“Ahhhhhh!”

Lacey’s arm fell limply at his side, twisted at impossible angles all the way. Tears flowed down her face as the pain assaulted her entire body. She fell limp, like a puppet with her strings cut.

Atrophy’s childlike features morphed into one of ecstasy, looking every bit the demon he was at that moment. He glowered up at her, his relatively tiny physique dominating her view through her half opened eyes, fear melding with pain to create a despair she had never felt in all her life. Her lips trembled as she struggled to speak, whether to resist or beg, she was unsure. All she could think of was the pain present and to come.

“Awww. Already broken?” Atrophy uttered, its levity all but cut off. “Pity.”

Lacey felt the invisible arms that held her grow ever tighter, adding to the pain she felt. She was too weak to struggle this time, and she felt the pressure mounting all over her body.

“Aaaaaahhhh!”

The pain was ever present now, boring into her from all directions, refusing to make her think about anything else. 

“Are heraldslayers so weak, Or were my brothers just that inept?” He rambled on through all her screaming, but all Lacey could think of was how her arm and how much worse the squeezing was making it feel. Amidst the pain, she managed to catch some of Atrophy’s idle musings.

“Strange, mages of your caliber would have crumpled by now. Is this the godling’s blessing?”

Crumple… True, she did feel like a piece of paper slowly being balled up. She focused on the image, latching onto anything to distract her from the pain. A ball… She felt like something similar had happened before. Not to her, though. The thought prompted her to notice something missing. She searched within, looking for something that should be there. Where is it?

The arms surrounding her were almost choking her now. Stop it, she thought to herself, more annoyed at the distraction than anything. I’m busy.

“You…” Atrophy growled. He stuck out his hand at her, emitting a deadly aura. It was almost scarier than her slowly breaking body. But it wasn’t scarier than the hollow feeling within.

WHERE IS IT!??

Lacey felt something stir.

__________________________________

“Humanity is doomed.” Lost declared. She struck Aleph with the back of her spear, then delivered a roundhouse kick to send him crashing into the cave wall.

Aleph, dazed, just continued to stare up at the sky. The shadows all over him had finished shifting, turning into several scenes that were happening in different parts of the battlefield. He didn’t even doubt that the scenes were genuine. He could see people he recognized in every scene, from Luke and his squad to the people from his town. Each of them were still fighting, each embroiled in a bitter struggle for survival, and sadly, each one slowly pushed towards their demise.

In all of this, Lost surprisingly did not continue her assault. Instead, she followed his gaze towards one scene in particular: A scene where a battered Lacey was being tortured by Atrophy.

“I guess not all your disciples are as strong as Rayse.” She said smugly. 

Aleph stood back up, trying to focus. He was doing well prior to the shift in scenery, but that final attack knocked the wind out of him. He looked down at his armor,where a web of cracks had begun to form from where Lost had kicked him. He passed his hand over it, reforming the Oblivion alloy in seconds. The demon king curiously let him recuperate, inspecting the war’s progress while he was down.

“I could have just kept you in the shadows, but I thought this way is better. Besides,” She nodded, pointing at different scenes in the sky. “I wanted to see how these turn out.”

Even Aleph had to admit that things didn’t look good. Betrayal had breached the walls of Mui, shrugging off Iona and her mages’ best magics in order to lay waste to an entire section of the wall. They couldn’t break past the beast in order to get at Lacey, who was moments away from experiencing the ability that gave Atrophy his moniker.

Elsewhere, Brandon was in the midst of the strange abilities of the herald that Lost called Grief. He was trapped in layers of wood, embracing a woman who Aleph suspected looked like his student’s mother. Was it an illusion? What of the other wooden people acting out several scenes of everyday life as if oblivious to the demon that pulled their strings? Aleph couldn’t make sense of it, especially not in this isolated space.

Even Vaynard, who had loudly declared that he would finish the demon king Superbia, was currently experiencing a literal torrent of attacks. He must have figured something out, but the enemy was simply too overwhelming.

The battle lines were being pushed back from every direction of the fortress. Thousands had already perished trying to protect it, especially now that the emissaries were making their moves. At this rate, forget Erebos, they may not even last until sunset.

Aleph sighed, finally getting back to his feet.

Only Rayse seemed to be doing well. He was facing off against Agony and his menagerie of misshapen minions, backed up by Luke and some of the other mages. Even so, their battle was on a knife’s edge, capable of swinging either way at a moment’s notice.

“I wouldn’t underestimate them if I were you.” Aleph said, settling back into a stance.

“Oh?” Lost answered in challenge, finally looking back at him. Her power burgeoned, finally using her own mana in battle for the first time since they began to trade blows. She summoned her helmet once again, dangerous sparks of energy dancing across its horns. She took a stance of her own. “With your disciples mere moments from demise, I expected you to beg me to spare them by now.”

“Rayse is a prodigy. Even with his current afflictions he is a match for any single herald you could throw at him.” Aleph breathed, cloaking himself in his own power. “You trained him, so you must know this.

“And yet, even at his peak,” Aleph moved with the wind, and in an instant, he was right in Lost’s face. “His battles were always the ones that worried me the most.”

He threw an empowered uppercut, but Lost was ready. She twirled her own weapon and plunged it, driving the spearhead downwards to meet his strike.

A massive clash of energy followed.

__________________________________

The shifting landscape brought Rayse and Agony’s battle right in front of the gates, but their battle went on unimpeded.

Rayse skillfully parried the assortment of tools in the herald’s arsenal, careful to not experience a single scratch. His teacher had taught him of its dire effects, and with his mana being unusable, he believed a single mistake could cause him unimaginable pain. Even so, he went on the offensive.

“Shield charge!”

Rayse rushed Agony, breaking through its many limbs to get at the main body. The attack pushed the herald several steps back, until he could find the leverage to stop the massive shield. Rayse followed it up with several quick thrusts through the gaps created by siege mode, drawing blood with every strike.

“UrHhHK!!?”

Agony made a grunting noise, encouraging Rayse’s assault. He imbued mana into his spear, preparing for a decisive blow, when he caught a few shadows from the corner of his eye.

He reluctantly jumped back, as several misshapen beasts arrived, seemingly out of nowhere, to strike the spot where he just was. The newcomers kept up the offensive, chasing him with an assortment of rusted blades. There was too much to block, especially without his shield, so Rayse kept stepping back, peppering the fools with dragon scales until they stopped their advance.

Slam!

As soon as they stopped, a slab of earth folded into them, crushing them and splattering their remains across the valley.

A strong hand stopped Rayse’s retreat, rooting him in place like a father would stop his rowdy son from running all over the place.

“Careful, kid. These things started to show up soon after you did.” Luke’s voice boomed.

“Thanks, mister.” Rayse sighed in relief as he looked back, seeing a squad of mages coming his way. He pulled back his hand, reassembling his shield in mid air. It reformed at his arm, reverting to the smaller, more mobile version.

“You’re getting really good at that.” The older man remarked, and it was true. At this point, the spell’s image hardly even registered in Rayse’s mind, yet mana did his bidding regardless.

He felt good. Brimming with power. It was strange, but after spending most of the ceasefire bedridden, he came out of it feeling fully refreshed. His body felt reformed, save for the still wrecked passages of mana in his body. The physical feats he could command now far exceeded what he had been capable of when he fought Deceit, and that was even including both Valiant and Berserk.

Even still, that paled in comparison to how he felt right now.

Agony lumbered forward, joined by more and more of his kin. A bunch of emissaries joined in, as well as a blanket of harbingers at his back. A smattering of soldiers similarly surrounded Rayse and his friends, beginning a staredown between the two armies.

Rayse prepared to charge, imbuing his gear with power once again, when several figures emerged in the area between the armies. Their skins, clothing, and even hair were bone white. Even more startling, their features looked human.

“Luke? What is this? An illusion?” Rayse wondered aloud, when he heard a shout from among the crowd.

“Sister? Sister!” Polo’s anguished voice cried out, and suddenly the soldier broke off from the army. He walked towards one of the people who had appeared, a woman who curiously wore the garments of a soldier. Sure enough, when she turned, she had Luna’s features. She furrowed her brows at him and held out her arm in warning. She opened her mouth, but the words didn’t reach their ears.

“What? I can’t hear you!” Polo said, tears flowing down his face now. She was clearly warning them to stay back, but his twin brother, who had never listened to his sister, embraced her instead. Tendrils of white emerged from the ground afterwards, enveloping the pair in a wooden tomb.

“No!” Rayse ran towards the pair, hacking away at the tree that devoured his friends. He would have succeeded, too, if Polo didn’t keep shielding the woman from him.

“Stop! Rayse, please…” He begged, holding his sister ever tighter, to the point of ignoring the brambles that punctured him through his skin.

Desperate but afraid to hurt his friend, Rayse tried to pull off the wood with his bare hands. But when he did, it began to envelop him too. From trying to help his friend, all Rayse could do was stop the wood from claiming him as well. With all of his strength, his struggles were fruitless, as the lack of leverage allowed the wood to pull him deeper and deeper, until all he could see in the receding light was his dead friend’s face.

He stared Luna in the eyes. The model soldier who was always hard on him, but was brave, powerful, and exceedingly capable. The woman who had a crush on an amnesiac who loved another. The sister who joined the army to keep his rowdy brother alive. Rayse could see that she was there, truly there, and that this was no mere illusion. That gave him a measure of fear, but it shouldn’t have, as she held out her hand towards him. To be more precise, she held it out towards Sonia’s gem. It glowed in response, further solidifying this revenant as her friend. 

A split second before the spell she opened her mouth to form some voiceless words. Even in the dim light, Luna’s plea rang through.

Help him.

Mana surged into Luna. Her body swelled, along with her strength, enabling her to break Polo and Rayse free of their wooden prison. She threw the pair back towards the battle lines before turning back as another figure emerged. It was a woman, the familiar figure that was Deceit’s preferred form had arrived. It sat in a tall vine, recreating that scene back in Kyrios, and held out her hand.

“No! Sister!” Polo tried to scramble forward, blubbering into hysterics while Rayse clambered to keep him there. The strongest man in the army, and yet he could hardly contain his friend. The pair looked on, helpless, as the scene of their friend’s death was recreated, down to the most gruesome detail. 

Squelch, squelch. The grisly sounds of flesh and bone folding in on itself echoed through the valley, and this time, the shadows were not present to shield them from its horror.

“LUNAAAAAA!!”

“Valiant cascade!”

Having seen enough, Rayse summoned his strength to demolish the wooden Deceit, ending the sick play once and for all.

Polo kept on wailing, until finally losing his strength. Rayse, tear stricken himself, left him a sobbing mess, pointedly ignoring the other balled up shapes in this sick recreation. He felt bile going up his throat as he crossed a particularly large body, taking care to speed up before the scene continued. He felt the wind behind him as he passed, which almost broke him, as he knew the wooden Sonia just tried to pat him on the head like the final time she did so. He barely kept it together, jogging up to Luke in an effort to reform the ranks.

“No one touches them! Form up, men! The enemy is coming!” Luke commanded. Several people had already broken off, inching towards their wooden loved ones. Most had stopped, seeing what had almost become of Polo and Rayse, but he could now see a new thicket of bone white trees that lined the valley. Those strong enough to resist the urge were rewarded in kind, with them witnessing more of that sickening play, wooden figures of trapped souls, returning to the world of the living just so their loved ones could watch them die one more time. Some attacked them from afar like Rayse did, but others, like Polo, simply broke down and wept. Rayse saw this scene of devastation as he made his way back, knowing that the army in its current state cannot stand against Agony, let alone this new attack.

Luke saw Rayse approach, but instead of being glad that somebody was actually following him, the larger man panicked.

“Stay back, Rayse!”  He held out a hand in warning. In fact, he seemed set on covering his view, stretching out his arms in a feeble attempt to conceal whatever was behind him.

Rayse, whose thoughts were a mess of grief, fear, and rage, easily shoved him aside, raring to go at the demon army on the other side.

There, he saw it. Several people were lined up in rows, each with an assortment of wounds that kept them from the fight. Rayse stood amidst them, just trying to take it all in. That is, until he heard a stomping sound. He turned around to find his mother, staring at him with a look that would have made him wilt a few years ago, silently miming and pointing at the person behind him. He stepped aside to let her pass through, and she made a wide berth, deliberately not touching him. His dad passed by a moment later, giving him a quick smile before moving towards his next patient while, again, not acknowledging him otherwise.

Shelly was running to and fro, giving comfort to as many people as she possibly could, hands expertly moved as she saved lives by the second. Rasan was more deliberate, going over his patients one by one, not skipping over anyone. A lot of the ones on his side were clearly close to death, but the man brought them back somehow, with a combination of poultices, expertise, and, Rayse was surprised to find, a little bit of magic. He marveled as the doctor passed his hand through some one’s split leg and came away with smooth skin. He didn’t know he could do that.

As he realized what this was, Rayse’s mind almost couldn’t believe it.

“T-this– Luke, is this…?” He managed to say. Luke stepped up beside him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. He felt his strength, more pronounced than he ever had, and it was clear the old man was trying to keep him in place. More than his strength, it was Luke’s imploring that kept him in place.

“Lad… Don’t go to them. Please.”

So Rayse stood there in silence, watching his parents’ final moments.