Hikma exhibited his improved muscle by decapitating a skeleton with a metal cane.

Beside him, behind a shabby barricade, Alexi Martynov swung his shotgun, systematically blasting three undeads with headshots. The Russian man crouched to reload as one of Elder Lochwain’s men covered his post with a spear’s jab. Around their rank, mages lobbed spells at the hoard, while ground troop mopped the straggler.

They held the line, but nothing lasted forever against unlimited shock-troop. The grueling battle worn the defender low on ammo, stamina, and Mana.

“God dammit,” Alexi threw a grenade over to the enemy’s line. “When would Ahoy finish cordoning the area with Holy Blues?”

“Not a chance!” A mage next to him grimaced from the communicator. “There are too many of them. We have to fallback.” Then the mage’s eyes widened. “Shit! Wraths incoming! Prepare the exorcism spells!”

“You are already dry,” Hikma gritted his teeth. “I will handle this.”

Hikma leapt over the barricade to face the creeping army of undead surrounded by a hoard of ghost. The street looked awful. The grinding assault turned the road into the field of shatter concrete. Smokes rose from several craters where the shells landed. Shells of building encircled the battlefield, marking the ruin of civilization. 

Hikma grunted. All this effort and they barely held 10% of the Wind-quarter.

This entire endeavor resembled an attempt to extinguish forest fires with a water-pistol. Their best effort was failing. The hoard was tireless, countless and merciless. Orwell Mehest launched an attack on all three-remaining quarters with his pocket change, and he unarguably won. It was a war of attrition against a necromancer with home-advantage. Hikma wasn’t a tactical mastermind like Rem, but even he realized this battle was pointless.

Still, he had to try.

The ground lighted up with white [Conceptual Seal].

“[Sacred Hall]”

White light shone from the ground, reducing the hoard of undead standing to mere ashes. The army of wrath vanished as the light penetrated their shadowy body like a high-wattage laser through tissue paper.

It was a grand display of magic with one penalty. Hikma cast five [Sacred Hall] in the last one and a half hours. Board-wiping might be powerful, but it cost dearly.

Hikma collapsed on one knee. In that hour, he already deployed ten massive anti-units Arcanes, half-dozen anti-squadrons, and five tactical board-wipes. The young French/Arab’s eyes blurred. He was on his last leg.

Then the building on their field of view exploded, revealing a worm made of blood and flesh. The towering monstrosity rose 30 meters tall and turned toward them.

“A flesh Golem!” A mage screamed. “Everyone retreated!”

Hikma fought down his exhaustion with raw determination and stood-tall. He raised his white [Conceptual Seal] against the humongous construct of blood and misery falling down on them. His eyes glimmered with bark-orange glow.

[Holy Force]

…

“[Holy Force]”

Inside the Earth-quarter, a separate beam of exorcising light plowed through a different hoard of undead, towering higher than the ruined surrounding. The graceful light cleaned the road from wrath and impurity. Very concept of divine punishment scrubbed all obscene elements and purified the very air itself.

“Wow,” Bruno stared gob-smacked at the street that once-upon-the-time contained an uncountable number of undead. “That attack destroyed everything. Kids, when did you learn that trick?”

Bruno suddenly heard a thud sound.

He turned to see the boy tumbling face first onto the floor.

“Hey, are you okay?” Bruno hurried to help Rem, but the boy got up before Bruno reached him.

“Keep moving,” the boy squeezed. “We must get these people out of here.”

Bruno peeked back at the crowd they saved.

The Liberator put their chip on Rem after his speech. With successful recruitment, Rem quickly showed his competence in the first ten minutes, declaring the necessity to evacuate every citizen in proximity and regroup at the Wind-quarter. The boy tossed each team of Liberators a communicator and split them for a search and rescue missing, setting the rendezvous point at the wrecked wine shop. The mission was horrific. Corpses piled up in the street everywhere, but luckily there were some survivors. In a short stint of thirty-minutes the Liberator’s force gathered the surviving citizen — mostly woman and children — for transport back to Wind-quarter.

That was when the undead hoard attacked, forcing Rem to blast them away.

Rem rose — undeterred — keeping his pain inside and marching on.

The kid’s determination scared them all. Sasha balked under his energy, and Bruno now decided fighting this kid a futility.

“We need to get them to safety,” Rem dragged himself to the crowd. “What are you waiting for? Do you want—”

“Stop it!” One kid they rescued screamed.

“Just stop it already!” The boy gestured at the surrounding ruin. “It over! We are all going to die! Only the gods and the generals can save us! None of them are here! The city is gone! Even if we survive, we lost everything! Tomorrow will be worse! Dad is dead! And mom…”

The boy teared up.

“Mom is…”

Rem struggled next to the boy and knelt down in front of him.

“Listen here, kiddo,” Rem mustered painfully. “The world is beautiful because you constantly find something to believe in.”

Rem had plans hibernating behind his mind. It was a risky play he never wanted to commit. But seeing the surrounding faces of despair, he realized they couldn’t win this without sacrifice.

Phantasia needed a symbol of peace and justice to believe in. A group must become a symbol of tomorrow these people never received.

That moment Rem finally realized why the Hikma in his mysterious vision wore a symbol. That symbol carried hope itself on its shoulder.

Hope needed to rise against despair.

…

The Venistalis’ central palace was the home of the Grand Emperor and his nobles. However, facts that stood true for centuries fell alongside the final garrison soldier. With the palace’s forces annihilated by the brunt of Orwell’s undead, the noble either scattered or rounded up as prisoner. Before the Emperor’s golden throne room, a debauchery was taking place in the middle of the crowded court.

“Hey, Lord Chloric, how are you doing?” A half-naked Sol Grandy kicked a quartered corpse a few times. “Oh yeah, you are already dead! Hey, Lady Chloric, why don’t you laugh. You are already smiling!”

A woman — nailed to the wall by her shoulder — shivered and looked up toward Sol fearfully. Sol had mutilated her mouth into a bloody, ugly, permanent grin. Her dressed caked in her blood from multiple cuts and wound on her body. Dried tears coated her blood-soaked cheek as she sobbed.

“Oh, come on!” Sol grabbed a naked girl he rape and threw the bruised wreck at Lady Chloric’s feet. “Your daughter just offer her virginity to a royalty. She should laugh with joy!”

The mother looked in the vacant, broken gazes of her daughter and wept.

“Boring!”

A blade of wind flashed, and Lady Chloric’s head fell to the ground.

The young girl watched her mother’s bloody head rolled toward her. She watched the face that once smile at her every birthday looked up at her with vacant eyes and deranged smile. The young girl’s sanity snapped in two and she crackled madly — howling with laughter of despair as a curse toward heaven.

Sol clapped with glee.

“That! Is! It!” Sol emphasized with every word.

He turned toward the group of capture nobles in chains.

“What about you guys?!” Sol Grandy demanded. “Laugh!”

The group of capture noble looked at the tragedy before them. Some gulp. Some refused. All of them mustered a hoarse laughter a minute later. One somber chuckle led to another. Soon the entire room was guffawing at this tragedy with shame and despair in their eyes.

“Good!” Sol kicked the newly made an orphan girl in the face, sending the madly giggling girl to bleed on the floor. “I want a new lady to wait me. Volunteer please! Or I will start killing randomly.”

The noble panic. Among them all, the maidens and teenage girls started pointing at each other in a display of desperation.

“Melia, you go!”

“No, Eliza, you do it!”

“No. No. No. Just not—”

 Suddenly, a voice echoed across the room.

“That is enough, Third Wave Sol.”

Sol’s face scrunched up with annoyance.

“Are you grandstanding again, Princess Velnia?” Sol moved toward the Princess being chain to a pillar separate from the nobles. Next to her, chained a beaten and naked Mercia. “I recommend you stay silent, you dumb cunt!”

Sol grabbed the Princess’ face and forced her to look at him.

“Do you know how tiring it is to listen to your droning about that boring utopia? This is what we are, imbecile. Animals rule by power! Those animals wouldn’t laugh like a madman if they have powers to resist me! Your bodyguard won’t become a naked little duckling if she isn’t so pathetic. Power is the only judge in Phantasia! Yet, a little girl with no power except for a flower-garden where her brain should be dare to preach a royalty like me! Don’t make me laugh, Princess!”

“Power is not everything!”

“Oh, you stupid idiot!!” Sol screamed. “How can you—”

Then his face lit up.

“Why don’t we play a game, Princess?”

“A game,” Velnia blinked.

“Yes,” Sol walked toward the golden throne of the Grand Empire and sat like he owned every single marble-tiles in the room. The self-appointed ruler watched his chained subject huddled like herd animal on the velvet carpet stained with body fluid and tragedy. He admired the chandelier. Stupidity aside, uncle Solomek got an acceptable taste in the decor.

Then he decreed to the princess.

“Offer your body to satisfy me, Velnia and I will spare these moronic fools,” Sol joyfully declared. “A night for a life. Your dignity, for the sake of all. Isn’t that fair princess?”

Velnia gulped, but when her eyes met the pleading nobles. She steeled her resolved.

“Fine! I-“

“He is lying, Princess,” an unexpected voice spoke fearlessly. “Knowing that sick bastard. He will free them by cooking them alive and feeding their flesh to each other. Then he will force you to watch Mercia being eaten alive to break your will.”

Velnia’s eyes widened at the sight of her savior. The noble too barely believed what was happening. As for Sol, he bit back a screech of frustration.

“Not you too!” Sol threw a tantrum. “First that dickhead Wayward and now you! Why is it that my worst obstacle are my own allies? What the fuck is wrong with you, MEHEST!”

Orwell Mehest strode into the room. His eyes scanned the laughing girl crawling toward the head of her mother, a quartered corpse on the floor and the chained nobles by the side. His lip sneered first in disgust, then downright anger when he saw Velnia in chain.

“I am perfectly fine, jackass,” Orwell glared at Sol. “And please don’t refer to us as allies. The very notion of joining forces with a scum like you sicken me.”

Velnia’s brain jammed as she tried to process the information.

“Lord Mehest,” she pleaded. “It must be a lie, right? You can’t be res—”

“Everything you heard is true.”

In a display of honesty, Orwell Mehest did not hide his crime.

“I am the one who dropped this dome on top of Venistalis. I am the man who ordered the undead army to kill anyone they can find in this city. I am the man personally responsible of 3,323,456 deaths and counting. I am the man who destroyed Venistalis, Velnia.”

“It must be a lie! You said this city inspires you!”

“It inspires not to forget the fact that the previous Emperor committed genocide on my clan,” Orwell Mehest explained gently. “You should learn to read between the line. However, the rest of that night wasn’t a lie, I sincerely care about you, Velnia.”

Velnia blinked. She didn’t know how she should feel about this.

“Bullshit!” Sol said. “You drop your plan right on top of her head!”

“Shut. Up.”

And column of ice froze everything on the throne but Sol’s head.

“When I lent you my troop to take the palace,” Orwell’s voice coldly unveiled an immense killing intent. “I tell you not to harm the Princess in any capacity.”

The ice trapping Sol crumbled as the former third strongest of the royal-mage freed himself.

“I follow that order to the letter! She is spotless! Just look at her!”

“In. Any. Capacity.” Orwell pointed his thumb at the insane girl sobbing beside her mother’s headless carcass. “I don’t recall anyone watching your horrific horror show coming out psychologically unharmed, Grandy.”

“There are no—”

Orwell then pointed to the naked and injured Mercia, completely ignoring Sol’s protest.

“As I recall, they treat an attack on a retainer as a direct attack on said nobility, isn’t that right, Princess?”

Velnia nodded. Her brain gave up on processing the development tonight gave her.

“Any excuse, Sol?” the air around Orwell was suffocating.

A noble suddenly felt a tee bit more hopeful.

“Lord Mehest! Please save us! We promise to serve you—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Orwell murderously replied. “I originally plan to kill you all horribly, but the Princess already suffers too much. No worries. You will still die for your participation in Deathless Clan’s genocide, but for the Princess’ sake I will give you a chance to go out gloriously like my ancestor. Count yourself lucky this scum ruined my inclination to execute you on the spot. Stay there. Thank the Princess. And watch me erase this walking bag of shit”

“Thank you very much, sir,” the noble answered hurriedly, grateful to have his lifespan lengthened.

“I don’t know you such a flip-floppers, Orwell!” Sol prepared for a battle.

Suddenly, a tower of azure fire fell behind the confident Sol Grandy. It’s heat symbolically melted the golden throne of Grand Empire to golden slag. A shadowy man flickered behind the veil of flames.

“Your timing is great as usual, mate!” Sol arrogantly called. “Our partner is flaunting the deal, Wayward! Help me kill him!”

BANG!

Instead of helping hand, Sol ate a kick in his face. The surprise attack sent him somersaulting in three acrobatic mid-air spin and landed his head on the marble hard enough to break it.

Sol struggled up and sensed something wet on his forehead. He wiped the blood flowing down and licked the fluid to control his growing rage and bloodlust.

He glared balefully at Samael Wayward.

“Heh, heh, heh,” Sol laughed. “You finally did it, wooden-plank. My father and the Street will kill you for this. I remembered you not being this rash, Wayward! You just trade all those efforts spent climbing up our ladder for a suicidal kick in my face! Finally, at last, I got to see what you look like when you beg for me to kill you. Great! Fantastic! Just wait until we get back to the Street, WAYWARD!”

“No worries,” Wayward coldly replied. “I quit.”

Sol blinked.

“What?!”

“Yes, you heard me right,” Wayward repeated. “I am quitting the Willow Heart Street. This is my last day on the job. And Orwell, I am here to bargain. This is my deal. You better keep him alive.”

Blue flames carried something to Orwell. It was a burnt, blackened body cladded in barely recognizable armor. Stump replaced its right leg and left arm. The remaining hand was unusable. Intense heat already melted its skin and partially blinded its eyes. But Orwell still recognized Stuart Hex’s bulky frame, despite the state he was in.

The noble tensed at the state of Hex — their dying last hope. One woman fell down to her knee in horror. Few fainted when they realized the situation was unrecoverable.

Sol blinked at the barely living body, then at Orwell, who was wrapping it with a green Amalgam bandage. A dreadful realization suddenly hit him the moment he turned back toward Wayward.

“Hey, Wayward,” Sol sweated. “How did you turn Stuart Hex into a badly cook meat? With his sturdiness, you need to overwhelm his defense completely.”

It was Orwell who blessed them with the answer.

“Because he overwhelms it utterly. Don’t tell me you are so high on dopamine you don’t notice a massive explosion taking out half the Water-quarter, moron.”

“Isn’t that yours?”

“No, it is him,” Sol gestured at Wayward.

“Impossible! That moron only slightly stronger than me.”

“You are the arrogant moron who cannot see your former-partner is only a step away from S-rank.”

Sol tried to deny the reality, but his soul already gave in.

Did he just threatened the strongest monster in the city?

Wayward cracked his fingers

Sol cursed his big mouth.