The Earth Patrician did not stop.
After obliterating the first wave of the beast tide at Geb Fortress, he became more than a warrior—he became a force of nature—unrelenting, absolute, a judgment of the land itself, sweeping across the entire human-inhabited side of the Earth Domain.
Wherever the tide threatened to overrun cities, towns, and strongholds, he arrived as devastation incarnate, an unstoppable calamity against the beasts.
The Warpath of the Earth Patrician
From the sky, his path resembled fractures in the land—great fissures of upheaval stretching across continents. Like cracks in ancient stone, they reached every settlement under siege, every stronghold on the brink of collapse.
He moved with terrifying speed, an oncoming storm of raw elemental power, sweeping through battlefields before the beasts could entirely drown the defenders.
Mana-powered aircraft roared across the sky, ferrying reinforcements to besieged cities. These massive, rune-etched war machines shimmered with protective enchantments as they soared over battlefields, deploying warriors mid-flight or bombarding the beast tide below with concentrated blasts of elemental energy.
The very air became a theater of war, with warriors leaping from the aircraft into the chaos below, their descent cushioned by bursts of mana.
Each city, each battlefield bore witness to his arrival.
The Final Bastion of a Lesser Clan
A once-proud fortress, its walls scorched, its warriors reduced to exhausted remnants. The last defensive lines teetered, barely holding against an Empress-ranked behemoth and its elite pack. Just as the final breach was imminent, the Patrician arrived.
The moment his foot touched the ground, the earth rebelled.
The battlefield shifted. Tremors tore through enemy ranks, and trenches yawned open, swallowing thousands of beasts into the abyss. The land rose defiantly, surging upward in an unstoppable tidal wave of crushing stone and soil.
The Empress-ranked beast shrieked and thrashed as the land betrayed it, burying it alive beneath mountains of unyielding earth. Its monstrous form shattered under the sheer weight of the Patrician's will.
Cape Verde is a country known to be surrounded by the ocean even before the apocalypse, now called Cidade Velha.
A trade fortress of wealth and prosperity, home to multiple intermediate and lesser clans, was now reduced to a hunting ground for the beast tide. The creatures had turned the ocean into killing fields, dragging warriors and civilians alike into the depths.
The Patrician strode forward and drove his hand into the soil.
The ocean revolted.
Water, once a source of life, became a tool of annihilation. The tranquil lakes transformed into a maelstrom, their serene surfaces twisting into colossal whirlpools that swallowed the invaders whole.
The beasts flailed, screeched, and thrashed, but there was no escape. The earth under the water constricted them, crushing their bodies to pulp, leaving behind nothing but bloated corpses floating atop the bloodied waters.
The defenders watched in stunned silence.
Then, their hesitation broke, and the Grandmasters rallied. The remnants of the tide were cut down, their monstrous cries fading beneath the victorious roar of the warriors who had survived.
Across the entire continent, the same story repeated.
The Patrician descended. The tide shattered. The lands were reclaimed.
The Warriors Who Stood in His Shadow
While the Patrician rampaged across the land, his orders were carried out by the warriors of the Earth Domain. They were not as powerful as he was but they had the will to fight.
Grandmaster Ayun, wielder of the bloodline of a lesser god with control over metal, led a battalion of metal manipulators into South Africa, where a siege of thousands threatened to consume them.
Without the Patrician's intervention, they endured three days of relentless combat, using tactical retreats and shifting metal barricades to cut down the tide—bit by bit.
Grandmaster Kafa of the Poison Clan led 300 warriors into an Outpost located around a place formerly called Algeria, a border town that had been abandoned, and presumed lost. They turned the battle into a desperate last stand. When reinforcements finally arrived, the battlefield was silent—every beast lay dead. Only a few dozen warriors still stood.
Master-ranked warriors of the Earth Clan held the key trade routes, ensuring that supplies and reinforcements never stopped flowing. Though they lacked the power of Grandmasters, their defensive capabilities held the backbone of the war effort.
Mechanical Portals powered by mana and mana-powered aircraft allowed these reinforcements to reach distant battlefields faster than ever before. Warriors deployed in waves, ensuring that no city was left to fend for itself for long.
The Patrician could not be everywhere, but his warriors ensured his will reached every battlefield.
And by the time the last beast fell in the human side of the continent—
The Earth Domain was no longer under siege.
The Price of Victory
A week passed. The war was over.
But the cost became clear.
The Patrician had returned to Geb Fortress, his body untouched—but his mind burdened. The weight of an entire domain's suffering rested upon him as the final casualty reports arrived.
Final Casualty Report:
153 Grandmasters lost – The pillars of their clans, warriors of unparalleled strength, cut down in battle.
Many others were simply overwhelmed as they faced the Emperor and Empress-ranked beasts.
12,700 Master-ranked warriors perished – The elite defenders, stationed in the hardest-hit regions. The losses crippled their clans. 123,000 lower-ranked warriors died
The backbone of the defense, fighting knowing they had little chance of survival. Many were massacred when their cities fell. Civilian casualties exceeded 2,000,000 and still counting – Not all cities had held.
Some were reduced to rubble before the Patrician or his warriors arrived. Entire families were lost in the fire, in the collapse, in the stampede of monsters.
The war had been won.
But the Earth Domain had bled.
The Patrician stood in silence as he heard the final reports. His expression was cold, unreadable.
His warriors stood at attention, awaiting his words.
He gave none.
The Earth Domain mourned.
But the Patrician did not.
Instead, he turned toward the horizon.
The war was over.
But something felt odd.