Act I: The Gathering Silence
The wind sweeping over the ancient plateau of Thaba Bosiu carried fine, pale dust in long, low waves. The sound of metal clicking against leather echoed through the dry air as boots pressed into the hardened earth in a steady, disciplined rhythm.
A forward strike unit of the Lewotla Clan moved as a single, cohesive unit—disciplined, heavy-armored, and brimming with quiet confidence.
Their iron-plated shoulder guards clinked lightly with each step. Heavy spears rested casually over broad shoulders. Near the middle of the formation, a few veteran infantrymen laughed quietly, while others rolled their shoulders and stretched their necks, attempting to loosen the subtle tension in their muscles before entering the main combat zone.
One soldier near the left flank—younger than the rest, his gauntlets still shiny and unmarred by campaign wear—exhaled sharply through his nose, his eyes darting toward the barren ridges surrounding the trail.
"You can feel it, can't you?" he asked, his voice barely cutting through the crunch of their footsteps.
No one answered immediately.
Another soldier, a hardened scout walking a few paces beside him, glanced sideways without breaking stride. "Feel what?" he asked gruffly.
"That something's off..." The young one pressed on, swallowing hard. "The silence. There's no wind up on the high ridge. No birds. Nothing."
A third soldier nearby scoffed, adjusting the heavy strap of his tower shield. "You're thinking too much, kid. It's just terrain. High plateau elevation makes the air dead."
The young soldier shook his head vigorously. "No. Think about it. The Letebele Clan sent official word across the entire northern territories... and then suddenly, look around—no reinforcements. Not from the east, not from the mountain strongholds in the north. Not even the coastal clans from South Africa sent a single battalion to answer our leader's call to arms."
A heavy pause settled over the marching rank.
The group's pace slowed slightly, the rhythm of their boots losing its crisp synchronization.
An older voice—deep, gravelly, and grounded by decades of blood-soaked experience—cut in from the front of the file.
"They didn't just 'send word,'" the old veteran corrected sternly. "They made it clear."
The second soldier questioned, "Clear how?"
The old man continued, his eyes remaining fixed on the distant dusty horizon. "The message was simple: You join this war on the side of the Lewotla... you answer directly to the Letebele next."
Silence fell heavier this time, thick and suffocating.
One of the middle-rank spearmen let out a low, breathless whistle. "So it's true then... they scared off every single regional power with one piece of paper?"
The old veteran replied coldly, "Not scared. Warned."
"Same damn thing," the spearman retorted, his knuckles turning white around his weapon's shaft.
A different voice cut in from the right, attempting to steady the rapidly decaying mood of the unit. "Relax, all of you. Even if that diplomatic rumor is true... it's far too early."
A few heads turned toward the speaker.
"Too early for what?" the young soldier who had first spoken chimed in, his voice rising an octave.
The speaker adjusted his grip on his broadsword. "To bring out someone like him."
A brief, heavy ripple of sudden understanding moved through the entire platoon. The casual air of the unit vanished instantly.
One of the younger infantrymen let out a forced, nervous chuckle. "Who? The Monster?"
Another snorted, shaking his head. "That kid? Please."
The older soldier didn't laugh. He didn't even smile.
"Call him whatever you want," the veteran said, his tone dropping into a grave, ominous quiet. "But clan leaders don't laugh when his name comes up in war councils."
That got everyone's undivided attention.
"You've actually seen something?" the doubting soldier queried, his sarcasm disappearing.
"I've heard enough from the survivors of the northern borders," the veteran replied, his eyes narrowing slightly as he stared at the road ahead. He continued, his voice barely a whisper, "Demons wiped out. High-level, unquantifiable ones. Wiped clean off the map. Completely alone."
No one spoke. The only sound was the howling dust brushing against their greaves.
"Ended the Tribal War with the Tshabadira almost entirely by himself," the old man concluded.
A long beat passed.
The young soldier swallowed heavily, his throat dry as bone. "So... he's their strongest warrior?"
The veteran's answer came immediately, sharp and absolute. "He's their biggest gun."
A few uneasy, quiet laughs fluttered through the ranks, born of sheer tension.
"Then we're perfectly fine," another soldier said, trying to convince himself.
"Yeah," the young soldier continued, nodding frantically. "There's no way they'd deploy someone like him this early in a campaign."
The soldier who had attempted to steady the mood chimed in again. "Exactly."
"You don't fire your biggest gun at the very start of a war," another soldier murmured from the back of the file.
A voice from the rear added confidently, "That'd just be plain stupid."
Act II: The Arrival
Suddenly—
The wind stopped.
Not gradually. Not fading away into a light breeze.
It just... stopped.
The floating particles of dust in the air hung dead in space. Mid-motion. Completely unmoving, suspended in a frozen vacuum.
One soldier frowned, stopping in his tracks. "Did you just—"
IMPACT.
There was no warning. No whistle of falling wind. No shadow cast from the sky. No gradual descent.
Just—
A solitary figure standing dead center in the middle of their tight march formation.
The earth beneath his boots cracked outward instantly in a flawless, geometric circle, sending hairline fissures tearing through the solid stone for twenty yards in every direction. The boots of the surrounding soldiers lifted slightly off the earth from the sheer, silent kinetic energy of his landing.
The ambient air instantly felt exponentially heavier.
Not hotter. Not colder.
Denser. So thick it felt like liquid iron pressing against their lungs.
No one moved. Not immediately.
Because for a agonizing split second, their physical brains simply couldn't process or comprehend what had just transpired in the space between two heartbeats.
One soldier turned his head slowly, his neck joints popping in the absolute quiet. Another took a single, terrified step back. A third tightened his grip on his spear, but his fingers trembled so violently the steel tip rattled against his armor.
The figure stood perfectly still in the crater. Head slightly lowered. Hands hanging completely relaxed at his sides.
Calm. Absolute. Unbothered.
One of the veterans whispered, his voice cracking into a squeak, "...No way."
Another soldier, louder now, terror seizing his throat, shouted, "That's—"
Hakuna lifted his head slowly.
His eyes didn't scan the unit. They didn't search for threats. They didn't count the weapons pointed at him.
They already knew every single detail of the field.
His voice came out low. Soft. Completely controlled.
"Atmospheric Burst."
There was no visible attack. No physical swing of a blade. No glowing flash of elemental energy.
Just—
Pure, suffocating pressure.
It dropped onto the entire squadron from every conceivable direction simultaneously. From above. From below. From the inside out.
Iron armor crumpled inward like foil under the weight of an invisible hydraulic press. Knees buckled instantly, smashing into the stone. The ground shattered further under their boots as entire bodies were forced down without a single drop of physical resistance.
Bones gave in before human minds could even register the pain.
One soldier's vision blurred into red and black streaks. His ears rang violently as his eardrums ruptured from the localized barometric collapse. His body completely refused to respond to his brain's panicked commands. He couldn't even fall properly—the oppressive pressure pinned him in place mid-collapse, suspended awkwardly against the crushing air.
His thoughts came infinitely slower now. Heavy. Crushed beneath a force he couldn't mentally comprehend.
"This... is..."
His bleeding eyes barely shifted in their sockets. Just enough to see Hakuna still standing in the center of the devastation.
Unaffected. Untouched. Absolute master of the space.
"... their... power?" his thought finally finished.
Another soldier opened his mouth, trying frantically to scream for his comrades or his king. Nothing came out. His lungs physically could not expand against the external pressure.
The younger soldier—the first to feel that something was wrong on the road—was already flat on the ground. His face was slammed violently into the cracked earth, dark red blood pooling beneath his nostrils as his vision faded rapidly at the edges.
He whimpered, a broken mutter escaping his lips into the dirt: "We didn't... even get to... fight..."
A single, final thought forced its way through the suffocating weight pressing down on his skull. Clearer, colder, and sharper than anything else he had ever known:
"The biggest gun... has already been fired."
Act III: The Cleanup
Silence returned to the high pass of Thaba Bosiu.
The crushing pressure lifted. Not slowly, but instantly—vanishing as fast as it had arrived.
The bodies of the Lewotla squadron dropped the rest of the way to the earth. Lifeless. Broken. Scattered like snapped dolls across the fractured, cratered ground.
Hakuna stood completely alone in the center of the graveyard he had created in three seconds. He wasn't breathing heavily. He wasn't looking around to inspect his work.
He was just... standing there.
The high mountain wind returned with a soft howl. The dust began to move again, blowing over the fallen soldiers, dancing across the shattered stone as if nothing of significance had just occurred.
And off in the far distance—
The plateau of Thaba Bosiu waited.
The dust hadn't fully settled over the carnage. Fragments of shattered stone and pulverized ground still shifted and settled under their own weight. Bodies lay exactly where they had been violently forced down—some twisted awkwardly, some half-buried in the deep, spiderwebbing cracks of the earth.
Hakuna remained at the absolute center of it all. Still. Unmoved.
A second impact struck the dirt nearby.
Lighter. Controlled. Precise.
A taller figure dropped casually beside him, the leather of his boots sliding slightly along the gravel as he touched down.
Taller frame than Hakuna that is. Relaxed posture. Shoulders loose and unbothered.
The newcomer looked around once, taking in the instant, total destruction of an entire elite enemy squadron. He clicked his tongue softly against the roof of his mouth.
"Ahh... come on, man."
Hakuna didn't turn his head to look at him.
"You couldn't leave a few for the rest of us?" the figure queried, resting a hand on his hip.
A brief pause stretched between them as the mountain wind shifted again, whistling through the rock formations.
Hakuna spoke, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "You were too slow."
The man standing beside him—Uyanda—let out a short, amused laugh through his nose. "Too slow?"
Uyanda rolled his shoulders, stretching his arms casually over his head to loosen his posture. "I was literally right behind you the entire way."
Hakuna finally glanced sideways at him, his dark eyes cold. "Then you should've been in front."
Uyanda smirked, shaking his head with a quiet chuckle. "You know... for someone who constantly claims he 'doesn't like fighting'..."
He gestured vaguely with an open hand at the dozens of scattered, broken bodies surrounding their boots.
"...you really don't hesitate much, do you?"
Hakuna's gaze returned forward, dropping the eye contact as he stared straight toward the distant, towering rise of Thaba Bosiu.
"This isn't fighting," Hakuna spoke softly.
A heavy beat passed between the two men.
"This is cleanup."
Uyanda exhaled slowly, the light amusement vanishing completely from his face this time.
"Yeah..." Uyanda murmured, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked toward the horizon. "...it is."
Act IV: The Avatars of War
Far ahead, down the long valley trail—movement.
A massive Lewotla forward command unit had ground to a sudden, complete halt.
They hadn't stopped by a screamed military command or a horn signal. They had stopped purely by raw, primal instinct.
Standing at the absolute front of the heavy formation was a senior commander—older, composed, wearing heavy silver-and-black armor, his face scarred from decades of high-level clan warfare.
His sharp, experienced eyes scanned the totally destroyed advance squadron littered across the rocks up ahead. Then—
His gaze landed squarely on Hakuna.
Recognition was immediate and absolute.
The commander's jaw tightened. "...So it's begun."
Behind him, lines of heavily armed Lewotla soldiers shifted uneasily, their weapons clattering as fear rippled through the ranks. "Commander... what do we—do we engage? What are your orders?!"
The old commander raised a single gauntleted hand, silencing the panicked chatter instantly.
"Hold formation," he ordered coldly. His gaze didn't move an inch from the two figures in the distance. "That..."
He took a slight, controlled exhale through his teeth.
"...is the Letebele's blade."
Before the soldiers could process the statement, another presence stepped forward from behind the command line.
Younger. Sharper. Moving with a predatory, lethal grace.
His aura was tightly contained within his body, yet it radiated a suffocating, dense weight that made the air around his feet shimmer with heat.
Kutlwano Jr., the crown prince of the Lewotla Clan.
He didn't look at the shattered bodies of his own men littering the path. He didn't acknowledge the total structural destruction of the terrain.
His eyes were locked onto one person, and one person only.
Hakuna.
A small, sharp smile formed on Kutlwano Jr.'s lips. Not friendly. Not relaxed. A expression born of long-simmering, bitter rivalry.
"So..." Kutlwano Jr. stepped forward slowly, his boots crunching on the gravel. "...you actually came."
The old commander spoke quietly without turning his head to look at the prince. "Prince Kutlwano—"
"I've been waiting," Kutlwano Jr. interrupted, rolling his neck until a loud crack echoed from his spine. The residual tension in his broad shoulders released all at once.
"Since the Citadel," Kutlwano Jr.'s eyes sharpened, burning with a dangerous, golden light. "Do you remember?"
There was no response from the distant figure standing in the crater. But to Kutlwano Jr., that didn't matter in the slightest.
"Of course you don't," Kutlwano Jr. let out a faint, bitter exhale. "You embarrassed me... and then you casually walked away like it meant absolutely nothing to you."
The ambient air immediately tightened around Kutlwano Jr.'s frame. Subtle. Controlled. Lethal.
"I spent every single day since then training for this exact moment."
The old commander finally turned his head slightly toward the young prince. "Then this is acceptable."
Kutlwano Jr. didn't look back at him. "Say it properly, Commander."
A brief, formal pause filled the space between them.
Then—
"He is the Letebele Clan Leader's avatar," the commander declared, his voice carrying across the silent ranks.
Another heavy pause.
"And you... are the Lewotla's."
Silence spread outward like a physical shockwave. Every single soldier standing in the lines behind them instantly understood the profound, terrifying legal and historical weight of those words.
The commander continued smoothly: "By the sacred laws of Taelo ea Marena observed in this land... the true clan leaders do not step directly onto the battlefield."
"Their direct presence would tilt the balance of the war far beyond control," Kutlwano Jr. added, his smile growing hungrier.
The commander shifted his heavy battle stance. "So they choose hands."
"Voices."
"Weapons." The commander's cold eyes returned to Hakuna standing in the distance. "Avatars."
Kutlwano Jr. took another deliberate step forward, his energy flaring. "Which means..."
That small, feral smile returned in full force.
"...there are absolutely no restrictions here."
The solid ground beneath Kutlwano Jr.'s boots cracked violently as he pushed off with blinding, explosive speed.
IMPACT.
A cloud of pulverized dust erupted as he landed directly in the space in front of Hakuna and Uyanda, the force of his arrival blasting the surrounding rocks away.
The dense dust rose like a curtain between the rivals.
Uyanda glanced at the newcomer once, assessing the dense, suffocating aura radiating off the Lewotla prince. Then, he turned his head to look at Hakuna beside him.
"Oh," Uyanda murmured, a small, amused grin returning to his lips. "This one's all yours."
Hakuna didn't offer a verbal response.
The dust slowly cleared in the wind.
Kutlwano Jr. stood upright, his posture perfectly balanced, his face completely calm, his eyes dead-locked on his target.
"We meet again... Prince Hakuna."
Silence fell over the plateau. No wind. No movement.
Hakuna looked at him. Not surprised. Not impressed. Not afraid.
Just... looking.
Uyanda took a deliberate step back, giving them room as he cracked his neck slightly.
"Try not to take too long this time," Uyanda spoke casually over his shoulder.
Hakuna exhaled once. Slow. Measured.
His physical stance didn't change a single fraction. But something fundamental in the surrounding air did.
Subtle. Unseen. But completely undeniable.
"Don't get in the way," Hakuna commanded quietly.
Kutlwano Jr.'s smile widened slightly, his eyes glowing with fierce anticipation.
The ground beneath both of their feet shifted and groaned under the invisible, colliding pressure of their opposing forces.
And far off in the distance—
Both massive armies began their full, synchronized forward march.
The war had officially started.
Fade out...
End of Episode 87