“Nobody needs to be afraid—go!” The white-haired elder straddled a motorcycle; exhaust coiled like dragon breath as he ripped the longsaber from his hip and leveled it at the hundred-odd “people” ahead.
“If you can cast, cast! If you can shoot, shoot! Don’t worry about waste—our whole lives led to today. Just charge!” His voice cracked like thunder over stone.
“Oh!” a roar answered, like surf breaking on iron cliffs.
On the other side, a rally answered like a war drum in a storm.
“Brothers, a god’s dignity can’t be trampled! If they dare charge, we dare too. Up!” Delta sat astride the foremost warhorse, its breath steaming like a furnace, and bellowed to the hundred-plus behind him.
Five thousand humans faced a little over a hundred gods, a knife-edge contrast like winter against summer. One side wore cutting-edge fabrics and shouldered sleek weapons that gleamed like chrome rivers. The other rode medieval warhorses, bows taut as crescent moons, sabers flashing like cold rain.
To most eyes, those hundred “medieval savages” had no chance—like reeds against a flood. But this wasn’t a war between men; myth breathed in every gust.
Delta drew his bow to a full moon; a holy-light arrow gathered like dawn in frost.
“—Dawnbreak!” he intoned, the word a sunrise flaring behind his teeth.
The arrow left the string like a comet and speared into the crowd’s heart.
BOOM!
The blast rolled out like a kiln wind. Most of the five thousand lifted on a hot tide and slammed back into mud, the soft earth like a mother’s palm blunting the worst.
“Whole army, spread out!” a human voice cut through like a bell in fog. “Forget formation; you aren’t drilled imperial troops! Their god-magic sweeps wide. Scatter, cut your losses!”
The crowd spilled apart like beads from a broken string. Delta stopped wasting spells; he wouldn’t pour water into sand.
He stowed the longbow, drew his longsword, and yanked the reins. The warhorse screamed like a silver trumpet, then plunged into the humans like a black tide. Delta rode like a reaper in broad daylight, and dozens fell like wheat under a scythe.
“Move. I’ll hold him. You handle the rest!”
A white-haired old man shot in on a bike, steel humming like a wasp. His frame was aged wood, but his posture was a fresh wind.
Delta watched him come and sighed, a winter leaf falling.
“Elder, why the blood and blades? Just hand the artifact over,” he said, voice cool as rain.
The old man spat, the fleck dark as ink, and his eyes were knives of disdain.
“Told you a dozen times. That thing’s broken. You don’t believe me and threaten to wipe out our clan—how’s that not a boot on our neck?”
Delta frowned, puzzled, like a traveler reading a map gone blank. It was his first time here—when had he invaded?
“Elder, don’t smear the innocent so lightly.”
“Tch. You’re fodder, kid. The ones high above won’t tell you truth. They’re crueler than you think, Mr. Cannon Fodder.” His words fell like stones in a still pond.
Delta’s eyes widened, shock flaring like a struck match. “What do you mean—fodder?”
“Enough talk. Whatever you are, today you’ll see the fury of humankind.” The old man’s saber swung like a lightning branch.
Delta saw that kill-or-be-killed gaze and braced for a hammerblow. His blade met it with a clang—only a light tremor ran up his arm, like a fish tugging a line. He blinked, rain-cool confusion on his face.
“Why’s your strength so light?”
The old man dipped low, body flattening like a shadow under a lamp, and shot beneath Delta’s guard. His reverse slash hissed.
Swish.
A cut opened on Delta’s chin, thin as a red thread.
“To answer you—because I’m human. How could human strength match you lofty gods?” His grin flashed like a knife. “But because I’m human, today—you lose.”
He sheathed the saber in one smooth breath, whipped out a grenade launcher from his back, and thumbed in a blue round that glowed like glacier ice. He raised it, less than a meter between them, and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The blast kicked him back like a cyclone; he slid ten-plus meters, rubber screeching. Delta didn’t budge an inch. He looked down at his right hand, the one he’d raised to block, now a ruin of flesh like torn silk—no shape left to name. He didn’t fear; he laughed, wild as a wolf at moonrise.
“Hahaha! So that’s your sure-win card? How many years has it been? Since the Second Accord, I haven’t seen a godslaying round.”
The old man steadied, drew a cigarette, and took a deep drag. Smoke rings drifted like pale halos.
“Of course. Stone of Defiance is rare against your kind; rarer still as bullets. But I never said we had none.”
“Is that saber of yours made from the Stone of Defiance too? No wonder you can bite,” Delta said, voice like steel on stone.
The old man drew again; thick smoke poured from his mouth like mist from a valley.
Delta straightened, a cliff looking down, and flipped his grip on the longsword.
“Old man, don’t smoke so much. Bad for you,” he quipped, a spark of humor under ice.
Muscles coiled; his toe bit earth like a catapult. He flashed forward, a thunderbolt at arm’s length, blade scything left to right for the throat.
The old man didn’t flinch. His knees dipped; he slid outside the arc like water finding a crack. One palm kissed ground; his body flipped, and his heel crashed into Delta’s chin. This time, the force was a battering ram, and Delta flew.
Reload. Fire.
BOOM!
The round slammed into Delta’s chest; smoke curled from the wound like blue incense.
He crashed down hard, the earth spiderwebbing beneath him like cracked ice.
“How’s it feel, god? Do you like the taste of getting hurt?” The old man’s voice was a knife under silk.
Delta planted his longsword and levered himself up, eyes narrowed, wary as a hawk. “That power—how’d you use it?”
The old man took another long drag; the cigarette was half a bone at best. He flicked ash like snow.
“Nothing fancy. This stick gives me juice. One drag, three seconds of overclocked strength. Slick, right? Doesn’t work on gods, though.”
Delta blinked, then smiled like someone seeing a familiar footprint in fresh snow.
“I see. So… that guy is helping again?”
