For days, Eiran followed the same routine.
After waking up, he would head to the war room with all the leaders of the fortress present, and they would continue with their experiments.
Lucius Caellus would use different instruments to record all sorts of data, and the priests would also make their own spiritual and mystical observations, making slight adjustments with how the manipulated their spirituality, as well as editing the incantations ever so slightly.
The process was… draining to say the least, no matter how many times he'd repeated the process, it never really got any easier.
The raw energy that the priests channel through him was just too much for his current body, he hadn't tempered himself well enough in the coliseum.
After enough training and trials, you could undergo a trial of extreme difficulty, the reward for which would be a qualitative change to your body, improving your constitution among other things, including a significant boost to their resistance to fire.
Eiran was still far off that level though.
For now, all he could do is grit his teeth and endure.
However, although gradual, these repeated experiments did in fact provide benefits to Eiran, slightly improving his body's constitution and the amount of spirituality his body could hold, but these changes were merely quantitative.
Splash
The servants at the fortress were currently tending to him, throwing cold water at him to cool him, sending steam radiating from his body.
He also had to rapidly replenish his body with food and water.
He gratefully gobbled every bit of food up, he didn't have time to savour the taste of the delicious food available in the fortress, much better than anything that had been available to him at any time in his life prior.
After his meal, Eiran picked up a sword and a gun, and headed to a court yard outside the main monastery on the top floor, joining in on some drills.
This had been his routine for the past couple of days.
When dusk fell, Eiran was sat in his assigned room in the monastery at the top of the fortress. The room was simple but pleasant. The design was minimalistic, fitting for a military man like him without a lot of possessions.
Well… right now he didn't have any possessions at all, just some borrowed clothes.
For the first time since this hellish routine began, he hadn't passed out as soon as he arrived in his room.
For the first time since he lost his comrades — he had time to sit down and think.
Sigh
He buried his head on the desk in front of him.
His breath fogged faintly on the polished surface of the desk, obscuring his reflection.
He looked at himself, not quite sure who he was looking at.
The scent of steel and incense clung to his skin. The burn marks on his arms were fresh, tinged pink and raw, not yet scars—but they would be, soon.
The biggest change was in his eyes, they were sharper, he almost recoiled at the edginess of his own gaze. He'd heard a saying, "eyes are the window to the soul."
It came from an old religion, from before our current age. Christianity it was called, within Eiran's hobby of studying the history of Earth, the topic of religion was one that interested him the most.
Even though belief in the old gods dwindled after humans traveled throughout the solar system, discovering the presence of real gods on each planet.
Solion the Solar King, Flame Father Velgrith, Selantha the Mirror Queen, the Architect Tessarek, Eyreus the Dreamer, The Storm Harbinger Caldran, Thal'Zirra the Silent Breath, and…
And on Saturn, there was another one, Onmyr was his name according to what we've learned but his circumstances are a bit — special.
These 7 gods, with Onmyr being excluded, became practically universally worshipped, and people flocked to the stars, building new cities around these gods. Over generations, societies formed around them, and humans began to diverge slightly, closer to the image of the respective gods on their planets. Like the people on Mars, they were slightly larger and stronger than humans of other planets, with darker, bronze coloured skin.
Yet, despite this. Despite the undeniable existence of these gods, within certain circles, the old religions still persisted, and this was just so interesting to Eiran.
There were always going to be crazy people who didn't want to change, didn't want to see what was in front of them. But Eiran didn't want to subscribe to such a lazy analysis, even centuries later, believers in the old religions still existed.
Especially since these religions had lasted for over thousands of years, there had to be some truth to them. Were there gods outside of their 7 deities? Eiran thought that it might be the case.
He knew these thoughts were bordering on heretical so he mostly kept these thoughts to himself, he'd often talk to Sylvie about it.
His hands instinctively reached for something that wasn't there—a badge, a keepsake, a photograph maybe. Something that belonged to Sylvia.
She used to laugh at him for all the time he spent reading about old Earth myths. Said he was too serious, too absorbed in dusty theories and forgotten gods. But she never stopped listening.
"Maybe you were born in the wrong age," she once teased him, sitting beside him in their tent, legs brushing under coarse blankets. "Maybe you should've been a priest back when people treated them like preachy old men."
He smiled at the memory. Softly. Bitterly.
That smile didn't reach his eyes.
He missed her.
No matter how hard he trained, no matter how much fire he bore or power he channeled, nothing filled the hollow in his chest. Nothing silenced the echo of her voice when the noise of the war rooms faded.
He missed her so much.
No matter how much he told himself, that he needed to be out here, to protect her, to protect his mother, to protect all the citizens of Tharsis Rise, so they don't suffer the same fate as all the other cities on Mars.
He still missed her, more than he could bear…
At this thought, the dam finally broke, Eiran burst into tears. It was a relieving sensation, for the first time since he'd been joking around with his friends in the 9th cohort after their victory, his eyes loosened.
…
Later on in the night, Eiran heard a knocking on the door.
Answering the knock, Eiran found himself facing General Tullius.
As he prepared his greeting, the general waved him off.
"At ease, soldier."
Eiran caught a glimpse of his face, a glimpse of awkwardness, maybe even sadness?
Even though the general didn't really embody most people's ideas of a war-hardened military leader, often being whimsical, he'd never been nervous or awkward had he?
"Lucius and the priests feel like we're at a good spot with our research, they're currently consolidating what they've got so I came here to have a… a talk with…you."
A slight stutter crept into his speech, creaking could be heard from the clenching of his gloves fist.
Eiran just stared at him, not sure how to react.
"Sorry if I'm intruding on you while you were sorting out your emotions." he continued his uncharacteristically awkward style of talking.
"Of course not sir, I'm ready at any time." Eiran said while wiping off the tear stains from his eyes. He was frankly grateful to the general for not thinking less of him for it.
Tullius averted his gaze a couple of times, as if considering whether or not he should say what he was about to say.
After much deliberation he muttered, "You thinking about your family?"
For a beat, silence filled the room.
"Yeah, I was thinking about my mother and my beloved, the date the doctors gave us is coming up soon."
Tullius's face froze, almost blank, clearly dreading the direction this was headed.
"Date?"
"Yeah." Eiran said awkwardly, "For the birth of my child — I know it sounds stupid, but it's starting to make me feel a little bit…hopeful, like I'll be able to make it home."
"I see."
Tullius hardened himself.
"Sol–, Eiran Voss."
Eiran could feel the seriousness in the general's voice.
"What I wanted to talk to you about, is the results from the experiment."
He continued.
"As you know, the relic has the ability to fry technology from the inside. The scale of the experiments so far have been kept small so that we're able to contain it, but based on our research, as long as the spirituality injected into it increases, the scale of the resulting explosion will increase too, and we haven't been able to derive a limit."
Eiran simply nodded, he didn't hear anything too surprising thus far.
"Of course, there's a limit to how much the bearer of the relic is able to take, which leads me to a question. Soldier Eiran Voss of the Ninth Cohort, are you prepared to die?"
Oh
I guess I should've seen this coming.
"I guess you won't let me take a vacation first?"
He didn't really expect a positive response, he just felt like he had to ask, maybe he wanted to make himself feel like he at least tried to get back.
"No, you know the war situation."
"I see."
Silence once again filled the room.
As a soldier, Eiran felt like she should've just shouted in zealous fervour that he was willing to lay down his life.
But… it was just too cruel.
He didn't want to leave now, he wanted to see his family. He wanted to win this fucking war and gloriously return home to his mother, his Sylvie, his child.
Is that delusional? YES, is it selfish? FUCKING YES I KNOW IT IS.
I'm not an idiot, I know that if I don't do this, it's over for them, no matter what I do there's no hope for a happy ending, all I can do is protect them. The smart thing to do would be to lay my life down.
BUT CAN'T I HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF HOPE DAMNIT?!
The general simply watched coldly as Eiran's internal conflict warred.
Tick tock
Tick tock
Tick tock
Nothing but the ticking hand of a clock filled the room.
"Yes. I am willing."
Tick tock
Tick tock
General Tullius gave him an indecipherable look.
Not letting his shell break he simply said.
"You've made a brave decision, soldier."
Tick
Tock
Eiran looked at him dead in the eye.
"No," Eiran said quietly, yet firmly.
"I made this decision as a son—"
Tick
"A husband-to-be—"
Tock
"—And as a father."
Tock.
Gong.
A distant chime plays softly—like a lullaby drifting through cotton halls...
(Silence.)