I woke up to the sound of a loud, ear-piercing chime of a bell ringing ceasesly throughout the city.

It's the city alarm bell, what the hell is going on?

As I slowly start to get out of my bed, my mom barges into my room.

"Selius, get up, we have to go now!"

"Why mom, what happened? Why did the alarm go off?"

Without answering my question, she starts grabbing my stuff around the room, and drags it into the frontroom, where she put it all in a giant, black sackbag sitting in the middle of the room.

"Mom, tell me, WHAT HAPPENED!"

With all of these unsual things that my mom is doing and seeing the look on her face, I start to worry. She finally stops, turns to me, and says:

"Demons. We have to leave, Selius, now."

"D-Demons? Why are they here, in Uthernan?"

My mother began again to take things out of my room very quickly, and I helped her. I didn't bother asking the question again, for I already knew the answer to it. Humans and Demons are mortal enemies. Many wars have been waged between the two races because of different beliefs, and moreso because of the appearance of demons. With their horns and not-so-friendly looking faces and bodies, they're characterized as what humans describe as pure evil. The actions of demons, however, completely agree with that belief: due to their racial tendency to slaughter their enemies, and the overall brutal nature of their race.

Due to the unceasing conflict between the two, they very quickly developed a natural hatred towards one another. They would not let the other rise in power. Once the other started gaining military strength that threatened to be more powerful than the former, the one who's power was being threatened would invade. They do this because of the fact that they know who they will use that power against first: each other.

With the colonization of Uthernan, the Unknown Continent, new resources were steadily increasing in its motherland, Mainland. Of course, the Demons saw this and didn't want humanity to grow stronger, so they decided to attack. I deduced all of this fairly quickly, since it's common knowledge: the hatred between our two races, of course.

When we finally finished packing our things, I, with my superior strength, decide to carry the giant, black sack filled with our necessary things. My mom opens the door, and I walk through it.

In the dark of the night, flames spew across the skies. The alarm still ringing, people frantically come out of their homes and sprint towards the direction of the escape gate. 

"EVERYONE STAY CALM AND HEAD TOWARDS THE GATE!"

Armored guards, spear and shield in hand, try to calm down the situation and reduce the chaos. I can see the walls from here due to its sheer height, about 30 meters high, and demons storming the wall with an innumerable amount of forces. It seems this is their main force. They're desperate to take over this city.

I don't really care about the city, all I care about is my mom's safety. I turn back around, and with the sack across my back, I start running with my mother towards the gate.

BOOM*

It seems they've cast a great spell in order to destroy the forces defending the gates. Fireballs fell from the sky and set the wall ablaze. The guards that were holding out the demons by a thread were instantly turned to ash. Demons, of course, were also caught in the flames, but they are resistant to fire, so barely any of their forces were killed in the crossfire.

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At the sight, the guards no longer could hold the fear of the citizens and chaos ensued. People, left and right of us, couldn't keep up in the frantic running of each other and were trampled. In the chaos, bones were broken, and the people who were left that were trampled in the dirt were eventually slaughtered by the oncoming demons. 

The armored guards fought to their last breath, but it wasn't anything to account for. The best one of them could hold was at least five seconds, the numbers were just too large. There were only about 5000 guards within the city, but the Demon's forces were estimated to be over 500,000, more than 100 times that number. One guard would have to face 100 demons by himself and win in order for the city to be saved. I didn't bother to look back. I clenched my teeth, held onto my mother's hand, and we ran as fast as we could. 

As I trained to become a paladin, of course, I was well more developed than the average person. My mother was a retired adventurer, the occupation similar to a mercenary, except hired for things such as beast subjugations, bandit hunting, and the like, rather than for wars. Because of this, we quickly ran through the crowd, and pushed our way through to the gate. When it was within our sights, we still didn't slow down. There were 100 or so guards protecting the gates, and escorting the civilians to safety behind it. People pushed their way through, and we did the same.

Screams could be heard in the distance. It seemed the demons have caught up.

"EVERYONE, TO THE GATE! MEN, WITH ME!"

An armored-guard, seemingly about a foot taller than the rest, carried a battle axe over his shoulder. Looking at the badge carved into his shoulder plate, he should be the guard captain. They were going to sacrifice themselves in order to give us time to be able to retreat into the other side of the range, and that triggered something inside of me that strengthened my outlook of humanity. I tightened the grip on my mom, and without saying a word, she looked at me for a moment.

"We have to go."

We soon entered through the gate, and when I looked back, the guard-captain was taking on 10 or so of them at once. The rest of them were separated from each other, and were quickly being mercilessly killed. It seems, with their numbers, their tactic was to divide and conquer. If they were in a densely-packed formation, demons would sacrifice themselves to grab ahold of them and throw them into an area, which countless of its brethren would hack them to pieces with their bloodied swords.

"CLOSE THE GATES!"

With the guard-captain's last command, he made a battle-roar, which pushed the demons away 10 meters. Ahead, waves of demons could be seen sprinting towards the gate, trying to catch whoever they could. The gaurd captain charged into the mass herd of demons, and wasn't seen again. As the gates slowly closed, the remaining guards went into a densely-packed shield formation. 50 or so shields packed together formed a wall that the demons couldn't get across. Whenever they were close enough, and tried to grab at them, spears would penetrate their bodies, impaling them and killing them instantly. 

It lasted for about a good 12 seconds, then they were absolutely overrun. Cries of anguish were heard across the gate, as they were slaughtered. They gave us enough time for the gate to close, and slams from the other side from swords and fireballs could be heard. The floor shaked from the pressure.

"Don't worry, this gate's been enchanted by 12 different divine-tier magicians, they won't be able to break it in another 10 years!"

I turned around to the voice to see a chubby, short man surrounded by tall, muscular men carrying luggage across their backs. Must be a knowledgeable merchant that came to find rare goods in Uthernan..

I no longer paid him any heed, and finally letting lose the grip I had on my mother's hand, I started to head away from the loud crowd and to a more spacious area.

"Selius, we couldn't have fought those demons."

I hear my mother's voice behind me.

"I know, but the fact that we couldn't do anything is the exact reason why I aspire to be a paladin mother. Justice needs to be done, and the paladins are the only ones that have the power to do so."

I look around me. Satisfied with the surroundings, I set the sack down and lie on the ground with my head on it. My mother sits beside me. We're on a hill, about a mile away from the gate. We can see the capital from here, a tiny speck in the distance. The ground near the gate still occasionally trembles, but it shows no sign of breaking. By this time, the sun starts to rise, and its sunlight pierces through the dark of the night across all of our faces. At that time, I close my eyes and pray silently to Helios for the ones that were killed that night.