Chapter 125
He watched as the crusader forces struggled to form defensive layers across three different sectors, as their commanders shouted orders to organize the ranks amid the chaos, as riderless horses ran wildly among tents that had begun to burn.
Some horses stumbled over rocks or corpses, falling with heartbreaking sounds as their legs snapped into unnatural positions, while their original riders could no longer help them because they were locked in combat with the enemy.
Blood flowed everywhere, soaking the Muddy Ground that truly deserved its name, land that would absorb all this blood without ever telling its story to anyone.
Amid it all, banners bearing the symbols of the cross and the crescent fluttered within the chaos, sometimes falling beneath corpses, sometimes seized with hatred, symbols of belief that had driven thousands of men to kill one another in the early hours of that morning.
Nirma pinched her forehead hard, hard enough to leave a reddish mark on her pale skin.
Her left eye was tightly shut, forming fine lines at its corner, while her right eye, still faithfully covered with a white bandage, seemed to share in the tension spreading across her face.
Her lips moved quickly, muttering in a language Arya did not recognize, a prayer or perhaps a mantra understood only by agents of the Temporal Cross-Police who were accustomed to dealing with the risks of altering history.
She prayed, hoped, pleaded with any entity willing to listen, that capturing the Abnormal at the Muddy Ground this time would not become a disaster greater than what had already been recorded in history.
In her mind, she imagined thousands of crusaders suddenly surviving the storm that should have claimed them all, imagined Seljuk soldiers returning home safely when none were meant to survive, and a cold sweat crept down her spine at the thought of the consequences of such changes.
"Let history unfold as it should," she whispered, almost inaudible.
"Let the storm still come, let those who are meant to die still die. We are only here for the Abnormal, not to alter the fate of thousands of lives."
Before her prayer was even fully spoken, Nirma felt a tap on her shoulder.
Twice.
Precise.
A rhythm she recognized, yet this time it felt different, unfamiliar.
With a reflex born from thousands of hours of training, Nirma spun around, and within a fraction of a second she had already stepped back four times, creating a safe distance between herself and the source of the tap.
Her hand swiftly reached into her waist pouch, grabbing a small seed, pressing it firmly, and in an instant the tiny object transformed, evolving into an M4A1 variant from the year 2030, fully equipped, its black barrel gleaming under the morning sun.
Nirma aimed directly at the two figures standing a few meters away, her chest rising and falling rapidly as adrenaline flooded her system.
Before her eyes, Ashita and Tegar stood calmly, two agents of the Temporal Cross-Police she had never expected to appear here, on the hill of Heraclea Cybistra, at the most inconvenient moment.
Arya turned around with surprising speed, his body spinning one hundred eighty degrees in a single smooth motion while his hands had already pressed two small seeds between his fingers.
In an instant, the seeds transformed, evolving into a gleaming knife with a distinctive 1860 design, its teakwood handle carved simply yet lethally, and a Glock-18 pistol variant from the year 2030, its short barrel shining under the sunlight.
The pistol was immediately aimed straight at Tegar's face, unwavering, unmoving, while the knife in his left hand was positioned at his right waist in an angle that allowed a swift strike if either Ashita or Tegar made a sudden aggressive move.
The air atop the hill suddenly felt frozen, filled only with the whisper of wind carrying dust and the distant sounds of battle below, a battle that now felt far away compared to the threat standing just meters before them.
From behind Arya, Nirma observed the two uninvited guests with narrowed eyes, analyzing every detail she had previously missed.
Ashita stood gracefully despite the tense situation, a batik cloth wrapped perfectly around her body, a brick-red kemben contrasting with her golden-toned skin, her orange hair neatly tied with shimmering hairpins, a floral earring swaying gently on her left ear, and the old wound on her left eye, a wound Nirma had never asked about.
Tegar beside her was no less striking in his East Javanese attire, a checkered jarik wrapped around his waist, a loose linen vest over his muscular frame, a batik headband around his forehead, a kris and machete at his left and right hips, a wooden bead necklace around his neck, and wooden sandals on his feet that somehow did not hinder his movements at all.
But what made Nirma and Arya wary was not their traditional clothing, but the weapons they carried, weapons that did not match their appearance at all.
Ashita held something that looked like a child's toy water gun, bright blue with a long narrow barrel, yet Nirma knew very well that it was a bazooka from the year 4444, a weapon capable of firing energy projectiles that not only destroyed the physical target but also erased its temporal trace, making it as if the target had never existed in any timeline.
Meanwhile, Tegar casually wore a thin pair of glasses near his left eye, from whose frame faint holograms emanated, constantly shifting to display various weapons from different eras, ready to be summoned in a blink.
Those glasses from the year 4231 were one of the most valuable artifacts of theTemporal Cross-Police, capable of accessing an intertemporal armory and summoning weapons instantly.
Nirma let out a long breath, a very long one, then gently tapped Arya's shoulder, signaling him to remain calm even as her own heart pounded uncontrollably.
Ashita smiled, wide and radiant, as if the tense situation atop the hill was merely a stage performance amusing her.
Her white teeth gleamed under the morning sun, contrasting with eyes that never truly smiled, while the floral earring on her ear swayed softly in the breeze.
From across them, Nirma felt anger boiling in her chest, her jaw tightening, her teeth grinding as she resisted the urge to lunge forward and crush that smile with her fist.
Arya, sensing the shift in energy beside him, immediately placed his left hand holding the knife slightly in front of Nirma, a subtle motion but enough to remind her that physical violence was not the first option when facing agents armed with technology from the years 4444 and 4231.
"What is the meaning of following us all the way here?" Arya asked, his voice sharp, his eyes locked onto vital points on both Tegar and Ashita in turn.
"We resolved this case in our own way, and you suddenly appear with time-erasing weapons. What exactly do you want?"
Ashita's eyes, which had been glancing toward Tegar, were immediately answered by the man in the jarik.
Tegar let out a breath, shifting his wooden sandals slightly on the dusty ground, then looked at Arya with a gaze that was strangely almost friendly despite the situation.
To be continued…