Orion and Kamala returned to the camp through a portal.


    To Amelia and Karteira''s surprise, they finally returned thirty minutes after winning the fight.


    The reason was, they were exhausted. There was also the need to verify if this was truly their victory or not.


    Even if Ivan''s body was destroyed after losing the cores that made him a corrupted, there was no certainty at all.


    Until they were sure he wouldn''t come back.


    "Thank the world! You''re alright!"


    Amelia jumped at his chest.


    He caught her with one hand and caressed her back.


    "I said it, there was no need to be worried."


    Karteira heaved a long sigh of relief.


    ''He really made it. This man is impossible.''


    "Thank you for the assist, it was the key to our victory. Here, you can have it back."


    His other hand lowered to Amelia''s face, as she looked at her lightning element.


    She smiled while recovering it.


    The lightning element traded hands, and vanished, returning to Amelia.


    "I have to say, that was a really good timing."


    "It''s thanks to Karteira. Without her strength, I wouldn''t have been able to help at all."


    Orion turned to Karteira, not surprised at all.


    ''It''s just like her.''


    "Sorry I didn''t brought you with me. I know you love to fight."


    "Yes, well..."


    She scratched her cheek embarrassed.


    "Wait! It''s not that!"


    Now he was surprised.


    ''A maiden''s heart is an enigma. It''s what that book said.''


    That''s what he read inside a book named ''How to treat a lady.'' by the mysterious N.


    He used some of the words written inside on Amelia before, but that didn''t seem to work for him, so he instead remained natural.


    Thinking he had known Karteira well enough by now, he was once again reminded that there was always new things to discover about the ones you cared about.


    ''I pity you Ivan Borias. You had nothing at all. The same goes for the other Apostle.''


    He hid his thoughts, and smiled to Karteira. Even if he wanted to caress her hair, Amelia was blocking him with her hug.


    So instead, he made a movement with his free hand and told her to come closer.


    "Huh?"


    She walked to him, unsuspecting of anything.


    "Thanks for the help."


    He caught her off-guard once again and placed his hand on her head, stroking her beautiful cerulean hair.


    In one his left hand, he had the silky blonde hair of Amelia, and in his right hand, he had the lustrous blue hair of Karteira.


    Enjoying the moment for a minute, they all stayed silent.


    Kamala watched this with a small tinge of jealousy, but she ignored it.


    She had not obtained the trust of the man like these two did. In fact, she was thinking that she failed the task she was given.


    ''He killed Ivan at the end. I failed magnificently. I-''


    "Good work Kamala. You did better than I could have expected, and the way your attacks flowed after mine was incredible."


    He began to praise her out of nowhere. She was previously about to cry from losing hope, so why was he so kind?


    "I didn''t kill Ivan though?"


    Her voice trembled.


    "The corrupted part was out of our expectations. I was going to fight it alone if I had to."


    "You definitely gave him the last blow."


    His tone wasn''t letting any doubt out. For him, she succeeded with flying colors.


    "I couldn''t manage to save many civilians."


    The expression on her face began to crumble.


    "Are you blaming yourself? Can you repeat that to those people? Can you, one by one, say that you regret not saving more?"


    "What is it going to bring you?"


    A blank expression on her face, she looked inside his grey eyes.


    "Nothing. Absolutely nothing will come out of it."


    "Those people will have this tragedy on their mind for the rest of their lives."


    "Is your job going to apologize again and again? Don''t tell me you were this weak?"


    Seeing the horrible look he gave her, she recovered herself from falling into despair.


    "Of course not!"


    She made it clear that she wasn''t.


    "Then isn''t it fine? I understand your concerns. Or maybe not, I''m not human to begin with, I don''t have many people to protect."


    Amelia and Karteira blushed when they felt his caress began gentler.


    Even Orianne and Reon felt the care in his voice inside the bracelet. They were proud of their child.


    "You had a specific number of people you had to save?"


    He kept asking, removing her doubt one after the other.


    "No. I came to save as many as I could."


    "Then here''s your answer."


    Orion tapped on the girls head, asking them to move away.


    After they stepped away from him, he approached Kamala.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    He stopped in front of her, and extended his hand.


    "We''ve managed to erase a great threat on our continent, isn''t it a great thing?"


    Kamala looked at his hand and smiled.


    "Indeed. I can''t believe a man younger than me managed to change me so much."


    She grabbed his hand and looked at him straight in the eyes, freed of doubts.


    "Even if that were true, people don''t change randomly. They strive to change for many reasons, that being self-interest, or not. Pushing someone in the right direction doesn''t mean that they will follow that path."


    "Maybe you will regret siding with me in the future, maybe you will lose everything because of what I made you do today. But know that this path is not yours alone anymore."


    "I will consider you not as a Lord or an Apostle, but as a friend from now on. This is the least I can do for the few that shared my ambitions, and accepted me not for my factions belongings, but for being who I am."


    He released her hand, and turned around, showing his back.


    "Now, you maybe should take care of those people."


    Pointing at the thousand people waiting for her, she finally noticed the many soldiers helping the hundred of rescued people.


    ''Right, I still am the Lord of Hocride. Be proud of yourself, and in what you did today!''


    She slapped her cheeks, and walked with pride further into the camp.


    Taking a deep breath, she spoke loud for everyone to hear.


    "Guards of Hocride, you did well today."


    "You''ve managed to rescue as many as you could, under terrible stress and continuous attacks."


    "What you did is going to be remembered, by myself, everyone of you, and the people you saved!"


    "Be proud in yourself, because, I, your Lord, couldn''t be more proud of you! You have my deepest gratitude!"


    Her words sunk into the deepest part of her guards. They knew how hard this mission was. They knew their life would be at risk.


    But they never faltered, because they trusted her. And those words were more than they could have ever hoped for.


    Many began to cry, others silently looked at the sky, or hugged one another.


    But Kamala wasn''t done.


    "To those that survived the carnage that the past Lord Ivan Borias caused, I sincerely apologize to you."


    "I know that my words will not help you recover you lost ones, or ease your pain. To you, I might be the same as him, another Lord that could turn against you."


    Many of the survivors shuddered from remembering the murdering that happened.


    "But please, hear my words."


    "Live!"


    That single word made them sob. This was the opposite of the order Ivan made.


    "I want you, no! I need you to live! To tell this story, or not. Because this is part of the history of our kind."


    "I will be on your side, I will support you, and make your life as comfortable as possible, not because it is my duty, but because it is what makes us humans!"


    "We have lost our roots, and it is finally time to stop treating others as inferior beings, when events like this happens to our kind."


    "If you are willing to accept other factions without discrimination, then we will welcome you to Hocride. If not, there are multiple alternatives for you. There are many places outside of this continent that have a peaceful environment."


    Her speech echoed inside the survivors mind. Recovering their roots, accepting the various factions.


    Why did this felt so natural for them to accept her facts are truth? Maybe the murdering of their people led them to grab any kind of hope they could, or she had changed into a beacon of hope for these people.


    In any case, no one felt that she was lying.


    "I will... live!"


    A young boy stood up from the crowd of survivors, a baby in his hands.


    "Me too! For my late husband!"


    "I want to see Hocride. Can we mama?"


    "Of course. We have to."


    People began to exchanged between them, and unanimously decided to follow Kamala, their new Lord.


    They would never forget the atrocities that they saw that day, but they also will never forget the honesty the woman named as Kamala Genathis displayed.


    ''If you remove my ability to use magic, I am no different from one of you. The only difference between us now, is how I can make you life better with my magic.''


    And with her inner thoughts, the battle of Kaios ended.


    ~


    "The result of this battle was:


    - 12 deceased guards of Hocride out of 1272 dispatched.


    - 527 soldiers guarding Kaios.


    - 1028 civilians killed and 296 civilians saved.


    - One Apostle, Ivan Borias."


    "That is what we were expecting, right?"


    The shadows of two women were watching at statistics displayed inside a pool of water in the middle of a large table.


    "In fact, the number changed a little."


    "Oh? How so?"


    The woman on the right tapped on the reflection of the water, showing another set of stats.


    "What was expecting was more death on the guards side, ranging from one hundred to three hundred."


    Tilting her head, the second woman looked at the reflection, impressed.


    "It is quite a feet, isn''t it? The fact that so few died is to be celebrated."


    "That''s not all."


    "Huh? Now that''s unusual. Two large changes?"


    "Three."


    "HUH?!"


    The woman on the left stood up and slammed her hands on the table.


    "That''s impossible! You know how hard it was to arrive to this point? And you''re saying that it moved so much out of our control?!"


    She ignored her companion and continued explaining.


    "Seven. That was supposed to be the amount of survivors expected during this event."


    Her friend sat on her chair, seemingly shocked. It was too dark to make out anything of them.


    "Haha- And that''s not all?"


    "No. The woman named Kamala. She was supposed to die."


    "..."


    Only silence.


    "That''s... how is it going to affect history from now on?"


    "Knowing that this woman is the most charismatic and kind hearted in the whole human faction, we can only expect important changes."


    "That Orion! He worked too hard."


    "Indeed, he worked way too hard. He managed not only to save many people thanks to him creating a new element beforehand, but he also managed to use it to save Kamala."


    "If not for that impromptu discovery, the result would be more like this one."


    The woman on the right tapped on the higher death number record.


    "And you said it was a ''little'' change."


    The place darkened once more, engulfing the woman completely.


    ~


    Orion listened to Kamala''s speech from beginning to end.


    ''She really is a great speaker. If I didn''t knew about her true self, I could believe that she is one of the greatest Lord.''


    He laughed audibly.


    "Why are you laughing?"


    Karteira walked next to him first, not really caring about the situation in front of her.


    "I just thought of how different she usually is when she''s alone."


    "Right. She doesn''t speak much originally."


    "Hmm."


    Amelia walked on his other side.


    "Are you going to miss her?"


    "If I say no, then I would be lying. As I said, she is another person I consider important now."


    He continued.


    "Even though we''ve lived only a month together, can you say that she was boring to be with? I personally enjoyed her silent company more than expected."


    Amelia and Karteira smiled at his words, because they felt the same.


    "That''s why, I planned on letting a portal inside of her home to join us when we stay inside our home."


    ''Our home.''


    They both liked the sound of that. It was their home, a place to return to.


    "We''ll have to build another residence next to our home then."


    Amelia was already thinking of building another house.


    "Go for it, it doesn''t eat that much more magic energy."


    Orion decided that it was time to talk about it, so he went for it.


    "About that."


    He caught their attention before finishing.


    "I decided to name that place. I was done with calling it ''that place''."


    "Oh! What name did you find?"


    Amelia was excited, and Kamala had stars in her eyes.


    "That''s a lot of expectations. I''m sorry if it is not great."


    He laughed.


    "Horizon."


    The girls absorbed the new word.


    Amelia opened her mouth wide, and Karteira''s stars disappeared from her eyes.


    Instead, both of them imagined the horizon.


    ''A line, beautiful and distant.''


    ''Where the sun distance itself from our sight, or reappear before us.''


    They both grabbed his hands.


    "I love it."


    Amelia had a really bright smile that even surprised him.


    "There''s no better name for it."


    Karteira blinked in admiration to his naming sense.


    He was stuck being praised, when he expected them to laugh at him.


    "Thank you."


    The most bright and grateful smile ever appeared on Orion''s face.


    The girls stopped breathing. Their brain froze completely, leaving them unable to understand anything anymore.


    This was how brutal his genuine, ultra rare happy smile was.


    ''This is a weapon of mass destruction.''


    Karteira looked at Amelia after turning her head slowly.


    ''We have to protect the others from this smile.''


    They both secretly agreed on that.


    "Girls? Are you alright?"


    He waved in front of their face, making them return to reality.


    *ahem*


    Amelia cleared her throat in shame.


    "We''re fine, don''t worry. But anyway, what do we do from now on? We have no other objectives currently. I mean, we still have to hunt the other Apostles, so are we going to depend on the ring again?"


    Orion looked at Kamala, who was surrounded by her people.


    "Let''s forget about that for now. I want to relax for a few days."


    "WH- I''m sorry, what did you say?"


    Karteira almost choked from laughing because of Amelia''s reaction.


    "I''m tired, so I want to take it easy. We''ll think about what to do later."


    Amelia was shocked.


    ''Where is my training addict Orion?! Where did he go?''


    Though, she was half serious. Her real thoughts were closer to this.


    ''YES! More time with Orion!''


    "I''ll make it put with you both in Horizon. I''ll give you a lot of my time both. Whateve-"


    He made a tough face, remembering one other saying of the book.


    ''Never promise to ''Everything, Whatever or Anything'' to a woman. They will take it to heart and make you do things you would probably regret.''


    "We''ll do things that are in the range of what I can provide."


    They both understood why he changed his sentence, but that didn''t bother them.


    ''He is a cautious man.''


    ''Yes, he is a very cautious person.''


    They thought of the same thing, at the same time.


    "Orion, good work on getting closer to your goal."


    Karteira took this chance to finally congratulate him.


    "Ah..."


    It finally sunk in. Orion killed another Apostle. The second one.


    "Yes, thanks to you both."


    He walked past them, and glanced at them.


    "Kamala seem to be done, let''s return to Hocride now."


    They followed behind him after nodding.


    Orion arrived next to Kamala, and opened the big portal that led them here earlier.


    The guards all returned to Hocride with the twelve deceased brothers, followed by the survivors of Kaios.


    Kamala and the girls walked through, leaving Orion alone in the middle of the desert.


    "I can''t shake that weird feeling."


    Orion turned and walked through his portal, closing it completely behind him.