A window to reality shimmered inside Cytortia’s mental-scape, allowing her to see the grand reversal with her very eyes and it bought her to tears.

“I succeed?” Cytortia was on the verge of tears. “Did I…”

“Save them? Become useful?” The WORLD asked. “Yeah, you sure did, kid. You are now on the path to reach your full potential. Sad to say, an obligatory exposition time has arrived.”

Two orbs of light appeared before the former goddess.

“After ridding yourself of the shackle called the Heavenly Daughter of Wood, several paths present itself before you. Out of those, two of them suit you the best.”

A green orb landed in front of Cytortia.

“The master of life who controls the very nature and code of living to her whim, boasting an unrivaled offensive and defensive ability. The sage of wood who rules the earth; able to alter topology and the planet’s surface with a wave of her hand.”

A white orb land next to it.

“Next is the greatest of saint. The supreme holy woman who surrenders ability to harm and dedicates her very art to aiding and creating. In response, the world gifts her with ultimate immortality. She is the undying, loved by the very multiverse itself.”

Cytortia looked between the two orbs and chose.

The WORLD understood Cytortia, so it gave another warning. 

“I must warn you that if you choose that path, you lose ability to harm. You remember your friend's, Luxinna, terrible affinity with Spirit, right? Selecting that route will end similarly. Your Mana will have an infinite negative modifier for any offensive oriented Arcane and action. You still want to go that way.”

Cytortia made a sad smile.

“Let be honest here. I am never good at hurting.”

The WORLD sighed.

“Yeah, you are right,” the entity believed it was a fair offering. Trading any ability to harm for the unmatched talent in supporting was an excellent arrangement for the goddess who missed the comatose Rem with her flying handbag.

…

The Dark One stirred an inch from the realm of sleep. It felt the grand movement. A force at the edge of his recognition — the grand fringe of the deep — whispered for it to act. But as powerful as it was, the Primordial was slothful by nature.

Then it something caught its attention. A black, twisted residual of a thought. A summation of vengeful memory it could work on.

The slumbering monster smiled in its sleep.

…

Rem got back to base, handed the refugees over to Santo Ahoy for re-organization. But before he could re-engage his next strategy, a familiar trio cornered him.

“Hello there,” a bandaged Luxinna greeted.

“Yo, Lux,” Rem tried to brush her away. “Glad to see you and Mel back on your feet. Report to Elder Lochwain. We need you two to push the frontline. I need rest, so can you drag Melody and Hikma from my long-deserve downtime?”

Melody — still sporting a sling — snorted.

“Rem, we are inside Cytortia’s god-field. It is impossible to get fatigued. You already recover, and now you are trying to brush us off because you guess what we want.”

Rem sighed.

“If you want to get stronger, go to Scathach,” Rem declared. “I am barely scrapping by.”

The trio glanced at each other.

“I tell you he will say that,” Luxinna threw her hand,

“Yeah, what choice do we have,” Melody bit back and jabbed her finger at Rem. “Stop playing dumb, Rem. Everyone under the sun with a working brain already works it out. We are Scathach’s favorite, not because you or Hikma are weaker, but because she is afraid of your ability. A look into her eyes and anyone can tell. Scathach regret taking you as a student, because you are too much of a revolutionary. You are powerful to the point it broke an S-ranker’s confidence.”

“You are hyping me like I am the second coming of Michael Jackson. I am barely A-rank,” Rem argued. “And I have more experience seducing a living-woman than teaching.”

Luxinna played the good cop.

“You drive Wayward away and save both our lives. That proves your credential more than anything.”

“It proves I am the World's greatest sweet-talker,” Rem shut her down. “I am not an activist in a chameleon costume, Luxinna — claiming expertise while being a moron is not my style.”

Melody’s patience wasn’t renown for its expanse.

“What the hell is wrong with you! Where is the great Remus Breaker who turn Scathach and Marley the Magpie into footstool with only raw presence and reasoning? I know you are smart enough to see it! We need to get stronger! Unless you can magic Scathach back inside this barrier, the coaching duty automatically falls on your shoulder.”

Rem stayed silent. He expected this was coming, but he didn’t want to cross that bridge unless the entire river bank was aflame.

Finally, the silent Hikma spoke.

“Rem, why are you so hesitant to teach us?”

“Because I am the last person you want to learn from.”

“Rem, we won’t regret it,” Hikma insisted.

Rem let out a dry chuckle.

“You will, mate,” Rem said. “My track record already spells the future out for us.”

…

Rem began his lesson by relaying the impossible standard.

“The survivor’s current morale are shaky, so I have injected few litres of hope as a rally symbol. The catch of this method is simple. It gives them something to blame. If you harbor any hope of being thank after this debacle is over, crush it. Mercifully strangle that illusory for peace's sake. They are not awful people, mind you. But once the Emperor point fingers, they got to pick between gratitude and survival of themselves and their love ones, so don’t blame them for pushing us under the bus. After we beat Orwell, we will get hunted to the end of Earth, because we are strong enough to take it. Anyone who thinks saving people who will stab you in the back isn’t for them can go to Scathach. I won’t blame you. This is the most thankless job the universe ever conceive.”

“Okay,” Luxinna groaned. Rem wasn’t joking when he said they would regret it. “Then why are you doing it.”

Rem answered with a quote he heard somewhere.

“If even one life improves for a better, isn’t our sacrifice worth it?”

Every soul stood stunned at the depth of Rem’s conviction.

“That is our primary edge over the uber loser facing us,” Rem sneered with disgust. “Evil has no higher purpose to serve. Orwell, Grandy — even Wayward — fight for themselves. Sure, there are nothing wrong with that. But it makes them self-center. Our ground over them is simple: we commit ourselves to living up to an impossible ideal, forcing us to see a bigger picture. Severe self-center moron like Sol Grandy, Scathach or good old Lucian Drakokia are blind to everything outside their benefit. This lend us a better situational-awareness.”

Rem gestured.

“Now, exercise one, use your self-awareness and tell me where did you screw up tonight?”

““We fight Wayward,”” Melody and Luxinna got Hikma’s memo on the monster that buried them into the pavement.

“Incorrect,” Rem critiqued. “Your mistake is not engaging Wayward. It is failing to run away after discovering you were outmatched. Weakness is not a mistake. But disrespect for your own weakness is a massive blunder. Both of you are unaware of your greatest weakness — arrogance.”

“Okay,” Luxinna squirmed under Rem’s lecture. Scathach was a way nicer master than Rem. Luxinna believed even Nu Wa was more chill. “Sure, Melody is arrogant, but me?”

“Lux, then what is your weakness?”

Luxinna opened her mouth, but no answered came out.

“We die when a bullet punch through our brain. Arrogance by definition is a pretentious claim of one superiority. I am not sure, but I suppose two overconfident kids who assume they can survive dying is an example of wanton arrogance of highest order.”

Rem finished the duo’s verbal funeral.

“Humbling time, how much do you know?”

“We know Wayward used fire…”

Rem turned Melody into a verbal roadkill before she started.

“What if Wayward appeared tomorrow as a ruler of Mar with an army of fireproof, conservative-hating Stegosaurus? There are infinitesimal chance that can happen. There are chances that he invented an acidic flame-thrower to hide the fact he is a master of illusion magic, pretending to be a kung-fu fire-wizard. Maybe he might be an accomplished mercenary musician pretending to be fire-kung-fu-god undercover as a Captain of the Royal-mages.”

“That is ridiculous,” Melody lost her words.

“Yet, it what I would do in Wayward’s position, stacking deception on ridiculous lies to bend the truth. Now realizing that, what do you know?”

It was Hikma who gave the correct response.

“We know nothing.”

“Absolutely! I have [Clairvoyance] and even I make a blunder. What we have is prediction and intel, but we can’t confirm anything that happens outside our measuring device. First rule of discovery is admitting you understood nothing. The only sure assumption is that counter-punches exist to every trick in your book. Tomorrow you might run into the guy with enough counters to put the bullet in your brain, so arrogance is no longer acceptable.”

Rem completed his sentence.

“Confirm the sure-fire facts, build on that foundation to derive the truth. It is fine to be angry you lost. Use that fear. Feel the spite of defeat and construct a perfect counter-card. You are living in the game of Magic: The Gathering, where you can make any card you want and play them right from your deck. Exploit rules and create the perfect deck no one in the World can counter. The only ceiling is your theme. Time to admit you had nothing on the game and built your play-style from scratch.”

Rem closed the statement as a speechmaker he was.

“Neither I nor Scathach are your true master. The only one who decides which card to pick is you. Now scatter and show me your new game-play. We are under a time limit, so act quickly.”

…

Luxinna never played card-games.

With Melody and Hikma sauntered off to brainstorming land, and Rem commandeering the strategy to prevent Orwell Mehest from hitting his five-million deaths land-mark. Luxinna got left alone with no clue to go forward. The elf had only one play left. She needed an example. Hence, she stuck to Rem until she found an inspiration.

“Hey Rem,” she asked her tutor for guidance. “What is your play-style?”

Rem raised his eyes-brows. Finally, someone asked a sensible question.

“Sabotage control,” Rem explained. “My ability is themed for this battle-style. I can’t last a second in a fight, so I use combinations of [Mentalism] and [Clairvoyance] to read my opponent entire gameplay and take out their options. And with their win-condition removed, I tap them out with either bullets or mind-hacking — preferably from behind.”

It took less than a microsecond to confirm Rem’s style isn’t hers.

“What do you call running around and smacking people with swords,” Luxinna admitted that — as crude as that sound — that pretty much all she excelled.

“Aggro,” Rem answered. “Don’t underestimate it. That tactic is mighty in its simplicity. Hack your opponent to death with raw damage before he fucks you up with his win con. You wore the opponent in the early game to the point the poor dude got no chance of winning the late-game.”

Luxinna believed Rem was on track.

“So, what is that play-style’s weakness,” Luxinna asked. “I am an amateur in these subjects. Can you please tell me more about it?”

“Well, one of the most popular aggro in current period is mono-red,” Rem sneered in distaste. “The gameplay is simple. Overwhelm your opponent with fast early game, chipping away his lives and defense with heaps of cheap attacks and burn spells before your opponent set his board. If he somehow lives after those beating, you get him with a powerful finisher like a heavy hitting spell or over-the-top attack amplifier.”

Luxinna fell in love with that narration.

“Tell me more.”

Rem looked at the elf and grimaced. Those were the eyes of the goblin player — fucking ugly goblins.

…

Stream of golden glass sailed across the warehouses.

“Not fast enough,” Luxinna grimaced.

It took fifteen minutes to wring everything on aggro play-style from Rem. Despite his distaste for the archetype, Rem’s knowledge about aggro went without question given how he got kicked in the face by them. The more Luxinna learned, the more she believed she found her calling.

She ticked every the box. Her speed can overwhelm most opponent and even last a while against Wayward the Broken. She also had several powerful finishers she was working on for late games.

Her fundamental problem was the burn spells. The golden pressurized beam took too long to cast and fire. Luxinna still remembered how they struggled to catch Wayward. Tracing attacks was good, but she needs something better. Something more subtle and efficient. The burnt spell Rem described worked because they are efficient and cheap — able to hit a target before they can react. Meanwhile, her lotus’s beam was easily telegraph, putting her in jeopardy several times.

Luxinna need something faster and cheaper.

Then there was mono-red aggro's conceptual flaws. Hundred fast attacks were useless against a board-wipe or a healing. If the opponent out-sustain the damage and built his position before her finisher, then she won’t have any fall-back plan. Luxinna faced with an interesting gridlock. She needed ways to protect herself and launched her finisher fast and often without overdrawing herself against meat-shield.

Luxinna’s head pondered these problems so hard she wanted to knock herself out. Scathach training was hard but simple. She effortlessly mastered sword, spear and archery skill Scathach taught her. However, Rem’s exercise forced her to gauge her very foundation of critical thinking and creativity. Luxinna groaned. Why couldn’t a simple arrow solve her problems? Why everything was so complicated?

Then the lightning struck.

That might work. No, she needed help from Melody, from this grand new design.

Luxinna walked away, smiling swimmingly at her creative breakthrough.

That moment the EAPS feared as The Flowers of Victory — [Assault Flora]—was born.