Conditor Imperatoris Roheisa Deapou.

17th Septara, 1492.

1830.

***

Unlike most Imperators, I had little interest in the mid-year events, or even the Optimus Regni for that matter. Nay, since my departure, my mind had been drawn to Maru, despite my discipline to keep it in place here, on my studies; with my Vulcans. With nigh-indifference to everything, however, I could only find distractions around me. Passive interests to occupy the mind, like Executor Alfarr's interest in the Legions' new barbaric subclasses. Not that such an interest wasn't without merit.

One that caught my eye was a path like Elurial's, that would let one maintain their wits while they raged, but a berserker class like mine. "It's hard to imagine." I told her, though my eyes were focused on the shores our Uma was crawling towards. "A berserker who can control their wits goes against the very principle. I'd love to see it. Though, it may be some time before we do." I sighed. "Berserkers are rare because few aspire to become one. It's… taxing on the body." Even that was putting it lightly. Most berserkers had to eat two mushrooms at once to unlock the path. I had to eat the heart of a Vulcanox and wear its severed head like a helm. Regardless, the effect was partially the same. My body learned how to go berserk via the Adrenal Heart's overcharge, causing mutations in my spirit. The Spirit and Hide of the Vulcanox, and the Mountain's Memory Lobe. Two perks that enhanced my physical attributes while in volcanic regions, and one that granted visions of their past. Yet, like other Berserkers on a similar path, I still could only rage. The Adrenal Heart that granted barbarians the power of rage had become like a semi-dormant machine of Ed's design. I could rage, but it was a simmering anger, building with damage and blood alike. But that alone was often not enough.

Too often, a berserker must experience something that triggered that unyielding primal wrath without aid, and quickly; then coming down naturally from it. It was almost always severe trauma. Trauma, like the unfair and brutal loss of a loved one. Everyone knew it, including me. And so everyone, excluding Executor Alfarr and Amun, danced on eggshells around me, birthing the ensuing silence as I looked out at my subordinates burying lands of Mazi, imagining what was to come in the future. Both next year, when I ventured to Southern Nonus to shadow the Grekkans, and our inevitable return to Maru the year after.

The conclusion was simple, for it was right before my eyes; in my Vulcans.

Unlike the other legions, my Vulcans left the Bodhi Tree with a mind for war. Of course, war was on all our minds, but the Rharian War would come later. Ours was more immediate, both in terms of when and how long. We returned to our Uma to find the Steel Cairn had made it to the eastern Ligin coast and was wading across the shores to the saddle of Mazi. An inlet of sorts, too wide and short to be called a fjord; too conical to be called a bay, like a ridgeline when seen from above, imposed on the shores of a barbaric rainforest. Whether these lands would remain as such was up to Mazi. But Lana's conversation with him gave me no such hopes. Regardless, this culture had no place in Eotrom. Thus, the conquest of Mazi began at once.

The 3rd Prime Andisol Corps led the charge, riding the Steel Cairn's eruption on arcing trajectories due west. Accompanied by the fanning clouds of smoke and ash, they rained on Lymlar's Territory like volcanic debris, crashing down near the Vruria-Mazi-Nevstan border to conduct a long sweep northeast across the highlands. Tribal encampments and border outposts were decimated unmercifully as Corundum sought to challenge the strongest within, their leaders raised into undead upon their failure to meet her standards, sentenced by the Nox's Judge to rebuild and cater to those they failed to rule. The 2nd Prime Champion's Army followed. Using canoes and other lava-craft, they sailed across the igneous floes of the Cairn's eruption to beach themselves across the eastern coast, morphing their tactics and the lava behind them according to the curves of topography into the relatively unpopulated heartland to burn and plunder; sear and slaughter, enriching the land with ash and blood to have our fauna spread our flora from our home. As Slate fanned his army across the jungle, the 4th Prime Cult Corps clutched their totems and charged through the burning brush to Sunguldak's Commune in the country's heart, where the most 'cities' or encampments were found and subsequently buried beneath the magmatic heat of their rage, concentrated in the 'bustling' city of Eaglen.

As the mountains melted into the lava flows and drowned beneath the smoke rising to the south, the grounds of the Akchamoca Commune to the north quaked beneath the synchronized strides of the 5th Prime Mountainpike Corps, their power-armored boots uncaring of the many bodies and buildings standing between them and the dwarven war machines they led. It was almost as if they sought retribution for those the Troupe rescued months ago, birthing a crusade for the sake of those they did not. In that regard, the people of Chor received a grand show and glimpse of the new era from the safety of their borders. The lands beyond, however, remained shrouded beneath a canopy of obscurity.

While the rest of the lands had been buried beneath smoldering earth and steel, Komstan's Land on the northern shores was buried beneath the colossal growth spreading from the seed crystal that was Elurial. She stomped through the capital city of Rustvault like a haunted figure, sneering harder with rage with each step forward through its debaucherous streets, adding nutrients to the titanic vines, roots, and trunks claiming Mazi's most civilized lands.

All but the most important land of all.

My departure from the Carin was preceded by no words, for my will poured through my spirit unlike never before, summoning my court of champions - my hand-picked staff officers - into a broom-closet-like space; snug, with a high, opened ceiling like a chimney. The satisfying clank of the door sealing behind us was chased by the comforting heat and familiar bubbling hisses of basaltic magma rising to fill the space, layered atop a filling pool of molten steel. The magnetic coils looping up the chimney followed, their twisted bands tinged by the purple light of a gravity enchantment ringing our exit, acting in tandem to eject us from the Steel Cairn with enough force to cover the distance and tug on its gravity line to tune our trajectory toward the outskirts of Springmire, simmering with nature's unbridled fury.

Following more of an impulse than anything else, I begrudgingly released my helmet, forever tucked under my arm, at our apex, casting a longing look its way as we drifted apart. Uncaring of our growing distance, its salamander-like head plumed with a million crimson strings, fanning from its crown in all directions as it spun lazily amidst the clouds. And through it, I felt my spirit spread across the land unabated. And so, like my heritage demanded, I hurtled into the outlands Springmire like a meteor, steel and magma cores running as wild as the destruction spread across the horizon in my wake.

I was eager to hear Mazi's answer, though my pace belied that fact as surveyed the mostly untamed lands, giving windows for Amun to cast his judgements. The dense rainforest canopy was supported by countless treehouses that were haphazardly constructed, yet linked to form a network of bridges around the few stone and bone huts huts raised around their trunks. The people within were barbarians in the minority. Mostly retired warriors, tasked with ruling those they conquered, trafficked, and enslaved long ago, all for their own ends, albeit whenever they weren't serving the laughably small patch of land that held the Council of Mazi, when the country's rulers met on middle grounds to settle grievances and debts. Debts like Mazi being buried. Grievances like the one at the mid-year event.

The treehouses grew sparser and more guarded as we moved closer to the council, stopping before a 'door' of battered shields ingrown into the twisted vines and two high orcs straddling.

Rather than words, they exchanged a glance I didn't have the patience to read, so I demanded. "Where's Mazi?"

Sneering, one guard reached his hand out as if to grip the air and dragged it toward him, his veins bulging as if his nails were carving through stone as the crude door was unwoven, revealing a wide fighting pit we were ushered into with haste. A circle of dirt, looked down on by the 5 thrones spaced intermittently before the countless orcs, humans, and dwarves in the stands, spewing utter filth from their mouths.

"Second time in a fucking month." Mazi sneered from his throne, silencing their jeers as we approached at the center. "Like I told that dead bitch before, what makes a fucking woman think she can stand before the council?"

I stared at him. Not out of loathing or to commit his visage to my memory, but to study his features. I've had little experience with full-blooded high orcs thus far, and so I was eager to see how they compared to Elurial; so similar, but what I saw made me sneer. His burnt-red skin and black hair were the same, and though he was two heads taller than her, that was hardly worth considering. His limbs, thick and grooved with muscle like tree trunks; his tusked face, unnaturally serrated and pierced with metal rings; the crude hides covering his skin, stained with the still-wailing blood of the deceased I could now hear; his very existence was offensive to me. That made what surrounded him insulting.

I locked eyes with them before I spoke, hoping my gaze could speak in favor of words - hoping my scowl could give them the courage to act. They, being two orc females and a half-elven family; the former pair dressed in scant rags and poised atop his armrest like trophies while the latter four stood at the ready with platters, bottles, and whatever else he fancied. Similar sights to the other thrones.

"Lana told you already." I turned my gaze to him, matching Amun's coldness, despite my simmering rage. "I've come to hear your answer."

"I'll give my answer to the Elven Devil!" Mazi spat. "No one else!"

"What makes you think you're worthy of his presence?" I spat back.

"Oho, I've seen his might!" Lylmlar guffawed from his throne, rising to bear his human but titanic frame above the pit, his heavily tanned skin shining in the blaze beyond. "A fighter's a fighter! Monk, barbarian, or otherwise." He grinned, bearing perfectly straight teeth amidst his graying beard. "Likewise, a conquer is a conqueror. Viltramas is impressed!" came his maddening nods.

"I assure you, I couldn't care less about Viltramas." I scoffed.

"Regardless." Lylmlar hissed. "I'm sure the Elven Devil is not indifferent to the God of Power. Your God-Emperor is impressed with our might."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"The culture is a different story," I said, gesturing around us. "This has no place in Eotrom. You will either adapt, be left to your own ends, or if you stand against us, be buried beneath a steel volcano."

"Gahahaha! Nepotism has no place for you here, girl!" A crude voice pulled my gaze to Komstan, waving me off. "You being the daughter of the Iron Magus means fuck all! As do your threats!"

"Only might matters 'ere!" Sunguldak added with his snickering. "So show us your rage and defeat Mazi if you think you can."

"And ruin the sanctity of the pit?" Akchamoca turned on the feral orc, his blue skin contrasting alongside his anger against the other's green provocations. "Women aren't allowed to fight! And they certainly can't lead!" he flicked his blackened fingernails at me and laughed. "Send your men next time! Mehahahaha! Even if they're subordinates! Mehahaha!"

"Come with the Elven Devil next time." Mazi added to their jeers. "Only he will judge us."

"You don't seem to understand." I sighed, settling into my stance while guiding magnetic mana to my palm. "Amun judged you long before you dismissed Lana. You rejected the chance he gave you when Lana came to see you. So now, I am here to bury you, and birth you anew in death!

"Gaha! I'd like to see you tr-"

Reeling back my arm, the magnetic field it employed caught the many piercings on Mazi's brows, ears, and tusk, and pulled the titanic orc clear off his throne. Time seemed to slow as his hulking form sailed through the air, almost as if it were chasing the mangled bits of jaw, globules of blood, and the detached tusk being pulled by the ring piercing it, racing to my hand with the unyielding force of magnetism. Only for the scrap to be tossed to my High ArcaTech Priestess - or whatever they were calling themselves now - Charik Dala, before my staff spread to the outskirts or skies. Then came the crash.

Mazi landed in the pit with a feral snarl and clawed to his feet to vengeful scream, his deformed mouth exposing his blackened gums gushing with blood as his veins bulged, heat poured off his spirit, and he raged. Such heat was paltry when compared to mine, however, simmering though it still was. And so I was upon him in an instant, my magnetic veil active and not just charging my steel-infused body with electricity, but also guiding my strikes.

Coiling the field into a series of rings extending from my fist, I punched down at the feral orc at lightning speed, relishing the sensation of my fist accelerating through the magnetic tunnel to crush his jaw and carry its force through his body. Forced down to a knee, Mazi snarled, ejecting a blinding uppercut that latched onto the roots below, drawing them into a coiling lance that carved into my belly just after the stinging blow of his fist to my nose. Blown back a step, I followed through with the impact via a spin while my magic flowed to my hand, conjuring a crystal-cased mace to rocket into his jaw from below. Howling in rage, Mazi thrust out his palm as the strike lifted his feet from the ground, saving his legs from the wave of barbed tree roots bursting from the ground toward me.

Impulse took over, and I screamed, releasing a burst of my magmatic rage as a wall of hellish heat, immolating the roots in an instant, only for them to break apart once a glowing hunk of scrap metal came hurtling through. Numbness overtook my shoulder as I was forced halfway around, my focus drawn to the deep gash on the front of my shoulder, gushing a stream of blood that glowed with an orange hue - another sign of the coming rage. Embracing it, I grasped onto my weapon with both hands and took a thunderous step forward, dragging my rage-infused weapon through a wild slash to disgorge it upon everything before me. Hissing streams of molten steel arced across the ring in waves from my fury, but Mazi was undeterred, darting, dipping, and sliding with surprising speed to close the distance, similar to the hulking piece of steel dancing in my magnetic field behind me.

Following along with orc-kin's favorite tactic, I planted my feet and faced him as my blade came around, making it clear I meant to repeat the attack, seemingly unaware of the roots entwining themselves around his crude weapon, bringing it to bear at my back. But all things of steel and magma; crystal and magnetism, were perceptible to me. And so I stood like the volcano of my heritage, pouring my rage into my blade as the high orc charged, felling his blade.

Roiling like a great storm around my body, my magnetic field latched on to the cruel blade at my back while the steel indignation of my spirit willed the weapon molten, reducing it to a liquid heap that was carried by its momentum over my body, slipping around my form without resistance to spread a blanket of molten steel over the raging high-orc, chased by the heat of my blade.

While I relished the scalding bite of his tearing flesh and felt solace at the thought of this place soon becoming a memory, part of me was disappointed in the fight ending so quickly. Especially once I studied Mazi's body, deeply scarred across the chest and heavily burned in his extremities, reduced to a shivering mess as he distanced himself pitifully.

"M- Mazi will never be led by a woman!" he snarled like a beast on its last leg. "The traditions of the first Mazi must live on!"

"You're still mistaken." I sighed, stopping before him. "Mazi is the culture. And so Mazi, both its leader and these lands, will be dragged to Death's Door; for only then will you be worthy of Amun's presence."

To little surprise, Mazi snarled in contempt as his spirit went wild, for the surprise came from the vines and trunk of his throne animating into a dizzying blue of brown and green amidst a red mist, reducing the elven family to a scattering of meat while the orc females were thrown to Mazi's sides, bound by the hands and feet.

My legs raced before the emotions could register in my spirit - another sign the rage was coming. I felt it gripping at my heart mid-step, and I screamed with pleasure as the heat was injected into my heart, flooding a scalding madness into my bloodstream that blurred my surroundings in a baleful orange hue. Heat bled from my spirit as my foot stomped the ground, cracking it with deep furrows of magma spitting as high as the walls and splashing higher as my foot plunged within. Not from the force of my step, but by the force of what my rage summoned from on high - my paladin's helm, aiming the spiritual nail on the inner side of its crown at mine.

The helm plummeted onto my shoulders like a shot from a spell cannon, driving that searing nail through the top of my crown as its warm, comforting metal collapsed around my skull, both pushing my foot into that magma pit and forcing my affinity cores open before the divine heat of a thousand Eotrom stars engulfed my spirit. The crowd undulated - either in fear or in aggression, I cared not - as my foot plunged into the magma a final time, injecting heat into the shallow pool that rebounded as a nearly solid pillar of lava and molten steel and I let loose, tossing the angst, anger, and fear into the smoldering pit of my heart. The resulting minor eruption of magma and molten steel flowed from my spirit without relent, pushing me into the sky with greater force while those same magics dripped from my arms, forming thick clubs until the magnetic mana followed to bind them in a semi-solid form, chased by my crystal mana to form vicious edges around their scalding cores. The same ensued as I reached my apex, drawing all eyes to the crimson plume of crystalline filaments spreading across the skies from the crown of my helmet before my bestial roar empowered my strike. Magnetic fields encircled my legs, binding the molten geyser supporting me into a muscular, serpentine core soon wreathed in crystalline scales that coiled against the ground mightily, pushing me on a rapid descent toward Mazi.

Growing more feral by the moment, Mazi turned his frothing mouth on those thrown to him, tossing one toward me while raising the other as a shield set between us. Yet he still leapt back at the last moment. Carrying my building rage, the molten cores of my swords flared and flared more as I screamed, imbuing their crystalline edges with a white sweltering heat that seared through his meat shield as if she were a ghost, sending its excess energy racing after him.

Left with a charred gouge down his back, Mazi crashed into the ground, reeling in anguish until he froze in the shadow of his former hostage, holding the burnt orange hue of her baleful eyes on him before she leapt onto him; empowered, rather than slain by my attack. I leapt after her, eager to push him to the edge, and was soon met by the gleaming blade of Sunguldak approaching from the side, mirrored by the blinding light of a crimson beam of my General rushing beneath me to crash into him.

General Virgilius closed the distance before I landed atop my blades, sinking them into the ground to inject the pit and the stone raised to cage it with a flash of heat that turned its existence liquid. Mazi flailed atop the viscous lake, helplessly trying to support himself on his charred legs until the lava flowed unnaturally to a point behind me, when he was pummeled by the blows of those he once ruled. Regaining a bit of focus, I sensed the flows mold themselves around Executor Alfarr, wreathing her in her powered armor before she fell her blade towards Lylmlar, raising his blade in protest to block the strike with ease. Hissing lava spewed from the cracks of their impact until my Executor, meeting the tenants of her oath, spread her domain across the pit with the sound of a primordial gong, forcing the bubbling hisses back underground to aggregate them into a molten mole that burrowed its way to Lylmlar with glee. The echoes of Komstan's rueful rage bellowed before it was muted by the eruption, yet the ancient dwarf staggered through the ensuing molten hailstorm as eager to add to the carnage as the rest. Unlike Marshal Woden, who rushed in with a flurry of her sword to lash and lacerate his charred chest before sending her meteoric fist crashing down on his equally old helmet.

Another eruption, and my eyes turned to Mazi, intending not to act but to feel the anger and pain of those two orcs stomping the memory of his burnt existence into the rising lava lake; if only to pour my will into Technical Archmage Umis, drawing the gushing pools of lava and molten steel into a mountainous beating heart he suspended above Springmire. Its heat alone turned the verdant forest into a hellish conflagration that roared the dying songs of tyrannical Mazians, even after she compressed it into a beast of a bullet spell she promptly shot at the ground, where it impacted, not to erupt, but to burrow and sear all it touched until finally settling dozens of kilometers below, then erupted.

A primordial groan released from the ground as the new Vulcan Heart awoke, yet the magma within did not explode like a great eruption, it effused - it simmered and oozed like my very rage, burying the memories of this council beneath layers and layers of lava; the blood of the earth; rivers and rivers, snaking and streaming north to enrich Elurial's forest through the act of immolation. Renewal, not destruction, through the power of this helm. And so I felt my rage simmer down as I surveyed the battlefield, eventually catching notice of a bright orange shine blinking atop the lava lake's frozen surface. An arm wreathed in an amber glow, pushing through the stone to probe for some solid rock and pull, revealing the orc who killed Mazi- one of them, turning to pull her accomplice from the lake with haste. Then others followed, and not just here. Across the country, I could feel them. Like plucked strings of a magnetic harp, cascading down the crystalline filaments of my helm to grant a song of protection, mirrored to my rage, meant to bury those hated things asunder.

And so, following the traditions of my family, the fertile ground it yielded would birth something new.

And so, following the ways of the Nox's, what would become would be ensured by the dead.

Taking a deep breath, I connected with those things wholly, feeling the lava oozing off the Steel Cairn to fill the Mazian Saddle and the countless volumes of molten steel crawling across the lands, and channeled my voice through it. "Mazi is dead." I said coldly, mirroring the dormant embers of my spirit. "Both the ruler and the country have been buried, their cultures sentenced by the Nox's Judge to be buried and forgotten. But the traditions - the real traditions of those who call themselves barbarians shall continue in these lands, conquered by me and my Vulcans. Any objections?"

It seemed I still had some things to learn. Perhaps not realizing the efficiency with which I could have them purged, my sneer was aimed at any survivors with remaining ties to Mazi and its culture. And so, the only eyes and ears to witness my domineering gaze or hear the spite in my voice were those scattered clans still radiating my heat; those surrounding me, still plucking the strings of my helm; those many tribal leaders kneeling in subservience to the one who seemed so divine; the countless shamans praising me in earnest, recognizing the new rulers of these lands according to barbaric traditions. Uniting, for better or worse, countless warring tribes into a unified chain. A chain, worn those two orc females who buried Mazi.

A chain linked by Vulcan steel.

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