The smell of burned flesh tickled my nose, but I ignored it as I turned around. It felt like the world was moving slowly as I watched everyone react to the sudden situation. My father was wrapping himself and Dallin in a cloak of shadows. My mother’s lightning-clad hidden blade was through the throat of what seemed to be a regular citizen with a knife.

Sylvia and I were springing forward. I could hear and sense multiple people behind me, but they were of secondary concern. My heart thumped as I watched Cerila protect Padraic from a sword with her ice. Cerila let Hubris fall to the ground and instantly embraced Mila, bringing her close. She tried to defend herself and Mila with a thick layer of ice, but she wasn’t quick enough.

An assailant with a long, thin dagger thrust forward, breaking the blue ice. Cerila twisted her body, and the dagger missed Mila and plunged straight into Cerila’s chest. It was a moment later that my Stone Bullet cracked the dagger-wielding man in the back of the head, dropping him to the ground. I turned to face two people rushing toward me.

Both of them looked like regular everyday citizens, but they had weapons out, and I quickly dispatched them with a torrent of flames. It was pandemonium, and I couldn’t immediately tell who was a regular civilian and who was part of the group of attackers.

Because it wasn’t just us being attacked.

I parried a sword thrust from behind and sent my spear through a man’s chest. I glanced around, and people were attacking others indiscriminately. A mage at a food stand obliterated a group of people with a Fireball.

Thankfully, without a word, my family and I had essentially made a circle around the three non-combatants. Sylvia was already treating Cerila’s wound while protecting us with orbs of blood, shooting out crimson spikes at incoming attackers.

I sliced the head off another attacker and immediately felt a sickening twist in my stomach. Out of instinct and on pure sense alone, I glared out into the panicking crowd and caught a glimpse of someone sprinting toward us. It was a woman, and even though she was covering herself in a cloak, I still managed to see her eyes, the bottom of them a bright red and the rest a dirty blood color. It was a pair of eyes I would never forget.

I moved to send a hellfire of Stone Bullets at her, but the ground began to shake violently. I lost my footing and crumbled down to one leg as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I could feel the immense amount of mana now that was gathered below us into multiple spell cores. I encased myself in stone, knowing that I could trust my family to protect themselves and others. It was a good decision, as the world around us exploded.

Boom.

—

Sylvia Talgan’s POV.

I wasn’t able to feel anything before the ground grumbled with an unknown power. Even so, I saw everyone going on the defensive and instantly moved the blood under my control to protect Mila first. Whatever happened wouldn’t kill me, so her safety was paramount.

A crimson shield was wrapping around me when the explosion went off, followed by something barreling into me. The air got knocked out of my lungs, and my ribs cracked and broke in my chest. I thought a random piece of debris had crushed my chest, but I was wrong. I flipped around, my ears ringing and my body screaming at me in pain. I tumbled head over heels multiple times, impacting falling rocks and stones on my way until I crashed into the ground.

But the ground immediately gave away again, and I started to fall deeper. I was healing my body as fast as I could, fixing broken bones and giant gashes in my arms, chest, and legs. I even took a sizable rock to my head but resisted the urge to blackout and pushed through the pain with gritted teeth.

The stench of a vile sewer assaulted me as I impacted the ground, and just to piss me off, it was almost completely dark besides the light shining in through the hole I crashed in from. I felt my body break in multiple places again, but I instantly began to repair myself because, beyond the stench and the darkness, my senses were overwhelmed with the smell of blood.

It wasn’t my blood, but the blood of my loved ones at a distance, and right in front of me was the scent of someone I had been looking forward to killing for a very long time. I let burning blood course through me, and even though I wasn’t healed yet, I thrust my arm out and caught a sword with my bare hand.

It sliced into me and cut my flesh but stopped in my bone, just like I wanted. The pain was overwhelming; I wanted to cry out, but those feelings were washed away by the pure resentment and loathing I felt. A pair of crimson eyes looked down at me as a female Vampire I had never seen tried to push the sword further into me.

But it never budged. I wouldn’t let it. And even though I had never seen her, I knew exactly who she was.

She was the Vampire that crippled Kaladin and hurt Mila. And she had finally come to die.

With raw strength, I stood up and pushed back against the woman, and the sword embedded into my hand. Her eyes lit up with shock from underneath her hood as I forced her back and summoned my sword from my Spatial Ring and into my free hand.

I thrust forward, and she backed off, ripping the sword out of me with her own strength. She didn’t give me any time to gather myself and immediately launched into another straightforward attack. I knew what she was doing, and I decided to let her do it.

The sword pierced my shoulder, and she immediately opened her mouth wide to sink her fangs into me, but she abruptly stopped. The blood on the ground, by my will, had formed into a spike that impaled her through the leg.

I immediately took control of her body and backed away from her, letting my wounds heal completely. My hearing came back to me, and I could hear fierce fighting from above; spells and blades clashed over and over again, and I could smell the fresh blood being spilled.

“Wha—what did you do to me?” the Vampire said with a pained gasp.

She was trying to fight back and regain control of herself, but she was too weak and couldn’t stop me. I glared down at her, reached into her body, and controlled her. She reared up from her knees with her sword in hand, twisted it around, and sent her own blade through her stomach.

I went face to face with her as I gazed straight into her fearful eyes. “You are lucky I don’t have time to make you suffer the same way you made them. So kill yourself slowly and watch all the blood drain from your body, wench,” I spat.

“No! Wait—gah, I—!” she tried to resist, but she continued to take her sword out from herself and stab herself in the stomach again and again.

She would slowly drain herself of blood and die a pitiful and agonizing death as her body healed itself. It was the most fitting end I could give her.

I felt the muscles in my legs expand, and I kicked off the ground, jumping straight up and out of the hole I had come in from. I had a fight to join and a family to protect.

—

Kaladin Shadowheart’s POV.

I was fighting, completely deafened and battered. After the explosion, a giant sinkhole had formed, and we fell into the center of what looked to be the city’s sewer system. The people were pouring out of the tunnels and ruble like ants. The White-robed assailants were supported by groups of what looked to be Amon-Ra paladins and priests. The white-robed people weren’t an issue.

They just rushed to their deaths with a zealous fervor, and judging by their open mouths and reddened faces, they were coming at us on suicide missions. I had killed dozens at this point, probably at least fifty people with magic and my spear. The real problem was the paladins.

They were highly skilled and most, if not all of them, wielded some type of magic. All of them were also properly geared, wearing full armor and using high-quality Cobalt or Dwarven steel weapons. They came at us with calculated strikes and often in groups of two or three. So far, I had only managed to kill four of them entirely.

I forced many of them back, even impaling one through the chest with my spear, causing a grievous wound. But they would retreat to the support of a priest who healed them while a group of the white robes would swarm in to protect them, forcing me to fight them instead—the priests, when not healing, sent light magic spells at us.

I dodged or cut them down in the middle of the frenzy. My father and Cerila focused on protecting Mila, Dallin, and Padaric, while my mother and I went on the offensive. Sylvia was nowhere to be found at the moment, and I didn’t have the luxury of looking for her, lest I be overwhelmed by the tide of paladins and white-robed assailants.

Another two-man group of Paladins pushed me as I cut down a white robe with my spear. The first one swung his warhammer wide, and I dodged just out of its range. The second one, in coordination with the first, swung his great sword down at me, and I deflected it with my spear.

The bones in my arm vibrated painfully from the powerful strike, but I forced his sword up and thrust my spear into his knee so he couldn’t escape me. The first one stepped forward and blasted me with a gust of wind magic, but I countered it with a wall of earth magic.

I pushed through the earth wall, while the first one tried to drag the second one away, but we needed to start to kill the paladins if we were to have any chance of making it out of here alive. A hammer of light flew at me from across the hole, ripping the arm off of an unlucky white robe that was rushing me. I cut it at the spell core and followed through, hitting the surprised greatsword user in the chest. He let out a yelp of pain and, with a foot encased in stone, I crushed the warhammer user’s head. A Stone Bullet ended the other in a flash.

Why didn’t they just attack us in an orderly fashion? Why send randomly armed civilians at us?

I sensed someone running up behind me and was relieved to see a familiar face. Sylvia thrust her estoc into the back of a paladin which exploded into a ball of crimson. I cut down a few white robes that were between us, and without a word, she sank her fangs into my arm. I felt my broken ribs knit back together, along with all the smaller gashes and cuts on my body. My hearing returned shortly after.

I wanted to ask her what had happened and where she had been to have such a dark look in her eyes, but this wasn’t the time or place. We needed to make some headway.

“Take over defending the others so we can push the enemy back,” I requested.

Sylvia nodded, and both of us pushed back to the center where my father was. My mother, upon seeing us, decided to regroup as well, and we quickly and efficiently changed guards. I saw Mila and Dallin, both of them completely mortified, but that could be remedied later as well.

Before we launched our counter-attack, I summoned multiple orbs of white fire that sailed into the air. They broke off into thin streaks and crashed into the ground in fiery explosions. I aimed for the mages and priests in the back in hopes of knocking as many of them out as possible.

The four of us rushed into the dazed groups and began slaughtering everyone. Now that my mother and I were no longer alone and overwhelmed, we could efficiently kill even the paladins as they could no longer retreat to safety with ease. The white robbed assailants were no longer as zealous and eager to rush to their deaths. As my father, mother, and Cerila cut down people left and right with blades and magic, even the paladins began to hesitate.

As we pushed through, it seemed I had killed or displaced a large chunk of the mages and priests as the paladins, still putting up a fight, were collecting more wounds. With white fire wrapped around my spearhead, I sliced and thrusted my way forward. It felt as if we were finally making headway when a bolt of light whizzed past my head.

I used my Soulsight and saw two enormous blobs of light moving through the crowd at a rapid pace. Two large men in golden and Cobalt armor broke through the ranks, each wielding massive hammers. They were the pontifex’s personal guards.

They aren’t even pretending anymore. This is basically a declaration of war.

We launched spells at them, but they shrugged off the weaker of the spells, and my Stone Bullets had no effect on them. Cerila’s ice lance was crushed with their hammers, and despite being so big, they even dodged my follow-up Lightning Bolt.

The first of the two launched himself at Cerila, while the other came for my father. I was about to send a plasma-based spell at them, but I couldn’t risk hitting my family in the process, so instead, we split off; I went to help Cerila while my mother helped my father.

I formed a combination spell core and released it. The white flames on the tip of my spear condensed and warped into a blazing blue, only to be still like glass after a moment. I thrust at the paladin, and he deflected my strike with the shaft of his warhammer. He sent a golden spear of light magic at me, which I dodged, and Cerila followed up with a blast of ice magic directed straight at his head.

The paladin dodged her attack and swung his massive hammer at me. I decided to block it with my spear but instantly regretted it as my hands went numb momentarily from the concussive force that vibrated my bones. It felt as if I had hit a brick wall.

Cerila and I swung and thrust our weapons, each changing our tactics and trying to out-maneuver the paladin, but he was fighting against the both of us with ease. He was clearly a veteran, and his skills showed. He never let my plasma-clad spear get close to him, and he always opted to keep Cerila’s Hubris away from him with a swing.

The man was in full plate armor, but he moved with a deftness that was beyond that. He was at the level of a War God, maybe not as powerful or devastating as King Maxwell, but these two were a cut above the previous paladins. So, it was time to switch things up.

Cerila and I pushed him at the same time, and he blocked both of our strikes with his giant hammer and the gauntlet on his armor. Cerila’s sword dug into his armor, and he used the head of the hammer to knock her away. I destabilized the ground underneath him with earth magic, and Cerila tried to freeze one of his hands, but the paladin simply stomped through the ground, maintaining his posture, and broke free of the ice by crushing it.

Cerila and I both backed off and began launching spells directly at him, trying to overwhelm him with the magic. It was a howling storm of ice alongside the thunderous booms of yellow lightning. Our spells made craters in the ground and kicked up tons of debris. Stray shots that didn’t directly hit the paladin’s location flew off only to hit a random white robe or destroy the walls.

I didn’t need the dust to clear to see that the paladin was unharmed. With my Soul Sight, I could see that he had protected himself with a shield of mana, which must have been light magic, which left me with only one choice.

I wanted to hold onto this, but I can’t afford to ration my mana in this kind of situation. Even eliminating one of the pontifex’s guards would free us up.

I started forming the triple spell core with gravity, fire, and lightning for a railgun shot. I hadn’t used this spell since I killed the Chaos Dragon, as it consumed a large swath of my mana and did almost just as much damage to me. I was nearly finished when I had to abruptly stop and defend myself from a sword aimed at my chest.

I blocked the sword strike, and my eyes met the eyes of a young man I hadn’t seen in years. His brown hair fluttered, and he grinned at me as his second shortsword plunged itself into my side. But it was his first mistake, assuming I was defenseless in close range. I thrust my hip forward and yanked the arm on his first sword.

So I tossed Alnwar over my shoulder and onto the ground.

I thrust my spear down at him to end his life, but I was forced to block a hammer swing that sent me flying back. I used gravity magic to jerk myself to a halt in midair and land safely.

The paladin pushed Cerila back as Alnwar stood up and wiped the sweat from his brow. He threw his arms wide and chuckled.

“Wooow, I didn’t expect that move. Here I was, thinking I’d get a sneak attack in when you were your most vulnerable. But I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything less from my most prized possession.”