As Kai had expected, all the tribal leaders agreed to help him launch a crusade for the tower the next morning.

He had seen it coming. With their families taken and their pride wounded, rebellion was only a matter of time. His presence merely accelerated what was inevitable. By taking the lead, they could shift the blame to him if things went wrong. It was smart politics afterall. But Kai didn’t mind—so long as they fought. Once he took control of the tower, the orcs who had kept humans as slaves for generations would finally be judged.

Logistics were handled quickly. He, Maari, and his party would travel across the desert to contact other tribes and check for more abductions, while Khalid and the rest stayed behind to muster a warband. The problem was scale—dozens of tribes scattered across the sands, many without proper cities. It meant hours of riding, long travel under the harsh desert sun, and unpredictable beasts.

Fortunately, the tribes didn’t move on foot.

They rode beasts called Zirkaan—sleek, sand-colored lizard-like creatures with hardened scales and strong limbs that bounded across dunes with unnatural grace. Domesticated and disciplined, they were everything horses weren’t in the Ashari desert. And to Kai’s surprise, it was Adil—the arrogant thorn in his side—who led the tribe that bred them.

Without a word, Adil had arranged for each of them to receive one after the council agreed on their next steps. Whether it was out of duty, pride, or simply not wanting to owe him anything later, Kai didn’t know. But he accepted the reins with a nod, then mounted his beast.

Adil wasn’t even snarky about it, which surprised Kai. He didn’t give any smug remarks, no sideways glares—just a silent nod as he handed over the reins. Maybe defeat had humbled him. Or maybe Adil was simply the kind of man who respected strength when it was undeniable. Either way, Kai didn’t dwell on it. He gave a curt thanks and rode off with the others toward their first destination.

It wasn’t until hours into the ride that the true weight of their mission settled over him.

By noon, they had already passed through five tribal camps. Smoke still lingered in some—rising from half-collapsed homes and scorched wood, ashes blown into the wind like forgotten memories. In each one, the story was the same: people missing, houses burned, men slain, hope nowhere to be found.

And yet… no anger. No fire. No hunger for retribution.

One elder had called them traitors for entertaining an outsider’s words. Three others had listened in silence, their eyes dull with something far worse than fear—resignation. Only one, a tribe led by a younger man with sand-burned skin and an iron-stiff jaw, had said they might consider joining a rebellion. But only if Kai could return with the abducted and prove the tower even existed.

The rest? They were too busy surviving.

Kai’s grip on the reins tightened as wind lashed against his robes. The zirkaan beneath him hissed, adjusting its pace to match his agitation. Were these really warrior clans? How had they let themselves fall this far?

He guided his beast forward until he rode side-by-side with Maari, her figure cutting steadily through the shifting dunes. The sun was lowering behind her, drawing long shadows across her armor and the dust-coated scarf over her mouth.

Kai raised his voice over the whistling wind. “Why are tribes like this?”

She turned to glance at him, eyes unreadable beneath her hood.

“Weak and poor?” she asked.

“No,” Kai said. “Content. With how things are. With the way they’re treated. Like slaves.”

Maari was quiet for a long moment, the sound of claws skimming sand filling the gap between them.

“They stopped dreaming a long time ago,” she said finally. “When you’ve lost enough sons, enough daughters… when every rebellion ends in fire and bones… even warriors forget how to hope.”

Kai looked ahead, to the fading horizon where the next village waited. He understood war. But this—this was something different. People who had learned to live inside their own cages.

And that was far harder to break.

Maari’s expression shifted at his words—less guarded now, more tired. She kept her eyes forward as her mount carried her across the dune, but Kai could see the way her brow furrowed.

“You know how many rebellions we’ve led in the last five years?” she asked.

Kai shook his head. “No.”

“None.”

The answer hit him harder than he expected.

“What?” he asked, almost disbelieving.

A wry smile pulled at the corner of her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “But before that,” she continued, “there were seven. Seven rebellions. The tribes gathered together—each time thinking this would be the moment the orcs would be pushed back. That we’d finally restore the balance of the sands.”

“And?” Kai asked back.

“They failed,” she said simply. “Every single one.” She paused, and her eyes looked distant than ever. “I was there when one of them ended. We actually won a skirmish—caught an orc battalion by surprise, killed dozens. Spirits were high. People thought maybe, just maybe, it was turning around. Then Khorvash summoned a tribal gathering. Said he wanted to talk terms, but it ended in a battle. And we lost. He made all the Sand Knights who fought in that battle stand in front of a crowd.”

She inhaled sharply, as though the memory still stung her lungs.

“He burned them alive. Crushed them. Turned their blood into rivers at our feet. And he made us watch. Said it was justice.”

Kai didn’t respond. For a moment, he couldn’t.

“I can still smell the smoke,” she added. “Still hear the screaming.”

He turned toward her, trying to read the emotion that slipped between her words.

“So why now?” he finally asked. “Why agree to help me? Why come with us? From what I remember… you didn’t want a fight with the orcs.”

This time, she looked at him.

“I don’t even know,” Maari said. “At first, I didn’t want to get involved. But the rest of the council—especially Khalid—was pushing for it. I started thinking about it seriously before that meeting with you. The orcs just… came. Took people. Our people. Our family. There was no reason for them to do that. It felt like I was a mouse in a trap—waiting to be slaughtered without even knowing why.”

Her hand clenched around the reins.

“It was depressing. Like I was suffocating slowly and pretending it was air.” She turned her eyes to Kai. “I didn’t want to live like that anymore.” There was a beat of silence before she added, “Then I saw what you could do. Heard about the tower. And for the first time in years, it felt like we had a way out. Felt like it all made sense.”

She exhaled through her nose, letting the words linger for a second before adding bluntly, “Of course, you still need to prove it exists.”

“It’s there,” Kai replied immediately, then thought for a moment before continuing. “If we find some orcs, I can interrogate them. There’s no way they believe Khorvash just plucks artifacts out of the air.”

Maari’s lips twisted. “Let’s see if we encounter any. You killed those three… that would have stirred some of them. Especially with that axe you took. That orc didn’t seem like some brute. Carrying something like that? He was likely a general’s son. I doubt they know what happened, but they would move to search for the bodies.”

Kai nodded, eyes scanning the horizon and noticing how far the sands stretched. “Good. That makes it easier if they come to me.” The wind kicked up a bit of dust and they lowered their heads instinctively.

“For now,” he muttered, “I just hope the next tribe is easier to deal with.”

“They should be,” Maari said and gave a nod. “This one talks shit about the orcs openly. Always looking for a reason to spill some blood. You might actually enjoy it.”

Kai smiled at that, looking ahead at the sand dunes stretching like waves toward the sky.

“How much longer?”

“Thirty minutes,” she replied. “We should’ve been there already but I’m taking the long path. Trust me, it’s better.”

That raised a question in Kai’s mind. “Why?”

“We found a sand elemental family nesting near the usual route. I don’t know when they’ll move on, and I’m not in the mood to fight beasts like that.”

“A family of elementals?” Kai asked, raising a brow.

Maari only shrugged. “They all look the same. A lump of angry sand. Sounds like a family to me.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle, the sound lost to the wind as their mounts surged forward across the shifting dunes. The sun crept higher in the sky, and it felt merciless with the heat that turned the world into a baking kiln. Kai felt sweat cling to his back beneath his cloak, but a small flare of mana summoned a soft chill through the air.

A first circle ice spell cooled his skin and then rippled outward to the rest of the party. It was a small mercy, but they welcomed it with open arms.

But they didn’t stop. The zirkaans raced across the desert without pause, and after thirty more minutes, the blurred outlines of civilization began to take shape. It was far from a city.

It was a village that sat at the foot of a rocky cliff, its structures scattered and small, more like bones left behind than true homes. It lacked the order and strength of the tribal city they’d left behind.

That naturally slowed the entire troop.

“There’s something wrong,” Maari said suddenly. “I see people… running.”

Kai turned to glance at her, but her eyes were already focused ahead, brow furrowed.

Without waiting, he used, [Hawk Eyes] and mana surged behind his gaze. The world snapped into sharp focus, every detail leaping forward as if he stood right at the village edge.

There they were—a man and a woman, sprinting, the woman clutching a child to her chest. Behind them, more figures showed themselves. They were all running—no, fleeing. His eyes shifted to the center of the village and he swore.

There were five orcs, all of them taller than six feet, standing in the village square. Their weapons were raised, clashing with dozens of tribal warriors who moved with desperation rather than discipline of tactic.

Kai’s jaw clenched.

He dropped the spell immediately and turned towards Maari.

“There are orcs ahead. Five of them are right in the center of the village. They’re fighting with the tribals.”

Maari gasped. “Are you sure?”

“I saw them. We have to move. Now! If we’re any slower, we’ll be too fucking late.”

Without waiting for an answer, Kai urged his zirkaan into a full sprint, cutting through the dunes in a straight line toward the village.

He couldn’t let the orcs burn or abduct again—not when he might finally capture one and pry out the answers he needed. The wind lashed against his face, but it didn’t matter. He gripped his spear tight and leaned forward, his focus narrowed to a single point.

Behind him, Feroy’s voice rang out, carried by the rushing air. “How are we going to deal with it, Lord Arzan?”

Kai didn’t look back. “We take them head-on! No time for strategy. Claire, start the attack—shock them before we rush in. Capture one of them alive, whatever it takes!”

He heard their acknowledgments over the howling wind, but his focus remained locked on the sight ahead. The outer edges of the village flashed past, terrified tribals halting in place as he thundered by. Some stared in awe; others fell to their knees, as if unsure whether salvation or another storm was descending upon them.

The lizard-like beast beneath him tore through the muddy outskirts with no hesitation. And then, at last, Kai saw them. The silhouettes of six orcs, massive and brutal, towered over the scattered defenders in the village square.

Two Sand Knights held their ground well—likely Rank 2s—but the rest were struggling, their movements insanely panicked. But they were enough to create chaos. Enough to be a distraction. And that was all Kai needed.

“Claire, now!” he shouted, his voice cutting through the clash of steel and screams.

Suddenly, the air shifted.

A crackle of energy surged high above, and the clouds twisted into a spiraling vortex. Antlers formed first—vast, ethereal, glowing with crackling energy—and from between them emerged a storm-wreathed figure. The Storm Sovereign came to life with a roar of thunder that shook the very sands.

The sky dimmed as a bolt of lightning split the air, lashing down between the orcs, blinding and deafening all at once.

Lightning danced across the battlefield, crawling through the Storm Sovereign’s ethereal form as the creature looked down at the stunned orcs with burning eyes.

“Filthy creatures,” it growled, the voice deeper than thunder, reverberating through the bones of everyone present.

The orcs froze, sensing the raw power that had suddenly filled the air. One even stepped back, his tusks twitching in what looked like fear. The villagers, recognizing the divine weight of the mana above them, fell to their knees, clutching the sand as if it might protect them from judgment.

And then came more thunder.

Bolts of lightning exploded downward from the antlers like spears hurled by a vengeful god, striking the ground in brilliant white flashes. Screams were lost in the roar of thunder as the orcs were hit in perfect unison. One staggered and fell to his knees, smoke rising from his armor. Another cried out, clutching at a scorched arm.

But not all of them fell.

One orc, larger than the rest, snarled as a red-tinged shield shimmered around him, generated by a glowing bracer on his forearm. The artifact absorbed the lightning with a strained hum, flickering from the impact but holding.

Kai’s eyes locked onto him. He was the leader.

“Attack!” he bellowed, his voice cutting through the aftershocks of the strike.

The moment he shouted, his mount surged forward with a burst of wind-fueled speed, and Kai became a blur. Like an arrow loose from a bow, he aimed himself at a stunned orc still reeling from the Sovereign’s wrath. His weapon pierced through the creature’s thick neck in one clean strike.

Blood arced through the air as the force of the mount dragged the dying orc several feet through the sand. Kai jumped down before the beast had even stopped moving, slamming the spear again into the orc’s throat to ensure no second wind would bring him back.

His eyes rose after he killed the orc. The bracer-bearing orc stood tall, shaking off a final arc of lightning. Their eyes met.

Kai charged.

***

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