Chapter 71: Prologue vol.2

In this world, The Tower ruled and humanity stood by it. Elves. Beastmen. Homunculi. All were below the feet of the war's victor.

Bianca Blake understood it. She understood it but there was no way in hell she would let the one she loved leave her grasp simply to uphold their laws.

Her mind remunerated over the nightmare she had once more. It was always the same. For 15 years, it had been the same. The same pain. The same grief. The same memory. It began with flames and ended with ice. Before her laid a body frozen in time, ebbed in a glass-like cocoon as flames danced about the land, asundering everything in their path. On that day, the forest had become a blazing conflagration and smoke burned the sky black.

That day had been hell on earth in more ways than one. She still remembered the blare of pulses. The jets overhead. The mechas running, gunning, and slashing. And the destruction caused by an elven army against that of humanity's protector. They had been powerful then, and so had the other side. True magic countered the science of armaments as Gears fought against Spirits. It was destruction the likes of which only the Great War eclipsed.

The grotesque faces of relatives were etched in her mind. Soldiers and civilians and victims. The dead screaming their last. Oh, were there many.

Bianca shuddered at the familiar memory. Groaning. Whenever she awoke in sweat, no comfort helped her. She bit her lip. The stagnation was soon to end. Had she been weak, she would not have made it thus far.

The rhythmic tapping of her finger echoed as a blue-tinted hologram floated above her palm, displaying the image of her creation and calming her.

"Welcome back. . ." She muttered.

Perfect plans had preceded perfect perpetration. No matter what, she would have her sister back. That goddess of flames that had protected and guided them. The once strongest avenger their kind had ever birthed.

". . .Rose."

Combining an unparalleled Gear, spirits long thought extinct, and true magic only the demi-gods of old and the ancient dragons seemed able to wield, a hundred years she had stood, many more she would stand again. Her story was not over. Bianca wouldn't allow it.

In this river where history mowed the green grass of the elves, a stone was cast. Renewed would she be, better, stronger, immortal—burning the order of this world.

'Everything, in fate, one step at a time.'

Her thoughts clicked into place as she awaited the day their world of Merim would forever change, once more.