Dunya’s teleportation was never gentle.

Malik had grown used to the lurch, how reality folded and snapped back into place, almost like a bowstring released.

His boots pressed into stone atop a hill overlooking the valley.

The wind hit him first, carrying a sweet, rotten tang that always preceded a Demon wave.

It was the smell of Corruption he remembered and despised from the cave.

Below, stretching across the plains, was his army.

Tens of thousands.

They had gathered in neat formations. Spearmen were at the front, archers behind them on raised platforms, cavalry held in reserve on the flanks.

Banners swayed in the afternoon light, yellow and white crescent double-bladed swords catching the Suns.

The sight was impressive, almost beautiful in its order, but Malik knew what lay beneath the banners.

Blood, sweat, and fear.

The same things that had always lain beneath banners, since the first army had marched to the first war.

Malik stood at the crest, Dunya already fading back into the shadows behind him. She had done her job.

Now she would wait.

Layla was about to join her husband to perhaps fight as well, but Dunya shook her head, advising the wife not to.

Surprisingly, the queen listened to the maid without argument and went to stand beside her.

Malik didn’t turn to look at the two. Instead, he gestured for the four of them to stay behind.

Yes, ’four of them.’

Aladdin was standing a few paces to his left, his blue hair whipping across his young face. His hands were clasped behind his back in a rigid posture while his blue eyes were fixed on the horizon.

He looked nervous. He always looked nervous, especially before battle, though he’d never once fled.

And Sinbad—the crimson owl—was perched on his shoulder, with his feathers ruffling against the wind.

Both had only noticed their Sultan after that gesture, being stunned at his arrival.

Especially Aladdin.

He had wanted to meet the Sultan since that first day in the desert, since the very moment he had seen the pillar of white fire erupt from the dunes, but he had never really had the chance.

There had always been something else, someone else, and some other duty pulling him away.

Though beyond a surprise, it was a very, very welcome one.

And to stun Aladdin further, Malik nodded at him, nearly felling him onto the stone.

He was acknowledged by the Sultan!

Yes, Malik passed right by him after that, his attention already moving to the valley below, but that didn’t matter.

The nod had happened.

’The nod is real!’

Aladdin would carry that moment with him for the rest of his life, no matter how long or short that life turned out to be.

Nothing else mattered; he was acknowledged!

Ignoring the celebrating young man, Malik turned his attention to the hill itself.

It was somewhat strange.

A weathered outcrop of stone jutted from its crest like a broken tooth, making it a natural podium, as if it had been designed for exactly this purpose.

From here, it was obvious that the commanders usually gave their speeches. They raised their blades to shout about glory, honor, and the righteousness of their cause.

Malik wasn’t going to give a speech.

At least, not from there.

He slid down the hill.

The descent was slow as his boots kicked up small clouds of dust, and the dry grass bent beneath his weight, but he didn’t hurry.

There was no need to hurry.

His army saw him.

First, the back ranks: the reserve units, the logistics corps, the healers and messengers who would only enter the fray if everything went wrong.

Their chatter died first.

Then the middle ranks, the seasoned soldiers who’d survived countless waves, who thought they’d seen everything.

After them was the front, whose reaction Malik didn’t catch as he had already reached the bottom.

He walked through them.

A giant amongst men, that was what he looked like.

Taller, broader, brighter, his golden hair standing out against the dark of the army.

Formations parted like water before a stone.

Blademen lowered their weapons in reverence, dipping their points towards the ground. Veterans bowed their heads, their hands pressed to their chests.

Archers straightened their backs as he passed, his presence unknowingly pulling the slouch from their spines, reminding them of who they were and what they were fighting for.

Malik tapped their backs as he went.

Acknowledging and noting their service.

A touch here, a nod there, a murmured word that none of them would factually remember later but would swear changed their lives.

I see you. You’re here. Good.

His men trembled around him, not from fear, of course, but from sheer awe. They couldn’t fear such a man.

Fear required distance, uncertainty, and the possibility of harm. This was something else entirely: a reverence so deep and a devotion so complete it had no room for fear.

This was their Sultan.

HE JOINED THEM IN THE WAR.

A war they had been in for decades!

Malik felt their gazes on his back, his shoulders, the crown of his head.

A thousand eyes.

Many tens of thousands. Each one burning with hope and madness, the twin flames that had kept this army alive through years of endless battle.

After all, only those with such qualities could have ever survived what they had survived.

Only them... and only him.

Malik kept walking.

By the time he reached the front, the silence felt... enormous, leaving only their breathing, their pounding hearts, and the fluttering of their banners.

Speaking of, Malik stopped beside a bannerman—a young woman with sun-browned skin and hands that shook despite her steady expression.

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

Slowly, Malik took the banner from her hands.

He raised it high until the yellow flag fully snapped open in the wind, able to be seen by all, a beacon of gold above the dark.

This was the symbol of their resistance. The symbol of everything they’d built, everything they’d bled for, everything they refused to surrender.

Malik raised it high. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

And all who witnessed it felt their hearts rumble.

It was so, so quiet.

But so damned loud!

"You know as well as I do."

Especially his voice.

"Perhaps even more than I do."

It came low, and yet it carried.

"History is written by the victor."

It always carried.

"And our damned history is filled with liars."

He stepped forward, turned around, and faced his army.

There were tens of thousands to his left. Tens of thousands to his right. All of them stared at him like he was the last light in a dying world.

"If our enemies win. If they kill every last one of us. If we can no longer resist... If we give up. Our truth drowns into obscurity."

He exhaled loudly, letting them hear his breath, his humanity. The fact that he was just a man standing in front of other men.

"We will be written as villains. Forever condemned by the world... misunderstood."

He scanned their faces. Young. Old. Men. Women. Soldiers who’d seen too much and soldiers who’d seen barely anything beyond this. Children who had been forced to grow up too fast and elders who had refused to die.

"They will be the heroes who’ve saved the world from us."

Behind him, in the sky, dots of black began to appear.

"Their lies will be THE truth."

Malik’s grip tightened on the banner pole.

"But only if they live. And we—the people here—die."

The Demon wave was upon them.

"A martyr welcomes a martyr. They bid goodbye to another martyr, only for another to join them. Hm. It’s a suicidal goal, isn’t it?"

A murmur rippled through the ranks, sounding their acknowledgment. They knew what they were and they knew what they had signed up for.

"We’re up against an army far eclipsing ours... to degrees none of you can even begin to fathom."

Malik lifted his head.

"But no. None of you here will truly die."

The murmurs stopped.

"Your Will shall pass on to who comes after you."

He swept his gaze across them again, slower this time. Trying to memorize their faces. He wouldn’t. He never could. There were too many, and they would blur together in his memory, replaced by newer faces, newer soldiers, newer waves. But he tried.

"They will remember you. As they remembered me. As they remembered those before me and those before them."

The wind picked up, crackling the banner.

"For what you’ve done today. Every day."

A current ran through his men.

He could feel the shift.

The moment when an army stopped being a collection of individuals and became something else entirely.

"Because out of all the ways we could’ve spent our last moments... instead of cowering and biding our time like many other did... instead of escaping with our loved ones or simply giving up on ever succeeding."

Malik turned around and faced the Demons.

"...this was what we chose."

The black dots had grown larger and closer. He could see their shapes now, everything that should not exist given form.

"We will survive."

Malik raised the banner even higher.

"We’ll kill them all."

And as his words echoed across the valley—

"For all who come after!"

—his people went forth.