A month. That was, give or take, the amount of time I spent in Eden before things went poorly. If I were to give an exact number, it would have been forty-one days. More than a month, really, but time had flown by.

The first week, I finally fixed up the gateway inside my soul. Then there were three days of normal missions. A longer excursion, two and a half weeks, to get yet another gateway fragment, this one pried from a newly forming nest.

We were gearing up for another, longer excursion, expecting to be out for a month. That meant we needed to prepare. Get backup sets of armor ready, buy rations, stock up on it all. Could we have done it within a week and headed out before the sky flickers? Yes, probably, but it hadn’t felt that urgent.

Now, though?

That sense of urgency was back.

I was outside, middle of the city, in civilian clothing, hand in hand with Ann. I had expected it to be a calm day, because usually I only needed to do one drastic thing each day.

Honestly, I’d known that tomorrow, at least, would be annoying. Zinnic acted fast and with vengeance. But I expected to have some time.

Instead, a new problem appeared. The sky flickered a second time, and then it fractured.

The protections around the city broke. The walls of Qi and Mana and Divinity all fell apart. There had been power invested in those defenses, real power by the truly high-level people.

So much power had been in there that when they broke, shard of the sky rained down like so much broken glass. None of the energies were usually solid when they weren’t in control of a person, yet this time, they were.

I remember that moment, still.

I stood, frozen, in the middle of the road. Ann’s hand tightened around mine, and I felt her nails digging into my skin. But it all didn’t seem to matter.

When the barrier broke and the glass rained down, the whole world turned silent for a moment, except of course for the brief noise of shattering. Chatter stopped, people looked upwards, facing a fractured sky.

The power invested fell down. One of the pieces scratched my face. It was Qi, compacted and unbelievably dense, holding its shape even as it was slowly disintegrating into the ambient atmosphere. Blood trickled down my face.

Slowly, I turned to Ann. Her mouth was open. She knew what it meant. The moment of silence ended.

“Fuck,” I said.

Things happened quickly.

The first thing I felt, was the atmosphere changing. The blocks around the cities kept the air kind, the Qi nonhostile. But now, with the formations gone, I could literally feel safety and comfort flow away from me, replaced by an irritating scratching against my skin.

It was the energy in the air, scratching and clawing at me, trying to take what I was into itself. Trying to assimilate, like it always did. Instinctually, I coated my skin in thicker golden Qi, and the feeling faded away. As did the pain from Ann’S fingernails, as my skin grew tougher.

Then, secondly, there was a noise of Divinity. Golden flames tore across the heavens, trying to rebuild the barriers, but it was too late. How had they gone down so fast? I didn’t have the answers to that, not at all.

But the sky itself roared as flames blanketed it, briefly. Then, suddenly, they winked out. There was nothing to latch onto, nothing to rebuild, so it fizzled away into nothing but sparks, like fireworks heralding a poor end.

A moment later, the usurpers roared back.

My head turned, mechanically. Beyond the city walls, I saw a large shape. Antlers, poking over the edge of the wall. Long limbs, with multiple joints, and arms long enough to drag on the ground.

From this close, I saw the thing’s eyes. Pits of black fire. Its face was animalistically humanoid, great tusks carving upwards over its lips, and its skin tainted bluish. Dozens upon dozens of antlers tangled off its head, branching off to the sides. They had dozens of prongs, seemingly piercing the sky itself.

It looked at me.

That black fire stirred, briefly, in recognition. It was the same thing we had fled from in the mountains. Its face twisted into what looked like a cruel grin. The giant moved, slowly. Shambling. Its hip tilted to the side, and it almost took a step forward, but then, instead, its arm moved.

With the same noise a whip made when it was cracked, the thing broke the sound barrier. Its arm snapped forward at unbelievably speeds, slamming into and breaking apart the city walls, and the creature raised a screech to the sky. It was somewhere between a howl and a roar, sending shivers down my spine.

Ann squeezed my hand. “We have to move.”

With an exertion of will, I tore my eyes from the pits of black fire, and nodded. My stomach spun, but regardless, I reached into the air and grabbed my spear from my inventory. With another small push, I felt [Iron Will] click into place, and the world suddenly came into focus.

My fear vanished and I heard the screaming around me. People were panicking. Edians sprinted past me, all over the place, but mainly further east. Of course, the monsters were coming from the west, after all.

Reflectors were running, too, some brave ones towards the horde. The more sensible ones ran north, trying to get to the gateways, to escape back onto Neamhan, where they would be safe.

I blinked and found myself running, dragging Ann along as my steps were faster than hers. Then, a moment later, she’d muttered a spell, and floated right beside me, suddenly weightless.

Realization hit me hard for a millisecond, then mellow. I couldn’t take the gateways out. They were close, and an easy escape that promised relocation to another city. But I couldn’t take that path.

If I stepped through the gateways, I would die. No doubt about it. The keepers would tear the repaired gateway from my soul, and I would be discarded. Simple as that.

I breathed, deep. The air tried to burn away my lungs, but the Qi in it got subsumed by my golden core instead, trickling into my barely drained reserves. My heartbeat steadied. It was do or die, now, and the panic left me.

Dawn of Ambition, our guildhouse, was further to the south. Ann and I sprinted towards it. Our team was in there. So were Ann’s robes. Briefly, I spared a thought for whether Orvan was alright, then discarded it when the giant slammed into the wall again with a loud crack, then a rumble. Stones fell to the floor as the protective construct vanished.

There had been guards up there, but by now they’d been reduced to little more than bloody smears. How had they not seen this coming? Something must have gone deeply wrong…

Ann and I turned a corner, racing through the streets. Edians were sprinting past us, away from the horde, and the streams only grew denser as more fled. Reluctantly, I stepped into the air, making us more visible to the monsters.

Dozens were streaming through the cracks in the walls already, dozens more breaking the stone further. The Drytz, burrowing creatures they were, had already entered the city. One almost swallowed a young woman down on the floor just below us, by with a throw of my spear, the monster was dead, and a moment later I held my weapon again.

Bound weapons were incredible.

My Qi already cycled through the spear, reinforcing its edges, keeping the metal ever sharp. The tiny chips in the blade that came from impacting stone at high velocities had already vanished, the wood laying smooth and cool in my hand. I breathed.

We rounded another corner, finally stepping higher than the nearby ceilings, letting me pick a much more direct path. A moment later, there was another whip-crack hissing through the air, this one ever louder, sending my ears ringing. Despite that, I swung my spear with my free hand.

Qi coated the blade, making it larger, and I carved apart the rock that had flown at us, thrown by the giant. It was focused on me, I knew that much. Why was it focused on me? My mirror Qi wasn’t leaking!

Still, Ann squeezed my hand. “Keep high,” she said, confidently. I saw her eyes dart around, already taking it all in, and trusted her judgement.

With quick steps, I carried us through the air, as more and more monsters flooded into the city. Whenever something approached us, because there were flying creatures - Torin, bat things with one giant eyes and an entire torso that could unfurl into nothing but teeth - my spear lashed out, carving through monsters.

Ann sometimes blasted the ground with spells, shaping the stone from buildings to fall over and bury monsters in the rubble. We saved Edians, as Reflectors ran for the gateways.

Another dozen steps later, most of the way to the guild, I saw someone appear next to me in the air. I almost lashed out, on reflex, then I held back. It was Trev. Little Sophia was riding piggyback on him as he leapt though the sky, with Evelyn graceful hovering besides them.

The man flashed me a bright, if somewhat pained, smile. “Didn’t expect to see you again so soon!”

“Me neither!” I yelled, over the roaring of the wind, when yet another whip-crack split the sky. I swung my spear before I could even think twice about things, carving a boulder in two. Behind it, I saw the giant creature stare at me, black fire burning where its eyesockets should be.

It was looking at us. Me? Most likely me. Was the creature a usurper, then? What had made them find the city? How were there so many of them?

My spear hissed through the air again, bisecting another of the bat creatures as I took swift steps. I could see the guildhouse now, standing high above the city as I was.

“Got anyone we can pick up for reinforcements?” Trev asked over the howling winds.

“Yeah!” I nodded. “Whole guild!” There were flashes down the road where people smashed and burnt and hacked apart the dryzt. But people were also getting hurt at the same time. Reflectors were fleeing.

I bit my lips, then focused on the present.

“Alright, let’s go!” Trevor said, charging ahead. He was fast.

I saw Sophia’s hand on him alight with a faint glow. Right, then. Some kind of buff spell.

A moment later, he spun in the air, leg lashing out, and smashing one of the torin right to pieces. The teeth from its stomach-maw scattered the floor with all the other dust and debris floating around. Another whip-crack impacted the wall, sending it crumbling into bits more and more, and monster streamed in.

Larger ones, too. Zurulen, giants with crystalline growths, streamed through the gates, wielding maces of stone, some having freshly shaped their weapons from the remains of the wall. Scorions scuttled over the debris, their stinger lashing out with venom, while Qi suffused their weapons.

I was forced to turn away when a small swarm Torins descended to try and take a bite out of me. Ann set two of them on fire, Evelyn shot down another three, and I dispatched the remainder with a few swift swipes of my spear.

Then, suddenly, Ann yelled. “DOWN!”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. Within a moment, the platforms of Qi underneath my feet dissolved and I plummeted from the sky. A boulder shot just over my head, this one clearly coated in black flame.

It singed the edges of my hair just as it soared by, then impacted the ground with a great crash, sending a whole handful of buildings tumbling to the ground. I felt the hairs on my skin raise up.

“We run through the streets!” I called to Trevor. “Hope it can’t track us!”

The man gave me a quick salute, also descending. Evelyn still hovered high for another moment, waves of magic streaming from her. For a moment, the rocky debris around us turned liquid, a wave spreading through it all, then, within seconds, walls reconstructed themselves into a labyrinthine barrier.

She even seemed to coat it with a sheen of illusion, making it hard to see through. I gave her a quick nod as I hastily sprinted through more narrow corners, with Ann course correcting whenever her levitation threatened to smack her into a corner.

A minute passed quietly, then a second minute, until a storm of pink tore through a scorion in front of me. Matt flashed me a grin, though the effect was lightened by the blood trickling down his face. Not his own, I hoped.

“Fio! Good to have you! Follow me!” he said, and I followed.

Matt moved blazingly fast, and I sped up even more to compensate, giving some more focus to my movement. Only three swift turns later, we found Emilia and the twins, bunkered up. I saw a nearby shadow swirl suspiciously, then an arrow soared past my head, spearing through another Torin.

“We’re all here!” Marie called from a nearby roof. Her eyes glowed with a telltale magic she liked to use, something to enhance her eyesight and aim. “Fighting retreat! Revil’s falling!”

A moment later, I stood by Emilia’s right. Her shield was glowing with the grey of stone. Matt was on her left, his eyes alight with a hunger for battle. I realized I probably looked pretty frenzied myself.

With a quick movement, I brushed some of the dust off my hair, the blood on it boiling away with a drop of Qi. I breathed, and it smelled of iron, but the nausea didn’t come. Too focused.

Trevor stepped up a moment later, little Sophia still clinging to him. She must have been under some kind of weightlessness spell, given the fact that she easily held on even when he was darting around doing flips and whatever else it was he did.

“Who’re- oh, the people who found you? Why’re they here?” Emilia asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Picked them up on the way. Allies seemed like a decent thing to have,” I said in the brief calm.

Emilia moved to nod, but then her head snapped forward. A roar pierced through the air, as a Zurulen stomped towards us. Emilia stepped up.

Its club was larger than the woman moving to stop it, but when the giant swung, I saw her Qi flex, and the weapon broke like putty against her shield. Her mace swung, cracking the monster’s crystal skin.

Half a moment later, Matt descended upon it like a whirlwind of blades. Every movement he made conjured up a swarm of petals, digging into the wound, stripping the giant’s crystalline protection.

But the monster was hardly. It swiped at Matt, giving a roar, only to have the attack stopped on a metal boot. Trevor stood, little Sophia on his back, and grabbed the giant’s arm, pulling on it as if trying to throw it.

The creature didn’t budge, of course, but Liam slipped out of the shadows, and used the moment to cut the tendons in the thing’s armpits, while it was locked down. Suddenly, the arm Trevor held onto was limp and useless.

Icicles and arrows dug further furrows into the crystal, and when Matt withdrew for a moment, my spear moved. Enveloped in golden radiance, I carved into the monster’s waist, and promptly disemboweled the thing.

The roars around us were only increasing in intensity though, drowning out the screams of the people. “Back!” Marie yelled, and we moved back. The alleys were too tight, and I jumped back onto a roof.

From there, I saw the monsters, properly.

What had been a trickle turned into a tide. There were not only scorions and zurulen storming through the broken walls anymore. I saw two leyburn. The things that had broken my entire body. They held their heads high with majesty, not even bothering to crush or devour the fleeing Edians. Only those who stood and fought caught their interest at all.

We ran.

Dozens upon dozens of bodies broke upon my spear. I cut apart torins and drytz and zurulen. Crystal, flesh, bone, all carved to pieces.

And it wasn’t enough.

Everywhere we went, I saw bodies. Beastfolk laid on the floor, covered in blood. Some had chunks missing from their bodies. I grimaced but kept running.

Whenever we encountered someone still alive, we’d stop, kill whatever was killing them, then run some more. The black-fire giant thing would watch us, though. It would throw boulders into the sky, raining them down on us. Playing with its food.

Then it decided that it had played enough.

I saw it step into the city, turn rubble into dust with its massive steps. Whenever it moved its arms, there would be another whip-crack, sending spikes of pain through my ears and rattling my bones. All around, things broke apart.

Renvil was a frontier city. It had warriors, a whole guard. It had mages and archers. None of them stood a chance.

There were Edians who could fight. Keep up with us Reflectors, certainly. Ones who had been granted the “divine gift”, as Iryel called it. They could level and grow powerful.

But unlike castle Arhan, which had archmage Orvan, this town had no one like that. The most powerful Edian in the city was well known: Rufus. He was usually holed up in the hill district, but I knew he would fight.

He was many things, but he was not a coward. But he was not enough to turn the tides against this. Maybe he could fight a leyburn in single combat, but this? No.

So we ran.

Boulder after boulder slammed down on the floor nearby. The monster was speeding up its pace now, grabbing pieces of houses it had broken, sometimes even the bodies of other monsters, and tossing them at us.

Then, for a moment, the barrage let up. I looked back. The thing stood, black fire in its eyes, with a gash on its shoulder. It bled black.

A man floated in the sky, red lightning burning in the air around him. Maybe I had underestimated Rufus. For a moment, all eyes were on him, as the monster roars grew still. Even the leyburn watched him, in front of the giant.

He wielded a large curved sword, made for slashing. Lightning danced along the rim of the blade, though it was hard to make out from where I stood. He swung, and an arc of power struck the monster, leaving patches of black on its skin.

Then it laughed.

The sound set the sky rumbling, the earth shaking, and the hairs on my skin rose again. Its laugh was loud and cruel and guttural. It was distorted and so close to human, yet so clearly inhuman and horrific.

It moved.

I didn’t even see the motion, only a blur in the sky. Its bluish skin was a smear across the lilac sky. The red of Rufus’ aura winked out in the same moment. He was turned into little more than a smear of blood on the thing’s hands.

For a moment, everyone was quiet. Then, the monster laughed once more, slowly turning its head. It looked towards us, our little group, and there was a moment of fear before I ruthlessly crushed that emotion with [Iron Will].

“Move,” I said. “MOVE!”

The thing was looking at us again. Staring. Smiling. It stretched out its long, gangly arms, and what appeared wasn’t a boulder.

A bow, made of black flames appeared in its arms. Then an arrow materialized in the other. It was at least three meters long, and looked unbelievably heavy, yet the creature nocked it with little trouble.

It drew the bowstring back.

Then, for a moment, I felt time freeze. There was a voice in my ears. Not my ears, my core.. My voice.

[Gateway has reached (Intermediate)!]

“Take a sharp left.”

In the moment before the creature fired, I followed the advice. “LEFT!!” I screamed, voice enhanced by Qi. No one hesitated to follow the order. A moment later, my entire world flashed.

First, there was a noise. The bowstring moved, the arrow flew forward, and it impacted something. I couldn’t exactly place what it sounded like, because the moment the noise got to my ears, it was replaced with a ringing and blinding pain.

Despite that, I didn’t die.

I opened my eyes and all I saw was a blinding mess of colours. I couldn’t place if it was white or black, because really, there was no point. I blinked, once, twice, fifteen more times, feeling how dried out my eyeballs were. The pain hardly even registered. My nerves might have been singed.

Then, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and my vision returned. Not my hearing, though. Not quite.

Having my nerves regrown sent shivers of pain down my entire body as my spine realigned with itself. For a moment, everything was agony, and another moment later, everything was pain.

But I focused.

[Iron Will] activated at full force, and I shoved it all aside, looking around to get my bearings.

We were in a small protected space in the middle of a crater. The air in front of me shimmered with grey divinity. All around me, my companions laid on the floor. Iryel stood, his hand on my shoulder. I saw him turn to me, eyes tired and heavy.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then coughed up enough blood to dye his grey robes red. He looked down at himself, then mouthed something like “Ah.”

With a monumental effort, he wiped the blood from his lips. I didn’t see him move his mouth anymore. Instead, his voice resounded in my head. “Miss Bellum,” he spoke, “I recommend you take your girlfriend, excuse me, miss Belleflamme, as well as the rest of your team and withdraw from this location. Archmage Orvan has been informed and will be arri-”

He paused, vomiting up more blood. “Ah. Divinity taking its toll. You get the picture. I shall be busy.”

I saw him slowly turn, to look at the sneering monster. Then he pressed his palms against one another, and Divinity flared bright around him. A moment later, my friends opened their eyes.

They gasped, or spasmed, or simply remained lying down. I saw Matt reach for his sword, then refuse to drop it even though his hand bled. We were all bleeding. My skin was burnt, charred at some points. I knew a couple of my muscles were torn, and my bones ached as though someone had bowled me through five sets of stone houses.

Despite it all, I got up. I took out some of the potions I kept in my inventory. I’d spent the money on them after having recently found out I needed them quite often. I gave two to the twins, first. Hoping they could heal the others. I splashed a little into my ears.

It was just enough to barely hear the world in ringing, distorted whispers.

Iryel spoke. “Ahhh, this is going to suck. [Divinity Descends].”

Then there was a flashing tower of grey. The barrier flickered for a moment, then collapsed in on itself, shards of glass hovering towards Iryel himself, and forming the shapes of wings, like those of a dragonfly.

He vomited more blood, more than anyone should reasonably vomit, then grumbled as he took to the skies. I lost sight of him, then. The whip-cracks of the monster were the only things I could really still hear through my half-healed eardrums.

I took half a moment to look around as I helped the twins off the floor. They could barely stand, but I saw them apply light healing to one another. Good. We’d need more of that.

All around us was a crater. We’d barely managed to make it into Iryel’s barrier. Even inside it, the heat was sweltering. I could see that some of Emilia’s armor had molten before the shield came down. Some of the rock around us seemed like it had briefly turned liquid around the edges.

Outside the barrier? All that remained was a smooth surface. If we’d been in a desert, the sand would’ve turned to glass.

I breathed. There was another horrible noise, but I could hardly hear it. Reya flinched, though, and I couldn’t blame her. While the twins set about healing, I started pulling off Emilia’s molten armor. Bit of tissue stuck to it, and I saw her grit her teeth, but she endured.

With another use of my inventory, I poured half of my last health potion onto her wounds. It would have to do.

The other half went to Ann.

Liam had been hit the worst, the attack tearing him from the shadows and sending him flying out onto the streets. Reya laid a hand on him for a long, long moment, yellow radiance covering his body.

Eventually, he drew in a gasp of air.

Marie was up on her feet early. She and I started heading out clearing some of the rubble ahead to make our escape easier. Eventually, throughout the next five minutes, all members of our party became able to walk. Ann floated herself and Liam. I helped Matt with an Arm wrapped around my shoulder. Emilia assisted Reya, despite her own wounds, Marie helped Eric.

Tervor still held onto Sophia, and Evelyn made herself float. Sneakily, I think she also cast some weight reduction spells on all of us, but I could tell her mana was low after that labyrinth spell.

Slowly but surely, we began hobbling out of the city.

Eventually, we reached the other side of the wall. It was broken by a couple boulders, rough and uneven, and we made our way out, ignoring the flashes of light in the sky.

A couple dozen meters after we’d left, the lavender sky turned blue with a wave of magic. Orvan had arrived. I wish I could say more on the battle, because it must have been epic. An angel and an archmage against a giant of black fire. But I honestly couldn’t hear it, nor did I bother to turn around.

All I could focus my significant willpower on was walking forward.