Voice taking on a tortured tenor, the man fell to the ground in evident pain, swatting at the other Inverted with flailing arms as if trying to get them to flee. As Mr. Herst knelt down to help the man up, Anice noticed that all of the streamers in the area around them were beginning to smoke. Within seconds, they suddenly burst into flames with a very visible bending of the air, at which point the old teacher turned around, his clothes igniting as if catching a spark while covered in black oil. Eyes wide and face pale, Mr. Herst yelled over the crowd in a surprisingly forceful, frightened voice.

“Everyone, flee now! Flee as far as you can!”

Those were the last words that the man would ever speak, for the mysterious visitor suddenly roared much louder than a person should have been capable of, his screams coinciding with a blinding explosion of roaring flames that had a diameter of about thirty paces and a height several times its width.

“Demons!” came countless voices, though these were quickly snuffed out as the flames grew more violent.

Silence reigned as everyone was rooted in place from sudden shock. All of the Inverted, including Mr. Herst, had been killed by the unexpected spellwork, along with over eighty people that had been standing around them. Nobody had expected so many to die at the drop of a hat, especially so thoroughly. When the pillar finally subsided about ten seconds later, not even a speck of ash remained of the people that had been caught up in the firestorm. As if it were an optical illusion, the buildings closest to the Inverted man were suddenly cloaked in flames, as were the people that hadn’t been close enough to be eradicated by the initial spellwork.

The man wasn’t finished.

“Mom…” Lily whispered in a daze, staring at the cobblestones where her parents had just been standing, stones which glowed red like molten metal. “Dad…” Her parents along with their modest little flower shop had been completely disintegrated by the unexpected attack.

The triplets were so out of sorts that they could only watch on with wide eyes as more and more people began to catch fire from the sheer energies that the man exuded. Dozens of unfortunate souls began to run around while shrieking their death throes in a nightmarish chorus of tortured screams, all of them covered in flames that were less devious than those of the pillar but just as deadly nonetheless. Seeing this, the celebrants seemed to come to their senses at the same moment.

“D—demon!” someone screamed, their words igniting a powder keg of pandemonium as they were echoed by hundreds of others.

“A demon has descended!”

“Run!”

“I—it’s a devil!”

Panic broke lose.

Standing there in a daze, Anice was pulled along by one of her friends lest she get knocked to the ground and trampled by the tide of frightened townsfolk around her. Jaden was carrying a soulless Lily in his arms as he ran with wide, feral eyes, the other triplets being ushered after them by Helen and Zech.

More screams and more bursts of flames soared up into the sky at their backs, each one larger than the last by a noticeable margin.

What is this?

Anice’s mind had been shocked into a blank state, one that prevented her from properly perceiving her surroundings. The only things that registered were those within arm’s reach, such as the frightened expressions of her friends, the screams that made up the backdrop, the booming crescendos that came with the casting of dangerous spells farther down South Street, or the dozens of wary guards that were rushing through throngs of people as they headed towards the source of the commotion.

Everything was a blur. Solemn-faced, Corrie dragged her along with the crowd toward Mayhaven’s central plaza, which was still a hundred or so paces up ahead. On the way they passed several trampled bodies; men, women and children lying mangled in small pools of blood where they had fallen amidst the mob that was mindlessly fleeing the scene of the massacre. She recognized one of them as the old lady that sold sweets in the marketplace, as well as a young pair of siblings that frequented Mr. Herst’s lessons atop the Hanging Hill, the two belonging to one of the many farming families that lived in the countryside.

Turning her head, Anice caught a glimpse as several guards bravely charged toward the Inverted man with fear in every fibre of their beings. Their strides faltered the closer they drew, their bodies catching fire as they stepped within a couple dozen paces of him. Their movements slowed as screams left their mouths, but before they could be cooked within their armour, the unknown Inverted let out a rabid roar that shattered hundreds of windows and caused a perceptible stirring in the surrounding air. Immediately afterward, he swatted out with a scaly, muscled arm and bisected them with ruthless swipes of his powerful hands as if he were simply brushing aside several flies one after another.

Seeing the men fall to the ground in pieces, their armour glowing red with heat while fire and smoke drifted up from the various pieces of their charring corpses, Anice returned her empty gaze up ahead and recalled all of the lessons that she had learned throughout her childhood in regards to the ancestors of the Inverted peoples. Yes, she thought, realizing many things in that dazed, desensitized moment. The Inverted really were descended from demons, and one such monster had just appeared in their midst. How else could someone tear through plate armour with their bare hands, or heat the air around them enough to cause an ordinary person to erupt in flames solely by relying on their aura?

Demons were real and they had returned to torment humanity once more.

Behind them, another jet of fire completely erased several buildings from sight, the flames so powerful that not even smoking timbers were left behind.

“Anne!” came Corrie’s voice, which had been echoing in her ears for several seconds. His face was paler than usual and covered in a thick layer of sweat that had nothing to do with the heat. “Don’t stop! Come on!”

Unbeknownst to her, she had stopped running a moment after she’d seen those guards die such miserable deaths, her legs having lost all strength at the sight. She wasn’t the only one, for Zech had been forced to throw a soulless Violet over his shoulder when she also lost the ability to move on her own, a teary-eyed Helen doing her best to carry Rosa in a similar fashion though fumbling all the while.

“Anice!”

She blinked a few times and then responded to Alder’s voice. The handsome chamberlain had been leading a group of thirty guards toward the demon when he’d caught sight of her and her friends at the back of the mass of fleeing townsfolk. Hurriedly, he ran over and grabbed her by the shoulders, hugging her for a brief moment before he stepped back and looked into her eyes with an urgency that he’d never shown in the past.

“Thank the heavens you’re okay.” Giving her a steady, amber stare, he looked around for a moment before speaking up in a stern tone that brooked no argument. “Where’s Alistar?”

“I—I don’t know.”

His face hardened. “Hurry to the estate with your friends. Have the servants ready the horses and be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.” When she didn’t respond, he turned to Zech and said, “Your heard me, right?” When the young man nodded, he said, “Make sure it gets done. If the situation gets any worse, flee to the fringes of the county. I fear there’s more to this situation than what’s discernable on the surface.”

Nobody spoke for a moment, which accented a backdrop of increasingly frequent explosions and constant screams from all directions.

“W—where’s my father?”

Several large chunks of stone rained down upon them, though Alder took her in his arms and shielded her with his body, which was struck by a few sizeable fragments. Along with the large pieces were countless smaller ones, as well as splintered wood and other debris that clattered to the cobblestones with comparatively soft sounds when contrasted with the din of danger that filled the air.

“Something’s wrong here,” muttered the man as he stared over her shoulder with an increasingly grave expression. “Your father was summoned to the cathedral by Bishop Rendel. A rider arrived from the delegation, but he refused to say anything unless he was in the presence of the bishop. If they’d known about this, then why…?” He shook his head as another explosion sounded from nearby and then shoved her forward, giving each of the boys an entrusting stare. “Go!”