Strength comes not in victories. It comes from standing up after defeats, in reaching out a hand and pulling others to their feet. Of pushing others ahead of one’s self.

Alvans must dig deep. They have paid a heavy price, a price felt in the hearts of every member.

They started as a small group fighting to just survive in the first realm to a nation that challenged the combined United Sect Alliance.

Instead of crumbling, they bared their teeth, they fought forces from the seventh realm. They bled their enemy every step of the way.

Beaten but unbroken. Each member of Alva has been tempered with elements, has cultivated their mana. Now their minds, their spirits have been tempered and tested, and they must cultivate their belief in one another.

For there is no option for them. There is no other path ahead of them.

Erik and Rugrat have groomed a nation from that small group. As they created that spark, it has now grown into something they realize they shouldn’t control.

Strength is knowing what one can and can’t do. It's about putting one's beliefs on the line and making that line in the dirt. Though beaten and broken, standing together and raising up others and saying through bloodied teeth: "This we’ll defend, this we’ll give our lives for." For even if they are to die, their deaths will protect the others behind them. They will use their bodies to push others behind them forward, even if only a centimeter.

Today Alva might be broken, but tomorrow they will stand, stronger than before, to prove those that made the ultimate sacrifice, that given that extra centimeter they will claw their way forward a meter.