It had all happened so quickly. The explosions, the screams… The end of the world.

The ash-filled skyline hung over the decapitated city as if it were a blanket covering the horrors below. Skyscrapers stood unwavering but lifeless, the cracks in their bodies extending down to the smoke-filled streets. Craters and fissures decorated the cobbled roads. Some of them were still simmering with glowing heat, while others were littered with blackened bone fragments.

Military carriages rolled solemnly past piles of bodies, scanning the skies for signs of the enemy. All else was empty, ghostly. Pigeons flapped in the distance, the only signs of life left in the rotting husk of Sirius City.

It was hopeless.

They were utterly, irrevocably outmatched. Outclassed by the demons that descended from the heavens. Outgunned by the enemies that dragged them to hell. It would take more than a miracle to turn the tide of the war, and not even the gods were bothering to show them any mercy.

And yet they chose to fight on, determined to throw their lives on the line in the hope that another might live to see the next day. They fought on stubbornly, despite all the losses they had already endured. They resisted wilfully, despite the dark, desolate future ahead of them.

But dawn never broke.

~ ~ ~

The dull humming of technomagick engines filled the air, accompanied by a large shadow over the floor. A sleek airship landed without even a whisper of unnecessary sound, opening its bay doors with a soft whoosh of air.

A brown-haired man stepped out first, his weary eyes surveying the snow-laden courtyard around him.

“Don’t mind me,” he mumbled as a pink glow coated his irises. “Can’t see a damn thing in this weather.”

The morning fog retreated into the mountains, revealing a rusted sign that read: Guardian Council: Home of The Protectors. The rest of the building came into view soon enough, unveiling an assembly of robed individuals watching them through the windows.

Another small group was standing at its entrance, waiting to greet their visitors.

“Took you guys long enough.” A blonde man stepped forward and greeted him with a smirk, which quickly gave way to a huge smile.

A flash of red darted forward, hugging him tightly in her arms.

“Oh Gaius, thank the gods you’re still alive,” the red-haired woman sobbed into his shoulders. “I was so afraid I… I couldn’t see you for the last time…”

“It’s good to see you, Kleo,” Sorcerer Gaius Deusdedit said, before turning to the small group of people in front of him. “It’s good to see all of you.”

The brown-haired man shook his head. “We barely survived the fight at the outskirts. We’re all that’s left.”

“Even with you by their side…” Gaius cast his eyes downwards. “The Unendings really are terrifying.”

“My sister, she… Cybele didn’t make it.” Warlock Kleopatra Vulcan let go of Gaius, choking back a sob. “Those bastards stabbed her in the back. I couldn’t save her…”

A young man scuttled forward the moment they entered the building.

“Captain Felix Pagonis—”

“Please don’t call me that,” the brown-haired man said, before dropping his voice. “A captain with no more men to lead is just another soldier.”

“No more men?” The young man’s lips quivered as he fell to his knees in despair. “Oh no… No, it can’t be! Cybele… Cybele, no!”

He was brought away.

Felix Pagonis barely felt the hand on his shoulder as he struggled to hold in the tears welling up in his eyes.

“It’s not your fault,” Mage Palladius Severan said solemnly. Felix could only purse his lips in response.

“Doesn’t mean a thing now,” he muttered to himself, before turning his attention to the red-haired man who had walked to the front of the room.

And then, as if by some ancient magic, the building stirred to life. Murmurs increased around Felix as more people showed themselves from the shadows. Those who were already present straightened their bodies in respect for the Guardian Council’s former leader.

“Brave men and women of Surone, we have lost much,” Warlock Alcaeus Vulcan began. “These are dark and desperate times. The enemy— the extinction of our kind— is staring us in our faces. I know all of us have faced them at least once, and I know some of you are afraid. I’m here to tell you that it’s alright. It’s perfectly natural.”

He stepped forward, striking the ground with his staff.

“But I want you to know that I’m not. I’m not afraid to die fighting for our survival. Our enemies may seem endless; impossible to defeat, even. But it doesn’t matter because we’re all that’s left standing between them and our world’s demise.”

The people in the room stirred. It might have just been the flickering candlelight, but they seemed to be standing taller now.

“Men have triumphed in already lost battles because they believed in their cause, and they believed it together. I’ve seen it myself, and I’m willing to bet I’m not alone. So have faith, brave protectors. Have faith in the power of unity. Have faith in yourselves. Have faith.”

Waves of stirring rolled over the survivors, multiplying upon themselves until the derelict building did not look so run-down anymore. No longer was this a hiding hole. No longer was this a place where refugees awaited their death. This was the Guardian Council headquarters.

And this was the house of the protectors.

An alarm blared throughout the building as a woman came running into the room in full battle gear. Felix narrowed his eyes in focus, calming his psychic senses. He didn’t need the warning system to tell him what happened.

“Time’s up,” she announced grimly. “The Unending have found us.”

~ ~ ~

The Unending.

A shoddily put-together name for an invincible enemy. Like its namesake, these ‘aliens’ were ‘unending’, in the sense that they could not stay dead for long. Possessing a remarkable resistance to magic, The Unending massacred nations millions of people at a time. It took an absurd amount of effort to put one of them down.

But even if it worked, they would just get back up by themselves as if they were re-raised by some crazed Necromancer.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Nobody ever figured out where these monsters came from, or maybe everyone was just too busy getting slaughtered to launch an investigation. All they knew was that The Unending would arrive via golden portals opened at random places, kill several hundred thousand people, and return to the portal once they were satisfied. There were no negotiations, no clear motivation, no strategy.

Only mindless violence.

To make matters worse, the environment gets warped wherever a portal opens, as if the portal itself messes up the fabric of reality with its mere presence. Whatever accursed planet or hell these demons came from, Earth definitely did not welcome them.

Felix stood over the parapet, feeling his cape billow in the frigid winds. The portal was close enough to be visible to the naked eye, and the Unendings were pouring out like water from a leaking jar.

He sighed audibly. After everything the Guardian Council had thrown at these demons, it still wasn’t enough to put a dent in their numbers.

“Feeling nervous, Pagonis?”

The Meta glanced at Severan, who was casting a hefty protection spell over the headquarters.

“If we win, there’s nothing to worry about.” Felix smiled wryly. “And if we lose, it’s not our problem anymore.”

“Get into position, everyone!” Vulcan’s booming voice resounded from behind him. “Kleo, prepare to discharge the thunderbolt spell! They’ll never see this coming.”

Felix’s eyes glowed fiercely, feeling his telekinetic power hook onto the hatchet beside him. The Guardian’s airship shuddered, powering down immediately as the pink energy ripped its power core out. After all, there was nowhere else they could run now.

“For all it’s worth, Felix, I’m sorry for discriminating against your kind.” Severan’s solemn voice barely registered in Felix’s ears as pink sparks crackled in the psychic’s fingertips. “Regret anything?”

“Never.”

Power surged in the air as Felix threw his hands forward. The power core hurtled towards the approaching enemy, closely followed by a huge thunderbolt crackling through the air. Felix stood unflinching, watching the spell strike the power core.

Purple light flashed, followed by the sound of a hundred thunders going off at the same time. White protective symbols blinked desperately against the incoming shockwave as the explosion tore through the portal, vaporising whatever came out of it.

Felix narrowed his eyes. The portal was still open, but an explosion like that should have completely destroyed whatever was on the other side. After all, resurrection was pointless if there was nothing left to resurrect from.

“That was easy…” Severan chuckled slightly.

“Is everyone okay?” Vulcan asked, before supporting Kleopatra to her feet. “Well done, you two. We should have enough time now to—”

An ear-piercing scream split the air.

Felix swung around, cursing himself for letting his guard down. He roared like a wounded beast and sent a psionic beam from his hand. But he was too late.

Mage Palladius Severan’s lifeless body crumpled to the ground with a huge hole in his chest, flung away carelessly by a tall, spindly figure.

Felix swung around, his eyes wild with panic. Not even that explosion could get all of them?

“We’re surrounded!” Gaius yelled as he charged towards another Unending, only to be flung back with a single slap.

Chaos broke out as the surviving monsters climbed over the parapet. A rainbow of spells hit their black, scaly bodies, but it did little to no damage to them.

Felix clenched his fists, eyes ablaze with power as three of them walked menacingly towards him. Their golden eyes glowed fiercely as a blanket of red covered the area. The Meta fell to his knees, feeling abnormally heavy for some reason. Pained screams erupted all around him.

He looked at the sky.

The moon was a dark crimson in colour now, and appeared much larger for some reason. Mountains from afar were buckling under their own weight. Even the very ground he stood on was trembling. Felix gasped with realisation.

The presence of the portal had somehow caused Earth’s gravity to multiply at an alarming rate.

Streams of golden light shook him back to the present. Felix gritted his teeth, pushing back his forcefield against them. He clenched his hand vindictively, and a hailstorm of sharpened rubble shredded his foes into pieces.

A fireball narrowly missed him, followed by a desperate yell.

Gaius was in the midst of fighting four Unendings at the same time, throwing out energy blasts and spells with inhuman speed. His body was barely recognisable; his regenerative ability struggling to keep up with the holes being punched in his body.

Felix hesitated. The monsters he put down would be up again in no time, but Gaius needed his help more. Pink pooled in his eyes as he prepared to rush forward.

But he had reacted too late.

Gaius howled in pain as four beams of light hit his body. Orange burst in his eyes as the latent magic energy within him struggled to absorb the energy flooding into his body. Cracks ran through his skin. Light overflowed from his mouth.

“Gaius!”

Gaius released a final scream as he burst like a balloon, taking out the four Unendings as the stored-up energy exploded from his body.

Felix watched in despair as a glowing orb whizzed around where his body was, before being sucked into one of the monsters. He shook himself awake, turning his attention back to the battlefield. This was no time to freeze.

Vulcan’s decapitated head rolled to Felix’s feet; its lifeless eyes staring into nothingness.

“Dad! Gaius! NOO!”

Rage and pain contorted Kleopatra’s face as her staff burned brighter than ever. “ELDRITCH BLAST!”

Felix raised a forcefield immediately as the indiscriminate explosion tore through the area, knocking out both Guardians and the Unendings. He took it down after a few seconds, raising his hand in warning—

Blood spurted from the woman’s mouth as a sharpened hand went through her abdomen. And another. And another. And another. The appendages swung outwards simultaneously, accompanied by a splatter of blood.

Kleopatra toppled to the ground, her body severed in half by the surviving Unendings.

Felix swore in indignation, slamming his hands together. His eyes trembled with hate as the telekinetic force clumped The Unendings into a swirling mass of black.

“Damn it! Damn you all!” The psychic squeezed his fist. “Nothing will remain!”

Psionic energy crackled through the monsters, shredding all of them into fine dust. Felix fell to his knees, temporarily overwhelmed by the exertion, but the danger wasn’t over yet.

“What the… No, no, no… Guh!”

The ground crumbled away as rubble fell around him. Felix craned his neck against the overwhelming gravity. The entire sky was red now, covered by the rapidly approaching moon.

“I can’t give in… I won’t!” Felix gritted his teeth, fighting back against what was at least four hundred times the Earth’s gravity by now.

Wind rippled his cape as the psychic burst upwards, his body flaring with an incredible amount of psionic energy. The moon loomed over him, although he could hardly see anything else through the glare of his own power. He shrieked with effort, punching into the powdery soil.

Whips of psionic energy flailed out of the moon’s surface as the psychic burrowed into the moon; every one of them several hundred metres wide. Huge chunks of moon rock rained down on the Earth as the moon began to split apart.

Felix burst out from the other end of the celestial rock, shattering it into billions of pieces behind him.

“I did it…” he panted, struggling to breathe in the thin stratospheric air. “I actually did it—”

An even larger shadow loomed over him. His eyes widened in horror as realisation finally hit him. It wasn’t just the moon that was being pulled towards the Earth.

So was Mars.

Felix wasted no time, throwing himself between the two planets colliding this time. Darkness encroached on his eyes as he expelled every last psychic energy in his body. The mega-tsunami of pink flooded both planets as he struggled in vain to push them apart.

But they were already too close together.

And as the planets descended on the screaming man defiant enough to challenge the heavens, a tunnel of golden light materialised before his eyes.