Three days in the hospital felt unnecessarily long. There wasn't much to do, and time crawled slowly with few distractions. My only real escape was the television.
And yes, I had the remote, which meant I could switch channels at will—a small but satisfying exercise of power in an otherwise tedious environment.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much worth watching. Most shows were either news programs or educational content. In other words: extremely scholarly, extremely dry. Apparently, this country valued learning and information above all else.
The nation I am in is called El Malais Kingdom, located in the southeastern region of the Archi-Malavia continent. According to their official calendar, it was the year 402 based on the Adamas Reckoning (AR) Calendar. In the standardized Lunar Calendar, however, it was the year 1725. Both calendars are legitimate, though Archi-Malavia officially uses the AR Calendar.
The reason other nations in the region also adopted the AR Calendar can be traced back to events preceding its creation.
The calendar's name, Adamas Reckoning, commemorates the time when the ninth-generation king of El Malais Kingdom, King Ard Adamas Malais, defended the entire continent from the greedy ambitions of Enbrits Kingdom, located northwest on the Euryster continent—without actually waging war.
The story was detailed on a channel I had watched two days ago. It wasn't an exaggerated legend, but an actual historical event. Evidence included the continued existence of Enbrits Kingdom today and corroborating historical records from neighboring nations, which aligned closely with the account presented by the history teacher on that TV channel.
Even during that time, the Malais Strait was already one of the world's major trade routes, connecting the western and eastern regions.
The El Malais Kingdom controlled territory across three distinct landmasses, each with its own archipelagos.
The capital landmass lay in the north, extending southeastward. The second landmass, located further south, also stretched in a southeastern direction. The Malais Strait ran between these two landmasses, forming a natural trade corridor.
The northern landmass was called the Peninsular Malais, while the southern one was known as the Malavia Barrier.
The third landmass, called East Malais, was situated quite far to the east of Peninsular Malais, and separated from the Malavia Barrier by a small body of water. Despite this separation, the waterway was navigable, and small boats and ships could easily traverse it, maintaining connections between the regions.
As one of the world's major trade hubs, the Malais Strait naturally drew the attention of many nations in the far west. Most were content with the existing arrangement—paying tolls in exchange for safe passage to the eastern trade routes. It was a mutually beneficial system, stable and profitable.
However, one nation could not resist the temptation.
After years of preparation, the Enbrits Kingdom finally launched what it called a crusade, publicly framed as an effort to spread civilization toward the eastern regions of the world.
Rather than advancing directly toward the Archi-Malavia continent, the Enbrits Kingdom first made landfall in the far south of the Solivan continent, a region inhabited by people with dark skin complexions. Initial contact was peaceful, marked by trade, diplomacy, and courteous exchanges.
That peace did not last.
Before long, the Enbrits revealed their true intentions. Their ambitions surfaced gradually but unmistakably, and the process of colonization began.
News of the events unfolding on the Solivan continent spread quickly. Nowhere was this faster or more pronounced than in the Malais Strait, where traders from every corner of the world gathered to conduct business—mostly arriving by ship.
Merchant vessels carried more than goods. Along with spices, metals, and textiles, they brought stories—rumors of peaceful contact turning into domination, of foreign banners rising where they did not belong. These accounts moved from dock to dock, from tavern to market, and from port city to port city, long before any official declarations were made.
By the time formal reports reached the courts and councils of the eastern nations, the truth was already common knowledge among sailors and merchants.
The news soon reached the ears of the El Malais ministers and the kingdom's warlords, who swiftly brought the matter before the royal court. What had begun as distant rumors was now recognized as a threat with far-reaching consequences.
During the court meeting, the kingdom's ruler—King Ard Adamas Malais—listened in silence as reports were presented. Known for his wisdom and restraint, the king acted without hesitation once the situation was clear.
He immediately ordered the mobilization of the kingdom's finest reconnaissance squads, dispatching them westward by sea. Their missions were divided with precise intent.
Some units were tasked with information acquisition, gathering firsthand accounts of the Enbrits' actions in Solivan. Others were assigned to monitor instability, observing political turbulence and shifts occurring both within the Enbrits Kingdom and across neighboring states. A select few were embedded as deep-cover operatives, planted within Enbrits territory and the surrounding nations to observe, report, and act when given orders.
It was not an act of aggression, nor a declaration of war—but it was a move made with clear foresight. The board had been set, and the pieces were already in motion.
The king stated plainly to his most trusted men that the likelihood of the Enbrits Kingdom pushing further east was high. It was only a matter of time before their expansion reached El Malais territory. His warning was delivered without alarm, but its weight was unmistakable.
Preparations began immediately. Defensive measures were strengthened, intelligence networks expanded, and contingency plans refined. The people were informed—not to incite fear, but to foster readiness and unity. The kingdom did not panic, but neither did it remain idle.
Two years later, the king's foresight was proven correct.
Enbrits ships were sighted drawing steadily closer, their banners appearing on the horizon. They had crossed beyond distant waters and now reached the seas beyond the Malavia Barrier, pressing toward the heart of the Malais Strait.
To reach the capital of El Malais, any fleet had to sail northward past the Malavia Barrier, passing through the narrow maws formed by two great landmasses—both firmly within El Malais territory. It was a natural choke point, well known to merchants and admirals alike, and impossible to bypass without consent.
As expected, the Enbrits Kingdom approached under a familiar guise. Their emissaries spoke of cultural exchange, of sharing civilizational knowledge, and of initiating long-term trade cooperation between east and west. Their words were polished, their documents formal, their intentions carefully masked.
It was a lie the king had recognized long before their ships ever appeared on the horizon.
Still, the people of El Malais were known for their welcoming nature, and their king embodied that virtue more than any other. King Ard Adamas Malais received the Enbrits delegation openly, extending hospitality without hostility, courtesy without suspicion—at least on the surface.
The gates were opened. The banners were raised. And the visitors were welcomed as guests, even as every movement they made was quietly observed.
After the emissaries had finished their speech—delivered fluently in the local tongue of the Malais people, the very lingua franca they claimed to respect—the hall fell into a brief, expectant silence.
Then the king spoke.
King Ard Adamas Malais matched their tone perfectly: calm, courteous, and wrapped in elegant formality. His words flowed smoothly, adorned with the same refined phrasing and diplomatic grace the emissaries had employed moments earlier.
Yet the content of his speech was anything but pleasant to their ears.
Beneath the polite cadence and courteous phrasing lay meanings that required no interpretation. With carefully chosen words, the king made it clear—without ever stating it outright—that he knew of the Enbrits Kingdom's machinations across the lands they had already passed through. He spoke as though recounting distant observations, yet every detail landed with precision.
He knew of the vast armadas waiting several nautical miles beyond the Malavia Barrier, lingering just out of sight.He knew of the muskets, newly refined and standardized.He knew of the cannons mounted along the decks of their ships.
And most damning of all, he knew the true intentions of the men standing before him.
The emissaries listened in silence, their expressions carefully neutral, though the tension in the hall thickened with every sentence. The king never raised his voice. He never accused. He never threatened.
He simply demonstrated, with impeccable politeness, that nothing about their arrival had escaped his notice.
By the time he finished speaking, the flowery words had accomplished exactly what they were meant to do. They stripped away illusion, exposed intent, and left the emissaries with a single, unavoidable realization:
They were seen.
The king allowed the emissaries to depart unharmed.
They were not detained. They were not threatened. No blades were drawn, and no chains were shown. Hospitality was maintained to the very end, exactly as tradition demanded.
Their purpose, however, was singular.
They were to carry the king's words back to the very heart of the Enbrits Kingdom. To stand before their ruler and deliver a message that required no embellishment.
That the path forward led to nothing but an end.
That beyond the Malavia Barrier lay not conquest, nor glory, nor dominion—but a catastrophe waiting to unfold, should their next step prove in error.
The ships were allowed to turn back.
The Enbrits Kingdom, however, was far too ambitious to abandon its campaign. The string of successes they had achieved in the southern regions of the Solivan continent, across the Peninsular of Indius, and in several other lands they had already colonized only emboldened them further. Each victory fed their confidence, pushing their resolve ever higher.
Yet, the military might of the El Malais Kingdom was not underestimated.
On unfamiliar waters and within enemy territory, the Enbrits held no advantage. El Malais had made it abundantly clear that muskets and cannons—once thought to be decisive tools of domination—were not exclusive to the west. They too possessed such weapons, refined and integrated into their own defensive doctrine.
Confrontation at this stage promised no certainty of victory.
And so, the decision-makers of Enbrits chose a different path.
They forged a peace treaty with El Malais—formal, carefully worded, and publicly binding. Yet beneath its surface lay a calculated intent: the treaty was not an end, but a delay. A line drawn not to preserve peace, but to be crossed later—after the surrounding nations had been conquered and colonized, and El Malais stood isolated.
The emissaries required weeks of sailing to return, their ships cutting slowly across familiar waters before finally reaching the seas beyond the Malavia Barrier.
Yet three days after they had boarded their vessel at the Enbrits port—bound for El Malais with the peace treaty in hand—King Ard Adamas Malais had already received the intelligence reports, made his decision, and boarded his own ship.
While the emissaries sailed eastward under banners of diplomacy, the king was already racing westward.
His vessel moved faster than any ship of its era, driven by craftsmanship and intent alike. By the time the emissaries crossed open waters, the king had already reached Enbrits territory. By the time they passed the Barrier, the deed had already been done.
When the emissaries finally arrived at the El Malais capital, they were welcomed formally, just as protocol demanded. Courtiers guided them into the audience hall, where they expected to present their treaty and receive the king's response.
Instead, they were met with silence.
At the center of the hall stood a long table. Upon it lay several severed heads, arranged with deliberate order. Crowns, insignia, and familiar features left no room for doubt as to whose they were.
Only after this silent display was allowed to settle into their understanding did the king enter.
The terror that gripped the emissaries upon seeing the severed heads was instantaneous and absolute. Faces drained of color, bodies stiffened, and all pretense of diplomacy evaporated. Without hesitation, they fled back to their ships, scrambling across the docks as though the very air itself threatened them.
By the time they regained the open sea, the message had already reached the commanders and officials of the Enbrits Kingdom in full—though transmitted not by words, but by the undeniable proof of what awaited those who underestimated King Ard Adamas Malais.
Several days later, the consequences became fully apparent. The massive sea armadas of the Enbrits, once a looming threat beyond the Malavia Barrier, turned and retreated. Alongside them, the marching armies on land withdrew entirely from the outskirts of the Archi-Malavia continent.
What a badass king, that guy was. These sort of feats sounds a lot more like legend than real life chronicles. Though it's an undeniable truth that are talked about even after four centuries.