A bloodcurdling scream erupted on the battlefield as a light-blue, ethereal blade sank into the eye of a soldier. The soldier pulled away out of instinct and fell onto the muddied forest path, holding his eyes as searing pain went through his skull. His assailants didn't care to give him any time to recover, and all seven came rushing at him. He was probably lucky to have just seven on him, considering how outnumbered they seemed to be.

He tried to reinforce and enhance his body, but he couldn't properly control his essence flow anymore. A high-pitched grunt escaped his mouth as he scraped the ground with one hand in a desperate attempt to get away. He held his breath as sweat and mud mixed into his dirty-blonde hair. His head was numb, pain signals flying around faster than they could be received.

He managed to scramble to his feet before pulling out a vial from his uniform's jacket pocket. He was going to die anyway. Might as well take the second enhancer and go out with a bang. Then a beam of essence flew at his torso from the side, and in the effort to dodge, he ended up laying in the mud once again. This time with the vial in his hands.

His slimy hands hurried to open it as he gazed at his assailants about to thrust ethereal spears into him.

"Gabriel, down!" he heard a familiar voice roar, and Gabriel pushed the back of his head into the ground, lying as flat as possible.

Then something rushed by. Something with golden hair and a pair of gleaming blue eyes. Gabriel could barely register what his eyes had seen before his assailants had their torsos, limbs, and heads divided.

Gabriel realized that the commander had taken his second enhancer—not another soul could move like that.

Gabriel looked into his hands. The vial was open. All he had to do was...

His heartbeat softened and slowed, and his sweat brought a pleasant cooling sensation to his face. He let out a cough that left a metallic taste in his mouth and watched with wide eyes as his hand unconsciously loosened up and the vial's contents flowed out onto the mud.

Finally, he closed his eyes and let go. The surrounding sounds lingered for a while but eventually dulled, blurred, and faded completely.

***

Foreign essence entered Gabriel's chest and spread like wildfire, snapping him awake. Gabriel gasped as his eye burned with pain. After the gasp, he felt like never breathing again. His brain felt like it was on fire, and breathing seemed to make the flames grow brighter.

His body jolted, and he tried to get up, remembering where he was, but was stopped by a hand on his chest. There stood the commander, his golden hair painted crimson with blood, his blue eyes lifeless and dry like a dying plant. It was he who had woken Gabriel up. But how did he inject his essence into him? At this point, it was no longer worth it to even question how he used essence the way he did.

"Listen to me, Gabriel," he said, his voice hoarse.

Gabriel looked around. Nothing but corpses for hundreds and hundreds of meters. He couldn't recognize any of his comrades among them.

"Where is everyone, Ares?"

Ares breathed heavily. "They're dead, Gabriel. Now listen." He lifted the upper part of his uniform, revealing four stab wounds and a wide cut, all of which oozed a mix of crimson and a sickly greenish-purple. "They targeted me with poison. I'm not sure what it is. I've never seen effects like these before. You have to carry me to our nearest base. I'll resist the effects for as long as I can."

Gabriel already knew Ares felt no pain, but looking at him stand there with a straight expression while he had multiple lethal wounds in his torso was surreal. It was a mystery what the Emperor had done to Ares when he was a child, but it was surely nothing less than a horror story. And to his own son. Even if he was just a bastard.

Gabriel gritted his teeth and enhanced his body before climbing to his feet and letting Ares climb onto his back, despite the pain burning in his eye and the muscular pain following enhancer usage.

"What will happen now?" Gabriel asked Ares, who lay on his back with his arms over Gabriel's shoulders.

"We killed close to ten thousand of Lundkirk's best soldiers. Kendrick's army will suffer. He will face rebellion. He will be forced to negotiate a temporary peace. Hopefully, that temporary peace will turn permanent. In any case, our work is done here." Ares answered in between labored breaths.

Gabriel wanted to ask more but couldn't bring himself to. Ares deserved a moment of peace. But ten thousand. There were only 100 soldiers in the Elite Troop. In other words, they had fought at 1 against 100 odds and won.

Gabriel looked around at the thousands of corpses as he marched forth. 'We succeeded. We ended the war. But—' he thought, but was interrupted by Ares.

"Gabriel. When the war starts, my son will be of age to join the military." Ares grasped the symbol of the golden hawk on Gabriel's uniform and squeezed so hard his hand turned white. "You can't let them use my son. You have to promise me. Promise me you won't let them use my Aurelius in this filthy war."

Gabriel's brows furrowed as he frowned and looked at his feet. "You can take care of that yourself."

Silence followed. Gabriel looked at Ares' hand around his uniform symbol, his lower lip shaking. "Fine, I promise."

***

A few days passed, and Gabriel found himself lying in a pristine hospital room with unkempt hair and an eye patch. He stared at the ceiling with an empty look in his only working eye, which had a dark flap of skin underneath it. The sounds coming from outside the room, such as the echoes of footsteps and casual chatter, resounded in his head. He was grateful for those sounds. They were all that distracted him from the thoughts he didn't want.

The door opened without a sound, and a young man dressed in white and gold attire with elegantly styled golden hair and deep blue eyes entered. Gabriel immediately rose up into a sitting position despite his pain and bowed his head. "To what do I owe this visit, my prince?"

"Please, Gabriel," the prince said with a raise of his hand. Gabriel lied back down, his face slightly twisting in pain. "I know you're still in bad condition, but I'm here to give you your resignation."

"Alexander, are you making me quit?" Gabriel asked with a hint of negativity in his words.

Alexander frowned. "Your work in the military is done. The Great Zalfarian Empire thanks you for your service. You'll be given 10,000 gold as compensation for your last mission. You can buy a title, land, a mansion, and servants for the rest of your life and live wherever you want, doing whatever you want."

"The Emperor gave you permission to do this?"

"My sadist father can go fuck himself," Alexander said with a scowl. "Take your money and live your life, goddammit, Gabriel! You've suffered enough."

Gabriel looked down, and then, as Alexander was about to leave, Gabriel called out to him. "What about Ares' family?"

"A messenger will be sent to the Thropes in the near future."

"I want to go."

"You intend to travel to the other side of the world in your state?"

"I'll be recovered soon enough. It has to be me. Not some messenger who didn't even know Ares."

Alexander's jaw seemed to tighten before he nodded and said, "As you wish."

***

Gabriel silently came down from the air as he noticed something out of the corner of his eyes. He then navigated through the temporal forest until he found the boy he had caught a glimpse of.

"Are you lost?" Gabriel asked with a soft smile full of happiness after seeing the vibrant blue eyes and unique golden hair of the child.

The boy didn't respond to Gabriel's question, instead angling himself slightly to the side, probably so that he could run away if necessary.

Seeing how nervous the child was, Gabriel continued speaking instead of waiting for a response. "What's your name, boy?" he asked as he moved closer.

The child swallowed and responded apprehensively with a voice so quiet it was barely audible, "Aurelius."

"It's nice to meet you, Aurelius. I'm Gabriel," Gabriel introduced himself, crouched down to Aurelius' level after getting into arm's reach of him, and asked, "Are you familiar with this forest, Aurelius?"

Aurelius nodded his head in response.

"Great," Gabriel said. "Could you show me the way to where you live? I'm looking for a place to rest. I'm pretty tired from having traveled a long way."

"Mom says I shouldn't talk to strangers, so she will be mad if I bring you with me to the farm," Aurelius said with his gaze on the ground.

"Don't worry, I'm no stranger," Gabriel said. "I'm a friend of your father's."

Aurelius directed his surprised and enthusiastic pair of sparkling eyes directly at Gabriel. "You know my father?"

"Yes, and I have a message for you from him."

"Wait, how do you know that I'm me?" Aurelius asked, furrowing his thin brows and pointing at himself with a dubious expression.

"You look exactly like your father, and of course your father told me the name of his one and only son."

"Really?! I look like my father?"

"That's right," Gabriel said while nodding his head. "I'll tell you more as we walk, so let's get going."

"Sure!" Aurelius exclaimed and started leading the way.

"Who do you live with, Aurelius?"

"Me and my mother live here with my uncle and his kids," Aurelius said.

"And you're 13, right?"

"No, I'm 12. How old are you?"

"I'm 33," Gabriel answered and laughed. "I'm really starting to get old, aren't I"

"Yeah, you are!" Aurelius laughed. "How old is my father?"

"Uhh, he's... a little over 40. I'm not exactly sure. Your father is not the type of person who talks much, so I probably don't know that much more about him than you do," Gabriel answered in a manner that sought to prevent further questions of a similar kind.

"Wow, he's old old. What's he like?"

Gabriel sighed deeply and then answered, "He's a serious and competent man that demands everyone's respect. He's also very respectful and treats everybody equally, no matter their status. He is the best man I've ever met."

***

The rest of the walk went similarly to the beginning, with Aurelius asking anything that came to mind and Gabriel answering as best he could.

Once they eventually made it out of the forest, Gabriel's expression got scary, and he began walking in front of Aurelius.

Confused by the sudden change, Aurelius looked forward to seeing what Gabriel was so wary of. Then he saw a woman with smooth black hair who was holding back tears, her fists clenched as her eyes dug into Gabriel.

"Mother?" Aurelius said quietly.

"Aurelius, get inside," his mother ordered firmly.

"But—" Aurelius tried.

"Get inside!" his mother yelled, sending Aurelius scurrying past Gabriel.

He'd never seen his mother with such a look, even after the times he slept in the forest. Startled by the sudden emotions, he ran inside the plain, light-brown house behind his mother as fast as he could, without even considering eavesdropping.

As soon as he got into the second-floor room he and his mother shared, he locked the door and sat up against it. There was a window in the room that he could use to see what was happening outside, but his instincts told him not to do it.

He knew there was nothing but pain to be found outside.

That was the first time in his life when he wished he would never have met Gabriel at all.

***

"Hey, could you open the door?" Gabriel's voice came from behind the door, which Aurelius was still sitting up against.

Aurelius bit his lip and pushed himself against the door even more firmly than before.

"Perhaps I am," Gabriel said solemnly, "but there's something I need to tell you. If you wish it, I will take my leave directly after I've told you what I need to tell you."

Finally, with sharp, grumpy movements, Aurelius stood up and unlocked the door, after which he went to sit on his bed, letting Gabriel open the door by himself.

"Thank you for understanding," Gabriel said with a nod, before he crouched a little because of the V-shape of the low roof and went to sit on the bed opposite Aurelius'.

Aurelius frowned. "That's my mother's bed."

"Ah, sorry," Gabriel apologized, opting to sit on the floor instead. "So, what I needed to tell you is that your father... He isn't going to come home."

Aurelius' felt a shiver, and his bottom lip twitched. "What? Why?" Aurelius asked.

Gabriel leaned forward and interlocked his fingers. "There is a place far from here called the Great Zalfarian Empire. There, your father is worshiped as a hero, so when a war started, your father had to be on the front lines. But sometimes even heroes lose. I'm sorry to say this was such a time."

The inside of Aurelius' nose was stinging. It was Aurelius' most disliked sensation and was always followed by a flood of tears.

'Don't cry. Strong people don't cry,' Aurelius thought, clenching his fists.

Such thoughts weren't enough to hold back the flood of tears, however, and soon the inevitable weeping of a child echoed throughout the building.

Aurelius buried his face and hands. That day when he finally met his father, which he had waited his whole life for, was never going to come. The connection he had wished for—was he never going to experience it?

He started to feel a bit better, though, once Gabriel wrapped his arms around him and embraced him. "I'm so sorry to have to tell you something like this. No child should bear the pain of losing a parent. Such things should only have to be dealt with after one has grown up, but I know you will be able to bear the pain," Gabriel said, pausing and pulling away to look Aurelius in the eyes. "You, Aurelius, are a very special person. I was planning to stick around for a while and teach you about a thing called essence. You wouldn't mind me giving you some lessons, would you?"

Aurelius sniffed and raised his head, looking at Gabriel with teary eyes. "What's that?"

"It's something your father was a master at using. It makes all kinds of miracles possible," Gabriel explained with a contagious enthusiasm in his voice.

Aurelius' eyes lit up. "Can I be like my father?"

Gabriel's lips curled up into a warm smile, and he said, "You can be even better." Then he took a hold of Aurelius' shoulders and looked him firmly in the eyes. "Your potential is limitless. There's a saying that you're supposed to tell young people with talent. Your father wanted me to tell you that saying, but I would have done so even if he didn't since I've never seen anyone these words fit with as much as they do with you." Gabriel took a deep breath and finally spoke those words, "The world is yours."