The arrival at the camp was without glory. There was no welcome, no motivational speeches, only curt orders and blank stares. As the hours passed, new formations arrived, some on foot, covered in dust and sweat; others in covered carriages, escorted by veteran troops. Among them were the medical units, with their white tunics marked by dust, and the female groups, who seemed to have taken a different, shorter, and more sheltered route.

  The camp was divided with surgical precision: sections for men, sections for women, logistics areas, command barracks, and observation towers, all organized with the coldness of a military chessboard. The women were trained for support, healing, logistics, and intelligence duties. But among the ranks also slipped some with a lethal gaze, high-level recruits who, in practice, did not conform to gender norms.

  The overall command of the operation was vested in a man whose mere presence exuded arrogance: Marquis Vael Tharn, a nobleman of high military lineage, dressed in ceremonial black armor with gold trim and a scarlet cloak. His voice was soft, almost melodic, but each word left an impression of deep disdain, "Remember, your bodies do not interest me, but your results do. This is not a war, but a strategic dance. You are my pieces; some will fall, some will rise; in the end, all will serve."

  For Joel, a single glance was enough to understand. This was not a commander, this was a player. Someone who viewed the conflict as a sophisticated game of strategy, where every life was a move, and every sacrifice, a calculated advantage. These were covert war games, played by the nobility at the top, in which generals pitted their troops against each other in isolated arenas, away from the public eye, to test their tactical skills against real blood.

  Vael Tharn's strategies were meticulous but brutal. Uncovered flanking maneuvers, explorations in suspicious areas without prior reconnaissance, frontal assaults on fortified positions with little preparation. He wasn't afraid to send his soldiers to the slaughter if it meant exposing an enemy weakness.

  Joel watched from the shadow of the command pavilion, and he felt no anger, only confirmation. That was the way the world was, and it always had been.

  The army deployed in Broken Land numbered nearly two thousand soldiers. It was a heterogeneous but effective force: young men hungry for glory, veterans demoted by discipline, recruits with broken gazes, idealists still unscarred. In the midst of that crowd, Joel found Liria.

  He saw her getting out of one of the carriages, her uniform still clean, but with the expression of someone who had already understood too much. They approached without a word, meeting near a makeshift wall of sacks.

  "Ready to die, uncrowned strategist?" she asked, her voice subdued but filled with a strange warmth.

  Joel didn't smile, but his lips trembled slightly. "No one ever really dies, do they? They just change boards... Or games."

  Liria looked at him silently. There was a mixture of hardness and tenderness in her expression that sought no explanation, as if they shared a frequency the others couldn't hear.

  "Sometimes I think you're more broken than the others," she whispered.

  "And other times, I think I'm better put together than all of them," Joel replied, emotionless.

  The two of them stood there for a few more seconds, close but not touching. Two strange pieces, knowing that only in war could they fit together.

  …

  At dawn the next day, the sky was covered in a uniform gray blanket. It was not raining, nor was there a wind blowing; the air was thick and still, as if the world were holding its breath before a cataclysm. The clouds stretched out like a low, oppressive roof, and the dry, cracked ground offered no solace other than the promise of harshness.

  The orders arrived with chilling punctuality. Eight sections, each consisting of one hundred men, were assembled on the central esplanade, forming a large formation. Joel led one of them, men who had been under his command for a short time, and who would now test their mettle in real combat.

  Commander Vael Tharn did not leave his observation tower. From there, he sent instructions using magical artifacts, small crystal orbs suspended by engraved metal rings. Every officer within the platoons carried one. The orders were clear, precise, and devoid of any hint of compassion.

  —You will advance toward the eastern sector... Reconnaissance and occupation... Expect resistance... No retreats.

  The march began, with Joel walking at the head of his unit, his stride firm, his boots crunching on the gravel. At his side, the hundred soldiers assigned to him were not friends, not even acquaintances, but trusting shadows under his command. Some murmured prayers, others kept their eyes fixed on the horizon. No one smiled.

  The terrain was rugged. Hills of bare rock, furrows opened by ancient magical explosions, and winding paths leading to lower areas covered in dry, brittle vegetation. Every step was a choice, and every choice could be a fatal error.

  In the distance, other formations advanced in parallel. Some marched tightly, others were already beginning to disperse in the first tactical movements. There was no visible coordination, just a steady flow toward a controlled death.

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  Joel silently analyzed everything: the rhythm of the men, the distances between formations, the way the terrain could channel or break a charge. It all seemed familiar, too familiar, as if he had already experienced it, time and again, in bodies that were not his own.

  And yet, he felt no fear. The only thing that troubled his mind was the certainty that no one really knew who they were fighting against. The official reports spoke of isolated resistance, of scattered enemies. But Joel knew how to see behind the language, for this was a nameless war, fought between ghosts of foreign flags, recruits from other worlds, or perhaps pawns of the same empire, disguised for the occasion.

  For Joel, it didn't matter; he had assumed his role, had accepted the board. And now, he would begin to move his own pieces.

  The order came like a sharp reality check: a motley formation of 500 enemy soldiers had been spotted emerging from a wooded area to the northeast. Marquis Vael Tharn didn't hesitate.

  "Immediate frontal attack... All formations advance," his voice said through the orb, icy and unperturbed.

  Joel looked up. The dark canopies of the forest swayed faintly, as if whispering secrets to the silent wind. There was no time to flank, no time for reconnaissance; all he could do was advance. Adrenaline erupted in his body like an icy fire. His heart pounded, not from fear, but from the clarity that danger brought. Every fiber of his being knew that this was the boundary between training and actual warfare. He felt it in the quickened steps of his men, in their wide eyes, in the whispers that suddenly ceased when they saw the first flashes of energy.

  The enemy was already prepared. From the tree line, a dozen figures raised their staffs, and projectiles of burning light streaked through the air in successive volleys. Some were enchanted arrows, others were javelins of fire or shards of ice launched at lightning speed. Several men fell, screaming, others were pushed back by the blast of impact.

  In the deafening chaos, Joel shouted orders, and his men acted. Take cover, rotate, maintain cohesion, advance, return enemy fire, but do not stop. Joel's formation maintained a discipline surprising for his inexperience. He himself moved like a dancer among death: zigzagging, dodging, using the terrain to his advantage.

  And then, the clash came. The enemy emerged from the forest with spears, swords, and wild shouts. Joel felt the impact against his line as if one stone wall crashed against another. The ground shook, and the world became a chaos of metal, flesh, and screams.

  Joel fought at the front. He was swift, precise, and above all, aware of the rhythm of combat. His movements were not those of a warrior trained for years, but those of someone who had experienced a hundred battles from different bodies. He used speed to dodge thrusts, the terrain to force stumbles, and his voice to maintain cohesion.

  "Don't break the line! Rotate to the flanks! Protect the center!"

  A spear grazed his side, slicing flesh but not penetrating muscle. The pain was searing, but it didn't slow him down. A blow with the handle of his weapon felled one enemy, and another was brought down with a grapple he learned in a forgotten dream. Joel didn't seek glory, only efficiency.

  The section resisted and stood firm. Unlike others that were already beginning to disintegrate, his platoon responded. Not out of training, but out of shared instinct. Joel moved like the center of a swarm that needed no explanation.

  But the battle didn't end there. More formations began to arrive from both sides: disorganized, confused reinforcements, colliding with each other in a desperate attempt to reestablish lines. What had begun as a controlled charge turned into a mass collision. Shouts of command were drowned out by the roar of combat. Magical explosions lit up the gray sky with flashes of deadly colors. Joel didn't understand what was happening at the strategic level; there was no time, and he could only react.

  The confusion was total, and the chain of command broke down. Formations crumbled, some fighting alone, others fleeing. Joel stood, his eyes burning with concentration. His group, now reduced to fewer than fifty men, remained with him. Instinct, the need to survive, and firm leadership kept them together.

  "Wedge formation! We're going through them!"

  Voices responded. Swords were raised. Joel's figure advanced like a spearhead, cutting a path through the enemy. The wedge broke through broken lines, dodged zones of active magic, cut through the confusion. It was like an arrow fired into the heart of the confusion. And then, they pierced the enemy completely.

  Behind the lines, they found the support units. Healing mages, logistics mages, officers without heavy weapons, all unprepared. Joel didn't hesitate and issued the order, and his men, exhausted but fired by the fury of battle, overwhelmed them.

  There was no mercy. The enemy had brought death, and now they reaped its reward. Joel, covered in blood that wasn't always his own, watched the chaos from the top of a small stone hill.

  It was then that he saw it: Rhagan's body, fallen next to a rock, his head split by a brutal blow. Beyond, Birm lay motionless, his gaze lost in the cloudy sky.

  Joel didn't allow the pain to take hold of him, not yet. He just closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. His men surrounded him, waiting for the next order.

  The communication orb carried by one of his officers had been shattered during the onslaught. There were no further instructions from high command, no reports from other formations, only the chaos and roar of battle echoing across the valley.

  Joel improvised. He raised his bloodied arm, pointing to the left flank of the battlefield, from where sounds of combat could still be heard. A column of smoke and flashes of magic guided him.

  "We'll move that way. Perhaps there's still something to salvage."

  His men didn't question it. They followed him by instinct, not rank. They moved across a terrain littered with corpses, broken weapons, and pooled blood. The grass was tinged with a dark red, and the sky remained as oppressive as it had been at the beginning.

  Upon reaching a rocky rise, Joel stopped. From there, he could observe a section of the fighting in progress. It wasn't a massive engagement, but a brutal skirmish between two small groups, perhaps fifty combatants on each side. And his side was losing ground, pushed back into a narrow rocky area.

  But what made his blood run cold wasn't the strategy, nor the danger. It was what he could make out among the ranks: women. Some in short combat tunics, others in light armor. He saw them retreating amid screams, wounds, and fallen bodies. His mind filled with dizzying thoughts.

  "Liria..."

  He didn't know if she was there, but he couldn't rule it out. His heart, which until then had beaten with an almost inhuman calm, leapt.

  "Come on! We'll flank from the hill! Everyone in formation!"

  There were no more external orders, no guidance. Only Joel's iron will and his fear.