Huben was currently flinging out blades of fire in the desert night. Their enemy, of course, was the Union.

  Not just a patrol of Union soldiers, but an entire Division (10,000 men).

  Hu-Juren and his small army were surrounded on three sides. Only the open desert behind them remained clear, but even that was slowly getting cut off. Countless enemies were encroaching on their position.

  They may have been a small elite team, but against overwhelming numbers, they stood no chance. Quantity has a quality of its own once you reach a certain threshold.

  They were never supposed to fight the enemy head-on. Their mission was to take down the wizard towers in one fast and powerful attack, creating an opening for their main force to storm in.

  Not much time had passed since the sand sleds had been destroyed. Not nearly enough time for an enemy force to track the explosion and make their way to them.

  Either Hu-Juren and his men were very unlucky, and a large-scale division was traveling nearby, or the Union forces already knew about them.

  Given that Elaina concluded that their only escape had been destroyed from within, it was clear that some larger power play was occurring.

  There could be any number of reasons for the betrayal. Again, Damian didn't know the Empire's politics well enough. He'd only be able to infer the reasoning after finding out who the winners in this debacle were.

  Still, it is rather extreme to have the heir of the Hu clan, a tier 7 general, sacrificed. If whoever betrayed them comes to light, the Hu clan would likely throw everything at them in revenge, creating a huge division within the Empire.

  Again, the issue lay in uncovering the culprit. They couldn't antagonize every other clan within the Empire. It would become their undoing to prod so many people at once.

  'sigh'

  Hu-Juren, in an attempt to overturn their disadvantage, lept into battle.

  A tier 6 individual was a force that could significantly change the battlefield, while a tier 7 individual controlled it. Typically, the main thing that held a tier 7 back was another tier 7.

  Large-scale war was a balancing act of keeping your enemy's largest pieces under control while outmaneuvering them with grunts.

  Although some ruthless commanders use sheer numbers to make up the difference between the number of tier 7s they commanded. Even the strongest of them would struggle against a force of thousands of soldiers.

  But the potential loss of using a thousand men to force back a tier 7 was rarely worth it. Even though a single tier 7 was a huge military asset, they couldn't replace the manpower of a thousand men, let alone 100.

  The sheer manpower loss would be astronomical in comparison. Soldiers weren't only used as weapons; they were a means of security, manual labor, securing resources from dungeons, and, last but not least, farming.

  Yes, depending on where soldiers were stationed, they were frequently helpers on farm land. Well, at least all those who hadn't met their level caps. There was always the risk that a promising recruit would become a farmer for life by obtaining a non-combat skill.

  Although maybe it was best if they did obtain a farming or roadwork-related skill. You either desperately needed the skill or deeply wished for it. So the path of a soldier may not have been for them.

  'sigh'

  Damian watched as Hu-Juren launched a giant ball of fire toward the soldiers encroaching on their escape route.

  Unfortunately, though, he was not the only Tier 7 at the battle. A bald man with a magnificent beard countered his attack.

  The wave of fire clashed with chilling ice. The result ended in a giant explosion of steam.

  "General Oseers." Higgins let slip.

  So now Damian and his party could finally connect a name to a face.

  This bastard was the one whose orders caused them to be chased out of the capital—the one who was likely behind the assassins and probably even behind the attack in Gamo.

  The General looked absolutely confident, as if the battle had already been decided. A careless mistake that didn't always go unpunished.

  The battle raged on, but the small elite team stood no chance against this greater force.

  Hu-Juren and his men weren't going to last much longer. The encirclement of the Union forces was now complete. They wouldn't be able to retreat into the deeper desert without breaking through.

  Although Huben and his fellow soldiers were technically from an enemy nation, Damian couldn't help but feel for them.

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  Throughout the snippets of their lives he witnessed, they mostly didn't seem like bad people. Just loyal to their nation that had a particularly awful policy on war.

  The fact that they let enemy troops flee without cutting them down spoke volumes about their character. They could end up facing these same soldiers in the future, only to get cut down in turn. But instead of prioritising their future, they focused on honor.

  Damian didn't know if this was a good way to go about war, but it didn't seem entirely bad. However, only the strong could get away with this.

  If you held a firm conviction that no matter how many times you fought an enemy, you'd leave victorious, why not let them live?

  You couldn't ignore the fact that these nameless faces had lives of their own. Families of their own. They were all just pawns of much larger forces.

  Putting this all together, Damian thought of something foolish. It was childish and naive, but it was something he wished dearly for: Sometimes foolish things could bloom into something more. Imagine a world where there were wars, where no one had to die?

  Psh, what a contradiction. A fairytale.

  Damian didn't even consider a world without war. There were always people who wanted something someone else had. Disagreements that couldn't be mended. People tried to get their hands on things one way or another, and the holder would fight fiercely to keep them.

  A loud whistle rang out, followed by a pure white fireball that lit up the night sky.

  At that sound, Huben threw his sword on the ground and stopped his futile fight. It took a little while, but the Union forces also ceased their attack.

  More balls of fire and light shot up into the sky, turning night into day.

  Huben had both his hands raised in surrender. As he looked around, the vision extended to show that all of his fellow soldiers were doing the same. Some were on the ground, too injured to follow suit. Tier 5s and above were sturdy.

  A loud booming voice could be heard from the Union forces.

  "We are going to send over restriction collars! Put them on, and you may live!"

  Bah! Just a nicer term for slave collars. There were no differences between the two.

  Countless shackles were thrown toward Huben and his allies. One of the collars landed right at his feet, and he just stared at it. Unwilling to bend over and shackle himself to someone else's whims.

  One of his fellow soldiers walked up and picked it off the ground while dusting the sand out of it.

  "It'll be annoying to have the sand constantly rubbing between the collar and skin."

  Oh, goddesses! My eyes!

  The one speaking was the only person Damian desperately didn't want to see. It was the lightning user.

  Unfortunately for both Damian and the lightning user, he had a face only a mother could love. A nose so big that it threatened to reach his outer cheeks. It was upturned so much that you could easily see up his nostrils.

  The man's cheekbones were also so pronounced that you could stab someone with them, and he had one of the largest foreheads Damian had ever seen.

  Not to mention that he was as pale as a ghost. Likely from the northernmost regions of the Empire.

  Noo! How can I ever look at my new sleek armor the same ever again! How can I wield my shiny new sword (Storm Dancer) without that face popping in my head? AHHHHHH!

  Damian looked over to see if the vision had tricked Frey and Alex.

  It looks like they dodged the arrow. They were looking in different directions, as if the cobblestone floor were mighty interesting.

  Damian could see that Donna and Fergus were wearing resigned smiles. The reason they couldn't stop staring earlier wasn't necessarily because they wanted to imprint the man's name and face into their heads.

  It was actually shock and disbelief! How could this man not wear a helmet? He wore his face amongst his fellow soldiers with pride. Did he not know the tragic state of his face?

  "Guess I won't be seeing my wives anytime soon..."

  My goddesses! Did he just say wives? As in plural? With that face? He's joking, right? Maybe they're just into ugly bastards!

  "I'm sure they will rejoice the day you meet again," Huben said back.

  Ahhhhhh! It's true! Is it confidence? It has to be confidence! Or maybe he's from a wealthy family?

  And why couldn't he have just worn a helmet!

  In truth, the lightning user was using a helmet before. That was one of the reasons Damian had been able to avoid him for so much of the vision.

  'sigh' Damian resigned himself to this new, terrible knowledge. Regardless of the circumstances, the lightning user was now a kind of guardian angel for Seconds Matter. This knowledge was the price they would have to pay. In a way, the new equipment was cursed for those who knew.

  Time sped forward again, but this time, slow enough that Damian could get an idea of what was happening.

  Hu-Juren had his soldiers healed and chained. With little else to do, they waited for their shackles to deplete their mana fully.

  After the Union was sure that it was safe, they moved in to further restrain the defeated army.

  As if they were in a hurry, the Union soldiers chained them in long links and shuffled them onto sleds surrounded by metal bars.

  Having slave collars, chains, and cages wasn't uncommon on the battlefield. What else were you to do with soldiers who surrendered? The Valkyrie had forbidden the unjust slaughter of a defeated foe.

  That falls into the Valkyrie's laws for war.

  - Soldiers who surrender must be taken prisoner or released.

  - No prisoner can be subjected to torture or inhumane conditions.

  - They hold all the rights that criminal slaves do.

  - After all hostilities have ended, prisoners of war are to be returned to their home nation.

  Damian wasn't a soldier, so he didn't know most of the Valkyrie's rules of engagement. Just the tip of the iceberg that basically said, don't be a dick.

  These rules weren't classified as the Valkyrie taboos, though. One way he had heard that the military frequently broke these rules was to disable captured soldiers and then return them to their nation.

  They did this if they didn't want extra mouths to feed, but also didn't want to return their fighting power without any downsides.

  Although it was inhumane and excessive use of force, the Valkyrie usually turned a blind eye to this. If the nation wanted to return its fighting power, it'd have to invest time and healers.

  This was usually limited to the person's best arm or a single leg. If they took things too far, they might unleash the Valkyrie's ire. This would be in the form of a warning and a claim to a limb of their own.

  With these laws in place, Hu-Juren readily surrendered his forces, hoping for a prisoner exchange or a transfer of great wealth from his homeland.

  Surrender was seen as a form of weakness in the Empire, but not one that brought about shame. They were brave warriors, but even greater warriors bested them. It was the natural order of things for the strong to defeat the weak.

  If they wanted to reclaim their former status, they'd need to grow stronger and defeat the enemy who once beat them, while giving them the same option of surrender.

  But there were two major problems that Hu-Juren and his men overlooked.

  First, there was no Valkyrie here to oversee the covert battle.

  Second, General Oseer had planned a quick extraction for his new slaves.

  Before they knew it, they were being whisked off to be hidden from any Valkyrie oversight.