Upon the shores of the Muspelheim Continent, looking out across the north-eastern sea, stood the Prince of the Centurion Kingdom, Erus of Jupiter.

He beheld the five massive vessels that loomed in the distance

Days had passed since they had finally breached the wall of storms that had shielded his lands for so long.

They were coming closer, each of the five being pulled along by four serpentine creatures, by day’s end in fact they might be fit to start the war.

The beasts he took stock of were Leviathans, otherwise known as Gold Class Dragons or Water Dragons.

They were foul abominations, like the rest of their kindred, made through a method of taboo.

He creased his brow at the sight of them.

Here he stood upon the ruined walls of what once was Venus City’s Silver District.

The decimated docks that were now nothing more than debris adrift and sunken in the sea, had once housed half of their kingdom’s entire navy, but now it was just a ruin.

Their ships too were no better, for they as well were now naught but sunken wood among the debris at the bottom of the sea.

“They’re not going easy on us this time around,” Said the man by his side.

Clad head to toe in uniform, he was the Prince’s right hand and the leader of the Dragon Slayer Corps that Jupiter City was so proud of.

This man was named Gaius, he was the son of Mallius, the late Captain of the Praetorian Guard and one of Jupiter’s finest.

“Why would they?” The Prince whispered back.

Indeed Gaius could naught but shrug, for he knew that The Centurion Kingdom and The Nidhogg Empire had been enemies for sixty plus years.

Though they themselves had never set foot there, their own kingdom had invaded the empire’s lands at least thrice.

Why would they expect their enemy to go easy on them when they were weak?

Gaius didn’t think they would, and really he couldn’t fault them for bringing the hammer down as, if the situation were reversed, he himself wouldn’t hesitate either.

What truly disgusted him however, was those beasts, those titans pulling the Skiths across the sea.

“I can’t believe those serpents used to be men,” He said with a chill.

The Prince echoed the sentiment, but stayed in silence.

The Nidhogg Empire was known to take slaves, that alone was nothing new in this Gods forsaken world.

Yet one thing set them apart from all others who did the same: The Blood of Grimnir, their God.

Legend has it that when a person is forced to drink that blood they will become a mindless doll only fit to follow orders, such was the fate of almost all of the women they captured.

Worse yet however was the tale of what would happen if you were made to bathe in that blood instead.

The result lay before them, the victims of that treatment had become dragons, mindless beasts of savagery used to carry the Empire’s burden.

“Be ready to kill yourself if they capture you alive, Gaius,” Said Erus.

“You can count on that,” Said the Commander.

Footsteps trod the stone walls anew.

The men didn’t think it came from their guards, they knew it to be another.

Erus turned his gaze then upon a General of Jupiter, the long retired Lord of Apollo, a man by the name of Aegis who bowed his head in greeting towards them.

“Have you come to get a better look at the enemy?” Asked Erus.

Aegis, for his part, then cracked a smile.

The two men peered eye to eye at each other; a strange silence fell, and as if in some bout of telepathy a mutual understanding came about.

“Gaius, go back to the camp, make sure everything’s ready.”

The Commander frowned.

Though he didn’t dare disobey outright, it could not be said he would follow an order that places his monarch alone for any good reason.

Erus shot him a glare however, and then with a knowing sigh he rose and departed.

Steady on his feet, he left the pair, the Prince and the elder, alone in the silence on the ruined city wall.

He didn’t forget to give Aegis a stern eye and subtle warning not to make any unsightly moves, however.

Aegis, for his part, actually approved of the man’s attitude.

Even now he was taking stock of all the guards hidden about them, it could not be said the Prince was poorly protected.

“You have a fine subordinate in that one,” Said the General.

“Personally I feel that he runs his mouth too much,” Said the Prince.

The General chuckled, then stepped forward.

He kept a respectable distance as he stood at the edge of the wall and stared off into the open sea.

“Been a while since I’ve seen this,” He whispered, lost in memories of the open sea, the war, and the dragons from an era that felt like it were a lifetime before.

“It never ceases to amaze me. What kind of depravity do you think would possess a man to inflict such horror upon his fellows?”

“I don’t know” Said The Prince, “And I don’t want to know.”

The more he thought about it, the more vile it seemed. Indeed while not even Centurous itself could claim a history free of slavery, the Nidhogg’s methods were inhumane by even the reckoning of that generation.

He remembered reading once that it was not morality that led to the freedom of men, but progress.

Slavery was, and would forever be, an unfortunate but inevitable part of any greater civilisation’s development, this he knew.

Yet what the Nidhogg did, the act of robbing a person of their very humanity in the most literal sense, meant that there was no hope beyond that point.

The Centurion Kingdom of old had at least over time allowed their slaves to achieve citizenship through service.

Call it forced integration or indoctrination if you will, but it was true that in this way the Centurions had long seen slavery become obsolete in their lands while Nidhogg remained entirely dependent upon it.

Indeed he knew, that must be their reason for waging this war.

They needed slaves, they always needed slaves, and likely all the more now that their God’s time on this Planet Ymir was growing short.

He was so lost in these musings indeed that he failed to notice the wizened general’s gaze falling upon his form.

“The times are truly changing,” Said Aegis, “I remember the old you would’ve been furious and raging about now. Where oh where does the time go? That angry young boy has grown up into a calm young man.” Erus fell silent.

He turned his eye upon the storm, the Skithblathnir and their serpentine escorts, frowned, and confessed,

“Time has but tempered the boy that you knew…the anger is still there.”

Aegis frowned, he faced his future monarch with a calm eye.

He saw it then, the tension in Erus’ frame.

Every muscle was firm and tight, like a bowstring ready to be loosed by hand and shoot fire on the enemy.

He said nothing, only took stock, and then he let it be.

 

O

 

The war was but a day away, a year’s worth of preparation would come to trial then.

Would they triumph, drive back the invaders?

Or perhaps they would fall, perish, or worse, upon this soil?

The world was watching, though they didn’t know it.

Aden of Atemis, leader of the usurpers, hoped they would die so he could focus on Augur.

Augur of Neptune hoped they’d survive so that Aden had no time to concentrate on him.

The Gods had their own designs, and mortal men their own minds.

Noon struck on the last day before the battle, for it would only be a battle.

The most vicious battle in the young lives of Erus, Alexander, Rusalka and Gaius…

And the last big battle in the lives of their old and tired companions, Aegis and Mortuus...

The Battle that in a generation’s time would come to be called The Fourth Nidhogg Incursion…