Screams and shouting filled the air as a blazing inferno consumed half the village. Fear and panic gripped Damien's heart as he immediately rushed towards the village entrance, not minding the strange oddity that the villagers weren't already trying to douse the flame or better yet, flee the settlement.

Being the stronger one and the quickest in making any form of decision, Elas beat him to the gate, with Keilan trailing a few feet behind, leaving Damien to pick up his slack.

Approaching the gate, they caught sight of some people–villagers already fleeing, most with their families, but they were too few for the thousands of residents that dwelled in the village. Damien assumed that others might have found their way out through the other entrances, but it seemed bleak seeing as the villagers they came across were too distraught to even stop when Elas called to them. This led to the suspicion that there was something more to this. Damien prayed for it to only be the inferno.

His prayer went unanswered when they stepped into the village proper; the first sight that greeted them was the bodies; dozens of them lay scattered all over the ground, all diced up and crushed to the extent that he found it hard to differentiate between the multiple body parts thrown around. The gory, macabre sight made for a stomach-churning experience, which was soon followed by hurling and retching as both he and Keilan regurgitated every meal they had taken throughout the whole day, their eyes watering. Elas looked unfazed, like the bloody sight didn't move him at all, but Damien could still see the grim look that was on his face, a subtle fear that they had never seen before.

"Dad," Keilan looked up, using his sleeve to wipe his mouth clean off the vomit. "What's happening?"

There was fragility there now, the sort that Damien had never seen before in the months of familiarizing himself with Keilan. He looked Soo little now, like Leira during all the times she'd refused to go to bed after late hours for fear of the darkness.

"All will be fine, son. Don't worry, no harm will come to you."

Elas' words sounded more like he was trying to comfort himself than them, but despite that, it still brought a sense of solace to them.

They made their way further in, witnessing more torn bodies scattered around, like an animal with extremely sharp claws had torn into them like sheets of paper, or with the weight to crush them to paste.

His unworded theory proved unfounded when they finally got close to the fighting, following the sounds of colliding metals. They stepped into a tiny street, coming directly behind a figure dressed in light metal armor. The only reason the figure didn't turn at their approach was because of the man they were battling–a village hunter.

During the time since he'd begun staying with his adoptive family, Damien hadn't encountered all of the village hunters– the powerful men and women who protected the village from monster attacks–but he was familiar enough with them to tell the kinds of armor they wore, and the leather armor worn by the second combatant fit just in line.

Despite the hunter's legendary status in the village, he seemed to be slowly losing the fight to the metal-armored figure. Until Elas stepped in.

Being a hunter, Elas always gave them one piece of advice for when they eventually chose to join their ranks: never be caught unarmed. He always carried his weapon wherever he went, especially when he was taking the two boys into the jungle where a monster could easily wander close by.

A single step put Elas closer behind the figure, and a direct stab with his spear into a joint in the armor's neck left the figure choking blood before they quickly collapsed.

Already attuned to essence, Damien could tell that the simple strike was anything but. To the unawakened eyes, it would have seemed like the spear blade had just simply penetrated through the armor, but Damien had sensed the brief clash of essence as Elas' spear impacted the armor until finally one gave, and the figure died.

"One of you should pick up his weapon," Elas instructed.

Damien frowned, looking down at the dead figure which was indeed a he. Seeing as Keilan was too shaken to do anything, Damien picked up the sword. Having trained with the spear for months, holding a sword felt odd in his hands, like no matter how he tried he couldn't find a correct balance. Nonetheless, it was going to do.

"What happened, Shid?" Elas addressed the other hunter.

The man took a deep breath, no doubt recovering from the tense battle that would have seen him dead had Elas not arrived when he did.

"I don't really know exactly what happened, but from what I heard, they," Shid pointed at the downed figure. "Arrived about two hours ago, waited at the gate while demanding to meet the mayor. I don't know what was discussed and anyone who knew would likely be laying dead at the gate by now, but whatever it was, they immediately began killing everyone, men, women, and children."

Elas looked around, "Do you know who they are?"

The other man shook his head, "No, sir. They didn't introduce themselves."

Elas grip on his weapon turned tighter, "Numbers?"

They began moving, jogging lightly to avoid blindly running into any enemy soldier.

"I... I don't know. We've just been encountering more and more of them ever since."

"Why didn't you all immediately get people out to safety? That should have been your first priority the moment you sensed you were going to be overwhelmed."

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"Couldn't, sir. All the village entrances had been blocked, and the others likely had their hands filled with the soldiers overrunning the village."

They came around a corner, this time running into more fighting. Elas and Shid dived in, upending the delicate balance that had been set up. Elas, on his own, was a force of nature, tearing into fighters with his flaming spear and delivering hits that ended them in one or two strikes.

Damien, horrified to the bones but unwilling to just stand there and watch, also waded in. He moved against a man who battled a hunter who struggled to fight with only a single functioning arm.

Despite his unfamiliarity with the sword, he knew the universal use of all weapons, so he came in with his weapon swinging...

....only for his view to be replaced with white lights as he found himself on his back.

Damien's head rang like a bell as he tried to figure out what had happened, and he likely would have died then if the one-handed hunter hadn't come to his rescue then, taking the brief lapse in concentration from the armored man to deliver a blindingly fast and devastating attack that wiped out a portion of the armored man's body. He paid for it with a slash that took off his head an instant later, and Damien had to run, dragging Keilan with him as another armored person stepped over the dead hunter.

Thankfully, Elas immediately came to their rescue, cutting through the armored figures' defenses in two swift slashes.

It took a few horrifyingly slow minutes before the battle ended, after which the survivors began tending to the wounds that marked their bodies.

Not willing to wait, Elas continued on, but not before stopping to select two spears from amongst the dead to hand over to Damien and Keilan.

Feeling a sense of rightness as he finally held a spear, a renewed sense of confidence entered Damien, which was immediately doused as soon as they got to the next section of fighting. This time he managed to do better than when he wielded the sword, managing to somehow injure his opponents. With his minor expertise in wielding a spear, he managed to hold them back in time for Elas to quickly deal with his own opponents before coming to theirs.

Over the following fights, Damien began noticing something. The combatants that he'd fought had all, unsurprisingly, surpassed him in realms, but they all seemed to lack the level of weapons mastery Damien had cultivated all these months. This chink in their powers gave Damien the edge to hold them back without being completely overwhelmed.

"These are common soldiers–dregs who are only given weapons, with little training in their belts, and then ordered where to go. That's why the hunters are still capable of holding on despite the enemy's numbers and more advanced equipment," Elas said when Damien asked.

The longer they took getting to their home, the more fearful Damien got, and he soon began seeing the same fear slowly creep into Elas' features. They had saved a lot of families Damien had begun to fear whether they would arrive in time to save theirs.

As they moved, stopping briefly when they encountered any fighting on their paths, they gathered a small crowd–hunters who weren't too injured to continue on into the thick of it.

Their house had been closer to the village center–a sign of high status for the family seeing as Elas was the head of the hunters' guild in the village, so it took more time than they would have liked to finally get to their house, they had to reduce the numbers barring their paths or risk getting trapped after sneaking in.

They finally turned into the street where they lived, a trade route that usually saw lots of traffic from merchants and farmers eager to sell their goods to the village's wealthy families. But now, the sight that greeted him almost tore his heart in two. Houses were torn down and their residents splayed on the ground, dead. Some were already beginning to burn. The council house had already been brought down, both wood and stones.

Damien ran behind Elas as they raced towards their house, hearing the sounds of fighting as they got closer.

Turning a corner and stepping through the gate and into the front yard, they were greeted with a sight of more than a dozen soldiers, all clustered and fighting to get into the house. And standing before them like an avenging spirit was Healer Salem.

Damien stood there, bewildered, as he watched Salem hold back multiple soldiers that tried to force their way into the house, using the tight hallway to force them into coming at her one by one. Wherever her walking stick–which she now used as a staff–hit, the flesh area immediately greyed out, like the life had been drawn out of it. The old woman was like one of those knightly warriors Damien used to read in her library. Those legendary figures that stood against hordes, dealing devastating damages and instilling terror. But unlike those warriors, Healer Salem wouldn't last long. Damien has already begun seeing the telltale signs of lag and tiredness visible in her postures.

"Wait here," Elas said, before diving into the hordes of soldiers. The other hunters followed behind, slashing and cutting their way through the armored figures. Damien and Keilan were pushed back until they soon found themselves outside the compound entirely, with the entire space packed with metal-armored men and hunters who fought savagely like animals.

For some reason, the house hadn't already been set ablaze, but Damien could already see a small patch of the ceiling that had begun flaming.

Damien searched for somewhere to give him a full view of what was happening inside, finding a house two blocks over that had been partially collapsed. They raced up the stairs, finding no bodies but the blood splashes splattered over the walls gave told him the results of what had happened here. He climbed over collapsed rocks until he eventually found a view in one of the rooms that had been partially collapsed. He and Keilan stood on the edge, looking down and seeing the battle clearly. They hadn't stayed long when Keilan pointed towards a figure hiding behind Healer Salem. They hadn't been able to see them when they were still on the ground, but now Damien breathed a sigh of relief as Mara and Leira's healthy figures came into view, albeit with some light injuries. But they were still alive. Keilan wrapped his hands around him, a big smile on his face.

A smile that was soon quashed as they felt it. Everyone did.

An aura descended down on the entire street, freezing everyone in terror.

And Damien was forced to watch as Elas, already halfway through to the house and accompanied by more than a dozen of the village hunters, was engulfed in a blinding light of such intensity that it temporarily turned the world white.

And when their vision was restored, a feeling of emptiness was all Damien felt as where the house used to be–the entire compound, was nowhere to be found, only rubble and sand.

A piercing cry erupted out as Keilan was overwhelmed with grief, his legs no longer capable of holding him up.

The same grief almost consumed Damien, but for their lives, he managed to lock down his emotions. There was no time to waste; whatever had done that could find them at any moment, so he helped Keilan up–forcefully when the other boy wouldn't move. Tears streaked down his eyes as he dragged Keilan with him down the stairs and through the back of the house while constantly praying not to attract any form of attention.

As they fled, he only looked back once and was chilled by what he saw.

A figure clad in leather armor not unlike the ones worn by the hunters.

A figure that even didn't deign to focus on them, only glancing once and then dismissing them.

Like they were inconsequential.

Unimportant.

Through skills gotten from constantly sneaking through the village, partaking in all forms of mischief, they managed to escape the village, running far into the night.

Into the jungle.

Where monsters eagerly waited.