CHAPTER 127: CHAPTER 126. THE CONTINENT OF CALONIA

Long before the age of steel and stone, there existed a continent hidden behind violent currents and tempest storms, the land known as Calonia. As ancient as Kaelindor itself, Calonia had risen from the primordial world at the same time as the other great continents. Yet while Kaelindor grew into a realm of magic, shifting powers, and vast kingdoms, Calonia remained veiled behind nature’s harshest defenses.

To the scholars and explorers of the other continents, Calonia was a myth. To sailors, it was a place spoken of only in half-whispered tales, an uninhabited wasteland of jagged cliffs, poisonous marshes, and forests so dense that sunlight scarcely reached the ground. The few who ventured too close never returned, swallowed by the storms or torn apart by the violent waves that guarded its perimeter.

But beneath those storm-black mountains and ancient forests, a civilization unlike any other had thrived since the dawn of creation.

The dominant race of Calonia, known simply as Calonites, descended from the ancient orcs of the primordial era. But they were no longer the crude, dim-witted brutes sung about in war tales.

Over millennia, Calonites evolved into a race with intellect and overwhelming physical prowess. Each stood taller than a human or wolf-shifter, their bodies carved from muscle, their bones denser, and their skin resistant to most wounds.

Yet perhaps their most unusual trait is this: they had no secondary gender.

Calonites are biologically male by default, an evolutionary result of a continent that had once been ravaged by famine, harsh seasons, and a magical calamity that wiped out their female population entirely. The species survived through a desperate, ancient ritual, stealing the fertility of foreign omegas brought to their land during scattered raids of the past.

Centuries later, the trait persisted. No Calonite was ever born female or omega, and thus they couldn’t breed nor produce heirs of their own kind. Even with their long lifespans, some living two, even three centuries, their numbers continued to decline. Each generation was smaller than the last, each warband thinner, each clan more desperate.

For a time, their ancestors believed it was a curse. Calonite shamans carved runes into the bones of ancient beasts, begging unnamed gods to grant them a single female birth. Chieftains offered blood sacrifices, warlords burned whole forests, and kings razed their enemies to ash, all in hopes of earning fertility for their race.

None came. Not even a single omega or beta female ever appeared among them.

Thus, a harsh truth rooted itself deeply into the spine of Calonia’s society: to survive, they must breed with omegas of other races or with beta females taken as spoils of battle. What began as desperation slowly transformed into custom, then law, and finally, an instinctual doctrine passed down through generations.

Generations of exposure to Calonia’s chaotic land, a place where magic storms tear across the plains and where mana crashes like lightning through the forests, forced the Calonites to adapt in an extraordinary way. Magic, which had once killed many of them, became something their bodies resisted, then absorbed, then neutralized.

No spell, blessing, curse, or enchantment could affect them. Mages from other continents had once traveled to understand this phenomenon. Most never returned. The few who did reported the same thing: "It was like casting spells into a void."

This immunity made Calonites feared, for no sorcerer could stand against them. Armies that relied on elemental magic couldn’t pierce their defenses. Even divine or demonic energy could barely scratch their skin.

Thus, Calonia grew strong, even as the rest of the world forgot them.

For centuries, Calonia was ruled by tribal warlords who battled endlessly for territory and resources. Their society was harsh; strength ruled, and weakness died. But everything changed under the rule of a legendary war chief, Dravonar the Unbroken, the first king to unite the continent.

Dravonar rose from the largest warband, the Ironcrest Clan. With a strategic brilliance unmatched by his predecessors, he conquered rival clans not through fear alone but through calculated diplomacy.

He offered them something no other warlord had: A vision: "Calonia will not die in isolation. Our blood will not fade in forgotten soil. We will take what nature denied us. We will seize our future."

Under Dravonar, the warring clans unified into a single nation, fortified by discipline, order, and purpose.

Once unified, Dravonar sought to secure the one thing Calonia lacked: omegas to ensure their species’ survival. Though ancient raids had brought some omegas to their shores, the practice had died out as powerful empires rose across the other continents. Calonites had been forced into isolation again, relying on their dwindling population.

Dravonar would not accept extinction.

He commissioned the creation of a grand fleet, the first in Calonian history. Massive ships, reinforced with ironwood harvested from the Calonian black forests, took ten years to construct. The world outside had improved its magic and military forces, but Dravonar believed their strength alone would shatter all resistance.

He was wrong. The voyage ended in disaster. The currents surrounding Calonia were vicious, the same maelstroms that had protected their homeland for ages.

Many ships capsized before ever reaching foreign shores. Those who made it encountered naval fleets whose weapons outmaneuvered them. Without magic or ranged capabilities, the Calonites were easy targets for artillery.

Only a handful returned. But they returned with knowledge, maps, information, and critical insights into the weaknesses of the other continents. Dravonar was not discouraged. He was inspired.

For the next fifty years, Calonia transformed.

The Calonites were not magical, but they were brilliant engineers, capable of building with muscle and mind alone. They learned from their failed expedition and began forging a new generation of vessels, larger, more durable, and capable of breaking through the deadly storms around Calonia.

They constructed shipyards that stretched for miles across the Stonewind Coast. Blacksmiths learned to shape metals the other continents could not mine. Builders developed tools and pulley systems that allowed them to lift boulders the size of houses.

Their society was organized into three castes:

The Iron Bloodline—warriors, elite soldiers, and commanders

The Stone Minds—engineers, builders, strategists

The Tenders—caretakers, healers (though not magical), and those who maintained their dwindling population

Though fierce and battle-driven, Calonites never lack intelligence. Many were multilingual after studying captured or traded texts. Some were scholars who analyzed foreign cultures, politics, and weaknesses of other races.

The Calonites chose Aerthysia as their first target, not for its wealth nor for its fertile land, but for a simpler, far more primal reason: because their continent is the nearest, and its people possessed what the Calonites lacked.

Aerthysia, a vast crescent-shaped continent of rolling plains, frost-crowned mountains, and ancient enchanted forests, had long been divided between its two largest races: humans and elves. Their conflict was as old as their legends, a cycle of border skirmishes, contested resources, and broken peace treaties. Neither side imagined that their centuries-old rivalry would become the very thing that doomed them.

The first Calonite vessels, crude in design but monstrous in size, splintered through Aerthysia’s western shores like a force of waves of iron and muscle. No magic spells slowed them. No enchanted forests impeded them. No siege weapon pierced their hides.

For the first time in Aerthysian history, magic was unable to stop an army. Villages fell in a single night. Border fortresses, once proud symbols of human and elven might, collapsed under the sheer physical force of warriors who felt no pain from fire, no fear of beasts, and no hesitation in the face of enchantment.

Human kings and elven high councils both realized the same truth: if they fought alone, they would be erased. If they fought together, they might still lose, but they might also survive.

And so, for the first time in recorded Aerthysian history, humans and elves stood on the same battlefield, not as enemies, but as allies.

The Calonites, however, were not seeking domination in the way other empires did. They didn’t seek tribute, or land, or magical artifacts. Their purpose was foundational to their survival: the continuation of their bloodline.

Aerthysia’s people aren’t just conquerable; they are necessary.

In the aftermath of the first raids, Aerthysian villages experienced terror unlike anything in their long histories. Communities are shattered. Many were captured and taken across the violent seas to Calonia’s iron-forged strongholds. Those deemed essential to the Calonite bloodline, particularly omega and beta women capable of bearing children, were separated from their families, forced into a future none could have imagined.

Aerthysia’s culture changed overnight.

Humans, once proud and unyielding, began reinforcing ancient fortresses with new magical wards, even though they knew magic alone couldn’t stop the invaders. Elves, whose pride lay in arcane supremacy, were forced to accept that brute strength could overpower even the most elegant spell.

Fear spread faster than the Calonite ships ever could. And yet, in the cracks of despair, something new emerged: unity.

For the first time, mixed aerthysian battalions appeared, humans wielding enchanted steel forged by elven hands, elves donning armor shaped by human blacksmiths. The two races, once enemies, now shared battlefields and mass graves.

But even united, they struggled. Because the truth was simple and devastating: Aerthysia had never faced an opponent immune to everything they relied upon.

Calonia didn’t want land. They wanted people. And Aerthysia became the first continent to learn what it meant to stand against a civilization that sought survival at any cost.

-

Aerthysia High Council

"I heard Kaelindor just crowned their first emperor of the continent." One of the high elves murmured.

"The continent filled with brutes?" Another elf scoffed. His long silver hair shimmered with disdain, but the shadows beneath his eyes betrayed sleepless nights.

"Brutes?" The human war leader slammed his palm onto the table. "They have magic and brute strength in balance, something we’re lacking, and something we desperately need." His jaw tightened. "You’ve seen what our mages reported. Spells slide off Calonite skin like rain off armor. Our armies crumble because our greatest advantage—magic—means nothing to them."

"And you believe Kaelindor will help us?" An elven councilor snapped. "A continent that only recently managed to unify their own clans? Beastmen, werewolves, demons—none of them have ever cared for our wars."

"I think it’s better than letting our omegas and beta females be taken away again," the human king said, voice low, carrying the weight of a ruler who had already failed too many. Deep lines carved his face. "You saw how it ended for the mated pairs. We all saw it."

Silence thickened like smoke.

They had seen it, the hollow-eyed survivors dragged back after Calonite raids. The broken bonds, shattered souls, and ruined families. The way a Calonite’s forced claim ripped through magic, spirit, and sanity alike.

"A living hell," the king said, the words cold and final. "If we don’t act, Aerthysia will fall within a decade. Maybe less."

The high elves exchanged looks, wary, bitter, but undeniably frightened.

"They want our breeding stock," the human war leader added darkly. "Not our land. Not our politics. Not even our treasure. They want our people. Our women, our omega." His voice trembled with rage. "They take them, force them, and breed them, and they don’t even understand why we break. They don’t care."

Another moment of silence passed, filled only by the crackle of the brazier.

Finally, the leader of the elves exhaled, long and weary. "If Kaelindor’s new emperor is strong enough to hold his monstrous continent together, perhaps he’s strong enough to stand against Calonia."

"At the very least," the human king said, "he will understand the threat."

"And what," an elf asked softly, "do we offer in return?"

"Nothing more than the knowledge that a continent strong enough to resist Calonia would someday attract the same hunger," the king replied. "Kaelindor is next if we fall."

The elves stared at him, calculating, frightened, but no longer dismissive.

The human war leader leaned forward. "The Calonites don’t stop. They don’t negotiate. They don’t want alliances. Only bodies. And if they break Aerthysia, they will look across the sea next." His voice was steel. "Kaelindor may be fierce, but even they cannot fight an endless tide alone."

The elven leader closed his eyes, then nodded once. "Very well," he said. "Let us seek audience with the emperor of Kaelindor."