Ymal brought out the orb given to him by Damien after they'd gotten far enough from the devastated city. The shockwaves from the ongoing battle rattled the world, sending people stumbling onto the ground as the earth heaved and cracked. He didn't know how they were going to escape it, given their distance. At the moment, they seemed safe and out of reach, but Ymal knew they were so much closer that at any minute they could all be wiped out.

  He studied the orb, trying to piece together what its function was, but all he came up with was a blank slate.

  The orb had two layers, a tiny pulsing purple ball enshrouded in a large transparent glass. It had a single black line that encircled the entire thing, probably sealing off the opening that had been made to slot in the smaller ball.

  Following the instruction that had been given to him, he crushed it.

  The construct shattered, breaking into exactly four pieces. The dull glow inside the smaller orb exploded, dispersing into the four shattered pieces. They floated off his hand—startling him a bit— and then flew a little bit to form a twelve-foot-tall vague rectangular shape an arm's reach away, with the edges stretched wide enough to contain a wall of far more than a dozen people.

  The pieces finished forming and the black lines on all of them detached, peeling off and elongating until they were all connected, confirming the rectangular shape. As soon as that was done, the different shattered pieces ignited into a bright purple glow, shining brighter and brighter until their light became too sharp in the artificially made darkness.

  It was only for a moment, before the lights from the different pieces dispersed from their various shards and converged in the middle, drawn like they'd been sucked through a straw to form a writhing ball of purple and black. Ymal could only stare in awe and confusion as the ball began to stretch, twisting and expanding until it entirely covered the rectangular opening

  There was silence in the front. People watched, speechless, as the tiny orb shattered and expanded into a purple, filmy curtain meters across. They were agitated, no doubt, given the battle still booming in the background. But thankfully, their trust in him was such that they waited for his instructions. Ymal wanted to move, but stayed still. He had the strange intuition that crossing the rectangular doorway as it was, was a very bad idea.

  It didn't take long for the purple light to fade, revealing a large hall stretching hundreds of feet into the distance from where he stood. Ymal would have smiled if not for the wall of armored warriors arrayed on the other side, dozens wide and hundreds deep, all holding polearms that were pointed his way.

  His eyes widened and he quickly raised his hands to show that he was unarmed, even though any of the soldiers gathered around could easily take him on, even if he was armed. He could feel their strength, and they were in no way inferior to his. All of them were Lord Realm wielders, nothing less. Some were even stronger than him.

  Slowly and taking care not to make any abrupt movement, he stepped through, instructing his soldiers to stay where they were and to do away with all weapons.

  Ymal took in the large hall. Purple lights lined the walls, connecting to pillars that were arranged along the walls in pairs. Some were glowing purple while the rest seemed inert, lacking the energy pulse humming out of the former.

  A soldier stepped forward, eyes taking him from head to toe and then towards his people who stood behind him on the other side. "Stay where you are. Do not come any further."

  Ymal nodded and stopped.

  "Identify yourselves." Black and silver colored armor adorned the bodies of the soldiers, with helmets shaped like the skull of a bird of prey. An emblem of a silver bird was emblazoned on their chests, a sharp contrast to the black chest plate it was attached to.

  "We are citizens from a desert city in the Desolate continent. Please, we are fleeing a calamity and require help."

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  "How did you arrive here?" The soldier demanded, ignoring his plea for help. The soldier sounded worried, which caused no small amount of confusion for Ymal.

  "With the orb?" He answered tentatively, unsure of where the question was leading.

  A ripple of worry spread from the guard, moving towards the others like a visible plague. Their expressions morphed, forming into fear and the same preparedness he'd seen many times in warriors reading for a life or death situation. Ymal couldn't help but feel anxious. If worse came to worst and they decided to do away with him and his people, they were doomed. Aside from Ali, he was the only Lord Realm wielder in the entirety of Tashin. The rest were Adepts and below. And right in front of him, a moment away, was a small army filled with Lord Realm wielders, all the way to the peak of the realm.

  "I meant," the soldier paused, gesturing towards the twin glowing pillars Ymal now realized he stood between, "how did you get the specific aura for this portal station?"

  Ahh, so that was it then. Understanding dawned and Ymal realized why they were so worried. Quickly, he rushed to explain.

  "I don't know how we got here. We were given the orb by someone and then told to break it."

  Now that he understood, it wasn't hard to piece it all out; An unidentified group of people opening a portal into what Ymal saw as an important place, a base, maybe? It sure would have gotten a lot of people worried. If some random group of people could use their teleport construct and just appear there without warning, then what would stop their enemies from being able to do the same?

  "Who gave you that orb?" The soldier demanded again, weapon still trained on him.

  Ymal licked his lips. This was the crucial moment. If Damien was who he said he was, then all should be good. If he was not? Well, at least Ymal knew he would die in his homeland.

  "He said his name was Damien."

  None of the soldiers looked like they recognized the name, and Ymal's heart dropped. Fear crept up that this was it, their end. Just then, a shrill whistle cut through the air, followed by a loud thunderclap that sent him reeling backwards, and the no man's land between him and the soldier that was tacitly former was suddenly filled by the figure of a woman.

  The air sucked inward, noise disappearing into a vacuum of silence and stillness so potent that Ymal was sure he heard more than a dozen people as they swallowed. He was pretty sure he heard his own throat, too.

  A Monarch.

  He froze, instantly apprehensive as her sudden arrival sent the blood in his veins running cold. Her appearance wasn't from teleportation, he quickly understood, but the effect of pure speed. She wasn't dressed in any armor that he could see, clothed only in simple leather combat pants and boots, with an armless top.

  Judging from the way the soldiers stood taller at her arrival, he summarized that she was probably an officer, their general, perhaps.

  Her black hair was tied into a ponytail, and her sharp black eyes bored into him like it was seeing into his soul. She looked like she was in her late twenties to early thirties, but he knew otherwise.

  "Who did you say gave you the orb? Describe them," She commanded and Ymal got the feeling that she was watching for any sign of falseness.

  He swallowed hard and then answered. "He said his name was Damien. Grey hair and eyes, a young face, and a warrior's body. He looks in his early twenties, I'm not certain. Please, I speak the truth."

  A Monarch Realm Wielder appearing was a larger cause for concern. If the other soldiers here could take him and his people out easily, then this woman could do it with her eyes closed.

  Luckily, that seemed not to be the case.

  Her eyes widened and she glanced behind him, no doubt seeing the gathered refugees. She seemed to have come to a conclusion because she nodded and then said in a strangely shaky voice, "What help does the Lord require we render you?"

  Ymal did not waste the opportunity. "We were attacked by agents of the Empire. He is holding them back as we speak to give us time to escape."

  "How many people are on the other side?" She asked.

  "Roughly fifty thousand."

  Compared to other cities, Tashin had been small, close to minuscule. Initially, it had been a source of shame, but now Ymal was thankful for that number. Awakened or not, it would have been impossible to move millions as fast as he had done with the thousands in his care.

  The woman waved her hands and the soldiers dispersed, following an unworded command. All vanished back to the duties they all seemed to have been engaged in before his arrival, all except for the man who had first spoken to him, and two others.

  The Monarch turned to them. "One person should begin coordinating the settlement of the refugees; another should inform the queen of this new development, while the third should go to the Monarch's castle and inform them that I require backup here in case of an attack. Decide amongst yourselves who does which."

  A moment was all it took, and the soldiers sped off into the distance

  Finally, she turned him. "Stay here, help organize your people. I'll go take a look at what's happening on the other side."

  She vanished again, disappearing back into the hell he'd come from, to a sight that was not encouraging at all.