Chapter 61: Kronans

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"The night is dark on this planet," noticed the Kronans commander-in-chief, General Kan.

One of his lieutenants jeered, "All I know is that humans can throw quite the party," He made a pause, probably for dramatic effect, "Dead or alive!"

The other lieutenants laughed, remembering what they did with the corpses of their enemies, of those they conquered.

Kronans came from Saturn, and they were not as advanced of a species as one would think, their space travel means were granted to them, not developed by them. Actually, most of the Universe had been annexed to the big space network, and the only reason Earth had been spared from such treatment was because of Sorcerers.

But back to the subject, Kronans were older than humans, but nowhere near as technology advanced, as seen by their weapons. There were several reasons for this, but really two main ones.

First, Kronans lived in tribes, and barely connected to one another, except for trade, and even then it was rather rare. Within those tribes, the hierarchy may seem strict because of how the Kronan army was assembled, with a general and his lieutenants, but the truth was that there was only a Chief and his people in a tribe, and said Chief could be replaced by anyone who killed him, and the death didn't have to come from a duel.

This meant that if the Chief was sick, then any member of the tribe was allowed to kill him and take his place. Well, at least in theory.

The reason there was some amount of peace was also the second reason as to why Kronan technology was never really a thing, and that was magic.

Magic was not widely accessible among Kronans, as only a very few amount of them had the gift of magic, and this gave them a special position. They were said to be second to the Chief, but in reality they were much more important.

Magician Kronans had actually formed an organization between themselves, ignoring which tribe they belonged to, and formed a network between them which assured most of the trades.

This gave magicians a great deal of power as they could be said to be invaluable in a Kronan tribe, meaning they had as much power as they wanted in the tribe. Women, food, riches… Anything. And their personal power was nothing to scoff at either, there was a reason they were banned from participating in Tribe Wars.

As for technology, it's meaning was to make the average person progress, ergo, reach means only a magician could do.

You need your crops to grow faster? No need to ask the magician, you can use fertilizer.

You need a better weapon? No need to ask the magician, you can ask the local smith.

This was what happened on Earth, magicians disappeared from society because they were not aware of what technology could do, and by the time they understood, it had become strong enough to chase them out of society.

And the way they were chased, wasn't very nice. (Salem Trials, for example.)

The Kronan magicians were lucky they didn't have any overpowered beings on their planet, like Earth did, to stop the spaceships from outer space, as this taught them ahead of time the dangers of technology, and allowed them to destroy the idea in the bud.

For millenniums now magicians have been working together to slow down, or even regress technology on their planet, hence keeping their dominion over it. And just like Internet in certain authoritarian countries on Earth, Kronans didn't even know what they were missing.

Even now that they were on Earth, the technology here was so advanced for those savages that it only looked like magic, and thus did not sparkle any idea of revolution.

So after hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years of tribal lives, they had their fair share of wars, and this set their warmongering nature very deep into their genes.

Now that they were on Earth, seeing them play with the corpses of their enemies and not differentiating between soldiers and civilians while slaughtering, it may look horribly barbaric and inhuman for, well, humans, but it wasn't anything shocking for Kronans.

They lived their entire lives in such an environment, knowing that if their tribesmen lost the fight against another tribe, they would be the ones needed to take up their arms and go fight, no matter their status.

It was only in the past few years, as demons appeared all over their planet and wrecked havoc, that the magician association had banded up all the tribes and formed the Kronan Great Army, and placed them in all the spaceships the Kronan Magical Organization had stored over the years, in case of such an event.

Although this alliance was created by the Kronan Magical Organization, it was spearheaded not by them, but by the Kronans of greatest renown, as it should be done according to their tradition. Such army had never been created, but Kronans only took this as a bigger, temporary tribe, and as such the magicians should not be the leader, they should remain the magicians.

All this led to the current situation, Kronans mass murdering the humans who couldn't leave the city in time, the concept of mercy, or even prisoners, not even brought up once. Kronans had no such expression as 'In Rome, do as the Romans do.'.

They were searching for a new home, and they didn't see the need for another species to cohabit with them. Kronans did not eat meat, they didn't have any on their planet.

Saturn was often victim of powerful earthquakes, and this sometimes forces Tribes to relocate, which was exactly what the entire race was doing. If they killed the enemy tribe's members to the very last child when they changed homes, why should they spare humans, who were of another species?

But while such behaviour may seem normal to Kronans, the same could not be said about humans.

While nearly all the lieutenants were laughing, the general said, amused, "Look, there's a lad ahead."

The lieutenants stopped laughing, and squinted. It was dark, and they could barely see anything, but after being warned by their general, they saw him.

He was tiny, as all humans were, and dressed in a dark outfit, which made it very hard for them to see him in the night.

One of the smaller lieutenants asked, his voice a little softer than the other Kronans, "Do you think he is their champion?"

The other lieutenants all shut up, and the general replied, "Seems like it," he turned to this smaller lieutenant and demanded, both respectfully and authoritatively, "Tell the army to stop."

Stature was a big factor among Kronans, as a taller Kronan was generally a stronger Kronan, but despite his small stature, this Kronan was well respected because of his position.

He was a magician, and not just any magician at that, as he was the head of the Kronan Magical Organization, as well as the general's tribe magician.

Still, he was technically below General Kan, and had to answer to him, despite his anger at the man's arrogance.

Amplified by magic, his voice spread to every soldier as the simple order was transmitted.

General Kan looked at this planet's champion with a jeering smirk, he was about 50 meters from him, so he yelled, "Are you here to challenge us, lad?"

His voice easily reached the 'champion', who obviously was Edward, and the latter understood what he was saying as Kronan was one of the languages he learned.

He did not give any vocal reply though, and only unsheathed his blade from his back.

General Kan didn't expect an answer either, as he knew humans did not speak their language, but what Edward just did went beyond any language barrier.

The Kronan General picked a random lieutenant of his, and with a shake of his head ordered him to go fight the human.

The lieutenant couldn't be more happy he would get to do the job, and came at Edward in great strides.

The Kronans expected the human to get smashed into a meat pulp, get dismembered, or any kind of nasty death, but as the Kronan reached Edward, he was abruptedly split in two, his lower half running a few more steps after the upper half hit the ground, before falling too.

The Kronans in the front, who had been cheering, abruptedly stopped, and stared at the human in shock. They had come across very few threats in their conquest of Trondheim, but they were all products of what they thought was magic, ergo technology.

For this man to kill one of their leaders with such ease though…

They clearly weren't the only ones to take the situation seriously either as General Kan's face morphed from mockery to seriousness. His eyes not leaving the human, he ordered, "Bring the meat shields."

His order was quickly conveyed from his lieutenants to all of his men, and in under a minute Edward saw wooden crosses be brought to the front of the army, with people nailed on them.

General Kan sneered in his mother language, not giving a damn whether he was understood or not, "I understood your people worship a man nailed on a cross, so shouldn't it be their greatest honor to be in the same place as their messiah?"

Not waiting for an answer, General Kan waved his hand to the front, and the mage behind him commanded the whole army, "Move forward."

It was an astounding sight very few people ever saw on Earth, an army of more than a hundred thousand moving all at once, in the same direction.

Unfortunately, Edward wasn't in the mood for this as his anger was reaching an all time high. The reason he had called himself Serenity was because he did best in combat while in a state of profound calm, but among his powers there was one exception, that worked well with emotions.

Edward didn't move though, and only watched wrathfully as the army advanced, using the nailed humans as protection. Although there only appeared to be one person, General Kan was no fool, and was sure other humans were hiding in the shadows, with their magical weapons.

The army quickly approached Edward, and before long they were only ten meters from each other. Edward sight went between the wooden crosses, onto the one who spoke to him earlier. He analysed him, his surroundings, and how the Kronans acted with one another in that part of the army.

There was some distance between the group General Kan belonged to and the rest of the army, while the rest of the army was all glued together roughly. It showed their different status, and pointed them out as the leaders.

It was a dumb move to put the leaders at the front of the army, all together in a single group, and no human from earth would ever make such a mistake, but once again, Kronans lived a different lifestyle.

Tribe Wars were rarely fought in the thousands, more often than not it was small scaled fights between several tens of people, a few hundred if the fight was between large tribes, and in such fights having the leader in the front was good for the troops morale.

But for an army of this size… they were sending themselves to their death.

Edward also noted that even among the group of leaders, other than General Kan, there was another member who looked like he was well respected.

With two prime targets in mind, Edward watched as they got closer and closer. It was nerve-wracking to watch such an army get so close to him, but his anger was clouding any other emotion he could feel.

Finally, as they got within five meters, the Kronans were looking at him weirdly, wondering why he was no moving. But then, they heard a strange sound, and a bright light come from the sky.

They all looked up, and saw two red flares in the sky, right above their army. At the same time, five objects were flying at a rapid speed in the sky. Edward looked up, and recognized those as fighter jets. Time for him to act.