"Warriors."
It was a term I was kind of familiar with from the fragmented accounts of the old world, but seeing the term codified in a System menu was a different experience entirely. These weren't just mercenaries or summoned spirits; they were the ghosts of extinct civilisations.
They were the remnants of races who had lost their worlds during their own versions of the apocalypse—those who had failed to establish even a single kingdom or empire before the timer ran out.
In the eyes of the System, if you couldn't build a state, you were doomed to be a failure. These billions of souls were gathered like chaff, stripped of their agency, and presented as mere goods to be sold at the Market.
According to the old man's words, he had left behind in the memory beads, the true goal of the Angels' constant time-rewinding was to manipulate human history until we, too, failed to establish any sovereign kingdom.
