It's awesome to be back!

I know it has been a while. That's why I recommend you refresh your memories with the series recap I have included here below. 

Personally, I need to know you are back as well. Tell me in the comments you are here! 

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Army of the Cursed

Nineteen-year-old Lady Leila, who has been obsessed with mages, finds herself named by her aunt, the Queen of Murase, as her heiress. Against her aunt's advice, Leila tries her luck in the mages' trials. Though she lacks the gift, the mages accept her to exploit her extensive knowledge.

Infuriated by Leila's persistence to join the mages, the Queen of Murase decides to strip her niece of her title. But before the Queen makes the announcement, a horde of immortal possessed warriors known as the Army of the Cursed assaults her capital. Despite her awareness of her inevitable defeat, the Queen stands her ground and dies with her soldiers. Leila narrowly escapes with Master Yesen, the High Cleric of Murase. On their way westward, where they are supposed to join her mother and her little brother among the train fleeing from the capital, Leila finds them all slaughtered. A Cursed rider intercepts Leila and Yesen, but they are saved by a last-second intervention from Zahra, a young Murasen mage whom Leila has recently met at the royal palace. The three of them decide that they must warn the most powerful kingdom in the west; the Kingdom of Bermania.

Nardine, the sixteen-year-old heiress to the Kingdom of Bermania, survives a failed assassination attempt outside her capital Paril. Her mother Queen Rona, who always has her differences with her, orders Nardine to stay behind the walls of the city until she finds out who is trying to kill her daughter. As Nardine learns that her long-gone father has been working on a weapon that will enable his soldiers to fight the immortal warriors toe-to-toe, she defies her mother's orders and sneaks into the Redfoot, the abandoned fortress in which her father died while working with the mages on that mysterious new weapon. In the middle of her search for any clue about the weapon in the pitch-black castle, two dark figures follow her. By allowing some light into the chamber she is trapped in, Nardine accidentally kills her stalkers, and then, she discovers they are severely deformed humanoids. After she collects all the documents she has found in her father's chamber, she encounters a fully armored man who introduces himself as her father himself.

Nardine's father, King Masolon, reveals that he and the Koyan mages in his court worked on developing a potion that would boost the strength of his soldiers so that they could have a fair fighting chance against the abnormally fast immortals. After a few failed trials that killed his men, Masolon stepped forward as a test subject to encourage a hundred of his soldiers to try an advanced version of the strength-boosting potion, and the experiment succeeded this time, but the price was heavy. Later, Masolon discovered that the potion, which they called The Shunri Blend, was turning them into deformed beings that could not stand the sunlight. Believing that would protect his wife and his daughter from conspirators inside and outside Bermania, Masolon decided to fake his death while he and his men would spend the remaining of their short lives hiding in the Redfoot.

Nardine promises her father that she would find a way to turn him back to his normal self. Upon her return to the royal Bermanian palace, she learns about a rebellion led by a lad who claims he is her elder half-brother.

Born and raised as a commoner in the Kingdom of Skandivia in the north, Halgrim is approached by exiled Bermanian nobles who reveal to him that he is King Masolon's firstborn. As they swear fealty to him as the rightful king of Bermania, Halgrim decides to reclaim his father's throne. While he marches to the capital of Bermania, half of the Bermanian major cities join his army.

In the north, rumors spread about the Wandering Seer who warns the Rusakians about the Army of the Cursed approaching their lands. When the news reaches Frankil, the former Bermanian knight who raised Halgrim, he decides to take his band and their families, as well as his own, to the Frozen Forest, where they should be safe from the Cursed. Ben, a member of Frankil's band and an old friend of Masolon's, volunteers to hurry after Halgrim to bring him back.

Nardine and Halgrim face off at the walls of the Bermanian capital. As they fail to settle their conflict peacefully, they deploy their troops on the battlefield. But in the middle of the battle, the news of the Army of the Cursed comes with the arrival of the fleeing Lady Leila of Murase and her companions. Ben catches up with Halgrim and almost persuades him to join the escape to the north. But a small company of the Cursed ambushes the forces of both Nardine and Halgrim and lays waste to them, only to be saved by a band of fully-armored knights descending from the Redfoot.

And that's when Halgrim finds out that his father is still alive, and Masolon discovers he has a son.

As Halgrim joins forces with Rona to defend Paril, the Army of the Cursed launches an assault on the city walls. Masolon stuns the immortals' rearguard with his mutated knights, but eventually, he fights to the death to defend a breach in the wall, allowing his wife and his children to evacuate the city before it falls into the hands of the Army of the Cursed.

On board the ship sailing away from the port of Paril, Zahra mentions that she heard a veteran mage say that with Leila there could be hope. When Leila seeks further clarification, Yesen tells her that thanks to an incomplete equation she has solved, it will be possible to reverse the effects of the Shunri Blend, and consequently encourage more soldiers to take it.

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Tattered Banners

The survivors of the Battle of Paril are supposed to sail to Barlus, where they will meet with the Bermanian cavalry that is trapped on the Goranian mainland, and together they will head to Karun's Cave at the Frozen Forest to hide there from the Cursed. Halgrim, who secretly plans to catch up with his family fleeing north, helps Rona convince her vassals that escaping is futile, and instead they should head to the fortress of Karun before the Cursed do. With hidden stocks of material that might help Rona's mages produce the Shunri Blend, Karun might provide all humans a last fighting chance against the Cursed.

Rona's fleet changes course and sail toward Kalensi, the Skandivian capital, where she can land and march south toward Karun. But Sigurdson, the Skandivian Crown Prince intercepts Rona's fleet, demanding that she must turn her ships back. After failed negotiations, Rona tricks Sigurdson and turns around his fast boats until she successfully lands her men south of Kalensi.

Halgrim, joined by Zahra who wants to find her parents, sneaks out of Rona's camp. Through a portal, they go to a particular Murasen oasis, where she hopes that her parents have been seeking shelter there. Mistaking Halgrim and Zahra for a couple of Cursed, the nomads of the oasis attack them, striking the Murasen mage with a silver arrow that nearly kills her. After the nomads realize their grave mistake, one of them called Yamen volunteers to take Halgrim to the only person who could save Zahra, a fearsome nameless woman known as the Lady.

Near the northern borders of her kingdom, Rona encounters a Skandivian force that outnumbers hers, but she brutally vanquishes them all with the help of the remaining Koyan mages led by Minjun. As all her troops cross the bridge to Neldon, the northernmost Bermanian fort, Rona spots a bigger Skandivian force on her tail. Without the help of her exhausted mages, she instinctively snatches a bag of explosives prepared by Leila, and demolishes the bridge before the Skandivians might manage to cross. Unfortunately, Rona is too close to survive the explosion.

With Yamen's help, Halgrim meets the Lady who almost unleashes her two 'invisible' guards on him because of his demonic blood. After she manages to heal Zahra's wound using Halgrim's blood, the Murasen mage identifies their intimidating host as the legendary Lady Nelly, the most powerful, most dangerous sorceress that ever existed, according to the books.

As she knows that Halgrim is eventually headed to the Frozen Forest, she gives him a sealed envelope to be handed to one of the High Clerics of Karun's Cave in return for the Frozen Marble; an item Nelly believes that can end the war with the demons.

Zahra and Halgrim are set to Eahor in Mankola to look for dragonskin coats, the only outfit that endures the deadly cold of the Frozen Forest. Odval, a Mankol horseman from the oasis, particularly the one who shot Zahra with the silver arrow, joins them to guide them through the lands of Mankola. After a problematic passage through a portal, Halgrim and Zahra barely survive and find themselves in Byzonta. The Mankol rider does not, probably lost in the void between portals until the end of days.

Halgrim and Zahra encounter Valon, a Byzont mage who effortlessly beats Zahra while his soldiers arrest Halgrim. As Valon recognizes Nelly's seal on the envelope he digs from Halgrim's pocket, he decides to take his two prisoners to Inabol to meet the Byzont High Cleric.

Nardine, now the Queen of Bermania, is intent on resuming her mother's mission. She sends her scouts to locate her wandering cavalry, but before she gets a reply, she learns that the Skandivians have found a way to repair the bridge, and shortly after, they attack Neldon from two sides, stretching Nardine's defenses thin until they eventually storm the castle.

For some reason she doesn't understand, Minjun gives Leila the book of the Dark Art, urging her to study it very well. Locking herself up for hours in her room, she immerses herself fully into the cursed book until she starts hearing a voice in the demon tongue, addressing her as its master, warning her about some danger. As she realizes that the castle is about to fall to the Skandivians, she makes a desperate attempt of ordering her invisible 'servant' to punish the invaders. The sky showers the clashing Skandivians and Bermanians alike with fireballs that even damage the fort of Neldon itself. With a last-minute intervention, Minjun's exhausted mages lose their lives as they shield the castle until the demon rain ceases.

Sigurdson calls for a truce, offering to join forces with Nardine and march together to Karun, even if that means fighting his allies, the Rusakians, who have been occupying the mighty fortress for a while. Because of her doubts about him, Nardine accepts Sigurdson's offer without revealing anything about the Shunri Blend and the material stored in Karun.

Nardine confronts Leila, Yesen, and Minjun to get an explanation for the recent demonic display that killed most of her remaining mages. Minjun admits that he has doubted that Leila is a Whisperer, who has the ability to command demons, even with her inability to wield magic. His explanation is that Leila might have traces of the cursed blood of her great grandmother Lady Nelly.

A rider arrives at Neldon, and to everybody's surprise, it's Ben who has survived the fall of Paril and joined the wandering Bermanian cavalry. As Nardine hears that her knights are nearby, she sends Ben to inform them of her location. Just after finishing her meeting with him, she learns that a company of the Cursed is approaching her fort. Despite the objections raised by some of her vassals, especially the Jonsons led by Lady Janet, she insists on abandoning Neldon and marching to Karun as soon as possible. Right before her party exits the castle, she discovers that Leila and Minjun are missing.

Minjun tells Leila that he might not be able to help her harness her newly discovered power, but instead, he can take her to someone who can. Leila follows him through a portal, and on the other side, she realizes that Minjun has abducted her to his homeland to meet the Koyan Emperor.

The Byzont High Cleric hears from Halgrim everything about Nelly's quest. Obviously aware of the notion of the Frost Marble, the High Cleric tells Halgrim that he can't break the seal of the envelope because he has to be at the Frozen Forest, as Nelly specifically asked.

Valon hosts both Zahra and Halgrim to get some rest before the Cursed knock on the gates of Inabol. Despite their badly outnumbered troops, Valon is confident his people can defend the city thanks to a plan that is hard to succeed without Zahra's help. She agrees to help him, but the plan doesn't just fail; it leads to the transformation of one possessed warrior into a demon in its true form. At that moment, Valon urges Zahra to run away with Halgrim from Inabol before he surrenders the city to the Cursed.

Meanwhile, Frankil and his people arrive near the southern side of the Frozen Forest. While most of his folks are on their way to safety, he watches the Cursed Army lay waste to the Rusakian royal family and the battalion escorting them. Having no dragonskin outfits, Frankil and his few remaining folks flee west until they get away from the massacre. Atop a hill, they meet the Wandering Seer who tells them about another companion called Odval to join them soon.