Of Past Glories.

Ritsuka sat down beside Juno as the girl healed from her wounds suffered in the fight with Sylus. While floating in the oasis, she looked at the night sky, with the only things visible being a dark moon, barely reflecting what little light it got from the Sun, and the flickering stars, a promise of light so far away from them.

All the while, Juno thought of what to do in order to get into the Citadel where Sylus was. The storm around it would make it a near impossible task to approach it on foot, not even their armors would hold against so much magic lightning.

"There has to be something we can use…" - she said to herself as she closed her eyes once again and tried to recall anything that could help them breach the storm.

While going through memory after memory, she remembered something, although said scene was somewhat shattered. She was standing with the other Knights of Ashes, talking about an item they had discovered. A rod which could nullify all magic in a certain area for a short period of time.

However, she was missing one crucial detail: The rod's location.

She began cursing herself in silence for forgetting something like that. Ever since the fall of Samsara, she was slowly losing memories from the past, and she hated that.

Even as she tried her hardest, the place where the rod was eluded her no matter what. But, she then remembered something. While she didn't know where the rod was, she knew that the leader of the Knight of Ashes hid a map that led to it, located in the Starless City.

And she knew how to get to the Starless City.

She got up as fast as she could, causing a wave of pain to flow through her, yet she paid no mind to the pain. This surprised Ritsuka, as she was still wounded and healing.

"Juno, get back down, you're not…" -

"I know where to go, follow me" -

"Where to go? For what?" -

"There's a way to block the storm around the Citadel where Sylus is, and I know of a map that can lead us to it. Just follow me, it shouldn't take long" -

Fujimaru didn't want the girl to continue traveling in this state, but he also knew that nothing he said would deter her from whatever she was going after. So, he got up as well and followed her. If he couldn't stop her, he'd at least try to keep her safe.

As they began to walk away from the oasis, Juno turned to look at the sky above them once more. She knew it was dark, the faint light of the Sun was no longer there, and the hordes of Fallen would appear at any moment, alongside whatever monstrosities were created alongside them.

"So… Mind telling me exactly where we're going?" - Ritsuka asked, and Juno looked over her shoulder at the boy.

"The Starless City" -

Fujimaru kept quiet for a few seconds before speaking again - "That's not that helpful" -

"The Starless City was the first version of the 8 Citadels, a safe haven for humanity. However, when I joined the Knights of Ashes it had been 20 years since it fell. The map that I mentioned earlier is there" -

With no more questions, Ritsuka nodded and the pair continued on their way as fast as they could, hoping to avoid whatever dangers the night could bring. However, evading the Fallen and their monsters when the Sun was down was an impossible task, and no matter how far they made it on their way to the Starless City, they would face off against them sooner or later.

They walked across the ashen landscape, seeing the ruins of a once proud and powerful world. They saw statues, buildings, and darkest of all, several corpses along their path. All of them wore crude armors and had broken weapons in their hands, a makeshift human resistance that lost attempting to fight against the Fallen.

Juno tried to keep her eyes ahead and avoid looking at the corpses. Such an imagery was not easy to take in, and she held her view high while looking in front of her. However, she couldn't keep it for long, as she felt something grabbing at her leg.

Looking downwards, there was a hand, rotten and ashen, lifting itself from the ground and clawing at her leg, attempting to break her armor. She panicked, and pulled out her weapon to destroy it, but it didn't do that, it merely broke off parts of it and caused it to dive back into the ground.

She turned to look at Ritsuka, but the boy was also dealing with his own problems, as a hand had tried to do the same thing with him, and like Juno, he was able to drive his attacker away but not destroy it. Then, the ground began to rumble. Both struggled to keep themselves on foot as something rose from beneath the ashen land around them. All they could do was get away as fast as possible.

Ending on opposite sides of their attacker, they prepared to fight whatever creature was coming after them just as it fully emerged from the ground. The thing that attacked them looked nothing like the Fallen that they fought before, even during the nights. It was large, easily towering over the pair by a large margin, its body was massive, composed of decomposing human and Fallen bodies alike, with several hands coming out of its body and 6 massive limbs acting as its legs, giving it a spider-like appearance. While it lacked a face, the front part of its body was covered with skulls in several degrees of decomposition.

Whatever this monster was, it was a product of terrible magic, necromancy that bound the corpses of those that fought in this battle into a horrible amalgamation. Whatever its purpose was, it now had a simple goal: Kill the two humans that approached its location.

It tried to crush them with its massive limbs, each dealing with it in their own way. Juno dodged the attack by dashing away and jumping on top of it, while Ritsuka used his shield to withstand the attack of the monster. While above it, Juno tried to cut into its body, but the hands moved towards the girl and blocked each attack, being destroyed but avoiding damage to the body itself.

The sound of the fighting echoed across the land, and the song of the Fallen began to sound in the distance. The horde was closing in on them, so they had to deal with whatever this creature was quickly, lest they were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of their enemies.