Axiom ~ prologue

~ Prologue ~

“Sir!”

A man in his early thirties looked up from the map he and a few others were pouring over, and could instantly see that the messenger had serious and grievous news to give him. “What in the abyss is going on out there? Report!"

“Sir, the front line has fallen, the main Commander has been slain. There was... there is a Mage out there!"

Various sounds of consternation  filled the tent, and  a few people even ran to double-check the report. "Why in the world would there be a Mage here? There aren’t even the most basic of cultivators in this fight! How could they afford a-"

“From what I understand, the Mage is killing indiscriminately. Sir! I don’t know what to tell you, all I know is that command either falls to you or…

“Don't tell me someone is bringing him this same message! As much as I don’t want to be in charge,  there is no way…!"

Even as he finished his statement, a powerful voice rumbled over the battlefield, “Charge!”

The bloodlust coming from the self-entitled voice was so thick that the warriors could almost taste it, and this group was right at the rear of the battle. “We’ve won, you backwater cretins! Turn and fight! Their line is broken! I said charge!”

The sub-commander barreled out of his tent and into the scorching sunlight that was the Soccoro Desert. Why there was a battle happening in this blasted wasteland, he had no idea. He simply followed orders and attempted to do right by his people… unlike his counterpart, who was only in the military for glory. Taking a deep breath, the sub-commander bellowed an order to countermand the words that had shaken the sand out of his tent. “Retreat! Blast that order, there is a Mage waiting out there! Full retreat!”

Sand and dust were present at the best of times in this wasteland, but the density and quantity today were on a different level. A sound reached his ears, a high-pitched *piiiiii*… *boom*. With that detonation, a massive amount of sand, soot, and various debris joined what was already in the air, choking the sub-commander in an instant. The sun was blotted out, and the world descended into a confusing and hazy blur.

“Traitor!” The snarl thundered across the burning sand and searing soot, burning deeper into the sub-commander than the sun ever had in this place. “Ignore him! For glory! For honor! For your King! I said charge!”

Next to the command tent, the sub-commander’s eyes widened as a chance breeze pushed aside the storm of sand and soot, and the battlefield was revealed to him. Death, flame, and destruction. Every man that entered the open space of the battlefield was starting alight, and was burned into a pile of ashes in an instant. Even those that were not moving forward…

*Boom*.

A roiling wave of heat struck the sub-commander square in the back, and the taste of sand filled his mouth as he was shoved down into the ground by the invisible shockwave. His skin was shredded as the dirt, newly-made glass, and flaming splinters cut hundreds of lines through his armor. He stifled a groan and pushed himself up, his aching knee pulled to his chest as the toes of his boot sunk into brittle half-glassed sand. A glance behind him showed that only a fireball remained of the command tent, and the lack of screams made his heart sink. Those were… his… ten years on the campaign trail; those were his brothers in arms! The only family he had…!

He steeled himself, he would need to grieve later. If there was a later. For now, he needed to save as many as he could. Their loss was clear, the chances of victory were nonexistent. It was time to retreat, or they would suffer a devastating rout and be killed to the last man. There was no victory to be found here, not now, not after that monster, that cultivator, the one-man army arrived.

“Disengage! Disen… *hack* …gage!” His words somehow sounded clearly across the field, and he knew he would be obeyed by most. There was power in being there for the people that relied on you, and he knew that his opposite was not beloved as he was. The people… they would run. Hopefully, some would even survive.

“Don’t listen to him!” The next words to reach his ringing ears were accusatory, “I will chase you down, you traitor! I will chase you all down if it’s the last thing I-” 

A whistle of metal pierced the space where the words were forming, and the sentence abruptly ended with a very fleshy *hyuk*. It would have been a notable detail, had a pillar of flame not engulfed the position in a cascading waterfall of fire and destruction. Loss. Total loss. 

The newly-minted Commander bellowed, “Get back to the bunkers!” 

A cold feeling of dread permeated his insides, particularly his stomach when he realized… by giving an order he had made himself a prime target. The Commander, the other sub-commander… this Mage was targeting command structure before all else. Panic fueled the muscles in his legs as he broke into a ‘your-life-is-over’ run through the billowing walls of hot sand. The cries and wails of the numerous injured littered the surroundings, the troops around him invisible in the artificial maelstrom of glowing orange and matte black. He had made the correct decision.

*Boom*. 

A high pitched *piiiiii* sound filled his now-damaged ears; an infuriatingly sharp tone. It wasn’t much, but it was all the sensory information available. Wait… had it gotten even hotter? Odd how that seemed so impossible at the edge of the scorching Socorro Desert. The panic of his current reality took grip once more, and his determined fingertips clenched into his palm, grasping the soil that he had been thrown into. 

To his surprise, the flat rock he gripped was solid and cool. Without being able to actually see, there was still enough difference to inform him that he was now in the shade. He had gotten into the bunkers! 

Hope blossomed as the poor excuse for a Commander forced himself to his feet. He took a few steps, then found himself falling into a deep hole that someone must have been using as a sleeping or cool-down area.  As he settled on the dirt several feet below the bunker and tried to regain his breath, he realized that his dry throat was making each inhalation excruciatingly painful. 

As soon as he could manage, there was no hesitation in snatching the waterskin–now considerably singed–from his belt. His shredded leather belt didn’t survive this pull, falling to tatters as he pulled open the container and took a long pull. He did his best to squint his eyes open, at least enough to rinse out some of the caked-on foulness.

Thought it did little to help the pain, it was still sufficient to restore a semblance of visibility. A jarring cry echoed down to him, so he pulled himself up to peek over the edge of the hole. Hope filled him for a moment as a duo of familiar figures burst into the underground space… but they were not the only things coming through the opening. Fire, prefaced by a sound like thunder heralding a storm, flooded into the space after them. 

The air seemed to coil and writhe, producing a horrifying orange glow. The air became a swirl of ebon particles that danced in the air, and the only sound was the crackle of sand becoming glass in the sudden torrential heat. The sight of his men… his family… being swallowed by the flames was the last he remembered. He couldn't avoid the hail of rocks that erupted from the ground and shattered against the opposing wall, ricocheting straight for his head. 

Darkness took him.