The Kingdom of Falmath was large, old, and painfully ordinary. Its borders stretched wide, yet its strength had never kept up with its size. Most of its "elite soldiers" were Otherworlders bought or captured into servitude — a quiet shame the nobles pretended not to see. Still, its position made it important. Falmath was the entry point into the Western Nations. Anything that happened in the Forest of Jura came through them first.
So when a monster nation began rising in that forest — with whispers of a million-strong orc army — the entire kingdom panicked.
Merlin watched the council chamber from the corner of her eye, lips hidden beneath her hood. Politicians barked overlapping orders, priests waved their staffs as if that added weight to their words, and messengers ran in and out with frantic updates. A storm of noise, yet none of it meaningful.
For Falmath, the problem was simple: this new nation could crush them. Even if their entire army marched, they would never pierce through a million bodies.
Enter the Church of Light.
The moment the Church learned of the monster nation, it declared the event a divine threat. Rumors spread like wildfire — tales of monstrous conquest, of humanity's end, of an army marching under a self-proclaimed Demon Lord. None of it was verified, but fear did not care about accuracy.
The Western Nations reacted exactly as the Church wanted.
They unified under one banner.
Merlin found that… suspicious.
The Church of Light had always been powerful, yes, particularly in Britannia. It dominated the holy hierarchy there far more than Luminous' church ever had. Yet something about its sudden zeal bothered her. War was not new — but wars were rarely handled like this.
She leaned back on the old wooden bench, gaze drifting to the stained-glass windows of Falmath's great hall. Light filtered through radiant colors depicting the Supreme Goddess, hand outstretched in benevolent blessing.
A blessing Merlin had never once confirmed existed.
She had lived for over three thousand years. She had witnessed kingdoms rise and fall, gods drift into long slumber, entire races vanish. The Church of Light, in all its pride, was younger than she was. She remembered a time before it existed — yet its priests spoke as though their deity had been present since creation.
Who granted their miracles?
Where did their blessings come from?
It certainly wasn't the Goddess Clan.
She would know.
Her instincts tingled. Something about this war was wrong.
When the nobles pressured the Seven Deadly Sins to "prove their loyalty to the crown" by participating, it only strengthened her doubts. Merlin had volunteered immediately — partly to keep an eye on things, partly because Escanor would simply follow her, and both of them together should be enough to end any arguments about the Sins refusing to fight. Ban came because he was bored. His presence, as always, was for self-amusement.
And now here she was, in the command camp, surrounded by tens of thousands.
She stepped outside the tent. The smell of iron, sweat, and damp soil hung in the air. Falmath's army stretched far beyond the horizon — soldiers, knights, borrowed mercenaries, and reluctant farmers shoved into armor that didn't fit. Some practiced half-hearted spear drills; others sat by fires with hollow eyes.
This wasn't a righteous crusade.
It was a political performance.
Her cloak fluttered as a gust swept across the camp. Holy Knights knelt in a row nearby, armor polished to blinding sheen. She recognized several: Gilthunder, expression stoic; Gula, whispering prayers; a handful of elite Britannian knights brought reluctantly by their kings.
They didn't trust this mission either.
She walked, boots sinking slightly in the muddy ground. Merchants haggled loudly on one side, priests preached on the other, and soldiers sharpened blades that would soon be stained red. Smoke drifted from cooking pots. Men laughed a bit too loudly — fear disguised as bravado.
Merlin almost pitied them. They were being marched into a war none of them asked for.
She paused at the far edge of the camp where she could see the massive banners of the Western Nations fluttering. Beyond them, lines of mercenaries stood assembled. They were not from any known kingdom. Their discipline was too clean, their silence too sharp. They moved with a kind of rigid efficiency that spoke of something more… cultivated.
They were leading the army.
Not the knights.
Not the generals.
Mercenaries.
Her eyes narrowed.
She'd fought monsters in every age, studied every type of spell, learned the patterns of every power that influenced nations — and nothing about these men made sense. Their leader, the man with golden hair and an aura like coiled lightning, felt out of place. Too strong. Too composed. His presence radiated not zealotry, nor greed… but war.
She didn't like things she couldn't read.
Merlin folded her arms, letting her gaze drift toward the south. The distant horizon shimmered with the faintest haze — the edge of the Jura Forest.
If war began there… she and Escanor could handle a million orcs if required. Ban could certainly survive it. But Veldora? If the Storm Dragon truly vanished, that was tolerable. If he himself intervened… even Merlin wasn't sure what she would do. The best she could manage was sealing him.
Killing Veldora wasn't an option. Could she accomplish it? Perhaps, if everything aligned in her favor. But killing him would be the worst mistake anyone could make. Anyone who lived long enough knew: only his sisters could slay him. If anyone else did, they would face the wrath of the Dragon Sisters.
Velgrynd and Velzard — two beings even the Supreme Deity and Demon King tread carefully around.
Merlin had seen Velzard once, centuries ago. A blur of white frost slicing through a battlefield, the world bending under her presence. Even Escanor in his "The One" form could only treat her like a natural disaster — something to endure, not oppose.
No one with sense antagonized the elder True Dragon sibling.
Thankfully, rumors suggested Veldora had been sealed for centuries. And if his signature vanished recently, then perhaps someone released him and he left this world entirely.
Still… she couldn't shake the feeling something was moving beneath the surface.
She murmured to herself, "There is definitely someone pulling strings behind the scenes… someone with a planning-type Ultimate Skill, most likely."
She herself possessed an Ultimate Skill — Isis: the Insatiable Arcane Lord. It thrummed faintly at her core, reacting to the magic in the air. It absorbed spells, devoured phenomena, and shaped mana as she pleased. Infinity, her intrinsic skill, layered atop it, making her one of the most dangerous beings in Britannia.
And yet the aura of the mercenary commander still glowed with unnatural sharpness.
Maybe equal.
Maybe above.
Maybe worse.
Her lips thinned.
She decided she would watch him closely.
As she turned away, distant horns sounded — three long notes that split the camp in two.
The marching had begun.
From every corner of Falmath's fields, tens of thousands moved like a single shadow. Armor clattered, standards rose, priests chanted prayers to their supposed goddess, and mercenaries took formation at the very front.
The war for Jura had begun.
Merlin walked beside the column, cloak brushing softly against the ground, eyes sharp with quiet suspicion.
Something was guiding this war.
Something cunning.
Something hidden.
And she intended to find it — no matter what the outcome on the battlefield would be.
A/n: I've been a bit busy for few days so smaller chapters and stuff.