Earth-Flavored Ice Cream

Fate did know about Generals. They were Venlanz's strongest Embodiments, not a single one below the Level of Avatar, and many in right in the middle of the realm. The one accompanying this army was General Ferdind, an Avatar of Dark that was reportedly only a few steps away from becoming a Personification.

Fate heard from rumors that the man could make projectiles of pure darkness, which sapped the life out of anyone hit to fuel them and trigger an explosion. A devastating skill, but one that yielded tons of collateral.

The Generals were veterans of battle against the Fractured, a faction made up almost entirely of Embodiments and psychics. A child of an Embodiment was always a psychic at the very least, and in a world like Venlanz, where Manifestations themselves were hereditary, every group of siblings from an Embodiment parent would have at least one Manifestation between them, sometimes more.

Needless to say, then, the Fractured was teeming with powerful people, so anyone that could survive multiple battles against them like the Generals was someone to both admire and fear.

The wagons stopped about a mile from Frendnann's city walls, out of range of any ballistae or the majority of Avatar ranges. At the orders of their superior officers, the soldiers hopped off the wagons and unsheathed or readied their weapons, preparing to charge when given the command.

Their ranks included a few hundred psychics and twenty Prodigies. There were also five Exemplars, with General Ferdind being the only Avatar besides Fate.

Fate jumped off the wagon with the others, throwing his Miao Dao out of its scabbard and catching it with his right hand. The soldiers edged away from him after that, for fear of falling swords.

Ferdind, at the head of the army, raised his hand above his head, splayed open. Slowly, he curled his hand into a fist. When it was fully closed, the army released a shout as one and started running toward the city. Fate followed, staying in his assigned squad.

Yeclengsh was enjoying himself. His flames, fueled by the hatred of himself and those they burned, were far hotter than anything those weak, hypocritical Elementals could conjure up with their self-righteous Manifest Powers.

The stone of the buildings was melting, the wall itself soon to follow. He was sent into the city by Lord Bosina to open the gates for their army and let them in, but why do that when razing the walls to the ground was so much more fun?

His uproarious laughter was quickly silenced and his amusement smothered, however, when he caught a glimmer of white out of the corner of his eye and what sounded like a faint waterfall. Cutting off the stream of fire from his hands and turning to the source, he found an entire army only a mile away from the city, swiftly closing in.

His happiness turned to rage and indignance as he remembered how the people of Venlanz's city of Toepeka chased him out of the city he had known all his life after his Manifest Test at the age of 18 revealed he was an Emotion wielder.

A blasphemer.

The town had run him out, throwing stones at swinging weapons as if he was a monster. His own family turned their noses up at him, the girl who had promised him they would marry and have kids together throwing her stones the hardest of them all.

Over the yelling of the crowd, he had clearly heard her words. She had renounced him, cursed him for defiling her lips with his filth, and pledged to gut him like a fish if she ever saw him again.

After that, he fled as fast as he could to the territory of the Fractured, the only place safe for someone like him. He had to sleep in caves or out in the open every night, nearly losing his life many times when a contingent of soldiers found him or a wild animal decided to turn him into its meal.

When he finally, after months of travel, arrived at the border of the Fractured's territory, he had collapsed from exhaustion and relief. A patrol found him, taking him to one of their cities and teaching him the truth of the world.

How the Ancestor and his companion of Light were murderers of the Fractured's kind, and their descendants followed the bloody practice.

The heat wafting up from the flames burning the city grew noticeably hotter, the once-mighty wall surrounding the city starting to melt and fold.

These kin-murderers wanted to take what was rightfully the Fractured's, huh? Then they'd have to go through him.

When Fate noticed the stream of fire was cut off by the dot on the wall, he knew the first blood of this battle was about to be shed. The dot in the distance jumped off the wall, using flames to slow its descent as the wall behind it slowly melted like ice put in the oven. The dot landed and started moving, growing closer.

Around the liquefying wall came thousands of soldiers, all clad in fierce-looking red armor. Thanks to the range of his Divine Grasp, Fate could tell even from here that not a single one wasn't a psychic, and there were hundreds of Prodigies, dozens of Exemplars, and even at least ten Avatars, one of which was the fire-using dot that had jumped off the wall.

Considering Venlanz had only sent two thousand soldiers, this was going to be a hard-fought battle.

General Ferdind increased his pace, surging away from the Venlanz forces to meet the Fractured in the middle. As soon as they were in range, he unleashed his Manifest Power, sending dozens of balls of void-black darkness out to intercept them.

The results were devastating, each orb exploding into pockets of night and taking out entire chunks of the enemy army. In seconds, General Ferdind had taken out almost two hundred psychics and Prodigies and at least twelve Exemplars, the ground looking as if a divine being had scooped clumps out with a spoon to make some kind of earth-flavored ice cream.

But there were still thousands of soldiers rushing right for them.