The opposing tribe was their complete opposite. They wore armor of ice so dense that it was nearly black, their skin pale as snow and their breath visible in freezing clouds.
They too were powerful, their warriors perfectly matched with the fire tribe.
The battle was fierce. Fire met ice in explosive clashes, creating bursts of steam and energy. Warriors fell on both sides, their bodies either frozen solid or reduced to ash. The ground between the two forces was scorched and cracked on one side, frozen and shattered on the other.
"They're human," Seraphine whispered, shocked beyond belief. "I didn't expect to see humans in Arenath. I thought only monsters survived here."
"Humanity adapts," Julian said. "In harsh enough environments, humans can become as dangerous as any monster. Perhaps more so, because they retain intelligence while gaining power."
As they watched, the battle intensified. The fire tribe's chieftain—a massive man easily seven feet tall—charged forward. He swung a greatsword of pure fire, the blade leaving a trail of heated air.
The ice tribe's leader met him—a woman of similar stature, her armor so cold it seemed to freeze the air around her. She wielded a spear of black ice that radiated freezing energy. The two clashed in an explosion, their power creating a shockwave that knocked weaker warriors off their feet.
Then one of the ice tribe warriors noticed the four floating observers.
He was a scout or lookout of some kind, positioned on higher ground. His eyes tracked upward, following some instinct, and locked onto Julian and his daughters hovering above them.
His eyes widened. He shouted something in a language that sounded strange, pointing up at them.
Immediately, dozens of faces turned skyward. The battle didn't stop—the warriors were too committed to pull back—but a significant portion of both tribes noticed the observers.
"Father..." Cassandra's voice carried warning. "They see us."
"They do," Julian confirmed calmly.
What happened next surprised all of them.
Without any apparent signal or coordination, warriors from both tribes stopped fighting each other. Fire and ice, enemies moments ago, turned their attention to a common target—the unknown observers above them.
"They're treating us as a threat," Lyanna said, her hand instinctively moving toward where her sword would be if she'd brought it.
"They're treating us as prey," Julian corrected. "Or perhaps as a prize. In Arenath, anything unusual is either a threat to be eliminated or a resource to be claimed."
The fire tribe struck first.
Twenty warriors simultaneously launched attacks—fireballs, streams of flame, explosive bursts of fire all hurling upward toward the four floating figures. The attacks were coordinated and quickly combined to create a single powerful move.
At the same instant, the ice tribe fired their own attack—ice spears, freezing beams.
The combined assault from both tribes was impressive, easily enough to destroy a small mountain.
Julian didn't move. He simply raised one hand.
Every single attack—fire and ice, dozens of different techniques representing the full might of several hundred Mages and warriors—stopped dead in the air. They hung there, frozen in place, hovering harmlessly about fifty feet below Julian and his daughters.
The warriors below stared in shock, unable to comprehend what they were seeing.
Then Julian closed his fist.
Every attack vanished instantly, simply ceasing to exist.
"Impossible..." Seraphine whispered, her eyes going wide.
She could feel the power Julian had just casually wielded, and it was so far beyond her own capabilities that she couldn't even properly measure it.
The warriors below had a similar reaction. Shock turned to fear. Several of the weaker ones began backing away. But their leaders—driven by pride, desperation, or perhaps stupidity—didn't retreat.
The fire chieftain roared something that was clearly a command. His entire tribe responded, channeling their power together. Their bodies blazed brighter, their flames merging into a collective aura. Then, with synchronized motion, they launched a combined attack—a massive pillar of fire that shot upward like a volcanic eruption.
It was easily hundred feet wide and burning at temperatures that could melt stone instantly.
The ice tribe's response was similar. Their chieftain raised her spear, and her warriors focused their power through her. Ice formed in the air—thousands of razor-sharp shards, each one as large as a sword—and launched upward in a deadly storm that could shred anything in its path.
The two attacks converged on Julian's position.
Julian's expression however didn't change. He looked almost bored.
He snapped his fingers.
The sound was soft, barely audible. But the effect was catastrophic.
The fire pillar reversed direction instantly, turning back on itself. It crashed down onto the fire tribe with devastating force. Warriors screamed as their own attack consumed them, their bodies unable to resist the concentrated power they'd created together. The flames were so intense that they didn't just kill—they obliterated. Bodies turned to ash in seconds, armor melted like wax, the ground beneath them turned to glass.
Simultaneously, the ice storm reversed as well. Thousands of razor-sharp shards plummeted back down onto the ice tribe. The warriors tried to defend, tried to stop their own attack, but it was futile. The shards tore through armor and flesh with equal ease. Bodies were shredded, frozen solid, then shattered into fragments.
The slaughter was absolute and instant.
Within five seconds, the entire battlefield was silent.
Of the several hundred warriors who had been fighting moments ago, none remained alive. The fire tribe's section of the battlefield was scorched and glassed, still glowing with residual heat. The ice tribe's area was a frozen wasteland of shattered bodies and blood-ice.
Both chieftains—the powerful leaders who had been approaching Early-Demi God level—were simply gone. Erased so completely there wasn't even a body to mark where they'd stood.
Julian lowered his hand, his expression still calm and composed. "The first rule of Arenath," he said conversationally, as if he hadn't just casually annihilated hundreds of powerful warriors, "is to accurately assess threats before attacking. They failed to do so."
His three daughters stared at him in absolute shock, then at the devastation below, then back at him.