The jungle mist clung to the dawn, heavy and uncertain. Ben stood just before the bamboo grove, eyes fixed on the path that led to Twa Milhoms' dwelling. The night had not been kind—restless dreams, whispers of war, the weight of a growing militia who didn't yet understand why discipline mattered.
He exhaled.
"I need them sharper," he said aloud, not to the trees, but to the one he knew was listening. "They don't understand the need for order, not like we do."
No wind moved. No voice answered.
Then, with a single blink, Ben felt the world shift.
The air thinned. His feet sank. A copper tang assaulted his senses. The sky burned crimson and ash.
He wasn't alone.
All around him—Kael, Mala, Jaron, Enru, the militia—every ring-bearer and marked warrior stood in stunned silence. They were not in Ikanbi. They were somewhere else entirely.
Beneath them, the ground was slick with old blood. The horizon stretched flat and dead, littered with torn limbs, broken blades, severed heads—bodies without names, stories without endings. A battlefield without honor.
Mala gasped and clutched her stomach, retching into the dirt. Boji dropped to a knee, blinking in disbelief. Enru stood still, fists clenched, his face unreadable.
And then he was there.
Twa Milhoms walked through the mist without sound, barefoot over death.
"You wish to train soldiers?" he asked, voice calm, unaffected by the carnage.
Ben stepped forward. "I wish for them to understand what awaits if they remain undisciplined."
The god didn't nod. He didn't need to.
"This is not the past," Twa Milhoms said. "This is a possibility. One of many. If you think drills and formations are tedious, imagine explaining to your own son why his bones lie shattered beneath a godless sky."
A soldier sobbed nearby. Another stumbled, falling to his knees, muttering prayers.
"They have to be more," Ben said.
"Then make them more."
Twa Milhoms turned. With a wave of his hand, the battlefield came alive.
Screams echoed. Specters of warriors—half-corpse, half-memory—rose from the muck and surged forward. Not to attack, but to show.
One charged without coordination—impaled.
Another ran without watching his flank—cut in half.
A small formation held tight, disciplined, backs to each other—they survived longer.
The militia stared, eyes wide, breath shallow.
"This," said Twa Milhoms, "is the difference between living as animals and living as a people."
He looked directly at Enru, then at the warriors from the Shadow Ring. "Your strength will mean nothing if you do not learn to move as one."
They watched a small band of disciplined warriors encircle and destroy a larger, chaotic group.
"Running is not punishment," the god continued. "It's survival. Formations are not restrictions. They are weapons. Eating together is not ritual. It is unity."
He stepped forward again, toward Ben.
"You brought them here. Now lead them forward."
Then, with a wave of his hand, the battlefield faded.
They were back. At the edge of Ikanbi. The bamboo grove still whispering as if none of it had happened.
But every warrior stood straighter. Faces pale, eyes hardened.
The warriors returned from the field of death in silence. Dirt clung to their skin, but none reached for water. Blood—imagined or real—still stained their boots. The smell, the heat, the cries of broken men lingered even though they were back on the training grounds.
Sema, waiting at the edge of the clearing, rang the bamboo bell once.
"Food is ready," she said, her voice softer than usual.
Not a single man or woman moved. The bowls remained untouched. The meat unchewed. Even Jaron, who was never one to skip a meal, simply stared at the stew in front of him.
Sema looked to Ben for answers, but he gave her none. He simply nodded to her in thanks, then sat alone under the shade of a broad-leafed tree.
They slept restlessly that night.
The next morning, the warriors assembled at the training field. There was no shouting, no murmured complaints. Just eyes focused ahead—waiting.
Twa Milhoms was already there.
No footsteps had announced him. No voice had called them to attention. He simply stood, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
Before a word could be spoken, he raised his hand.
In an instant, the world twisted again.
The ground rippled.
The trees dissolved.
They reappeared not in memory, but in chaos.
This time, the battlefield was not quiet and still. It roared.
Massive beasts—scaled, horned, and wild—charged from all sides, emerging from smoke and mist. The ground shook under their weight. Their cries echoed like war drums.
The warriors were on a crude hilltop surrounded by broken stakes and jagged rocks. Their only order came from the god's voice, which rang out clearly above the battle:
"Defend this place. Do not move. Not one step back."
Then, with a flick of his hand, he conjured a crude wooden chair at the top of the hill. He sat, casually leaning back with one foot resting on a jagged stone.
In his hand was a piece of fruit—round, deep blue, glowing faintly at its core. Its smell was sharp and sweet, unlike anything they had known.
He bit into it with a loud crunch, juice dripping down his chin.
Ben glanced up at him once. "Are those…?"
"No," Twa Milhoms said before he could finish. "You've never seen them. You won't."
Then he waved his hand lazily toward the horde.
"Focus on not dying."
The beasts closed in.
The warriors gripped their weapons, blood still cold from yesterday's horror—but now they moved as one. Formation. Cover. Flanks. They remembered. They adapted.
Mala called out positions. Jaron held the rear. Kael barked timing.
Enru stood at the center, unmoved even as a beast three times his size barreled toward them.
And from his chair, the god chewed another bite.
The trial was no longer a lesson.
It was war.
The sun had only just begun to stretch its fingers across the trees when Sema stirred the embers of the morning fire. Birds called low and steady from the canopy, the wind carried the scent of ash and earth, and for a moment, it felt like a normal day in Ikanbi.
Then it happened.
Just like before.
A quiet ripple in the air, almost too fast to catch. Twa Milhoms stood at the edge of the field. His hand rose—not in greeting, not in warning—and with one sharp motion, the entire militia vanished.
Gone.
One blink, and the field was empty.
Sema froze, ladle still in hand. A few villagers nearby gasped. The older men glanced at each other but didn't speak. This had happened before. The first time, panic had surged through the tribe like wildfire. People had run to the bamboo, called out, shouted prayers, and demanded answers.
But not this time.
This time, they simply waited.
Sema placed the pot on the edge of the stones and sat down. Her eyes never left the field. Neither did anyone else's.
Boji's assistants stood by the fisheries, tools forgotten in hand. Jano crouched beside the fish pens, head tilted slightly. Druel set down a basket of stones he was preparing for the next building wall.
And the waiting began.
Time passed like a long breath held beneath deep water.
Then suddenly—someone appeared.
It was a young warrior from Jaron's militia—just a mark, not even a ring.
He dropped to his knees the instant he reappeared, sucking in lungfuls of air like he'd been drowning.
Sema ran toward him.
He pushed past her, wild-eyed, sprinting straight for the river. No one moved to stop him. Not even the hunters. Despite the danger, he dove face-first into the water, drinking like he hadn't tasted water in years.
Then the shaking started.
He gripped the earth. Cried out. And said, again and again:
"Thank you… thank you… I'm alive… Twa Milhoms saved me… I thought—I thought I died—"
There wasn't a scratch on him.
Sema stood at the edge of the river, breath tight in her chest.
Another warrior appeared.
This one came back screaming—not in pain, but in rage. He stomped, punched the dirt, tore at his own tunic, yelling at invisible enemies. His sword was missing, but his arms moved as though he still swung it.
When he saw the village, he stopped. Looked around like he didn't believe it was real. Then collapsed.
The next warrior didn't speak at all. He simply fell to the ground and kissed it.
And then the next… and the next…
Some came back laughing. Others cried.
Some returned with faces hollow, as if they had seen something that refused to let them go.
One clung to Sema and whispered in her ear, "We held the line. He said not to move. We didn't move. Even when the sky bled."
She didn't understand.
But she held him anyway.
By the time Ben reappeared, the field was half-filled with returned warriors—each carrying something invisible behind their eyes.
He appeared standing, soaked in sweat, blood caked beneath his nails. But he walked straight toward the fire pit without a word and sat down like it was any other morning.
Sema brought him water. He took it silently.
Then he looked at her and simply said:
"He's not training us for this world."
And she finally understood.
This wasn't about strength.
It was about survival.
Survival for a future none of them had seen yet.