Only the dead have seen the end of war!

Plato said that without even being aware of the existence of another dimension apart from his own. Yet it didn’t ring any less true even now, when I had literally transcended to a higher dimension, with access to powers Plato could only have attributed to the residents of Mount Olympus. Even in this so-called transcendent dimension, war and strife were commonplace.

The atmosphere in the Council Headquarters following the announcement of the imminent was tense enough for someone to cut through it with a knife. No hint of a smile could be found on anyone’s faces and you could consider yourself lucky if you could even catch a glimpse of one of the members of the Council.

I couldn’t help but pity the Council. In a time where all their focus should have been on the impending war, they were forced to meet with the delegations from the mortal world. The responsibility of handling the policy of Untethereds on two fronts was proving to be too difficult to juggle. And it showed in the way things were being handled right now in regard to the war.

From what I had been able to gather, the ongoing talks with the mortal delegations weren’t going all too well. Even with the prospect of the upcoming inter-planetary war, the mortal governments wanted to set some issues straight. As far as they were concerned, the war had little to nothing to do with them, at least for the time being.

To be fair to them, they did raise a valid argument. Why should they be a participant in a war when they weren’t even aware of the existence of the parties involved in the war until just a few days ago? The only thing they were willing to talk over was the exertion of influence over the Untethered. They just wanted some semblance of control on the Untethered for the foreseeable future, just so the Untethered didn’t suddenly wake up one day and decide they wanted to rule this planet.

This paranoia from the mortals’ side wasn’t helping matters when it came to the war efforts of the Council. They were having to exert so much of their resources on the problem that was just in front of them, the mortals, that they couldn’t even properly delegate their responsibilities to the other Untethered.

When it came to me personally, through some good fortune for a change, I found myself completely removed from these issues. Instead, I was able to fully concentrate on increasing my own power and my connection to my core. So much so that I could feel that I was on the verge of the breakthrough.

Now, I was able to communicate with my core and the core of my familiar through some sort of weird signals. It was rudimentary at best, consisting of nothing more than vibrations of the chords connecting me to my core, but it was a promising start. Even the chords themselves had grown stronger, resembling trunks of banyan trees rather than simple ropes.

“Are you done?”

I wasn’t as connected to my core as I would have liked if all it took to break through my meditative state were just those three words.

With a sigh, I opened my eyes to find Samuel staring at me. I rose from my sitting position and said, “Not really but I don’t have an option, do I?”

“Sorry man, we can't just skirt around this responsibility. We are overtaxed as it is.”

I could only sigh once more as I said, “I know. I know. Let’s go.”

Samuel nodded at me as we proceeded to move out of the room to patrol our city. Yes, just because the Untethered of this planet were on the cusp of war didn’t mean that the monsters were resting easy. If anything, the decrease in numbers of the Untethered available for patrol had meant more monsters were running rampant now more than ever.

To make matters worse, the fact that mortals were now able to see monsters and witness their extraordinary powers only added to the paranoia they felt towards the Untethered. All of this contributed to making patrols more important than ever at a time when the least amount of resources could be spent towards that task.

As we were roaming the city, I couldn’t help but look towards the sky. Today was yet another occurrence of red Luna, an event that was always filled with ill fate for me more often than not.

But tonight, the moon that I and most of the Untethered population were most concerned with was the other one. The normal one, if you will. The one which could be viewed by everyone, mortal and Untethered alike. At least until a few days ago.

Even now, an army was stationed on the moon, lying in wait for the perfect opportunity to strike at our planet.

“The city is too silent.”

Of course, Samuel was too concerned with the present to delve too much on the prospect of war.

“What do you mean?”, I asked, looking around to check for signs of any lurking monsters.

“There’s no trace of any monsters around. We have been scouting the city for the past hour and have yet to come across even one. While that may have been good news if we were patrolling just a small area, an entire city being devoid of monsters doesn’t comfort me one bit.”

When the facts were laid out for me like that, I couldn’t help but realise that Samuel was right. It was highly unlikely for a city that was being patrolled by just two Untethered didn’t have any monsters rampaging about. Monsters didn’t care much for the presence of Untethered patrols, anyway, being too concerned with their absorption of miasma.

The silence which had been soothing just a few seconds ago suddenly felt eerie, almost hostile, as if it would suddenly strike out at us like a viper.

“No monsters on a red Luna night? There’s a greater chance of one of us winning the lottery than of that happening.”

I could only nod at that, my countenance wary at the whole situation. Such a good stroke of luck in such dark times wasn’t something I was willing to believe in. We were both anticipating things to go south at any moment and were on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.

That’s when fate decided to give us what we wanted. ‘Look and you shall find.’, it seemed to say as we spotted a corner of the city engulfed in a blazing inferno. With one look at each other, we were on our way to the site as fast as our legs could possibly carry us.

The sight that greeted us was one that had us scratching our heads in puzzlement. A group of three Untethered were fighting a horde of cyclops and were seemingly being overwhelmed.

I asked Samuel, “Were you aware of any other groups patrolling this area tonight?”

Samuel shook his head in denial as he said, “Not to my knowledge, no. But now is not the time for contemplation and figuring out the patrolling schedules. They clearly need help. They seem to be in dire straits.”

I nodded at him and prepared to enter the fray when something happened that stopped us in our tracks. A cyclops tore through one of the Untethered, leaving behind a gaping hole where his abdomen should have been.

Instead of going down like normal Untethered though, the injured party shrugged it off like it was nothing and proceeded to continue its onslaught against the monsters.

We were frozen in our tracks as Samuel asked me, “Did you see what I just saw, or was am I just losing my marbles?”

“No, I am afraid not. No offence but I would much rather you lose your mind than whatever we just witnessed being true.”

Samuel continued, “Any idea what this is? We have to notify the Council of this.”

I nodded at him, “I do know what this is. Undead. I faced Tom, remember. When he was supposed to be dead. I think this is the influence of Sol Syntrivon’s powers. I don’t know how but he is the cause of whatever we are seeing now.”

“Before we notify the Council though, we have to take these three out. And if the cyclops decide to attack us, too…. Well, I don’t like our chances.”

I merely nodded my assent and said, “Well, nothing to be done about it. We have to fight these…. Whatever they are supposed to be. The last thing we need right now is the mortals finding out about these beings and labelling this some sort of zombie apocalypse caused by us.”

Samuel merely sighed, knowing the truth behind my words, before we sprang into action. The massive hole had reduced to the size of a small wound and I could only grunt in frustration, knowing the difficulty of the arduous task ahead of us.

The next few minutes were spent dodging and avoiding all the attacks the Undead threw at us. Any blow they took was repaired within a matter of seconds.

I could hear Samuel bellow in irritation as he shouted at me, “How did you get rid of Tom?”

I rolled below a kick aimed my way before shouting back, “Irreparable damage. I cut through his body almost completely, separating it in two halves.”

Samuel grunted as he punched one of the Undead away from him in the path of an incoming cyclops and said, “I think I got the memo,”

Like the scene from just a few moments ago, the cyclops tore through the abdomen of another Untethered. But this time, before the Undead could recover, Samuel was on top of him as he forced his hands through the gaping wound and then proceeded to tear the body apart with his bare hands.

All the fighting surrounding Samuel stopped for a second as I watched in horrid fascination as the body of the Undead separated into two halves with a squelching sound, before disintegrating into dust, just like Tom’s body had done a few days ago.

The momentum of the fight shifted after that event. In a rare moment of cooperation between wild monsters and Untethered, the monsters corralled the Undead towards us as they figured out that we were integral for the end of the Undead.

After that, it wasn’t much of a fight as I cleaved through one of the Undead, making him disintegrate into red dust while Samuel got rid of the last one in a similar fashion as before.

No sooner was the last Undead finished than we turned around to face the monsters, expecting an assault from them. But to our surprise, they simply turned around and sped away without nary a glance at us, as if they wanted nothing to do with us.

Before we could even breathe a sigh of relief, we heard the sounds of another explosion coming from a different part of the city. We quickly got on the top of the nearest building to take stock of the situation. We saw that another part of the city had gone up in flames.

We had barely taken a step towards the latest fire before we heard another explosion tear through the silence of the city. We turned around and were witness to a similar scene in a different part of the city. I looked towards Samuel, only to see him wearing a terrified expression.

It was clear to me that we had come to the same conclusion as more explosions rang throughout the city. This wasn’t a job for just two Untethered. We needed reinforcements and fast before the city was completely torn off its foundations. In the midst of all this, we sent out a silent prayer to whatever higher power was out there that similar scenes weren't playing out throughout the entire world.

The dead were terrorising the city and I was deathly afraid that we wouldn’t be able to stop them from running amok.

For all intents and purposes, this was a declaration of war. A violent one.

Sol Syntrivon had moved first and I dreaded the possibility that we might have already been checkmated.