People scattered in blind panic—shoving, trampling, abandoning everything as dread pressed down on the village like a physical weight.
Ogres slammed their crude clubs against the wooden gates. Each impact rattled the walls. Wolf-like beasts prowled behind them, howling under the moonlight. Smaller creatures slipped through cracks and holes, bombarding the village from all sides.
The walls they once praised and swore would protect them, became the oppressor that kept them in.
The village was breached.
A cacophony of screams swallowed the night.
Black smoke billowed from burning houses, rolling upward and swallowing the stars. Only the moon pierced through the haze, pale and indifferent.
"Help!"
"Save me!"
Claws tore through doors and fangs sank into flesh. Falling beams crushed those too slow to escape, burying them under rubble and flames.
The elderly, the sick, children—none were spared.
Titles meant nothing. Gender meant nothing. Only survival mattered.
Amid the chaos, Keita and Celestia crouched behind an overturned cart, hidden among shattered crates and broken stone.
"We have to go…" Celestia shuddered, her voice trembling.
"G–go?" Keita's throat felt dry. His heartbeat pounded in his ear.
He had read about monsters and demons. Studied them in books and imagined them in ink and panels.
However, none of that prepared him for the sight he had witnessed.
"Mom… where are you?" a small voice cried nearby.
A little girl stood alone in the open street, clutching a worn plush bear. Tears streaked down her soot-smudged cheeks.
A goblin noticed her. It grinned, salivating from the mouth.
"Keita… look," Celestia whispered, tears pooling in her eyes.
Keita tried to stand but his legs wouldn't move.
The goblin lunged.
They both held their breath.
A spear of ice tore through its skull and pinned it to the ground.
Before its body even fell, pillars of flame and jagged earth rained down, crushing and impaling the surrounding monsters in a violent cascade of light.
"We're first," a voice muttered.
Jules Hammond stood on a rooftop with frost curling from his hands.
"Not quite," a woman replied beside him. "It seems those muscle-brains did special training."
Vivian March adjusted her gloves, embers flickering between her fingers.
Their heads jerked to the distance to see sword slashes cleaving every monster in its path.
A third figure stepped forward, cloak fluttering in the heat of distant fires.
"Tch, so much for a vacation," Willam Newgate said. "Pick up the pace."
The three figures vanished across the rooftops, cutting through the invasion with coordinated precision.
"...Lily, there you are!" a woman cried, hugging the crying girl.
The immediate area fell quiet.
"Is it safe to come out now?" Keita swallowed.
He crawled out from under the cart.
Celestia followed.
For a brief moment, the world felt smaller.
"I think we should split up," Keita said quickly.
"I have to go find mother," Celestia nodded.
"Me too," Keita continued, "...but where do we meet up?"
"The castle," she said. "If we get separated."
"The castle."
They held each other's gaze for one second later. Then they ran in opposite directions.
The monsters had pushed deep into the village. The knights struggled to hold formation as fresh waves flooded the streets.
The brothel was among the many buildings overrun as hobgoblins and lizardmen burst through the doors.
Some drunken patrons blinked stupidly.
"Is this… posed to be some new act?" a drunkard laughed, splashing liquor atop the lizardman's head.
The creature drove its pike forward.
SCHLICK
The laughter stopped.
The man looked down to see a hole in his chest–blood spilling over the floor.
Screams erupted as the dancers fled. Some men were scared, others delighted, using the distress to plunder and indulge.
Upstairs, Felicia leapt from the second floor. She landed on a lizardman's face, using its skull as a springboard as she slashed another across the throat with a kitchen knife. Heads were sent flying.
In an attempt to make quick work of the others, the blade struck the bone of a hobgoblin and cracked.
"Tch," she scoffed, twisting the knife free.
With a strong kick, she pulled back in a series of flips.
She tore the frills of her dress, revealing belts strapped to her thighs—one with a dagger, the other lined with thick steel needles.
She placed the hilt of the dagger in her mouth and slipped the needles between her fingers.
She leaped into the air, her aura flared faintly around her hands, before launching them at the remaining monsters. Each struck cleanly between eyes, through temples, and into throats.
Upstairs, Aurelia Lancaster kicked a door down, dropping an unconscious guard aside as she moved towards the stairs. On her descent, she maneuvered through scared girls and made quick work of any man that tired her hands.
"I need to find Celestia," she thought.
She made her way down to see Felicia carving a path for the fleeting girls, while easily cutting through monsters as steel parts flesh.
"Felicia… Good work," she shouted.
The young servant glanced back, relief and a small smile flashing across her face.
"Madam!"
"We need to find her," she said, snapping back to reality.
The groups of monsters were dealt with but it wouldn't be long before another larger group appeared.
"Mother!"
"Felicia!" a voice shouted in the distance.
"Celestia?" Aurelia's silver eyes filled with tears, searching for the source of the voice.
Celestia ran toward them through smoke and debris.
Aurelia dropped to her knees and caught her daughter in her arms. For a moment, the world disappeared.
Then Celestia pulled back, remembering her words to Keita.
"We have to go to the castle," she urged, grabbing their hand.
Before they could discuss anything, shadows filled the streets ahead. Claws scraping stone and heavy footsteps shaking the fractured street.
"More monsters."
"Too many," Felicia shouted, her grip tightening.
Even if she killed ten in a breath, twenty would replace them.
"There's too many—".
"Felicia," Aurelia said softly.
She stood. "Take Celestia and run."
"Madam—"
"Mother—"
The two shouted.
"Listen… I will open up the path for you. Run and don't look back." Aurelia commanded, taking the dagger from Felicia's hand.
Her fingers trembled, yet she steadied them.
She gathered all the remaining strength in her frail body, pushing it to the limit. A large column of aura erupted from her like a star growing brighter. A gust of wind snapped her hair loose from its bindings, sending it streaming behind her like a banner.
"Celestia my darling…"
"Remember the words that I am about to say." she continued.
An ogre charged at her. In one motion, a clean arc of light split the monster apart mid-swing, before its roar finished.
She did not spare it a glance.
"A Lancaster never bows to adversity."
Another beast lunged from the side.
She severed its arm and cleanly drove the dagger through its skull, before swiftly flicking the blood from the blade.
"A Lancaster dances freely… never to another's tune" Aurelia said.
" But mother—" Celestia's voice broke completely, tears sliding down her cheeks.
Felicia's jaw tightened. Her fist trembled, nails biting into her palms.
"And finally…" Aurelia said, facing the hordes' advance.
"If the world stands against a Lancaster—" she raised the blade over her head.
The ground cracked beneath her heel.
"---then become strong enough to stand against the world."
Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Still, she did not waver.
"Fly freely… my Morning Star." A breath caught in her throat.
Bringing her arms down, a violent wave of energy tore forward, swallowing the horde in light. The ground ruptured, carving a massive path through the street and blasting away the dark clouds, revealing the glory of the full moon.
Even the distant knights and mages turned toward it in shock.
"That level of power…" Leon shouted, staggering backward.
"Who is that?" William Newgate narrowed his eyes.
"Go," she ordered.
"Yes, milady." Felicia didn't hesitate, placing Celestia on her back.
Her bangs covered her face, hiding her darkened expression.
She strengthened her body to its maximum, heightened her senses to its peak, before wrapping her aura around Celestia. The ground cracked under the force of her step as she launched forward at superhuman speeds.
"Mother!" Celestia screamed, looking back one last time.
Watching her slender shoulders and smooth back glistening gracefully under the moonlight.
Unmoving.
The hilt of the shattered dagger slipped from her fingers. Veins of silver light crawling across her skin like cracks in porcelain.
Within mere minutes, Felica was beyond village walls, leaping between trees as they entered the forest beyond the village.
"I can't keep this up much longer," she gritted, veins pulsating in her legs.
She reduced her speed to a sustainable pace—still fast enough to rival warhorses at full gallop.
Behind them, the village burned.
Elsewhere, Keita ran. His lungs burned as smoke clawed at his throat. The streets blurred as he darted through alleyways and passed collapsed buildings.
He heard screams but he kept going.
Beyond the blocks he saw a massive beam of light erupted into the sky. It split the darkness itself.
"What is that?" Keita stared, his heart pounding.
The light lingered for a breath, then faded. The night felt colder without it.
Keita swallowed hard and ran toward his house.