Let's do this!

One campsite alone had more than 100 people milling around. There were the sentry guards that had been positioned there, who were 18 in number, 7 vasils, and 11 lavels. The reason why they were so few was that they had Keita.

Keita, one of Ogola's right-hand vasil. A powerful and elite vasil that could create violent winds with the flapping of his wings. He was known to suppress his opponents with just his aerial advantage. He was personally responsible for fanning the flames in most of the settlements they invaded, including Alie's. He had also been present the day Alie and his friends were taken.

Next came the bandits, both vasils and lavels. Each one of them a violent force to reckon with. However, like all bandits, they were mostly bullies, and seeing a stupid child front before they, wouldn't they be angry? They were quite many, a total of 29 vasilian bandits and 31 lavelian bandits.

Finally, there were the vasilian merchants. They may not be fighters, but they had hired vasilian guards and had command of obedient lavelian slave guards. There had just been 7 merchants of such caliber, but that brought a total of 25 vasilian fighters and 16 lavelian slave guards.

This brought a total of 61 vasilian fighters and 58 lavelian fighters against 2, an elder lavel and a child. This was such a huge force that any other 2 would have been sweating profusely, at the end of their wits.

Unfortunately for the assailants, they had met the only 2 on the planet who considered such a force barely enough for them to break a sweat, but they didn't know it yet.

"Old one, what is your relation with this fool?" Keita asked. He was flying above the 2, clearly the leader of this encirclement.

"He is my student," Kendar answered.

"Then you must suffer for his crimes too, Attack!" Keita exclaimed.

***

"Is that the signal?"

"No, it can't be."

"He said we'd know it when we saw it, I just saw them surrounded and being attacked, if that's not the signal, then what is?"

"It's not their doing."

"Who cares, they are still going to die, WE MUST MOVE NOW!"

"NO, WE HOLD! Wait for the signal."

"Coward."

***

Keita suddenly rushed at the boy, his massive wings generating a torrent of wind as he approached. Seeing this, Alie did not hold back. With every ounce of energy he had, he thrust his fiery whip towards vasil.

Since he knew the whip would get blown away by the wind currents, he charged the air around the whip with violent fiery elements to counter the incoming wind. It was a question of which was stronger, fire element from a Grade F+ or wind element from a Grade F.

Keita's eyes were wide with shock, but he didn't even get the chance to react to the danger before tumbling down. He had lost a wing, just like that.

Silence on the battlefield. Even the charging fighters took a moment's pause.

"Get the lavelian slaves to bear shields and approach them." Another vasilian guard shouted. Keita had been incapacitated and could no longer give orders. Someone else had to take over.

Hearing the command, they did not dally at all. 2 rows of lavelian slave guards were formed, and each bore a shield. This was not a common weapon among hunters, but bandits had found them to be invaluable.

With the battle arrays formed, the lavels moved together as one. Seeing the formation, Alie paused for contemplation. He realized he was being made to fight his own who did nothing wrong. They were just slaves that had been captured.

A thought came to him. He wondered how he would feel if he was in their place, to be considered as nothing more than someone's tool. He would hate such an existence, longing for the day it would come to an end. He decided to grant his own a merciful ending.

Kendar was impressed that the boy was still in the right state of mind to be forming justifications in his mind, perhaps he was not too far gone.

Alie transformed the fiery whips to become massive balls of fire, each about a meter in diameter. He then thrust them at the incoming battle array. The result was simply explosive. Quite literally.

When the smoke cleared, there was no lavelian guard left standing. There wasn't even a trace of missing bodies, they simply disappeared. Even Kendar was momentarily shocked by the sheer savagery in the attack.

Before the surrounding assailants could do a thing, 2 more fireballs had formed in Alie's hands.

It was quick work to get rid of all the assailants that had them surrounded. A flash of light, an explosion, and more than 5 enemies would be done. The entire process was so smooth that if it hadn't been sore gore, one would have taken time to admire this.

Every movement made by the boy led deaths, horrifying agonizing deaths. No mercy. The enemies quickly realized the situation was desperate, there was no winning, so they tucked tail and ran. Poor souls, how fast could they go.

In under 5 minutes, there was no enemy left standing. Some had survived Alie's onslaught. They had run as far as possible, and these were the agents that would bring his message home to Ogola. One could say their escape had been pre-planned.

Kendar realized he didn't have to do anything. At first, he thought that with such a tight group, he might have to interfere, but the boy seemed determined to deal with them all on his own. That kind of drive moved Kendar.

Soon after, the warriors that had accompanied them rushed in. They seemed ready to fight, claws out, teeth bared, it was going to be a tough fight. They too were shocked to find that the war was over, just as they had been shocked to see bandits running out of the camp. Just what did the boy do?

***

"Call it whatever, we need a win, and fast!" Astrid exclaimed. She was exasperated with this Wolf God. The damn idiot was more concerned with building his faith than refining an army. Like his father, he was deluded to think that only the faithful should receive his gifts.

This was one of Astrid's greatest issue with godhood. She had lived with mortals, interacted with them even. On some level, many of the mortals under her father could be considered her siblings, as they too were mostly her father's scions. As such she hated seeing them being treated as plants, just some sort of cultivation tools to harvest the luminary crystals.

It was commonplace for gods who were in charge of a world to abandon some mortals and favor others, especially those that were faithful. While this was the accepted trend, some believed that mortals had rights too, that they didn't deserve to be used as playthings by those who deemed themselves better than others.

There had been several catastrophes that had happened over the years, where entire races of mortals had been formed or exterminated just because of some god's temperament. She hated to be a part of that, and it was mostly because of her that her father treated his mortals with fairness and benevolence.

She was a rare type of super. In any encounter, she prioritized the lives of mortals above all else. Even Kedan had chosen to spare most of the mortals in the army of Harrow city due to her. It wasn't that the others were evil or prideful, it was just that after living for so long and seeing so many deaths, eventually, mortal lives stop mattering so much. Astrid was among the few that stood for something.

To hold such an unpopular opinion always segregated her. Astrid herself was not shy about it and she always vehemently spoke out against the mistreatment of mortals for personal benefits. This made her quite unpopular in many gatherings of universal powers, but they couldn't keep her out on account of her father's status. After all was said and done, Great God Jason was still a Great God.

That was how she ended up meeting Dane. As many of the civilians that knew about them, Astrid regarded Faction Protectors as heroes. Their work was on the side of good, and one of their primary objectives was to protect civilizations. As such, to do-gooders like Astrid, they were beacons of hope.

Being a daughter of a God, she had made quite some contact with Faction Protectors, even applied to be one at some point. Of course, her father wouldn't allow that. From the moment she was born, her destiny as a Farmer God was already set. She would have a series of worlds under her, and this was just her father training her how to be a God, or in this case, Goddess.

"No, we need to wait, build our strength!"

"Every second we wait is a second we lose the initiative, you get how that works, right?"

"How would you have me do that, with what army?"

"We have more than one city-state under us, use them!" Contrary to what Kedan thought, Astrid wasn't totally on his side. She knew this was all just a game, so her priority was to end all this as fast as possible. In her mind, that was the only way she could safeguard the lives of the mortals, but getting all these powerhouses and their focus away from them. To do that, she needed the wars to happen.

"Contrary to what you think I have already considered that, and I am working on it!"

"What, the priests you have preaching on the corners? Do you think any of that means anything without a clear victory?"

"You want to send in a bunch of untrained and uncoordinated army against a Faction protector?"

"And how will sending a couple of priests help?"

"They need to be united with a common purpose."

"And worshipping you is the common purpose you talk about?"

"Protecting themselves is!"

"And they can only do that by worshipping you?" Astrid's tone was clear. She hated the damn practice of having others worship her, or maybe she just hated having her destiny preset and her not having any say about it.

"And what do you suggest?"

"I just said it, send out an attack NOW!" She exclaimed, "We win a battle, we get more support, that's how this works!"

"Alright, since you are so smart, how about this, I am giving you control over one city-state. Do as you wish with them, even use my name to mobilize them. Let's see how far you go!"

"I'll probably achieve more than you ever could."

"Then its a race, let's see how much you can be done, for now, leave my sanctuary in peace."

"What's the prize?" Astrid asked playfully. She was very confident of her victory. She was the daughter of a Great God, she had seen many of these skirmishes before. She knew how to get people inline. Her only regret was that she wouldn't be using her name.

Watching from his seat, Great God Jason smiled. He had been trying to get his daughter interested in the family business, he couldn't believe that she was finally taking action. He wanted to see just what she would come up with.

Kedan was seated on his throne, listening to his many generals and subordinates as they gave him the various reports about the development of the main human city. Walls were being built, proper houses were being established, and a form of governance had been put in place. The city was slowly growing.

As he listened, he still kept his mind on what Astrid had told him. For some reason, he could feel a looming threat, and on that night, the threat felt even more real. He hated the fact that he didn't know what that was all about, but all he could do was take care of things on his end.

Moreover, Kedan still didn't know how all this fit into Dane's plan. Was he supposed to protect humanity? Now that he was done with his part, was there any more still coming? Would his brother still ask more of him?