helage

Can you imagine? It was a nomadic city that hosted a theme park, department stores, and a park with a man-made lake.

And now, the core city has abandoned the city blocks that were destroyed by the Catastrophe. With ease, it abandoned everything built by the hands of countless generations.

Even the city itself has become a frightening vessel of some wicked conspiracy.

Chernobog was far from beautiful. Its factories polluted the skies.

But scores of innocent Ursus once lived there. Did anyone consider that? Did the ones responsible for instigating this conspiracy?

None of them ever did.

Anger has blinded them.

It has blinded everyone, ourselves included.

What I see now as I gaze upon Chernobog now is not a city. It is a violent machine, powered by the destruction of the livelihoods of countless men, a machine driven by ambition.

They abused the people's will to live. First, they took the right to live from the Infected. In the end, they even had to pry their will to live away from them.

Your clinic there...

The things that I built have been destroyed far too many times, but as long as Neon and the others are fine, then the bricks in the ruins will be the only destruction there is.

Neon is fine, and Rhodes Island can provide the treatment they need. This is the only source of satisfaction I have.

You've kept them from danger well. It would've been nigh impossible to evacuate them out of Chernobog after it was devastated by Reunion.

I merely wanted to keep them safe.

You cast aside your status as a military leader for that.

Yes... However, the land of Ursus chases me still.

Sometimes, when I lay my eyes upon Chernobog's ceaseless advance, I cannot tell whether Ursus is chasing me or leaving me behind.

You do not want to make an enemy of Ursus...

Even before its rotten body became engrossed in its endless onslaught, nothing in this world should have stood in Ursus's way.

I once dedicated my life to Ursus. War is a soldier's calling, and I fulfilled the duty that I once believed in.

Nonetheless... in the years since, I made it out of that swamp and gazed upon the lands I once lived in from a different perspective.

Just like you, Radiant Knight.

How will a Kazimierz, a Sami, a Lungmenite view the influences our past rulers have left on this world?

What do they think of Ursus's war?

You said you are yet to experience war. You are young, and you yet have the right to avoid these questions, but we all know the answers, deep in our hearts.

There is no answer to war, and war needs not an answer.

Violence cannot change anything...

Right... violence.

My fallen liege was the pride of Ursus. The aspiration that we once spent a lifetime chasing, in his words, all of Ursus was merely within arm's reach.

But did he ever truly see the citizens of Ursus as a part of Ursus itself?

Could he possibly...

Patriot is dead!

The Ursus spy is dead! He never believed in our cause, but Talulah will lead all Infected to victory!!

Let Talulah and her foolish guards know that she cannot bend the will of all that gather here!

Let them roar, and let them struggle. The traitors will be trampled and crushed by the shields of the enslaved. We will be as the mountains!

For the Captain! For... Patriot!

Patriot...? The Wendigo? Buldrokkas'tee?

He...

Patriot is dead!

Patriot is dead!

Wait...

The core city's command tower...

It's burning.

Hm...

Amiya... They...

This is just the beginning.

Reunion's leader is no mere Infected. Her strength and strategy are hardly her truest side. The colossal shadow hanging over Reunion is starting to bare its fangs.

We must be careful. Should their trickeries succeed, be it Rhodes Island, Lungmen, the Infected... No one will be able to escape this new torrent.

I can only imagine the enemy Amiya is now facing...

Rhodes Island's leader... She is far younger than you.

She is facing either the Infected rioters roused by Reunion, the person behind this all, or perhaps...

...It is possible that she and her friends will face Patriot.

Patriot.

Say his name. He is true to it—A pure-blooded Wendigo, an Ursus army man.

The leader of the Infected Guerrillas of the Northern Tundra, Buldrokkas'tee.

He will be the last obstacle between Rhodes Island and Reunion.

I heard about him during the emergency meeting. It's not often that Dr. Kal'tsit treats an enemy... a lone enemy with such caution...

He is worthy of her caution, for he is far more formidable an enemy than one can imagine.

Do you two know each other?

We are old army buddies, and he is a true soldier.

It has nothing to do with his blood, and it has even less to do with his accomplishments and rank.

—He is a Wendigo, yet he is called an Ursus. Do you find that surprising?

Not at all.

Our status and ideology should not be predetermined by our upbringing. This is something I've come to understand very well.

You seem to think Rhodes Island hardly stands a chance in this battle?

Not exactly...

Buldrokkas'tee could not escape the cage he drew for himself with his ideals... because of the ideals he believed in.

Rhodes Island chose to slay Talulah to fulfill its own objective. This is rash, but it is their only way to realize some kind of compromise.

But he is different. He became a symbol of the Infected and the rebels, and allowed it to expand.

Reunion is what it is because of him, and that is also why it will become his greatest weakness.

You mean...?

The Chernobog command tower rages into an inferno.

Hellagur gazes at the red-stained sky, not looking away for a moment.

There, he sees Ursus.

A true city.

A phantom that has ceased.

Fate has driven him into this dead end. He has long been aware, but he will never give in.

He will fight until the end.

And he will meet his fate.