Declara held the hands of her two youngest waitress as she ushered her staff ahead of her, a few hundred people were around her as they were herded towards the manor of the noble, she looked around hoping to pick up more familiar faces, but many people she knew were not with them.

The fog gave birth to monsters and the missing people with it. But the people were not the same again. For they were no longer people they knew and loved, they wore a grin that extended until their ears, and the sounds they made led people to madness.

She saw fathers and mothers run to missing children and even when they were being killed, they laughed in happiness.

Wives ran to husbands who were killing their children and stayed lost in a daze, waiting their turn, while they were smiling.

They ran to them with open hands to be slaughtered, their faces holding delight, even as they were butchered by their missing kin, their bodies were then fed to the monsters.

The monsters, who at first resembled babies, but transformed into nightmarish creatures with fangs and claws.

It was sheer madness, and Declara wanted to hold her head and scream until she couldn’t. She wanted to poke out her eyes. Death was a better option than whatever was happening here.

Thankfully, the distraught people had pillars of sanity, carrying them through the madness. They were the Guardsmen.

Around her were muffled screaming and curses, and the sounds of blades tearing through flesh, the men in Red Armour moved like whirlwinds, they cut down monsters after monsters.

The old priest Purdue had screamed himself hoarse trying to keep the morale of people up, and to distract them from the madness happening around. Dark lightning shot from his fingertips, turning monsters after monsters into charcoal, but he was beginning to falter, and he would have fallen behind, if he was not supported by a couple of boys.

She did her part comforting the girls she held and directed members of her staff, who were used to her commands, and in the madness her words were a source of sanity and guidance.

The thick fog made the scene resemble a hellscape, the only source of salvation they knew was the back of the guardsmen, who seemed to be tireless butchers and seemed to know the direction to the manor.

Glynn was also a terrifying beacon, he held a bloodied axe, his face was grim, and his hair was white as snow. He gave out long battle cries that were both terrifying and sorrowful, he had become the torch many of them followed through this darkness.

She always thought he was a miserable drunk and an overprotective father to a spoiled brat, after his wife died, he isolated himself and drank until stupor every day, his son was the only thing he treated with kindness.

This new side of him she saw was startling, he went after every monster with a vengeance and struck off heads and limbs, seemingly not defending himself, yet the wounds on his body did not seem to bleed. They were terrifyingly deep wounds, but they did not hamper his movement but fueled them.

The girl she held in her right hand, Lara, mumbled prayers to all the gods she knew and those she heard of. She squeezed Declara hand so tight she feared she was going to lose the appendage very soon, her prayers abruptly stopped, and the pressure from her hand slowly began to disappear. Declara turned to ascertain the reason for her silence.

Holding her hand was just the bloody limb of Lara, even detached from her body it still held on fast to her hand, as though it was not willing to let go. Declara whimpered.

She heard a shrill scream over her head, and the air vibrated as a monstrosity flew over, it picked up members from the crowd and tore them apart in the air, as howling Abominations struggled to pick the falling pieces of flesh. The monsters seemed to be unending.

Furthermore, immense creatures the size of buildings began to emerge from the fog, and for the first time a guardsman fell, trampled under a massive foot, she saw him struggle to stand, but he was torn to pieces. The screams he made were haunting.

The carefully managed chaos that was the crowd collapsed into pandemonium.

Then the roar that froze the world and everyone in it, came through the fog.

*************************************************

Rowan’s first Nascent cry as an Empyrean was not loud, but it had a depth he did not fathom.

That cry pierced through the fog and ascended, it swept past everything and reached the clouds and it went past.

An odd bird flew through that cloud, for it was one made from fire and magma, it appeared to move through the air not by the power of its wings but by a fiery propulsion.

The red eyes of the bird burned with a piercing glow, and it seemed to be scrutinizing the events below. As the cry swept past the bird, it gave a squeak of surprise and shook it wings and bolted away to an unknown destination.

The cry went past the cloud and ascended to the heavens, but its rise was denied, it impacted on a sort of blue film that covered the heavens themselves. The blue film glowed and countless mystical runes flashed.

If one were to stand in the heavens and look at the earth below, it was possible to see that the blue film was like an upturned bowl that covered the entire region, shielding it from the outside world. 𝐞𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝗺

The cry penetrated the earth and also the lake, where it travelled to the deepest part of it, where a gigantic head lies.

The head was of a woman, who’s had long flowing hair that covered the bottom of the lake, when the cry reached the head, its eyes snapped open, and inside her long flowing hair, eyes after eyes began to also open, like the feather from a Peacock tail.

*************************************************

Rowan moved forward, his sight pulsed ahead of him disregarding his protection and his surroundings, he wanted no more souls of his people. His body moved like a machine, he simply cut down every Abomination that obstructed him.

And then he saw them, and the number of people left was a few hundred. Calcutta was a small town that was the home of more than three thousand people. In a few hours, only a fraction of them were left.

Rowan knew if not for the Guardsmen and the prompt warning from the priest, no one here would be left alive, but that horrible eventuality was about to happen.

Abominations in their hundreds buzzed around the people like flies, thinning their numbers, and a more ominous rumble was behind them as massive figures moved through the fog. Rowan saw with despair that three giants burst from the ground ahead of the people.

He had to hurry or everyone would die in the upcoming moments. It was not much, but he had another hundred and twenty Soul points, he poured it inside Ouroboros, and his speed got faster, the remnants soul of the dying prince screaming inside him.

Faster!

Faster!

Faster!