They were only a couple hundred paces away from the demon, which was moving at a slow, unsteady walk.

Tremors tickled their feet as a large blast blew several buildings to pieces a short ways away, the group lagging behind the fleeing crowd after briefly stopping in place. Only Alder and his group of guards remained on South Street, the view of their backs as they faced a receding heatwave and countless plumes of smoke leaving a lasting impression in Anice’s mind.

“To hell with swords,” she heard him yell a moment after he led the guards away. “Ready your bows and keep a fair distance!” Massive amounts of moisture from the surrounding area began to coagulate around the man, his slick hair dripping with sweat as he rushed to set up a defensive line in order to prevent the demon from proceeding any farther into town.

Anice lost track of time as she and her friends arrived at the central plaza and veered westward. People could be seen running in every direction, all roads filled with panicking townsfolk and the occasional group of flustered, pale-faced city guards. The sound of rabid bell tolls mixed in with the myriad of screams that filled the air, punctuated by constant explosions, ear-splitting roars, and rumbling quakes that shook the stones beneath their feet and rattled the surrounding windows in their frames.

The group stopped a short ways down West Street, where they were joined by some familiar faces. Mr. and Mrs. Silvus were hugging Lessa fiercely, Priscilla nowhere in sight. According to them, the girl had gone off to speak to a friend in the moments before the nightmare began, and she had been one of the first to die from the residual heatwaves given off by the initial pillar of flames.

“I need to find my family,” Zech was saying in an empty voice, though Lessa’s father stopped him with a slick hand covered in oozing burns. The young man’s shoulders slumped as Mr. Silvus shook his head in a tragic manner.

The demon’s aura suddenly flared up as if its previous energy signals had been but a shadow of what really lay beneath. Hearing a particularly pervasive grumbling sound, Anice turned to look at the face of a shop that sold cold drinks which was currently obscuring her view of South Street. Alder’s aura had abruptly disappeared, only a lingering wisp left in its place.

“Oh…” was all she managed to say, her voice going unheard by those around her.

The terrible rumbling sound grew louder by the second, the surrounding air seeming to rush southward before an unrealistically massive torrent of flames exploded forth from South Street and continued on down much of North Street. Over ten paces tall, this destructive, fiery blast engulfed the hundreds of people that had fled in that direction. She and her friends were swept to the ground by surging, searing winds, though they were almost instantly protected by a large wall of rapidly melting ice that Mr. Silvus conjured the moment that he realized they were in imminent danger. He was immediately assisted by his wife, steam hissing around them as they persisted for several moments, their exposed skin taking on an alarming flush.

“What kind of magic…?” came Mr. Silvus’s haggard voice, the man seemingly drained of all his energies.

The mass of flames gradually dissipated, leaving behind a terrifying scene that left everyone in the area awestruck. Countless pairs of feet remained frozen in place as those still within the vicinity of the plaza observed the aftermath of the attack with dazed expressions. From midway up South Street all the way to the distant plaza where the cathedral and the collegia were located, the buildings that lined the streets began to collapse as they were slowly swallowed up by a great conflagration. The disastrous spell had left a long line of smoldering, red-hot stones in its wake, another equally powerful torrent smashing eastward from the demon’s current location and signifying that it was proceeding toward the heart of town at a faster pace than before.

Alie…where are you?

Mr. Silvus fell to the ground without any warning, both of his hands mangled by vicious burns as the other onlookers regained their senses and resumed their frantic flight westward. “Head for the western gate,” winced the man, much of his blond hair singed and smoking. “We’ll catch up to you.”

“Daddy, I…”

“Now!”

Helen grabbed Lessa by the hand and pulled her along with strong tugs, the boys ushering the other girls onward the moment she began to move. The triplets were now on their own feet, though their steps were as dull as Anice’s as they ran along West Street like frightened animals in the face of a forest fire.

Dozens of trampled bodies lay lifeless on the cool cobblestones, a congested mass of thousands of people forming up ahead as countless citizens struggled to squeeze through the open gates in an unorganized stream of hysteria. Mayhaven wasn’t a large town, so Anice recognized many of the dead and dying. Woods stopped to pick up one of the lifeless bodies, letting out an unintelligible cry as he identified the girl as one of his orphan siblings. Seeing this, the other orphans of the group could only bite their tongues and shed silent tears as they continued on with all their strength, Woods hugging the girl close to his body as he hurried after the others with red, watery eyes.

As they were currently in the main residential area of the city, it wasn’t surprising to see many people hurrying from their homes with mixed expressions of confusion and fright, the ones that had preferred not to welcome the delegation for some reason or other. These individuals followed the thickening crowd toward the western gate, where most people from the parade grounds had fled.

None of her friends spoke as they kept moving at full tilt, a digging pain in Anice’s lungs as she sensed the demon’s aura grow even more prevalent in her perceptions. Impossibly, it seemed that the monster was becoming more powerful by the moment. At this point, the destruction wrought on the city was far beyond the scope of what even the most powerful magi could achieve alone, a sentiment proven by the fact that Alder, one of the more renowned magi in the kingdom, had died within moments of engaging the belligerent being. As far as she was aware, the current situation shouldn’t have been possible.

Growing up in the empire, a common saying was that if one was to ever come face to face with a bred and born demon then they should run far away as fast as possible. Priscilla had actually said this exact phrase to Alistar when he had attended his first lesson at the Hanging Hill and Anice finally understood why.

Silent tears streamed down Emely’s face as she slowly began to lag behind the rest of the group. Her arms were empty, meaning that she must have lost hold of Miss Parsnip at some point during all of the commotion. Corrie let go of Anice’s hand and rushed back to help the smaller girl, at which point another tremendous firestorm swept through the area of West Street that was closest to the central plaza. Several life signals disappeared in that moment, including two familiar ones that they had just left behind.

Lessa noticed what had just happened and immediately fell to the ground in a fit of sobs, crying out the words ‘no!’ over and over again as she lost her will to keep moving. Jaden was quick to scoop her up and continue on after the others.

“We’re almost there!” came Zech’s unsteady voice, which shook with all sorts of devastated emotions. His face paled several shades as he glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the most recent wall of flames begin to fade, his complexion white as a sheet of parchment. “G—go!”

The fires subsided to reveal the demon’s menacing figure, which appeared hazy as if it were standing at the heart of an active volcano. The space around it was so hot that wisps of moisture were visibly sizzling within its general vicinity in tiny spurts of steam, the demon’s volatile energies now reaching over fifty paces away from it in all directions. The pure white streamers and the beautiful flowers that decorated the streets quickly caught fire whenever it came within several dozen paces of them, along with all of the tapestries and fabric cut-outs of Lucian’s holy oval.

Seeing the demon raise its arm in their direction, Corrie let out a hoarse shout. “It’s about to attack us!”