Kari found a few of the materials that Runald had mentioned, as well as some flowers and stones that probably held some sort of ritual significance. He brought them to the warlock, who had started up some machinery. A small furnace atop a sandstone workbench was lit, with glass tubes leading to and from various pieces of glassware and other apparatus.

“Excellent,” Runald said, sorting through the materials that Kari offered. “This should only take a few minutes.”

Leon approached with much of the same. “Lumie, how’s the horde looking?” he asked his sister across the room.

“They’re no closer, though they’ve stopped drifting about so randomly. They seem to be forming some kind of rank and file formation.” She reported.

Runald’s brow furrowed in response to this news, but he kept his focus on synthesising new reagents, placing various substances in apparatus and orifices. “At least they aren’t any closer. If this works, we might have the reagents necessary to summon a guardian angel to protect the hospital.”

“That sounds like a big deal,” Kari replied, surprised that their trip could be so fruitful.

“Yes. I would not have risked our lives with such a large horde nearby, and the lives of our entire contingent had I not thought that this workshop could give us exactly what we needed.”

“First meeting Lumie, and now this, it looks like my bad fortune has finally turned,” Kari said aloud.

And at that moment, the sky outside turned to blinding white fire, fading to an intense red glow. Even from inside the store, with their eyes closed, the light was painfully bright.

“What was that?” Leon shouted in concern.

Lumie looked up at the sky, past the blocky sandstone houses across the street. A most unusual phenomenon could be seen. The unnatural black storm clouds brought by the Coronum were being cleared away by an invisible hand, like so much filth on a plate being washed away under a stream of water.

Kari was struck by a terribly familiar feeling. “Get down! Away from the windows!” he screamed, throwing himself to the floor and covering his ears and face. “Don’t open your mouth!”

Three heavy thuds were audible as the others followed Kari’s lead, throwing themselves onto the sooty workshop floor. There was the briefest moment of silence before a deafening boom reached their ears, blowing the door off its hinges, and smashing the enchanted windows from the inside out. Countless inane objects were knocked over and blown off the shelves, bouncing off the walls and floor, falling all over the place in a cacophony of taps, knocks, gongs and tinkles.

A wave of scorching heat briefly passed over them before dissipating.

And then, silence.

The scraping sound of numerous glass fragments on polished sandstone could be heard as Kari picked himself up off the floor.

“Everyone alive?” he asked, ignoring the stabbing pain of glass splinters in the palms of his hands.

“I’m still here.” A voice replied through the ringing in his ears. Leon.

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“Me too.” Said another from further away. Runald.

“Lumie?” Kari asked. He could see her, walking over to him.

“I’m fine.” The knight replied in a whisper, to all of them. “But we need to go. The horde is picking themselves up. They’re headed this way.”

“Shit…” Runald said, seeing the state of the equipment he had been using. The process had only been half-complete, leaving him with less reagent than he would’ve hoped for. But now, there was no chance of finishing the work, with the horde on the move and the glass apparatus destroyed. “This will have to do. We have to get out of here!”

The four of them headed for the exit. Lumie peeked her head out the door, to see if it was still possible to sneak by the horde. Runald took one glance and pushed Lumie from behind. “Run!!” He ordered.

Kari, Leon and Lumie sprinted right after Runald, Kari swapping in the red vial now that they were outdoors once more.

Growling, snarling and snapping could be heard. Kari glanced behind them, startled to see the horde leaping along the sides of the street, surging towards them as a whip-wielding succubus directed them from behind.

Amidst the sounds of panting and clanking armour, Kari squeezed off two shots of the wand-pistol behind them as his feet flew across the cobbled sandstone.

Two red suns were born with each trigger-pull blowing tens of zombies with a deafening boom that echoed down the street. The explosion nearly filled the width of the pavement wall-to-wall. Kari felt a distant heat on his turned cheek and the back of his neck.

“Good one!” Leon shouted.

Kari turned back to the front and was just in time to see a most unusual sight. In the skies straight ahead of them, Tenebria Coronum was surrounded by a matrix of red lights. The crown-shaped city seemed to have sustained heavy damage, with a large section missing from its outer ring, and almost all of its tall spires bent and melted to varying degrees like heated wax candles.

The streams of rope-like light surrounding the magical fortress city were arranged into a sphere, with secondary and tertiary spherical growths. Like a large soap bubble with smaller soap bubbles attached to its surface. But these spheres carried precise geometrical regularity… a nostalgic sight for Kari, who remembered seeing a simpler, but similar arrangement before; when Blue had cracked the quantum codes of the Incandestine through the use of an unprecedented three-dimensional magic circle. An arrangement that allowed greater complexity and nuance in spellcasting.

But how was it possible for the Coronum to surpass Blue’s unfathomable intelligence? It was due to her computerised mind that she could design such powerful spells.

Regardless of what Kari believed possible, the sight before his eyes was real.

“What in Eden…?” Runald exclaimed in a squeak. He slowed to a stop.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” Lumie asked, bumping into the warlock from behind. The sentiment was echoed by the others, but Runald seemed to be ignoring their voices.

Was he… scared? Kari wondered for a split second.

“Look away!” Runald ordered them, eyes widening in recognition.

Kari turned away just as the magic circles were completed, sending flashes of light that were reflected in the polished sandstone of Al Dherjza, and the wet flesh and hollow eyes of a few of the rapidly-approaching zombie horde. Most of the zombies had simultaneously averted their eyes, whether by survival instinct or by order from their succubus commander.

A horrifying s̴̢̲̗̞̆̀̐̚͝ḥ̸̨̠̟̰̌̀͛̕͝r̸͇̥̬̼̼̻͇͉͒̽͛̽̚̕i̴͓̲̩̇é̴͍̫͓̗̬̠̳͉̄͂̂k̴̜͎͔̼̿ rang out from the sky behind Kari. The hydrohand found himself bent over double, covering both his ears. After a few seconds, he realised that he had been, and was continuing to scream in an effort to drown out the noise that threatened to erode his very soul.

In front of him, several twitching zombies fell to the ground, blood pouring out of their eyes and ears. Others bit and tore at their allies, driven mad by the sight before everything was drenched in light so bright that it made midday seem like a moonless night. But even despite the pain, Kari daren’t stop screaming in anything but sheer terror at the unholy noise.

After an excruciating few seconds had passed, the noise and light faded, and Kari dared to remove his hands from his ears. The zombie horde was still in disarray with fighting amongst their ranks.

He, Leon, Runald and Lumie turned around, unable to contain their morbid curiosity. What twisted spell had Tenebria Coronum just cast?

That was when they saw it.

“I-Impossible…!”