"Kin of Cosmos detected. Activating autonomous defense response: Shell. Estimated number of combatants, 12,385. Danger level low. No need to wake main consciousness. Commence."

  —???

  ———

  Lorelai

  The world around Lorelai descends into a frightening chorus of pure unadulterated horror. Knights, legionnaires, and even the machines appear to lose themselves to a sudden, gruesome frenzy. They collapse onto the ground and scream, beg, for mercy. They rip out their eyes and tear at their skin in a delirious haze of bloody self-mutilation. Mangled bodies slowly start to dot out the field, their shredded, oozing, delirious faces frozen into a sob.

  This isn’t right. The battlefield is a gruesome place, but not like this. Not like this.

  Lorelai can’t move. She can’t bring herself to look; it’s all just too terrible.

  W-what… this can’t be.

  She tries to speak, but no sound leaves her throat. Lorelai tentatively turns her head to Gravitas as if expecting him to be responsible for this atrocity, but he’s confused as well. For once, she sees his body tremble in fear. His taunting remarks are gone, replaced by pitiful gulps of fright.

  Suddenly, Gravitas grasps at his head and collapses fully onto the blood-stained dirt below. He writhes in resistance against some unknown presence. What’s happening? She doesn’t know. She’s never seen anything like this in her life. Her skin crawls at the demented sight; but before she can attempt do something, anything, to stop this nightmare, a sharp gouge rips into her head.

  Without any sign, without any warning, a sinister presence worms its way inside her.

  It hurts. Skin flays, eyes roll, throat burns, heart pounds and pounds and pounds—

  Flee. She must flee. She has to live. Instinct. Will. Her nature. All begging to—

  What’s going on? Whispers and smiles tempting her to release herself—

  She can’t respond to the voice. No. She can’t give in. No matter how much it tries to torment her, she can’t give in—

  Make it stop make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP.

  Lorelai screams with every bit of strength left within and then smashes her head against the ground. Her vision reels, head throbbing with pain, but at least her madness disappears. She can think clearly again.

  Horrible. Utterly vile. It was as if the darkest, most foul bits of humanity had coalesced into a singular, wicked manifestation of malice and burrowed into her soul. Who could possibly be responsible for this? Evil. There is no one in this world filled with such incomprehensible evil. There is no—

  Gravitas roars out with a desperate shout next to her and crushes his own hand into a bloody pulp with a swing of his mace. He wheezes, exhausted and convulsing in distress, but it appears the pain has helped him get rid of the presence as well.

  Lorelai looks around and attempts to find any traces of life left, but no. Thousands of lives… all slain without any resistance. Without even a chance to face their own end.

  It’s just her and Gravitas now in this sprawling graveyard, alone.

  N-No. Maybe those in the Alexandria have been spared. I need to go back. I need to find Celia—

  Crunch.

  A rustle. A footstep. Something is moving.

  There, far in the distance, a figure emerges out of the miasma.

  It is a knight, the Polus knight Lorelai discovered hidden in the grotto. It is rusted, and decayed. A remnant of old originating thousands of years from the past, and yet here it is before her, lurching forward with an unnatural gait.

  The thing is more horrifying than any she has seen before. It does not move like a human. Instead of a steady walk, it twitches in an erratic manner while dragging its limbs around like a newborn unable to control its own body.

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  It is a mockery of mankind, something only donning its appearance. But what unsettles her most of all is the complete utter silence. Nothing. The only sound is the clanking of its rotting armor as this thing, this abomination, advances forward with a vacant gaze.

  There is not a shred of life in those darkened sockets. The Throne doubts that it’s a living being to begin with.

  Lorelai doesn’t know why it’s here, but one fact remains clear in her mind.

  An atrocity is approaching.

  Lorelai and Gravitas lock eyes. Not a word is spoken between them. Their previous aggressions, their vitriolic jest… none of it matters now. All that’s exchanged is a mutual look of terror and a quiet, tentative truce.

  The thing shambles into the crimson plain. Stomp upon stomp, it crushes the fallen corpses with a squelch of its boot. Eventually it happens upon a Polus knight. A spear is impaled upon their torso: a fortunate soul they are to have perished through steel rather than insanity. The being slowly grasps the handle with its rusty gauntlet. Feeling. Savoring. It inspects the weapon before pulling it out, blood spurting from the corpse’s chest, and then it turns directly toward Lorelai.

  The thing arches its back; it twists its arm into an unnaturally long stride, and then throws.

  “Gravitas,” Lorelai whispers, gaze fixed on the shuffling horror. “Gravitas, lift your gravity now!”

  The force pushing down on her disappears. Her wings are free, and so she quickly leaps up to the sky. The spear tears right past her, hurtling through the air and unleashing an unearthly, echoing shriek. A second sooner and Lorelai would have surely perished before she could even take another breath.

  Sweat begins to drip down her cheek; nerves overtake her. If she loses focus for even an instant, her death is guaranteed. Quick. Miserable. Without even the chance to cry.

  A furious shockwave from the attack sends her tumbling along the wind. Never in all her years did she imagine herself to be so helpless whilst amongst her dominion, yet here she is: flailing about like a scattered leaf.

  The thing cocks its head and searches the graveyard for another weapon. It ignores her, treats her as some insect waiting to be dealt with. But there’s nothing else she can do.

  Lorelai can sense it: the encroach of death. The moment she enters its range, her heart will be crushed in a single pierce.

  Run away, her body screams. Run far, far away until your throat is coarse and your blood is boiling. And then run even farther, to the very edges of the world so that you may never see its wretched sight again.

  But she can’t. The thing is blocking off the entrance to the Alexandria. She can’t allow such a despicable being to lay its hands on Polus’s hope.

  She has to fight, even if it means doing so alongside her enemy.

  “Little bird,” Gravitas grunts. “I… my strength will only allow one final burst of might. What of you?”

  It appears Gravitas can sense it, too. They are but mere specks of dust before the rotting knight.

  “It’s the same for me. Only one chance.”

  “Then I will snare its movements. The honor is yours to slay it.”

  The danger is mine, more like.

  Yet deep within, Lorelai knows no other can take to the task. Her speed is all she has left now. Their only salvation.

  Gravitas lifts his mace up high and gathers a discharge of violet energy. It surges all throughout his body, scorching his armor and grafting the plate to his skin, but he persists nonetheless and begins to invoke a desperate chant to Creation with all his being.

  “O’ formless Mother. O’ menacing light. Let loose your wrath—”

  “Wait!” Lorelai yells.

  The rotting knight readies its volley once more. Gravitas is helpless; he needs to focus on the invocation, but that is exactly what it has been waiting for this moment — the moment when the pair’s defenses are at their weakest.

  Lorelai dashes forth and crashes straight into the speeding projectile. Its force threatens to penetrate through her guard, but she manages to deflect it to the side at the last moment and sends it digging deep into the earth.

  Her arms tremble, numb from the impact, but her efforts haven’t been in vain.

  “—and all shall be crushed before your weight, immeasurable!”

  Gravitas unleashes the condensed energy, creating a floating, violet cloud directly above the emotionless horror.

  The cloud screeches out a warped, garbled cry and - with a flash - sends down a ray of gravitational force. It overwhelms the being, violently suppressing it in an inescapable prison as the surrounding dirt crumbles into a pulverized dust.

  The atrocity twitches. It convulses without a sound, but she doubts it can feel pain. The force appears to be a mere inconvenience. Regardless, now is her chance.

  Lorelai flies toward the highest peak of the world, basking in the dissipating moonlight and breaking through the clouds into the sun’s gentle warmth once more. Prolonging this battle will only lead to her doom.

  Lorelai takes in a deep breath and manifests the gold and silver auras onto her trusted partners. She spins and twirls, gradually gaining more and more speed as she dances through the air. Every bit of strength, her desperation, her resolve, trickles out of her body and fills the sky in a beautiful mirage of color. Her performance nears its completion; a whirlwind rages around her.

  “Gravitas, I am ready.”

  “Then go. End it,” he wheezes, body nearly on the brink of collapse.

  Lorelai has to end it here. After all, she’s made a promise to return back to Celia. A promise to return back home, safely into the embrace of the one she loves most.

  The whirlwind reaches its coalescence, and Lorelai conducts her last, final movement in the dance.

  “To the Stars above, I bid you for only a singular wish: Guide my blades true.”

  The Throne breaks through the sound’s veil and bolts across the expanse as a beam of pure, unrelenting light. Her flight razes all blocking her path; an aurora follows close from behind, creating an ethereal trail of hue in her wake as she closes in with a speed beyond any her soul has felt before.

  Gravitas’s spell is lifted. The horror’s neck is exposed.

  With the souls of every slain Polus warrior steadying her hand, she slashes—and cuts through naught but thin air.

  The last thing Lorelai feels is the sudden bite of metal slicing her throat and the cold chill of death.