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So, there he found himself, floating above the coast as the Sky Devils moved in. His arks and ships were close enough to give some cover to his ground forces, but many of the Sky Devil arks and other weapons platforms—Sunlit could see curious armored vehicles with some kind of new Lances mounted atop being deployed in small numbers—were already firing upon their positions, inflicting some casualties.

But Sunlit’s attention was almost entirely focused on the man who appeared before him as the Sky Devil forces moved up. He was a large man, and quite handsome to boot. His red hair was closely cut, and his eyes glittered with rage. More importantly, his aura was powerful and laced with intense killing intent.

“You are the Sunlit Emperor,” the man declared, his booming voice easily audible despite hundreds of feet of howling wind separating them, on top of the sounds of distant battle.

“I have that honor, yes,” Sunlit replied. “And I know who you are, too.” The man cocked his head slightly, a wry grin coming to his face. However, it froze as Sunlit added, “You’re a dead man, as are all those who challenge my majesty.”

“Heh,” the man grunted after a fashion. “Overinflated senses of ego are hardly uncommon among your barbarous peoples. You’re hardly unique.”

“Of course I’m hardly unique,” Sunlit said as he spread his arms and covered himself in sparkling golden armor, its pauldrons and codpiece exaggerated in size. “I’m splendidly unique! You should consider this the greatest moment in your life, because today, you get to die at my hand! And once I’m done with you, I’m going to wreck those wretched cans you call arks, slaughter your people, enslave the survivors, and raze your entire degenerate civilization to the ground! Such is the price for those who challenge my authority and dare to steal my property!”

Sunlit’s voice became more and more wrathful as he continued, while the man whose name he didn’t care to ask for simply stared at him with infuriating contempt, which only grew with every word Sunlit spoke. By the end, though he was smiling, Sunlit’s heart beat with the desire to skin this man alive and throw his corpse to wild animals.

To that end, Sunlit raised a hand and, without a word or any other kind of preamble, fired off a powerful lightning bolt.

The man didn’t move. He wasn’t armored at all, but the lightning bolt hit some kind of barrier and immediately winked out of existence like it had never been there at all. Were it not for the thunder echoing off the ground and the sea far below, Sunlit might’ve thought that he’d somehow failed to pack that bolt with as much power as he’d thought he did.

“Predictable,” the man spat. “And that makes you weak.”

A moment later, he was on top of Sunlit, his massive arms coming down upon Sunlit with the weight of a mountain. Sunlit raised his arms and blocked, suffering no damage but still being hurled downward.

With an enraged snarl, Sunlit called upon his power and left nothing back. His power, amplified by his armor and augmented by several pieces of enchanted jewelry he wore, exploded out from him in the form of dozens of arcing lightning bolts, each one hot enough to flash-vaporize a small lake. His power also extended up into the sky, where the few clouds that filled the night sky began to sparkle with magical charge.

The man, however, wasn’t waiting around, and charged right through Sunlit’s power, it vanishing just as his first bolt had, and slammed into him with immense force. Sunlit cried out more in anger than in pain and summoned all the lightning that he’d taken that split second to build in the clouds down upon them. The Sky Devil squeezed him, and Sunlit could hear his armor straining under the pressure as even the strengthening enchantments were strained.

Sunlit roared as the lightning bolts fell upon them, four in total with three vanishing once again. The fourth, however, managed to get through whatever the man was using to block Sunlit’s magic and struck them. Sunlit himself was unhurt, but the man, with lightning coursing over and through him, was forced to gain some distance.

As they steadied themselves, Sunlit couldn’t help but frown deeply as he glared at his opponent. This was a proper tenth-tier mage, someone he had to take seriously. That first exchange, as much as he hated to admit it, had gone to the Sky Devil, for as little as either of them had been harmed.

Wanting to leave nothing more to chance, Sunlit gritted his teeth and summoned from his soul realm another item that he’d taken from his Empire’s vaults alongside the Thunderbird arks. He’d played with the idea of using this on Leon Raime—at least, until he’d been contacted by the demon—but he’d had some doubts as to whether or not it would work. Regardless, it seemed he’d have to spoil the surprise now.

A staff appeared in his hand, one made of pure iron and inscribed with intricate geometric patterns. The shape of the staff was simple despite that decoration, but as Sunlit held it, he could feel the power that coursed through it. It was an old weapon, something that had served his Ancestors well in the past when the plane was more chaotic before the Empires had established peace between themselves. He’d even read some old notes speculating that the weapon predated the Thunderbird Clan’s arrival on Aeterna, though he found that hard to believe.

Lightning sparked across the staff, dull yellow rather than the usual bright gold of magical lightning. Sunlit maliciously grinned as he thrust the staff in the Sky Devil’s direction, and a sickly yellow bolt of lightning shot out from the end of the staff.

The Sky Devil, to his credit, dodged out of the way rather than try to take this attack using the same means he’d been countering Sunlit’s power. But the bolt arced in the air and struck the Sky Devil anyway, instantly incinerating his clothes and scorching his body.

He screamed in pain and fell from the sky, his body limp, to Sunlit’s delight. Putting the Sky Devil out of mind for the moment, Sunlit glared at the Sky Devil arks that were currently firing upon his ground forces. For all that his own arks and ships could stop the Sky Devil arks from getting too close, there were still plenty of forward positions that were in range of their weapons, and that was to say nothing of their ground and more mobile air forces. Thousands of warriors riding pegasi swarmed over the battlelines below, raining their magics down upon Sunlit’s forces.

For their part, his forces responded in kind, with many mages taking off using the flight gear they’d acquired from Heaven’s Eye to make sure battle was joined on an even footing. Those mages still on the ground met the Sky Devils’ counter-attacking ground forces, halting their advance in their tracks.

After observing for a moment, Sunlit paid no attention to the minutiae of the battle. His focus was purely on the enemy’s strategic assets: those arks, and the few ninth-tier Sky Devils he could sense over the battlefield. His eighth-tier mages, and the ninth-tier mage he’d had leading the ground push, were already working on locking those Sky Devil mages down in duels, so he aimed his staff at the nearest Sky Devil ark.

Another dull yellow bolt of lightning erupted from the staff and, a moment later, struck the ark he was aiming at. However, the lightning bolt danced about on the ark’s surface for several seconds before dissipating.

’This is only useful on people, then…’ Sunlit thought, his annoyance rearing its head once again. He lowered the staff and raised his other hand, letting lightning stream from his fingers and across the sky. He was a tenth-tier mage, he didn’t need fancy items to take on enemy war platforms, and he put that power on display. Where the staff failed, his power shredded the thin hull of the ark and nearly split it in half. Dozens of Sky Devils spilled out of it, with many falling to the ground thousands of feet below them. Many other Sky Devils, however, successfully evacuated into the air.

Sunlit didn’t care too much about the survivors—they’d be handled in due time—he just watched with glee as their ark crashed into the hills below. He almost began laughing until he felt an intense aura light up the coast below. He rolled through the air on instinct and a massive bear with fur the color of the tenth-tier Sky Devils’ hair flew through the space he was floating in.

Sunlit stared with more than a little shock; Sky Devils used war beasts in great numbers, he knew that much and could see it proven down below where tigers, jaguars, and bison were engaging his soldiers, and where numerous flocks of powerful birds joined the pegasi-mounted Sky Devils in the air. There were many other beasts in the Sky Devils’ ground forces, too, but in significantly fewer numbers.

But for his tenth-tier opponent to be a war beast himself wasn’t something Sunlit had expected. The bear the Sky Devil had transformed into was enormous, with streaks of silver fur emanating from his chest. His black claws gleamed in the moonlight, and his eyes glared at Sunlit with undisguised bloodlust.

And he was flying.

They locked eyes, and then the bear was upon Sunlit again, savagely swinging its claws at him with reckless abandon. It was all the Sunlit could do to dodge, for the bear’s bulk belied its speed, and from the wind kicked up by its swipes, it was strong, too. The Sky Devil, even in his human form, had exerted noticeable pressure upon Sunlit’s armor; Sunlit didn’t want to even think about getting captured like that again.

In a panic, Sunlit drew his lightning rod again and fired it off a couple more times, but every time, the bear dodged. It was useful, at least, for keeping the monster at a distance, but Sunlit could tell that this battle wasn’t going to go his way unless he did something more drastic.

So, abandoning his more defensive posture, he dodged one last time before going on the offense. Instead of trying to keep his distance and fire off yellow lightning bolts, he closed with the bear, using the Sky Devil’s surprise to get in close and slam the lightning rod into his furry hide. Yellow lightning exploded across the bear’s body, and the Sky Devil was hurled backward with great force. Blood flew from his mouth and eyes, and the bear almost dropped from the sky. However, the monster remained in the air, to Sunlit’s displeasure. So, the Emperor charged again, comforted in the knowledge that his weapon was effective.

The bear, however, was now more cautious and didn’t give himself completely over to his rage. He fought more strategically, always making sure that he wasn’t going to be hit by Sunlit’s lightning rod.

But as fast as he was, he was still quite large, and his body wasn’t flexible enough to cover himself completely—Sunlit managed to get in another hit on the bear, hitting him once more with the dull yellow lightning. The bear roared and fell from the sky, this time not catching himself.

Sunlit watched with satisfaction, not turning his eyes away until the bear hit the sand below. To his delight, his ships then opened fire upon the bear as he struggled to his feet. Their Imperial Lances launched their deadly payloads, and the bear was unable to dodge in time, taking several direct hits. Whatever magic was protecting him from Sunlit’s magic was overwhelmed, and the bear was struck directly by molten metal.

He was a tenth-tier mage, so this wasn’t enough to kill him, but Sunlit didn’t mind. When he glanced up, he saw that his forces were being overwhelmed by the volume of fire from the Sky Devils. He sighed in disappointment, but he couldn’t say he was entirely surprised. He felt like he was starting to get used to his people’s incompetence at this point. He’d have to put the general in charge of the ground forces to death for this, though his ninth-tier mage fighting in the battle could only be given a light punishment.

‘Perhaps a public flogging? Should get it in their empty heads that if even a ninth-tier mage can be punished, then they should fight with all they have…’

With that thought in mind, Sunlit dropped downward, towards the injured bear. He briefly thought about joining the rest of the battle, but decided against it; there was only so much he could personally do, and the force the Sky Devils had assembled was more than even he could take on single-handedly. Without better support from his own arks and ships, he couldn’t swing this battle in their favor anymore.

‘No, better to leave now,’ he thought as he landed on the sand of the beach not too far from where the bear fell. Sauntering over, he found the bear still conscious—barely—and glaring balefully at him. His body was rent and torn, his blood soaking into the sand courtesy of the Imperial Lances, and it didn’t seem like he could move very well.

For just a moment, as he stood above the bear staring down at him, his triumph swelling in his chest, Sunlit considered killing him. But as he raised his staff to bring an end to the tenth-tier Sky Devil, he paused. It wasn’t the lack of fear that he detected in the bear’s eyes that stayed his hand, but instead an idea.

‘If Leon Raime would rather chase arks than come fight me… then I’m going to have to dangle something in front of him to make him move. And I’m sure that little bastard just loves dangling things…’

With a vicious smile, Sunlit made up his mind. He may tactically lose this battle, but many Sky Devils had died this day, and he’d acquired something of great value, and he was going to exploit it to the hilt…

---

“Iron-Striker has been captured.”

Leon stood up in shock, his jaw going slack in disbelief. The Jaguar and his relief force, sent to prop up the Lions in the west, hadn’t made it back yet. However, the Jaguar had called over the comm lotuses with grave news.

Those were the first words that he said upon Leon answering the call, not even offering a greeting to soften the blow, and after hearing them, Leon could understand the severity of this situation.

“How?!” he eventually shouted once he’d managed to find his voice again.

“He lost a duel and the Sunlit Emperor took him prisoner instead of killing him,” the Jaguar intoned. “We attempted to give chase and get him back, but we couldn’t get close; the Imperial fleets are still too powerful. I’m sorry, Your Majesty, this fault is on me. I was unable to prevent any of this. We’ve secured the western flank, but our enemy has taken one of our most powerful men and eluded my grasp.”

Leon projected his magic senses and took note of the Sunlit fleet already making its way back to the Sunlit base in the north of the island. On what seemed to be a private balcony on one of the largest ships stood the Sunlit Emperor, glaring back at him with a wide smile, such a smug look on his face that Leon suddenly had the urge to punch something—on top of all the reason he’d already been given.

He\'d been reveling in the capture of the Thunderbird Clan ark. Such a coup represented an enormous gain for his forces. However, all joy in that success was replaced by cold rage and violent determination.

They had to get Iron-Striker back. To allow him to remain in Sunlit custody was unthinkable. Leon had done quite a bit more for people who mattered much less to him, this wouldn’t stand.

But… how could they get him back? In his state of swiftly growing fury, Leon couldn’t think of anything other than simply flying to Sunlit’s fleet and striking every ship there with enough lightning to send what few splinters remained to the bottom of the Veins of Vigilance. He had the nearly overpowering urge to slaughter every single Imperial soldier on the island until he found Iron-Striker and freed him from Sunlit’s captivity.

But he managed to check himself. Flying off like that would only get him killed. Sunlit defeated Iron-Striker, which in and of itself was greatly concerning. Leon didn’t think he could take Sunlit on in single combat anyway, even with his increase in power, and this was just more confirmation that trying to do so would be a terrible idea.

“We need a plan,” Leon growled.

“I’m already working on something,” the Jaguar said. “It’s… mostly about how to retake the island. I’m struggling to see how we’re going to get him back in one piece with that tenth-tier bastard squatting on him.”

Leon fought the urge to groan aloud and barely succeeded in repressing it.

“Regroup,” he ordered. “I’m coming to you. We’ll get him back somehow. Alive or dead, we’ll get him back.”