The next morning Chronos woke up to find that the airship was already on the move.
"Hm, we're moving already?" Chronos asked as he joined the others for breakfast.
"Un, apparently Magar has more influence over the nearby knights and baronets than he thought. As soon as they received his message, they started sending scouts out all night until they found the tear. It's northwest of the village aways." Gregory responded.
"How long before we arrive?"
"Within the hour, make sure you eat enough to last all day. We'll be diving into the tear shortly after we land." Lyla said with an eager grin looking forward to the violence.
After breakfast they joined the guards on deck and found that nearly 200 hundred of the village's soldiers had joined them along with a couple dozen mages and a dozen priests and priestesses.
Seeing the scars on their faces and their graying hair Chronos realized that they were all older people who had clearly been through a war. Despite the somewhat shabby appearance of their armor and weapons the presence they gave off was that of veterans who had survived a thousand battles.
Magar was standing in front of them going over battleplans with Micheal.
"Good morning. How're the battleplans coming along?" Chronos greeted them.
"Hello, I'm not sure if they're good or bad. We don't have enough information about the tears to create a good battleplan so we're planning to build a camp around it until we know more. I'm also sending whisper birds to the baron to try and get him moving but only the gods know when that fat fool will move." Magar crossly responded.
Chronos rubbed the side of his head, "I've been in a couple of tears, and I don't think it matters what plan you make. It'll fall apart the moment you go inside."
"Is it really that bad?" Micheal asked with concern.
Sariah nodded saying, "It's often chaotic with land floating all over the place and no constant form. The rules that govern magic might also be changed but I haven't seen proof of that yet. What we do know is that all of the land moves around a central point that usually has a corrupted world crystal in it. Once we purify the crystal the space collapses and the crystal is returned to the world."
"I see, what enemies can we expect to face?" Magar asked while stroking his beard.
Magic circles flashed behind his eyes as he made calculations for the battle ahead, making Chronos wonder if he was using some type of magic to predict the future battle. Had Magar been a high-ranking individual in the past?
That would certainly explain the ex-soldiers he had gathered here and in the village. When they had arrived the night before Chronos had seen more than a thousand skilled soldiers manning the walls, which was an unusually large number for a village without a name to have.
"Mostly the same type of enemies we faced last night or other creatures that inhabit the plains but there might be an unusual creature guarding the crystal. As long as we send in a number of elites with holy protection, we should be fine clearing the tear." Chronos reported.
"The biggest worry is that a devil will appear again." Gregory added.
"As long as it's not a fourth rank lord, we can handle it. The biggest issue will be the environment." Magar said confidently.
With that much confidence Magar must have some secret plan to rely on.
"Will we have assistance from the nearby knights and baronets?" Lyla asked.
"Don't count on it. The local baron doesn't have enough reputation or respect to convince other nobles to join us." Magar looked sad as he thought of the people that might die because of that fat fool.
"Well, somebody does." Micheal said while pointing out at the plains.
Below them was a small army with near a thousand soldiers setting up camp around a tear on the plains. In the distance they could see even more people riding fast horses crossing hill after hill to join the growing army.
Above the army they saw flags from half the nobles in the barony flying and a few flags from beyond the barony's borders with more joining them every hour.
As the ship landed multiple lords came to greet them.
Recognizing some of the older baronets Magar called out to them, "Carl, Jeromy what are you doing here? Your territory is far to the south of here."
"What do you mean, what are we doing here? You called for aid, didn't you? Of course we'll come to help you." Carl shouted as they descended the gangplank.
Nearly everyone gathered nodded in agreement.
"You shouldn't be here. Your people might die today." Magar said with an angry look.
All of them laughed.
"Old Magar if it wasn't for you, me and my men would have died in battle a decade ago defending the southern plains from the ghosts of the Ancient Caldrian Battlefield." Jeromy said.
"Many of my people would have been killed by that vicious storm that flooded the plains 7 years ago, but you sent young mages to help us weather the storm and clear the floodwaters." Another called out.
"If you hadn't sent mages to help us deal with the locust outbreak two years ago every hamlet and village in our lands would have starved to death." Two knights that looked like twins chimed in with big grins.
As more and more of them shared stories of Magar's mages and the assistance they had provided to their fiefdoms over the years they reaffirmed that they would always answer his call no matter when or where he called for them.
Magar turned around not wanting them to see the tears building up in his eyes. In this moment it felt like all his years of work and conflicts with the baron were worth it.
Listening to them Chronos started understanding why the baron didn't like Magar too.
When the one that was supposed to be in charge was incompetent, he wouldn't be happy about having an extremely competent subordinate that regularly outshined him.
Today's events would likely also cause some kind of backlash from the baron, so he secretly made some preparations for when that happened.
"As heartwarming as this scene is, I'd like to start working on dealing with the tear please." Lyla called out.
"The lass is right. Now tell us what we're dealing with and what the plan is to handle it, Magar." Carl said.
"It looks like something from the founding stories of our kingdom." Jeromy added while looking at the gash in the air that was giving off red and purple light.
It was floating at the top of a hill that they were currently building their camp around.
It wasn't an ideal situation; the enemy had the high ground which would put pressure on their men but there wasn't anything they could do about it.
"You're not wrong there. Stories of these tears do come from the founding of our kingdom, and they churn out black beasts just like in the stories. We'll need to have soldiers guarding against the black beasts out here while some of us go inside to purify the tears core." Magar said.
He didn't want to tell them that the core of the tear was a world crystal in case some idiot tried to misuse it in the future.
As much as he trusted his old friends he didn't know everyone here.
"In that case Magar should lead the men inside the tear while me and Jeromy guard the outside." Carl said.
"I think that only those in the third rank should enter the tear as well." Jeromy suggested to a round of agreement.
Magar, Carl, and Jeromy, being the oldest ones here, took charge of the camp and started making plans while the other knights and baronets offered their views.
Choosing who would enter the tear and who would wait outside led to a few arguments as entering the tear would bring more glory while just guarding a hill would have you counted amongst the army.
But everyone recognized that people would be needed for both, and both were important. Which calmed them down some.
After several ideas and group compositions were proposed it was decided that only 100 individuals would enter the tear.
Chronos's group would lead them as they had experience inside of tears before, while Magar would take charge of the group going in. Many of the older knights and baronets chose to stay outside stating that the younger generation should gain the merit instead of themselves.
It was a much more peaceful and swifter resolution than Chronos had expected and within the hour he found himself in front of 70 third rank knights, 20 mages, and 10 priests waiting to enter the tear.
"Micheal, do we know roughly how strong the creatures inside the tear are?"
Micheal was standing off to the side with another strange magic device that Chronos didn't understand.
"Yes, mostly second rank perhaps a few third rank but nothing above that." Micheal confidently replied.
"Then there's no time to waste. Let's go inside." Chronos said before offering his hand to Lyla.
Grasping his hand so they didn't get separated by the tear, they led the small army inside. Disappearing into the tear moments later.