Kingdom of Sios. The Third Civilized Zone.

  In the palace, adorned with white marble and gold, an atmosphere of serene boredom reigned. The King of Sios, monarch of an island nation lying at the crossroads of trade routes between the Third Civilized Zone and the barbarian lands, struggled to stifle a yawn. Another meeting of the Small Council was dragging on endlessly.

  Suddenly, the massive doors of the throne room burst open, and the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Elward, rushed in, violating all protocols. His robes were in disarray, and his face was a mixture of terror and excitement.

  "Your Majesty! A catastrophe!" he cried out, falling to one knee.

  The king frowned in displeasure.

  "Elward, what are these manners? Have the pirates dared to attack our convoy again?"

  "Worse, Your Majesty! Much worse! Our main trading partner, the Kingdom of Louria…"

  "…has finally united Rodenius," the king interrupted him lazily. "I was expecting this. Well, it will strengthen their economy and, consequently, our revenues. The main thing is that they don't start thinking they're on the same level as Parpaldia."

  "NO, YOUR MAJESTY!" Elward almost shrieked. "The Kingdom of Louria… has been destroyed! It suffered a crushing defeat and has disintegrated into five small protectorates! Their fleet is burned, their army is shattered, and their king is a captive!"

  A deathly silence fell over the hall. The boredom on the king's face was instantly replaced by an icy focus. He slowly rose from his throne.

  "How?!" his voice, quiet and calm, was more terrifying than any scream. "Louria possessed the most powerful army in the region! Their military potential surpassed ours tenfold! Even to me, a man far from military affairs, it is obvious they could not have lost to Qua-Toyne and Quila! Who?!"

  "The Russian Federation, Your Majesty," Elward answered, still not daring to raise his eyes. "The Russian Federation…"

  He slowly turned to Elward, and a cold fire of calculation burned in his eyes.

  "They have destroyed our main trade *competitor*, Elward, not our partner. Louria was in our way, intercepting our trade routes. The Russians haven't just killed the lion; they've divided its hide into five parts, and now these five hyenas will be fighting among themselves for our scraps. This isn't a redrawing of the world. This is new markets. This is a unique opportunity."

  "What are your orders, Your Majesty?" Elward asked, astonished by his monarch's cynical insight.

  "We need to establish contact with them immediately," the king replied. "But not directly. That would provoke the wrath of Parpaldia... Go through Qua-Toyne. They are their favorite vassals now. Start small. Offer the Russians our nautical charts—the best in this world. Offer our ports as a neutral zone for their trade. Find out what they need. Find out their weaknesses. And, most importantly," he paused, "make them understand that the Kingdom of Sios is the most useful friend money can buy. And the most dangerous enemy, if they decide to do business with someone else."

  "As you command, Your Majesty."

  When Elward had left, the king remained at the window for a moment, then turned back to the table and picked up the trade ledger he had set aside when the doors burst open.

  He found the page showing Louria's shipping lane fees — the surcharges his merchants had been paying for twelve years to move goods through waters the Lourian navy had treated as their personal toll road. He looked at the number for a moment.

  He set the ledger down and called for his secretary.

  "Draft a trade proposal for Qua-Toyne. Standard format, modest terms. Something a minor island kingdom would offer a newly significant principality." He thought for a moment. "Include a section on nautical charts. We have the best in this hemisphere and everyone knows it. Let them bring that to the Russians."

  "What tone, Your Majesty?"

  "Respectful. Slightly deferential." He paused. "Not too deferential. We are not Louria. We did not lose."

  Parpaldia Empire. Capital City of Esthirant. Department of Foreign Strategies (Third Directorate).

  In the spacious, dark oak-paneled office, where the air was thick with the smell of wax and old paper, an icy silence reigned. Lord Kaios, the head of the department, sat at his massive desk. His cold, piercing eyes stared unblinkingly at the man standing before him. This man, Parso, the head of the department for barbarian territories, was as pale as a sheet, and beads of sweat trickled down his temples.

  Kaios had already read Parso's report twice before the man arrived. The report was, as he had expected, comprehensive on facts and entirely useless on analysis. Parso was good at gathering information. He was less good at knowing what information meant.

  "Sit down," Kaios said, which was not his usual opening. Parso sat, visibly uncertain about whether sitting was better or worse than standing.

  "I am not interested in accountability today," Kaios said. "I am interested in what we know. Tell me about the weapons. Your own assessment, not the merchants' descriptions."

  Parso blinked. He had prepared a defense. He had not prepared an assessment.

  "I..." He straightened slightly. When Parso was given a technical problem rather than a political one, he was competent. "The accounts are inconsistent in detail but consistent in pattern. Projectile weapons with ranges exceeding anything in our inventory. Aerial vehicles not dependent on magic for propulsion. Some form of guided munition technology — the 'arrows that follow their target' description appears in seventeen separate witness accounts from geographically distinct areas, which makes it unlikely to be embellishment." He paused. "The closest analogues in our own world are Mirishial's homing-class magical ordnance and Mu's steam-mechanical artillery. But neither of those explains both simultaneously."

  "No," Kaios agreed. "They do not." He turned to the window. This was the part he had been turning over since the first reports had arrived. A power that combined the precision of Mirishial's magic-engineering with the industrial scale of Mu's mechanical production was not a hybrid of known quantities. It was a third thing. "How long has this power been active in the region?"

  "First confirmed contact with Qua-Toyne: approximately four months ago. But our Rodenius network has gaps. They may have been present longer."

  "They may have been present much longer," Kaios said. "Or they appeared recently and moved very fast." He turned back. "Either possibility is bad. Begin preparing the full brief for His Imperial Majesty. I will handle the framing." He paused. "And Parso — the archive of our Louria correspondence."

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  "Prepare a full inventory first. I want to know exactly what exists before we discuss what to do with it."

  Parso understood the distinction. He nodded and withdrew.

  He set down his quill. "What is known about these… barbarians? What concrete intelligence do we have?"

  Parso, seeing a chance, straightened up slightly.

  "Your Grace, contact with our intelligence network in Louria, including our military attaché Varhal, has been completely lost. It is highly likely they were either killed or captured by the eastern barbarians."

  "And the local population? The survivors? The merchants?"

  "We have interrogated them, Your Grace. But their testimonies… they sound like the ravings of madmen. They speak of 'steel dragons' that fly faster than our wyvern lords and shoot them down with 'fiery arrows that follow their target.' They mention 'iron golems' that move without magic and whose 'breath' mows down entire regiments of cavalry."

  Kaios frowned for a moment, drumming his fingers on the desk.

  "'Arrows that follow their target'… that sounds like a description of homing magic projectiles. A technology possessed only by the Holy Mirishial Empire. But what are they doing in this backwater? And why are they operating under a false flag?" he thought aloud. "And 'iron golems'… that sounds like a description of Mu's steam engines. But Mu are our rivals; they would never intervene on our side…"

  He raised his eyes to Parso.

  "This means one of two things, Parso. Either a new, previously unknown power has appeared on the fringe of our world, one that possesses a hybrid of Mirishial and Mu's technologies, which in itself is a catastrophe. Or…" he paused, "…or the two great superpowers have begun some grand game of their own behind our backs, using Rodenius as a chessboard. And in either of those cases, Parso, we are in deep trouble."

  He stood up and walked to the window.

  After Parso left, Kaios sat alone for a while with the map.

  The Louria correspondence was the immediate problem but not the main one. A careful archive review would take two weeks; he had specialists for it who understood which documents could be sanitized, which needed to disappear entirely, and which — paradoxically — were safer left in place because their absence would be more conspicuous than their existence. He would begin that process tomorrow.

  The main problem was simpler and worse: he did not know what he was dealing with. He had spent thirty years in this department building analytical frameworks for every known power in the world. He had models for Mirishial, for Mu, for the minor powers of the outer regions. He had contingency files for hypothetical scenarios involving each of them.

  He had no file for this.

  He pulled a fresh sheet of paper and wrote at the top: *Russian Federation — Initial Assessment Framework.* Below it, he wrote two columns: *What we know* and *What we need to know.* The first column had four lines. The second had twenty-three.

  He set down his pen and looked at the disproportion for a moment. Then he picked it up again and began writing orders for his intelligence network in Qua-Toyne. He needed a resident with full diplomatic cover in place within the month.

  Preferably someone who was good at listening rather than asking questions. The Russians, he suspected, were very good at identifying people who asked too many questions.

  Principality of Qua-Toyne. Capital City of Qua-Toyne. The Lotus Council Chamber.

  In the Lotus Council Chamber, bathed in the soft morning light, a tense silence reigned. On the polished blackwood table lay a stack of reports and glossy photographs, passed on from the Russian embassy. Elder Kanata stood in the center of the hall, his face calm, but it was the calm of a man who had looked into the abyss and returned.

  "Thus," he began, and his voice echoed under the vaults, "King Hark Lourian XXXIV has been captured by Russian special operations forces and has been urgently transported to their capital, Moscow. As Ambassador Sokolov informed me, it is for 'conducting investigative actions on charges of war crimes.' After the loss of their monarch and the complete rout of their army, the Kingdom of Louria, as a unified state, has ceased to exist."

  A murmur of relief and astonishment swept through the hall. The head of the foreign affairs office, Rinsui, frowned.

  "But how is that possible, Elder?" his voice was full of skepticism. "Yes, their army is shattered. But the nobility remains. A year will pass, two, and some ambitious duke will once again gather the lands under his banner, and we will have the same Louria, just under a new name!"

  Kanata, without losing his composure, raised a hand.

  "That will not happen, Rinsui. The Russians operate not only with force, but with cunning. They have already moved their 'peacekeeping contingents' and 'military police' into the territory of the former Louria. They are not occupying the land. They are 'maintaining order' and 'protecting the civilian population.' And to all the rebel dukes, they have offered a deal: recognition of their independence in exchange for complete loyalty to Russia. Louria will never be able to unite again. The Russians have broken it into five warring puppet states, each of which now looks to Moscow, not to its neighbor."

  The elder's words, spoken with an icy calm, silenced everyone. This was not just a military victory. This was a brilliant, ruthless geopolitical operation.

  Rinsui swallowed, realizing the power of the ally they had made.

  "The casualties," Kanata continued, picking up the last sheet. "According to information provided by the Russian General Staff, throughout the entire operation, their armed forces suffered no combat losses among their personnel."

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "And Louria?" the military minister asked hoarsely.

  Kanata looked him directly in the eyes.

  "Four hundred and fifty thousand," he pronounced the number slowly, articulating each word. "Soldiers and officers. Killed, wounded, captured, and deserted. We have no data on civilian casualties during the storming of their cities."

  A dead silence fell over the hall. *Four hundred and fifty thousand.* It was a number their minds refused to comprehend.

  "So, you're telling me…" The military minister slowly rose, leaning on his knuckles on the table. His voice, usually a thunderous boom, was now a hollow, strangled sound. "…that the Russians annihilated an army of half a million men, without losing a single soldier in the process?!"

  "Yes," Kanata said. "Those are the confirmed figures."

  He set down the paper. He did not add anything. The number did not require commentary, and he had learned over thirty years of council work that commentary after a number of that order tended to make people feel that the number was being managed rather than reported. He wanted them to sit with it.

  The hall was quiet for long enough that he could hear rain beginning on the roof.

  "There is other news," Kanata continued. "After the collapse of Louria, the rulers of several neighboring states, including the Kingdom of Sios, have already approached us. Not with congratulations. But with a request to act as intermediaries in establishing their own contacts with the Russian Federation."

  Rinsui smirked bitterly.

  "How quickly the rats flee a sinking ship. Just yesterday they were secretly supplying Louria with weapons, and today they are already seeking the favor of the new master."

  "This is good news, Rinsui," Kanata corrected him, gently but firmly. "It means that it is no longer us seeking alliances, but alliances are being sought with us. Because we are allies of Russia. Our status on the world stage has just increased tenfold."

  He surveyed the faces of the councilors, on which fear and despair were slowly being replaced by thoughtfulness.

  "I propose that we formally ratify the long-term strategic partnership with the Russian Federation as the foundational framework of our foreign policy."

  Elder Taviss, from the far end of the table, raised one finger. Not an objection — a notation.

  "Four months ago I asked what our position would be once the war ended and they remained," he said. "I asked it before we voted on the operation. I would like to know if we now have an answer."

  Kanata looked at him for a moment.

  "We have a partial answer," he said. "We have value to them as a regional partner, an information source, and a diplomatic intermediary. That value will not diminish quickly. What it will do, over time, is change in nature." He paused. "I do not have the full answer yet. I expect we will be developing it for the next decade."

  Taviss nodded once. "That is honest. I will vote in favor."

  The motion passed. Not unanimously — one abstention, from the minister who had lost three nephews at the border fort four years ago and who had a different relationship with the concept of Lourian defeat than the rest of the council. Kanata noted the abstention and recorded it. It was a legitimate position.

  "The meeting is adjourned."

  When the chamber had emptied, Kanata remained at the table. He did not go to the pond. He had been going to the pond when he needed to think, but today the thinking was already done — he had been doing it since the first field report had come in three weeks ago, and there was nothing new the water would show him.

  He looked instead at the list of nations that had approached Qua-Toyne requesting intermediary access to Russia. There were seven now. Seven nations that had spent the last decade calculating their relationship to Louria, and were now recalculating their relationship to whatever came next.

  He was on that list, in a sense. He had been on it since the morning the sky-spear flew over Maihark.

  Rinsui appeared in the doorway. "The Russian embassy is requesting a meeting. Sokolov, personally. Tomorrow morning."

  "Tell him the morning after," Kanata said. "I want one more day with the inventory."

  Rinsui understood. He nodded and withdrew.

  Kanata looked at the sixty-three-page document that he had been carrying from his office to the council chamber and back for four days. Bases, agreements, extraction rights, lease terms. Everything Russia had built in four months on former Lourian territory.

  The question was not what it meant now. The question was what it would mean in ten years, when the initial agreements came up for review, when the five successor states had developed their own positions, when Russia had learned enough about this world to no longer need an intermediary.

  He had no answer. He was beginning to suspect that the answer would not be found by one person working alone, which was a different kind of problem.

  He put the document in his case and went home. He had told his household he would be late. He had not told them how late.

  The battlefield before Jeen-Hark. Several hours later.

  *Cough… cough-cough…*

  Consciousness returned slowly, painfully, through a thick, viscous haze of pain. The first thing he felt was a monstrous headache. Then, the nauseating, metallic taste of blood and dust in his mouth.

  He struggled to open his eyes. Tsvall, the very foot soldier whose ancient family shield had withstood a machine gun burst, was alive. He was lying at the bottom of a shallow crater that had saved him from the storm of shrapnel.

  With an incredible effort, pushing himself up on trembling arms, he sat up. The world swam before his eyes, and a continuous, high-pitched ringing filled his ears.

  When his vision finally focused, he saw hell. The field, which just yesterday had been green, had turned into a black, plowed-over desert, strewn with the thousands of mangled bodies of his comrades. The tattered banners of the great knightly orders, trampled into the mud, hung limply from their broken staves.

  A few yards away from him lay his shield—dull, covered in a web of deep cracks and dents, but… intact.

  But how? The story of this unusual shield had begun five thousand years before Russia's arrival in this world. In an era when other "messengers of the gods" had come to this land.

  The shield that, millennia later, would become known as the sacred relic of the Tsvall family, was born not from necessity, but from pure, concentrated arrogance. Its creator was Lord-Engineer Kaelis Varr, an aristocrat of the ruling race of the Ancient Magical Empire of Ravernal. Varr possessed an otherworldly reserve of mana. Their civilization had reached its heights through magical technologies, incomprehensible to the "lesser races." This absolute power had bred in them a monstrous, existential boredom and, as a consequence, a boundless pride. They saw other peoples not just as lower life forms, but as biological material for their experiments. And themselves—as the true masters of the world, standing above the gods.

  Ravernal's arrogance did not go unnoticed. Legends say that the gods, angered by their hubris, brought down a rain of fire upon their capital continent of Latistor. This was not just a meteor storm. This was an act of cosmic justice. The heavens split open, and reality itself turned against them.

  Lord Varr's palace was wiped from the face of the earth in the first second. But the shield, created to be unbreakable, withstood even this cataclysm. Distorted by spatial rifts, ejected from a dying world, it was buried for millennia under tons of rock on the continent of Mirishent, patiently awaiting its time.

  Ravernal Empire. Continent of Mirishent. Laboratory-Forge "The Volcano's Heart."

  The air in the huge cavern, carved from basalt, was filled with the hum of working machinery. In the center of the hall, in a levitating crucible, floated a drop of molten, silvery-blue metal.

  Lord-Engineer Kaelis Varr, an aristocrat with fine features, observed the process.

  "Field stability at ninety-nine point eight percent, my lord," the emotionless voice of his automaton assistant reported.

  "Not enough," Varr muttered. "Any fluctuation will lead to a defect in the crystal lattice. Increase power to the gravitational stabilizers."

  A tall woman in a stern military uniform entered the hall, her heels clicking. It was High Marshal Liandra, his sister.

  "Kael, are you still playing with your toys?" her voice was sharp, like the crack of a whip. "The dragon-spawn are approaching the capital. The Emperor demands weapons from you. And you are wasting mana on… another shiny piece of metal?"

  Varr, without taking his eyes off the crucible, waved a lazy hand.

  "Sister, your understanding of beauty is as primitive as your tactics. This is not a 'piece of metal.' This is perfection. I am not creating a weapon to kill. I am creating a material that cannot be killed."

  Liandra snorted contemptuously.

  "There is no such thing as absolute defense. There is only overwhelming firepower. What's the point of a shield if you can just incinerate the one holding the sword?"

  "Because it is elegant," Varr smiled. "It is the triumph of reason over brute force. Watch."

  He pressed several runes. The drop of metal began to slowly crystallize, taking the shape of a teardrop shield. Simultaneously, from the power emitters, the finest threads of stabilized mana began to be woven into its structure.

  "I am combining the incompatible. A monocrystalline alloy and pure magical energy. But the main secret is inside—the 'Kinetic Dispersion Matrix.' Upon impact, it does not resist, but absorbs the energy, distributing it over the entire surface. Any blow, be it a barbarian's sword or a plasma charge, will be turned into a gentle warmth."

  "Any blow?" there was a hint of interest in the marshal's voice.

  "Automaton, test stand. Weapon number seven."

  A heavy robotic manipulator extended from the wall, holding a magical kinetic rifle. There was a sharp crack, and dozens of tungsten rods struck the shield. Instead of piercing it, they simply flattened. The shield only vibrated slightly.

  "Impressive," Liandra admitted reluctantly. "And what about a real weapon? Weapon number twelve."

  The manipulator switched the rifle for a massive 20mm magic cannon. A deep roar sounded. The first bolt of compressed energy struck the shield. There was a sound like the ringing of a bell. The shield held, but a thin crack spread across its perfect surface. The second bolt—another crack. The third—the shield, still not pierced, was covered in a web of fractures.

  "Enough," Varr stopped her. "The matrix is overloaded with energy of that order."

  "And what about the wielder?" Liandra asked.

  "As I predicted," he shrugged indifferently, looking at the sensor data. "The kinetic impulse doesn't just disappear. From the rifle—multiple fractures. From the cannon—instant death. The body would be turned into a bag of bones. But the shield itself is not pierced. And the life of some barbarian who might be holding it is of no consequence. What matters is the purity of the experiment."

  At that moment, the air behind him shimmered, and from the haze, two huge, ghostly wings of pure light appeared.

  "Kael!" Liandra exclaimed, rushing to him. Her face was contorted with horror. "Your wings! You've exhausted yourself almost to the limit! For this bauble!"

  The appearance of the phantom wings was a sure sign that the wielder was on the brink of complete mana exhaustion. Varr, breathing heavily, smiled weakly.

  "Hush, sister… It is only a temporary weakness."

  Varr had created only one such shield. His masterpiece.

  Five generations ago. The foothills of the continent of Mirishent.

  "Is this all?!" Kalan Swallow, a young adventurer, kicked a stone in frustration. "Two months in these cursed mountains, and all we found were a couple of pathetic magic crystals!"

  His companion, an old dwarf prospector named Brokk, only grunted.

  "Quiet, lad. The mountains here are old and remember much."

  Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet shuddered, and the slope of the mountain under which they had made camp cracked open, revealing a dark chasm.

  Inside, in the light of their magic lanterns, they saw ruins. The walls were made of molten, black glass. In the center of the hall, covered in the dust of ages, lay a teardrop-shaped shield of a strange, almost black metal.

  The dwarf cautiously touched it.

  "Strange…" he muttered. "I feel mana. But it's… woven into the very metal, like a thread in fabric, become part of its structure."

  Brokk snatched his hand back as if from a fire. His face turned pale with horror as he surveyed the ruins.

  "No… it can't be…" he whispered, backing away. "We're leaving. Immediately."

  "What is it, Brokk? What's wrong?"

  "I was wrong! This is no artifact! It's a curse!" the dwarf rasped. "Such technology… cold, soulless, perfect… Only one people could have created it… The Ancient Magical Empire."

  At the name Ravernal, a chill went down Kalan's spine. The stories of their merciless rule and the magic that defied the gods were told in whispers.

  "Ravernal?.. But they disappeared thousands of years ago!"

  "Their empire disappeared, lad. But their creations did not!" Brokk pointed a trembling finger at the shield. "This is the legacy of the most terrible tyranny our world has ever known! Throw it away!"

  But Kalan was looking at the shield with different eyes now. Greed had outweighed fear.

  "If this shield belonged to them," he said slowly, lifting the artifact, "then it is worthy of being wielded by me."

  Brokk only shook his head.

  "You are making a mistake, Kalan. A terrible mistake."

  A few days later, when a mountain chimera attacked their camp, the shield created by that terrible empire saved his life. The blow from a clawed paw that should have torn him in half only threw him back a few yards.

  After the victory, they left the camp, carrying with them a shard of the most powerful era, which had lain hidden for millennia in the heart of the Holy Mirishial Empire.

  Kalan Tsvall, without knowing it, had stolen a secret from under the very nose of the most powerful nation in this world. And this secret, in the form of a shield, he carried to the wild lands of Rodenius, where he founded his house.

  Thus, the greatest secret of Mirishial became the family relic of a minor Lourian nobleman.

  Present day.

  Tsvall's gaze caught on something else. Figures in green clothes with red cross armbands were methodically moving across the field. They were not warriors. Unarmed, they carried bundles and boxes on their shoulders. They knelt over bodies, but not to finish them off or rob them. They were… searching for the living.

  At that moment, one of the groups noticed him.

  "We have a live one here! Severe concussion! Stretcher, now!" one of them shouted.

  Two men ran up to him. They acted quickly, professionally. One shone a small, glowing wand into his pupils. The second was already cutting the straps of his trembling brigandine.

  Tsvall was confused. In his world, the battlefield belonged to looters and crows. The wounded were left to die. And these outsiders, who had annihilated his army, were now saving the lives of their enemies.

  However, a primal fear proved stronger. Tsvall leaped to his feet. He threw off the medic who was trying to hold him and, not choosing his path, scrambled back towards the capital.

  "Do not fire!" the commander of the medical unit shouted after him. "Let him go. He's in shock."

  When he, staggering, reached the gates of Jeen-Hark, a new shock awaited him. The city streets were full of people in the same green uniforms. They were not looting or killing. They were clearing rubble, providing aid to the wounded, distributing food and water.

  Tsvall rushed through the familiar streets to his home. And what he saw made him freeze.

  On the threshold of his intact, undamaged house, at a simple wooden table, sat his wife. Alive. Healthy. And she was laughing, playing with their young son.

  It couldn't be. The world outside the city walls had burned, but here, in this small courtyard, there was peace.

  "Mama! Papa! Papa's back!" his son was the first to see him, running towards him with a joyful cry.

  The woman turned. For a moment, her face was a mask of disbelief, and then tears streamed from her eyes. She rushed to meet him.

  "I'm… I'm home…" was all Tsvall could manage to say, his voice breaking.

  Scant, manly tears, mixing with blood and dirt, flowed down his cheeks.

  "Welcome back, my love…" she whispered, holding him so tightly as if afraid he would disappear again.

  They stood, embracing, in the middle of a destroyed but already beginning to be reborn world. And at that moment, for the simple foot soldier Tsvall, the war was over. He had been through hell. But he had returned home. And that was the only victory that mattered to him.