The battlefield had learned her name by now.
They called her the Prism Madonna because she came like a beautiful saint. Saints were meant to comfort people but Astaraela did the opposite. She walked into the killing field and turned it into a crystal graveyard.
Over the past few months, she'd become a problem that no ordinary army could solve. That was what made the soldiers so uneasy. She didn't charge like a berserker. She stepped forward, staff in hand.
Her years in Regnum Musicae had made her something the Immortal Anchor had never expected to produce: a true Crystal Mage with monstrous refinement. The Stellar Body was the perfect vessel for magecraft and even now, stripped down to a First Enlightenment Divine, she still retained the habits of someone who'd trained under conditions so punishing they'd turned technique into instinct.
Her Stellar Body multiplied her energy output far beyond normal mage standards. Her pseudo-cores had given her storage most mages would've killed for and her own Runic Language had cut the cost of Magecraft in half. That training didn't disappear just because the battlefield tried to crush her.
Now she could breathe. Now she had Soul Energy back. Now Calimostria was in her hand and now, Sapphire Materialization answered her without hesitation. The battlefield was paying for every month it had spent pretending she was just another exhausted immortal.
She stopped in the middle of the open front line and lifted Calimostria a little higher. Her body was wrapped in a thin coat of Soul Energy. On a battlefield like this, protection wasn't optional. The energy coating shimmered faintly around her skin. It wasn't perfect but it was enough to keep her alive while she did what she did best. After all, she was a First Enlightenment Divine. Unless she was a Second Enlightenment, then she would be vulnerable. Still, she had her Nanorune Armor but it doesn't hurt to be a little too careful.
A group of soldiers came at her first.
They looked almost ordinary from a distance, which was part of what made immortal wars so ugly. Most of the Immortals in the war didn't have flashy powers or grand Tethers. They were just bodies built to endure and kill. Twenty times the strength of mortal men was enough to make them terrifying in their own right, especially when their leaders were the ones carrying Tethers. The rank-and-file could still tear a mortal apart with their bare hands.
Astaraela didn't even slow down.
She flicked her wrist and the first wave of sapphire hit the ground in a spreading line. It spread under their boots, up their legs, across their armor and into their chests before they had time to realize they'd already lost. The soldiers froze in place one by one. Their bodies didn't simply get covered. They became part of the crystal itself, as if their flesh had been rewritten by some sort of law.
It was the Law of Divinity she gained as Third Enlightenment Divine, Sapphire Transmutation. It transmuted any matter to sapphire.
She turned her staff and the frozen line shattered into glittering fragments. The crystals faded the instant anyone tried to seize them, dissolving in enemy hands before they could be brought back as trophies or materials. That had happened enough times now that the soldiers had stopped trying to celebrate the fallen. Even the battlefield's scavengers had learned the hard way that her crystals belonged to her alone. If she wanted them gone, they were gone. If she wanted them to stay, they did.
A second wave rushed her from the flank and Bio was already there.
Biolumine moved with the brutal grace of a creature built for combat. Her bodyguard instincts were sharper than any officer's orders. She slammed into the side of the charging group and cut through them, forcing their formation to break before they could close in around Astaraela. One soldier tried to grab Astaraela's arm from behind. Bio drove a strike into his throat and sent him collapsing before he could even lock his fingers around anything. Another came in high with a blade; Bio twisted under it and broke his balance with a kick that left him face-first in the mud.
Bio didn't need to be flashy. She just needed to keep the swarm off Astaraela's back long enough for the real damage to happen.
Astaraela raised Calimostria and released a sapphire beam that tore across the line. The soldiers it struck didn't just fall. Their bodies transmuted into crystal from the inside out. It was beautiful in the worst possible way. One instant there was a man with a spear. The next there was a towering prism of blue light standing where he had been and a swcot later that too collapsed into glittering debris at her feet.
Her Mystic Eyes of Crystallization did most of the work.
That was the real horror of them. They didn't need energy to function. They weren't dependent on energy unless one wanted to increase their power.
For objects, they coated. For bodies, they transmuted.
A shield wall surged up to meet her but she looked straight through it. The soldiers behind it thought they were safe because the front ranks could absorb the first hit. They didn't realize she wasn't aiming at the shield. She was aiming at the formation underneath it. A thin blue pattern crawled through the base of the wall, through the legs of the men behind it and through the support beams that kept it upright. The whole thing crystalized in stage. The structure simply failed. Men stumbled. Shields cracked. The center line collapsed and Astaraela walked through the opening without ever stopping.
One of the enemy leaders finally stepped forward and triggered a Tether. That was the first real mistake they'd made all day.
His power flared across the field in a distortion of pressure and command, trying to pin her movement and disrupt the crystal spread. The ground buckled. Lesser soldiers behind him struggled to keep standing.
Astaraela tilted her head and smiled.
"Cute."
She snapped her fingers.
The Tether itself began to crystallize under the pressure of her will before it could settle into a stable shape. The leader's eyes widened. He did not expecte someone whose crystal manipulation was so advanced it could seize the structure of a hostile ability and break it from within. Calimostria pulsed once and the man's body went rigid with blue light.
No one behind him wanted to be next but it was too late. They were already trapped inside her range.
That was the advantage of being the Prism Madonna. She didn't need to chase people. She let them come to her then turned their confidence into a funeral. Her decades of experience made every movement look effortless.
A soldier lunged at her. His sword met a crystal wall that hadn't been there a moment ago. Another fired a burst of force. The spell hit the surface of her sapphire field and dissipated into nothingness. A third person tried to circle behind her. Bio intercepted him, tore through his guard and dropped him before he could understand why he'd been chosen.
And still, Astaraela kept walking.
Her footsteps left crystal blooms in the mud. Where she passed, the earth itself became an extension of her power. Splinters of sapphire rose from her thoughts, cutting across the battlefield in clean lines. Soldiers froze mid-attack. Wounded men reached for her crystals, desperate enough to try anything, only to watch the shards dissolve in their hands.
She was harvesting souls too, of course.
Souls flickered loose from dying bodies and she drew them in her staff. Enemy, ally, it didn't matter if they were on her side when they fell. Souls were energy and energy was survival. With her evolved Mystic Eyes, she could now see what others couldn't. With Calimostria, she could store what she took. With her soul-sharpened awareness, she could tell which souls were already beyond saving and which ones were useful just a little longer.
She made no apology for it. A month ago, she might have called that ruthless. Now she called it efficient.
The enemy line began to buckle.
Every crystalized body made movement harder. Every shattered support point made formations weaker. Every dead officer made commands more confusing. Every retreating soldier made the next soldier less confident. By the time the sun had moved and the smoke had thinned, the enemy's center was gone. Their rear ranks were breaking. Their leaders were either dead or retreating. Their morale had already shattered before their bodies had caught up. Astaraela stood amid the crystal ruins of what had once been a clean battle line and let the last wave of blue light fade from her staff.
Bio landed beside her, breathing a little harder than before, but still smiling.
"You're really becoming a nightmare."
Astaraela glanced across the battlefield and watched the enemy fall back in disorder.
"I've always been a nightmare. I'm just getting better at it."
"That's... one way to put it."
-----
The commanders called her into the tent at dusk. A few weeks ago, the camp had felt like a wound trying not to bleed out. Now it still looked rough but there was energy in it again. Even the wounded were looking up instead of through people.
The five commanders were waiting around a table stacked with maps and half-burned candles when Astaraela stepped inside with Bio at her side. One commander had both hands planted on the table as if he needed the wood to keep himself from laughing in disbelief. Another looked like he'd aged a year in the span of a month. The youngest of the five just stared at her like he still couldn't decide whether she was a genius or a problem.
The oldest commander finally spoke.
"The war's changing. For the past few weeks, every battle you've touched has shifted. Their formations break faster. Their leaders are retreating earlier. Our losses are dropping and our morale's up. That's not luck."
Astaraela didn't look smug. That was the annoying part.
"I'm just doing my job."
One of the commanders gave a short, incredulous laugh.
"That's your answer?"
"It's the only one that matters."
One of the commanders glanced at the cat Therianthrope and then back at Astaraela.
"Now you have no demand for rank or power. You keep saying things like that and I'm going to start thinking you're either a saint or a menace."
"Those are not mutually exclusive."
That got a few actual smiles out of them, which was rare enough to count as a battlefield miracle. The commander on the far right leaned back in his chair and studied her for a long moment before speaking again.
"If the war ends, I'll welcome you home."
"I'm a wandering mage. I won't stay after this. I'll help. I'll fight and I'll finish what I agreed to finish. But when this war is over, I'll keep moving."
The oldest commander nodded once. He was not happy but honest enough to accept it.
"Then at least let us enjoy the fact that you're still here while we can."
°°°°°°°
The party started that night because the army had decided it was either that or sink into another round of despair, which they'd already done enough of that to last a lifetime. It wasn't a grand celebration by palace standards. There were no chandeliers, no musicians with perfect uniforms or fancy floors. It was a bonfire party built out of stolen enemy supplies, scrounged alcohol, dented pots and the deeply suspicious feeling that slacking off would mean death.
They had dragged in crates from the enemy camp after the last battle. Once the lids were opened, the whole camp had gathered around like children around a treasure chest. Dried grains, herbs, salted meat, a few strange root vegetables, bottles of wine that had somehow survived the chaos, sacks of flour, a bundle of onions and other stuff was there. Astaraela was amazed by this. Was Earth food universal?
"Now what do we do with this?" One of them had asked, holding up a turnip like it was an insult.
"Eat it?"
"Don't be stupid, that's obviously decorative."
That got the first actual laugh of the evening and once it started, it spread fast.
Astaraela noticed immediately that her side was on a desperate end. It wasn't just the war anymore. It was the living conditions. Her soldiers were not well fed. They were under-equipped, poorly rested and often carrying more scars than supplies. Most of them had been eating whatever could be boiled, burnt or stretched thin enough to count as dinner. No one had been expecting a feast. So when the stolen ingredients were laid out, most of the men just stood there looking at them as if the food might explain itself.
Instead, Astaraela took one look at the situation and sighed. Bio, sitting on a crate nearby, watched her with immediate suspicion.
"No."
"No what?"
"You've got that look."
"What look?"
"The one where you decide to solve a problem no one asked you to solve."
Astaraela's lips twitched.
"This is a camp full of hungry people standing around a mountain of ingredients with no idea what to do. That's not a problem? The faster they get better the more this war ends. I might be a psychopath but I'm not sane enough to fight for decades you know."
Bio flattened her ears.
"That's a trap."
Astaraela ignored her and clapped her hands once to gather attention. The nearby cooks, healers, corpse-buriers and general camp survivors turned at her in a loose circle. A few women were among them. They were ones who kept the less glorious parts of the army from falling apart like healing, washing blood off bandages, counting supplies, burying the dead and stirring pots when nobody else remembered to eat. They looked tired too.
Astaraela looked over the ingredients, then looked back at them.
"Tell me what you know."
One of the older women was shocked.
"What?"
"Recipes, dishes, anything. Tell me what fits with what. I'll handle the cooking."
There was a pause. Then one of the women let out a startled little laugh.
"You?"
"Yes."
Another woman gave her a skeptical look.
"You mean you want instructions?"
"I want recipes."
The women exchanged glances. Then, one by one, they started talking soup ideas, stews, roasted meat with herbs, grain mixes, simple broths and others. One woman described something her mother used to make with onions and salt. Another mentioned a root mash that could go with almost anything. A third offered a method for getting flavor out of nearly nothing if the broth was strong enough. The whole thing became a quick, practical circle of knowledge. No one was trying to impress anyone. They were just trying to make food out of war.
Astaraela listened, memorized and then got to work.
She used sapphire to make the biggest cauldron the camp had ever seen in living memory. It rose out of the air in a clean, seamless shape. The soldiers standing nearby actually stopped talking for a second just to stare at it.
"Of course," Bio muttered from behind her. "A giant sapphire cauldron, because a normal pot would've been too subtle."
Astaraela didn't even glance back.
"Subtlety is overrated. I'm feeding tens of thousands. You might shut up and help you know."
Then she used Soul Energy to regulate the heat, keeping the heat steady without burning the contents. She threw in the ingredients the cooks had sorted, then started adjusting by instinct and taste. She didn't overcomplicate it. That was the mistake amateurs made.
Then she reached into Fool's Copy and copied more meat. The camp went silent when they realized what she was doing.
The first bite she made with the copied meat was enough to convince everyone else to stop doubting her immediately. It smelled too good to be reasonable. One of the cooks actually leaned over the pot to inspect it like she expected the stew to confess to sorcery. It didn't, but it probably should have.
The soldiers formed a line so fast it looked rehearsed. One of the younger men in the back craned his neck and asked out loud:
"Are we really queueing for dinner like this is a palace?"
A woman answered her.
"No. A palace would have better manners you dirty bastard."
That earned a round of laughter. Astaraela stood at the front of the serving line with a ladle in hand, looking far too elegant for what she was doing. The peony scent still lingered around her and it made the whole scene even more absurd. One of the soldiers, a broad-shouldered idiot with enough confidence to be dangerous, leaned a little too far forward and gave her a grin that was probably meant to be charming.
"So, Prism Madonna. You cook, you kill, you blind the enemy and you look like that. Is there anything you're bad at?"
Astaraela served him a bowl without even pausing.
"Talking to people who overestimate themselves. You're not my type so get lost."
A few soldiers near him burst out laughing. The man himself almost choked on his own pride. Another tried a different angle.
"I'm just saying, if you ever want help with chopping vegetables, I've got strong hands."
Bio looked over with open disbelief.
"Did he really just offer himself as a vegetable assistant?"
Astaraela handed the next bowl to a woman from the healing tents.
"You're all very bold when you're hungry."
A woman on the cook line leaned in and smirked.
"And you're very pretty when you're cooking."
Astaraela glanced at her with faint amusement.
"That's not why I'm cooking."
"Shame. It should be."
'Great, there are same sex romantics in here too.'
A few of the cooks started teasing the soldiers in line for being impatient. Some of the soldiers pretended to be offended. One of them slipped an extra piece of meat into his bowl when nobody was looking and immediately got caught by another woman nearby, who snatched it back and told him to wait like everyone else. Bio was having the time of her life. She took over serving for a while just to make fun of the men who got too eager.
"Next! And no, you can't flirt your way to a bigger portion. Move along."
Astaraela cooked three separate meals before the camp even realized what had happened. One of the women helping in the kitchen eventually asked her, very carefully of course.
"Have you done this before?"
Astaraela's ladle paused.
"A lot. I used to cook for my soldiers in a winter landscape with a woman chef. Her daughter is probably big now."
By the time the last bowls were served, people were sitting in clusters around fires, eating with both hands and talking over each other trading jokes, insults, stories and rumors. Someone found a cracked instrument and started playing something off-key but cheerful. A few soldiers began singing badly on purpose. One commander pretended not to enjoy it and failed completely. The healers sat with their backs finally against something solid. The corpse-buriers, who usually worked in silence, were laughing with the cooks. Even the wounded were smiling into their bowls like they'd been handed back a piece of the world.
Astaraela stood near the largest fire with Bio beside her, watching the camp. Bio took a long sip from a tin cup and looked at her.
"You know, for someone who says she's just doing her job, you've turned this entire camp into a village with food."
"Is that criticism?"
"No, it's admiration. A little resentment, but mostly admiration."
"Good."
One of the soldiers nearby, emboldened by full bellies and temporary peace, called out.
"Prism Madonna, you're staying for the second bowl, right?"
"That depends on whether you all stop acting like children."
A chorus of protest rose immediately and that led her to groan and head back to give seconds. She returned to the pot for a final round of servings,
Astaraela's eyes shifted over the camp, over the soldiers eating, talking, flirting, arguing and living like tomorrow wasn't guaranteed. Then she looked at the smoke above the fire and let herself enjoy the moment without trying to name it.
For once, the war wasn't brutal anymore. Even though most of them won't make it before the war ends, at least she gave them something worth enjoying. She might be a monster but she's not evil.
"Seriously, I'm feeding people who are going to end up in my staff. Oh well. At least they get to enjoy themselves once every few times."