The meeting dragged on like a thread slowly unraveling, yet no one dared break their silence or leave their seat. Luca spoke with the calm precision of one who had studied not only the facts of the world but the fault lines hidden in every heart that listened.
He wasn't loud. He didn't need to be.
His voice moved like oil on water, slick, deep, and compelling. He spoke of ancient truths and new alignments, of divine mandates and necessary awakenings. Every pause was deliberate a surgeon's scalpel resting before the next incision.
When he finished, he simply stood.
No rallying cries. No shouted glory. Just a faint smile, a flicker in his eyes that said: it is already done.
They left that gathering changed.
Even the quiet ones, the ones who swore never to lift a blade, who built sanctuaries from ruins and filled them with prayer and soft song felt something stir beneath their ribs.
The word "war," when spoken by mortals, had always sounded like smoke and carnage.
But now? Spoken from lips that once bowed before the Throne, war felt like prophecy, like gravity itself, like a stage set to showcase their true glory.
Something had shifted.
The wind no longer danced; it waited. The sky hung low, as if Heaven itself had bent down to listen.
And deep inside each of them, something ancient and long dead began to breathe again.
What had been sealed in memory now knocked at the door of will. And in their bones, they knew this was no war the world knew.
This was the kind of war Heaven forgets on purpose.
And now, it was coming back.
No one needed to tell them.
They felt it anyway, bone-deep, instinctive. The kind of knowing that can't be taught or preached. Like a shadow falling before the sun itself moves.
What Simon, Gabriel, Mike, and Luca saw, was not the same as what this people saw. The war was not near, at least not for these mortals. To Simon and the others, a thousand years might as well be a deep breath. A blink. But for these people, these reborn souls, it might as well have been all the time and more to prepare, that was not to say the war would be in a thousand years, it would be much later than that. Time did not bend for mortals as it curled around beings like them. Not even close.
Yet something had changed in the villagers, too.
They felt it when Simon walked past, a pressure, a weight, like the sky thickened around him. Mike bore it like heat, sometimes cold. Gabriel like silence. But Simon's was different, it pressed against the soul like judgment, silent and absolute. Still, none recoiled.
They bowed.
Only around Luca was the effect different. His presence soothed. When he wore the High Priest's mask, he was water held in trembling hands, steady, merciful. But when that mask cracked and something older stirred behind his eyes, even the wind seemed to retreat.
The villagers didn't know their true names, their pasts, their cosmic crimes and callings. But their spirits recognized them anyway.
They didn't need to be told.
They already knew.
From that day forward, names began appearing on the altar behind Luca's temple.
No one wrote them. No one claimed to choose them. Yet fifty names from each branch were carved into the ancient stone every dawn, etched not by blade, but by Grace.
The altar had remained untouched during the seal-breaking, Gabriel's cleansing fire, Mike's shattering ascent, all spared this one place, as if Heaven itself remembered whose ground it was.
And so they came.
The strong. The broken. The ones whose dreams refused to die.
Two hundred fifty warriors stood beneath a sky now faintly fractured, clouds glass-like and trembling with divine tension. The wind smelled like the last ember of a sacred fire, sweet with myrrh, sharp with smoke.
They wore armor laced with prayer-thread. Tattoos of Grace marked their necks, their spines, their hearts. Each symbol unique, bound to one of the Five Ancient Branches.
They carried no scrolls.
Only weapons.
Apostles, warriors who wielded divine pressure like flame. Their steps carried commandments; their blades, judgment.
Irias Fold: Thin-eyed, ruthless, calm. Could split lightning mid-air. Wielded a sword threaded in gold, the word "Let" carved into the hilt.Dame Kess: Spear-wielder, known for chanting the enemy's name before she kills. Her Grace erupted in pure, cold blue flame.Malsh: Born mute. Fought with an axe. His Grace roared loud enough to shake mountains.
Healers, combat medics of old. They restored flesh but dissected as easily as they mended.
Yulan Mercy: Grace so fine she could repair a sword mid-swing. Wielded twin short blades veined with silver. Healed and killed in a single motion.
Thorn: A child no older than fifteen. Used thrown needles of Grace. Never spoke. Rumored to be Luca's secret apprentice.
Praxos: Brutal. Used a maul to smash wounds open then sewed them shut with Grace threads.
Baptisers, Grace masters who drowned enemies in revelation, fighting as if the battlefield were a river.
Ethen Solus: His Grace turned air around his spear to water. Baptized allies mid-battle and burned demons with boiling light.
Nali: Wielded a curved blade like a current. Her strikes cleansed or killed depending on her chant.
Koan: Carried a lantern and a chain-blade. Believed every fight was a baptism. Grinned when struck.
Interpreters, diviners of combat signs. Read the flow of battle like scripture, acting before others saw.
Rime: Blindfolded, never missed. Used throwing knives and walked with a cane doubling as staff. Grace read motion.
Ten Barrows: Heavy-set, laughed often. Predicted attacks ten seconds ahead. Wielded a halberd made from sermon-wood.
Ela Creed: Youngest Interpreter. Weapon was a whip of Grace fire. Didn't speak, wrote battle techniques on parchment mid-fight.
Preachers, voice-bound warriors. Their words cracked stone; their hymns controlled breath. They commanded Grace by oration.
Harral Bright: Could fell enemies by speaking their full names. Sword sang when unsheathed.
Mina Delun: Used bell and staff. Sermons summoned waves of Grace. Spoke into demons' minds, unraveling them.
Jon Kas: Big, heavy voice. Fought barehanded. Grace visible beneath his skin. Every shout slowed time.
They stood before Simon, or rather the tree throne he always sat on. Two hundred fifty warriors, cornerstones of something ancient and reborn. They knew one another instinctively, as though memories of past battles had never faded.
Gabriel stood tall, arms folded, robes stained with soot. Mike was motionless beside him, eyes like smoldering coals.
At the center, seated on a throne grown from the roots of the Hollow Tree, sat Simon.
He did not speak, words seemed too costly since the trial, or perhaps he feared the power his voice might unleash. He spoke mostly to Luca, the man, or whatever he truly was, had tempered his emotions behind an unreadable mask. When Luca responded, it was like weighing Simon's words as advice to accept or dismiss.
Mike took Simon's commands without question. He was the embodiment of Simon's will, the perfect soldier.
Gabriel, however, was kept at arm's length. Simon guarded the information he shared; Gabriel was too clever for his own good.
Gabriel watched, silent, eyes slowly weighing each face against memories only he could see.
When the silence stretched too long, Simon nodded toward Luca.
"As you have already felt," Luca began, "there is an awakening within you. Knowledge and memories that confuse you, two or more souls clashing inside. But soon..." He explained what they were undergoing, the assimilation of past lives, the benefits and dangers. It was a heavy lesson.
These people would be generals in the coming war. They had not been chosen carelessly. Each plucked from a different time, placed here, awaiting their call.
"Training resources will be provided. Your task is to grow strong enough. Don't rush your ascension, build your foundation firmly, and one day you'll surprise even yourself. The training grounds lie behind my old temple. Spend your days there. Use us when lost."
The crowd moved toward the grounds, leaving Simon and company behind.
"The prophet is not here yet," Luca said, breaking the silence.
Gabriel's face darkened with anger.
"Why do we need zealots like that? All they know is cryptic tones, leaving us in the dark while pretending to be wiser. Let that heretic die of old age."
"Come now, Gabriel," Luca smiled, "you're mad because you won't be the wisest among us anymore. What will happen when little sister returns?"
Gabriel scoffed and looked away, as if daring her to come and see if he still held the third place. Mike stood behind Simon, silent, as if to say, this has nothing to do with me.
The trio followed Simon toward the Shrine of Passing.
Older than the temple, older than the village, the shrine's tree was twisted and blackened, as if struck by lightning centuries ago. Its roots fed on silence and memory.
There knelt an old man.
Bent with age, cracked skin like weathered bark. But when he looked up, his eyes gleamed, not with the weariness of age, but the fierce clarity of a boy in his teens. They carried knowledge and secrets centuries old, some never spoken aloud.
The boy who tended him was nowhere to be seen.
Simon stepped forward.
"Raphael."
The old man smiled like a storm remembering breath.
"So," Raphael whispered, "you finally remember."
His voice cracked but unshaken.
Once an angel, high and mighty. His Grace saw futures unborn; his words warned of slumbering wars.
He tried to warn Heaven.
They silenced him.
Stripped his name, burned his wings, cast him from the sky.
Simon saved him just in time.
And after that, everyone but Luca seemed to forget.
Until after the generals' meeting, the others remembered again.
Simon stepped closer.
"I buried you for a reason."
"I know," Raphael said. "My Grace is a beacon. It draws eyes."
Simon nodded slowly.
"Your Grace was too loud. Too sharp. Your words cut veils meant to stay shut. The world couldn't survive another Prophet."
"But now it must," Raphael said. "Because the veil is already weakening."
He reached beneath the shrine, into its base.
From the earth, he pulled a scroll wrapped in black cloth, pulsing like a heart in deep sleep.
Seven rings bound it, each marked with the symbol of a branch.
The final ring, at the top, was blank.
Only a torn circle remained.
Raphael handed it to Simon.