Cassian, Light, and the miners passed through the guard tower that connected the Topside and the Undercity. Looking around, Cassian felt unsettled seeing the normally bustling guard tower unmanned for the very first time in his life. With a glance back over the guard tower and the adjoining stone wall, he could see the silhouette of the untouched skyline and palace through the smoke. He wondered why the Bohlkovians would decimate the Undercity, yet leave the Topside in pristine condition.

The Gateway was what Topsiders called the district in the Undercity sitting closest to the guard tower. Stepping into the Gateway, Cassian gasped as much from the heavy smoke and falling ash blanketing the slums as from the hellish scene before him. Entire buildings were reduced to burnt-out shells.

Excessive looting meant that furniture and belongings were strewn about the streets. Stakes lined the streets displaying impaled gang members. It was the gangs, that’s why the Bohlkovians hit the Undercity so hard. With the army of Enthamere nowhere to be found, the defense of the city fell to the criminal organizations.

Cassian coughed, tearing a strip from his cloak and wrapping it around his nose and mouth. The miners were quick to follow suit. Collectively their faces drained of color upon noticing the vile display made with the men and women of the slums.

Reinhold grimaced and took his place beside the prince. “What devil's realm did we just walk into…”

“They’ll pay for this,” Cassian whispered, observing the bloodied corpse of a young woman with a spider web tattoo. He remembered her from the brief skirmish while fleeing the city with Luna.

In the distance, a spout of green flames exploded into the sky stealing Cassian’s attention. “Luna…”

Light noticed the worried look on Cassian’s face and leaped over to him. The snow leopard let out a low throaty growl.

“Follow me! We need to help them!” Cassian barked, pointing in the direction of the explosion and then sprinting towards it.

The miners looked around at each other exchanging fearful glances before eventually cursing and following after the prince, the snow leopard, and Reinhold. Dashing through the city streets, it was impossible not to take in the carnage. Families hid in the ruins, soot-stained citizens clung to their wounded friends and loved ones, and some attempted to flee the capital through the tunnels, leaving behind everything they owned. Cassian tried in vain to clear the faces from his mind with little luck. They don’t deserve this. No one deserves this.

After traveling twelve blocks or so through the Undercity, Cassian was relieved to see that the structural damage to the city had eased up. It appeared so far that the Gateway had taken the worst of the damage. The crudely constructed and haphazardly stacked structures further in seemed to be in decent shape.

These buildings had never looked the best, or been particularly structurally sound, even prior to the city falling, but compared to the rubble in the gateway, they were exquisite. Walkways cobbled together from garbage and scrap connected the structures and panicked citizens scurried across them like chickens with their heads cut off.

Pushing onwards towards the green flames eventually led them to the mining facility built into the side of the mountain. Last time Cassian had seen the facility was on a tour with the politicians, guild leaders, and prominent figures of the noble houses while it was still under construction. So much had changed since then. The state-of-the-art facility now appeared to be painted in blood and ash.

Countless fallen soldiers' lifeless bodies littered the ground like autumn leaves and the once sturdy gates were now reduced to splintered debris. A chaotic battle boiled over just beyond. Screams filled the air. Cassian froze up for a split second. Feeling the anxiety overwhelm him, he kneeled until he was face to face with his travel companion. As he pressed his face against Light’s wet nose, he felt a calming warmth surge through him. “Thank you for choosing me.” The horned snow leopard purred and licked the side of Cassian’s face.

Glancing back at the miners, he closed his eyes and nodded. They stared back, shuffling nervously from side to side as ash poured from the sky.

His heart pounded like a drum in his chest. Without another word, Cassian drew his sword and charged through the gates with Light at his side. Reinhold cried out to the miners. “Today we do what we must to keep the ones we love safe!” Tightening their grips on their makeshift weapons and pickaxes, they followed after the prince chanting old mining songs.

Once he waded close enough to see the melee through the haze, Cassian’s stomach lurched. These were not Bohlkovian soldiers. Unsettling memories of the laboratory in the docks rushed back into his head.

Only a few yards ahead of him, the twisted monstrosities bit and hammered away at humans and elves alike. Cassian’s brow raised. To him, the elves had always been nothing more than a bedtime story. Yet, here they were, fighting alongside the citizens of the Undercity. “Amazing…” Cassian said under his breath.

Before he had time to consider why the elder race were here in his homeland, a swollen purple fist slammed into his ribs. The prince sailed through the air before crashing hard into a stack of wooden crates.

A fleshy brute screeched and then brought its clublike foot up with the intention to stomp a hole right through Cassian’s chest. Before it could lash out, a giant feline silhouette appeared through the smoke and pounced on the monster. In the blink of an eye, Light had ripped the throat out of the poor soul.

As Cassian lay there in a pile of splintered wood, he scowled, rubbed his aching ribs and pulled himself back to his feet. Why is it always the bloody ribs!

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Bloated and bruised masses of flesh fought relentlessly all around him. Elves cut off mutated limbs, gang members slashed at purple eyes, and yet the monstrosities fought on with no regard for their own well-being. They fought like their minds were lost and all they now knew was violence. Cassian wiped the sweat from his brow and sighed. What I wouldn’t do for a pinch of amethite right about now.

The chanting miners and Reinhold crashed into the mutated horde. Swinging their pickaxes with every bit of strength they had—slowly they began chipping away at the brutes like boulders in a quarry. Unforeseen reinforcements joining the battle seemed to provide the exhausted humans and elves a second wind. The understanding that they were all going to die in this place drifted away into the ash and smoke. A path to victory seemed possible once again.

Cassian’s breath caught in his throat. Across the way, his eyes were drawn to Luna. It wasn’t going well for her, she was covered in blood and dirt as she attempted to fight off two twisted abominations at once. A nasty-looking brute with two heads and a headless brute with four arms attacked her from opposite sides. She was impressively nimble, dodging barely out of the way and jumping back, but she was almost out of room. A few more steps and she would be backed up against the mountainside with nowhere to go. At that point, the inhuman strength of the brutes would be impossible to overcome.

The prince patted Light on the back and ran towards Luna as a bolt fired from a bolt thrower. Just as he was nearly to her, a mutated man with three eyes and a fork stabbed into one of them, stepped into his path. Instinctively Cassian brought his longsword back in two hands and drove it down with all of his momentum. The sharp blade slashed down through the enemy's chest and its guts spilled out onto the ground. Cassian fought back the urge to throw up when he got a clear look at the innards which appeared to be covered in fuzzy purple mold.

Luna ran out of room to retreat. Her back was to the steep cliff face and the monsters were aggressively pushing the offensive. The alchemist’s apprentice flinched in surprise when the massive horned snow leopard launched through the air and knocked the four-armed brute to the ground.

Before she had a chance to properly react, Cassian appeared from behind the bloated two-headed monster, sword in hand. In a blinding flash, he slashed three times at the enemy. With a wet thud, one of the heads rolled to the ground. The second head spun around to glower at Cassian hatefully. Luna wasted no time and the thin blade of her rapier poked through the monster's face four times in rapid succession. The creature gurgled then slumped to the ground.

With the monster no longer in between them, Luna and Cassian were suddenly standing face to face. Cassian looked into her eyes and struggled to find the right words to say. There were just so many things he wanted to say to her, instead he awkwardly mumbled, “Y-You look…s-s-stunning.”

She glanced down at herself, her tunic and cloak were caked with blood, guts, mud, and stars knows what else. Luna looked beyond exhausted. “I look like a hot mes—”

Her response was interrupted by the sloshing sound of Light repeatedly slicing his razor-sharp claws through the four-armed brute.

Cassian patted the big cat on his hind leg and wagged a finger at him. “That’s enough, Light.”

Luna tilted her head ever so slightly and smirked. “New friend?”

“Well, the road does get pretty lonely.”

Luna started to laugh but her attention was swiftly drawn away. Across the courtyard, Mariska, Mouse, and the Blind Alchemists were doing their best to fight off the bloated enemies but they looked outmatched. Cassian spun around to see what Luna was panicked by. That’s when he noticed a giant man with a red sun tattooed around his left eye step through the splintered gate. Despite the mounds of corpses piled up and the battle raging around him, he carried himself with an eerie calm.

Light, Luna, and Cassian waded across the battlefield towards the struggling Blind Alchemists. As they moved closer, the divine prophet Venyov strode into the middle of the melee and brought his arms out at his sides, palms facing up. He began reciting scripture and the red sun tattoo around his eye began to glow as if a furnace burned inside of him. Venyov breathed in powerfully, inhaling the ash from the air around him. For just a moment he closed his eyes. When he opened them again his eyes burned like a violet inferno.

Cassian and Luna shared a brief nervous exchange. The prince had heard rumors about the mysterious powers of the Bohlkovian royal family, but he always assumed they were exaggerated. At that moment, he wasn’t so sure.

Venyov’s recitation of scripture became more intense and his voice grew inhumanly loud and deep. Cassian wanted to cower and cover his ears but he pushed on. Venyov’s eyes glowed brighter as if the fire inside of him was building. All around him the bloated brutes began shaking violently and their eyes mirrored the intensity of the divine prophets. The red sun around his left eye cascaded through a spectrum of hues until it glowed a deeply saturated purple. Immediately the mutated monsters all around him stopped shaking, their eyes faded to gray and they collapsed to the ground.

There was a split second where the humans and elves thought the battle won. Their celebration was cut short when Venyov lifted his bear paw of a fist high into the sky. His fist vibrated and glowed purple. With a thunderous roar, he brought his fist crashing down to the ground. A shockwave ripped out from the point of impact. The ground all around him collapsed. Luna and Cassian were thrown to the ground by the sudden pulse of energy. Cassian’s head bounced off a rock and he looked up to see a massive dust cloud shrouding the area, making it impossible to see.

When the dust finally settled there was a giant hole in the ground around where Venyov had been. Humans and elves pulled themselves up from the dirt. Cassian and Luna rushed over to the edge of the cavernous hole and their eyes went wide. Twenty yards or so below was a giant amethite processing chamber with iron paneled floors.

Rubble and bodies had drained into two corners of the chamber. Standing in the center of the processing chamber was Venyov, but his form had changed entirely. The red cloak and plate armor he once wore had mostly melted away. His skin shifted black as night and fiery veins formed geometric patterns on him.

Cassian hesitated, looking to Luna for the plan. Around them the remaining brutes fought tirelessly against the fatigued humans and elves.

Before either of them could act, a tall form came charging through the smoke and hurdled into the air towards Venyov. Eyes burning violet and curved blade pointed down at his mortal enemy, Tyriel’s face was contorted with rage.

As soon as he landed, Tyriel and Venyov became entangled in a display of lightning-fast parries, ripostes, and evasions. They moved so quickly augmented by amethite that it became difficult for Cassian to follow. Steel clashing against steel echoed through the complex like rolling thunder. Venyov fought with a long spear that he whirled around like an acrobat, parries and strikes flowing together seamlessly.

Luna hit the prince in the arm and called out to him, “We’ve gotta help him!”