If you think that the worst of his Goddesses is the beastgirl, then you are sorely mistaking. Frankly, Of War, Of Beasthood and Of Darkness are the ones I hope to see otlefield.

  - Excerpt from a letter between White Pantheon Generals, dated back to the Great War.

  Elijah ran. He ighe bodies in the room and he ran. Beniami his mind and he kept running. He vaulted down the shattered staircase, and he kept running. He heard the team of men behind him keep scrambling, and he kept running. He turned a er and he…

  He came to stop.

  The sentries he had left outside, the fourteehere were o left, scrambling, spears lifted and running backward. “STOP!” Elijah shouted. “WHAT HAPPENED?!” The first sentry simply ran past him, back towards the throne room. Elijah would reprimand him ter.

  The sed slid to a stop in his heavy armour. There was red blood over the golde was fresh, still undried. “Is that yours?” Elijah asked.

  “Not mihe Seeker responded quickly as he shook his head. “I… The-There-There-There…” His words turned into inprehensible gibberish as he tried to utter something out. “I-I-I-I-I….” Elijah sidestepped the panicked man ao the Seeker. “What is going on?”

  Someone grabbed Elijah’s shoulder and pulled him to the side of the corridor. “LOOK MAN!” Elijah’s eyes followed the arm in golden armour, the pte cracked and streaked with blood. His eyes travelled along the ruined walls, to the end of the hallway.

  A flood washed over him, a flood of fear and panic. Standing there was a beastman.

  But themen didn’t have their faces half-eaten by worms, with is crawling out of hollow sockets that once carried eyes. Beastmen’s fur was thiough to serve as a winter rug and they kept it and groomed, not matted with blood into old clumps, interspersed with patches of baldness. Beastmen didn’t have their ribcages exposed and their chests were filled with muscle and ans, not see-through. Most importantly, beastmen bled from open wounds.

  Elijah blinked as his eyes gzed over. The… the…. The thing took a step. Its cracked hoof smming down on the ground as the band of sentries ran further into the fortress. Behind the monster, another appeared, shuffling behind it. The first was a wolfman, this one had a goat’s skull for a head. Then another. And another.

  Someone grabbed Elijah’s hand. “e boss! E!” It was Samuel. Elijah saw the man’s eyes through the visor in his golde. It was shameful that this man carried himself so much better than Elijah, especially when Elijah was supposed to be in charge of this whole expedition.

  “Where?”

  “Give an order, retreat back to the throne room.” Samuel said. Those words finally kickstarted Elijah’s mind. Orders, and, men to lead. Atis’ soul. There were things to do, people that relied on him, people he had to return to. He couldn’t panic here.

  “TO THE THRONE ROOM!” Elijah roared with a renew vigour. He lifted his spear, aimed it at the monster as it took aep, this one faster tha, and elled Alsaria’s holy light once again. It carved through the monster’s chest and the beam faded away. Elijah’s fidence faded when he looked through the beastman’s chest. The light had tunnelled a hole straight through the first and the sed beastmen.

  Both kept moving. Elijah bliurned, and saw his Seekers already running away. Elijah followed them. Through the ruined hallways of this a dwarven hold, he jumped across the ruiohe cracked statues and shattered swords. Through corridors painted in dried blood and finally through a massive doorway; the doors had been colpsed inwards. The rest of the Seekers, forty-four now, stood there, assembled. The campfires stilled roared, but no oeo them anymore.

  Some were red-faced after a sprint, others nervous and looking around, several were jumping at shadows. Elijah looked around the throne room, he k had breaches, but he didn’t pay attention to them apart from idle curiosity before.

  The ceiling ockmarked with holes, both of the sides had corridors leading away from the throne room too. There was the entrance behind them, two more tunnels leading deeper opposite that. Even a er of the floor was missing. He should run…

  To where?

  Splitting up would only lower the amount of firepower they could put out. Alsaria’s magic worked best when it was trated. Two Seekers had the birength of three individuals, but forty could beat four-hundred. “HOLD!” Elijah shouted as he marched to the throhe soul jar taining what was left of Atis was still sat there, good. “SPLIT INTO GROUPS! TEAKE THE FRONT, THEN ONE ON EACH SIDE. THE REST SUPPORT! YOU ON THE SIDE, KEEP WATCH, CALL OUT IF YOU SEE ANYTHING!”

  “YES HIGH SEEKER!” The forty-four men responded in unison. Instincts fed through years of training started to awaken slowly. They may have never seen monsters like this, but they were still Seekers; men chosen by Alsaria herself to be the first line of defence against the fotten monsters of this world. The Sects of Guguo, Maisara’s Padins, Fortia’s Guardians, even Essa’s preages could only bow their heads to the prestige of the Golden Order.

  Elijah marched up the steps leading to the stohrourned and looked over the heads of his men. His legs were w by themselves now, he was hanging off a cliff and his body was simply w by itself. He khe mome any thought enter his mind, it would crack whatever sort of shield was safeguarding his sanity.

  A monster appeared behind the men. Then another. And another. Elijah saw the ones he had bsted a hole into. He shut his mind up and directed his men, it was better for them not to thiher. “PHALANX” The men in the tre ran to support. Thirty spears aimed straight ahead. “CHARGE BEAMS!” Elijah ordered and the mass of spearheads started to glow with light.

  More of those undead beastmen rose from the ground, there was some humans interspersed in too. In clothes that once would have been colourful shawls, they were now dirtied through being buried, ripped and bloody. “HOLD!” Elijah anded. It was better to let the monsters build up. “HOLD!” Elijah shouted agaihem have a few steps more. “HOLD!” Let them build up a seore. The horde crossed and shuffled forwards. A huge one was in the back, it robably a risen minotaur. Two huge horns oher side of a skull, its head half covered in muscle, the rest exposed bone. Elijah almost panicked, he gave the and more to steady himself than for the men.

  “FIRE!”

  For a moment, it was as if someone had turned on a spotlight aimed directly at the undead.

  In the moment, chests slid from their legs, heads disected from their legs, and limbs crashed into the ground. Elijah’s eyes readjusted to the darkness of the hold after the light almost blinded him. Three quarters of the corridor had been wiped . Destroyed, annihited, certaiions of the creatures had been ied from the existence. What remained y lifeless on the ground. Hopefully it ermaly this time. The team of thirty Seekers cheered. Elijah threw in his own.

  They would be going home after all! The rousing cheer was dampened by one of the Seekers on the side. “THERE’S MORE HERE!” Then the Seeker from the other side added his own arm.

  “AOO!” Elijah looked straight ahead, there were more approag from the front too.

  “REARRANGE FORCES! TEN MEN OHER SIDE! TEN TOWARDS THE FRONT! THE REST WATCH THE OTHER ENTRANCES AND SUPPORT WHERE NEEDED!” Elijah watched his men rearrahemselves, he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. They were Seekers, they would survive. How could they not? They were the chosen of Alsaria. “THEY BE STOPPED! SEND THEM BACK SIX FEET UNDER!” Another series of cheers. “PHALANX AND FIRE AT WILL! CUT THEM DOWN AS THEY E!”

  The three teams became lightshows. Beams of lights shot forwards from them as they were each a giant fshlight being rapidly flicked on and off. On and off. Elijah’s eyes quickly became unadjusted to the darkness of the fortress, but it was obvious what was happening. Each flicker of light was slightly lohe beam slightly thicker as it pushed further and further into the corridor. Elijah took a deep breath, his fingers gripping his owightly. For the first time since he had seen that hand, he felt as if the way forwards ened.

  He looked straight ahead, with each fsh of light from his men, there was a flicker of gold. He squinted, beastmen rarely wold, aainly not full pte armour, what was… His question was answered before he even fi. A fshed through the air, it hit one of his men.

  It was a golden spear, almost a pike. Simple, with a broad head for elling magic. A spear belong to one of his own Seekers. It dug itself deep into a man’s chest. The man screamed and fell backwards. Elijah’s mind raced along with a figure running towards him. A Seeker in golden armour, his head at an odd angle as if his neck had been snapped.

  The men fired faster and faster, all aiming for that ghoul. It rushed towards them, colpsed onto the ground and slid towards the ground into their formation. One man was caught, the armour on his calves split in half by the ghoul’s bde. Elijah picked up his spear, aimed it at that new ghoul and bsted it with magic.

  His beam split it in half. He swung his spear again. And now into quarters, the golden armour was strong, built to withstand any magic apart from Alsaria’s light. Why would Seekers need prote from their own ons? He had questiohat choiot now.

  A figure fell from the ceiling. Another undead beastmen. Its legs were bared bohey crumpled as they hit the ground and the undead colpsed, ks of meat exploding over the floor but there was no blood with them. Then ahis one fell onto the . It simirly hit. A third. A fourth. The seventh nded on a pile of bodies. The eighth nded on the seventh. The ninth stood up, saw a Seeker and started shambling towards him.

  Elijah drew his sword, the bde eself in white light. He hefted his spear, the tip already glowing. “SEEKERS!” He shouted. “THE LIGHT GUIDES US!”

  “THE LIGHT GUIDES US!” He got as a response.

  “SE THEM!” Elijah shouted.

  “SE THEM!” The rest repeated the war cry. He swung the spear and three of the walking corpses which had fallen from the ceiling split in two. There was a reason the Golden Order was the most elite fighting for existehey were feared in the Great War.

  They were feared now.

  Creatures of the dark; flee.