makisa.

“Go!” Lesca whispers.

The fifty of them charge. Their synchronized, skeletal footsteps strike the earth with such concussive force that the tremors travel through the soil, vibrating directly into the hearts of Leon and Jarrod.

Seeing the horde coming down on her, Makisa‘s eyes go entirely feral.

“COME ON!” she roars.

She abandons her scabbard. Gripping the katana with both hands, she abandons her invisible speed and charges head-on into the mass. She hacks through the bone in devastating, two-handed U-turns and upside-down arcs. Whenever skeletal claws reach for her, she violently whips the blade in 180-degree arcs, severing the limbs while maintaining absolute, unbroken eye contact with Lesca.

The sheer, intoxicating bloodlust radiating from the young girl is palpable. Watching from the shadows, Leon takes an involuntary step forward and stands beside Maven. His nails dig so hard into his own forearms they pierce the skin. He can feel the thrill of the hunt coursing through Makisa’s veins. Maven turns and look back at Taglia, who is calmly watching Makisa, the boredom from his eyes gone. Jarrod and Friling can feel it too, where Leon feels the thrill, the bloodlust, Friling and Jarrod feel presence, almost like its Heat, but its not.

Makisa does not stop. Whenever the sheer weight of the horde pushes her back, she deliberately sacrifices two steps to load her momentum, then executing that step technique to obliterate the frontline, using herself like a string drawn bow.

Sweat begins to bead heavily on Lesca‘s face. The physical toll of continuously regenerating the shattered bone to hold her off is immense.

Makisa is huffing, her lungs burning, but with one final, explosive launch, she completely annihilates the fifth row.

The path is clear.

She charges directly at Lesca, abandoning the Iaijutsu to sprint purely on adrenaline. A few lingering skeletons turn to chase her, but they are too slow.

In the center of the field, Maven‘s eyes track the sprint.

“It’s a tie,” Maven whispers.

Jarrod and Friling lean forward. Leon snaps his head toward her, his brain screaming, “What? Why?”

Before the question can be answered, Makisa closes the gap. She steps into Lesca‘s guard and swings the katana with her remaining speed directly at Lesca’s neck. In the blinding rush of the kill, even Makisa has forgotten this is a spar.

“Ahhhhh!” Lesca screams.

Pushed to the absolute brink of death, her brain short-circuits into pure biological survival. Maroon blood erupts directly onto and around her own skin. Grotesque, jagged, half-formed skeletal rib cages violently force themselves out of and on her coat around her chest, back, and left shoulder—growing out of her body like parasitic fungus bursting through the bark of a tree.

She manages to birth four half-skeletons in a microsecond.

Makisa‘s blinding swing cleaves cleanly through the first two.

The blade strikes the third, incredibly dense marrow construct growing from Lesca‘s collarbone.

TRUNG! Cruck! Tick!

The shockwave ripples through the grass. The top half of Makisa‘s katana violently shatters into three distinct pieces, spinning harmlessly into the sky.

The field goes dead silent.

Makisa stands frozen, huffing violently for air, the broken hilt trembling in her grip.

Lesca is hyperventilating, her eyes fading back from blood-red to their natural color. The grotesque bone armor and the maroon blood dissolve—but they do not slither back into her body. Completely depleted of stamina, the Heat simply evaporates into thin air, exactly like Friling‘s wings.

From the shadows, Taglia finally gets up. He brushes the dirt off his pants and begins walking lazily toward the field.

“Her blade cracked during the charge,” Taglia says casually as he passes the stunned group. He and Maven had seen the micro-fractures forming in the steel the moment Makisa cleared the fifth row.

Lesca looks down at the girl, offering a deeply exhausted, genuine smile. “Not bad for a shorty.”

Makisa tosses the broken hilt into the tall grass. “I guess you do deserve that title people gave you.”

Taglia strolls into the sunlight, taking the exact spot Makisa had occupied at the start of the match. As the two women walk past him, heading back toward the tree line, he turns his head lazily to the left.

He looks directly at Leon.

“Come on.”

Leon steps out. He rotates his shoulder blades, his eyes locking onto Taglia. His opponent waits on the opposite side of the grass—the myth himself.