"Why am I such a coward?" Faust curses his weakness as he is running towards a hospital, carrying Bella in his hands.

He sends Bella inside an operating theatre with a couple of doctors and nurses. 

"What the h.e.l.l Miki? Why do we need to operate a dog? We don't have enough meds for men and now we need to spend resources on a dog?" One of the doctors is saying from inside the operating theatre.

Faust is just sitting outside the door crying when he suddenly hears a doctor talking about Bells. "N-No! Please, doctors, please! Please save Bella! I don't have any more family members than her! Please help me Please!"

He cries while slamming on the doors of the operating theatre. And a number of people gather in front of the door. The door opens and Miki, the head doctor comes out of the room with his gloves on.

He comes out and hugs Faust in his arms. "I'm sorry that my sub-ordinate spoke that way. But trust me! I will save your family member. You can count on me." The doctor says with conviction and confidence.

He goes back inside the theatre and closes the door. A good amount of three hours creep by and Faust is still sitting in front of the operating theatre.

His eyes catches the glimpse of a known-face. Clara's dad, the old man is sitting on the other end of the corridor. Faust just remembered that Clara is missing, or rather was kidnapped by her Ex.

Faust slowly gets up on his feet and walks towards the old man. "O-old man, where is Clara?" Faust asks in a soft and gentle voice.

"Ol-" His voice breaks due to his continuous cryings, he takes a moment to clear his throat, catch his breath and asks again. "O-old man! What happened." The old man does not respond, he keeps starring at the empty wall in front of him.

"Old man, say something!" Faust grabs his shoulder while asking and shooks his left shoulder gently. As Faust is looking, the old man slowly slides to his right and falls down off the chair.

Faust does not understand, a nurse that is standing near them quickly runs to the old man to check on him. She holds the wrist of the old man to check the pulse, she then places her hand on his chest, she opens his eyelids wider and lastly places her index finger in front of his nose.

"H-He died." The nurse declares to Faust who was looking at the old man with a puzzled face.

Meanwhile, the operating theatre behind him opens and the doctors along with nurses walk out carrying their equipment that is reeking the smell of blood.

"I'm sorry Faust, I, we tried our best but Bella lost lots of blood already. We did everything we can but she died." Miki tells him with a hint of guilt and sadness in his face.

"I'm sorry." 

"How did this old man died?"

"I do not know, he saw his daughter and suddenly collapsed in the chair and now this."

"Poor old man, cannot blame him. His daughter is in very bad shape. They are animals. They horribly raped her and burnt her body with gasoline."

"Her story is also so scary, I have never heard of such a thing that she has gone through."

Two nurses talks to each other regarding Clara and her father. Faust is beyond shocked and scared. "What could possibly happen to Clara? I'm sure they are mistaken." Faust tells to himself.

A dead body comes their way on a stretcher, The whole body is covered with a white blanket all the way from head to toe. Part of her left hand is showing out but the hand is severely burned. Faust could not see it, he could not imagine Clara underneath that blanket as a dead body.

The mortuary staff member stops the stretcher in the middle of the corridor and asks the nurses if the old man is dead as well.

"Man, I don't know how I'm going to carry these bodies at the same time. My job is the worst." Saying that he goes out to bring another stretcher to pick up the old man body.

He leaves Clara's body in the corridor and heads out. He takes out a small alcohol bottle from his pocket and drinks on his way back.

Faust is shocked at the man's behaviour, he left the body and goes out while drinking. He is scared to look at the body on the stretcher again. And more scared to see if it is really Clara.

He tries to turn his face away but his eyes are fixated on the body. Meanwhile, the blanket that is covering the dead body flips on the top, revealing the dead body's face up to the neck.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

Faust cries and yells out scarily. Its Clara, her face is all burnt and cut with a knife, her face is brutally sliced at many places as if she is a doll and one of her eyeb.a.l.l.s is gouging out. the expression of her dead body face is so horrified as if she is scared and terrified before dying. She died while feeling these terrible things that are done to her.

"Ah, cover the blanket, take the kid away." A nurse rushes to take care of it before more people see the dead body and get scared.

Faust immediately runs out of the hospital while crying and keeps running to his home that is situated on his hill. The burned dead body of Clara and her face she had before dying keeps appearing in his death even though he tries to think about something else.

He could not hold it anymore and vomits in the bushes near his house. He keeps running off to the hill after another. He completely forgets where he needs to go and keeps running around the hills and around the island over and over.

-

"Ares huh? Why are you suddenly asking about him?" Yang is on a phone call with a captain of the House of Ashura's. He is asked to tell more about Ares and how he managed to defeat an entire platoon of an army.

"He is not at all like you all have imagined he is. He is completely different. I can tell you because I have seen everything he did on the battlefield." Yang describes.

"It is right before the war."

*Past*

Ares taught most of what he could, to Gus for four days straight and put him through skin and bone, without a break. At the end of the fourth day, Ares wanted to talk to Gus about the war they were going to tomorrow, on the 'the fifth day' which was approaching them very quickly as days pa.s.sed by.

"Ares, I improved a lot with your style of fighting didn't I? Now I'm strong enough to defend myself on my own and I'm all ready for the war tomorrow." Gus asked Ares with a c.o.c.ky tone.

"Gus..." Ares took a long pause and seemed reluctant to speak out, "I-I want you to stay in the village. Do not come to war with me." He told Gus who doesn't seem to be listening.

Ares doesn't really want Gus to go out to the battlefield. He broke all his military codes and pa.s.sed down his ancient sword art to Gus in hope that it will be pa.s.sed down and live on,  but now this fool Gus wanted to go to a battle ground and die? A mere four days of practice is nowhere near as mastering the skills. 

Gus however is so excited to show off his skills. He was like a little kid who gets thrilled when they have new toys to show off in front of their friends. He couldn't contain his excitement and only kept thinking of showing his sword skills in front of everyone and winning the war all by himself.

"You need to stay and protect the village Gus." But Gus was. .h.i.t by sadness when he heard Ares saying these words. His sorrow turned into anger in an instant.

He wanted to be out there and be able to help Ares. He was imagining himself as Ares's sidekick already, how can he want to stay home when they were in war?

"I want you to be in the village and pray for us. For I will definitely win and come back alive" Ares convinced Gus somehow to withdraw from the war even though Gus was still mad about this.

Finally the day of the war, the fifth day came by.

Mars, the village chief already sent a word out to the Caracus village saying that Mindoro is willing to aid Caracus against the war with outsiders. However, Mars received a word back from Caracus that only a group of his 100 best men were enough to aid them in the battle.

The four units of Guards, Archers, medics and supporters along with Ares and his soldiers are sent to the war with the cheering of people, but sadness was hidden behind their smiling faces.  They do not know if their fathers, husbands or sons who are heading out will come back alive from this war. 

Yang dearly held a bangle presented to him by Tisha as his good luck charm, and he set out with everyone else to aid Caracus.

As the Mindoro villagers travel for 20km on their horses and animal pulleys. They did not believe their eyes. There were broken and burnt down houses everywhere, smeared blood marks and unnatural landscapes. It was the Caracus village, which was in a very devastating state.

As they get closer to the village, Ares and the leader of Mindoro army noticed some armor s.h.i.+ning at a distance deeper in the village. A number of 500 soldiers were arming themselves and sharpening their weapons, getting ready for a war.

"Ahh there you are, you must be Edward." An old man who seems to be in his mid forties, is walking towards Ares with his greetings as the chief of Caracus village.

"You must be honorable Mr.Nero, the chief of Caracus. Pardon me, I'm Edward, acting leader of Mindoro army. We're here to lend you a hand" Edward (age - 32), a guard and a medic with a sword on his waist introduces himself to the chief of Caracus.

"I'm really happy that your village had decided to help us on this matter, even though we have done many awful things to your village in the past. We realized how stupid we are after having a taste of our own medicine. We don't even have any creative leaders like you all do in your village to rebuild our houses, from the terrible shape they are in right now" Nero (age - 47) asked for forgiveness while kneeling down and bowing his head on the ground in front of all the villagers of Mindoro with a very sad smile on his face.

After witnessing how it feels to be plundered, looted and slaughtered by others. The old chief now, knows how it feels to lose everything. Hence they reached out to Mindoro for their aid, betting all of their lives on this battle that they didn't choose to fight.

"Please chief Nero, don't embarra.s.s us anymore. We both have experienced the loss and pain of having everything taken away. Also we are hoping to find a little benefit for our village in this aid. That is, strengthening the bonds between our villages and holding the enemies here, so they don't come to Mindoro next to raise h.e.l.l." Edward speaks.

"Thank you for forgiving me, now let me introduce you people to my army and we can have a plan on how to win this war. The sun will be coming out any moment now and we can expect the enemy." Nero says to Edward.

Nero introduces General Gideon to Edward and his army. Gideon evaluated Edward's army strengths and weaknesses, and started a.s.signing them to their positions and squads.