Morgan gazed at the ancient fortress below her. The Knights of Valor and the warriors of the Dagonet clan were preparing for battle — they had protected the river for decades, not letting a single abomination from the Stormsea reach the Mirror Lake.
Of course, the best of them were in Godgrave now... and the guest who had come from the sea this time was a much more dreadful creature than the abominable dwellers of. the depths.
She winced.
The river passed the series of great locks and flowed south, disappearing beyond the horizon. The Stormsea was somewhere out there, as well, a few days away. In truth, Morgan did not need to destroy Rivergate...
Because it was already doomed.
The warriors crowding the walls of the fortress did not know it, and the six Saints she had recruited did not know it either. But in truth, there was no way to stop her brother here. He would destroy Rivergate himself — everything except for the Gateway — and unleash the caged river, washing away all signs of the destructive battle.
The warriors would die. The civilians living in the young city that had grown upstream of Rivergate would most likely become collateral damage in the Transcendent clash.
Morgan's goal here was not to save the ancestral home of clan Dagonet, but to get a measure of the enemy's strength, and hopefully destroy a couple of his Transcendent vessels.
Still, still...
Fighting a losing battle did not feel pleasant.
Morgan had inherited the lineage of War God. and so, she was often called the Princess ofWar. She had been fighting against Nightmare Creatures since before she was an Awakened — in fact, Morgan had barely finished middle school when she was sent into an arena to face a Dormant Beast for the first time.
Her First Nightmare had been a ruthless one, and she had undergone the trial of the winter solstice like any ordinary Sleeper would. As an Awakened, she led countless warriors into battles to protect the lands controlled by her father, as well as various cities in the waking world.
She had conquered the Second Nightmare without losing a single member of her cohort, and excelled in every duty entrusted to her as a Master...
Until Antarctica.
In the four years since, Morgan‘s renown had only grown. She had challenged the Third Nightmare alone, attained Transcendence, and took her rightful place as the general of the Valor army.
Changing Star might have shone brighter on the battlefield, but it was Morgan who governed the powerful war machine of the Sword Domain, making sure that the blossoming kingdom suffered no setbacks.
Today, many people called her a genius strategist...
Of course, most of those people had no idea about what that word really meant. In truth, there was no strategy to a war of Awakened.
There was only chaos.
In a battlefield where Saints and Devils fought, chaos reigned supreme. There were too many strange Aspects, too many bizarre powers, too inconceivable variables. Most lessons taught by the history of warfare went out of the window, leaving only mayhem and carnage in their wake.
So, the only thing a strategist could do was rein in the chaos, tame it, and make it serve their goals.
...Take Rivergate, for example.
It was a mighty fortress — one that should have been nearly impregnable for any enemy coming from the south.
But what did it matter if the enemy possessed the Ability to connect two reflections through his small, personal Mirror Realm and travel between them, bringing his army along?
The warriors on the walls were preparing to repel an attack from the south, the siege weapons were aimed downstream, and even Morgan herself was looking there. But her brother could easily attack from the north, taking the city behind the fortress hostage first.
In fact, he could just bypass Rivergate entirely and go directly to Bastion.
Only he wouldn't.
Because Morgan was here, taming the chaos.
Mordret‘s goal was Bastion, but he did not know what traps his father and Clan Valor had set up for him there. So, he would not attack it recklessly — conquering the Great Citadel was a time-consuming affair.
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