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| ===Prologue - The Worldwalkers' Treatise / A Matter of Faith===
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| The signs were ominous.
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| All along the snowy coasts of the Skagen Peninsula, the wintry winds could only be felt blowing north. Low clouds tinged by icy blue followed in the wake of crying gales, shedding soft flakes across the horizon for cover as they made a hasty retreat to the sea.
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| Even the weather could sense the turning tides of war.
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| Though despite the cold front of general withdraw, a single line streaked south across the shrouded skies. The oppressive veil of lower clouds concealed the sight to all but a few faithful, yet none hesitated before bowing down in reverence and prayer for their moment of deliverance.
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| A miracle... to save their people -- the proud Hyperboreans who sought nothing more than upholding their dignity in the ancient, promised lands.
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| Thousands of paces above ground, the pressurized bubble of ether and air blew apart yet another airy cloud. Leaving behind shockwaves of an expanding sonic boom, the figure within continued his journey forth at speeds beyond the fragility of mortal men.
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| But on this day, prayers of intervention were not meant to be.
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| "<u>Where do you think you're going?</u>" a tranquil, feminine voice laced with holy serenity pierced straight into the turbulent mind of the ''Stormlord''.
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| The breakneck flyer instantly banked into a spiraling ascent. The brutish figure climbed through the icy air as he decelerated from his godly speed. Clad in hard leather and unwavering chainmail, his bulging arms effortlessly spun the static-charged greathammer into a readying stance.
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| The warrior had yet to see the speaker who interrupted him, but even without it he could identify the immaculate voice that entered his thoughts.
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| "YOU!" his thunderous boom burst outwards with enough pressure to shatter air.
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| "SHOW YOURSELF!"
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| The highest clouds parted to let forth a beam of the purest light. Descending from the heavens was a woman of not mere beauty but unearthly grace. Loose fabrics hanging from white robes of silk and long strands of silver hair billowed all around her thin figure, as though a sacred spirit untouchable to the soaring winds.
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| "Yes, me," she spoke calmly as her hand raised its only 'armament' -- a willow branch no longer than a single pace.
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| "It's been four hundred years, Sigurd. Not even a kind greeting for a once companion of the battlefield?"
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| "You have too many names," the man identified as Sigurd scoffed back through his thick, bushy beard. "How am I supposed to remember which one to use?"
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| "Are you no different? Siegfried? Perun? Taranis? Perkūnas? Thor?"
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| Despite her challenging words, the white lady revealed no more than warm eyes and a calming smile as she gently propped her willow branch against the other arm.
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| "A name means little to those of us who travel worlds," her voice flowed on, crisp as the gentle mountain stream. "Only Peter remained steadfast in holding onto his mortal identity."
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| "I'll settle for I can actually pronounce then, ''Kannon''," Sigurd growled back, never letting down his guard for one second.
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| "Did the others send you to stop me?"
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| "No," Kannon's gaze held unwavering as she offered her sincere words. "I am here on my own accord, ''Vanguard'' Sigurd. Patience had never been your virtue. But you must halt, before your own hand set forth a most terrible and regretful act that would surely trigger disaster."
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| "''Halt''?" came the scornful reply. "By you and which army, ''Grand Strategist''?"
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| "I may not be able to defeat you in single combat, but I could certainly stalemate you long enough." The casual statement came without an inkling of tension.
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| Before her opponent could even consider calling a bluff, Kannon's spring-green eyes cast a cursory glance toward the southern horizon:
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| "Besides, there is the army down there..."
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| "--You wouldn't ''dare''!" Sigurd snapped to cut her off. "Your intervention would be just as illegal as mine!"
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| "Ohhh? So you do realize the grievous offence you are about to commit -- that you do not have the Right of Armed Intervention until your homeland, the Fimbulmark Isles, have fallen under direct assault. Then why...?"
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| Lightning crackled and surged across his hammerhead as Sigurd's simmering wrath boiled into his ether veins.
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| "Why? ''WHY''?"
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| His leather-clad fist swung south with a directed finger:
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| "I have twenty thousand kinsmen down there! Twenty ''thousand'' more, after thirty thousand already lost before my eyes ''this year''! WHY NOT!?"
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| "We've watched millions die in the course of lifetimes," Kannon spoke, her gaze calm as a meadow in the gentle breeze. "Unpleasant it may be, it is a necessary step in the great cycle of life--"
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| "Oh frack your self-delusional fantasies of reincarnation!" Sigurd interrupted once more as a dry thunderclap resounded from his hammer.
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| "We all met the Maker, the Enlightened, the Holy Father, the One God, ''whatever it is'' you want to call him! He was there, the leader of the Celestials, his greatest warriors fighting right alongside us and the noble Dragonlords!"
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| Heated breath rushed from Sigurd's nostrils as his beliefs plowed on:
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| "You may have all walked away with a different opinion of just what he is, how he shapes the universe, and what virtues he uphold. But you cannot, ''cannot'' deny his one desire: that the bravery of souls is the single most strategic resource in fuelling his Archon armies in their eternal and unwinnable battle against the Demonkind from the Infinite Abyss!"
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| "Evil always is and always will be, but that does not prove that your conclusion is superior to our own," rebuffed the white goddess -- bodhisattva, in her own terms.
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| "Karma through the Eightfold Path is enough to oppose the tides of sin. That is my conclusion, and it is no less proven than your own," Kannon sternly marked an end to the tangential debate before moving on. "Regardless, none of this changes our agreement that the mortal realms shall have peace -- to which, I remind you, you gave your oath!"
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| Sigurd could no longer contain himself as he barked a derisive laugh.
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| "Peace? You call this peace? Oh sure, ''your'' homeland certainly has peace! Your one intervention for the Grand Republic of Samara gave them everlasting military might! But what of ''my'' kinsmen? Are they just pigs to be butchered under the endless onslaught of Peter's zealots?"
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| This time, it was Kannon who finally closed her eyes in a faint sigh:
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| "Would you rather witness the loss of twenty thousand, or the death of twenty million? If we Worldwalkers all ripped the treaty asunder and freely imposed our conflicting views on the world through martial might, just ''what'' do you suppose will happen?"
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| The 1st Generation Worldwalkers once fought alongside the Dragonlords in the Dragon-Demon War. They partook in the Archons' Grand Coalition Offensive which had cut deep into the Abyssal Realms. Even the least gifted survivor among them could rend armies and cleave mountains. Those most able -- like Kannon the ''Grand Strategist'', the ''Wishgiver'', the ''Thousand Arms'', et cetera -- could harness enough power to alter the fabric of reality across an entire plane of existence.
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| Far from satisfied by mere ''logic'', Sigurd spat open his mouth to retort. But the white lady was not yet finished, and she soon enforced his silence with unnerving composure.
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| "Your head isn't there just to call lightning and smash hammers, ''Vanguard''," Kannon berated him just like the old days. "Your kin may not win against Peter's followers on the continent, but there are better path to victory than stubborn resistance."
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| For a dozen seconds Sigurd's sky-blue gaze seethed on without answer. Then, as though the voltage of his thunder finally struck his brain into overdrive, the huge warrior's eyes finally cleared in foresight.
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| "Really..." Kannon whispered as she gently shook her head with a faint smile. "It's a shame Admiral Winter couldn't transcend mortality in time. For most of his life Vintersvend ''knew'' the future of Hyperborean society lay in the New World, the Frontier. It's about time you caught up to your visionary junior."
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| "Let Peter rejoice in his followers' victory, for it will be his last against you."
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| ----- * * * -----
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| "So which world are you off to save this time?"
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| As the conversations cooled, Sigurd thought one last question aloud before he departed his old comrade, unlikely to meet again for centuries to come.
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| "I'll be staying around for a while, actually," the blessed voice replied.
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| "What, you don't trust me?"
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| Kannon turned about one last time to give him a knowing look:
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| "You're impetuous, but not an outright idiot. Otherwise I'd have never recommended you back then."
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| The ''Stormlord'' sent his annoyed face, brows twitching and static charged for unleashing from his eyes. But the ''Grand Strategist'' -- or perhaps ''Wishgiver'' was more appropriate in this meeting -- simply smiled back:
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| "I'm hanging around to advise Gwendolyn when she comes back, since this is her first time..."
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| It took Sigurd a moment to remember the name: Gwendolyn was a 3rd Generation Worldwalker, a 'youngling' not even half a millennium old who went by the nicknames ''Arbor Sanctum'' and ''Faerie Sword''.
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| "--Unlike your homeland, it shall not be long before her birthplace bears witness to the carnage of invasion and war."
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