"Rei, look there," Shana said, pointing at a man standing on top of the largest building in the city.

I zoomed the vision in until it fully reflected the man standing there. It was Viktor, yelling into his radio while looking out toward the left side of the city.

He's obviously telling his men about the God of Casters showing up. Although from Viktor's point of view, he's just an unknown entity. Or maybe Viktor is asking about the status of his men guarding the portal? If the Tengu abandoned it to help us, and then the Caster God came through it soon after, then... Actually, wouldn't they still be able to handle him? They had a shitload of men with powerful guns and cannon turrets. I suppose it depends on whether the God is stronger than the last time I saw him. The fact that his minions survived the portal area is even more surprising though. So maybe Viktor really did leave the place unguarded...

While I was ordering my skeletons on the left side to attack the Geists and God, I could see one of the casters float onto the building Viktor was on. Oh? Most of them are attacking my skeletons but this one must have been curious of the strange aura Viktor always gives off. Mine is already weird enough, but his is on another level.

Much to my surprise, the Xerath in the sky launched his next attack, and this one was aimed at the God. The God canceled his attack but I didn't see what he did next as the fireball had landed and engulfed the entire area.

"Markus said that we should move now. Your right side is doing great but with that caster cunt showing up and that creature in the sky, he says we should take our chances and just flee right now." Shana said.

"Hmm... I feel like I could kill the obelisks near the building they're in, but I can't deny that there are way too many unknown factors at play right now. And we don't even know if the Caster God is the only one who is going to show up."

Shana sighed, "Right... But okay, I'm leading Markus and Ishar to the storage area."

Almost immediately I could see Viktor whip his head in the direction of 'City Hall'. A name I only learned a moment ago thanks to one of the soldiers yelling at his men to retreat to 'City Hall'. He said something into his radio before putting it away and turning his attention toward the caster who had just finished creating a javelin made of green fire. Wasn't the place I had to rescue Godwin's family and Markus from also called 'City Hall'? I don't even know what the fuck a City Hall is, but apparently I'm destined to assault them.

"Shana, Viktor already knows that you're on the move. I had assumed it beforehand, but he's definitely tuned into the obelisks, so he knows exactly where you are and where you're going."

I glanced back and saw her clone relaying what I just said to the others as they ran down a long flight of steps. The information was met with multiple curses and expletives from Markus.

Looking back at Viktor, I saw the caster burning to death. He was engulfed in a green flame of course, and it wasn't hard to guess how that happened. I could still see Viktor's reflective ability, although it was fading now that it had served its purpose. Viktor yet again looked toward City Hall and began to yell into his radio. Not long after that I could see most of his men engaging my skeletons begin to backpedal. Alright, all or nothing time...

Lich on the left, do everything you can to help the Tengu retreat. Lich on the right, full buffs and push as hard as you can. I know that's unsustainable, but we need to kill as many of them as we can right now.

Half of the skeletons on the left engaged the Geists while the other half engaged the casters who were preparing to attack the Tengu. For his part, the Tengu was finally dragging himself out from underneath the building, but it wasn't looking good. His left arm had been completely crushed and was covered in blood. And thanks to the damage the Geists had done, his legs weren't looking any better. Please don't die here... The amount of help we've received from that Lord is immense. It would eat away at me for the rest of my life if we couldn't return the favor.

On the right side, my Lich had finished casting his speed buff that hit every single unit, which chunked our mana down by half. It was necessary though. The buff aside, they were already pushing past the defensive lines the enemy had carved out, and thanks to that, a lot of my skeletons were now armed. Between the speed buff and ranged firepower, the backpedaling of the soldiers came to a halt. They had no choice but to dig in and try to entrench themselves, but it wasn't going all that well for them.

After all, the Lich on the right is now using mana to enhance the skeletons in the front, which is honestly ridiculous. Let's just say we were numerically at one thousand mana before the buff, which reduced us to five hundred. There are still skeletons killing people and taking their souls, but that's only gaining us about one hundred a minute.

Meanwhile, the damage from the bullets is draining more than triple that and it's only protecting them from a few hits before the bullets begin to pierce them. Freshly summoned skeletons can only handle so much mana. However, even that little bit of defense is giving the horde much more room to advance. They're running toward City Hall from three different streets behind it, and they're only two blocks away at this point.

You need to drop the enhancements if you can't kill them in the next minute!

Instead of affirming, the Lich sped past the group he was with and quickly grabbed two soldiers by the throat, lifting them high into the air as their flesh melted away. It only took a few moments for him to turn those live soldiers into skeletons, and once he was done, he threw them both at a soldier manning the gun on top of one of the armored vehicles. They immediately chomped down hard on the man's throat until his enhancements gave out. Once he was dead they tossed his body outside and crawled into the vehicle. Men came running out of it while shooting into the vehicle but the Lich was on top of them instantly. Those two were also turned into skeletons that he quickly tossed at another group of soldiers.

He was taking heavy fire and had already lost his left leg and arm, but that didn't stop him. He floated over to the driver's seat and sat down, closing the door behind him. One skeleton manned the gun up top while another fired out of the side door. The Lich turned the vehicle around and floored it, plowing through the barricade at the end of the street and running over dozens of soldiers in the process. At first I wondered where he was planning on going, but then he turned several times, coming ever closer to a specific building.

"Oh shit, Shana! Where is that delivery window at? I have a Lich that's coming to pick you up but I don't know if it's on the left or right side. Or maybe the back of the building?"

"Left side! We just reached the storage area. There were a few groups of men we had to kill and Seifer was shot a few times, but at least it shut him up."

For her to say that in this situation, he must have been saying some really odd shit.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something smash into Viktor, sending him and a large chunk of the building flying through the air. I could see a look of pure rage on Viktor's face as he glared down at something. I lost sight of him soon after that thanks to him warping away, so I turned the Hawk's vision toward his attacker. Which was, unsurprisingly, the Caster God. My skeletons on that end were keeping the casters at bay by shooting at them sparingly which was forcing them to keep their shields up, but ammo was rather limited on that side thanks to Viktor destroying that weapon cache I found.

They can't keep that up for much longer, and the Tengu can only move when his wings are filled with enough ether to fly for a little bit. He's barely made it twenty blocks in my direction... I told the Lich to tell him where we were so he knew where to go, and since he's coming this way I assume the Lich was able to transmit that to him. But this is nowhere near fast enough...

The Lich on the left had just finished descending into the building that's been pumping out Geists nonstop. The skeletons that were still buffed with that ancient spell from earlier were with him, and I could see that they were engaging even more Geists down below. The area was dark and filled with smoke but I could see orange lights brightening and dimming to the rhythm of a vaguely familiar pulsating sound. Wait, I remember these lights and that sound... This area is filled with objects that operate like those monuments in Viseux.

My units down there were slowly dwindling even with the buffs thanks to how much damage the Geists can inflict, but once my units were close to the devices creating them, it was all over. Any Geist forming was killed before it could even move. What happened next though really surprised me. When the Lich and skeletons began to attack the mini-monuments(they were lying down sideways and much smaller than the ones in Viseux) they began to screech. It was so loud that I felt Shana jump in surprise behind me.

"What is that?!" She yelled.

"More objects like those obelisks, except these are spitting out endless amounts of Geists."

No point in paying attention to that group. At this point they just need to finish the job and return to help the Tengu.

The Lich, apparently having heard my inner thoughts, left the basement alone, leaving the cleanup to the skeletons. He floated back to the ground level and headed straight for the God. Along the way I heard one of the casters point and yell something at him. Whoa, I understood him that time? Is it because of the Lich? The caster said 'Destroy the spawn of darkness!'.

The God merely glanced at him before returning to his current task, which was charging up another blast to hit the Tengu with. The Tengu was waiting for it with his staff in front of him, but only his right arm was working, so I knew it barely served as a stopgap.

"Rei, we're in!"

I glanced back and saw the Lich in the driver's seat gun it again. The front side of City Hall still had hundreds of soldiers and dozens of Xerath on standby there the last time I looked, but now they were all running down the street toward the vehicle.

What the hell? Did they really not expect us to leave through the basement? There are no windows on the sides or back of the building, so apparently they thought we'd have to go through the front. I'd bet the building is magically fortified then... Because otherwise they'd have to be dumb as hell to believe we wouldn't just blow open a hole in the wall, and Viktor is definitely not that dumb. I've only known a handful of buildings that were fortified in a way that made destroying it extremely difficult. Long ago I had asked Viktor how it was done but he never did answer me. That's also how I knew those cells back in Veca couldn't be destroyed. I had encountered them several other times in the past.

Two golden lights flew down from the top of City Hall and hit the end of the street in front of the Lich's vehicle before erupting into a massive golden wall of energy. Everyone filed out of the vehicle and ran into the building across the street from City Hall. The Lich and two skeletons stayed behind, however. The Lich parked near the energy field and grabbed two large pistols from the cache(He used his right foot to grab the other one). He and the two skeletons unloaded on the tidal wave of enemies approaching their destination. Most of them broke off to chase after Markus' group, but two Ghoraks and six Shoths ran straight for the vehicle.

The manned turret up top or maybe the oversized pistols packed a heavy punch, because surprisingly, they managed to bring down one of the Ghoraks and two Shoths before they reached the vehicle, but the battle was over pretty quickly after that. Before he died the Lich removed the enhancements from the remaining skeletons on that side and sent all of the mana he was storing to the other Lich.

For the most part my skeletons on the right side had killed all of the soldiers and devoured their souls, but because the Lich had driven away and died, there was no one left to replenish their forces, so they were down to a few hundred now. I told them to chase after Markus as best they could.

I couldn't see it directly, but the Ghoraks were quite literally just plowing through buildings at their normal running speed. Thanks to this, they were gaining ground on the group while creating a path for those following behind them. And there are dozens of armored vehicles pulling around to different streets on this side in preparation to cut them off. This shit just keeps getting worse...

The Xerath in the sky launched another fireball at my remaining skeletons on the right side, but they weren't stuck in combat this time so they had plenty of time to run away. Except that did delay them from catching up to Markus damnit. Then, something I hadn't seen in a while began to appear again. Red lightning bolts shot out all over the city. The Draugr were of course engaging my skeletons again, but they were also appearing near the casters and the God en masse. My skeletons on the left side had just run out of ammo so the Draugr appearing over there was almost a form of reinforcement. Even if they are attacking me too, they're also forcing the casters to keep their barriers up.

The skeletons that were killing the Geist monuments underground had finally finished and were coming back to help the Lich. For his part, the Lich had his bony fingers wrapped around the Caster God's throat. He was using the ability that drains living things of all their biologicals that are then repurposed as sustenance to form a skeleton, and while it wasn't killing the God, it was making it difficult for him to maintain his channel. Apparently the God thought he could ignore the Lich and focus on killing the Tengu, which led him to this miserable situation where he couldn't do anything.

Through the Lich I could feel the God trying to move his soul, but the Lich was locking him down. Ahh, the fucker is trying to warp away. A little too late for that asshole. You should've done that before the Lich grabbed you. The God turned his head one hundred and eighty degrees and stared at the Lich in the same way he had at me before. But if he was trying to mess with my soul fragment inside of the Lich, I didn't sense anything. Instead, the God just stared at him as a strong surge of mana built up inside of him. Alright, what is he doing this time...?

The amount of mana inside of the God kept rising and rising until an orange aura appeared around him. The Lich tried pulling his hands away, but his fingers were stuck to the God's neck. It was almost as if they had been molded into his neck. The Lich ordered the nearby skeletons to break his arms off while he attempted to do the same thing with his feet, but the orange aura extended out and wrapped around his arms, apparently making them much more durable in the process.

As the aura wrapped around the Lich's entire frame, I could feel him quickly send my soul fragment back to me while sending most of the energy to all of the remaining skeletons. It was more than we could handle so I forced all of the skeletons to enhance themselves as much as they could before giving one last order to them.

From there the orange aura flared up until a massive explosion erupted around the God, incinerating everything around it(including three casters) while blasting my units back the way they came. And that's it for them... Continuing to feed the skeletons is only going to unnecessarily drain me. And most of the civilians who didn't flee when the emergency broadcast went out are already dead. So there's not much 'fuel' left in the city for them now.

After watching the blast to see how far out it extended, I took back the pieces of my soul embedded in all of my units and turned to look over Shana's shoulder.

"Shana! How's your situation? I lost both of my Liches and took my soul fragments back from the remaining skeletons. They should obey my last orders which were for the group on the right to support you guys, and the ones on the left to try and help the Tengu escape. I don't know what they can really do against that God though."

"Not good... Let me focus."

A few dozen skeletons were clinging onto the two Ghoraks. They were trying to bite through their defenses while the group made a last stand in a medium-sized dining hall. Markus was finally putting his shield to use as he parried one Ghorak punch after another, but the durability on his shield was dropping drastically with each hit, and it was clear that his mana was getting dangerously low too. Ishar had found a spear at some point and managed to kill one of the Ghoraks after the skeletons finally broke through its defense. He shouted at it and stabbed it in its chest a dozen times, which led to the creature falling over dead after the stun wore off.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

But that one was quickly replaced by the other Ghorak and now all of the other units who were chasing them were surrounding the party through other parts of the building and the outside. Seifer was dealing with the Shoths who were trying to enter through another hole in the wall they created. Despite his zombified state, he was taking care of them with ease. I forgot how good of a fighter he was. And what is with that scythe he uses? It's cutting through the Shoths as if they were paper.

It got worse than that though. Through their vision and the Hawks, I could see why they were unable to advance further. All of the armored vehicles and over a few hundred men were waiting for them to blast through the wall. Shana's 'focus' involved digging underground, which she was doing at a pretty fast rate with her two clones, but unless she found a tunnel or cavern to drop into, I didn't have much faith that the party was going to survive.

"Shana, I'm leaving the soul realm and coming to help. So be prepared."

Shana nodded as I pulled both her and me out of my soul realm. She immediately swapped to controlling her units through her own mind. I opened the door leading to the hotel and closed it behind me just in case before running through the tunnel and up the stairs. Once on the ground level I jumped through a nearby window and began to run toward the right side of the city. I closed my right eye and tried to focus on the Hawk, but since I wasn't used to doing that it kept popping out of focus.

However, I did see Viktor unleashing a large volley of golden lights down onto the Caster God. Apparently he had left his men to deal with our group while he attempted to kill the God, who was still an unknown entity to him. And he has good reason to believe his men will succeed. Even I think that our situation looks dire.

The Caster God had finally finished channeling his spell from earlier but instead of attacking the Tengu, he fired it at Viktor, who appeared to dodge it by warping to another rooftop, except the invisible blast smashed into him from the direction of the rooftop he had just warped from. Shit, is that spell of his homing? That would explain why he was able to hit the Tengu from so far away back in the Abyss...

As much as I wanted to see who would win that showdown, I was closing in on the soldiers, so I purely focused my attention on them. I turned invisible and snuck up to the group furthest to the right. They had parked their vehicle next to a barricade and were aiming over it. Once I was directly behind them I removed my veil and activated the halo, charging it to the max. It took a few seconds so the soldiers had time to react, which led to a few of them screaming hysterically as their whole unit opened fire on me.

I hit the deck on all fours and spun my whole body to the right while extending my left foot out, sweeping the four men's feet out from underneath them. As they fell down I quickly stood up and punched each of them in the chest with all of my might. Despite their enhancements, I could feel their sternums rupture into pieces. Blood shot out of their mouths at the same time, probably because their hearts had all been eviscerated.

The driver tried to pull away but by the time he switched gears I had already swung around the vehicle and crushed his throat. He gurgled while clutching his throat as I threw him out of the vehicle. I hopped into the driver's seat and closed the door before flooring it. By now I was taking heavy fire, which was all centered on the glass, as the soldiers already knew that hitting the vehicle itself was pointless.

The glass ruptured before I reached the building and I was also hit with a few bullets before I blasted past the soldiers and pulled alongside the building my friends were in. I honked the horn and barely two seconds later Ishar blasted through the wall. He fumbled around with the door before yelling behind him, "HOW THE FUCK DO YOU OPEN THIS THING?!"

Shana's clones came out next and opened both the passenger door and the side door. Ishar jumped in with the artifact as the clones ran back into the building. Seifer and Markus ran through the hole in the wall and jumped inside next. Markus sat in the passenger seat with Seifer sitting next to Ishar and the artifact. They closed the doors as I floored it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Shana's clones doing that weird pose I saw back during the Kellog Tengu battle. She was projecting a shockingly pretty barrier which was keeping the remaining Shoths and soldiers at bay.

"Where are we heading?!" Markus yelled as I turned left.

"Out of the city! Fuck if I know where we should be heading past that. Ideas?"

"T-The border..." Seifer said, but I could barely hear him over the hail of bullets hitting the vehicle.

Markus looked at him, "Where is that?! North?!"

"OBVIOUSLY!" Seifer yelled.

As we drove into the open area the airship had destroyed earlier, I could see the Tengu stumbling forward. Between that and his wings, he was still moving faster than us, and I could also see that all of the ninjas were clinging to him again. I'm glad to see that they survived... And they're probably infusing him with whatever mana they have left. Which is something he desperately needs right now.

"Fucking cunts, the whole damn horde is following us." Ishar paused then continued, "This isn't going to work. That Viktor asshole is just going to blast us and then we'll have to deal with him and all of the soldiers following us. I'm surprised he hasn't already done that..."

Markus looked back at him, "I'm worried about the same thing. Think we should try and kill them at those buildings up ahead?"

"I do. Rei?" Ishar asked.

"That's the only option. And I'm assuming none of you know about his abilities yet since you were all trapped inside that cell during the battle."

"Shana already told us," Markus said.

Oh right, her clone was there too... That makes this easier then.

I pulled up to the hole in the hotel wall and Shana ran out of it. Seifer pulled the door open for her but before she could jump inside, the vehicle began to violently shake. Shana jumped back and yelled for us to get out as the vehicle started to close in around us. It looked like we were in a can that was being crushed.

We all jumped out of the vehicle mere seconds before it compacted into a cube.

"Did you really think you were going to escape?" A guttural voice said.

I looked up at the second floor of the hotel and saw a werewolf in power armor resting his arms against the windowsill. He was looking down at us with a completely passive face, as if none of this mattered to him. I've seen him before... He was inside the portal room behind Jericho yelling at those workers.

"It's you!" Ishar yelled as the armored vehicles fanned out behind us, with most of them taking up positions near the destroyed chemical plant.

"Hmm?" The werewolf looked at Ishar. "You're... Oh! Hahahaha I remember you now!! Thanks for the spear buddy!"

The werewolf reached for something next to him and then held it outside the window. It was the artifact spear Ishar used to wield.

An orange light appeared from my left that was so bright it blinded me, and I heard an explosion soon after that. When the light faded to the point I could see again, I saw the remains of the Tengu lying there. He and the ninjas on him had been completely eviscerated. I looked up and saw another airship, except this one was much larger than the ship from earlier.

"Well I'll be damned. I knew he was hurting, but I wasn't sure if it'd actually kill him, ya know? All of those fucking birds should be eliminated... 'Righteous Tengu' my ass." The werewolf said.

"How do you like it, Rei?" Viktor said from behind me. I turned around and saw him dusting himself off. He was bleeding from his mouth and looked like he was missing a few fingers. The rage I felt for him in that moment far surmounted anything I had felt up until this point. "That's my pride and joy right there. It has a railgun far more powerful and faster than the one you saw earlier. I was actually visiting the nearby city with it when I got the call that my daughter had been found. And as you can see, soon after our meeting I requested it to come here and reinforce Xethra."

The werewolf looked at him agape, "Shit, you alright boss?! The hell happened to---"

I activated my halo and leaped at Viktor before it had fully charged. His eyes widened in surprise as I grabbed his throat and pushed him to the ground. I was squeezing as hard as I could, but his enhancements were holding out well. I pulled my right hand back in preparation to smash it into his chest, just like I did to his men earlier, but my left arm from the elbow down was completely blown off, which allowed Viktor to slip out from underneath me. What the fuck?! My arm was enhanced! How did...

I looked to my left and saw a familiar looking guard. The one in power armor inside the hotel. The last time I saw him he was stunned by Ishar and unable to move as we fled the hotel.

"Ha! You seem surprised girl!" The werewolf slapped the windowsill while laughing. "Interesting ability he has, eh?"

Viktor stood up while rubbing his throat. "God damn, Rei. That was close... I guess you haven't just been sitting around relaxing these past fifty years. A halo doesn't really fit you, but eh, you certainly scared the hell out of me thanks to it. You were so fast that I wasn't able to warp away in time."

Markus and Shana's clones ran out from inside the hotel, heading straight for the man who cut my arm off.

The werewolf howled with laughter again. "There we go, that's the spirit! Let's get this party started!!" He jumped out of the window and immediately Ishar hit him with a shout. The werewolf froze and landed face-first into the cubed vehicle. Apparently Ishar had caught him before he had time to enhance, as a lot of blood spurt out of the werewolf's mouth the second he hit the cube. I saw several teeth fall out of his mouth as he rolled to the side.

"FUCKING COCKSUCKERRRRR!!" The werewolf yelled as he glared at Ishar. For his part, Ishar had already reclaimed his spear and was jumping at him. In a panic, the werewolf rolled to the side and was struggling to get to his feet as Ishar's attacks ramped up in speed.

"Shit, shit, shit!!" The werewolf yelled as he dodged some blows while eating a few others. One of the attacks stuck right into the werewolf's left pauldron, and Ishar somehow used that to rip all of the armor off of his left arm. "Wha?!"

I bent down in preparation to dash at the werewolf, when Shana's clones suddenly disappeared. I was still watching the battle over there out of the corner of my eye, so I knew it was nothing the guard had done, and just one look at his face was proof enough. He was looking around in confusion and worry, thinking maybe she was going to ambush him from the shadows. Markus was also confused but he used this moment to attack the guard again.

While those two restarted their battle, I looked toward the hotel, and what I saw froze my already lifeless blood. Seifer was standing there mumbling something with a horrified look on his face. There was blood all over his scythe and I could see one of Shana's arms laying on the floor, poking out from behind the broken wall. Blood was slowly pooling out around it. Did... He...?

"What the hell...?" Viktor said from behind me. He sounded almost just as stunned as I was. "The fuck kind of company are you keeping, Rei? And why did you even rescue that freak? I saw his rap sheet while I was in City Hall. He was indiscriminately killing people in one of my towns for months. It wasn't just adults either. He was killing plenty of kids as well..."

I blitzed toward the hotel, knocking the werewolf out of the way as I went. Seifer saw me coming and leaped out of the hotel while swinging his scythe at me. I stopped and kicked backward a little to dodge the attack. A fury like no other lit up in Seifer's eyes as he looked at me. "You... Right, it was you..."

I didn't hear a thing he was saying, I only cared about one thing, reaching Shana. I tried circling around him but he backed up to the hole in the wall and stared at me with his weapon at the ready.

I moved toward the right, planning to blast the wall down and get to Shana that way, but I stopped halfway when I realized if she was still alive, then she wouldn't be enhanced at all, so that option was out. If it was just drywall then it wouldn't be an issue, but I remembered that there was a heavy suit of armor standing by that end of the room. If I knocked that onto her right now it could be deadly.

I looked up at the second floor and prepared to jump up there, but when Seifer saw that he turned and prepared to attack Shana again. With the halo at max, I dashed straight for him. Seifer changed the directory of his attack toward me, which I was able to mostly dodge, but a large cut opened up from my jaw all the way to above my ear. Even with my super-diluted pain sensors, I still felt a tinge of pain, which meant that it was a much more dire wound than I had originally thought, but I had no time to worry about it.

With my remaining arm I punched hard into Seifer's exposed ribs, sending him flying through both the hallway wall and the wall into the adjacent room. Immediately I turned toward Shana, praying that she had only lost an arm, but...

.........

Just like back in Xelba when I lost my friends. I could feel my emotions freezing. The overwhelming sadness and disgust I was feeling at that moment were shut down and replaced with a feeling of pure emptiness.

"... I'm beginning to think fate really does exist. For me to see that look on your face twice in my life..." Viktor said, but I wasn't listening to anything he said.

... Ishar. He's still alive.

I glanced further into the hotel but couldn't see Seifer. It appeared that he had fled out the back window. With him gone, I turned my attention toward the werewolf. Although to my surprise it wasn't just him. Markus had died at some point during my scuffle with Seifer. He was cut in two, straight through his armor. Probably by the same ability that removed my left arm. And as a result, Ishar was fighting one versus two. He was doing quite well too. The werewolf had been half-stripped of his shoddy power armor and he was bleeding profusely, while the other guard was missing a hand. Although I wasn't sure if that was Markus's or Ishar's doing.

I charged toward the one-handed guard, but a large yellow light appeared on the guard's torso, right where I was aiming. I knew better than to try and adjust the attack, so I stopped and pivoted toward the werewolf. I had barely moved a few feet when a large explosion occurred behind me, leaving a massive golden wall in its wake.

"You didn't think I was just going to watch, did you? And as fun as this reunion has been, I need to wrap it up. There is a lot of work I need to do after this. All thanks to you, of course." Viktor said.

Now that his counter ability was on cooldown, I knew he'd be forced to warp away, but that would only give us a few minutes of reprieve. Even so, it was more than the zero we currently had, so I jumped over the werewolf and brought my heel down toward Viktor's head.

Despite already seeing my speed several times up until this point, his eyes still widened a little in surprise before he warped away. I immediately turned around with the intention of killing the two guards and dragging Ishar into one of the vehicles behind us. It wasn't a very good plan, but at this point, there wasn't much else I could do, outside of stealing one of those airships for myself. But they were far too high in the air for us to jump up to.

"Heh, have fun you two!" The werewolf said before him and the other guard completely vanished. What...?

Their actions were surprising until I heard something above us. I looked up and saw an orange glow below both of the airships. My first thought was to run to the underground VIP area, but I vividly remembered the railgun blowing up the underground earlier, and one of these airships had a much larger version of it. I turned and saw that the vehicles near the destroyed chemical plant had already driven far away into the distance.

Ishar sighed, "Well... I think we're fucked." He sat down and rested his spear over his shoulder. "God damnit all, I wanted to see my girl one last time... And I was going to introduce you and the ninja back there to her as well."

He looked up at the airships, "Oh well... At least I got to fuck those two up before I died."

I sat next to him and chuckled, "True... It looked like you were handling them alone with ease."

"That's because of my shout. I mean shit, normally it's amazing, ya know? But remember when I hit that guy in the hotel and you pushed him out of the way so you could attack Viktor? He never got back up, did he?"

"That's right... But your shouts don't last that long? And yet he just kept lying there with a weird look on his face."

Ishar laughed, "That's because my shout fucks up their suits. I learned that during our fight. I don't know why, but thanks to that I was able to have one hell of a fun last batt---"

An orange light engulfed us, and everything went white. It felt like ten minutes but it was probably only a few minutes later when everything settled. I was barely alive, and my core was severely damaged. I would need weeks to repair it. Weeks I didn't have.

"Well I'll be... The fuckers are alive. God damn, color me impressed!" Said the werewolf.

"The Crotian surprises me, but..." Viktor trailed off before looking down at me and sighing.

"We killing them, sir?" The nameless guard asked.

Viktor pointed two fingers at me, "We are."

He held them there for a while as several different emotions fluttered over his face. He eventually just stared at me, his face filled with sadness. "God damnit, Rei..." He said that and put his fingers down before sitting next to me.

The werewolf looked at the other guard and shrugged. I watched as the werewolf walked over and picked up Ishar's artifact spear. Ishar for his part was more intact than I was, but he couldn't move, as he was still a mortal at the end of the day.

The werewolf lifted the spear in preparation to finish him. At that moment Ishar looked over at me and smiled, "Get 'em for me next time, yeah?"

The werewolf dropped the spear, sticking it right into his heart. I could feel Ishar's soul begin to decouple from here as his eyes glazed over.

"What the fuck did that mean? Is he stupid? Does he think she still has a chance to survive this?" The werewolf said.

Viktor looked at me, "It wouldn't surprise me if she did. I dropped a whole city on her and she still managed to survive somehow..." He stared at me silently for a while as the two guards patiently waited nearby.

"... I didn't kill your friends back in Xelba, Rei. The nobles had the Eldritch Lords activate their curses, which severely weakened them. By the time I found out about it already half of your unit had been sacrificed. I... Admit, I may have frozen up the moment I arrived at the temple, unsure of what to do next. The answer is obvious to me now, I should have saved them and used that incident to crush the nobles and the Lords. But..."

Viktor sighed, "I guess it doesn't matter anymore. But over the years I'd sometimes remember a girl with white hair and red eyes who just wanted to escape to Gaia with my brother and her friends. I should've just let you all go. But I... I needed your help. Things were really dangerous back then thanks to the Demons and Lords watching my every move... And I was also..."

He went silent again, watching his airship for a few dozen seconds before continuing, "I'm saying all of this for my own sake, obviously. I felt bad about what happened back then, but the second I saw you here with my daughter in the same room, I knew it was impossible to reconcile with you. After all, I had seen what you did to your enemies back in Xelba. And then you attacked the whole fucking capital with an army of skeletons just to get at me. You're too dangerous to let live, Rei... So I'm sorry, but I need you to die for real this time."

Viktor stood up and began to walk away. He only stopped once to say one thing over his shoulder, "... I know there isn't an afterlife thanks to Meiza'thul, but if you do see my brother again. Tell him I'm sorry."

Wasting no time, the werewolf walked over and stabbed my core. I was still alive which made him quirk and eyebrow and mumble something about me being a freak. He repeatedly stabbed me after that for what felt like several minutes. The next thing I knew I was inside of a deep hole in the ground.

.........

I stood up and crawled up the side of the dirt, ripping through the threads covering the hole as I reached the top. Above ground the world was dark, and fires were running rampant in all directions far off in the distance. The sounds of gunfire, explosions, and all sorts of other horrific shit could be heard from many miles away as well.

My mind was filled with only two images. Shana's corpse and Ishar's smile as he said his last words. I walked over toward a nearby lake, crushing several Xerath-plants with my hands that had tried to attack me along the way.

I found a duck covered in oil near the lake and picked him up, placing him in my lap as I sat down.

"Hey there, little buddy... You're all alone too, huh...?"

The duck didn't react, as it couldn't even open its eyes. More gunfire, explosions, and yelling could be heard from far ahead of me.

I pulled some mesh out and heated it up before wrapping it around the duck. I held it tight and closed my eyes as a few tears rolled down my cheeks. I stayed like that, unmoving, as the sound of battles continued to rage on in the distance.