> DOMINUS SOLIS ITERUM VOCAT!
(The Lord of the Sun calls again!)
> EX TENEBRIS BELLUM SURGIT ET ROGAT!
(From the darkness, war rises and hungers!)
> PER SANGUINEM SACRUM ITER RENOVAT!
(Through sacred blood, he renews the way!)
> AD ATEN CONCURRIMUS, FIDE FIRMAT!
(To ATEN we hasten, powered by faith!)
Adam listened to the powerful prayer, chanted by echoing angelic voices, just as she stepped out of the light.
It was different from any normal summon; it was something Adam had experienced perhaps once before, and only by accident.
A Heroic Summon!
Every ounce of information and knowledge about this summon was directly pulled from his brain: dense lore articles, video game adaptations, a dozen trivia lines, and one short film. All of this knowledge was attributed to one character: Solana of Aten-Sor.
Solana's slender, armored high heels descended onto the hard surface, a black silhouette stepping out of a light rift clad in all black, reflecting not a hint of the light enveloping her.
And just as the portal faded, the darkness enveloped everything, embracing the few characters of this scene in a silent standoff that wasn't broken until the Heroic Warrior Nun scanned everyone with her eyes.
She then spoke:
"Ave Systema Solis! Ave Stella Divina!"
Facing her, Adam and Creed spoke in unison:
"Ave Imperator!"
As Adam's vision started to adjust to the darkness enveloping the Boot Camp building, he could finally see his newest summon standing tall in a form-fitting armor merged with a nun's garment, a hood, and a metallic mask covering the lower half of her face, which she proceeded to remove.
A translucent barrier that had enveloped her stopped its electric buzz as she stood in front of the Paladin.
"Brother Creed, is that you?" Her voice spoke hoarsely after removing her LSU mask that normal humans would be required to wear in the void of space, the worlds under incursion, and the bowels of hell.
"Sister Solana." Captain Creed spoke with a firm voice, scanning the woman beside whom he had once fought, a strange feeling rising in his chest.
"It is strange seeing you… in the flesh… I mean." She spoke, and a frown appeared on her face, "Praised be Sol Imperius for the blessing of meeting you, blessed brother. May his fragment within you shine ever brighter."
"Thank you, sister." Creed shared her feeling, but still couldn't explain it, so he nodded in response to her religious greeting.
"You two have met before, despite the different eras you came from." It was then that Adam spoke, "You fought side by side at the Blood Arena in the Hell Circle of Andras."
Adam's words triggered a strange surprise in the faces of both the Star Paladin and the Warrior Nun as they turned to him with deep frowns, struggling to comprehend the meaning of memories that didn't make sense to them.
"This citizen is speaking of matters no normal man should be aware of. Has heresy seeded so deeply in this place?" The Nun spoke, reaching for the hilt of the sword and the grip of the slugger by her sides.
"Stay your hand, sister. You are addressing Commander Adam Clay, the only recognized Solarium Commander on this world." Captain Creed spoke and gestured to Adam, "His knowledge runs deeper than most Urdic Archivists, and I can vouch for his loyalty to Sol Imperius."
The Nun froze mid-action as she heard that and looked at Adam with surprised eyes.
"For a Star Paladin to sing the praises of a Civilian Commander is something I have seldom witnessed," Solana spoke and walked up to Adam, standing a head taller than him, "But what was that you spoke of, regarding us being ages apart?"
Adam was somewhat intimidated by his newest summon as she was brought to the world with an ego far stronger than what he could control, just like Captain Creed. Unlike the Men-at-Arms, whose names weren't established much in the lore, heroic summons do not seem to recognize Adam as the Commander right away, so it was a good idea to bring Captain Creed along for this summoning.
As for her query, Adam found it difficult to explain. The Blood Arena is the name of a fighting Colosseum in the Circle of Hell that belonged to Andras, the Hell Prince of Murder, Slaughter, and Betrayal. It is also the title of one of Wartopia's installments that happened to be a Card Game, drawing many heroes from the Solarium's history in one dimension by the power of Andras, as well as from many other game factions.
Basically, it was a Gwent, but it was part of the non-canon lore, as Solana preceded Creed by no less than 2,000 years. However, since Adam had knowledge that Solana and Creed had met in some sort of a spacetime rift and had shared a cinematic trailer where they fought back to back against Chaosaders, this knowledge bled into their memories, just as he could input homebrew lore into his new summons' backgrounds.
To explain all that, Adam decided to overwhelm the two heroic characters with meta-lore and fanon theories until they just gave up and accepted it. But it was far from over, as Adam still had many summons in his toolbox.
As the Star Paladin and the Warrior Nun took his side, Adam used his rune once again, feeling the draw of power as he summoned yet another heroic character. However, this one wasn't a paladin or famed nun, but rather a minor hero.
"Sheriff Brya Vigil of the Lawmen, I kneel before the Angel of the Emperor."
Right as the light rift opened and closed, a middle-aged, lean, tan-skinned woman, with gray hair and enough scars to traumatize a dermatologist, knelt before Captain Creed.
"Rise, Sheriff of the Lawmen." Captain Creed spoke and introduced both Adam and Solana.
Unlike the black armor-clad warrior nun, the female Lawman Sheriff was dressed like an old west law enforcer: a cowboy hat, twin Blazer revolvers, an electromagnetic lasher that can act as both a whip and a baton, a Lawman lasso that can catch almost anything, a pair of Lawman aviators with their own high-tech interface that helps a Lawman identify offenders, and finally, a glowing badge of the Lawmen, one of the most powerful tools in a Lawman's arsenal.
In Adam's eyes, the Lawman Sheriff was a walking high-tech security officer who would become the seed of his law enforcement force to manage his new vision of a rebuilt civilization.
With Sister Solana and Brya Vigil summoned, Adam proceeded to summon the remaining troops, ranging from Urdmen Men-at-Arms, Lunar Engineers, Venuxian Troopers, Martian Hunters, and Astrodite Nauts, among others. However, he would collapse after summoning seven in succession and would need an hour of rest before proceeding to summon more.
As he spent the entire night and into the next morning summoning and collapsing, Adam ended up summoning all twenty-two miniatures he had, the last of which was a vehicle that drained him in a second.
——————————
> PERSONNEL (53)
— SERFS — 1
— RECRUITS — 10
— LAWMEN — 1
— MEN-AT-ARMS — 38
— SCRIPT MONKS — 1
— STAR PALADINS — 1
— COMMANDER — 1
> VEHICLES (2)
— CONSTRUCTION CRAWLER — 1
— WAR BUG — 1
——————————
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
"If I were to guess, I think the Commander has a thing for Kave, and all of us female, single summons are somewhat attracted to him." (Elena)
"Somehow, I am inclined to believe you." (Megan)
"Right? But… I was here first, I claimed him as my skinward. Why do I have to compete over him with a half-grilled Fanatic, a long-legged Warrior Nun, and a cougar Lawman Sheriff?" (Elena)
"Maybe he lives in a story titled: A Harem-seeking Japanese Protagonist who dates all the soldier girls his best friends summon in a post-apocalyptic world." Yuki said, and as the two glanced at her, she shrugged, "What? I read manga."
In the center of the camp, Kave was made to sit on his knees in the middle of the snow. A shrine of Sol Imperius was erected in the construction area where the Script Monastery would be built, and Sister Solana was standing over him, picking up dirt and ash from the ground and putting them on his head.
"With earth and ash, I sanctify you from the fossil filth of this world. May the blessings of the Holy Sun touch your skin, may its divine energy seep into your soul, may the cold of this world never bother you in any way."
"Praise the Sun, brother recruit!" Sitting beside him, Flint the Fanatic seemed to have joined the ceremony.
"SORU IMPERIASSU! BANZAI!" Kave raised his arms apart while facing the sun, basking in its holy glory, while taking more dirt on his head and face.
"He's enjoying it, the fucker!" Elena gritted her teeth as her mechanical hand clenched audibly, and the Blazer circuit within it started to glow red. "He thinks she can make the sun's holy light shine through him? Heh! I'll show him how I can make the sun shine where it's not supposed to… in the dead of night."
With that, Elena stomped away, huffing and puffing, no longer waiting for Kave to finish up.
"It is a hilarious joke by normal standards…" Yuki said and turned to Megan, who wore a dread-filled expression, "… But I guess you must ask your boyfriend to resolve it before she takes it literally."
"Thanks, Yuki. Big help!"
Megan replied impatiently before striding in the other direction and going up the stairs of the Command Center. She found Adam in the room with three of the newly summoned Men-at-Arms, as he was instructing them on how to handle the terminals throughout the Command Center, creating a new unit that would solely focus on the operation of the Command Center.
"You need to put a stop to this thing with Kave." Megan spoke to him the moment she walked towards him.
"What thing?" Adam asked.
"Your female summons are all obsessed with him." She said, before getting closer to him, "You're not doing that personality manipulation?"
"No!" Adam made a revolted face, "Or at least I try not to do it on purpose. Painting minis and not thinking of how they turn out to be personality-wise is borderline psychotic… even now that I am aware of it."
"Fuck!" Megan let out a sigh, "Elena is going to tan his hide if you don't do anything."
"Look. Unless I start making female summons to be set as lovers to other male summons, this thing may keep happening. I don't know. It mostly didn't happen with Biscuits because Elena told me beforehand that she had a thing going on with Hammerhead before I summoned them."
"Oh!" Megan raised her brows and looked confused, "But you said that Elena may have gotten attracted to Kave because you two were joking around about her having a dommy mommy personality when you were painting her miniature, right? So why is it replicating with everyone else?"
"Well…" Adam thought for a while before throwing his best guess, "In the grim darkness of the far future, there were no femboys… maybe."
"Wasn't Sol Imperius a…"
Megan was about to say something completely heretical, but Adam clamped a hand over her mouth almost instantly.
"They don't need to know what we know." Adam's tone turned dangerous, "If they knew…"
Megan looked at Adam for a few seconds before nodding in agreement. Such knowledge must not leave the heretical codex known as the Black Chronicles.
The two shared a laugh about it, knowing that there was indeed something mysterious brewing around Kave's attractiveness that seemed to have bloomed among the summons, and Adam wasn't one to block his bro's good fortune. But he had more matters occupying his mind at the moment.
"Before I could convince Solana to baptize Kave into the Solar Dogma, I was showing her my Sacred Code optimization," Adam said as he approached his workbench.
"Trying to impress another girl, city boy?" Megan joined her arms, giving Adam the stare.
Adam shrugged it off and continued: "She told me that the Sacred Code needs trimming and sanctification, especially in Benchy's case."
"It's developing AI, huh?" Megan looked at him, her eyes wide as she speculated.
"Yep. I suspect it was the one that painted the minis for me." Adam confirmed and looked at his workbench with a strange feeling. "It did such a good job, and instead of developing it, I have to trim it back to basic function. Can you believe it?"
"You don't have to, do you?" Megan tilted her head.
"I'd be lying if I said yes. We all know how the AI of Wartopia transforms from Sacred Code to Malcode without trimming newly added protocols. The outcome is 100% random." Adam replied.
"Knowing zealot characters like Sister Solana, she should have trimmed it herself. She's still a Script Nun." Megan noted and asked, "Why didn't she do it right away?"
"Because I distracted her with Kave's desire to convert to the Solar Dogma." Adam said with a mischievous grin.
"You fucker!" Megan punched him, yet chuckled at his move.
"And she said something else." Adam took in a deep breath before revealing, "She said that the Sacred Code we have is not a normal Sacred Code."
"No Sacred Code is normal code, right?"
"Yes, but this one is unique." Adam continued, "Remember the in-lore argument about the idea of the Sacred Code being a manifestation of the will of Sol Imperius, or some sort of spirit that is an incarnation of him?"
"I do, but we all know that Wartopia in-game theories are all half-truths that can simultaneously be correct." Megan argued.
"Solana and I had the same discussion an hour ago, and she said something pretty interesting." Adam said and sat on his chair, "Every Solarium computer network environment has a Sacred Code of its own, something like a Hive Mind that shares processing power across all devices. All these codes develop individually as Adaptive Interpreters. However, according to Solana, all the Sacred Codes we have across the many closed networks are developing in a singular pattern despite being individually independent from one another."
"You're losing me, stepbro." Megan said with a confused voice.
"Each individual Sacred Code network is a mind of its own, and these minds form personalities that have one objective in mind: Obey the Commander." Adam revealed.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
Check Patreon for more content, Discord for spoilers and chat. [CLICK HERE](https://bio.link/donovel)