In the depths of a forest, under a gray sky near dusk, dirt roads between the trees were traversed by a caravan of trucks and mercenaries on foot armed with assault rifles, dressed in beast skins. Intermingled groups of advance forces invaders who plundered industrial and mining plants, amassing resources.

At the rear of the line, in one of the trucks, a group of armed soldiers sat in the back. Sitting on benches facing each other in two rows. Among them stood out a young woman dressed in a red hood with a large suitcase by her side on the right. As her main escort and lieutenant of the group, she was accompanied by a woman dressed in a leafy green cloak, adorned in a light greenish breastplate from which shimmering emerald gems stood out, interconnected by a flow of emblems that seemed like veins and circuit lines that amplified the magic of its user.

Her face was fine and extremely pale, like that of an athletic complexion. With soft features of a doll, one would barely consider anything human about her except for her slanted eyes and elongated pointed ears, proudly exposed in a hairstyle of short mint green hair. She wore an eye patch, and with her only purple eye, she looked coldly sideways at the hooded figure, her arms crossed in a bitter gesture.

All the soldiers looked respectfully at the woman in green, bowing their heads in her presence as her word was law among them. They looked at her as an emissary of the gods, an image of worship to whom they could not deny anything, quite the opposite of the hooded figure from whom they kept their distance.

"I think I need to use the restroom, Risha..." the young woman said hoarsely, tilting her head over her shoulder.

"Your father has requested that I take care of you at all times, Princess Liliana," the elven woman responded with a cold face. "We will soon reach the citadel. Venturing into the forests in the middle of the night is dangerous; who knows what horror may lurk there. War not only attracts death... but also..."

"I know! I just need a minute alone..." the young woman insisted. "My father's caravan shouldn't be far."

"I could accompany you... we're both girls and..."

"And I need to take off my gloves; you know exactly my reasons," she interrupted, raising her hand. Such a sentence disturbed all the well-armed men seasoned in battle; many suppressed a groan, leaning back as far away from the princess as possible.

"Expected," Liliana growled disdainfully.

"Very well... but be careful..." Risha concluded, raising her hand to signal for them to stop, and she would notify part of the group to take a break.

The coldness of the escort sent a shiver down Liliana's spine, so she couldn't stand another second and hurried away without looking back, jumping from the back of the vehicle. She couldn't meet Risha's gaze for too long, who watched her disappear among the lines of trees. Seeing in that one eye she could feel only one feeling towards her, the desire for death, but she never dared to commit such an act and since she could remember it had always been like that.

In the solitude of the fields, Liliana wandered apparently aimlessly until she came across an oak tree where she decided to drop her suitcase and then she sat on the grass, under the tree's canopy. After letting out a sigh, the young woman took out a jar from the suitcase and set about gathering some herbs from the surroundings.

She lied about needing to go to the bathroom, she only wanted a moment alone; away from the caravan where she could hear the whispers of her bodyguards following her, supposedly to protect her back, "Is she the one they call the monster princess, a defective mutant?" "Be careful, she could be dangerous if she unleashes her power!" "How could two beings as magnificent as our lords conceive such an aberration?" "Poor creature, it would be better off dead."

The young woman's gloved hands trembled, and she ended up dropping the jar of herbs she was collecting. A mix of anger and frustration nested in her chest.

"I wish they'd cut out each and every one of your tongues, bastards..." she spat out, containing a scream, placing her hands on her distressed heart, as if she wanted to contain it within her.

Suddenly, a strange sensation consumed her body, a shiver climbing up her spine and made her turn to the tall grass. Fear assailed her spirit as she was invaded by an invisible force calling her. Simply, something behind those bushes was irresistibly drawing her.

Something inside Liliana screamed for her to turn back and flee back to the caravan in search of her father; however, she was already making her way through the tall crops. Her body moved on its own, as if that attraction promised to solve all her problems.

Pushing aside the bushes with her hand, she reached a damp clearing where a black swamp of whispering reeds could be seen, barely illuminated by the dying orb of the day.

Driven by a vague curiosity, the young woman continued walking until she reached the edge of the fetid marsh where the force was concentrated. She looked around, not finding any other living being, but something was wrong. There was no sound of nature, no birdsong, no buzzing of insects, only the sound of plants being moved by the winds.

The girl's heart raced as her senses were assaulted by a strong stench of decay coming from the murky waters, urging her to look in that direction. Then she noticed some floating bulges in the distance. Bewildered, the young woman squinted and the faint light of dusk made her horrifyingly grasp a severed hand still covered in a rusted gauntlet.

Liliana stifled a groan upon discovering multiple mutilated bodies floating in the water; legs, torsos, heads with a helmet. Many of what she thought were small islands or rocks were actually torn remains of human beings.

With wide eyes, she covered her mouth with her hand as nausea rose in her throat. Unable to bear it, she ended up emptying her stomach on the ground. With her hands on her knees, between coughs, she then heard the movement of muddy water as an object was about to emerge from the depths, a few meters from the shore.

In a vague attempt to flee, the girl turned around, but panic made her collide with an overhanging branch, interrupting her pace and ending up face down in the mud. Gasping in pain; Liliana stood up, only to face the dark silhouette emerging from the water. That being wore the breastplate with the holy sword engraved on the chest, and the girl understood that it was a Templar soldier.

Then the woman raised her face, inhaling deeply and the impossible happened. The limbs stretched, with a rattling of bones breaking into inhuman proportions, with the face covered in long black hair, dirty with mud.

Liliana, before she could frantically leave the swamp, realized that the entity stopped a few meters from her. Somehow, the young woman did not feel threatened by that aberration that apparently did not intend to harm her or prevent her from leaving. The entity remained motionless like a statue, facing the helpless princess.

The fear gradually faded in the young woman, enthralled in a hypnotic trance. The sway of her heart relaxed, as did any impulse to escape, ignorant of the cacophony of wayward screams, coupled with rifle shots and the enraged roars of beasts.

In that moment, Liliana could understand it. That entity was the one calling her, devoid of all malice, in silent promises to fit in, to be free from her prison.

A cold wind caressed the young woman, lifting the curtains of her cloak, and she abruptly lowered the hood, revealing her whitish face with green eyes and golden hair cascading down to her neck.

The creature offered its enormous hand to the girl, inviting her to go with it, and as she was about to touch its fingers in the girl's lost gesture, its eyes turned completely black like the abyss.

Suddenly, a shadow emerged behind the girl, a figure in a long black cloak moving like the wings of a nocturnal creature, it pushed the girl aside and from its hand emerged a beam of golden light, piercing through the abominable creature's torso.

That monstrosity fell to the ground, dying, and the black hair began to writhe like tentacles, revealing a face resembling a humanized fish with bright yellowish eyes, brimming with radiant hatred towards the man in the black cloak.

"Fa-father..."

Liliana recognized the man in golden armor before succumbing to unconsciousness, and she would have fallen to the ground if it weren't for the skillful arm of her savior who held her.

The agonizing creature pointed at the sorcerer with its tentacle-like finger, choking on its own blood, and fiery red eyes glared furiously; dictating a final message through telepathy, whispering into his mind a darkness that shook the soul.

"To be the supreme sorcerer of this era, you are an idiot. You cannot escape the great game! No one can! What you have stolen is demanded, traitor. It is impossible to deny what she truly is; she is the key to the true throne and the sacred city of the gods! No one escapes their destiny, and the mere act of daring is a sin!! Our lord will come for you and take your damn head for this!!"

"Let him come!" In his rage, the man fired another beam of arcane energy, right into the creature's head, which exploded into pieces. "Let them all come, I will send them back to the abyss, and send the message to their four damned gods that we have escaped from their great game. We will no longer be their cursed pawns and when I have them within my reach... I will go after them."

The man in the cloak returned to the caravans, halted after surviving an attack of aberrant creatures that brought fleeting chaos. They managed to repel them, at the cost of the rear where the princess was traveling, suffering severe casualties. The overturned truck, surrounded by a litter of bodies open and gutted, shared a common trait: they had all had their jaws ripped off, tongue and all.

The soldiers were busy attending to the wounded, ensuring that every impious beast lay dead on the ground. Mutant monstrosities once human, turned into creatures described as living teratomas; consequences of war manifested in flesh burning hot.

"My lord, I apologize for presenting myself before you covered in blood."

Risha knelt before Zagreo, lowering her head, confirming with a slight glance the safety of Liliana, not bothering to even ask about her state; to reproach her, he would say that seeing her with her king confirmed everything; disdain disguised as respect.

The sorcerer's hands began to tremble uncontrollably, as if he had seen a ghost and the reminder that he would eventually pay for his crimes nested stronger in his mind, but the fears that plagued him were not for the danger to his life. He feared that his sins would reach his daughter.

"Inform all the soldiers to prepare," Zagreo ordered, "I want the acolytes to regroup, we will need all our power to face all the enemies gathering against us."

With that final decree, the sorcerer turned around, hesitantly taking his unconscious daughter with him. As he passed by Risha, the latter stopped him with a final sentence.

"I am ready to unleash our divinity," Risha's words overflowed with eager false tranquility, a sly smile forming on her face. "Unleashed on the battlefield, there will be no force on the planet that can stop us."

"It will be when we have no other choice," he turned to her, looking at her sternly knowing the kind of power she intended to unleash. "Let us not play our best card so soon, it is still something you do not fully understand... what it did to your mind and what could happen to you if you expose yourself too much."

"The power of a god in our hands, my lord." Risha removed the glove from her right hand, revealing a green crest of tribal symbols tattooed on her palm. "What in this world could stop us?"

"You said it yourself... in this world."