There was a dismembered wave of white. The muted effort of the templar cavalry, whose heroic charge met the snap of the ancient Id’s dragon tail. Like a whip without resistance, it swiped man and horse into airborne shrapnel that rained disarray upon Sir Bradfrey’s retreating soldiers. While those too slow or dim-witted to run met the fate of an insect to the lizard’s tongue as the Serpent Dragon caught, crushed and dispensed man and metal like a spit bucket in a wine tasting.

The Serpent Dragon consumed and destroyed with impunity. Not even Anneliese’s magical projectiles could holt the beast’s destructive ambitions. Her implosive balls could merely inflict temporary wounds that healed back through the spawning of new snake-like kin.

‘Id’s a transient creature. One of all worlds: spiritual, magic and physical. Our magic is futile against it,’ said Lascivious, whose conscious recreation floated freely around the battlefield – a second pair of eyes to watch Anneliese’s back.

The remaining blind monks unleashed kinetic waves of chaos against dispersed archers and foot soldiers, while armored knights swung at thin air, against the quick-footed monks, who despite their bare hands, rendered steel plating inadequate against their demonic martial arts. Every noble, peasant or well-to-do swordsman, not even a wall of spears could withstand the verbosity of the monks’ rath.

Without hope of retaliation, Gideon took command. His calls to retreat were already in motion upon the fall of Sir Bradfrey’s banner and the sight of his black knights hightailing it to the temple encampment as the encircling force fell back behind the walls they had set out to besiege.

The ghosts of warriors past disassembled their phalanx and permitted safe passage for the retreating cross-worshipper, where they were assisted by the unjudging hands of pagan healers. There was no time for quarrel or second thought as the divide between religion and magic melted away to the imperative of saving lives and self-preservation.

‘DOWN,’ said Lascivious as a fellow knight tackled Gideon under an orb of kinetic energy intended for Anneliese.

Its perpetrator emerged from the thick and dust-ridden chaos in the form of an obscured outline and red-eyed glow. A battle of equals as the red-eyed monk’s destructive orbs passed harmlessly through Anneliese’s transcendent form.

‘There’s nothing you can do. I’ll hold them off. You get out of here,’ said Anneliese as she teleported herself from side to side, foreground to background.

Yet the red-eyed monk did not waiver. Its jaw dropped. The subdue sounds of endless screams echoed across the plateau. It was a sound that carried with Anneliese as she transferred from the real to the magical. Its screams were endless, honing, able to predict her emergence before she herself could feel the change in atmospheres.

And so, the red-eyed monk waited. Its hands traced ridged sky-drawn patterns that formed the tainted glass-like shards, all in anticipation of Anneliese re-emergence.

Anneliese herself was armed and ready and threw out a pre-emptive volley of implosive orbs, followed by a cascade of debris as she teleported in from all directions.

The red-eyed monk could barely get off its own attack before cradling itself under a protective field to withstand the avalanche-like barrage that pinned it down as the true offensive of the implosive orbs drifted in at their own gradual pace. Their contact was made, not with a collision or collapse, but a slow grind as they failed to detonate against the red-eyed monk’s magical field. Instead, they found themselves stuck, corrupted by a vein-like incursion that tainted their clear transparent form to a black wrinkly organism. Whereupon the red-eyed monk grabbed and squeezed the thick purplish-grey corrosive substance that drifted down the monk’s arm like a conscious slim that ate its way from limb to limb. Until the thud of the heavy brown robe and scrunched stained headband marked the empty ground on which it stood.

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‘What just happened?’ queried Anneliese. The sounds of scream still echoed in her mind. Her sixth sense was perked to an unknown shadowed.

‘Whatever you do, don’t enter the magical realm,’ said Lascivious.

‘Then what am I meant to do?’

‘I don’t know. The red eyed Gutian is here. I’m looking right at him. No wait,’ said Lascivious, full of shock and awe as he and Anneliese looked up to Id – the Serpent Dragon.

Its eyes were a devilish glow of red, and its throat bulged and bloated as it spewed out black tar, which upon impact burst into a purplish flame. This toxic explosion created a chain reaction of smaller splatters until the affected site reflected a sizzling toxic wasteland. The new destructive force brought with it an impulsive instinct as the ancient unfurled its enormous wings and set its sights airborne.

‘We can still wait it out,’ said Lascivious with a laughing gasp while he struggled to comprehend this devilish monstrosity they had turned the ancient Id into.

‘I haven’t got a hundred years!’ exclaimed Anneliese.

‘Then give me control,’ said Lascivious before the point of Anneliese’s frustration left him extinguished from conscious thought.

‘Where’s Bjarke?’ asked Anneliese, a sense of emptiness settling in among the littered fields of lifeless souls. There were no signs of resistance, nor cries for help as she looked around for the tell-tale green glow of Bjerke’s axe.

Finally, it appeared as a flicker between the wings of a unicorn’s uncontrolled decent.

The majestic white creature was at fatigue’s limits while it flapped frantically to avoid the near-fatal crash-landing. Enough for Bjarke to attempt a last-second jettison and tumble-roll upon the softer, undisturbed grass. His landing was executed with buckled knees and hard impact upon his already injured body. Yet the stubborn, tortured mule in Bjarke still found the will to pick himself up, brush off the dirt and grown out the pain.

However, it was a far better effort than the unicorn, whose landing ended in a loud thud and rapid reverse metamorphosis of Zizrum, Weddle and two other poor pagan recruits. The advantages of a horse-bird hybrid were thoroughly disproven by the washed-up mess of human bodies.

‘Let’s arr never rrmmm, never do that again,’ said Weddle with more sighs of pain than legible words as he laid immobilized like an inverted turtle, unable to find his front.

The legendary demon slayer sat kneeled, head slumped forward in a drunkard pose against the bud of his battle-axe. The bitter taste of iron had him questioning whether it was his illusionary tongue or something more internal. Yet, at first sight of Anneliese, he ripped off the remains of his half-shredded shirt, which he used to tie his hand to the axe handle, before reporting for service, one more time.

‘I can get you up there,’ said Anneliese.

‘I know,’ said Bjarke, who was only able to speak with half a breath as his offhanded thumb counted intact ribs down his right side.

‘But I can’t promise I’ll catch you or it to be a clean drop.’

‘I know,’ said Bjarke. His crooked jaw bent a little more to give the faint outline of a smile drowned thick with tears.

‘We’ll find you again, I promise,’ said Anneliese. Her hands then cusped cross-armed against her side as fear of the axe trumped any urge to embrace the troll-like man she once feared.

‘Treat ’em well. Like Coble,’ said Bjarke as he looked to the sky, offering quiet thanks to those who saw the boy and not the monster. To the oath he swore and had yet to fail.

The sky was a pale blue to departed clouds that drew a clear arrow towards his target before the cold windchill gave way to the stale air of the pagan tunnels and the tickle in his stomach fed right to the throat. All sense of orientation was then lost when the breeze picked up something fierce and his feet no longer felt the floor. All sensations were dimmed, even time felt like a passing concept.

Until a thousand feet below lay the purple trail of destruction that led straight to the flying monstrosity. It’s lizard-like wings and extended tail were the crosshairs for his freefall. And the faint outline suddenly became detailed structures. The blurred colors turned defined textures, and what should have been an easy strike upon its backside turned to thin air as the Serpent Dragan veered a hard right.

Gone. Everything … all of it. Hope, despair. The fear and sense of failure. Just the uneasy turbulence of Anneliese’s implosive orbs that littered the sky like rolling thunder. Not that it mattered, for all Bjarke could do was close his eyes and withdraw into peaceful serenity. A goodnight, you courageous, misunderstood warrior.