I climbed up some hill and crouched down. Below, spread out like the palm of my hand, was a field, and on it—two armies. They stood there, drilling holes into each other with their stares, waiting for an excuse.

  It started. They moved toward each other. One side opened fire.

  BOOM! BOOM!

  Muskets. Loud, smoky, effective. People in the front rows fell like mown grass while those in the back reloaded. Magic flew back in response: fireballs, water whips, gusts of wind.

  "Total bore," I muttered.

  POP.

  I teleported right into the center of the action. Some man lunged at me with a scream, swinging a piece of iron. I lazily waved my hand—the dude was carried away by a gust of wind for about ten meters. A bullet clinked against my shoulder. My barrier didn't even flinch; it just spat the flattened lead into the mud.

  I held out my index finger. A tiny fireball began to gather around my nail. I started squeezing it with mana, compressing it into a white dot.

  PEW.

  The dot flew out and entered the thick of the attackers.

  KABOO-OO-OM!

  Every person within a six-meter radius simply ceased to exist. The rest were scattered by the shockwave like bowling pins.

  The other army, seeing this, screamed:

  "TO BATTLE! THIS IS OUR MOMENT! THE GODS ARE ON OUR SIDE!"

  I turned my head toward them.

  "Why are you so happy?" I asked the void.

  I pointed my finger in their direction. Another compressed ball.

  BOOM!

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  The same screams, the same soot, the same chaos.

  "HA-HA-HA!" I suddenly caught myself laughing.

  Why did this feel so good? Seeing their hysteria, this meaningless running, this fear in their eyes... It was damn pleasant. As if I had finally taken up something I was meant to do.

  A man emerged from the mess of bodies and smoke. He was covered in armor but had no weapon. He threw down his sword, took off his helmet, and raised his hands, showing he wasn't dangerous. A man, maybe thirty years old. He approached within five meters of me and froze, peering into my face.

  "Greg?" he whispered, his voice trembling. "Greg, is that you?"

  He started pointing at himself, a guilty but joyful smile spreading across his face.

  "It’s me! Tim... or Tom... Timo? You always mixed up my name, always forgot it... Remember? I was a little shepherd boy when we used to watch the clouds! And you... you haven't changed at all."

  I looked at him questioningly. Tim? Clouds? Shepherd?

  Déjà vu rushed into my head; my heart clenched. Who was he? It felt like I was supposed to remember something, but there was nothing. Like hitting a wall.

  At that moment, an arrow flew into the back of "Tim-Tom’s" head. It pierced through his skull and came out his forehead. He slumped into the mud like a dead sack.

  I saw that arrow flying. I saw its trajectory. I could have stopped it with a single snap. But I didn't.

  I blanked out.

  This guy had overloaded me with too much information. What "Greg"? I was told clearly in Hell—Zenhald. Who lied? Or did they both?

  There was no time to think. Someone’s fire projectile was already flying at me. I held out my palm and simply dispelled it into dust.

  "Alright, need to wrap this up," I grumbled. "Too much noise. Screaming and screaming."

  I crouched and touched the ground with my palm.

  CRACK.

  Deep fissures crawled across the field. Heat blasted out of them, and bright orange lava appeared. It began to splash out as if it were alive, grabbing people by their legs and dragging them down into the depths of the rifts.

  "Heh," I grimaced, listening to the intensified wails. "That just made it worse. Now they’re screaming even louder."

  A massive cannon (a mortar, for those who don't get it, but different) thundered in my direction. The shell flew past, kicking up a fountain of dirt.

  I raised my hand to the sky, clenching my fist. Mana pulled the clouds toward each other. Five minutes later, the sky turned black and an icy downpour collapsed onto the earth.

  When the ground beneath the armies turned into a squelching swamp, I touched the mud again. I sent a colossal discharge of voltage through my body.

  BZZZZZT!

  The entire field was flooded with sparks for an instant. The creatures began to twitch in convulsions, falling into the water. Those who managed to run toward the forest were overtaken by lightning bolts striking directly from the clouds.

  Silence returned. Only the sound of the rain and the smell of charred flesh.

  I stood in the middle of this cemetery and felt something purring contentedly inside me.

  I don't know why, but it was fun.

  "Greg or Zenhald..." I muttered, looking over the corpses. "What’s the difference."