Arphus frowned, "How unfortunate that is."
Then, he slowly adjusted his horse to move backwards after staring reluctantly into Alistair's determined eyes.
In a moment, the soldiers were already charging toward Alistair as he held his sword firm.
He clenched his jaw and prepared himself for the worst, ready to face whatever consequence came with this decision.
'If I Equalize with all of them, I might instantly end up dead. Then…'
Alistair looked to the left, counting a quarter of the army.
Blood dripped from the edge of his mouth, his eyes glowed yellow for a moment, and he felt his power increase.
Alistair raised his sword, heading left toward the quarter he'd Equalized with.
With little to no inaccuracy, he slashed through the stomachs of two soldiers at once, their blood splattering over his already dirtied armor.
Alistair saw a sword coming straight for his neck, but he noticed it just in time. He ducked and deflected the sword's tip with his forearm.
Taking advantage of this position, he swung his own sword and managed to pierce through the soldier's defenses.
The Equalizer granted Alistair raw power comparable to that of his opponents, but he knew it would eventually drain him.
Moreover, he was still outnumbered. If he conserved his energy by engaging only a quarter of the forces at a time, the outcome would still be the same as if he had faced the entire army.
He continued to fight his way through the vast numbers of soldiers surrounding him, the Equalizer granting him extraordinary strength.
The splattering blood of the soldiers continued to stain both the ground and Alistair's armor.
'If only I trained my Aspect… this would've ended a long time ago,' thought Alistair.
Alistair's eyes narrowed, feeling the bitterness of blood rushing up his throat.
He precisely turned, punching one of the men in the face while using the momentum with his sword to slash the other one's head clean off, leaving one.
At the same moment, Alistair plunged his sword through the man's heart.
Unfortunately, he couldn't contain the blood spilling out of his mouth, the pain intensifying twice more than before, making him grip his sword tightly.
As his guard was lowered for just a second, making his Equalizer drop to below a quarter of the army, a sword struck him from behind, while another made its way through his Rune Armor, and slashed his body.
His eye widened, and, before he was able to say anything, multiple people charged while shouting toward him, jumping at him while he was weakened.
Alas, Alistair fell to the ground while many people held each of his limbs as if he were no longer human.
They quickly enveloped him in chains, his consciousness fading out quickly while Equalizer dropped heavily.
He frowned as the blood continued to leak from his mouth, slowly dripping down his chin.
Alistair gazed up at the sky, unprepared to face prison and captivity once again.
"It's undeniable how impressive it is that you held out for this long. But I warned you, and look where you are now," Arphus said.
Alistair slowly shifted his gaze to Arphus with his right eye. More than being disappointed, he hated something more.
He loathed betrayals. Nothing in the world angered him more than that.
"When I break these chains, I will ensure the destruction of your entire garrison. And after I'm done with your garrison, I'll make sure the entire Oasis of Grain suffers for the atrocity you've committed against me for being from Thorne."
Alistair continued, silencing the entire field, "If you think an illusory Aspect like yours can rot my mind, you're mistaken. If you don't kill me here, it will be your gravest mistake."
In his mind, only two words repeated continuously:
'Lost cause.'
Arphus opened his mouth, thinking carefully of what to say.
"I'm only following orders," Arphus said lowly.
He held Alistair's gaze for a moment longer than necessary, something moving behind his eyes that wasn't guilt exactly, but wasn't nothing either.
A man who had made his choice and was looking at its consequences and had decided the consequences were acceptable.
Eventually, he just chuckled nervously without bothering to say more than he had already to the chained Alistair.
Arphus turned, leaving Alistair behind to be used as an advantage in the politics of Thorne and Therasia.
What lay in front of him were only the hundreds of soldiers, still in position awaiting commands.
Arphus adopted a serious expression, raising his hand. Just as he was about to send the signal, a peculiar smell filled the air, spreading even faster than the odor of the dead bodies.
Before he could say anything, the temperature in the air rose sharply.
Suddenly, in the distance, a large portion of the army exploded, scattering debris everywhere, with some pieces of their bodies propelled into the air.
Arphus gasped, "We're under attack! Into positions!"
Alistair, who was observing from behind, remained silent, making himself oblivious to what was happening.
The five men restraining Alistair moved slowly toward the city gate, navigating through charging soldiers coming from all sides of the large battlefield.
After a few moments, they managed to drag him to the gate.
Just as they were about to pass through, multiple arrows shot out from small holes in every direction, piercing through their skulls with incredible speed.
They were more like placed shots, each one through a specific gap in the armor, each one from a hole that hadn't existed in that wall this morning. Someone had to have prepared this.
Someone had been inside Therasia's walls before the battle started, before Alistair had even crossed the bridge, and had known exactly where he would be dragged and exactly when.
A strange, calming voice suddenly called out, "Now! Go, quick!"
A man dashed forward from the shadows near the gate.
He wore a dark blue coat, white lines running along its edges and a symbol on his shirt barely visible beneath the coat's open front.
He reached Alistair without breaking stride and hurled a bottle against his armor, allowing it to shatter, the liquid inside dissolving into him instantly.
Alistair widened his eyes as he felt all his energy returning, almost as if he were being reborn.
It was a strange sensation, yet it felt so good that Alistair found himself speechless, unable to think or say anything.
He looked up at the figure standing over him. Alistair tried to read his Characteristic, only to be shocked.
It was just not there, absent, the way Glory had been absent, the way something trained specifically not to be read would be absent.
'I've only encountered that once before.'
Another explosion rang out, causing the man to raise his eyebrows slightly.
"Time to go. This will make sense later," he said, his expression indifferent.
Alistair felt his back tighten, and he quickly rose to his feet.
But by the time he stood, the man was already gone. Alistair couldn't trace footsteps fading, no figure disappearing around a corner. He was just.., gone.
Alistair stood at the gate's threshold and stared at the space where he'd been.
'Who plans something like this? Who puts arrows in a wall before a battle starts and then disappears without waiting to be thanked?'
He quickly examined his surroundings. The arrow holes in the wall, the fallen soldier, and the chaos of the battlefield beyond.
Stepping outside, he realized the sun had already set.
The soldiers of Therasia appeared completely disoriented, unsure of who their enemy was or the source of the explosions.
In contrast, Alistair focused his thoughts and examined the area.
Looking up, he noticed an unusual amount of Core Characteristic energy leaking from the sky.
He spotted a man with grey wings flying overhead, moving north, unhurried, already at the edge of his scan range and getting further.
Whoever it was, they weren't fleeing, but they were leaving.
One of the soldiers recognized Alistair and shouted to alert the others.
Alistair took a deep breath, pushing aside everything he didn't have answers to yet.
Without exhaling, he summoned his Rune Sword and Equalized with five hundred soldiers of Therasia simultaneously.
As he combined that with his own accumulated raw power, something extraordinary occurred in his mind.
Alistair's yellow eyes flickered, and words flowed from his mouth almost unconsciously:
"Open: Convergent Domain Mode."