The whole world was set ablaze. The only things remaining around us were fire, carnage, gore and overwhelming hopelessness. Our ranks? Decimated. Commanders? Killed or fleeing. The Heroes? Broken apart and barely surviving in a brutal melee to the death. Meanwhile, the demons, our adversary? Having an absolute feast. These bloodthirsty, twisted monstrosities, fearless on the battlefield, warped and mutated for optimal combat performance. Even observing them from afar was enough to strike fear into any soldier’s heart. Seeing those abominations shred through the ranks of our most elite units made even those less religious thankful to all the gods they knew that they’re standing up here, guarding the command point, instead of fighting down there, on the field. But if things were to go on like this, they would soon turn into the next meal for those horrors. Unless something is done about it.

Looking down at the battlefield from the top of the hill, I could clearly see just how tragic our situation was. Not just our front line, all of our formations were completely broken. People were scattered everywhere, trying to fend against the demons by themselves or in small groups, only to be gradually overrun or outmanoeuvred and torn to shreds before being devoured on the spot, in front of their comrades. Still, I was able to spot eight groups of concentrated human forces that still held some semblance of a formation. That’s where the eight great Heroes tried to hold the demons off, hoping some form of reinforcements reaches them before it is too late. To think that just a few years ago none of them would ever expect that destiny would put them in such a scenario. Just two months ago they were all living life to the fullest, unaware that their potential end was so close… and so gruesome. They were all powerful, they knew their way around their weapons, they had powerful magic and Skills at their disposal and their presence alone was enough to boost the morale of soldiers around them to help them stay and fight. But none of them were strategists, none were born leaders or great commanders. They were suddenly put in charge of whole armies and were expected to win a war with odds stacked greatly against them, against an enemy that they had, at most, heard stories about and were not prepared for the danger they really posed.

-It’s all over. We lost. Humanity’s over…

I grit my teeth hearing the Head Priestess lament as she started crying and praying to the gods, asking for guidance and pleading to be saved. But the gods remained silent, like they always did. They helped humanity once already. If we failed due to some stubbornness and stupidity of certain people, I guess they simply felt fit for us to die.

-Your gods won’t help you now. You might as well prepare yourself to die with whatever humility you have left.

I smirked saying that. I was in plenty of near-death experiences by now, breaking my limits time and time again to escape them. But right now, however I looked at the situation, all I could see in the near future was us meeting our doom.

-You… It’s all your fault, heathen! You coming here caused the gods to turn their favour away from us! It’s because of y-

-That is enough, Priestess. Getting angry and starting meaningless fights between ourselves will not help our situation. Edward…

I turned around, surprised to hear my liege speak against the head of the Holy Alliance and, de facto, his superior. Yet he passed right by the fuming girl without even sparing her a glance and walked up to me with a stern expression. He had the look of a person who knew what they wanted and wouldn’t take no for an answer. One that I have seen way too many times already at this point.

-My king…

-Clearly, the gods have abandoned us. So we must leave this matter in the hands of the capable humans instead. Can you do it?

I turned to look at the battlefield. At that time, the Demon King, a massive, almost fifty metre tall fiery giant clad in armour looking like flowing magma, roared in the distance. The sound pierced our ears even here, a few clicks away from him, loud, clear and no less terrifying. Somehow, I could feel his gaze upon our camp. He was toying with us, with the lives of our soldiers. He knew all we could do was to continue watching from afar and await our turn. He knew he won. But I wondered if he knew about a particular human quality. We’re like cockroaches, impossible to annihilate and always trying to find a way to survive. And I would guess it was my turn to figure that out now.

-Killing that bastard will be a tall order. But if I can gather my students, we might be able to do something. But that will require me to go in there first. Second, I will have to approach each and every one of them without being torn to pieces by a maniacal, bloodthirsty, hound-looking demonic beasts. And then I will still have to figure out how to take that massive thing down.

-You have always managed to persevere, even when faced against impossible odds, Edward. And I believe that even if you do not know what to do at this moment, you will still find a way when it matters. The fate of the human race is upon you, you are the only one we can trust in right now.

-You’re really asking for a lot, huh… Alright. Soldiers!

I turned around to face a group of knights who stood at attention as soon as I hailed them. I fought a couple battles with them already. I could trust them to be able to hold the line and not give in to fear or desperation. They gained experience on the Frontier, a place that, until recently, was called the actual Hell of this world. They were used to facing powerful monsters and unfavourable odds.

-I want you all to stay here and hold this ground. The lives of everyone in this camp are in your hands. Don’t disappoint me!

The knights all saluted me by extending their fists and striking them against their chests. Next moment, they all repositioned to create a spearwall against the charging demons. I glanced around until I spotted a girl in a black dress and a pointy hat. Her black hair was flowing around her head unnaturally.

-Next, we might need spell support. I want you to stay here and aid us on the battlefield. Don’t overexert yourself, though. We might need some powerful magic later on.

-You got it, boss!

The girl saluted me somewhat playfully. Her always cheerful personality was one of the last things I needed right now. I knew she was reliable, though, so I just decided to ignore it this time. I let out a sigh as I turned to look at the battlefield as well. The situation didn’t change much but somehow looked a lot worse. Was it because of the grim perspective that I had to go in there soon. I looked at my other two companions. One of them was full combat armour with religious insignia, a memento of her days as a Paladin in the Holy Alliance. The other was a beastfolk girl with wolf features, dressed in light armour. Thanks to her hood, which was supposed to help conceal her appearance, and the daggers on her hips, she looked like some shady rouge.

-We’re going in. We have to break through to every Hero. I trust you to deal with the demons that surround them.

-You can count on me.

-Sure thing.

I nodded, took a deep breath and started running down the hill. It was funny, really. Me, an outcast, with no magical power or special abilities, was now supposed to save the best and most revered people in this world and find a way to kill the Demon King. If it wasn’t for the magical equipment I was wearing, I wouldn’t even be able to keep up with the two companions of mine. They both possessed magic and Skills making them much more agile. Meanwhile, even with the specialised gear, I was barely able to run just slightly faster than an average human would. I couldn’t just leave those guys out there to die like that, though. Not because that would mean the end of the world, but because they were my precious students. We were together long before this stupid destiny of saving the world was forced upon us. We came to this world together when the gods called upon them to serve their divine duty and we never broke our bond. Since originally I wasn’t supposed to be a part of it, I was simply helping them from the sidelines as much as I could, as their teacher and their friend. Now, they needed me. They needed someone to help them guide them, to show them the new path to victory. Whether I liked it or not, it was my job to do it, even if it would cost me my life.

As we entered the battlefield, the first of the demons spotted us and jumped at us from the right. It looked oddly similar to a big hound, except for the oily, smooth skin and long, disjointed legs. Despite that, it still galloped at us at an insane speed, clearly lusting for fresh blood. The beastgirl by my side swiftly dismembered the creature as soon as it jumped to tackle me, causing the monster to explode in a pool of its own gore. The second demon, distinctly different yet basically identical in appearance, and just as horrific-looking, attacked from the left just moments later. This time the paladin moved in. She blocked the abomination with her shield and threw it down on the ground. She then proceeded to cut its head off in a single strike before resuming to run and catching up with us. More monsters were still actively attacking. The two girls at my side seemed to have no problems defeating them, however. This let me conserve my energy for later. And I greatly appreciated that. They were both far more powerful than I was. Even with my enhanced gear, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stand up against more than one of those demons at a time. I saw those monsters rip through steel battle gear like it was nothing or sending soldiers flying several metres up from a hit. If possible, I would rather avoid direct confrontations for as long as I could.

As we approached the struggling groups of soldiers, the two girls dispersed and helped annihilate the demons, while I broke through to the defenders and explained the situation to each of the respective commanding Heroes. Gradually, I confirmed the status of seven of my students. I sent two of them, who specialised more in the roles of a medic and a mage, and who weren’t even that good at melee combat in the first place, towards the back lines. I don’t know what absolute idiot thought it was a good idea to send them here to fight but if we somehow survive this, I’ll personally give them a taste of the hell they made my students go through. Now, there was only one left.

-He was fighting closest to the Demon King. Last we heard a General attacked him.

-A General?

I turned to one of my students, when they shared their info with me. Another jumped in with a reply instead.

-We called him that. He’s different from those monsters. Humanoid and wields a weapon. He’s extremely powerful.

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-Bloody hell… Everyone, keep formation. Position yourselves on that hill, it should make it harder for the demons to charge you up there. Once we’re all together we’ll have to figure out how to deal with that big guy over there.

As if hearing me, the Demon King, still far away from us but somehow even more impressive now, laughed, his voice resonating and reverberating in our ears. This also seemed like a command, or a stimulus, for the demons, as they started attacking with even more ferocity. And most of them seemed to be focused around the last isolated group of soldiers. Could it be it was afraid of us uniting together or was it simply playing with us?

I immediately started running in their direction. It was just a couple hundred metres but it still seemed so far away as I saw the soldiers getting basically eaten alive by the demons. Occasionally I saw the golden shine of the decorative elements on my friend’s armour. My last student, my close and only friend from back then, was still fighting strong, cutting two or three demonic dogs with each slash of his zweihander. There was no finesse to his movements, no style, just sheer power. He was tired, breathing heavily, fighting with everything he got just to take out as many of those foul creatures as he could, even though there was seemingly no end to them. The whole Holy Alliance combined have killed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of these bloody things, yet they just kept coming, more ferocious than before. One hellish hound jumped at me from my left. I managed to bring my shield up and duck under it, allowing it to soar over me. I struck its back as soon as I regained my footing. I wasn’t as good at killing those demonic abominations like my companions but three precise strikes were all it took to bring the beast down. I turned on my heel to start running towards my student once again but then another demon attacked me out of the blue. Since this one wasn't jumping at me but simply charging, defending against him proved more difficult. By stepping back I was able to just barely clear the range of its first attack and counter-slash at its head. I only managed to give it a surface cut though, which ended up enraging the beast even more. After some dancing around, the demon stood up on its hind legs and tried to crush me with both of its front ones. I shielded myself from above and started thrusting my sword again and again into the hound’s surprisingly tough underbelly. I didn’t manage to critically hurt it but the wounds were enough to prompt the demon to turn around and run away a little and wait for its regenerative capabilities to kick in.

-Edward! Watch out!

I turned around when I suddenly heard the panicked voice of my friend. I barely noticed some movement in the corner of my eye when a three metre tall, clad in black thorny armour demon appeared in front of me. I immediately knew what I’m facing again. It was one of the Demon Generals, the elite, humanoid monsters of the Demon King’s army. Just looking at it would cause my legs to shake and my resolve to break, if only I had the time for that. I was only given a split second between the time he appeared and the time he single-handedly swung an absolutely massive onyx sword trying to cut me in half horizontally. My shield caught the impact of the sword which was so powerful that the strike sent me flying. I could feel the pain in my left arm and side, my bones likely pulverised from the power of the impact. I didn’t even have time to scream in pain before I felt my back impact against something extremely hard and the whole world and all sensations of it disappeared.

I found myself in a completely empty space, however, it wasn’t completely black or white like I was used to seeing in pop-culture after the main character would get killed. The endless dimension around was purple in colour, fairly bright and vibrant around me, gradually gradienting into a much darker and somehow more sinister looking shade deeper into the fog. This colour… it felt familiar. It was somehow stirring up various conflicting emotions inside of me. Fear, feeling of safety, anxiety, anger, relief, piety, annoyance, content, sense of urgency… They all flooded me at once, making it hard for me to think about anything. I couldn’t feel any pain but I somehow knew I’m having a really strong migraine from all of this conundrum. And then it all disappeared, all at once, replaced by one single feeling.

Someone was watching me.

I could feel their gaze on my back. Penetrating deep into my soul. Whoever was watching me, knew everything about me. I could feel that. There was nothing I could hide against them even if I tried. Once again, I felt this gaze to be somewhat menacing but also familiar and comforting. Could it be that whatever watched me had mixed feelings about me as well?

I tried to turn around, even though I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t have any control over my own body ever since I found myself in this place. But then, suddenly, like if I broke free from a binding spell, I spun around and stared directly at the thing. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything in the endless sea of purple. But I knew I was staring directly at it, directly into it. And I felt it staring into me. I opened my mouth to say something but at that point, it all went to black. And in a sudden motion and in a lot of sweat, I woke up.

I looked around my room. It was still dark. I picked up my phone from the end table to check the time, completely forgetting about how bright the screen was and blinding myself for a few seconds. 4:01AM. I reached to my head and wiped some sweat off my forehead. That’s when I noticed my hand trembling. I couldn’t recall any details of the dream. Something about a different world, some fantasy crap, me dying at the end. And, for some reason, it involved the students of my HEMA classes as well. What I could remember didn’t seem terrifying enough to bring me into a state like this but hey, I guess that’s nightmares for you. Was I just in a lot of stress or something? I didn’t feel like I was overburdened by anything but I didn’t have a better explanation for a dream like this otherwise. Strange, to say the least.

I got out of bed and headed to take a shower. I needed to wipe that sweat off, there’s no way I could fall asleep again in such a state again. Well, I didn’t have much planned for today other than the afternoon classes so I should be able to catch some rest before them if I decide to stay up now.

After a quick shower, feeling significantly refreshed, I decided to try and not think about that dream too much. I wasn’t exactly a superstitious person. I knew there is some unexplainable stuff around but the fact that every dream always carries a meaning? Not really. I probably spent too much time watching or reading a few too many fantasy stories lately and my brain just crafted a story to occupy itself instead of resting when it’s supposed to.

I sat down at my PC and booted it up. I opened one of the files on my desktop and scrolled through the list that popped up. I was planning a trip for my class to one of the mediaeval tournaments. My top student, Lucas, insisted I register for the 1v1 fights and, once the others found out about it, there was no escaping the pressure. The list was regarding which of my students have already confirmed or are yet to confirm they’ll go and what they’ll be most interested in seeing during the event. Lucas, of course, was the first to announce his participation. For throwing this responsibility on me, I had designated him as my personal squire so that I wouldn’t have to drag all of my gear behind me myself. Kira and Ikaze already said they’d be coming too. Both of them wanted to see a weaponry exhibition, especially that there was supposed to be an eastern-inspired one as well, which should be particularly appealing to the second youngster. He was absolutely in love with Japanese culture, even though he swings his katana more like a scythe… somehow. Even I had a difficult time figuring out how he can even do that. Shin couldn’t yet confirm his participation but he was extremely enthusiastic to see the siege equipment display and demonstrations. I couldn’t blame the kid, I also absolutely loved that stuff when I was around his age too. Lidia was also undecided, given she doesn’t particularly like fighting in the first place. The only reason she was in my class was because she’s working in a fairly dangerous environment and having some self-defence skills just made her feel better about herself. Although I was pretty sure that Lana, who would never pass up an opportunity to learn more about fashion in any shape or form, will end up dragging her along anyway. That left us with the only two underaged kids in our group, Stach and Sethana. They’re both pretty timid and scared of fighting, especially against bigger and stronger adults than them. They’re also not really socialising inside of the class, so I wouldn’t be surprised that they decided to skip on the event. They needed their parents’ permission to go and it was also a lot more responsibility and paperwork for me while the event also didn’t offer much in line with their interests. Stach was mostly interested in Polish culture, especially in the period of Szlachta, Polish Nobility in XV to XVIII century, which was a few centuries outside of the event’s scope. Sethana wasn’t at all interested in warfare stuff, only attending classes because of her parents wanting her to gain more confidence in herself and being able to stand up to bullies at school. She liked to study a lot and would probably find something she would be fancy towards eventually, like learning about history of crafts or something, but that wasn’t the main focus of the event either, so she’d likely find the whole event uninteresting as well. Not that I didn’t want either of them two to go, there just wouldn’t be much sense in them coming to just be bored to hell and back. Especially since that’s also just more trouble for me as well. I won’t lie, them staying behind would likely be a win-win.

I looked at the calendar. The event was in two weeks, meaning we still had three classes planned before that, including today. Well, they still had time to think this through. On that note, I realised that I should probably start preparing myself for my fights as well. I don’t know anything about my opponents yet. Since I have spare time today, I’ll probably have to get started on that. You can learn a lot from an opponent by just watching their fights. Of course, you can never be sure they will use the same tactics or even gear against you that they did in any other fights they had but some things in a person’s style never change. Footwork is one of those things, for example, and it can dictate a lot about what types of attacks I can expect, like whether someone prefers to be on the offensive or would rather wait for counterplays. Also, how often are they willing to tackle enemies, how long they stay in tackles, do they try to throw the opponent or rather just score points with blade hits. Or maybe they are always on the back foot and avoid getting in tackle range at all? That’s also valuable intel to have.

Well, there was a lot of research to be done, this was supposed to be a fairly big tournament after all. The entry fee wasn’t cheap either but at least thanks to my renown as a martial trainer and some of my achievements in my younger years in other tournaments, I was permitted entry without having to go through elimination rounds.

I checked the time again. 5:07AM. Still way too early to even get breakfast going. Well, if I have to prepare, I might as well ramp up my personal training a little more. As much as I hate it, I guess I’m gonna get ready to run a few clicks. It might still be dark but it doesn’t seem to be raining, at least, so I might as well get it done before it ultimately starts to rain later. With a heavy sigh I turned my PC off and got ready to leave.