During the brief ceasefire, a deeper despair and a darker curse seemed to gather silently over the ancient battlefield.
Duke and Vivian had rested properly over those three days. They had barely had a chance to sleep during the fighting.
Even so, they had it easy compared with the Indigenous Coalition across the lines.
At least they had enough personnel. No one had to hold the same post for three days and nights without a chance to close their eyes.
Duke had learned a great deal from this war. The battles between Apostles and the Sages' terrifying power over the rules of reality had broadened his horizons, giving him a clearer sense of what power at a higher level meant.
He understood more clearly, too, how a war on this scale could reveal both the insignificance and the greatness of individual strength.
Insignificant before the tide, immense at the pinnacle.
In a Plane War, one person's strength could mean very little. Yet it could also mean everything.
If the Devourer Plane had possessed a Level 6 Lifeform, the course of the war might have been entirely different.
The Allied Legion, at least, could not have advanced with such abandon. But the Devourer Plane had no one of that caliber. Even a Fourth-Level Sage like Malagon had been left with no choice but to accept Ocevia's terms.
When an individual was weak, they weighed no more than a feather in a war.
But someone strong enough could decide the fate of two planes.
The three days passed in the blink of an eye.
As the first light of dawn cut like a cold blade through the smoke and thin mist of death above the Weeping Blood Plain, the fragile ceasefire expired.
The air felt heavy enough to wring water from it.