Hamqua City

  Unnamed ti

  P Zorix 1I

  January 20th

  Year 9025

  The m sun bathed Hamqua City in a goldes rays gleaming off the roofs of the hundreds of buildings iy.

  The air was filled with the st of blood, burning flesh and ashes as the demon host gathered on the pins outside the city.

  Above the main gates, giants heavy steel armour and elven mages biheir power to repel the invading demons.

  Layers of protective entments shimmered to life over the city’s fortified walls, bolstered by the efforts of the elven mages.

  The elven archers nocked and fired magic arrows, raining them down ohousands of unranked demons surging like a tide of shadows.

  “Hold the line!”

  One giant bellowed, his voice eg like thunder across the walls and the iant threw giant fming boulders atop the demons.

  But even though they were unranked, a great number of these demons had been fighting for months now. They had learo trol their powers more effectively and were capable of juring demoniergy barriers to block such obvious attacks.

  Behind the demon lihe Low-Rank demons barked orders, with some of them even yawning at the sight of the b battle.

  “Breachers, forward!”

  One ordered, and the group of unranked demons he had reminded multiple times that they were the ‘Breachers’ charged forward with their steel battering rams.

  These ones were older unranked demons who were over Level 90 and had powerful strength. Mostly animal-type demons.

  They drove the reinforced tools against the metal gates and the elven mages unleashed torrents of spells to stop them.

  Fireballs, lightning bolts, and shards of ice rained down, carving fiery paths and freezing swathes of the battlefield. One unlucky Demon was struck mid-stride by a bolt of lightning, their charred remains colpsing into the dirt.

  But the demons had their own mages too.

  Protected by a cluster of shield bearers, the unranked demons with magic-type skills unleashed their spells in response.

  Demons with grappling hooks and dders rushed uhe onsught, dodging the arrows loosed by the elven archers above.

  A few fell, pierced by the glowing projectiles that detonated upon impact, sending shockwaves through the nearby ranks. But more tinued, sg the walls in a frenzy.

  Above the walls, the giants fought to push them back. One giant swung their club a multiple demons flying from the dders, while another hurled boulders the size of wagons at them.

  Meanwhile, the elven mages worked tirelessly to maintain the magical barriers. Their hands trembled with exertion as they elled streams of magito the walls, bolstering their defences even as the battering ram thudded relentlessly against the gate.

  Suddenly, a squad of demons joihe fray, wheeling in improvised elven artillery and ung fming projectiles over the walls.

  The bombs exploded upon impact, engulfiions of the ramparts in r fmes. Elves frantically scrambled to extinguish the fires, using water spells and buckets from nearby cisterns.

  The defenders did their best, fighting as hard as they could while hoping for reinforts from other territories.

  As, the only reinforts that could e to them had been blocked by the lines of Mid-Ranked demons far beyond the city’s region.

  Eventually, the siege reached its cresdo as the sun climbed higher into the sky.

  A squad of unranked demons with fire and ice magic was carefully guided to the front. They took positiohe battering rams and began to pour their spells without holding back.

  Waves of searing fmes heated the steel until it glowed red-hot, only to be followed by an icy frost that rapidly cooled it. Over and over, fire and ice cshed, weakening the metal with each cycle.

  The metal gates, even with their magical reinforts, began to buckle uhe strain.

  Cracks spiderwebbed across the heated and frozeal as the battering rams smmed against it with bone-jarring force. Finally, with a deafening screech, the gates gave way, shattering into jagged shards that rained down like shrapnel.

  “Push forward!”

  The Low-Rank demons ordered and the unranked surged through the breach with a roar. With the gates broken down, some of the demon mages charged in and to the sides, attag the backs of the walls that were not protected by magic.

  They bsted ses of the walls into rubble, colpsiire stretches and sending the defending elves tumbling to their deaths as they opened additional pathways into the city.

  With the gates down and the walls breached, the siege was effectively over.

  The Demons abaheir siege equipment, swarming into Hamqua City like a flood of shadows, f the defeo do the ohing they were avoiding–-meeting the demons in melee bat!

  Ireets of the city, chaned.

  Unranked Demons, wild and bloodthirsty, overwhelmed the unranked giants and elves who had bee line of defehey grouped together in packs, overwhelming their oppos with numbers.

  Fights broke out here and there over who got what soul, leading to some of them being caught by the elves and dying, but surprisingly, those were the minority.

  One group of elven warriors stood their ground in a narrow alleyway, fighting valiantly and cutting down Demo and right. But for every Demon that fell, three more took its pce.

  The elves were surrouheir formation broken, and the alleyway soon became a sughterhouse.

  In the tral pza, the unranked giants, as tall as buildings, swung their massive clubs and axes, each strike sending bodies flying. One giant crushed a dozen Demoh his spiked hammer, r aloud, but the piant was soon taken down.

  The demons adapted very quickly.

  Dozens of them swarmed each giant, g and biting savagely. They leapt onto the giants’ backs, sshing at their necks and faces.

  The giants tried to shake them off, but their size worked against them. One by ohe giants fell, their bodies dragged to the ground uhe sheer weight of the Demons.

  Once grouhe giants stood no ce. The Demons desded on them in a frenzy, tearing through flesh and bohlessly.

  The goal of the demons was not to quer, but to exterminate, as extermination gave the precious EXP these unranked demons o overe their levelling walls and gain a Rank.

  ◇　◇　◇

  Amidst the chaotic series of battles of Hamqua City’s colpse, a small ti of demons carved their way through the battlefield.

  Leading them was a tanned brown-skinned demoness, with long white hair and obsidian bck eyes.

  She was the embodiment of the phrase; “Small but Mighty”, as wherever she passed, dozens of elves and giants fell.

  pared to her 4”4’ frame, these giants were ginormous. But her bde tore through their skin, pierced their flesh and split their bones.

  Behind her were four others, two moving like a well-rehearsed troupe of executioners, while the other two, though initially out of sync, were quickly adapting.

  Naturally, Xaren was among those two.

  He infused his gravity magito his sword and cut through the necks of elves over and over. His grey skin seemed to blur in the smoke-filled air as he twisted and spun, his short stature making him harder to pin down.

  Just as he cut through an elf, a giant burst out from a nearby building and swung a massive club at him, but Xaren lightened his body a to the side.

  He drove his bde deep into the giant’s calf, elig a roar as the giant colpsed to one knee.

  Before Xaren could regain his bance, something bck fshed in his eyes and he looked up to see the giant’s head falling to the ground.

  Xaren caught sight of Ilya’s white hair as she tilted her head to the side to avoid an elf’s arrow, before kig off the ground and blitzing towards the archer.

  They drew a sword and rushed at her, but she parried the sword easily and drove her bde through their chest, her eyes locked on her arget even as her current victim fell.

  A scream entered his ears auro see Bjorn, the leopard demo in his first battle crushing the windpipe of an elf, before hurling the lifeless body into a group of nearby elves and scattering them like bowling pins.

  Xaren stretched out his left hand, and an invisible weight seemed to press down on the elves. Their movements slowed, and Bjorn didn’t hesitate to hammer his fists into them, crag their ribs like dry twigs under his blows.

  As Xaren rose to his feet, Carad Kravok arrived beside him, both soaked in the blood of tless elves.

  “Why’d you stop?” Kravok queried.

  “Needed a moment to rouse my magic.”

  Xaren responded as he turned his gaze towards a nearby broatue. His attention then shifted to Ilya, who was rushing toward a group of a dozen elves standing with their backs to the statue.

  Deg to turn those elves into his EXP, Xaren raised his left hand in their dire, then pulled back his arm with a and.

  “Attract.”