A large force.", "Moving forward.",
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Dark blue.", "All of them.", "The color of it deep.", "Serious.", "The kind of color chosen by people who had thought about what they were representing.",
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Their symbol on every chest.", "Every shield.", "Every surface that could carry it.", "A long dark tower.", "And coiled around it rising above its peak.", "A blue serpent.", "Head lifted.", "Eyes finding whoever was foolish enough to meet them.",
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Minjun at the front.", "His ax in his hand.", "His body carrying what his face tried not to show.", "Ji-eun beside him.", "Blue armor.", "A short dark blue cape moving behind her.", "A helm that left just enough of her face visible.", "Just enough to read.", "Just enough to remind everyone around her that there was a person inside the armor.",
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His voice finding her.", "Low.", "Not for the soldiers behind them.",
"This is it.", "Miss.", "This end starts dangerous.",
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He looked at what was ahead.", "At the mountain.", "At what moved on it.",
---
She looked at him.
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"The truth of all of it.", she said.", "We don't know.", "We never knew anything.", "Not these days.", "Not really.",
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He heard it.", "Those words.", "Felt them land somewhere specific.", "His grip tightened on the ax.", "The handle finding the grooves of his palm.", "Familiar.", "His.",
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Her voice again.", "Finding him before he could go somewhere dark with it.",
"Minjun.", "Don't die.", "That's an order.",
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His face changed.", "Something in it resolving.", "The way metal resolves when enough heat has been applied.", "Taking a shape it intends to keep.",
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"Yes."
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Shouted.", "Not loud enough for the mountain.", "Loud enough for the soldiers behind him.", "Loud enough for the ones whose eyes were moving too fast.", "Whose breathing had found a rhythm that wasn't useful.", "Whose hands needed something to hold onto that wasn't doubt.",
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They heard it.", "His voice.", "And steadied.",
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They marched forward.", "The dark blue of them moving against the green of the mountain.", "Against the morning light.", "A single mass of purpose finding its direction.",
---
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Inside the tent.", "The screens.", "The large computers.", "The people in suits who watched instead of marched.", "The doomsday clock.", "Still moving.", "Still counting.", "Tick.", "Tick.", "Tick.",
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Above the mountain.", "The drones.", "Hovering.", "Watching.", "Their cameras sending everything back.", "Everything they could see.", "Everything they could reach.", "Staying far enough from the enemy to keep sending.", "Close enough to show what needed to be shown.",
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The mountain.", "Green and enormous and wrong now.", "Wrong in the way places become wrong when something has made them its own.", "When something has decided this is where it lives.", "This is where it rules.", "This is the center of what it is.",
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The ants.", "Moving on its surface.", "Dark against the green.", "Covering it.", "More of them than the last count.", "More of them than the count before that.",
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The clock.", "In the tent.", "On the screens.", "On every device that could carry it.",
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Still moving.