Though the soldiers weren’t strong, they were damned cruel to their enemies.

Some might argue that they were overly so.

If seen without context, some might just pity the attacking force here.

But, of course, this was a world with context, so Malik felt no pity.

Furthermore, the enemy wasn’t exactly soft either.

A White Bear invader grabbed a wounded soldier by the hair and slit his throat in the middle of the street.

Another kicked down a door and dragged a screaming woman out by her arm.

Cruelty met cruelty.

This was war.

Malik might have wondered then: What was the true reason for their hatred?

There had to be something more to it that he wasn’t seeing...

"You bastards!"

But he was a bit busy at the moment.

"Why the Hell are you attacking us?"

Indeed, Malik had finally, finally, joined the battle.

His sword stabbed at an enemy, pincering him with another soldier.

Thanks to the other soldier absorbing the enemy’s attack, Malik’s own attack went through, felling the invader.

"It’s... all your... fault."

Those were the last words of the dying enemy, blaming Malik for something he didn’t know about.

"How do you attack a city and call it evil when it retaliates?"

Ignoring the now-corpse, Malik stepped over it and continued to fight, pressing forward against another White Bear.

He was genuinely curious. Was this a ’rules for thee but not for me’ situation? Did these invaders expect the cityfolk to just roll over and accept death? It was utterly confusing!

"Enough!"

One sudden word from the enemy leader changed everything, shutting down his thoughts.

Tens of ice shards materialized in the air and shot towards the remaining soldiers who were already on their last leg.

The shards punched through armor, flesh, and bone.

One by one, they fell to the ground.

Their blood was pooling beneath their screaming bodies.

Crack!

Malik had raised his sword just in time.

A shard aimed for his head slammed into the flat of the blade, shattering against it.

The impact jarred his arms, but he held on, not joining the rest.

Thankfully, he wasn’t alone.

The nice soldier had also defended himself, his raised shield still usable despite being cracked down the middle.

"No matter how many of us you kill, we won’t fall, you Goddamn invaders!"

’Invaders,’ a specific term for these people and their lot. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Malik would’ve glossed over it as name-calling or the like, but even his system had recognized them as such.

A system seemingly tailored for a Sultan, a man whose worries went much further than a single city.

That meant that there were many more factions like this attacking Malik’s people.

It wasn’t an event occurring only in this city but in the whole region.

Perhaps the entire planet.

’No way... is this an interplanetary war?’

Malik had realized an insane truth.

Not only were they being attacked by Demons more numerous than stars, but they were also being attacked by fellow humans from planets outside of this one!

He had assumed that this world was regressed, without technology. The buildings were stone, the weapons were steel, and the armor was forged by hand. But interplanetary travel?

That didn’t fit.

’Am I in the same world as Earth? Like the same universe? Have I simply been transmigrated into a man on a different planet, not an entirely different world?... that must be it.’

It seemed that he could even return to Earth if he wanted to.

Perhaps he would, one day.

It was surprising, but it made a certain kind of sense.

Everything had clicked...

Or so he would have liked to say.

Many questions remained. Other than the soldiers’ cruel fighting style, he still didn’t understand why their enemies called them villains.

Wasn’t it supposed to be the opposite?

Weren’t they supposed to be the heroes?

They were defending their homes!

"Who cares if your Sultan truly returned?!"

The enemy leader barked, beginning to make a habit of interrupting Malik’s thoughts.

"Do you even know what he did?! That bastard cut the roots of the Tree of Death connecting this planet to Hell! All planets across the universe now have hordes of Demons appearing as a consequence! Our people have started to Fall Into Depravity as well, becoming Corrupted and turning into Demons themselves!"

The nice soldier scoffed and held his stance.

"Hah! Do you really think I didn’t know?! So what?! Are you angry only now?! But when it was us, ’Black Eyes,’ who were becoming Corrupted, no one came to help! Instead, you only came here to steal our lands and to extract Runes from the Abyss!"

The fight seemed to have all but paused as the two began their duel of words.

"If not for our Sultan and his predecessors, we would have lost it all long ago! Don’t mention him again. You’re not even worth the earth he walks on, you bastard!"

Malik slowly nodded at the soldier.

’Thanks for that.’

Those words confirmed something.

"Black Eyes." Malik vaguely knew that term.

It was what they used to call those often prone to Corruption.

And it seemed this planet—his new home—was filled with them.

They had been abandoned by the rest of the universe, left to suffer alone. And now that the consequences of their Sultan’s actions had spread to other planets, those who once dismissed them wanted revenge.

"No matter what you say, you can’t deny that the Age of the End is a disaster!"

The enemy leader shot back.

"Him becoming an Angel caused our entire system to change! The Divine Essences, the Aspects, the Abilities—everything condensed into one thing, forcing us to adapt to Runes, ruining millennia of work! You lot might be fine with that since you’re stuck in the stone age, but the rest of the world is not!"

’Ah. My ascension changed the entire world.’

Again, their argument helped Malik put two and two together.

Whatever system of power existed before, it had been rewritten when the Sultan—when he—became an Angel.

’So that’s why I felt my power to be different. Beyond the weakening chains, of course.’

Whichever way they once measured their might had changed. Malik, as someone from technologically advanced Earth, should have known what this ’power’ was...

But he had no idea.

Like his death, this was something he had somehow been made to forget.

His memory was really spotty, remembering random things but forgetting crucial others.

But honestly, he didn’t care about that much.

He was more interested in this new age of theirs, the Age of the End, and what it entailed.

But, unfortunately, it seemed that his lesson had come to an end as both sides seemed beyond communicating at the moment, stuck hurling insults at each other:

"Go to Hell, you backwater bastard!"

"Choke to death on three pounds of steel, invader!"

Malik wasn’t too disappointed.

Many of the questions he had were answered, saving him from wasting any on the system later.

He had truly learned a lot from these two.

"Hey, White Bear!"

Malik interrupted them with a smile.

"Thanks for the—"

He couldn’t continue speaking.

A massive ice shard, bigger than any before, slammed into his raised sword.

"Ugh..."

The impact blasted him off his feet, sending him flying backward into the sky.

Such an attack would’ve killed many, but Malik’s calm smile remained on his face.

’...It’s time.’