Adrea woke up in the middle of the night. She had been thrown off her bed by something, and the soreness of hitting the ground quickly caught up to her. Thankfully, the floor was wooden, so she had not been hurt particularly badly. Having found herself suddenly awake, she took in her surroundings, and it was not looking particularly good. Several stone bricks had been severely dislodged by whatever had happened and were threatening to fall out of place.

"We have to get out here!"

Naviya's words suggested that she had been woken up as well and shared Adrea's concerns about their safety if they stayed here. They grabbed their clothes and their father's sword, and made their way toward the door. That had been locked, of course, but it had also been damaged by the shock, so a hard kick was sufficient to knock it open.

From yesterday's visit, they knew that the nearest exit was upstairs, a door that led directly to the city's outer wall. Adrea ran like her life depended on it, and after a few seconds that had felt much longer than that, both she and Naviya exited to the tower to the relative safety of the outside. However, the situation there was not particularly encouraging. Only 100 or so paces from where they were, they could see massive breach in the city's wall, as though some huge tree had fallen on it, with no indication of what had caused the damage.

Naviya rushed to the crenelations. Her younger sister probably had a better idea about what was happening that she did, so Adrea simply followed her. In the pitch darkness of a near new moon, it was difficult to make anything out, but Adrea could swear that that the ground below the city walls almost seemed alive, with faint wisps of purple, red, and yellow moving about. The sight reminded her of the contents of a box of worms that she had seen when she had gone fishing with her father a few years ago.

A memory of her father's lifeless corpse resurfaced at the thought, and she had to repress the crippling negative feelings that came from it.

Adrea re-focused herself on the situation at hand. A few paces away, she saw two guards loosing arrows in rapid succession into the sea of darkness, too focused on their duty to notice anything else. Near them, she recognized the prone figure of Yilse, who was trying to get up but was clearly too disoriented to succeed. Down near the breach, guards were rapidly converging to protect the gap from the demons. Illuminated by torchlight, tentacles of darkness with pulsating veins of various colors were slowly creeping through, moving chaotically with only a hint of direction, splitting and merging at random as they did. It was almost mesmerizing to watch, until one of the tentacles suddenly seemed to gain a sense of purpose, detached itself from the wriggling mass, and impaled itself into the nearest guard. Immediately after that, the thing transformed into something that looked like a blood-soaked butterfly and flew away with a cackling screech, as the other guards looked in horror at their dying comrade.

How are they supposed to deal with that !?

Adrea forced herself to look away, and instead focus on what she could do. The most obvious option was to see if she could help Yilse in any way. As much as the woman had showed a dislike for her, the feeling was not mutual. However, as she began to head toward the fallen guard, Naviya caught her by the edge of her nightgown.

"I... I think I should help?"

"You can?"

"Yes, but please don't tell anyone."

Adrea simply nodded, and Naviya let go. She rushed to the fallen guard, while Naviya headed towards the crenelations. As she reached Yilse, she realized that the woman helmet was significantly dented around the chin area, and her right hand appeared to be out of commission. However beyond this, she did not appear to have been significantly injured, just very disoriented. Adrea propped her up against the wall and opened the visor on her helmet, hoping that it might help her get her bearings.

Although it was not clear how much she had contributed, after some time, the woman seemed to balance herself.

"Thanks... Wait, shouldn't you be back in the tower?"

That's the first thing she asks?

"No. I mean yes, but the tower was damaged because of the thing that hit the wall. We thought it would be safer outside."

Yilse held her head with her left palm and groaned in pain.

"Right... the wall. Help me up right, will you. I need to see what is happening."

From where they were, it was not possible to see what was happening below. Adrea helped Yilse as best she could, but the heavy armor was making things difficult. After trying couple of times, she eventually succeeded, although the guard was beginning to become frustrated. As soon as they reached a point when it was possible to see the breach, Yilse immediately began to shout.

"Get into wide defensive formation, you numb-skulls. Halberds at the ready and pointed towards the swarm. Defensive formation; halberds raised. Defensive formation; halberds raised."

Despite the distance and the noise, the guards below somehow managed to hear her. Their panic seemed to subside a bit, and they quickly reorganized themselves. Based on what she had seen, Adrea was not sure whether the formation was really appropriate for the situation, but it seemed to at least help with morale. In the breach itself, the wriggling mass was still moving about at random, inching forward ever so slowly. A couple of tentacles detached themselves and raced towards the defenders, but this time, not causing any fatalities.

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Yilse turned to her.

"Since you're here, might as well make yourself useful. Letting you fight would be a terrible idea, so you'll serve as a messenger. Follow the wall and get to the next tower bastion. Tell the guards that western section three had been breached, and that we need reinforcements. They will tell you what to do next."

"I can do that."

"Remember, western section three breached, need reinforcements."

"Yes."

With that, Adrea began running along the wall and past Naviya. The younger girl did not seem like she was doing anything, just staring into the distance. Adrea could swear that her hair seemed shorter than it had just a bit earlier, but she did not dwell on it. She had a message to deliver.

She kept repeating Yilse's instructions in her head until she reached what she thought was "the next tower bastion". She repeated the words to the two guards standing there, one of whom immediately began heading down the nearest flight of stairs. Adrea peered over the fortified wall. The view was almost identical to what she had seen near the breach, except that the moat was apparently still doing its job here. Based on what she was seeing, that probably would not last.

It was at this point that Adrea realized that the city was not sufficiently equipped to deal with the demons. There was no way that there was sufficient manpower to deal with the demons if the city was surrounded, as seemed to be the case. Archers were firing volley after volley into the black mass, and although it seemed to have some effect, it was barely noticeable by comparison to the sheer scale of the enemy. The city would be overrun, and what happened in her village would repeat itself. The demons would torture and kill the inhabitants until the streets ran red with the blood of thousands. They would not leave a single stone untouched. No matter where she hid, they would inevitably find her, and they would kill her again. She would experience the same suffering as before, and now Naviya was not even nearby to help her. Even if she had said that she was able to help, they would surely overwhelm her too. She had to get back to her sister.

She ran back as fast as she could. Her sister was still looking over the wall's crenelations, not having moved from where she had been previously.

"Naviya, thank the Light you're okay. How is it going?"

"I've reduced their numbers, especially to the rear. If the guards can hold on for a few waves, I think they will win."

That was something good at least.

"I saw what was happening further down the wall. I don't think the city will hold."

Naviya seemed to think for a few seconds. In the distance, Yilse seemed to be completely focused on the battle at hand, so they could talk privately.

"I... might be able to do something, but it will take time. I don't want to be a weapon again, but you'll be happier if I help right?"

Adrea did not know how to answer. On one hand, she thought the moral thing to do was to help the city, but on the other hand, she did not want to hurt Naviya.

"Will you be fine? If you can help, that would be great, but I don't want you to do something that would hurt you... I don't know what to do!"

"Big sister, you worry too much about me. I am more resilient than you think."

Adrea knew her well enough to tell that she was lying, but she chose not to pursue the matter.

"Just... don't push yourself too hard."

"I will be fine. But this will be a one-time occurrence. I will not be able to repeat what I am about to do for a long time. This will take a while."

Nothing happened immediately, but now that Naviya had reassured her that everything would be fine, Adrea managed to calm down a bit. After a couple of minutes, she decided to check out what was happening near the breach. From the distance, she could see a number of downed soldiers, but only three or four were not moving. The defensive formation had held up quite well. Adrea went up to Yilse, waited for an opportune moment, and informed her that she had notified the nearby garrison. Yilse was somewhat irritated by the fact that Adrea had come back without getting confirmation that reinforcements would be sent, which switched to repressed anger when Adrea told her that she wanted to stay with her sister.

"Fine! Just don't get in my way. I have a defense to lead."

For the next hour, or so, Adrea watched as the defensive line was slowly being pushed back. From the walls, Yilse had a high vantage point with a complete overview of the battle, which allowed her to make give effective orders. The enemy was, despite its apparent chaotic nature, much more coordinated than appeared at first glance. The wriggling tentacles had only struck the defenders when they appeared to be over-extended, and as the front began to move into the city, it began an encircling maneuver that Yilse managed to prevent through tactical positioning of some of her subordinates.

As she was watching, she saw a light in the corner of her vision. As she turned her head towards the city, she saw four rays of light racing towards her. They were not moving straight, changing their angle and crossing each other in a cyclic motion. The rays were rapidly approaching the city, and for a second, she thought that they would hit it. She had, for a second, thought that these rays might be divine in nature and would purge the demons, but as she noticed the damage they inflicted on the ground, with chunks of flaming rock thrown in all directions, her hope rapidly turned to fear. There was nothing that she could do, so she just stood there as the rays approached.

The rays missed the city by only a few paces, leaving an oscillating trail of destruction as they went from south-east to north-west, just barely missing the outer wall and vaporizing most of the demons. She briefly though about how lucky that had been, before a thought suddenly crossed her mind.

Wait, was that Naviya's doing. By the Light, what kind of power is that!?

As she rushed towards her sister, she heard Yilse shout something that mirrored her own thoughts, with some profanities thrown in.

"Naviya, did you do this?"

"Yes. I did it in a way that could not directly be linked to me."

"What kind of power is that?"

"Please, not so loud... It's actually only a fraction of the power that I used to wield. But look at the destruction it caused. I just destroyed millions of square paces of land in seconds. What's worse is that doing this just felt SO satisfying..."

To Adrea, both the display of power and he sister's reaction had been absolutely terrifying. She could not imagine having this kind of power at her fingertips, or rather the responsibility that would come from that. It was no wonder that Naviya wanted to get away from it.

When she looked back at the breach, Adrea saw that the guards were in the process of mopping up the now directionless tentacles that were jumping at them with much less coordination that they had shown just a few minutes earlier. Although they were still dangerous, they had become predictable, and it was obvious, even to Adrea's untrained eye that the city would be held this night.