They came three days later.
It was an incredible sight. Standing at the edge of the woods, red banners flowing in the wind, the horizon seemed to be taken up by the shining armor of the red battalion.
Sara shielded her eyes against the blazing sunlight. On the tower, standing beside her was the masked girl, holding a flare gun above her head.
“You’re sure any deaths won’t be counted on my table,” Sara said.
Without answering, the masked general squeezed the trigger.
A yellow sphere exploded into the skies, masking the sound of a hundred bows being drawn. Between the gates, the anxiety of the soldiers gearing themselves up to charge was palpable. Behind them, Sara could see the fearful faces of women and children alike as they huddled behind the hastily-erected barricades, their numbers many times more than the soldiers tasked with protecting them.
The light began drifting down towards the ground, trailing a path of smoke. As it descended, the skies darkened and a strong breeze tugged at Sara’s clothes.
“It hardly ever rains in Arcadia,” she said.
“It might today,” the masked girl said, looking upward.
Save for the periodic thunder rolling across the distant hills, it was otherwise quiet. Sara turned back to watch the flare complete the last leg of its brief journey toward the ground. Just before it sputtered, the masked girl said, “Fire.”
Arrow screamed as soldiers on the wall let loose their bows. Sara traced the glistening hail across the battlefield, landing right in the zone between the two facing armies.
“Again,” said the masked girl.
The crack of a hundred bows thundered louder than the approaching storm.
“Again!”
Sara felt the vibrations tingling along her arms. They did this ten more times, until the lands around the city were strewn with the feathered ends of arrows, so thick it was like looking at snow.
Then the noises began. From where Sara was standing, it sounded like a nest of snakes being rattled in a box, but before she could worry it was too obvious and gave the trap away, a louder, more grating sound covered it up.
“They’re laughing at us,” the masked girl observed.
“That’s good,” said Sara. “They’re not going to expect it.”
They watched the red army laugh some more. Then, the man at the front of the line drew his sword and screamed, and the charge began.
First came the infantry. Thousands of them, pouring down the hill in a wave of steel. Sara was suddenly brought back to her very first day in Arcadia. She’d fallen into the middle of a conflict much like this one, only without the monsters.
As the foot soldiers got close to the field of arrows, they were overtaken by riders. There were more than a hundred, streaming through their ranks with uncanny precision. The riders reached the arrows first. They did not slow but leaped over, barreling towards the city gates.
“Hey,” said Sara. “You really mean it, right? This doesn’t mean I’m killing them?”
The masked girl’s face was still turned towards the sky. The wind whipped her hair back and forth, and it looked like tears were running down her mask.
Sara blinked as a fat raindrop plopped into her own eye. She swiped it away, turning from the battlefield just as it went up in flames.
Shock and wind slammed Sara backward. She hit the ledge and almost flipped over, stopping only when the masked girl grabbed her.
“Thanks,” Sara said even though she couldn’t hear her own voice above the ringing. Heat chased the sweat from her skin as ashes hung over the lands below. More explosions lit through the smoke like firecrackers. The earth quaked onto its knees, and so did Sara.
Clutching her chest, she fought to breathe. Numbers flew across her vision as pinging sounds clattered insistently through her head.
Chaos gained. 99/100 Chaos gained. 100/100 Chaos gained. 100/100 Chaos gained. 100/100 Chaos gained. 100/100 Chaos gained. Chaos gainedchaosgainedchaosgained.
Sara staggered to the ledge and vomited. She tried to put points into Chaos Control but unlike the scene in the square, people were dying at different times and at a scale greater than she was able to cope with. Every time her chaos maxed, she felt the insufferable pain of it all over again.
“Get up,” the masked girl said, pulling Sara away from the drop. “Stop crying.”
“You lied to me,” Sara sobbed. The ringing died down, only to be replaced by the screams of the dying.
“Stop being dramatic. Your traps didn’t even kill that many.” Sara was yanked closer and forced to look at the decimated battlefield.
It was worse than she imagined. Everywhere she looked, people bled and burned, their body parts scattered like leaves. What the mines didn’t outright kill, the gases from the arrows scorched.
Lightning cracked across the sky as clouds opened into a downpour. Steam rose from the damned, shielding them from the living with a misty veil. Sara started to cry.
Reaching into her robes, the masked girl withdrew a small canister. She reloaded it into the flaregun and shoved it into Sara’s hands.
“You should’ve made the explosives stronger. Now you’ll have to make up for your oversight.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Sara balanced the flare gun in her palms like it was a bomb.
“Summon the charge,” commanded the masked girl. “Quickly, before you start turning.”
The battlefield was drenched. Rivers of blood ran across the scorched earth, water-falling down the empty moat.
“You want me to kill more people,” Sara said.
“I want you to kill the amount you should have killed with your setup.”
Sara gripped the ledge to steady herself. Water was gathering inside the moat, covering up the skeletons dotting the dried riverbed. On each skeleton she saw the faces of everyone she knew staring back at her - Taiga, Likar, Jack, even her parents and Yuzuru - their mouths opened in horror and shock.
“I can’t do this.” Sara drew back her hand and threw the gun as hard as she could. “I’m not going to become a monster!”
The masked girl reached out, and with an almost lazy wave of her hand, stopped the gun mid-air.
Sara had just enough time to recognize the scrape of steel gliding across leather before the world burst into red.
Numbed by pain and disbelief, she glanced down at the short blade sticking out of her chest, glistening wet with rain and blood.
The masked girl stepped around Sara, the flare gun hovering behind her.
“Always doing things the hard way. Didn’t I tell you? My sword cuts through goddamn obsidian.”
Sara could only gurgle. She watched helplessly as her hands were forced around the butt of the flaregun. Then, raising it, she squeezed the trigger.
With a soft whoosh, the sky lit up. The ball drifted among the broken clouds, bright in the pouring rain like a miniature sun.
The ground beneath Sara rumbled. With a mighty war cry, the soldiers under the gate raced out across the bridge, cutting down any unlucky enough to still be alive and in their way.
Sara couldn’t watch but she couldn’t move. Her body was paralyzed around the blade, and it was also the only thing keeping her from collapsing.
“There he is,” the masked girl said with a hint of a smile. “Our royal bag of blood.”
Down on the ground, King Rychard was leading his men on top of a brown horse. He wore shiny bronze plates that cascaded down his shoulders, gathering in a chain skirt at his waist. He held a short sword aloft and his brown locks wavered behind his crowned head.
He looked finally like a king.
That was, until an arrow shot right through his face.
Sara coughed, spurting blood down her chest.
Rychard tumbled off his horse, his armor crushing his corpse. His men screamed as they saw their liege fall, but their cries were cut short by the rain of arrows hailing from the enemy. More bodies fell, splashing in the mud.
As the king lay dying, something started to change. Across the battlefield, a fierce wind howled. Rain fell sideways, lashing against Sara’s cheeks. The air grew cold, then freezing. Snowflakes swirled as ice crept along the city walls.
The masked girl began to whisper in a language Sara couldn’t understand. The world appeared to pulsate, building in intensity with her strange tongue.
On the ground, the soldiers didn’t seem to pick up on the change. The two armies clashed in a roar of steel. Horses screeched as they were cut down, their riders trampled.
Blood drained into the earth as snow began to drift.
Still chanting, the masked girl drew her katana. The blade screamed, its black edge slicing apart the rain. She pointed it at the dead boy king’s body, and with the last phrase of her spell, lightning threw across the sky. The world blinked dark, then a blazing eye tore through Rychard’s back, erupting from his body in brightness. Soldiers from both sides shrieked as they were consumed by the portal, which swirled and grew until it reached the clouds.
The masked girl’s voice was quiet now, a stark contrast with the chaos all around them.
“Do you know why it’s been so difficult to leave, Sara? It’s because getting to the Calamity Dragon is almost harder than killing it.” She walked Sara towards the ledge, and with a shove, flipped her over.
The skies shattered like broken lightbulbs. Ripples waved across the flooded earth. Reality bent around the portal as shadowy sunbursts erupted from within, igniting any living being close enough.
Sara laid crumpled on the ground, lost in agony and horror. She felt the ground shake as the masked girl landed but there was no hope of escaping. The blade was still inside her, vibrating to her stuttering heartbeats.
“And to think I’ve done it twice now,” said the masked girl, the tip of her katana trailing in the dirt. Wind tossed her robes around her, making them look like wings. She grabbed one of Sara’s arms and began dragging her toward the portal.
“Too bad there are no achievements for it.”
As she spoke, an arrow glided out of the rain. The masked girl swung her head sideways but was just a little slow. The arrow crashed against her ear, splitting it open in a red blossom.
Without making a sound, she dropped Sara and turned around. A chunk of her mask cracked away, revealing pale skin scarred with wounds.
“This isn’t your fight, you lazily-designed NPC.”
At the foot of the city gates, Taiga stood shivering in the pouring rain. Her ears lay flat against the top of her head and her amber eyes were dark and wild.
“Let her go!” she screamed, drawing her bowstring taut against her cheek. “I’m not going to warn you again!”
The masked girl stood still. Fresh blood ran down the side of her face, carried away and diluted by rain.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“Yes it does!” cried Taiga. “Her brother saved my life, so I will repay him even if it costs me my life!”
Thunder clashed. The gate groaned. The masked girl chuckled.
“That’s Yuzuru. Always a people-pleaser.” She stepped forward and raised her sword.
Taiga released the arrow, letting it fly. A foot away from its target, however, it stopped, turned around, and zipped back across the field.
Taiga dived for the ground, barely clearing the arrow’s path. She got up but the masked girl was right in front of her. She sprang back, an exclamation of surprise at her lips.
But the blade was quicker. A flash of silver and black, and it was over.
The world zeroed in around Sara. She cried out for Taiga as the girl slumped over, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of her lip as her head rolled away from the rest of her.
The portal’s surface exploded outward, shards of gold and diamond impaling the people running from it. Long arms emerged from the swirling void, grabbing and consuming anything and everything. Men screamed as their flesh melted, their skeletons pelted by falling hail.
One of the arms found Sara. It latched onto her leg and began to pull.
Rage, fear, and grief gave her strength to push herself up. Fingers curling around the wakizashi in her chest, Sara squeezed it so hard her vision blurred, then with a cry of anger she snapped it sideways.
The wakizashi broke. Grasping its broken edge, Sara swung through the arm pulling her, severing herself free.
“Cut through this you crazy bitch!”
Screaming, she threw the blade spinning at the masked girl, who deflected it with a swing of her katana, and in the blink of an eye, had one knee sinking into Sara’s gut.
“No more fighting,” she said as Sara collapsed, heaving out what little she had left inside her stomach. “This is your destiny. You’re the only one strong enough.”
“Says the one killing me,” Sara groaned into the mud.
The masked girl’s sword hovered over Sara’s forehead, cold rain dripping down its edge and onto her skin.
Then, it lowered.
“I can’t go through the portal,” the masked girl said. She reached up and gripped the side of her mask tightly, squeezing the jagged edges. “Because I already did.”
As she took it off, the portal surged behind Sara. Hundreds of arms shot across the battlefield, wrapping around the last remaining soldiers. Red and Yellow armored knights flew through the air, screaming as their bodies were consumed by the ever-growing darkness.
Then, they came for Sara.
She didn’t move. Even as the tentacles crawled over her, she could do nothing but stare at the face finally revealed behind the mask.
The mastermind of it all. The person who should not exist like this.
Sara took to the air. Her back slammed into the portal and more arms strapped themselves over her, covering her wounds, her neck, her head.
And yet, all she could do was keep staring at the face of her bother’s missing sweetheart.
“He looked for you,” she whispered, her voice strained against the dark bandages tightening around her. “Yuzuru… never stopped looking.”
Honoka said nothing.
“He was broken!” Sara screamed. Fingernails dug into her cheeks, pulling her into the void. She fought, tearing herself apart. “He gave up his life for you!”
Honoka still said nothing. She lowered her face and put back her mask. Then, just before the portal closed in on Sara, she finally spoke.
“That’s why you have to save him. Because I can’t.”
The portal blinked shut, suffocating the last of Sara’s screams.