Reasons For War

"What's so funny?" Lucius asked as he turned to the old man.

"It's just that, I never expected a little boy to walk in here. An old man, a man, a cripple, or even a woman I could expect but not a damn child! Nearly 2500 years of history and my base is destroyed by a child. Ha....haha.....hahahahahaha." Axolot said slovenly, bursting out into uncontrollable laughter at the end.

"Hundred of thousands of men are dying out there you know? You could tell them to surrender. You look like you would be their leader. If you get them to surrender I might persuade my companions to not execute you." Lucius proposed.

"Haha, it's fine. Those lot out there are trash. There are, or well, were only around 500,000 of them on this base. Between you and me, I always hated them anyway. Hahaha." Axolot joked as he got up and gestured for Lucius to follow him.

Axolot led Lucius to the mansion behind the command centre and then into a sitting room. He told Lucius to sit while he found some tea and began to brew it. He poured the tea into the cups and took a sip before finally speaking. Lucius was suspicious of what was happening so he was on his guard. He first checked for poison before taking a sip himself after seeing that it was clean.

"Now then, I am Axolot Yamir. Leader of this moon base and the 5th generation king of the Yamir. I am willing to tell you anything you want to know, and in exchange I would like for you to spare the Yamir that remain on Hazmit." Axolot began.

Lucius realised that because of his human features and his weird hair, Axolot had thought that this wasn't a rebellion anymore but an invasion. Axolot thought that Lucius had come from afar on the ship and had begun this siege in an attempt to conquer Hazmit for himself.

"Well, firstly, I am Lucius. I represent the Liberated Youth and am not from a foreign power. The remaining Yamir are here with me, killing your men as we speak." Lucius explained.

"Haha, that's good then. Better that they survive than the trash that remain here. I'm happy for them. Haaa... I guess I should begin then. How much do you want to know?"

"I want to know everything. Start from the very beginning."

"Okay. Around 2000 years ago, there were two empires, the Batak and the Yamir. They began on good terms, as the two reigning powers of the continent they had power over most of the land. However, most of the land wasn't enough. Since they wanted to co-own the world, they decided to band together and use each others resources to dominate Hazmit! After the first generation emperors brought the world under their dominion they became sworn brothers, and they married their first born heirs together. The relationship between the two empires was good for the next 1000 years, but after such a long time the original harmonious relationship was more of a formality. In the beginning the two empires were on genuinely good terms but within 1000 years, the first two generations of the emperors were already dead, and the common population had gone through five generations too!" Axolot was explaining but Lucius interrupted him after that line.

"Wait, how was it that 5 regular generations past for 2 generations of emperors?"

"Ahh, to explain that you need to know that a regular elf's lifespan is 250 years, however, those of the royal family are able to train in cultivation and thus live for a lot longer. I, myself, am 780 years old. The first two emperors had reached the highest level in their cultivations, they both lived for nearly 1000 years. They took most of that time conquering the world, and the rest teaching their heirs, and thus their heirs where able to reach 800 years of age before dying. Haha, I'm actually considered a supreme genius you know. My father only lived for 546 years before he died and my grandfather was even worse at 479 years. Anyway, after the two founding emperors and their heirs died, they couldn't marry their children together as it would be incest, right? They were also unable to find suitable candidates for their marriage since all of the dukes and duchess' children were considered too inadequate. So in the end they married two dukes' children from each empire instead. Over time from then, the marriages got weaker and weaker until the point that in my fathers generation there wasn't even a marriage between the two empires at all. Instead, my father had actually raped the Batak emperors sister! My father was the bastard that started this stupid war! He raped the girl and when the Batak emperor came for an explanation he said he would take her as concubine but the Batak were unsatisfied. They said that I should be married to the 3rd princess of the Batak but my father disagreed adamantly, mainly because she was an illegitimate child born of a slave that the Batak king had slept with but also because she had no cultivation talent at all!"

"Couldn't you have taken her as a concubine? Or just marry her to one of your siblings or something." Lucius proposed.

"Haha, actually my father was infertile! I'm actually the product of my mother and one of the dukes. Since he was infertile, he treasured me, his only son, more than anyone else. Especially since I was such a talented genius! The foolish bastard didn't even know that I wasn't really his son! He found it unacceptable for me to marry a useless slaves daughter. With that conflict, the war began. The war began almost a thousand years ago, and after 200 years of battling, the higher ups all realised that the world was becoming too dangerous. So they built space ships and came to the moon bases to avoid the danger while still controlling the war through commanding the lower ranked leaders. I was on that ship too, but back then I was only 16 or so. My father died around 300 years later since he was around 200 when he boarded the ship. The ones that came to this moon base are all the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful. In other words, they are all freeloading debauchers. They barely resemble an army after I trained them for 500 years! They eat, drink and fuck all year round without caring about all the carnage down there!" Axolot ranted on.

"You sound like you actually care about all the death that takes place on Hazmit. Do you really?" Lucius asked as he stared intently at Axolot, the weird haze from his mind pearl moving into his eyes and lighting the golden pupils up slightly.

"Yes, of course I do! This war is because of my arrogant asshole of a father! I had told him back then that I was fine with marrying that girl but he disregarded what I said. In the end they warped a once beautiful world into the shithole that it is today. I've tried to end the war myself but the Batak won't give up at all. Every time I begin to negotiate they bomb my people and tell me to fuck off. The current Batak emperor was that sister of the emperors favourite nephew. He was really close to her and so he really hates us Yamir. He won't let the war end until we are all dead, or at least most of us." Axolot explained.

As he listened, Lucius didn't understand why but he felt that Axolot was undoubtedly telling the truth. It was like a strange lingering sensation in his mind and heart, telling him to believe him.