Hours later, Malik stood in front of a stronghold.
It didn’t look all that special to the colorblind. Just another big fortress dug into the side of a canyon, like a lot of the ones he’d passed—stone walls, heavy gates, towers poking out like teeth.
But to a man who could see color?
They’d see that this one had something unique.
Everything was yellow.
Though, not Shamsshine yellow or anything pretty—more like piss-stained yellow.
Now he knew why they called it Al-Saffra; it was quite fitting.
He first figured someone had painted it that way for some dumb symbolic reason.
But no—by the looks of things, the ore in the canyon walls had been the cause.
The same hue was baked into the damn rock.
It was almost ridiculous.
Even the banners looked like they’d been soaking in turmeric for a week.
Well, besides that ridiculous-looking oddity, from what he was told, this place was stacked.
The ‘rebels’ had numbers. And not just foot soldiers—they had real defenses.
Runes, traps, the whole works.
This wasn’t the kind of place one could just walk up to and knock politely.
A straight-up charge would’ve been suicide. They’d have gotten chewed up at the gates.
So, yeah—they didn’t do that.
Instead, one of the other Jinn—Malik didn’t ask which one, maybe the tall bastard with the scar across his lip—had taken a chunk of the forces and looped around through the cliffs.
Slipped through narrow passes and then hit the supply lines from the back.
Smart move.
They tore through caravans, flipped carts, and torched stockpiles. Set fire to anything that looked remotely useful. Food, weapons, medical crates—they lit it all up like a bonfire party.
By the time the ‘rebels’ up in Al-Saffra realized what was happening, it was already too late.
Supplies? Gone. Backup? Cut off. Rations? Up in flames.
They were stuck in their pretty yellow cage with nothing but panic and smoke to chew on.
That was when the real pressure came.
The front force didn’t stop.
They slammed into the gates, hammering away with everything they had. Kept the enemy distracted, scrambling, trying to hold the line while their stomachs started to growl and their water ran dry.
It became another waiting game.
Starve ’em, stretch ’em thin, then crush ’em.
If things had kept as is, they’d have eventually won it.
But there was a high chance reinforcements would still make their way through.
The enemy Jinn would make sure of that.
Which was why Malik was called upon.
And, unlike them, he…
He didn’t need to wait.
Like those two had said, there was no one to counter him.
Malik was unchained, and the poor ‘rebels’ would soon figure out what that entailed for themselves.
He walked to the front of the fortress like he owned the place.
The front line parted for him without a word.
The soldiers didn’t even ask what he was doing—they just knew.
This was his show now.
He stopped a few feet from the giant gate, took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders once… And then the flames came.
His Aether flared out like a wildfire hungry for oxygen, and within seconds, the air itself began to burn.
Malik raised a hand—his left—and aimed forward.
BOOM!
Fire slammed into the wood and metal, sending shrapnel everywhere.
The heat was so intense the hinges melted, the beams warped and cracked like brittle bones.
One second, it was a fortress gate. The next, it was a funeral pyre.
After that?
He walked through it.
Didn’t wait for it to cool. Didn’t care about the smoke or ash or screaming that followed.
Malik just strolled through the flames, sword in one hand, fire dancing in the other.
The ‘rebels’ inside panicked.
One might think maybe a few of them would have tried to be heroes, hold their ground, make a last stand, or whatever. But no. They saw him and ran. All of them. Screaming, stumbling, dropping weapons, shoving each other out the way.
Some even pissed themselves—he could smell it.
A few tried to shoot. Didn’t matter. Nothing hit.
Either the heat warped their aim or Malik just moved too damn fast.
He cut down anyone who was too slow to run.
One slash, ten bodies.
Some didn’t even get that far—just caught in the wave of fire and crumpled where they stood, skin blistering before they could scream.
By the time he reached the command tent at the center, their war table, the place was empty, scrolls scattered, maps half-burned on the table.
Whoever had been leading this place had run the second they saw him coming.
Cowards. All of them.
Malik stepped out onto the fortress walls, now half-melted from the heat, and looked down at the chaos below.
Fires everywhere.
Smoke choking the air.
‘Rebels’ scattered like ants after someone kicked their hill.
Below him, the soldiers finally came charging in, with fire in their eyes, literally in a sense.
They saw what Malik had done, saw the path he’d carved, and followed it like a prophecy.
They stormed the place, cutting down the stragglers, dragging down the ‘rebels’ trying to hide or surrender.
The whole fortress fell in under an hour.
And just like that, Al-Saffra was retaken.
The enemy Jinn could do nothing about it.
Malik didn’t celebrate.
He just stood there, watching it all burn.
….
The war ground on.
Village after village. Stronghold after stronghold. It all started to blur together.
Every fight was different—different terrain, different resistance, different tactics—but the outcome was always the same. The ‘rebels’ lost ground. Their supplies were further cut. Their people ran out of places to hide.
That was the strategy.
Forcing them to fight on the militia’s terms.
No open battles, no duels of honor. Just a crushing, inevitable collapse.
And through it all, the Jinn circled each other.
Again, they didn’t care about the struggles of men. Of mortals.
They only watched each other, waiting for the right moment to strike.
One wrong move. One opening.
That was all it took.
Then there were the Speakers.
They came in on a random morning, dressed in dark green robes, their faces hidden behind plague doctor masks stuffed with flowers to drown out the stench of blood and rot.
They moved through battlefields, tending to the wounded from both sides, untouched, untouchable.
No one harmed them.
No one was allowed to harm them.
Didn’t matter if they were healing your enemy. If you so much as lifted a blade toward them, your own people would cut you down where you stood.
Their presence changed things.
It meant the war was no longer some southern skirmish.
It was becoming something bigger.
Something that couldn’t be ignored, not even by the West.
And despite Malik’s dominance, it wasn’t over. Not yet.
So, he continued to fight. Again and again.
With him in the fold, every attack had succeeded.
Again, he wasn’t just another soldier. He was a Jinn, and even though he hadn’t always been a part of the charge, his presence alone shifted the balance.
The enemy Jinn could not touch him, not without dying at least.
Malik made them hesitate. Made them cautious. And in war, hesitation was death.
The militia’s biggest major victory came at the Battle of Al-Sayir, a crucial outpost the ‘rebels’ had fortified.
Nasir’s generals wanted a direct assault, but Malik saw the flaws in their approach.
He convinced them to feint an attack at dawn, drawing the enemy Jinn into battle while the main force circled around and struck.
It worked.
The enemy Jinn engaged, and without their support, the ‘rebel’ soldiers split under a double-bladed curved sword.
That night, the fires of Al-Sayir burned high, a beacon of Nasir’s growing dominance.
From there, it was a fast push.
Every step forward cost blood, but Nasir’s forces had every advantage now.
The ‘rebels’ kept fighting like cornered wolves, but they were losing ground fast.
Their Jinn… one by one, had fallen, hunted by Malik.
He became known as their butcher.
A Devil Cloaked In Fire.
Still, despite everything, the war dragged on.
And Malik was injured more times than he cared to count.
A stray spell here, a blade in the ribs there, once even crushed beneath a collapsing tower.
Each time, he came out alive and continued on his path of fire and blood, until eventually…
The final day arrived.
It was when they reached the villages much further east.
There, the ‘rebels’ revealed their final hand.
A stronghold bigger than any that had come before it.
He didn’t know how their people hadn’t seen it earlier, as its gate rivaled the city’s, but he could guess that it was under a camouflage spell of some sort.
It was quite a beaut, reflecting the early morning light.
The place even had one of the biggest mosques he’d seen in the south.
Malik stood atop a dune, looking at it.
The beast lay straight ahead, massive and still. Waiting.
He exhaled, gripping his Spine Splitter tighter.
This was it.
Inside, the last of the ‘rebel’ forces gathered, ready to make their final stand.
Their war would end today, whether in victory or defeat.
Malik jumped, landing just before his platoon, placing his curved sword on his shoulder.
He could hear the murmurs of the soldiers behind him, anticipation thick in the air.
They all thought that this was over. Just one last push.
Malik thought the same… but…
He really didn’t see anything to make him think otherwise.
Really. But still, he knew things could never be this simple.
There had to be a twist or an addition; he just didn’t see it yet.
In any case, Malik didn’t say anything. Didn’t break the rhythm.
He just tucked the feeling away, deep down where fear lived.
This wasn’t the time for doubts.
It was beginning.
Far ahead, Nasir rose into the air, a platform of earth beneath his feet.
His blue eyes surveyed the fortress for a moment, then turned to his men.
His yellow cloak billowed in the wind.
“Men.”
When he spoke, his voice carried across the ranks, clear as could be.
“This is no time for speeches. It’s time for action.”
Nasir turned back around to face the fortress.
“We have driven the rats back to their hiding holes…”
His body lowered, legs taking a stance.
“Now, they only need be exterminated.”
He jumped.
“LET US BRING AN END TO THIS!”
Then, from somewhere in the ranks, Duban’s voice called out:
“CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!”