A Declaration of War (55)

Jasper walked into Nyx's chamber. He crossed one arm over his chest and bowed slightly. "My lord, there is someone here to see you."

"Who is asking to walk into my presence?"

Jasper lifted his head. "The man next in line to claim the title God of Destruction, Naesrio, my lord."

Nyx smiled just a little. "Ah, yes. Let him through."

Jasper bowed once more and swiftly left the room.

Seconds later the chamber doors opened.

Naesrio walked through. He looked over to Nyx's throne, where she sat in the darkness, where no one could see her entire face.

"Where are your manners?" Nyx asked.

"If you expect me to bow down to you, I respectfully decline. We are both gods, meaning we stand atop the same peak of the same mountain."

Nyx chuckled calmly. "Ignorance is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Naesrio, I don't expect you to understand, as my glory days were millenniums before your time, but I assure you, we are not on the same level."

Naesrio smirked, seeing how she was blindfolded. "Am I allowed to test that statement?"

Nyx remained cool and collected. "Sure, if you must. I won't stop you."

Naesrio stepped towards her.

An almost navy blue color outlined Nyx's body.

Naesrio could feel her spiritual essence seeping out. He started to feel calmer, happy almost. It was a feeling of extreme comfort, like he could go to sleep at a moment's notice.

He closed his eyes.

Then he felt it.

Emptiness.

The sensation of having no flesh inside his own skin. He couldn't think, nor see, hear or smell. It was all empty.

Naesrio quickly opened his eyes and jerked back, breathing heavily. He didn't realize that he wasn't breathing.

Nyx hadn't moved from her throne, her head still resting on her left hand. Her energy subsided. "What happened? I thought you wanted to test my power?"

Naesrio regained his composure. "I... changed my mind. There's no need. I am here because a messenger informed me that you wanted to see me."

Nyx smiled. "Yes... my sources tell me that you are the next God of Destruction."

"It is as you say. I plan to bring destruction to this world, and to the humans."

Nyx sat up straight. "Naesrio. Do you hate humans?"

He balled his fists. "Yes. I despise them. I look forward to the day when they all perish. And I will be the one to hand out their fate."

"Naesrio. Let me tell you something. Currently, I see the world as my playground. If I wished, I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with no opposition. And you can not have fun on a playground without toys to play with. The humans are like my toys. I would get angry if someone were to... break all of them."

Naesrio frowned. "What are you saying?"

"I am saying that you do not have permission to wipe the humans out."

"Are you telling me that you want me to leave them be?"

"Hmm... actually, you can play with the First Order. If you successfully defeat them, I will consider giving you freedom on the rest of the planet."

Naesrio was ticked. "What do you mean by *if?!* Humans are weak! In terms of strength there is no one lower than them. Bottom feeders. Insects. They shouldn't even rule a single country!!"

Nyx again rested her head on her hand. "Do not underestimate them Naesrio. That could lead to your demise."

Naesrio grit his teeth and turned around, walking out the doors.

Nyx called out after him. "I do hope you've remembered what I said. Any disobedience will result in death for you. Perfectly."

Naesrio closed the doors behind him and left the palace.

Agaki was in his house meditating in the middle of his living room, enjoying some peace and quiet.

A knock soon came to his front door.

He took a deep breath, got up, and went to answer the door.

It was a messenger. "Is Frost here?"

Agaki nodded.

"For him."

Agaki was handed a small scroll tied with a blue ribbon. He thanked the messenger and closed the door.

Agaki went to Frost's bedroom and opened the door.

Frost was laying on his bed, simply staring at the ceiling.

"Yo." Agaki said. He tossed the scroll to him.

Frost reached out a hand and casually snatched it out the air. He opened it up. He squinted his eyes for a moment.

"What's it say?" Agaki asked.

Frost got up and put his outside clothes on. "Nothing you need to worry about, I'll be out for a while." He left the house and walked off.

Agaki honestly couldn't have cared less. He was just glad to have his quiet back. He returned to his living room and continued meditating.

--

Frost walked up to the Royal Palace.

Narumi was waiting outside the front doors.

Frost scowled. "Hey," He held up the scroll. "What's this about?"

Narumi smiled. "An escort request, silly. There's an old library to the north of Arbok City that I want to go through."

Frost looked annoyed. "So... you're using me as a bodyguard?"

Narumi smiled innocently like a child and nodded her head. "Yup!"

Frost let out a breath. "Ah whatever."

The two walked through the grassy plains north of the city.

Narumi preferred to walk rather than fly, because she wanted to "enjoy the experience" even though it was in the middle of the night.

"Hey Frost."

"Hm?"

Narumi spun around, walking backwards. "What's your story?"

Frost gave her a look of suspicion. "Why do you ask?"

"Because, I know just about everyone's backgrounds in the Omega Squadron. But I don't know much about you."

Frost looked away. "I came from the Northern Territories. That's all you need to know. It's not a story for telling to others."

Narumi's expression turned sad. She turned back around.

After about a minute passes, she backflips behind Frost and puts her hands beside his head. Her eyes and hands glowed. *"Magic Skill: Insight."*

 She saw a large building. *"A prison?"* she thought. It was vast. An entire city, made out of prisons and facilities. Her sight automatically zoomed into one of the buildings.

A small child with the lightest blue hair sat in a corner with his hands on his knees. His eyes were... cold.

The vision ended abruptly as Frost knocked her hands away.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

Narumi looked in his eyes. They weren't as cold as the ones she'd seen. But there was something behind them that she couldn't see clearly.

She put her hands behind her back and smiled innocently. "I was just seeing what you were thinking about."

Frost just stared at her. "And what did you see?"

"I saw you."

"I'm not dense, princess. You were looking into my past. You saw more than just me."

Narumi stepped back in shock. "Um, I saw a city? One full of facilities and what looked like prisons?"

Narumi wasn't surprised at Frost's sharpness, she already new he was intelligent. She was surprised by his eyes. For a mere moment they were cold, stale, dead. Cold enough to send shivers down one's spine.

Frost turned back around. "You wouldn't happen to know exactly where that place is, would you?" he asked calmly.

Narumi stood back up straight. She walked back in front of him. "I'm not sure, we can always check the library though. Some years ago my mother moved most of the archives there. For what reason, I don't know."

Frost closed his eyes and pocketed his hands as they continued walking. "Lead the way, princess."

They kept on walking for the next hour.

They walked through an area of woods.

As they came to a creek, Frost paused and grabbed Narumi's shirt, signaling her to stop.

She turned around. "What are you doing?"

Frost was looking to his left. "People are here. Eight of them."

Frost looked to his right. "Princess. If you don't wanna die, don't move from that spot."

Narumi got flustered. "Huh? What do you mean if I don't wanna die? What's going on?"

Frost turned around and breathed out, a mist leaving his mouth as if it was already freezing outside. "Come on out now and show yourselves! You have ten seconds to do so, or I'll attack first!"

Narumi watched as Frost closed his eyes and counted to ten. *"How does he know that there are people here?"* she thought to herself. *"Oh! He can sense changes in temperature! That's gotta be it! If he was just sensing someone's energy, then I would have noticed too. He can tell when the air has a change in heat, and in which direction it's coming from!"*

Frost finished counting. "...eight, nine, ten." He opened his eyes and exhaled a blast of mist. It dispersed through the trees, shaking the leaves violently from the wind.

Narumi noticed that the creek, where there was a stream of water, had turned completely frozen.

The creek had to be a few feet deep, and yet it wasn't a soft freeze where water was still underneath. It had frozen solid.

That means that the temperature Frost gave off had to be hundreds of degrees below freezing temperatures.

The creek froze all the way through in seconds.

Frost just stared out into the darkness for a few moments. Ice formed on all of the trees around them. The leaves stopped moving and froze over.

A bird fell out the sky and shattered.

*"Why am I not freezing? I can tell it's cold, but it doesn't feel colder than maybe fifty degrees!"* Narumi thought.She thought about Frost's warning. *"If you don't wanna die, don't move from that spot."*

The ground itself started freezing over into solid ice.

Then Frost relaxed.

All of the ice immediately melted. Water started raining down from the trees for a few seconds.

Narumi looked around. "I guess there was nobody there after all."

Frost didn't budge.

About ten more seconds passed.

Eight bodies dropped out of the trees like dead flies in different locations.

Narumi squealed. "Ew! What are those?!"

Frost walked up to one. "Assassins. Likely here for you, though I don't know how they could've known we were here."

Narumi put two fingers to the body's neck. She jolted up. "He's alive!"

Frost inspected the body more. "Flash freezing won't kill a person, their bodies just shut down temporarily. They weren't prepared."

Frost put his hand on the assassin's head. He woke up. His eyes widened with fear. He tried to move.

"Don't move. I'll kill you." Frost said coldly.

The man stopped moving.

Frost questioned him. "Now. Where do you come from, and who are you working for?"

The man talked in a frightened tone. "I can't tell you that, I'll be killed!"

Frost narrowed his eyes. "You'll be killed if I don't get the answers I'm looking for. Now talk."

The man decided if he wanted to die now or later. He chose the latter. "W-We're from Urvenia!"

"Urvenia?" Narumi asked. "But that's on the other side of the world!"

The man kept talking. "We work for an assassin group there, we were ordered to lurk the outskirts of the city to wait until we found the princess outside of her palace!"

"And kill her?" Frost asked. "No! We were going to kidnap her and find out where the queen is hiding!"

"My sister..." Narumi said. "But why?"

The man groaned in pain.

Frost squeezed his head harder. "Talk."

"Alright! Alright! We were informed that Athena had a Saint's Blessing, the power to heal any illness or injury other than death! We were told to retrieve her!"

"Who put you up to this? What is the name?"

The man hesitated.

Frost squinted.

"It's the one who rules the country as the Shogun, Don-"

A pink curse mark enveloped the man's tongue and burst it.

The man started screaming in agony.

Frost let him go. The man started rolling on the ground. The curse mark appeared over the rest of his body. He was screaming. "Wo! Wo! I'm shorry! I had wo shoice!! I had wo shoice!! AHHHH!!!"

His body was completely obliterated. Only blood remained.

The rest of the assassins woke up and quickly ran away after seeing the stain.

"What did you do to him?!" Narumi asked in horror.

"I didn't do anything. Whoever hired him must've put a curse on him to secure secrecy. Anyone that says too much dies." He turned back towards the creek. "We should get moving."

Narumi nodded and led the way.

After another hour's worth of walking, they reached their destination.

"We're here!" she said happily.

Frost looked around. "It's just a barren wasteland. There's nothing here."

Narumi motioned for him to follow her.

Frost walked up to her.

Narumi put her hands on the ground. "Kodak Circle!"

The circle appeared on the ground underneath the both of them and started to spin.

The ground inside the circle moved, and went down like an elevator.

Frost looked up on their descent. "So the library is underground."

Narumi stood back up. "Yup! Only Kodak users can access it. It's the perfect location!"

Frost put his hands in his pockets and closed his eyes.

They went down for quite a while, then it stopped.

"This is it!" Narumi exclaimed. She flicked on a light switch.

Dim light panels lit up on the ceiling.

The floor was wooden, and there were rows and rows of bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling. There were thousands of books there.

"These are the First Order's archives. You can find texts here that are probably over a thousand years old! I'm going to look for what I came here for, you can do whatever you want." Narumi walked off into the rows of bookshelves.

Frost looked around. There were metal plates on each bookshelf that labeled the theme of each case. It was in alphabetical order from A to Z.

Frost went to the T labels. He found nothing. Then he moved to N. There it was.

Northern Territories, The.

An entire bookshelf dedicated to the country.

Frost looked over them, scanning the titles of each book. He picked up a book that showed all of the Northern Territories' cities and towns. He looked through it, reading just a little off each page.

Eventually he found a page that caught his eye.

An illustration that showed a city full of prisons and large facilities, with no houses, cars, or signs of life.

The title read, "*Illustration of North City, the Northern Territories' Military Stronghold".*

Frost put the book back and quickly scoured the shelves for a book on North City.

Then he found it. The only one on the shelf.

"*North City, The Impenetrable Fortress".*

Frost found a table with four chairs and sat down, eagerly reading the book, learning everything he could about the city.

North City, located at the northernmost part of the world, was a large area of land covered with prisons, camps, hospitals, mental asylums, military facilities, and various watchtowers.

It was known to be impenetrable. No one could get inside without permission, and the opposite was true as well.

The city had no real citizens.

Instead the city held thousands of prisoners and subjects, and over twice as many soldiers, guards, and doctors.

The city was ran by the country's general, General Zhao. Many things go on under his watch that would be considered unethical, or even illegal in some countries.

Narumi came over and found Frost deep in his book. "What's that? She looked down at the pages. North City? Why are you interested in that place?"

Frost stood up and put the book back in its place. "My homeland." He had a look on his face Narumi couldn't describe. His facial expression was calm, but his lips were so tense. And his eyes screamed rage and hatred, though at the same time they looked relaxed.

"I'll be waiting by the elevator." he said calmly.

Narumi watched him walk off. She looked at the book in her hand. "*The Myth of the Crimson Flame"* was the title.

She tucked it into her bag as she went to the elevator.

She and Frost stepped on.

Narumi put her hands to the ground. "Kodak Circle!"

The ground started moving upwards toward the surface.

Frost and Narumi started heading back.

When they reached the grass plains, Frost spoke for the first time since they left the library.

"I'm resigning from the Knights soon."

Narumi looked at him.

Frost looked sad. It's not an emotion she'd ever seen from him.

"Could you at least tell me why?"

"I'm going to take over the Northern Territories."

Narumi's eyes widened. "Take over? The entire country? By yourself?"

Frost nodded.

Narumi exhaled a huff of air. "Well, I can't stop you if you're resigning, but I hope you know what you're doing. We can't take you back if you become a rogue criminal, you know."

Frost nodded again. "I know. But it's something I have to do."

Narumi smiled at him.

Frost looked at her. "What?"

"I know most people don't understand you, but I just want you to know that you're pretty cool."

Frost almost let himself be surprised, he'd never heard those words from someone before. He smiled softly.

Narumi looked at him from the corner of her eyes. He had a gentle face when he smiled. It was pretty, she thought.

The next day a message was given to one of the guards at the entrance of Arbok City. It was a scroll.

He brought it to the royal palace for the princess to see.

She read the scroll and immediately called for the Omega Knights to come to her chamber.

The group was there in thirty minutes, no more.

Kyo looked around, there were about ten of them.

Ahsan was long retired, but Fujitora was always a familiar face.

"Where's Frost?" Kyo asked out loud.

Narumi waved her hand. "That's not important right now. We have a problem. A big one." She held up the scroll. "War has been declared on our country by a god."

Angered and concerned expressions went through the Knights.

"A god? What for? Who is it?" Kuro asked.

Narumi looked through the scroll once more. "Naesrio, God of Destruction it says. He's coming to destroy the First Order. All of you here today are Omegas. So I won't say too much, as I'm sure you already know what's at stake. I want all of the citizens on lockdown, including Delta and Gamma Knights. Be prepared."

The Knights left.

"Fujitora." Narumi called.

Fujitora stopped and turned around.

"Here." He was handed a piece of paper.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Those are all of the Gamma Knights who will become Beta rank effective immediately. We'll need all the help we can get."

Fujitora bowed. "I understand, your highness." He left.

Kyo, Kuro, Agaki, Maki, Tenma, and Ako stood in the meeting room, silent.

"A war, huh?" Kyo said. "It doesn't even feel real. Arbok had no tension with anyone other than the Seventh Order. It's so sudden."

Kuro was aggravated. "Tch, I wouldn't be surprised if the god in question *was* from the Seventh. It makes more sense."

Everyone nodded.

Frost walked in.

Kyo perked up. "Frost! Where were you? You missed everything."

Frost scanned the room and looked down. "I know. I was told already. A war is coming. But I came to let you all know that I resigned from the First Order."

Everyone was shocked.

"Resign? Why?" Maki asked.

"I'm going to the Northern Territories. I'm gonna conquer the country."

Agaki walked up to him with an annoyed face. "Hey Frost. What're you trying to pull? We need you more than ever right now. A war is among us. The entire country is at stake, and you're going to try and conquer the entire Northern Territories alone?! What's wrong with you?!!"

Frost looked him in the eyes. "I know. But it's something I have to do."

Agaki grabbed his shirt. "Frost!! The Northern Territories is our enemy!! We don't need to have them charging us while a war is going on!! Do you understand that?!! If you leave now then you're a traitor!!"

Frost knocked his hand away. "Then I guess that's what I'll be. But I'm doing this."

Kyo was concerned. "Agaki. Let him go. It's his choice."

Agaki's gaze never left Frost. "No. It's not. Fight me. Wastelands. Right now."

Frost turned around and left the building. "Meet me then, have it your way."