The Eternal Dance of Light and Dark

by The King of Ravens

Having just survived a nine year long civil war, those of Lucael would be forgiven for entertaining the notion of peace. However, new threats are rising, and as the son of the king, it is Caiellis's job to combat them, despite his youth. But as the leaders of a rival nation declare war and mysterious figures pull strings in the shadows, Cai will be drawn into the fate of the world.

30. The Storm

Day Thirteen

.*.*.*.

Ilentia strode through the brightly lit avenues of the Augur's Quarter, the playground of the rich and privileged in Usnaan, her shoes clacking on the precious stones embedded into the path towards the Glittering Mansion, formerly one of the favourite personal retreats of the Last Tyrant but now the residence of Eras Stormwind, the spoilt brat that was the Master of Wealth. The ostentatious clothing of the people around the Master of Gluttony repulsed her, and she recognised many attendees of the Address of the Archlord in the celebrating crowds (despite not seeing their faces in the Tower of Ecstasy).

Eras had evidently taken Tradax's words of continuing to indulge to heart, as the bands residing in golden-plates gazebos either side of Ilentia blasted out intrusive and annoying tunes that fought with each other in a cacophonous battle for dominance instead of complementing one another like any normal orchestra, the crowd around her swaying as they partook in increasingly dangerous but adversely stimulating narcotics and indulging on all of the expensive pleasures on offer. Although the quickest route to the Glittering Mansion in the Augur's Quarter would technically been through the Hedonist's Quarter, Ilentia had chosen to avoid that particular pathway because of the debaucheries that would be being committed by the Archlord's personal Order of Rapture and their sisters in the Order of Entertainment.

The city of Usnaan was alight with revelry, which smacked as extremely arrogant to Ilentia's sudden need to make everything have military precision, though she could tell that this would be the final night of celebration before the coming battle. She would have organised the military and had it patrolling the city, establishing defensive emplacements all around that would help repulse the Lucaelian invaders, but Tradax had been having none of it, insisting that the rapturous festivities would be far more useful than any conventional defences. Destructive and hazardous fireworks arced towards the roiling sky from all across the city, lighting up the darkness with their crackling displays of explosive light, and the Tempest of Craving above the revellers seemed to crackle and rumble in approval, red lightning coruscating through its tumultuous and suffocating (to Ilentia) clouds that looked more like billowing palls of ash than normal strata.

Her own Glutton's Quarter was holding the Emperor's Banquet under the Archlord's orders, which she had supervised for a time before she had delegated the duty to her underlings when her presence had been requested by the Master of Wealth. She had considered refusing the invitation to the Glittering Mansion, but anything that could get her away from the bloated fools that comprised the upper echelons of her Order was something to be taken.

Every Master of the Orders of Passion were putting on their most extravagant shows, with the Slaughter Games between gladiators and the most dangerous captive creatures (that Ilentia personally thought should have been kept and released against the Lucaelians instead) making the coliseums of the Champion's Quarter run red with the blood of the slain. Ilentia thought that was extremely wasteful, as they would need every soldier they could get against the might of the legions of Lucael and their angelic benefactors, but when asking Tradax about it the man had smiled sibilantly and replied with something enigmatic and mysterious about the Tempest of Craving's creators liking such actions, and that those who died deserved to be culled before the battle tomorrow (or today, since it was past midnight).

She knew that the self-titled Archlord must have something up his sleeve, as the lack of military preparations would suggest that (though to her credit Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin had prepared her Enforcers for war and some were guarding the military objectives whilst the population celebrated debauchery) he had evidently planned for the power of this storm to be enough to repel the invaders. However, Ilentia had still sensed a military way in which the celebrations were set out, and that once the Welkalites had finished gorging on turpitude they would be relatively well prepared to fight the Lucaelians with the insane aggression they were famed form.

Some perverse part of Ilentia that had been growing slowly within her secretly wished for the Welkalites to be defeated, but she didn't know if Tradax's continued survival was essential to her life so couldn't give into this urge of hers. Furthermore, the Master of Rapture (Archlord of Rapture – that name just exudes arrogance, exactly like the man himself) also might know what she was thinking (though he wasn't a Blue mage, he was still her master and reanimator), so she tried to suppress the thoughts when in his presence. Anyway, a gigantic loss would serve the Welkalites (Ilentia had noticed that she had started to refer to them as a distinct group, instead of her nationality, though she had started it automatically and didn't really know what it meant) right for not preparing properly for a full scale attack from arguably the most militaristic and formidable nation in the modern world. Nevertheless, she would still fight and kill every Lucaelian that got in her way, and feed the storm with their blood.

Caught up in thought, Ilentia had failed to notice that she had simply stopped moving and was looking up at the sky, the whirlpool of crackling crimson rage transfixing her and making the demon residing in her heart laugh loudly in exultation. Luckily, she had decided to wear the scarlet masquerade mask that concealed her identity before going out, so she wouldn't be heckled by inebriated civilians aware of her prestigious role, and as such no one had questioned it, assuming that she must have taken a hefty dose of drugs and had simply lost the ability to move.

Looking up at the roiling tempest of rage that made even Ilentia want to commit acts of unspeakable vice (which was a testament to its effects on the maddened populace of Usnaan), Ilentia was once again reminded of one of the memories of her former self. The young woman she had been had loved the stars, loved tracing patterns in her mind joining the twinkling lights and imagining that her and Otio's parents were there. Though Ilentia had changed dramatically, the fact that the stars she had once loved were hidden by this malevolent typhoon made her feel uneasy, despite the fact that the blaring lights of the City of Pleasure more often than not blocked them out due to the photo-pollution.

She soon dismissed the uncharacteristic thoughts from her mind, and walked swiftly through the extravagantly garbed revellers with the money to enter the exclusive Augur's Quarter, pushing some out of her way when they danced in front of her and scowling all the while at the blatant displays of wealth around every stall selling ridiculously expensive and rare hallucinogenics pillaged from the Yentarian Republic and containing mind-altering Blue mana that could irrevocably damage the user's psyche or lock them inside it forever, not that such consequences seemed to deter the rich from flocking to purchase this new craze.

The Glittering Mansion was hard to miss, as it was the second most impressive structure (well, the Towers of Ecstasy were technically more than one, but everyone seemed to agree that they counted as a single building) in the Augur's Quarter, the building covered in gold and rare crystals that had volatile Red mana captured inside of them, forever held in the instant of detonation and reminding Ilentia quite strongly of her own baleful red eyes that shone with the last defiance the one who had lived her life before her had felt.

However, Ilentia was aware that the exterior of the palace was apparently nowhere near as impressive as the underground section, vast vaults of shimmering wealth from all of the Empire's conquests and the taxes of the people that truly gave the Glittering Mansion its name.

Rumour had it that Eras Stormwind enjoyed killing those that displeased him by drowning them in molten coins, and that he himself spent entire days in the catacombs filled to the brim and bursting with coins of every variety – according to some of the more wild stories that had seemingly originated from the Custodians that guarded him, one could hear his insane laughter if they stood outside of the vaults, maddened giggling that echoed throughout the underground section as he bathed in the excess of wealth. Ilentia would not put it past the Master of Wealth, as while he was only nineteen he had lived a life of luxury due to the iron hand his aunt, Gretia Stormwind, had ruled the Order with, having all the benefits of the money she extorted from the already abused populace.

Several Custodians that wore ornate golden armour that was manufactured in such a way that it wouldn't actually provide much protection but in turn not hinder the movement of the wearer stood outside of the ornate gateway, and Ilentia simply took off her mask and gave them the full force of her terrifying gaze before they uncrossed their spears and allowed her to walk through. The second she did so, the Master of Gluttony was immediately hassled by a tiny and spindly man that wore robes far too big for him.

"Ahh, the famed Mistress of Gluttony! My master was expecting you!" he declared loudly, and Ilentia frowned slightly before returning to her original expression. She wasn't aware that she was known as the "Mistress", and much preferred the genderless title that she had become accustomed to. At any rate, despite only hearing it for a few seconds, this man's voice had already begun to seriously grate on her nerves, and wondered for a second how Eras could ever stand to keep him around before remembering how insane the teenager was himself.

"Where is Eras?" she demanded, cutting straight to the point instead of wasting time with meaningless pleasantries – not that she had anything else to be doing instead of acceding to Eras's wishes of speaking with her, but none of them needed to know that. The arrogant smirk that had adorned the man's features that seemed specifically tailored to be adept at assuming an expression of mediocrity (and Ilentia wouldn't be surprised if he belonged to one of the slave families of the Stormwind, as they had been a powerful and influential noble family in the reign of the old emperors) instantaneously faded, and for a second Ilentia thought he was going to grovel at her feet for mercy.

"Right this way, Mistress," he replied, bending his back low and leading her further into the mansion, the way he was behaving a clear indicator of how Eras treated his servants, and Ilentia would have threatened him with death if he continued to call her that if she didn't know that she wouldn't ever be visiting this place in the future, and that it would be a complete waste of time. Then again, Gretia had always been referred to in that manner, so maybe it was just customary of them to say that.

Ilentia briefly looked at the colourful and most probably extremely exaggerated tapestries lining the walls of the ornate staircase they had ascended that depicted the heritage of the Stormwind, the only surviving noble family after the dissolution of the Old Empire, as they had adapted very quickly to the new rule of every person for themselves and instantly taken advantage of the civilians' new-found craze for indulging in the pleasures the emperors and their descendants (the other noble families) kept to themselves. Gretia Stormwind had seized control of the family through a series of brutal coups in executed in quick succession, and she had defended the traditional reliquaries of her family from the hordes of mobs gone wild with their new freedom until such a vast amount had died trying to get in that the ground was caked with ash.

Ilentia really couldn't care less what had happened in the past; she was far more concerned with the present – that was one trait that had carried over from her dark resurrection, that utter focus on the present that was exhibited by other Welkalites but never to the degree that Ilentia took it, which is why she found the fact that her mind often decided to present her with random memories that she wasn't supposed to know disturbing.

"Wait right here, and I will go see if the Master is ready," the man grovelled, and Ilentia glared at him again as they stopped before a large door that would have lead into a large, and private, room. Ilentia was intrigued to find out why Eras had wanted to see her, as if he had contacted the other Masters then the whole thing would be significantly more formal, but that didn't mean that she had to give into his little games and fantasies of narcissism – unlike Tradax, who had authority over her, Ilentia had no patience of these silly illusions of grandeur. To that end she growled, "I am a very busy woman, maggot. I would appreciate not having to leave my Order at the time of the Emperor's Banquet alone much longer."

The man swallowed nervously, clearly sensing the threat that Ilentia had poured into her words, and to emphasise her point she slid one of her elegant swords slightly out of its elaborate sheath, the fine metal glinting in the mana-fuelled lights that shone down from above. Still, if he let the Master of Gluttony in before Eras was ready, then he would face a much more painful death than the one Ilentia was threatening him with, so he protested, "Please, Mistress-"

That was it. The Master of Gluttony contemptuously flicked out her sword, the fractal edge of the master-crafted blade gliding towards the man with the grace of a master warrior's strike, despite the fact that Ilentia had never had any form of weaponry training in the past and that the former her had relied much more on her fiery Red mana to incinerate her foes.

Ershun Firefist had named the blades ridiculously over the top titles from ancient Welkalite mythology, but when the ownership of the twin swords had transferred over to Ilentia she had renamed them – not that she was originally going to, it went against all of her sensibilities to name a tool, as naming something gave it power and the swords were hers to command. However, the blades had been enchanted with powerful magic, and seemed to have slivers of personality, so Ilentia indulged in a moment of sentimentality in dubbing the swords. The blade still locked within her right sheath reacted more to her angry Red mana, and seemed to enjoy gigantic outbursts of emotion and passion, so Ilentia had named it Fire, whereas the sinister weapon that was impaled through the Stormwind butler's throat was simply called Malice, and while it could be a very precise weapon it preferred to inflict as much pain as possible with its surgical strikes. Malice drunk greedily from the crimson vitae fountaining from the once irritating but now dead man's severed arteries, and Ilentia sheathed it with an elegant flourish before it gorged too much on the blood. Malice was a blade that enhanced her Black mana, with a personality that reminded her of Arrapackxia to boot, and took pleasure in the agony it caused, whereas its less subtle twin revelled in utter and indiscriminate destruction.

Ilentia pushed the door open with a slam of wood on stone, and a pale figure that had several servants adjusting its hair spun around with a jolt of surprise, his yellow eyes highlighting his rage at being interrupted before it softened when they noticed just who had intruded, converting into something more akin to feigned pleasure at meeting her, and a glimmer of avarice. Eras was an adolescent of a medium height, and though he had lived a pampered life he was still slender, although more due to his body type instead of any limited exercise he did or any lack of sustenance, and he was pale in spite of a life lived underneath the burning Welkalite sun – though judging by the rumours that he was obsessed with his wealth, the boy barely spent any time outside. The skin that Ilentia could see however was perfect and unblemished by the spots that usually frequented those of Eras's age, but he had probably subjected himself to many expensive treatments in order to remove them.

His eyes were yellow orbs that were framed by his thin blonde hair made him look slightly older than his young age of nineteen, and shone with the greed Ilentia had noticed earlier, which made her wonder why she had been invited in. He quickly dismissed the servants, one of which had been carrying a selection of masks for him to wear (Eras was barely seen without a garish costume and mask that emphasised how much wealth the bloated New Empire had managed to accumulate from the abused populace). In spite of his pettiness and spoilt nature, Eras was intelligent and ruled his Order of Wealth cunningly, though extremely selfishly. He opened his mouth to speak, but Ilentia resolved to take control of the situation and snapped, "I'm in no mood for your pleasantries and pointless platitudes, Eras, so get to the damn point of why you have invited me, unless you want to end up the same as the insufferable servant that greeted me at the door."

The Master of Wealth gulped anxiously for a moment at her wrath, and to highlight her point she moved from the doorway so that the gory demise of the chamberlain (that was being cleaned up by the servants who had just now vacated the private chambers), but soon composed himself and broke into an arrogant smirk, "More brusque than I expected from one of Tradax's puppets-"
Both of Ilentia's blades were crossed over his throat before he had any chance to react, but instead of scaring the teenager he just grinned wider, showing how insane he was, as he was not fazed one bit by the proximity of instant death – as Ilentia was perfectly willing to kill him, though Tradax would probably be furious with her for the simple reason that he would have to instate a new Master of Wealth and that one of the few demons would have been sent back to Sancturia. "Do not make me repeat myself, Eras. Why did you request to see me?"

"I wanted to discuss something with you," he murmured, his voice suddenly and unexpectedly tinted with fear, and Ilentia frowned as his eyes immediately began to fill with terror at his current predicament, his breathing becoming faster and more hitched, "Please let me live, Ilentia, please..."

The woman lowered her swords and quickly sheathed the blades, both of them disappointed that there would be no damage wreaked upon the young man, although Eras seemed quite shaken, trembling as he beckoned over to two padded chairs further into the room. Or apparently not, as he stiffened and walked over to the seat with a conceited swagger that had Ilentia tiring of his constant mood swings – it just went to show how crazy a person could become if they had been given everything they ever wanted since birth (as Gretia had no children of her own and so heavily spoilt her only nephew), and never questioned or told how to act properly. "Fine. For now, I will let you survive. But if you annoy me further then I will kill you," the Master of Gluttony stated, not deigning to sit down on the overdecorated seat Eras offered to her.

"I'm glad you came," the boy replied, at ease again, though this time he seemed earnest, like whatever he had to say was the most important thing in the entire world, and Ilentia frowned as if to say: "get on with it." but otherwise made no moves to interrupt the Master of Wealth further. "I had a feeling that you wouldn't arrive, or even respond to the letter, but here you are, Ilentia, Master of Gluttony, favouring me with your presence. What an honour it is to have you walk within my Glittering Mansion, looking upon its-"

"I didn't come here to listen to you monologue," Ilentia snapped as the young man looked as if he was about to break into some distracted rambling about the heritage of his vaunted family, and Eras appeared shocked that the woman would even suggest that was what he was about to do, as well as angry that she had cut in again – though he made pains to hide that, Ilentia still smirked in amusement. Evidently the boy was not used to being halted when he was speaking by anyone apart from Tradax or Arendus. "Oh of course not. And that brings me nicely onto the main topic: the behaviour of our esteemed Master – or should I say Archlord – of Rapture, Tradax Yulica."

No, it really doesn't – in fact me interrupting you has no relevance to that topic whatsoever – but whatever. I'm intrigued now. Could it be that Eras Stormwind invited me here because he wishes to enact a coup on Tradax? I doubt it, but at any rate it is surprising that he is saying this to me, a person that was in essence created by Tradax himself, and has no reasons to be anything less than loyal to the Archlord (which of course begs the question why I feel that I have no allegiance to him at all), and should by all means kill him right now. Just as Ilentia was coming to that conclusion, Eras broke out in a triumphant grin, a smile that would better fit gracing the features of a young child when they won in some sort of pointless contest rather than a nineteen year old, exclaiming, "I knew it! I knew you weren't one of his slaves! Sorry, but the fact that you haven't killed me yet means that you don't have the undying loyalty to him one would infer from your situation."

"Are you suggesting that I would ever betray Tradax?" Ilentia asked, a modicum of threat in her tone, but she was more curious at what Eras had to say now so wasn't bothered about establishing her place at the top of the conversation, and the boy quickly shook his head, "Oh no. I was merely pointing something out. At any rate, I can't be the only one who has noticed his strange actions." Ilentia immediately began to think of the Archlord's conversation with the masked assassin that had killed her employers when she had just been a little girl and what Tradax would want with her, as Eras continued, "I mean, I know that you weren't … "you", when the Lucaelian princes were abducted – did you know that the oldest was seventeen? He could have been a fun playmate for me, but I digress. Anyway, I'm sure you could agree with me when I say that it would have been much more logical to simply kill the princes instead of detaining them."

Ilentia nodded. She had thought the same herself, and Eras, seemingly emboldened by her positive gestures, added confidently, "Whether he had a specific purpose for them, or was serving under someone that wanted them alive, I don't know. However, more recently is this storm – it cannot be just me that the Tempest of Craving frightens. It is unnatural, and highly disturbing, and while the civilians are enjoying it, it is clearly having a negative effect on Usnaan. Of course Severkarkyis refused to say anything about it when I asked him."

Ilentia assumed he was talking about the greater demon living inside his own Mind Realm, though she sensed Arrapackxia bristling at the name, suggesting an animosity between the two – although her demon didn't seem to get on with any of his brothers. A short silence descended, and Ilentia supposed that Eras wanted her conformation before he went on (a quick look into his golden eyes confirmed that), so she said, "Yes. It is definitely the work of our demonic patrons."

"Exactly," Eras nodded, "And whether or not it was them that wanted him to keep the princes alive, Tradax seems to be acting under the manipulation of someone greater than him. His rise to power, for example, was through overthrowing the former Masters of the Orders of Violence, Rapture, Entertainment and your Gluttony, and by killing dear Aunty Gretia, with the help of new demons that had never been seen in Welkas before. Even the Old Tyrants strayed far away from them, and while I have never respected them they knew what they were doing. At any rate, abducting the princes without the intention to kill them – despite the fact that I never got to meet them – was a massive mistake – need I remind you that it was that that has led to this war, and the Empire being in more danger – New or Old – than it has ever been in before?"

"Furthermore, he is spending increasing amounts of time visiting the Protector's residence, and only the fire knows what he is doing to Redhand. I feel as if Tradax is gambling away all of the New Empire so that he can gain more power, and I won't have it."

"What are you suggesting?" Ilentia questioned, her blazing red eyes narrowing, and Eras looked to the side nervously, as if expecting one of Tradax's assassins to emerge from their hiding place and kill him (though Ilentia would have already known if there were any concealed in the Glittering Mansion), before turning back to her with a faint smirk on his patrician and soft features (that showed that he had never had to fend for his life before), "Nothing at the moment. It would be far too late to plan anything large, as there is a battle tomorrow and there isn't enough time to be plotting another revolution. However, I have something for you."

The young man clapped his hands, and sat for a moment before his face creased into a frown, forgetting that he had dismissed the servants, and got up from his chair to an ornate wooden cabinet on the other side of the room. He opened the second drawer from the bottom, and pulled out two devices that had clearly been made recently, handing one of them to Ilentia, who took it, analysing it briefly before she asked, "What is it?"

"It is a teleportation device," Eras explained, his eyes alight with a mixture of childish enthusiasm and victorious triumph, like they had just won the war against Lucael, "And the co-ordinates set into it would take the user to one of my residences in the eastern city of Kalaan. A simple click of the button would transport you there almost instantly in a flash of Blue mana."

"And why have you given me this?" Ilentia demanded suspiciously, wondering what possible motive the Master of Wealth could have for providing her with a means to escape Usnaan. The boy smiled magnanimously and replied, "A gift, from a Master of one Order of Passion to another. Besides, you can thank yourself for their production, as after you caused the Ja'an Guard stationed in the sewers to be forced to employ their displacement technology, I had some Yentarian scientists that had been captured in previous raids and that I had purchased develop them."

"And you've tested them?" Ilentia inquired, as she wouldn't put it past any of Eras's prisoners to take any chance they could get to kill the almost intolerable brat of a Master, and he cocked a blonde eyebrow as if she was asking the most ridiculous question in the world, "Of course. They worked perfectly – did you know that scientists really don't like pain? I didn't before this, but it seems that the threat of that can make them work much more precisely and faster. Interesting."

Ilentia nodded in reply. She knew that the Master of Wealth was doing this to try and get her on his side, and he continued saying, "Of course we won't be using it now, as if Tradax wins the battle tomorrow – well, today actually, as it is past midnight – I've always thought midnight was a weird name, as it isn't really the middle of the night – he will be furious if we have just left, but if any of us are in severe danger we can simply teleport out to safety." though she wasn't really listening anymore – besides, she was sure her definition of "severe danger" differed from Eras's quite drastically, and that it was characteristic of the selfish boy to be more concerned about preserving his own skin instead of helping anyone else.

Which made it strange that he had given her the device – though she had seen the hunger for power that reminded her of Tradax's own in Eras's yellow eyes, and both of them knew that if Eras wanted to rule then he wouldn't be able to do it alone, with three Masters arrayed against him. However, if he could tip the scales slightly – say, by making Ilentia back him up – then they might have a fighting chance at victory against the Archlord and Arendus Draal. At any rate, another way of looking at it would be that if Usnaan was annihilated by the holy vengeance of the Lucaelians, Tradax and Arendus would most likely die, whereas Eras and Ilentia would survive and could claim sovereignty of what was left of the Empire, though the Lucaelians would probably object to any trace of the Orders of Passion surviving after their victory, including them. Ilentia didn't particularly feel any inclination to help Eras because of this, and didn't know what to feel about the fact that she had been gifted with an escape mechanism.

.*.*.*.

"You shouldn't really come here in the middle of the night," Orzhova admonished the second Cai entered the abandoned and haunting cathedral in his mind, the dark seraph shaking her head and adding, "Especially since you have to be well rested for tomorrow, and at your optimum strength."

"I know," the boy replied as the angel turned around, her eyes betraying the fact that despite her words she was grateful for the company, and he briefly wondered if Orzhova saw his nightmares if he was having them. If so, night time would be a very bleak situation for both of them, and he continued, "Besides, my body seems to sleep much better if my mind stays here, instead of flitting fitfully between consciousness and nightmares."

"So, what did you want to speak about?" Orzhova asked, examining her perfectly formed nails for a second and leaning on her ornate scythe. Cai opened his mouth to protest before, without turning to look at him, she cut in with, "And don't say "does there have to be a reason to come and see you?", Cai. I mean no offence by that, of course, as you aren't in any way ignorant of me nor do you never come to visit, but you are a goody two shoes and there has to be something pressing if you would disobey my orders to not come in when your mind should be resting."

Caiellis pouted for a moment, but the angel was right and he had pressing concerns to talk to her about, "Sorry-"

"Don't apologise," she responded nonchalantly, and Cai rolled his eyes at her, "Can I please speak now without being interrupted?" The angel waved her hand magnanimously in his direction, smiling at her young Summoner's look of annoyance that the boy shot at her before he intented to continue from when she had cut it, then he remembered something, "Actually, that reminds me: Why do you always ask me what I am going to ask you about? Aren't you supposed to be able to read my mind? This isn't what I was going to ask originally, that can come after you answer this, but I just figured this was pertinent."

"It's only surface thoughts, emotions and some of the things that are happening in reality," Orzhova answered, stopping her systematic analysing of herself and looking down at her Summoner, who nodded, "I can't read your mind, but I feel what you feel, and right now I can feel that you are curious about something, apprehensive and scared about the probable conclusion of this short but brutal war tomorrow, angry at your father – and I don't blame you for that, and would have Summoned myself to your aid if he wasn't emitting silencing mana – and comfortable in Alex's presence – by the way the fact that you are sharing a bed together before this battle is immensely cute, if you don't mind me saying."

Cai nodded again, electing to ignore her final words about him and his big brother sleeping in his bed and vaguely embarrassed about it, and spoke, his voice soft but entirely serious and so bereft of humour that Orzhova knew that she shouldn't make any more jokes, "I wanted to ask you what you know about this storm over Usnaan. I should really have done it earlier, as in hindsight this entire day was mostly quite pointless, but at the time I didn't want to be rendered unconscious for several hours and still only having a short conversation."

"The storm is called the Tempest of Craving," Orzhova replied after a moment, her face serious and calm but her onyx eyes full of hatred, "And accentuates Red and Black mana in the area around it – not just for the Welkalites, mind you, as our Black mana will be heightened whereas your brother's and my sister's magic of fire and lightning will be also – to a very large extent, whilst significantly weakening Blue mana. Furthermore, the longer it is channelled the more its effects are felt on the location it is hovering over, including strikes of crimson lightning, swarms of imps and a rain of gore. The Tempest seems to get more powerful the more death occurs underneath it, although I can't tell you that for certain as it hasn't yet been verified. As you suspected, it is magic that demons have created, although one human mage leading groups of cultists has to channel the storm alone should it be placed in the material realm. The longer it is left the more destructive it becomes, and seems to progress through multiple stages."
"And how can I end the storm?" Cai asked, absorbing Orzhova's words quickly and already thinking about the detrimental effects of the Tempest of Craving and how the Lucaelian troops would be walking right into the Welkalites' trap, though there was no chance that the plan would change now or that anyone would listen to him – at least the force was aware of the storm and the fact that it would make the battle significantly more dangerous already, and he added, "Does killing the main mage and their followers end it?"

"Yes, though this should be done as quickly as possible, or the harder it will be to reach and slay them," his dark seraph nodded, prompting Caiellis to inquire, "What happens when the storm reaches its final stage, or that the correct number of people have died underneath it?"

Orzhova's eyes became sad for a brief second, though Cai detected that it was more from not being able to help her Summoner than any experience with the ending form of the Tempest of Craving, replying softly, "It has never happened. Any time the Tempest of Craving has been conjured, the channeller has been slain before it could reach its climax, although I have no doubt as to how deadly the last phase's cessation will be. You Lucaelians will certainly have to progress through the city quickly to reach and kill them."

Cai nodded again, and a silence descended after a moment as he contemplated this new information and how he would go about informing his father just before the battle about it. He then opened his mouth and asked, "That brings us onto another thing that I wanted to ask you about. I'd like you to teach me a technique that I saw you utilise during our battle with Alex and Aurelia-"
"No," the angel stated gravely, taking her Summoner aback, who rocked back for a second like the angel's sudden refusal had physically shoved him away from her, as she continued, "I can't stop you from forcing me to, of course, but I think that what you are asking of me is foolish."

Perturbed, the youngest Lucerna pouted, "I've not even asked you yet." to which his Summoning of White and Black responded, "You were going to ask me how to use Black mana to go into the abyss of Sancturia and displace yourself in the material realm, a technique known as the Voidwalk, correct?"

The boy nodded, vaguely annoyed that she had already outright refused to help him unless he made her, which he didn't want to have to do but was perfectly willing to if she kept acting like this, as it was essential to the survival of the Lucaelian force if what Orzhova had said earlier about a single human magic user being the focal point of the Tempest of Craving had been true (and he had no reason to doubt the Angel of the Black Sun's informative words). If so, it was necessary for him to know how to do this, and Orzhova then said, "I don't think that this is wise, Caiellis, and you know that I don't disagree with you often. I believe that you should tell your father that you need to kill the mage that is casting the spell – most likely that whoreson Tradax – and that the army should make a spearhead towards him – as you will definitely be able to detect him – to kill him as fast as possible and end the storm."

Cai stared at her for a second, before attempting to refute her claims by saying, "That will take far too long, and do you not think Tradax will have arranged his forces to delay us as long as possible in our charge towards him? Too many would die and the storm would progress far too quickly, as well as that plan being exactly the one the Welkalites would want us to enact, and the one that I've been trying to talk my dad out of for a long time. A blind charge into the heart of Usnaan would only serve to kill us all with the Tempest of Craving greedily drinking on our souls, but taking having to fight our way into the city with every step earned in gallons of blood out of the equation would surprise the Master of Rapture and stop the storm from gaining too much power."

"If it is a teleported strike that you are after, then why not have the mages of Scientia Mos enact the Wargate on you, the other Lucernas and your praetorians?" Orzhova insisted, though she felt like she was grasping at straws in trying to dissuade the boy out of this course of action, and silently cursed the circumstances of his life that had lead him to believe that this was acceptable, that he though that he had to do this, and Cai shook his head, shooting her a disapproving glance, "You just said that Blue mana is drastically weakened, whereas Black is heightened by the Tempest, so the Wargate or any other teleportation method would not work. Besides, the other powerful members of the army are needed there, and giving up too many Summoners to fight Tradax – or whoever the conjurer of the storm is – would only serve to weaken the army and get the soldiers repulsed from the city, even if the Wargate was able to be enacted. I have to do this, Orzhova, and I'd appreciate it if you would support me in this course of action."

Despite his youth, Caiellis could be extremely stubborn if he wanted to, and though Orzhova had never been on the receiving end of that before she had experienced it in the fleeting and fragmented glances into Cai's young life that she had been able to take before he passed her trial, and more recently after it when the angel was allowed to constantly watch what was going on in the material world outside of the Mind Realm, though through Caiellis's young eyes. She shook her head despairingly, her voice becoming more desperate and filled with a deep sadness, "No, you don't. You don't have to take everything on your shoulders, Caiellis. You are only a thirteen year old boy, and in spite of the reality that you are a Lucerna, you shouldn't expect yourself to do everything. Rely on someone else for once-"

"That is exactly the problem," Caiellis's serious and adamant tone cut in, brooking no argument, which was ironic considering what the situation would look like to an outside observer, a young boy talking down to a magisterial and awe-inspiring angel of darkness and light, and it was the first time he had interrupted his angel mid-sentence before in the week and a day he had been able to talk to her, "I rely on other people too much – an obvious example is my big brother, and while he actively encourages it it makes me much weaker and puts additional strain on him. Which makes it end awfully badly if he can't cope with protecting both of us, highlighted when Aksua ambushed us and I was too weak to help him, and ended up putting him in more danger as Alex probably would have given up if she threatened me with damage, which is most likely what happened to my arm. I don't care how old I am, but I'm not a little kid any more, and I have to take responsibility for myself and the people. I can't be coddled and protected any longer. I have to do this, Orzhova, not just so that I can prove that I am ready to take up the mantle of sovereignty should I be chosen as the next ruler of the Kingdom of Light, and to protect those weaker than me."

"And is foolishly throwing away your life going to solve anything?!" Orzhova suddenly shrieked, her face contorted in anger, and Cai took a step back despite himself, his confidence fading for a moment before a surge of determination brought it back to the fore, but unlike in his arguments with other humans he felt no inclination to shout back, simply, calmly and patiently replying, "I am not throwing away my life, Orzhova, but sometimes risks must be taken in order to secure the safety of the kingdom."

He's more like Marik sometimes than he would ever like to envision, Orzhova thought, cursing herself for her sudden outburst instead of lauding Caiellis for his willingness to help the cause of Lucael and commending his bravery like any of her sisters would have done, but Orzhova was not like any of her heavenly siblings and cared more about Caiellis than she did for the kingdom. Her voice was soft and haunting when she next spoke, melancholy infusing itself into her quiet whisper of, "I can't lose you, Caiellis. You are the first good Summoner I have ever had, and I don't want you to die without even two weeks of being able to speak to you. I don't want to have to return to the Sanctum Angelica in shame, but more than that I don't want you to get hurt or die."

Cai blinked in surprise at her emotional admittance, lost for words at the angel's powerful words and her sheer like of him, before his lapse was crushed by the walls of determined steel that slammed down around his mind and his own doubts and very real fear about this course of action as well as the battle, replying sternly, "Don't be selfish, Orzhova. If I die then it will be in service to protecting the people, which is as worthy death as any-"

"And since when have you ever cared about how you died?" Orzhova spat back, her words dripping with caustic venom, and for a moment Caiellis thought that the Angel of the Black Sun was considering incapacitating him so that he couldn't participate in the battle for Usnaan, which emphasised what selfish Black mana could do to a being of pure White, not that Cai thought less of the angel for her inherent darkness.

But the way that she was protesting against him risking himself for the safety of the kingdom smacked of how she had served Xarius's mad and brutal orders without question, clinging to the vain hope that her first Summoner would change as she killed more and more by following his commands. Judging by how the angel's posture stiffened, she had detected those thoughts, and while Caiellis normally wanted to upset the being living in his mind right now he didn't care, and she needed to be told, "Never, Orzhova, but that's not the point. I'm a Lucerna, and while I hate that with a passion, there is no point in running from that duty, so I may as well embrace it and help people. I've been gifted with this power so that I can make a difference, and I am not going to spurn that opportunity."

"You Lucaelian and your notions of "duty". It's ridiculous. Live your life however you want, that's why I say," Orzhova scoffed, and Cai sighed, "So that's why you ran away from your own duty and taking punishment for your crimes but still returned despite putting yourself at immense risk by doing so? If you really didn't care about your duty as a member of the First Sisterhood, then you wouldn't have ever chosen me as a Summoner. Unless you are manipulating me to your own ends, which I sorely doubt, though it would explain why you seem so attached to me. Actually, that could be quite plausible, as you can only enter the material realm for an extended basis of time if you have a Summoner, and those with the magic of White and Black combined are extremely rare, much more so in the Lucerna family which you have been confined to by the apparent "foolishness" of your mother as you so respectfully put it."

Orzhova shook her head in disbelief, "Do you really think that I would ever manipulate you? I'm very offended that you would think that lowly of me," she muttered, and her Summoner was quick to console her with, "No, I didn't. It was just a possibility. However, you ran from your duty until the point that you couldn't any more."

"I didn't run from my duty, just my punishment which was originally much more severe than exile," Orzhova countered, and Cai was sure that she would have smirked if the situation hadn't been so serious, and added, her voice becoming vaguely nostalgic but also infused with hope,

"I had always dreamed of going into the material world and proving myself alongside my sisters, but until Xarius was born I never got the chance, and you know how well my bonding with him turned out. After I was cast out – well, fled – from the Sanctum Angelica, I spent over a hundred years wandering the wastes of Sancturia, killing demons and avoiding the patrols of some of my more fanatical and zealous sisters' daughters that would leap at the chance to bring the Angel of the Black Sun back to meet her judgement. Every single day I wished for a Lucerna child to be born with Black and White mana so that I could prove that I am not evil, and that I made a mistake, so when you were I chose you for my Summoner and promoted the growth of your Black mana, instead of another one of my sisters – like Avacyn, who had been officially chosen by Serra to become your Summoning and was so looking forward to working with you – aiding you and suppressing a part of you. And that is why I do not want you to throw your life away because you think that you have something to prove to the Kingdom of Light."

Cai stayed silent and brooding for a short moment, before he uttered, "I'm sorry, Orzhova, I never meant to offend you. But nothing you say will dissuade me from this course of action, and if anyone else had the power to do this – to cut off the head of the beast – then they would take that chance without a second thought. Just because I am precious to you doesn't mean that I shouldn't try to save as many lives as possible. Teach me the Voidwalk or I will have to force you to, and trust me I don't want to have to do that."

.*.*.*.

Marik knew he was dreaming the second he saw her, but it didn't make it feel any less real, didn't salve the agonising throbbing of the hole that had been torn in his heart with her departure from this world of pain. She was as beautiful as she had ever been, as beautiful as the day she had been taken from him, and she reached out to him, her slender and perfect fingers extending out to be entwined with his, though he was powerless to move and meet them. Her flawless green eyes, the same colour and shape of Caiellis's emerald orbs but possessed of Alexander's love and warmth, were opened wide in fear, and she called softly, "Come to me, Marik. Please, I need you. Come to me, please..."

"Emili?" the word was choked out from the uncharacteristic sobs that had sprung up on him, broken and painful. A shiver ghosted down his spine and he felt goosebumps race up and down his imposing body, his mind becoming drowned in sadness mixed with a foolish anticipation at being given the chance to save his wife, like the events were not set in stone and that he had the power to change them within this dream, the rational part of his mind's protestations of this isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real, quickly overwhelmed by the power of his undying love for his wife, and the overpowering grief at knowing what would come next, knowing what had happened on that fateful night nine years ago, and knowing that he was completely powerless to stop it in spite of the fact that he was supposed to be one of the most powerful men in the world, so utterly helpless and pathetic that he didn't deserve to live.

"I love you, Marik … Please, help me..." Emili pleaded, her head turning to the side as Marik's did also, a movement of the shadows in his mind as he tried desperately to run towards his wife, but whenever he seemed to get close in the shifting darkness of his grief-stricken psyche she was whisked away and seemed increasingly further away, still calling his name and thinking that he could help her. Marik growled in primal anger when a humanoid figure stepped into the shadows, grinning wildly at him and grasping at his wife with its clawed left hand, though the nails on that were not nearly as long or brutal as those placed on his right hand. "You were too late, Marik. She died because of you."

Because of the fact that Marik had never heard the shape-changing demon that had murdered his perfect wife, the demon spoke with the voice of his traitorous twin brother Johnias, albeit a heavily distorted version of the arrogant and jealous tone his brother's voice had become when he rebelled (or perhaps that was what his voice had always been like as he was forced to revel in Marik's success while having little of his own (in his own opinion) to boast of, and that he had finally stopped pretending to be happy for his four minute younger brother), but it had always been like this in the dream and did nothing to reduce the emotional resonance of it. In fact, it increased it, as not only was Marik forced to watch his inability to protect his wife in gruesome detail (unless he woke up), but also forced to remember that it had been his failure to recognise Johnias's growing dissent or countenance his sudden rebellion before Emili had died and the inhabitants of Gol had been slaughtered.

It's eyes were malicious pearls of midnight obsidian, and its skin was as grey as the deathly pallor of corpses. It had large, bony and thick horns that curled back from its forehead and above its head, and was a brutal creature that stood at the height of at least seven and a half feet tall, but the most disturbing feature about it that had etched itself into Marik's mind (and highly terrified his young and innocent sons) was its inane grin of joy at the murder of Emili and the fact that it knew it was ripping her family apart just as it ripped apart her internal organs. The demon had had a smaller but no less malevolent twin that had been holding Alexander and lulling him into a magic-induced unconsciousness, but since that one hadn't been the cause of his wife's death it didn't deign to appear in Marik's nightmare.

Emili let out a blood-curdling scream of agony as the demon's bone white claws punched through her stomach, the paleness of the talons soon turned crimson by the blood fountaining from the holes in Emili that they were emerging from, and Marik's love coughed up more scarlet liquid in a choked shriek of pain as the demon maliciously twisted its claws that were embedded in her stomach, the deadly venom coating them and rushing through her bloodstream. Marik shouted, "Emili! NO!" but he was too far away to do anything as his wife died right before his eyes. He rolled in one direction on his bed, and then the other, desperately trying to escape his dream, though the reality that he would be returning to wasn't much more pleasant. The demon/Johnias's cackling filled his ears, almost loud enough to mask the soft whimpers mixed with weak gasps of pain coming from his dying wife. Almost, but not quite, and his combat-attuned instincts honed in on the noise, dragging him back within his fitful slumber before he could awaken and escape.

One last time he glanced at his beautiful and heavenly wife, the perfection that she had attained within his memories and dreams far more alluring than she had ever been in life (as it was her personality that had been Emili's most attractive feature) in spite of the fact that Marik had always found her incredibly appealing, and looked into her wide and expressive green eyes. They were filled with pain, but not from the huge claws as thick as her forearms impaling her through the stomach and half lifting her off the floor. It was as if she could (and had been able to, as Marik had seen the look in her eyes when he had finally ran into the nursery) sense how much her death was going to affect her perfect family. It was an emotional pain at never being able to see her children that she loved more than anything in the world get older, and pain knowing that she would never be able to grow old with Marik while watching and helping Alexander and Caiellis every step of the way.

Suddenly her eyes changed from woeful to the pale black, the same colour as the demon's glinting orbs, and she grinned evilly at him, before screaming, "COME TO ME, MARIK!"

He heard another scream of pure and unadulterated hatred that a four year old should never feel, and in spite of the fact that young Caiellis's outburst of Black mana had not harmed Marik nor damaged his mother's dying form an explosion of purple flames fuelled by absolute loathing consumed everything in Marik's stricken mind.

The supreme king of Lucael jolted upwards, sweating profusely and trying to gain a grip on reality before he was dragged back down and forced to see the dire consciousness of his stubborn refusal to let Emili take his children to Scientia Mos again, telling himself that it wasn't real, before another part of his mind told him that despite the dream distorting the events (as he had only arrived to see his youngest son slaying the demons, though had still seen Emili's saddened and welling eyes) they had still happened and his perfect wife was still dead, and by extension his perfect family was also, although it was more fractured and fragmented instead of dead.

"Damn it, Marik, get a hold of yourself! That was nine years ago!" he berated himself quietly, not loud enough to attract the attention of any of the guards that would be outside, as he knew from past experience that his nightmares were always quiet and he kept his fear to himself during them.

However, his mind was still panicked, still filled with an adrenaline that he ideally wanted to keep bottled in until the battle, and while he knew that he should be going back to sleep so that he was well rested for the siege of the Welkalite capital the forty year old knew that there was no chance that he would be doing that within the foreseeable future as he would just have another nightmare and wake up. He resolved to settle back down in his bed and simply rest, or maybe visit Akroma (not that the Angel of Wrath ever had anything to say to him, and he would be doing it more to escape from his own dreams than any incentive to have a talk with her), before his mind began to think of his family again, and then wondered if his children were sleeping well, prior to deciding that his sons were in mortal danger.

Marik doubted that they were, as it was the same feeling that he had felt on the night of Emili's death and his thoughts were still focussed mostly on the dull ache in his chest at not having her by his side, but his mind latched onto his father's fear of his children being in peril and refused to let it go. Sighing as his mind became more and more desperate, Marik shucked on one of his casual leather jackets and sheathed his royal greatsword (as he slept with it out of its scabbard and easy to access because of Johnias's tendency to send assassins to try and kill him and end the war the easy way instead of having to face the king in one on one combat), strapping the scabbard-belt round his muscular waist, marching out into the biting cold of the night outside.

He nodded in acknowledgement of the guard outside, and Mirria bowed her head in respect and murmured, "Ave Lux, my king,", knowing not to question Marik's motives for emerging in the middle of the night, though as usual the king was impressed by the fact that if she was tired by the guard duty then she was very good at hiding it and had noticed him before he had come out. Marik glanced in the direction of Usnaan, disturbed that the storm had grown in size since he had last looked at it (as now it was visible from the camp, whereas before it had only been from Caiellis's rocky and elevated retreat) and was crackling visibly with crimson electricity (though luckily not rumbling with imposing thunder that would demoralise his troops slightly, though Lucaelians were tougher than to be put off by a little thunder), the only illumination barring the lit torches in the night as the angry clouds were blocking out the light of the moons.

Due to the sole reason of his personal tent being closer, Marik walked in the direction of Caiellis's temporary residence, though he was sure that his youngest would be less than thrilled should he have had a fitful sleep like his dad's. Marik had always wanted to be a dad, never just a father, but the civil war had erased his dreams of that, just like it had erased most of his dreams. At least his sons still called him "dad", but that was mostly due to their minds automatically doing that due to the time that they had spent with him before Johnias's violent betrayal, more than any affection they had towards him – although Alexander seemed to do it because of the latter reason as well, and he did try with both of his sons.

He paused in the entrance for a second, reliable and commendable (though sometimes incredibly sarcastic) Lancalo bowed his head sleepily, although Marik was sure that he would snap to readiness the instant danger approached. Well, Lancalo hasn't sensed anything, so Caiellis is fine, right? His mind thought, not wanting to go into the tent and potentially wake up his youngest son, though not because of any fear of arguing with him at this time in the night – but because if Caiellis woke up with his father, the man who had on this morning pinned him down on that same bed by the throat, staring over him, he could become filled with terror. Marik pushed the concerns out of his mind, knowing instinctively that he wasn't just satisfied with the fact that all seemed to be well outside of the tent, and that if Caiellis did awaken then he would simply greet his son and leave, and entered the tent.

His eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness inside of the tent, taking a short while to be able to pick out what was within, but when he became able to do so Marik smiled affectionately, his heart filled with a warm and fond sensation he barely felt any more at the sight of not one, but both of his teenage sons resting together, Alexander having evidently decided that his brother needed his company to be able to feel safe through the night.

As opposed to when they were awake, and Caiellis's youthful features and wide, expressive eyes made his little boy seem young in spite of the adult expressions often adorning it, in the peace of sleep both of his boys' young faces were suffused with an innocent purity, which only highlighted how young they both were – including Alexander, who wasn't yet an adult despite how mature he acted, and when he didn't have to pretend to be one his eldest looked immensely youthful, though still not as child-like as his little brother.

The older boy's more muscular arm was draped protectively around his little brother's shoulders, whose head had rolled over into the side of his ribs, and Marik smiled down at them, lingering in the doorway instead of progressing further into the room and glad that his mind's paranoid fears had been unfounded, until a sudden thought hit him. The reason why Alexander had probably decided to sleep in the same bed as his youngest and provide comfort was because the younger boy was scared of what would happen tomorrow, and that while he might not have shown it as much Alexander would be also and would draw resolve from the presence of his little brother and the reminder of the things that he needed to (well, in his opinion at any rate) protect. Marik had faced anger, defiance, sadness and coldness from his youngest son, as well as acceptance and friendliness from his eldest, but for some reason the thought of his children, his little boys, being scared of the battle tomorrow had never occurred to him.

They were only children, and that meant that in spite of their vaunted bloodline they had every right to be frightened of an extremely massive and brutal battle on the horizon, but because of the strength both of his sons showed – though the youngest wielded that strength of personality against him instead of using it to help him – he had completely forgotten about their young age and the fact that they would most likely be terrified of what could happen to them or their loved ones in the siege of Usnaan. Once again he was immensely glad that other people were attuned to his children's needs, as he was quite useless in that respect even though it hurt his pride to admit it, and that they had built up an immensely strong bond (even though it could put them in unnecessary danger, and put them under increased emotional strain should they argue with each other, particularly for his smaller son who wasn't as emotionally developed as his older brother and so would take the words more seriously), so Alexander had known to come and soothe Caiellis's fears when he had been found lacking in that department.

Marik wanted more than anything in the world to be able to put them both in indestructible bubbles away from the danger of the world, or at the very least order their departure to Lucael in the morning so that they didn't have to fight in Usnaan and have the possibility of being wounded or worse, but Marik knew that his sons and their First Sisterhood angels had to be at the forefront of the Lucaelian force, otherwise the legions would take even more casualties and even more death would be wrought upon the ranks of Lucael.

However, Marik had won in the civil war against a much greater foe (perhaps, or maybe the Welkalites were even more dangerous than his treacherous older identical twin brother) without his sons' aid, and he might be able to do it again, so he was incredibly tempted to send them back into the relative safety of the Kingdom of Light, but knew that he would be seen as weak instead of parental for doing so and that it was selfish of him, despite the fact that he could argue that he was removing the Lucerna heirs from danger.

At any rate, he felt that he could be comforting his children, embracing his fatherly duties fully after his abysmal failure to do so in spite of his trying with his youngest son, but to do so properly would require waking them up and there was no question in the monarch's mind that Caiellis would react negatively to such an action. He wanted to talk to them, talk about their lives as a whole family in a way that they had never done as before the civil war the two had been too young to be discussing serious things like that, which he thought was stupid of him because now he had thought that there was no time and they sorely needed their sleep. He wanted to converse their likes and dislikes, find out about their favourite activities and books (although Alexander might not have one), but the fact that he hadn't really been that personal with either of them meant that the talk would be extremely awkward, and downright forced between him and Caiellis, who probably wouldn't want to spend any amount of time with him.

Marik wanted to start healing the rift between all three of them – well, his sons and him – and while that was happening with his eldest he was losing his youngest, but he quietly scoffed. Well done, Marik! Congratulations on being a complete idiot! You could have chosen any time in the past month to do so, but instead picked the only time you couldn't, the only time it was too late to do so!

Marik shook off of his concerns. While he wouldn't win the "father of the year" award, and certainly wasn't going to unless he changed the way he went about it, while he couldn't change his sons' (let's be real, son's opinion towards me) opinions towards him at the moment, he could make them safe, which was far more important than any personal like or dislike of him. He knew all the reasons why he wasn't as close to them as he should have been, and it wasn't all because of the civil war, though that had been the catalyst and main reason for it, and the reasons why Caiellis didn't like him at the current moment.

He stayed up nights after arguing with his youngest son telling himself about it, repeating them time and time again. How the boy had to obey because otherwise he would be putting himself and others in danger, how Caiellis had to accept his orders and punishments because he knew best and was the adult, how he had to be able to fight in every circumstance (such as without his magic or exhausted, which was the cause of this war in the first place – although Marik was certain that if the Welkalites had chosen not to attack his second son then they would have had other plans for declaring war and gaining power over Lucael, such as the ample target of the other Lucaelian prodigies at the Scholaria Magnus) and prepare for every eventuality. Both of them had to be trained, they had to be ready and able, because if they weren't then they might never be safe. And Marik couldn't risk anyone else in his family. He wouldn't. Their safety came first, as his sons and as his heirs to the holy throne of the Lucerna line. Above happiness, above everything.

But sometimes the things he did to keep them safe hurt him as much as it did them. While Caiellis needed to improve in his hand to hand fighting technique, it was clear that the boy wasn't concentrating on the sparring with his physically superior older brother – not that he could really blame the boy, as he was thinking more about the probable conclusion of the war tomorrow – and instead of forcing them to fight he should have made a compromise, but in his blind stubbornness in insisting that a child – his own child – should have no power over him and his rage at his sons being abducted directed at his youngest's inability to fight without his magic (in spite of the fact that it wasn't his fault that Caiellis's body was like it was, and still had a lot of time to grow), he took it out on Caiellis. He should have been encouraging him instead of reprimanding him, which was all he seemed to do with his youngest son these days, but there was no time to apologise now.

Marik made a silent promise to himself that he would make sure his sons would survive safe and sound through this battle, even if it cost him his own life, and that promise etched itself into his mind and filled him with a pure determination that he would nurture until he could release it against the Welkalites who threatened his young family and kingdom.

.*.*.*.

In spite of the Tempest of Craving nullifying some of the weaponry, the artillery bombardment upon the badly maintained and already decaying walls of Usnaan was still a sight to behold, although instead of stirring a feeling of pride in the power of the people of Lucael that he may one day rule, Cai only felt dread at the slaughter that would happen if he wasn't strong or fast enough, which he soon converted into a type of bleak determination that fuelled his will to complete the burden placed upon him, the thing that only he could do.

As the incandescent bolts of light rained down on the sprawling Welkalite capital city – although strangely the storm seemed to distort the trajectory of the luminescent projectiles, making them hit and annihilate the walls with full force instead of damaging the city within, as if inviting the Lucaelians inside to fight in brutal and passionate close combat and frowning on their attempts to deal damage from range – Caiellis mulled over telling his brother and father about his new plans one last time, although came to the conclusion that he had arrived at every single time he had done so. He couldn't tell them, otherwise they would stop him – Alex would prevent him from doing it in order to stop his little brother from getting into danger that he couldn't protect the younger boy from, whereas their dad wouldn't want any of his precious Lucerna heirs to be damaged or killed in the upcoming battle. He had to do this alone; if he didn't, if he stayed by his family's side and fought his way through the city (that he had never truly realised the massive size of when he had been escaping from it in the immensely swift Yentarian automobile), then they would all die, so in essence it didn't matter that he was exposing himself to greater risk, as he would be in danger anyway as well as the rest of the army being in more peril if he didn't do this.

He bit his lip, his heart pounding in his ears as adrenaline prematurely coursed through his veins in his heightened blood flow, his breaths becoming shorter and faster, as the bombardment reached a crescendo of light and the walls finally started to crumble after around ten minutes of continuous assault, as those around him completed their pre battle prayers. His father strode up to the front of the army, already conjuring up a modicum of mana that would amplify and infuse his voice with an inspiring resonance as well as project it into Usnaan and fill the Welkalites with dread at the coming justice, and Cai forced himself to stop thinking if war was ever justifiable as it wasn't really the place and he needed to be extremely focussed.

Just before he did so, he felt a hand grip tightly onto his trembling shoulder, and he looked up from where he had been staring at the city of Usnaan to the serious but still comforting face of his big brother, who smiled reassuringly down at him, all brotherly teasing gone in the face of the battle that was about to start, and uttered, "Don't worry, Cai. I won't let anything happen to you. Stay close to me, ok, squirt?"

Cai didn't reply, and a part of him felt like he was betraying Alexander by not fighting at his side, before he pushed those thoughts aside, knowing that by killing the conjurer of the Tempest of Craving as soon as possible that he would be helping Alex, and jolted back into reality when the older boy prompted, "Kiddo?" jostling his shoulder. Cai nodded back quickly, his eyes focussing on his older brother's face, who smiled sadly but still encouragingly back and dragged him into a hug for a moment. Caiellis hugged his sibling tight, shaking the tears out of his eyes when the thought that it was very likely that this would be the last time he would ever see his older brother pushed itself to the forefront of his mind, and Alex kissed him on the head before putting him down, both of them turning towards their father as he quietly cleared his throat.

"Orders of Passion," Marik's kingly voice boomed, motivating even Caiellis to want to impress him and earn glory in the eyes of the angels that were ever watching, as well as defend the people and one another, "I am the Supreme King Marik Ensis Lucerna of the Holy Kingdom of Light, Lucael, and a direct descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna. You stand accused of attacking and pillaging Lucael, abducting my sons, consorting with the foulest of demons, and most of all subjecting the innocent citizens of Welkalites to a host of torture and abuse, all in the name of unholy pleasure." he growled the last word, suffusing his voice at the anger he had felt at the revelation of what the Orders of Passion were truly doing to Welkas combined with the fury of discovering what had happened to his own civilians during the civil war and the horrors Johnias had turned Epulaeous, Crescia and most of all Vectura in to.

"You are undoubtedly guilty of all these crimes, and so we have arrived to deliver judgement. You are not worthy to exist on this world, and as such your punishment for your crimes will be utter eradication!" Marik bellowed, his voice becoming louder and louder as he shouted, "Ave Lux!"

"AVE LUX! AVE KINDGOMIA AUS LUCAEL! AVE FAMILIAS LUCERNA! AVE ANGELICA! AVE SANCTUS LUX! AVE LUX! AVE LUX!" the massed ranks of Lucaelian soldiers, totalling just more than two million, cried, raising their swords, spears, axes, hammers, pikes, halberds and many more weapons in unison and crashing them down on the ground in unison, creating a reverberating shockwave of sound that still couldn't drown out the adamant and righteous cries.

The battle chant of the Lucaelian warriors, only sung in the direst of battles, was met by a reply from the city of Usnaan itself, the Welkalites within howling their fury at the Lucaelian invaders and roaring in anticipation of the bloody battle to come, screaming their hatred of those who wished to take their quest for the realisation of their ultimate desires away from them, shouting their defiance of order and constraints, and a host of other individual cries that mixed together in a cacophonous wall of disparate sounds which clashed with the united Lucaelian cry. The Tempest of Craving above rumbled in fury, expectation and approval, as the two battle cries reached a zenith of absolute noise that visibly shook the ground on which Cai stood as he elected to remain silent and not give into the temptation to add his own soft voice to the cry, mentally preparing himself for what was to come, as everyone around him joined the determined chorus – although luckily even Alexander didn't seem to notice his brother's silence.

The deafening culmination of the voicing of each of the opposing armies' desires aptly highlighted how different the two cultures were – the conviction-filled chant of the legions of the Kingdom of Light was an exemplification of unification, of each finding and taking pleasure in their place in the great community, the great family, of the kingdom, and of opposing darkness – no, not darkness, evil – wherever it reared its ugly head, whereas the Welkalite howl was a din of individuals finding their own path to their own type of pleasure, of throwing off the constraints of society and order and revelling in the individualistic nature of their way of life, and a celebration of the spontaneity and passion of fire.

Caiellis raised the Sword of Glass, ensuring that the crystalline blade was lit up with predominantly White mana instead of Black despite the effects of the storm, and pointed it at the storm above the city of Usnaan, joined by his brother's incandescent sword afterwards and his father's as well, until a host of weapons were directed at the Welkalite capital all across the Lucaelian force. Then the charge began, the multitude of footsteps crunching into the ground outside of the city and shaking the area – although it wasn't a reckless charge, it was an unstoppable progression of the implacable hammer of Lucael. Horses had been eschewed as they wouldn't function well in the sprawling city, so the advance of the Lucaelians was done on foot as they attacked the western side of the city, running towards the tumbling walls that the Welkalites hadn't bothered to station any defenders upon, knowing that the glittering legions would strike it and that the Tempest of Craving would divert the artillery bolts to there.

At the distance of around two hundred paces, Cai finally got a good look at the Welkalite troops that would be opposing them first, Enforcers from the consumption obsessed Order of Gluttony clothed in the garish armour of their Order and wielding an array of different weapons – this was because the army was attacking through the now destroyed Gate Gluttony, although there were Welkalite forces present in the suburbs (as well as innocent civilians, but Caiellis couldn't think about that now, not when there was so much at stake) as well. It was ironic that his re-entry to the City of Pleasure would be through the exact same place he and Alexander escaped from, although it made sense since that was the closest side of Usnaan to Lucael.

Many of the Summoners of the army chose this time to conjure their more sustainable Sancturia beings into existence, a radiant gathering of wisps, spirits and moths gathering above the army, each belonging to a distinct Summoner but all working together in perfect synchronisation to protect the force from a sudden rain of fire that would have heavily damaged some of the Capitalia Lux divisions present behind Caiellis, as because of the fact he was a Lucerna he was present in the spearhead of the Capital's Chosen, Lucerna Guard and other elite forces that would make the breach into the city. One could argue that because of the sheer size of the force, it would be more effective to spread out those belonging to the royal family and having access to the First Sisterhood angels throughout the army, and while that would have made more sense in a pitched battle the fact that they were in a siege meant that the Lucernas would be where the fighting was thickest and against the most powerful enemies anyway.

Several crimson wisps danced maddeningly above the berserk Welkalites that charged out of the run down slums surrounding Usnaan, inciting their Summoners into a crazed frenzy powerful enough to make them want to not just stand in the way of the Lucaelian advance, but actively charge themselves to meet it. Several flaming hounds that drooled fire ran in front of their Summoners, but were soon utterly obliterated by a strike of incandescent pillars of light his father blasted at them, although they were horizontal as evidently Marik had realised that vertical magic wouldn't work as well with the storm above them and disrupting their connection to the heavens that were apparently above, though Cai knew that while Sancturia and the material plane directly overlapped at several points, it was extremely unlikely that the Sanctum Angelica was situated directly above the abyss – which in itself was an example of Sancturia and this world crossing.

Time slowed to a crawl as the two armies closed on each other, although Caiellis was aware that this was only a fraction of the Welkalite force and simply designed to cause as many casualties as possible before being destroyed, though it still numbered in the thousands. The youngest Lucerna blasted a bolt of darklight into the chests of one of the Order of Violence berserkers before the armies crashed together, Caiellis's bodyguards and those more resilient than him, because of their not fragile physicality and their platemail armour, placing themselves in front of the frail prince before the two forces of nature collided. The two lines met in a bone-crushing impact, many of the unarmoured Welkalites simply shattering with the force of the crash and bouncing off of the indomitable Lucaelians, knocked over and trampled on or impaled with shining weaponry as mages, priests and clerics all across the legions enchanted the soldiers with the multifarious blessings of the light. Cai was thankful that the full Lucerna Guard had formed up around him, his brother and his father, as otherwise he might have broken several bones in the sickening impact where the two forces collided. Across to his left, about two dozen insane berserkers that giggled wildly as their comrades were smashed apart all around them cast Red mana upon themselves, igniting the fuses of explosives that they carried in oversized jackets and detonating themselves in a shrieking frenzy of pain and exultation. Before the blast could get too far, but unfortunately after it had immolated several screaming Lucaelian soldiers, Caiellis conjured up a defensive shield that surrounded the nearby troops in a shield of scintillating glass that was instantaneously reinforced by pure milky light coming from his father and barriers of holy golden flames cast by Alexander.

All around him, crazed individuals were crashing into the Lucaelian force, and while the vast majority of them were smashed aside with heavy shields or hacked apart by shining weapons, their maddened charge was reaping casualties on the Lucaelian force, as fiery explosions erupted out of those able to cast spells and some cracked the ground with tectonic fury, emulating the destructive power of the mountains to shake the ground underneath the Lucaelians and slam spears of rock through some poor legionaries.

Caiellis sighted a Welkalite mage surrounded by figures of crackling crimson and blue electricity that rushed the soldiers around him, turning into arcs of pure lightning before returning to their original form and killing soldiers all around them. He conjured his wings of stained glass into existence and leapt at the man, who was wearing a gladiator's mask that covered his features, intending to strike him down with his artefact armament before the Welkalite spun around and flung a bolt of hissing lightning at him. Caiellis blocked the Red mana on a shield of golden-coated and substantial shadows that absorbed the force of the blow, as he had deduced that using a solid shield of crystalline glass wouldn't have been ideal because the physical impact of the whip of electricity would have shattered it. He was then attacked by the elementals that the mage and his two howling subordinates had Summoned, before a wave of holy fire washed over him and disintegrated the foes into particles of purified ashes, their Summonings fading away as their masters died.

Alex ran to his side, but didn't say anything to Caiellis as he eviscerated a charging berserker with his new sword, his eyes locked in seriousness and righteous anger at the foes from the New Empire of Passion and their suicidal tactics, and Cai followed his big brother's example and gracefully sliced apart a woman that swung a flaming brand at him, dodging the blow of one slavering brute behind her and then somersaulting forwards, leaping into the air on his wings and decapitating the berserker, the man's head leaving his body at the clean cut from the relic armament that cut straight through all forms of resistance. The man toppled slowly over, after rushing forwards a few metres as if he couldn't process the fact that he was dead and that the rage refused to leave him, but not before Cai killed several more with a storm of glass shards that ripped the lightly armoured gladiators to shreds, extracting their life force when it killed them. Cai converted the Black mana into healing White and flung it about him, regenerating the less serious wounds of the soldiers that he didn't know that had formed up around him.

Now that the charge of the berserkers was losing momentum, the few that survived were getting stranded within the mass ranks of trained and discipline legionaries after cutting suicidal paths through them, but there was no let up as now the more ponderous but no less insane Order of Gluttony Enforcers were advancing, running as fast as their obese bodies could take them to join in with the combat, though again Caiellis sensed no particularly impressive generals leading the second wave of attackers, meaning that they would be found further within the city. He activated the Lens of Guilt to confirm this suspicion, but before he could ascertain anything the sheer amount of malice in the Tempest of Craving overloaded his sight and covered his magical vision in a pounding display of crimson that sent waves of agony through his head.

The boy quickly returned to his usual vision, ignoring the pain and launching several beams of blinding light into the ranks of the Gluttony Enforcers, each bolt cutting through their more prominent armour and dissolving them with the force of the holy light, just as one of the last remaining berserkers rushed him from the side. Cai was fully prepared to dodged the strike and ram his sword through the man's abdomen, but before he could do so a griffon armoured in iridescent plates crashed down on the man, pinning him beneath its substantial bulk and pecking into his skull with its large beak, caving out a hole in the berserker's skull and ripping out the brain matter within, though Cai noticed that instead of devouring the meat the griffon spat it out, evidently not wanting to be seen eating humans on the battlefield.

He didn't know who had Summoned the beast, so he nodded his thanks to the griffon instead, which cawed exultantly and bowed its head in deference to the Lucerna before taking off and ploughing into the Welkalite ranks. Several Summonings of the light of Sancturia were aiding the Lucaelian ranks, but only ones that could be sustained for a large amount of time because, despite the horrifying brutality of this initial bloodshed, the real fighting would begin only when they penetrated within Usnaan and got to grips with the massed ranks of the true Welkalite force.

The Enforcers from the Order of Gluttony had a selection of ogres and cyclopses with them that picked up soldiers, crushed them or flung them like projectiles back into the ranks, where their armoured bulk crashed into other soldiers and flattened them out on the ground, easy pickings for any Welkalite warriors that wanted some easy kills. Some however picked up their Lucaelian prey and devoured them, biting off limbs in sprays of blood that Caiellis should probably have found extremely disturbing and frightening at his age, but suffice to say it wasn't the worst he had ever seen. However, the force seemed specifically tailored to delaying the Lucaelians as well as causing death on each side instead of preventing entrance to the city, a clear sign if any was needed that the Masters of Passion wanted to lure them in, which in spite of all his protestations was exactly what the combined armies of the Kingdom of Light were doing.

After a few more minutes of relentless killing where there was no room to move, no room to do anything other than keep murdering those in front of you, the brutality of the close combat kept increasing as more and more troops on both sides died, the battle losing all cohesion around him, but as of yet the Lucaelian force hadn't sustained heavy casualties – which was good, as there was still an entire city to conquer after this if they wanted to achieve victory.

Caiellis brought his hands together, forming several unstable spheres from a mixture of light and darkness, and then noted that his brother also infused him with Red mana, the crimson force entering the orbs and filling them with the power of emotion and passion, though his sibling was still in the front rank and slaying Welkalites all around him – Alex was sustaining many minor wounds in leading the charge, but luckily with the amount of healing at the legions of Lucael's disposal they were rejuvenating as fast as they were caused. Even so, the sight of the older boy getting hurt (even though he wasn't in any way showing it) enhanced the Red mana that had been temporarily gifted to him, so Caiellis used that to fling the orbs into the opposing ranks of Welkalites. They detonated in a tricolour burst of lightning, fire, light and darkness, consuming the cyclopses and ogres in a blast of pure zealous destruction that made Caiellis wonder if there was anyone alive with permanent access to that magic.

Cai leapt above the ranks of the army on his wings, though couldn't help but feel that the closer he got to the Tempest of Craving the worse off he was, and by increasing his altitude he was becoming a better and better lightning rod, ready to find a new bunch of enemies to kill, but apparently for now every last one of the Welkalites in the preliminary force had been killed. The Lucaelian soldiers cried in victorious unison, and although Cai thought that was significantly premature he left them to their short celebrations, knowing that it would help inspire them to face the horrors that were soon to come when they entered the city and that there was still an undertone of adamant determination to destroy the Welkalites and bring the Orders of Passion to justice, which was good as the battle was nowhere near close to concluding – if anything, the Lucaelians were worse off, as now the Tempest of Craving had been able to feast upon the souls slain and might start moving into the next phase.

"Soldiers of Lucael! Begin the attack on the main city!" Marik cried, his sword and shining armour drenched in glistening blood, while Caiellis by comparison was barely splattered with any due to the cauterising properties of the Sword of Glass and his preferred fighting style to be dispatching foes at long range, and he landed beside his father as his brother ran to their side for the second push into Usnaan, Caiellis's heart pounding in his chest as they began to march into the capital itself through the ruins of Gate Gluttony as he mentally prepared himself for abandoning the relative safety of all those that wanted to protect him – as his Lucerna beacon would not work with the disruptive influence of the Tempest of Craving.

He smothered his worries; Cai had been protected all his life and now it was his turn to make sure the guarding that others did of him – even to the point of some of them suffering horrible and messy deaths (such as the first one to have died protecting the youngest prince, the queen) – had been worth it. It was time for him to fully accept his duties as a Lucerna, by killing Tradax Yulica and ending the storm. While that wouldn't end the battle, as there would still be significant numbers of Welkalite forces remaining, it would be much easier to overcome them and subdue the enemies. Caiellis didn't think of himself of a reckless person, despite the fact that some could perceive the actions he would soon undertake as that instead of a necessary risk, and if he died doing this then it was because he was too weak to embrace his destiny and as such didn't deserve to live anyway, otherwise he could ascend to the throne and spread his failure to the highest rank.

Marik then unexpectedly said, "I'm glad you two are fine, though there will be plenty of fighting once we enter the main city and are confronted by the main bulk of the Orders, as well as being directly underneath the storm's influence. At any rate, I want you two to stay close to me. Together we will find and kill the Master of Rapture and end this infernal Tempest of Craving."

There was an inclination of parental pride as well as fatherly fear in the tone, small enough for Alex to pick up on it but not his younger sibling, who could only hear the king in his voice. Unlike when Alexander had said similar, Cai didn't feel like he was betraying his father at all by not listening to him and obeying his commands, and although for a moment he thought that it was quite touching that despite what they had gone through the man still wanted him by his side and safe, until the more pragmatic part of his mind interjected and informed him that it was such only because he was part of the royal family and if he died then the army would lose hope – well, until they became possessed of the need to wreak holy vengeance in account of the injustice done to their beloved royal family and that the innocent youngest prince had been slain, although afterwards the vast majority of Lucaelians would be privately happy that the host of the dreaded Angel of the Black Sun had died.

Cai relaxed his breathing, filling his thoughts with determination instead of fear for himself and those he would be leaving, and shut his right eye that was above the ominous birthmark imprinted on his cheek that was pale in all other respects, and opened the Lens of Guilt. He ignored the excruciating agony that erupted inside of his skull as the storm rumbled in his vision, focussing on the focal point of the concentrated Red and Black mana as Lucaelian troops ran past him, though they gave their young liege a wide and reverent berth. Around three seconds after he had stopped, he heard a concerned inquiry of "Cai? Are you alright?"

Yes, Alex, please leave me alone, leave me alone, please, let me do this, his mind thought frantically as his older brother turned around and began to run towards him, followed swiftly by their perturbed father. He drew the Sword of Glass, the blade suffused in dripping tenebrosity and only a slight tinge of radiant light as he mustered his thoughts of hatred to empower the Black mana, made easier and exacerbated by the Tempest of Craving despite the pain it was causing him, and a confused of "What are you doing, boy?" erupted from their seemingly outraged dad.

"I have to do this, Alexander, dad," he murmured, not able to see his father or brother past the glaring obstruction of the roiling thunderstorm of unnatural clouds – not that he would be able to perceive the two (well, at least Alexander, but Marik's intent wasn't overtly malicious or evil, just not very pleasant) in the malevolence highlighted in the Lens of Guilt. Both of them shouted: "Stop!" when he hacked the blade down in a perfectly vertical cut through reality itself, ripping apart the fabric of the material plane and revealing a terrifying and gloomy abyss within, the darkness of Sancturia that he would be going into for the first time, and blinked back the tears at his sudden certainty that he would never see Alexander again and that the older boy would blame himself if his little brother died or became wounded in service to the light. "I'm sorry. I'll see you soon."

He stepped through into the unrelenting void just as the light of the world around him became replaced by impenetrable darkness, a pair of arms grasping around where he had once been and fading away in his sight, and Caiellis had to resist the temptation to turn around and stare back at his older brother, as if he walked into the abyss without utter conviction in his cause then he would immediately become lost in its murky depths, according to Orzhova who must have travelled in this risky manner often, although it was much less so for angels and Sancturia beings than humans. Cai brushed aside the sensation of nausea that threatened to wash over him when he realised that he was simply standing on nothingness, as well as the fear of being lost in the darkness that bloomed when he couldn't see a path in front of him.

Calm down, Cai. Remember what Orzhova told you. Your thoughts are your own path within the lacuna, or did you forget her essential advice so easily? Don't panic, just start walking. Cai had to constantly focus on pushing down the terror that perpetually rose up within him, forcing his legs into motion and making them trudge through the darkness, which suddenly became solid and slowed his movements dramatically. He refused to give into the panic, the primal fear of the unknown, that swelled up within him, and even with the Lens of Guilt active he couldn't see anything.

Focus, focus. What is it you want to do? That's it. Find and kill Tradax Yulica. End the Tempest of Craving. Save the Lucaelian force. Become a hero. Okay that last part wasn't entirely essential, but it can be a side bonus. Not that I've ever cared about glory. Anyway, concentrate on what you want instead of getting distracted. Find and kill Tradax Yulica. Caiellis repeated the mantra over and over in his head, repressing the terror that kept battering at the indomitable fortifications of his determination. End the Tempest of Craving.

Holding his artefact sword in front of him like a beacon, or some sort of protection – like it would do anything against this perpetual darkness should it try to kill him – and increased his pace, the Sword of Glass lighting up with White mana that he found protective and comforting despite it not illuminating anything around it nor dispelling the eternal night that cloyed around him, although it was becoming less and less obtrusive the more he started walking and the more his thoughts were filled with an adamant will to succeed. Save the Lucaelia-

Poor little lost lamb, wandering into my domain, a voice, like the laughter of a thousand dead gods as they feasted on the souls of the innocent combined with the malevolence of the personification of hatred and malice itself, spoke into Caiellis's mind, disrupting the maintaining of his fragile mental state of courage and bravery, and Cai swept his sword around, looking for the source of the threat and finding himself almost unable to think clearly in the cloying murk, otherwise he would have recalled Orzhova's pressing and immensely important council to never listen to the voices. And a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna as well! This is an honour. The tone became mocking and sarcastic, though overwhelmingly so, amplifying the negativity of the sarcasm more than any human could ever do.

Caiellis almost gave into the sudden and foreign impulse to cry: "Show yourself, monster!" that agonisingly pressed itself into the forefront his mind, the act of defying the spontaneous mental imperative painful in itself, and with that he realised that the denizen of Sancturia that was trying to lure him from the correct path didn't actually know where he was, and wanted him to reveal himself so that it could attack. If he just stayed silent, then the being wouldn't be able to locate him, and forged ahead on his journey, his earlier trepidation gone, mixed with a kind of anxious fear that he wanted to be gone from this place, and the voice laughed again, although this one was inflected with a sadistic but also genuine amusement. A logical thought, but unfortunately for you that isn't true, little lost lamb. I know full well where you are, as you have entered my realm, the realm of demons. It has been many, many years since I have been graced with the presence of a Lucerna, little lost lamb, although your accursed line barely ever develops Black mana. It was foolish of you to come here, little lost lamb, and I will enjoy consuming your flesh as I roast your soul on the pyre of oblivion!

Caiellis pushed the voice out of his mind and kept going, vaguely recognising the tone from somewhere and then remembering where it was from – the laughter inside his mind during his most recent migraine. No, that wasn't quite it – the voices were similar, but noticeably different, and this one was suffused more with arrogance than sheer evil. The voice snorted loudly, and Caiellis forced himself to keep moving, not to succumb to the terror or the fear that would freeze his thin limbs if he let it, and the voice snarled. What do you think you can do, princeling? How could you possibly escape from my domain, little lost lamb? I long for the taste of a Lucerna again, and I will devour you. Cai couldn't help but let out a small smirk, as to him the insults of whatever this being was were getting more and more frantic to make him respond, becoming empty threats.

I will tear you apart, just as my sons tore apart your mother! The voice barked into his ear, freezing him in place as the darkness swirled around him, and the voice laughed again. Caiellis couldn't move as the darkness became claustrophobic and suffocating, blocking up his mouth and nose as he clawed at his throat, the darkness clogging up his lungs and preventing him from breathing, like an iron hard grip was clamped around his neck, the being's – the demon's, as there was no question of it now – words like icy daggers into his back.

Yes, little lost lamb, my children were the ones that ripped your mother apart in front of your eyes while you were too weak, too pathetic, to protect her, just like you are too pathetic to protect yourself and your army, little lost lamb. Emili Noctis's soul was a delectable treat, a feast of purity and innocence, and has been hugely enjoyable to watch your damned family tear itself apart exactly like my sons split apart your mother, and exactly like how I will rip you apart, feast on your divine flesh and claim dominion over the mortal realm. You cannot stop the advance of the abyss, mortal, just as you cannot stop yourself from asphyxiating. Are you having trouble breathing, little lost lamb?

Caiellis's vision blurred, though the only way he could tell was because he couldn't see the faintly glowing Sword of Glass as well, though he couldn't stop himself from dropping the weapon, though instead of falling away into the endless void beneath him it snagged on the magical and enchanted chain that he had attached to his right wrist. Aww, little lost lamb, is daddy choking you too hard? Would you like him to let go? All you have to do is give in. Give in to the night. Let it consume you, little lost lamb, and take you away from the pain. Let it-

"Silence," a voice, perfectly calm but filled to the brim with utter hatred, cut through the demon's taunts, and it screamed in utter fury, tightening the shadow's grip on Caiellis's mind, but when a hand gripped his shoulder tightly the block on the boy's breathing and thoughts was removed. Instead of gasping for breath in a frantic attempt to fill his starved lungs of oxygen, Cai found that there was no problem with the amount in his lungs, so his breathing returned to normal. "This "little lost lamb" of yours is under my protection, and I will not let you harm him whilst he is."

Caiellis felt a magical resonance placed on the word "not", the single syllable infused with hatred and malice, and he looked up to see Orzhova staring up at the darkness, where he could faintly make out a change in the shadows, a glinting blade, a malevolent blue eye, before it was gone, and resigned but no less malevolent words cut into the littlest Lucerna's mind. Hmph. Perhaps, for now, Angel of the Black Sun, but you cannot protect him forever. I think that you should give him to me, for others have fates planned for him that are much less kind than the one I would give him.

"Wha- What does he mean?" Caiellis asked shakily, standing up and still trembling in fear at his brush with being trapped for an eternity within the darkness of the abyss, and Orzhova stared down at him, her onyx eyes narrowing as if to say: "I told you so,", like what he was doing now was a completely unnecessary risk instead of something crucial to the prevention of a brutal slaughter – which this demon may have something to do with. No, Caiellis thought, somehow instinctually knowing that this demon wasn't associated with Red mana, and the ones that would be aligned with the Tempest of Craving would be. That begged the question of why this being had decided to confront him, because surely it would make more sense for it to be those of the storm assaulting him?

Wouldn't you like to know, little lost lamb? You know what, I'll tell you-

"Be silent!" Orzhova barked, her voice resolute and brooking absolutely no argument, and she twirled her scythe round before slamming it into the ground, grabbing Caiellis by his thin forearm and yanking him forward, setting off at a sprinting pace as the laughter of the demon followed them, the shadows shifting spitefully around them but warded off by Orzhova's magic as words of incandescent gold formed a shield around the angel and her small Summoner. Cai had a thousand questions to ask, but kept his mouth shut when the angel stared back round at him, silenced by what he saw as her irritation, but was actually Orzhova's fear at how close the boy had come to being claimed by one of the seven Archdemons.

Several other pairs of eyes opened up around them, shining with the malignant blue intent of the first and glaring at the intruders into their void. Tentacles of pure darkness battered at their shield, each flaring impact increasing Caiellis's primal fear before he suppressed the emotions, remembering with a jolt that he still had to fight in a battle and that when this ended he would be deposited right into enemy territory. The intensity of the attacks was increasing, shining cracks were appearing in their sphere of safety, and after a single minute of running Orzhova stated, "We are going to have to leave here. But before you go, remember that demons are never to be trusted."

Cai nodded, locking away the demon's portentous words within his mind and focussing on his current goal. Find and kill Tradax Yulica. End the Tempest of Craving. Save the Lucaelian force. The angel smiled briefly down at him, thought it was more like a grim gesture than a reassuring one, and her eyes still carried the melancholy that had been in them when he had first met the dark seraph after completing her trial of mortality. The Angel of the Black Sun raised her scythe, the ornate golden heel shaped like the Black Sun symbol pulsating with golden-white mana and infusing the curved blade extending out of it with an incandescent glow. Then, Orzhova suddenly swept the scythe downwards, breaking apart the void and filling it with colour, and hurled Caiellis out just as a tendril of darkness swept through the air where he had been.

The boy almost tumbled out of the Voidwalk, but instead managed to gain a modicum of balance so instead half-staggered, half-ran out of the portal back into reality, indescribably glad to be back within the material world despite the fact that the material world was currently in the midst of a brutal battle that would decide the fate of each of the two nations clashing for supremacy. He quickly adjusted to being back in a place that obeyed the general laws of physics written about by many Yentarian scientists more concerned with the physical world than that of the mental, and deactivated the Lens of Guilt as once again the storm filled his vision. He didn't recognise this part of the city, but it was surprisingly pleasant, as well as quiet, the only sound the rumbling of the Tempest of Craving above.

Cai looked around, noting with surprise the spires of the Palace of Desire in the distance, as he had expected the ritual that was powering the storm to be channelled from there, but instead it was quite far away. The Lucaelian force hadn't yet penetrated past the Glutton's Quarter, embroiled in battle there, which meant that the Voidwalk hadn't taken long at all, despite it feeling like it had taken up many minutes. Where he was now was on a small plaza situated about halfway up a hill with stone steps carved into the side and spiralling up, although it wasn't the tallest point in the city by far. Cai vaguely remembered this place from the meticulous visual analysing of Usnaan that he had done when he had been here last, though had consigned it to the back of his memory since at the time it hadn't seemed very important. Apparently it was, as while the Voidwalk could have gone wrong, influenced into inaccuracy by the storm crackling above, a quick glance through the Lens of Guilt (not long enough to cause any pain) confirmed that the ritual was being cast from here, so Caiellis stayed low and quickly began to ascend the steps.

.*.*.*.

"Damn that foolish boy!" Marik yelled, looking as if he wanted to punch something in impotent fury, and instead of meeting his father's furious gaze Alex simply stared at the place his little brother had been in, brushing his hand through it as if he hadn't yet processed the youngster's sudden disappearance. "What in the name of the forsaken abyss does he think he is doing?! How dare he think that he could just flee from a battle when he chose to!"

Alexander's shock and self-directed anger at not being able to stop his kid brother's departure quickly turned to rage at his dad, and he met the man's raged filled stare with one of his own, growling, "Do you really think that little of him, dad? Caiellis hasn't fled from the battle. He wouldn't do that; he's not a coward."

"Then what? What has he done?" Marik asked angrily, and Alex wanted to snap back that the man was Caiellis's relative as well, and that he had no clue, but instead he calmed himself down by releasing deep, shuddering exhalations and holding in the anger – ready to be released against deserving enemies – at not being able to protect his little brother, nor being trusted enough by the kid that Cai had told him what he was going to do. Then it dawned on him, "Cai's gone to where Tradax is. When we were talking once, he told me that he unlocked two abilities when he passed Orzhova's trial, and one was that he can use it to locate evil intent. That explained why his eye was black. He's gone to kill Tradax, and end the storm. Alone."

Alexander's voice was filled with equal amounts of admiration in his little brother's courage, anger at himself for not seeing the signs sooner, fury at the fact that Caiellis thought that he had to do this all by himself (that was kind of directed at their father, but also at everyone who put pressure on the thirteen year old) but most of all fear at the potential to lose his kid brother because of the fact that he had gone to fight arguably the most powerful Welkalite all alone. He felt a hand on his shoulder, firm but reassuring, and assumed that his despondency was visible when his father said, "You're brother has been extremely reckless. But we are still going to follow the plan, and rest assured we will meet up with Caiellis soon."
Alex pulled away from the grip and staggered in the direction of further into the city, where Lucaelian forces led by Light-bearers and the generals were already embroiled in combat with the forces from the Order of Gluttony, spreading out throughout the city exactly as the strategy they had come up with dictated – as there was no way the entirety of the Lucaelian army could move as one within the twisting streets and avenues. He was intending to go and find his brother, carve his way through the enemy lines in a charge that would lead him to the location of the younger boy, as while the storm and the battle was disrupting what he was in his sixth sense he could still faintly perceive the White and Black combined that was his little brother further into the city, left of the Slaughterhouse in the Champion's Quarter but right of the centralised Palace of Desire, before his father barked, "Alexander, following in your brother's example and rushing blindly into the city to find him will only end up getting you killed as well, and Caiellis wouldn't want that (though damn him for doing this and making his brother even more stressed, worried and angry than he needed to be), although I'm not entirely sure what he hopes to show by doing this-"

"He wants you to respect him!" Alexander yelled back, his voice fuelled by the desperate need to make sure his little brother was safe and sound and his anger directed towards his father. He calmed himself down; if he wasted time arguing now then his brother would be in even more danger than he was already, "But I'm not going to argue with you now. We need to save him, and by all means we can follow the original plan to go and kill Tradax ourselves but I am not wasting any more time with him in danger."

And with that, Alexander shot off, enchanting himself with Red and White auras birthed into life from his protective instinct and rushing to the aid of the Lucaelian advance, followed swiftly by his father. The Enforcers from the Order of Gluttony were set up masterfully, with formations covering one another and leading the Lucaelian forces into defensive emplacements and traps that they had little chance to escape from. There were many different paths into the city, all of them filled with soldiers on both sides murdering each other while the Tempest of Craving grumbled above, and Alex chose the one that would be the quickest to his brother's location, although it would require him to pass through the Champion's Quarter as well, which was probably stuffed full of insane gladiators from the Order of Violence.

He cried out, "Soldiers of Lucael, do not lose heart! Drive the Welkalites back!" when he charged to the aid of a division from Cassida Principia full of soldiers that he didn't know and a captain that he vaguely recognised, which meant that they had been part of his father's original force as he remembered all of the captains from his own. Accompanied by a glittering array of Lucaelian Wisps, a spiritual crusader that looked like one of the few ancestor spirits that still had business in the mortal realm and had chosen a Summoner – that was probably descended from or related to it – shined with a ghostly light and empowered the soldiers around it, swinging its huge broadsword that would definitely had belonged to it in life and cleaving apart two Enforcers in a single blow. The captain, a young woman with dark brown hair and wielding an ornate bow, a unique choice from those of the City of Swords, fired incandescent arrows into the Welkalite formation, bolts of light that did not require the consumption of normal ammunition, surrounded by her troops and directing them as she killed enemies.

The Welkalite leader, an obese brute of a man that was guarded by a group of savages more monster than human that reminded Alex of the dumb brutes that had carried the former Master of Gluttony's colourful palanquin, and a beast around twice the size of a human and full of hairy muscle with the head of a bull – a minotaur, Alex remembered from something his little brother had once said – charged at the Lucaelian lines, goring one soldier to death on its horns and tearing another apart with its bare hands. Another soldier struck a good blow with their sword, carving a line of blood down one of its pectorals, but the Welkalite Summoner pulsed regenerating Black mana at the minotaur and the tissue began to sickeningly knit itself back together, just as the soldier was cut down by a halberd carrying Enforcer covered in brown and brightly coloured armour emblazoned the monstrous mouth that was the sigil of the Order of Gluttony. There were about thirty Lucaelians, and their corpses covered the ground, with double that number from the New Empire of Passion pressing in on them and forcing them back down the street.

Alex, and the soldiers that had decided on a whim to follow the eldest prince, hit the Welkalite formation from the side, and the seventeen year old blasted a ball of fire into their ranks that exploded with fiery Red mana, immolating a few of the enemy soldiers whilst also infusing the Lucaelians it hit with a holy glow that reinforced the empowering magic of the celestial spirit warrior that pressed on into the Welkalite lines, the Lucaelian wisps adding power to the strikes of the soldiers and fluttering around the Welkalites, distracting them as well as saturating the air around them which sapped at their desire to do violence, and while the wisps were quite weak and the effects of their magic were not noticeable Alexander knew that it was helping.

Evidently Marik had decided not to follow his son and had instead gone to bolster another part of the army in need with his prodigious magical strength, as Alexander detected a blast of pure White mana in an area about one hundred metres to the left of his current position and on another one of the colourful avenues that had interestingly had their numerous market stalls of food shops pushed onto the street to obstruct the Lucaelian advance, their delicious looking cargo strewn across the stone pathways, which meant that the new Master of Gluttony clearly had more disregard for the stalls than their predecessor, who could have done the same to slow down the prince's escape. It showed a tremendous force of will for Alex's dad to not go following his son around after recently almost losing him, but the older potential heir was glad for it as it meant that more in the army would survive and that the push into the city wasn't concentrated into one point.

A woman holding two sickle blades that looked more like oversized eating implements than weapons spun around towards the new threat and swung two arcing blows at the oldest prince before he slammed into her, hacking his blade through her midriff and then fulminating a bolt of silver lighting through his new sword that had once served his father well (although not as well as the man's artefact relic greatsword that the monarch currently utilised), the Red and White magic representing the active enforcement of justice, eliminating potential foes before they could commit their nefarious deeds, and the crackling and divine electricity that was a far cry from the unholy and defiling crimson bolts from the storm above coruscated through the woman's body before crossing over itself in a helix pattern that killed several other soldiers and restored life as well as inspiring the Lucaelian soldiers.

Alex pulled away, dodging a stab from a spear and his already potent and honed combat instincts augmented by his offensive Red and defensive White mana that coursed through his veins, heightened by his adrenaline and his rage at the circumstances that drove Caiellis to believe that he had to fight alone, and charged at the man who had attempted to attack him, hacking through his skull and spattering blood, bone fragments and brain matter across the man's companion, who licked his lips at the vital fluids sprayed over his face and let out a sigh of pleasure before Alexander's extremely fast blade hacked him apart as well. While the youngest prince appeared very quick when he was fighting, he unleashed mostly magical attacks that took a comparatively long time when contrasted against his faster older brother, who could execute multiple physical attacks within a few seconds.

A sword drove into his arm, so Alex twisted and lessened the force of the blow, spinning around and hacking the person in half with his almost instantaneous riposte, his formidable speed enhanced by his reactive White and pre-emptive Red mana, and he punched another man in the face, his free left fist surrounded by fiery scarlet magic that incinerated the Enforcer's helmet and made Alexander's strength even greater, punching the man into his comrade who Alexander then impaled with his shining blade, although the eldest prince hadn't even worked up much of a sweat yet and still had monumental amounts of mana as yet unused.

He launched an overhead kick at the next of his opponents, one of the brutish hulks that were supposed to be guarding the Welkalite captain, but Alexander's momentum in his unstoppable charge had forged a path to the Welkalite leader, and sent the brute staggering as it yelped in rage at this new attacker. The giant of a man, his small and stupid eyes glinting with hunger, swung a fist at him, and Alex rolled underneath the blow, hacking at the "man's" hamstrings with his sword and sending him toppling just as another giant limb stamped down next to him, missing his head by millimetres as he leapt up off the ground, firing a bolt of of light with flames circling around it into the second savage and incinerating the man – Alexander ideally didn't want to use much mana against these weaker enemies, as he wanted to conserve it until he either reached his brother or a powerful foe obstructed his path to Cai, but still used a technique that Aurelia had taught him to help the soldiers around him, the legionaries gifted with glittering golden mana that blinded the enemies around them and infused their weaponry with a much greater strength.

The spiritual crusader roared a battle cry that was echoed by his Summoner and taken up by all of the soldiers as they began to overwhelm the Welkalites with their untity and strength, their blades flashing with a much faster speed than their opponents' due to the speed-improving Red mana Alexander was gifting them with, cutting down Gluttony Enforcers left and right and sustaining significantly less casualties in return. Alex finished off the crippled giant that he had attacked first with a decapitating blow, turning furiously to the Welkalite captain before his threat instinct flared and he was knocked to the side by a heavy impact that smashed him onto the ground, expelling the air from his lungs in a whoosh, like when Caiellis got lucky during their sparring and connected with his bread basket.

He instinctively rolled to the side very slightly, as something was pinning him on the ground and preventing him from bringing his sword to bare, and avoided a haired fist that smashed apart the stone of the street his head had been on a moment before. He looked up to see the minotaur glaring hungrily down at him, its gaping maw already covered with blood and Alex could pick out intestines hanging down from its back teeth. It roared at him, the bellowing noise blocking out all other sound, its breath smelling of foetid death that would have made Alexander wretch if he wasn't already used to the smell from this battle, and swung its head down, intending to impale him with its monstrous curling horns.

A second before Alexander was about to annihilate the beast with an explosive blast of Red and White mana, a holy arrow embedded itself in the back of the minotaur's head, sticking out through the front and poking through its left eye, and just as Black mana was about to repair the damaged tissue another arrow hit it in the head.

Still it refused to die, roaring again and taking a swipe at the stricken prince, who blocked the blow on his bracers and winced at the strength behind the strike, before moving up his own head and butting the minotaur's own, though his was surrounded by a protective golden shield of White mana – otherwise Alex would have done more damage to himself than the beast, and the magical arrows lodged in its head didn't hurt Alex like conventional arrows would have done should he have performed the same manoeuvre on them. He pushed the beast off of him, and to make sure that it was truly dead he hacked off its bull head with his sword, leaping back to his feet and turning to the Summoner of the minotaur.

The man was quickly trying to flee down the street, although he definitely wouldn't find any respite in the Champion's Quarter with the coward-hating Order of Violence within, and Alex nodded his acquiescence when the Principia captain sent a look asking for conformation his way – as the Lucerna may have found it insulting that the strongest enemy was not left for them, as the way of the tradition of the City of Swords was to give the commanders the glory of defeating the greatest foes, a custom that had often led to the more honour-obsessed generals throwing their lives away as they tried to fight an enemy leader that was far more potent than them alone, but could have been brought down by teamwork and unity.

"Thank you for coming to our aid, Lord Alexander," the brunette saluted him and then bowed as Alex nodded towards the pretty captain, although now was not the time for such things. He made the reverent sign of the Deserved Rest to the spiritual crusader when he was recalled to her side, who bowed to the Lucerna prince in front of him, the respect for the ruling family of Lucael carried over into his deathly service, and although the ancestor spirits that needed to complete some task before entering the Third Realm were paragons of nobility, justice and atonement for one's mistakes (such as failing to protect their leader in battle or leading their army to its death), they had always unnerved Alexander, though he didn't let it show as the woman introduced herself. "I am captain Telaia Gladium of Division Five of the legions of Cassida Principia."

"And thank you for aiding me in combat against the minotaur," he replied, and then turned to the rest of the force.

"Soldiers of Lucael. We press on to the caster of the Tempest of Craving!" Alex cried, and although he hid it he was getting more and more agitated by the second, as each moment could be one where his little brother died, and he had lost the younger boy's magical presence in his mind as the storm swelled with the absorbed souls of those slaughtered in the city below. He ran down the avenue, bringing his hands together pre-emptively, placing one on the hilt of his sword and the other on the blade, and blasted a wave of incandescent fire onto new Welkalite troops that ran to attack them now that they had progressed into the next section.

The one who had organised the Enforcers of Gluttony was obviously a very canny and cunning general, as he (or she) had made entrance into the further city as difficult as possible with roving hordes of warriors intercepting the Lucaelian soldiery and delaying them, harrying and performing hit and run attacks on the forces before driving them into the waiting jaws of more lumbering and less manoeuvrable but much stronger troops and their Summonings, which is evidently what had happened to the division from Cassida Principia that he was currently leading. His frustration was mounting as he saw another group of Welkalites coming to attack them, and released another gout of flame that was heightened by his anger at them trying to stop him from protecting those weaker than him, turning the non-magical soldiers to ash before they had chance to respond.

Then, as he kept running, the scenery around him suddenly changed, like he had just crossed some sort of physics-defying threshold and teleported into another city, although there were noticeable similarities everywhere in Usnaan – the stalls and restaurants became replaced by more drab buildings, although some were covered in crimson red, with posters everywhere highlighting numerous violent events that would not be held in the near future in the legions of the Kingdom of Light had anything to do about it. The space around Alex was clearly less well maintained than the Glutton's Quarter, the ground covered in dust, dirt and some blood splatters that would have been meticulously swept away by the servants that aspired to make the part of the city dedicated to catering with food and drink presentable.

Looking to his right, Alex could clearly see the Slaughterhouse looming up closer now, the sandstone coliseum the residence of Arendus Draal, the Master of Violence that he still hadn't paid back yet for the kidnapping and near-murder of his fragile little brother, but after a few seconds of marching through his domain Alexander heard a baying cry; the exultant and excited roar echoed by many others on both sides of the small Lucaelian force he commanded as the middle Lucerna suddenly detected the presence of many Red mana signatures in his sixth sense and looked to the side just as several dozen brutally but still lightly armoured gladiators swarmed over the roofs of the houses on the street they were in, carrying an array of wickedly spiked and savage weaponry that would be used to inflict as much painful damage as possible to an opponent when facing them in the arena that was in essence a training ground for warriors, although there was a small difference between the Order of Violence Enforcers (lead by Enforcer-General Fraetus Etin) and the gladiators (who Arendus Draal preferred, although the ones commanded by the general were still technically under his orders), as the former were slightly more disciplined than the latter.

Alex locked eyes with the bloodshot orbs of a muscular woman with her hair held in a topknot that was already matted with blood even before the battle, and then noticed that all of the berserkers had their wrists cut, which meant that they would bleed out soon – unless they found a way to heal themselves, which meant that they would probably have access to regenerating Black mana. The woman, who was clearly the leader judging by the way she bossed the other gladiators around and had the most piercings and scars, including a jagged one that went right over her bare abdomen, placed her free hand underneath the wrist that was bleeding, and then flung the blood into the air, shrieking in a foul tongue that was unusual for the magic-eschewing Order of Violence but was filled to the brim with the addiction to hedonistic battle and inciting her descending soldiers into a crazed frenzy as well as opening up a flaming portal that filled the world with insane giggling.

A skeletal giant (although it wasn't quite as big as the things actually classified as giants) with bones blackened by flames and eyes full of rage-induced crimson clattered into the world, one of its arms replaced by a spiked metal ball like the head of a morning-star whilst the other was a malicious blade that already had long-dead corpses hanging off of it, and it belched Black and Red fire at the middle prince, who deflected it on a shield of White mana just as the Violence gladiators landed amongst them. Although he could take the skeletal gladiator without doing this, he would probably be wounded enough so that he wouldn't be able to enact his current course of action, which would be extremely detrimental to the battle for Usnaan. He clasped his hands over the hilt of his sword, focussing his rage and tempering it with the need to protect those weaker than him and enact justice on those who oppressed those they should be guarding, as circles of alternating white and red pulsed out across the ground.

The soldiers around him, sensing his massive increase in mana output, gave him a wide berth as well as forming up around him as yet more Welkalite gladiators rushed round the corner of the next street, evidently having sensed the intruders into the Champion's Quarter and eager to get a piece of the action themselves, although there would be no shortage of that when more Lucaelians penetrated the defences in the Glutton's Quarter and were following the part of the plan that had them subduing the Champion's Quarter – as the place that most likely Tradax was conjuring the storm from was near the centre of Usnaan, so one could get to it from any of the four Quarters of Passion and to truly conquer the city each Order of Passion needed defeating.

Several screeching devils charged past this new group of gladiators, Summoned by some brutish mages in the front line of the enemies, but Alexander was more focussed now on the Summoning ritual, the circles around him flaring upwards into life as the Tempest of Craving seemingly roared in rage at the entrance of a First Sisterhood angel, the Lucaelian soldiers bolstered with one of the most venerated denizens of Sancturia in their midst and driven to even greater acts of heroism, the ancestor spirit of captain Telaia raising its ghostly sword to the sky and shouting in zealous rage.

"Aurelia!" Alexander cried, a glorious chorus of battle hymns drowning out the insane screaming of the berserkers and even the rumbling storm above, the world lighting up in a blinding golden gleam that forced some of the less suicidal gladiators to step back and cover their eyes. Others however ran at Alex, before they were turned to purified ashes by the proximity to his powerful mana, and the circles flashed even brighter before dimming down slightly as their light was absorbed into an angelic figure. Aurelia appeared in the material realm, opening her wings wide and slicing a crossing arc with each sword that left red imprints on the air, until two arcs of fire blasted out from it and burnt several Welkalites to death with the fires of justice.

"Prepare to face justice!" the angel shouted, her voice suffused with a holy resonance that inspired all of the soldiers around her as yet another group of Order of Violence swarmed round the corner, the streets thronged with those desperate for a piece of the brutal battle, and launched herself into their ranks, her ignited blades hacking apart those around her as any that tried to attack the Warleader were repelled by blinding bursts of retaliatory light and then swiftly cut apart by the fiery seraph, who fired multiple lightning helices at her foes, annihilating them with the strength of her mana and making Alexander feel even more powerful, like he was now fully ready to protect the innocent and deliver judgement upon those who would seek to harm them. The boy leapt at the first Welkalite leader from the most savage Order he had sighted, the Summoner of the skeleton giant that had ripped apart several Lucaelians, all the while screaming with maddening laughter that had at first caused soldiers to have to cover their ears, but now that the Warleader was amongst them they were immune to the debilitating and insanity-inducing magic.

The angle flew at the skeletal giant, her speed frightening to behold, shooting past the creature of Red and Black and hacking it apart with her blades, quickly dismembering it limb from limb in a storm of flaming steel, though Alex cried a warning as the carnage gladiator began to reassemble itself from its constituent parts which were strewn across the street, until with a war cry Aurelia pointed her blades at the sky, a pillar of light crackling with radiant lightning slamming into the skeleton and disintegrating it so that it could not rebuild. Alexander's thoughts were roused and he was encouraged by the extremely swift take down of the skeleton, and he jumped up himself to meet the Welkalite, who looked nonplussed by the destruction of her Sancturia creature and charged at the prince, holding a serrated blade in her left hand and a single-bladed axe in her right, swinging down with the heavier weapon first.

Alex blocked it on his sword but slid it underneath the blow, deflecting the force instead of taking it straight on his blade and potentially jarring the bones in his sword arm, and jumped back from the next blow, the woman using her heavy axe buried in the ground to fling a kick at him, which he could have blocked on his Lucerna bracers that he wore apart from the fact that her heels were covered in minuscule but incredibly sharp blades that were covered in corrosive and virulent Black mana that would have melted through the metal of his bracers and poisoned the skin underneath.

She flung out her blade at him, the wrist spilling blood all around her in the strike that Alex avoided when he noted that it burnt the ground when it splattered onto it – this gladiator-whore seemed equipped to kill her foes in every single way possible, weaponising her shoes and even her blood – and blasted a bolt of pink lightning at him that seemed augmented by the storm overhead. Alexander coruscated his own flash of radiance to counteract it, the two discharges of Red mana augmented by the magic of light and darkness cancelling each other out in an explosive flash. Alex capitalised on the distraction, charging at the woman and hacking his sword into her, unaffected by the detonation due to the shields surrounding him whereas she had no such luxury.

The Welkalite instinctively leapt backwards, but Alexander's blade caught the hand holding the sword and sliced it off. She shrieked in a mixture of excited revelling in the violence and the pain and anger, and pointed the stump towards him, malevolent black flames that still had pulsating heat within them rushing at the seventeen year old, who automatically raised his arms in defence before a radiant (although both Alexander's and Caiellis's First Sisterhood angels used gold as a colour, Orzhova's was much more imperious and prosperous whereas Aurelia's was blinding and shining) and golden shield of mana appeared around him, the angel slicing into the woman and cutting her in half with her straight edge blade held in her left hand while stabbing another with the curved one in her right.

Then it happened. As if satisfied with the amount of death within it, or desperately hungry for more, the Tempest of Craving roared from above, the sound combined with the tempestuous laughter of what sounded like an atavistic god, and flicked four massive bolts of crimson lightning into the city below it – one of which was aimed squarely at Alexander's position. Aurelia managed to raise a shield just before the almost instantaneous discharge crashed into the ground, signalling the Tempest of Craving moving on to the next stage, although Alexander's mind was still filled with primal fear at the thunderous applause of the unnatural storm.

The lightning filled the street with its crimson flash, shattering apart the stone of the path and annihilating the buildings all around it. Each and every person not guarded by the shield – which was all of the Welkalites and the vast majority of those of Division Five – died, the electricity of dark passion fulminating through their conductive bodies and making them die in screaming agony as their flesh was agonisingly stripped from their bones, leaving blackened and charred skeletons behind.

Alex only just resisted the temptation to scream in instinctual panic and terror at the sheer force behind the blast, but the few Lucaelians behind the shield without the blessing of a First Sisterhood angel inside their mind and bereft of courageous Lucerna blood circulating through their veins couldn't hold back the cries of fear and anguish at the fate of their comrades. After the crimson energy dissipated away, Aurelia lowered the shield, and Alex fell to his knees for a few seconds at the sight of the smoking corpses covering the street, still holding onto their weapons, and briefly wondered who would be possessed of such stupidity to ever serve a master that would just callously discard their servants. The boy couldn't help but feel extremely sad for the innocent inhabitants of Welkas, who had to endure torture after torture in the name of the Orders of Passion's relentless pursuit of forbidden pleasure.

He slowly stood up, and gripped the shoulder of Telaia, who he felt a shared sense of comradeship with after fighting alongside her and surviving that unscathed despite not knowing the young woman before this battle, and said, infusing his voice with the righteous anger he felt at the mistreatment of the civilians, before and after this storm, as well at the rage at innocent Lucaelian lives being snuffed out, instead of the despondency and loss of conviction at such a casual display of power that had wiped out the vast majority of Telaia's beloved Division Five, as the captain had showed a tremendous amount of pride in her formation and Alexander had got the impression that she knew – or had known – every single soldier intimately, "We need to get moving, and end this Tempest of Craving as soon as possible."

"What can we do?" she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks in her despair, and Alex suddenly became crushed by the guilt of not being able to save any more of the soldiers despite supposedly being one of the most powerful people alive, and she glared at him – even though Alexander knew that the woman was just directing her sorrow at having her division almost exterminated, and wasn't blaming him for it, her gaze still stung and he rocked back as if slapped, "What can we possibly do against that? If a First Sisterhood angel can't even stop it, then what are people like me supposed to do?"

"Telaia, my granddaughter. Show respect to your rulers," a voice, vaguely admonishing but also comforting, spoke, and the captain blew her nose and deferentially lowered her head, as if suddenly remembering that she was in the middle of a brutal battle (although Alexander couldn't detect any enemies, though that didn't mean there were none so he kept his guard up) and that the one she was talking to was a Lucerna, but in truth the seventeen year old blamed himself for the deaths as well. The boy looked up to see the spirit warrior looking down on them, and that the other five soldiers that had survived were glancing up at the Lucerna and his angel for guidance after having their moral crushed by the strike of passion-fuelled lightning, and he locked his eyes with the ghostly brown orbs of the ancestor spirit, the exact same colour as Telaia's. Alex took a deep breath, projecting his voice inspiringly but also inflecting it with the melancholy he felt at the deaths, and uttered, "We have to carry on and end the storm before the fate of the heroic Division Five of Cassida Principia is befallen by more. We have to keep going, push further into Usnaan, to make the deaths of your comrades worth something. And I promise you, Telaia, that I will not their sacrifices be in vain."

"Make their deaths worth something," the woman repeated, whispering quietly and completely enraptured by the prince's short but no less heartfelt speech, looking up at him with her wide brown orbs that were still brimming with tears before she wiped them. Then, a form crashed down behind her, cracking the already abused ground with the force of the impact, and an executioner's axe was slammed into her throat, taking off her head in a brutal spray of blood and spine fragments.

"Telaia!" Alexander cried, launching himself forward at the looming figure behind the swaying and headless body of the youthful captain, just as the spiritual crusader screamed in rage, pain, and loss, charging at this new opponent as well, but with his Summoner/granddaughter dead his contract that had allowed him to remain beyond the veil ended and he was dragged bellowing into the afterlife. His reckless thrust was casually sidestepped and the axe was swung into his chest from underneath, the Welkalite reversing his hold on the gargantuan double-bladed weapon to do so, but Aurelia managed to create a shield of mana there so her Summoner wasn't disembowelled. Instead, he was flung across the street, landing with a painful impact a few metres away, his thoughts still alight with rage and his words feeling hollow in his chest.

Aurelia flung herself at the man, cutting through the air at an insane speed towards him, but the brute of a man turned around with a speed that made Alex's eyes widen as the twin blows of the angel were parried on the haft of the axe. The angel yelled in fury and increased the intensity of her magic, the blades shining with a blinding light, and the Welkalite managed to beat her back, matching and then overpowering the formidable strength of the First Sisterhood angel and sending her staggering back. Then, he ran past her, to the soldiers that charged him, the last remaining members of Division Five that were determined to avenge their leader and the rest of their formation, and Alex's mind was filled with horror, shouting out a warning "No!" but knowing it was too late.

The axe whirred around with a speed that no weapon that size should ever be able to reach unless it was being wielded by a giant, not a mortal man (albeit a bulging, muscled brute of one), hacking apart the five soldiers in as many blows and spinning away from the ones launched in retaliation – or ignoring them as they clattered impotently against his interlocking brass metal plates that left much of his tanned and scarred skin bare. Aurelia returned to Alexander's side, her eyes suffused with zealous fury, and the middle Lucerna felt his own power rising to more powerful than he had ever felt it before when confronted by the one who had just slain those of Division Five, abused the population of Welkas, supported the casting of the Tempest of Craving, and whose actions in abducting and almost killing Alexander's precious little brother had led to this war, this violence and death.

The bronze gladiator's helm masking his face served as conformation of his identity, although Alexander had already known who he was when he had first saw him: Arendus Draal, Master of Violence.

Telaia Gladium and Division Five. Your sacrifice in bringing me here will not be in vain. I will kill this bastard, save my little brother, end the life of the one casting the storm, and win this war, Alex promised to himself, though Aurelia could hear his thoughts as well, I swear on my honour as a Lucerna.

.*.*.*.

"My lord!" one of the soldiers cried in gladness when Marik ran, surrounded by his praetorians who he was quite annoyed at as he had ordered some to follow Alexander, but as well as his youngest son his eldest's Lucerna beacon had been cut off by the distorting influence of the Tempest of Craving, although he had sent the ones that had originally served Caiellis to go and protect him. The force comprising of an entire cohort, under the command of a battle-hardened and ruthless general named Bronn Preolm (that Marik did not like as a person due to something that happened back when Garius II was on the throne, but had learnt to respect as a masterful but slightly callous strategist that got the job done but did so with many casualties) hailing from Capitalia Lux that had been present at his youngest son's first strategy session (which undoubtedly set the precedent for each consecutive one), was battling with a large number of Welkalite Enforcers on a huge plaza that was one of the most open areas in the city and on the threshold between the Glutton's Quarter and the Hedonist's Quarter, according to the maps that Marik had studied before entering the city.

The man, wearing his full plate steel armour with the visor down, saluted to his king, slamming his fist over his breastplate efficiently and then turning his attention to the troops, as this open location was much more suitable for enacting a small-scale battle stratagem with moving divisions of soldiers than the cramped streets, where the large scale plan that involved the manipulation of formations and reinforcements in conjunction with each other was paramount for success. Marik had planned for one of the largest engagements within the city to be here, just as he had prepared for the enemy force to be a mixture of the slower but no less aggressive Gluttony warriors and the stranger and more disturbing troops from the Order of Rapture, and as such had equipped Bronn's force with a squadron of powerful lawmages from the Scientia Mos academy, who were busy suppressing the rage of the Welkalites and binding whole formations of them in restricting and numbing Blue and White mana.

He knew that he had chosen rightly in selecting the dependable Bronn to lead the onslaught around this area, as while other generals might be excited at the prospect of combat and attaining glory the dour and serious warrior had perfected the strategy of grinding the enemies into dust through a war of attrition, implacably marching his Lucaelian legionaries into the plaza and brute forcing his way through the defences set up by the Welkalites, deflecting retaliatory charges with the sheer force and number of soldiers he had at his disposal, which meant that of course a large number of Lucaelian lives were being extinguished as the Welkalites killed and killed and killed, but the advance could not be stopped unless they mounted a much stronger defence that hordes of roving warriors that were much more potent on the offensive.

Marik made a mental not to attach Bronn to Caiellis once this war was over and if there were any others (although he hoped that he never had to do it), as while the two would agree on the slow an inexorable abrasion of the enemies, they would argue over the method in which the soldiers should be used in such a way. While Marik couldn't blame the boy, as he was naturally gentle and was still only thirteen, Caiellis was too kind to his troops and tried to shoulder every burden himself instead of subjecting them to it, which was reflective of his personality and very selfless but ultimately foolish. Such a way of thinking had led to his youngest son, his fragile second child, going on his errant mission to forcibly cease the Tempest of Craving himself, which had been incredibly reckless and had meant that instead of having the security of knowing that his sons were relatively safe by his side, where he could see and protect them, both of them were missing, swept away by the chaos of the urban conflict, his eldest throwing himself into danger in an attempt to rescue and aid his younger sibling.

This was the culmination of Caiellis's defiance, a blatant refusal to obey his orders to stick by his father's side, and while he could praise the boy's heroism in wanting to end the storm before it could take any more lives the fact was that he wasn't strong enough to do it alone, no matter that he had the combined forces of light and darkness within him, no matter that he was a Lucerna prince with an artefact armament from the vaults underneath the Lucerna Palace and had access to a First Sisterhood angel, he was still only thirteen years of age and whoever had cast this storm must have had a massive amount of power in order to be able to do so. He had tried every method he could think of to curb his youngest's delinquency, and now that he had failed in every conceivable way at being both his father and king his son's life was in perilous danger once again and it was up to the monarch to not only lead the army to victory over the chaotic and corrupt Welkalites, but save one of the potential heirs to the throne from death, which meant that the fatherly need to protect both of his children was at the forefront of his mind and strengthening his pure White mana, which also reacted to the presence of its two enemy magics of disorder and darkness by bolstering his need to achieve peace and light.

Marik charged into the battle, shouting a righteous battle cry infused with the magic of order and sanctimonious luminescence, and drew his greatsword, the blade thrumming with charged power itching to be released against the forces of Black and Red and echoing Akroma's hatred of havoc and corruption, and chose his first target, a roaring kami creature with skin like raw flesh, obsidian claws that pierced out of reptilian skin, a gaping maw filled to the brim with teeth and questing tendrils of flesh that wrapped around loyal Lucaelians and pulled them closer, and most prominently a back completely covered in pulsating flames that created a heat haze around it and roasted Welkalite and Lucaelian alike as its Summoner cackled in delight.

The supreme king of Lucael scowled at the beast, leaping forwards and ramming his sword straight into its gullet, twisting and eviscerating the creature, the superheated contents of its stomach washing over him but spattering off of a shield he automatically raised to defend himself. Marik was wearing his official crown today, a simple circlet of blessed silver that augmented any defensive magic he would cast by a significant margin, making him almost immune to any form of attack that wasn't powered by huge amounts of mana. He then opened his free palm wide, using one of his favoured spells and conjuring up a veritable armoury of spectral swords of luminescence and flinging them into the Welkalite ranks, tearing apart the lightly armoured troops in a storm of magical steel. The man raised his sword to the sky, channelling power into it, and releasing that power, the blades of light that he had birthed from his imagination and will to defeat his foes exploding in spheres of light that heralded the second stage of his spell, one that he rarely used unless facing large numbers of enemies.

The light dissolved the Welkalites that it touched, leaving the survivors screaming in pain when parts of their bodies were disintegrated, and the king efficiently swept his blade around and charged back into the enemy ranks, the eight Lucerna praetorians surrounding him (and although Guardian Tristram would usually have been part of them, Marik had sent him to lead his own troops through the heart of the Glutton's Quarter to put down the resistance within and slay the enemy general – the Master of Gluttony that had inherited role from the one that his beloved sons had killed – of this area, while the other troops could press on to kill the other Masters and end the storm) and hacking apart enemies left and right, forming a spearhead that would pierce the heart of the Welkalite ranks and shatter them apart, as now that he had arrived the slow onslaught that would seemingly go on until there was only one warrior left on each side that Bronn had been prosecuting had turned into a glorious charge with him at its head, the Lucernas inspired by their king and surging forward in virtuous harmony, their weapons shining with the blessed light of the angels that refused to be smothered by the unholy Tempest of Craving like some candle and their strikes infused with their undying faith in the exalted Lucerna, who would not fail them on this day, or any other.

He then sensed a massive increase in White and Red mana from an area roughly a mile or so to the right of where he was fighting now, and the Summoning of Aurelia into the material realm filled him with pride in his eldest child mixed with apprehension at the direness of his situation that meant that Alexander had been forced to ask for the aid of his resident First Sisterhood Angel, although he knew that the boy would be relatively safe with the dependable Angel of War at his side, whereas Caiellis could only call upon the blessings of Orzhova, an enigma to the oldest Lucerna.

By his side, Eleanour Palladia, one of his praetorians that had stayed at his side while eight other of her rank were sent off to guard his children, released White mana in a large area, Summoning the second giant of the Lucerna Guard (with the first being the Pale Wayfarer of Aymer Solfortis), a very large woman that towered above the Lucaelian soldiers and held a large vertical shield strapped to each arm, the epitome of defence that had saved Marik's life on numerous occasions, but at the moment was being used for offence as she slammed the shields into Welkalite warriors that swarmed around her, splitting apart the ground with the force of the blow and crushing the fighters of the New Empire of Violence to a bloody pulp.

Bronn was leading the advance from the other side, his Second Sisterhood angel, a sombre Daughter of Wrath that had wings of grey and wintry white hair with orbs of the same colour, her slender and perfect body scantily clad with golden armour that left her pale skin bare to the elements, and held two slim and elegant blades, one in each hand, that could be combined together to form a single large sword in imitation of Akroma's gargantuan Blade of Wrath. However, the most noticeable characteristic of the angel – Nixilia the Valkyrie – was the type of spells that she cast, spinning her swords and singing a haunting song that resurrected Lucaelian soldiers that had died around her and still had corpses that hadn't been too brutalised by their respective demises, healing them back to full strength and infusing them with repairing White mana as well as the desire to have another chance in the battle, perfectly exemplifying Bronn's style of a war of attrition and throwing his soldiers at the enemies until they capitulated.

Marik hacked his relic blade round in wide arcs, killing Welkalites with every blow as their pitiful resistance pattered off of the transparent sphere of light surrounding him, the crown sat upon his head and proving his identity of the king shining with light as it absorbed and nullified the power of the many blows directed towards him. He stamped the ground, a wave of milky light undulating up from it and knocking the Welkalites off of their feet as well as burning them in the holy glow, and the giant next to him crushed the downed Welkalites before they could get back to their feet.

"Onward, soldiers of Lucael! Into the city! Crush the Welkalites under the heel of our righteous determination, and cut them apart with our faithful steel!" he shouted, remembering that when he had been an impressionable and nervous youth he had found the thought of him ever doing something like this or saying something inspiring completely unnatural, but now he was used to bellowing the battle cries that roused the Lucaelians to even greater acts of heroism while in the presence of their semi-divine ruler, a descendant of Matalis Ortus Lucerna and worthy to wield the power of one of the exalted First Sisterhood Angels, the direct daughters of the being that had pulled their race out of the darkness and established a kingdom to ward off the predation of the abyss.

The plaza led on to an avenue after it that the Lucaelian soldiers were about to rush into, after Marik effortlessly cut apart a hulking minotaur and turned to another, this one holding a large spiked club that it swung at the king, dodging its first strike and then parrying the second on his greatsword, letting a smile creep onto his face at the minotaur's almost comical dismay at its thunderous blow being blocked by the puny human facing it – the beast seemed incredibly surprised that the man would rely on his own strength just like it did, and flipped his grip on the sword, letting the club slide past it and ramming it into the minotaur's throat, an explosion of blood fountaining out as it gurgled, its stupid eyes widening in shock as he sliced its bull head off, and as its huge and muscled body pitched onto the ground he stood on its skull, cracking it apart under his armoured boots before it returned to Sancturia.

The Welkalite forces were turning around to run now, their defence swiftly turning into a disordered rout as they fled for their lives, running from the Lucaelians charging behind them, many cut down by the bolts of light launched by mages, their magic guided into the cowardly and evil Enforcers that would rather preserve their own detestable hides instead of the lives of their people, and Marik bellowed another war cry and ran after them, aiming to keep up the momentum of the legionaries' charge so that they could break further into the city before the Welkalite formations could respond to the sudden surge of motion, the men following their king's example and charging down the wide avenue. Marik sighted a large amount of more ornately armoured (although they still didn't wear much of it) Enforcers clustered at the opposite end, many of them wearing strange devices on their back that appeared to be simple metal rods though they wore them like banners, and instead of rising to meet the Lucaelian assault they showed a tremendous amount of discipline for Welkalites and remained in their positions, although Marik was confident that he could have them routed from their emplacements within a few minutes.

That was until the Tempest of Craving started shrieking with fury, blasting forth four colossal crimson bolts of lightning that struck at different points within the city, and although none directly impacted that near to his area (one crashing down where he had sensed his eldest son Summoning the Warleader, whereas another smashed into the place where the storm was being cast, which filled him with cold rage at the injustice directed towards his youthful and precious sons) the king still grimaced at the amount of casualties that would have been caused by the thunderous discharge, the storm above started crackling with even more fury and releasing the normal sized, but still powerful, coruscations of electricity from within its tumultuous depths, and Marik was sure he had perceived the sound of malignant and rage-filled laughter.

He made sure to not let the actions of the Tempest of Craving faze him, although he was concerned as the dire words of Caiellis about the storm gaining power the more blood was spilt underneath it, continuing to rush the Enforcers who seemed to be strangely from the Order of Violence judging by the symbols emblazoned across their crimson armour, matching the aesthetic colour scheme of the other warriors from that, and then excruciating clarity erupted in his mind, matching the pounding of the headache that had ceased to go away (though it had receded in intensity to the point where he could actually move, just becoming more background painful, although Marik had resolved to ignore it and not be distracted by the pain inside of his mind), the explanation for the use of the metallic banner rods rushing to the forefront of his brain a second before they were deployed to that purpose.

The pink and crimson lightning that crackled in the storm above was drawn to the presence of so many conductive and elevated materials below it, fulminating out of the Tempest of Craving and behaving like normal electricity in that respect, crackling downwards to the earth and channelling itself into the back-pieces the Enforcers wore, their halberds and bows lighting up with the chaotic but extremely powerful energy, though some of the pieces of equipment could not hold the malevolent blessing of the lightning and fried their wielders, the Enforcers dying in screaming agony and ignored by their comrades, many of whom revealed themselves from concealment and absorbed the fury of the Tempest also, fulminating the lightning into their weaponry through their armour and conducting it into the metal.

"Look out!" a voice cried in warning, just as the distance between the Lucaelian rush and the Welkalite archers became filled with crackling arrows that pierced through the hasty shields that were erected and became embedded in the mages that attempted to conjure the defences, the malignant energy of the storm penetrating effortlessly through or even ignoring the protective White mana that tried to stem the tide of arrows. Marik felt himself being lifted out of the air and dragged behind a wall of cover, Eleanour's giant desperately dropping her shields in a horizontal manner to create as much physical protection that the arrows would not be able to slice through for the few soldiers that could cower behind it as the giant was riddled with arrows that electrocuted her with the malicious energy of Red and Black demons, killing her extremely quickly without her own defences, although her sacrifice was not in vain.

Normally Marik would object to having to hunker down behind walls, as as the Lucerna monarch he should be leading the charge instead of cowering behind barriers that weaker warriors than he should be using to protect themselves, but knew that even the powerful and ancient enchantments cast onto his crown would not suffice as a defence against this magic. The soldiers that couldn't hide behind the barrier kept advanced, spurred on by Bronn and his unsympathetic angel, but they were being cut down on all sides by the storm of crackling arrows and lightning magic flung by electromancers, their own natural power augmented by that of the Tempest of Craving's dark energy, the electricity bouncing between the armour of multiple Lucaelian soldiers in malicious arcs of crimson power that agonisingly charred their bodies as they screamed in pain and thrashed spasmodically, trying desperately to remove their armour before they were killed, but the energy coursed through their nervous systems and made the movement impossible.

"Forward!" Bronn hollered, before a well-placed arrow hit him in the section of the armour around his throat that was made in that manner to stimulate mobility and allow the movement of the head and neck. The general choked, blood exploding out from the mouthpiece of his helmet, and his Valkyrie screamed in impotent rage at the inability to resurrect her Summoner as he suffocated on his own blood as sadistic lightning crackled through his veins.

Those precious few with enough fortitude to reach the enemy lines were swiftly and precisely dismembered by the electrolysed halberds of the more melee orientated Enforcers of this elite formation, and when the Lucaelians were pinned in place by the storm of arrows the leader of the force, a middle-aged (well, around Marik's own age actually) and hard-faced woman that went helmless and let her pink but greying hair blow free in the gale force wind and wore a triumphant smirk gave a signal to advance, her lightning-blue (normal lightning that occasionally crackled when it was raining in Lucael, not the corrupted version of it that was being employed to great effect by the Enforcers) eyes highlighting her anticipation as yet more Lucaelians were cut down by the hissing bolts of torment-inducing magical energy.

And with hundreds – or even thousands – of his soldiers dying around him and Enforcers augmented by the demonic power of the Tempest of Craving advancing on his desperate position, Marik knew it was time for the tide to turn.

He honed in on his zealous hatred of the darkness, the demons in it that had killed his beloved wife and turned his twin brother to the side of evil, caused a civil war within Lucael and most of all forced the good and innocent inhabitants of the Kingdom of Light to live in fear of the area outside of the safety of their metropolises, and was now trying to corrupt another nation to its foul cause, and the angel within him added her otherworldly detestation of such forces to him. A milky sphere of blinding light eclipsed his form, but instead of Summoning her in the usual manner Marik focussed the light into an orb of pulsing luminescence that shone with wrathful hatred, standing up to his full height as the arrows that were shot at him disintegrated in the godlike force of the light, the divine power of a First Sisterhood angel enhancing that of his holy crown and granting him a temporary immunity to the arrows that were targeting at the greatest threat from the Lucaelians.

He grabbed hold of the orb with both hands, unbeknownst to him going though slightly similar motions to his youngest son when he enacted the end of his Summoning ritual, although with vastly different sources of power, and tossed it into the air, where it instantly shone with a blinding light and blasted spears of radiance into the Welkalites, killing many of them as they were immolated by the divine power of Akroma, and then began to be absorbed by an angelic figure. The second the Angel of Wrath entered the material realm in a holy surge of White mana, she shot like a sacred meteorite towards the Welkalite lines, slamming into them and sending those close to the impact flying into the air, and although her visage was still neutral her lip was twisted slightly into a frown of hatred.

She pumped power through her gargantuan marble blade, swinging it in a wide arc that didn't so much cut apart the Welkalites as smash them into pieces that were dissolved by the light, the arrows shot at her deflected by her near invulnerability to Red and Black mana that could only be overridden by the most powerful spells, and with the Summoning of the First Sisterhood angel the fervour of the Lucaelians that had sputtered and almost died out when the ambuscade was sprung exploded into life once again, an ardent fury at the murder of many of their comrades that Marik felt guilty over, but couldn't spend time locked in depression when there was a battle that would decide the fate of the world to be won.

He ran forwards himself, gifting Akroma with some of his mana so that they could both conjure up lances of light that they blasted at the same location, the beams mixing with each other and amplifying their counterpart's power to create a detonation of light that obliterated the ground underneath them and annihilated the forms of many Enforcers, the rest of whom fell back under the renewed Lucaelian offensive as they were hacked apart by the blades of righteous zeal, bows abandoned and swords drawn at the proximity of the threat.

Then, Marik heard an excited squeal, like a young girl's scream of happiness when presented with exactly the present that she wanted but distorted by the pursuit of the ultimate pleasure, accompanied by hysterical giggling that Marik recognised from the assault on Fort Egetau, and a voice shrieked in ecstasy, "Hello, boys and girls, are you ready for the main event?!"

He saw the enemy general scowl and roll her eyes, put paid no attention to the reinforcements as he blocked a scything blow from an electrolysed halberd and grimaced when the lightning coursed through his veins, though it was soon expelled by the powerful White mana pumping through them as well. He rammed his sword straight through the armour of the Enforcer, his large greatsword smashing through the plates as it they were sheets of paper, just as a shrieking chorus of "Yes!"s resounded throughout the avenue, and Marik felt a large spike in chaotic Red mana rise up all around him. He looked back at the general, who was holding a long and curling scourge fizzling with electricity of both the generic blinding blue and the demonic crimson and pink, and recalled Akroma to his side from where she had been mercilessly butchering retreating Enforcers, as a troupe of scantily and extravagantly clad dancers that reminded him of those from Fort Egetau and must have been part of the Order of Rapture danced through the streets, accompanied by screeching demonic imps covered in carnival costumes and masks that blew gouts of flames at the Lucaelians and Welkalites clashing in combat, the power of the flames surprising for their size as they flew maniacally around the avenue.

They were joined by squealing devils that either kept their crimson skin bare or clothed themselves in garish festival outfits as well, wielding chains that they spun crazily around them as their dancing Summoners pirouetted past, somersaulting into the Lucaelian ranks and displaying incredible agility in dodging the blows from the soldiers of light and stabbing their blades into the weak points in their armour. One leapt at Marik, wearing a pink mask that shone with unholy magic and two slender blades that crackled with lightning, so the king pushed out his left hand and a lance of pure light shot through it, impaling her through the stomach as she cried out in simultaneous pleasure and agony.

"Let us end the lives of all of these savages," Akroma stated, and although Marik could sense her otherworldly ire rising she had not yet passed the point where that would correlate to her outwardly showing her hatred, the Angel of Wrath opening her wings wide and blasting waves of light outwards, directing them with the Blade of Wrath into the incoming Welkalites and sending them crashing back, just as another powerful Sancturia being was Summoned into reality – the Enforcer general was covered in lightning armour now and had created a hissing demonic creature made up of the crackling energy that towered above the street, though its form was as insubstantial as the electricity that it comprised of. Buildings either side of the street were set alight by the entrance of the baleful elemental, the fire becoming a whirling inferno underneath it as it reached out one of its arms, pushing it through the ranks of troops and sending lightning sizzling through them, malevolently smiling in happiness at the pain it was causing as its three sadistic eyes that Marik thought would normally have been bright blue but were now a bloody scarlet took in the battle below it.

Akroma flung herself at the elemental spirit, its size seemingly increasing by the second as it absorbed more of the ground below it into the fiery tempests rising up into its intangible form, and when it sighted Marik and then the Angel of Wrath it grinned widely, matching the triumphant smirk on the face of the general that had Summoned it into the world, and seemed to increase in size even more, as if reacting to the power of its new opponent. That didn't seem to faze the seraph, who carved her titanic sword into one of its clawed arms and pulled back for a second strike as some form of ectoplasmic substance gushed out of the wound that was magical as much as physical, letting out a shrill screech of pain and swiping at the angel with its other arm.

Akroma raised her shield around her, intending for her resistance to Red mana to protect her from the blow so that she could strike back, but the lightning form of the elemental crashed straight through the protection (echoing and amplifying the penetrating properties shown by the arrows augmented by the power of the Tempest of Craving). The angel growled in pain as she was smashed backwards, electricity coursing through her holy veins, crackling and blackening her flawless milky skin, and Marik scowled himself at the agony caused to his angel – as she only ever reacted to the most torment-inducing pain stimuli. Marik charged at the Enforcer-general, his advance preceded by a selection of glowing and golden magical swords that launched themselves at the Welkalite, who swept them aside with her snapping whip and taunted, "Enjoying the power of my Malignus, angel? Your shields will do nothing to stop her from killing you and feasting on your life force!"

Marik shoulder-barged into her, his side covered in interlocking White plates that lessened the impact of her retaliation strike as she tried to use her electrolysed whip to bat him away, the general crying out in surprise at the sudden burst of speed he put on, and he rammed the smaller woman over with the sheer force of his physical strength combined with his magic, intending to then slam his relic sword into her and finish the job, before a stinging pain erupted in his back and he felt potent neurotoxins and hallucinogenics rushing into his veins before the Angel of Wrath cast a powerful dispelling blessing upon him.

However, it didn't lessen the agony, nor the fact that the small but immensely sharp scalpel-esque barbs were embedded into his nervous system, placed precisely in order to cause the most pain possible, and a figure clad in a very revealing black, red and pink outfit that seemed to shift under his gaze and hurt the eyes with their obtrusive bright and garish colours landed at the side of the Enforcer-general, who had rolled away from the king and scrambled to her feet, gazing haughtily back at the monarch, her lightning-blue eyes narrowing as if to say "You got the best of me this time, but rest assured it will not happen again," her lips twisting in a combination of a condescending sneer and a frown of irritation, snapping her whip.

"Sorry about that, Mr Kingy-wingy, but the Fraety-watey is an essential part of the show and you know what they say: "The show must always go on!" the woman, a slender and tanned dancer with crazy and atavistic vivid rosy eyes that were dilated in the ecstasy of power mixed with the effects of powerful narcotics circulating through her veins, judging by the way they were extremely bloodshot, to the point where there was more red in her unnaturally wide eyes than normal white, squealed, her voice becoming exaggeratedly stony and she pouted when saying the last part of her sentence, the general next to her growling in frustration as Akroma landed next to Marik again.

She pirouetted excitedly and restlessly on the spot, as she couldn't stand to stay still even for a few seconds, her horned helmet that was a mixture between a jester's cap and a demonic helm habitually worn by those that wanted their foes to be intimidated jingling with the sound of unholy bells that hurt Marik's ears, and despite her jovial manner Marik sensed a massive amount of hedonistic Red and Black mana roiling in her, suggesting that she had a powerful Summoning, but when the king's eyes roved around looking for it she exclaimed, her voice far too high-pitched to be natural for someone of her age of around twenty five, "Don't be silly, Mr Kingy-wingy, I'm a one woman act! The best one woman act." she boasted proudly, as if what debaucheries the Welkalites committed in the name of finding the ultimate individual pleasure meant anything to Marik, casually spinning the large serrated blade she held in one hand that she could only hold because of the strength-giving Black mana pouring out of her that would significantly shorten her lifespan with protracted use, and in her other she held more of the barbs coated in venomous poison that would have killed a lesser soldier by making them believe they were in their type of paradise while it shut down their brain and flooded it with pain stimuli.

Can we please kill her as soon as possible? Akroma's harsh and abrupt mind-voice spoke into his head, and Marik couldn't help but let out a small smirk at the fact that his angel, who rarely spoke to him in this method, had made an exception due to the utter insufferablity of this dancing whore, just as the other Welkalite facing him shouted, "I am Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin of the New Empire of Passion, and my companion, (she spat the words, as if detesting the fact that her life had been saved by the Blade Dancer) is the Mistress of Entertainment, the Order that had been assimilated into our Archlord's Order of Rapture, Caria Exa."

"The Crimson Whirlwind!" the woman shrieked ecstatically, twirling her vicious looking weaponry as if to emphasise the words, and Marik felt his choler rising. This was the exemplification of the corruption the Welkalites had gone through that had lead to the harbouring of Aksua, the abduction of his precious (both to the Kingdom of Light and him as a father) sons, the near-death of his beloved eldest and this war that had claimed thousands of lives on both sides, and was now in the process of claiming more. These two warriors were in his way, blocking the path to his fragile youngest son and the road to ending this violent engagement, and he would not suffer them to live any longer. His determination, righteous anger and wrath rose up inside of him, his power reaching immense levels due to the fact that he had Summoned and mana bleeding out of his skin, an aura of blinding White surrounding him when he snarled, "I don't care. You are allied with the perpetrators of this demonic corruption that has festered within your nation, and as such prepare to face your judgement. Akroma, we end this now, so that I can kill your so called "Archlord" and destroy your beloved Tempest of Craving."

In the brief moment before the combat started in earnest again, Marik felt a massive surge in the mana of White and Black, which meant that both his sons had now Summoned and that Caiellis had gotten to grips with most probably Tradax Yulica, and with his mind filling with parental pride and fear he readied his artefact sword.

The Malignus dived forwards, ordered to attack by its Summoner in response to the words, and Marik was forced to leap back from crackling strikes as stray bolts of lightning killed Lucaelian warriors behind him. The Crimson Whirlwind, eschewing any semblance of safety, jumped at the king, squealing and giggling hysterically and she performed a series of cartwheels before flipping over and stabbing her fiendish blade at the king in a set of intricate strikes that looked more like dangerous performance moves than combat attacks but were no less effective, making the monarch have to block from an awkward angle as she pressed the attack until a massive sword that was bigger than her cleaved the air. Instead of completely dodging the blow, Maria leapt up onto the Blade of Wrath, revelling in the pain as it burnt through her corrupted flesh where she touched it and launching an overhead strike at the king just as the Enforcer-general charged at him, her speed enhanced by her lightning magic as she shot like a thunderbolt towards the combat, her whip flashing through the air at they could eliminate the Angel of Wrath without taking out her Summoner.

Marik blocked the arcing scourge with his greatsword just as a blast of numbing wind washed over the Mistress of Entertainment and Mirria Chrysos, one of his most favoured bodyguards, teleported next to him, her natural Blue ability to do so significantly weakened by the Tempest of Craving to the point where she could only do it for very short distances, her calming spiritual Summoning flowing to her side and interposing itself between the king and the dancer. Marik paid his praetorian no more attention, knowing that she would do an admirable job of holding off Caria while he dealt with Fraetus and her Malignus – the king vaguely recognised her last name from one of the students from Welkas going to the Scholaria Magnus, and briefly wondered if his either of his boys had had any interactions with them (as he was in his youngest's year, though two years older than Caiellis).

The whip then twisted with a malicious life of its own and wrapped around his sword, yanking it away from him with a tremendous strength and pulling it out of his grip, but if Fraetus thought that disarming him would prevent him from killing her then he was sadly mistaken. As the Malignus opened its mouth and blasted a gout of electrified flame in his direction, Akroma learnt from her mistakes and instead of trying to form a magical shield to block the bombardment she simply made Marik mentally aware and left him to dodge it, instead capitalising on the distraction of the elemental spirit and flying straight at it, her sword piercing into its insubstantial chest and carving great swathes of light across its electrolysed flesh before she was forced to retreat back out of range of the angry reactionary swipes.

Fraetus extended her whip to the side and sent Marik's blade clattering across the avenue away from the duel, and then cracked it intimidatingly and left it to coil around her, slowly moving towards the monarch as he circled past her, remaining out of range of the scourge and knowing that if she fired mana-borne attacks at him then he could defend himself with shielding magic, as the Enforcer-general did not possess the aura-defying attribute of her Summoning. His mana levels were still rising, his hatred of this woman who would willingly fight for the Orders of Passion and lead the armies that abused to innocent population and obstruct him from doling out justice increasing ever second he spent in combat with her, as the Angel of Wrath and Malignus fought in a violent onslaught of strikes and counter-attacks and Mirria and Caria danced in an elegant performance of the former blinking in and out of reality whilst the latter leapt and twirled to execute her attacks.

He placed his hands at opposite points to each other and focussed his White mana to the extremities of his body, the aura around him becoming more and more pronounced as it increased in intensity until it became blinding and his limbs began to be encased in plates of ethereal metal that superimposed themselves over the normal armour he wore, his gauntlets shining with luminescence that empowered his strength to post-human levels, a bolt of lightning that he sensed was a magical strike to test his new defences pinging off of his enchantments.

Marik ran forwards at the Enforcer, blasting twin shockwaves of pale purity at the woman that crashed through the air with the force of their passage, thrumming with power as the woman was forced to sway out of the way of them. Instead of continuing on their way, the massive missiles of collected White mana arced back on themselves, directed by the ruler of Lucael's magic and targeted back on Fraetus just as he blasted two more flares of light at the Enforcer-general.

Fraetus desperately ran to the side as the pulsating orbs of radiance followed her, running behind her Malignus and mentally dragging its lightning-infused form in the way of the bombardment, where the light exploded upon it and exacerbated the damage Akroma's measured strikes had already done in a detonation of blinding incandescence.

The beast screeched in pain, half of its body melted away by the explosion of holy mana, and Akroma took that moment to charge her blade with mana to the point where it was pulsing out of the marble sword and tossed it at the Malignus, the sword ramming through its middle eye, although as there was nothing of import within the ectoplasmic skull the damage was the same as if she had struck anywhere, and another eye simply opened elsewhere on its crackling form, but Akroma knew that and the significance of the strike was in what it meant, as any legionnaires that were watching the combat would be revitalised by such a telling blow as the elemental was sent staggering backwards, crashing into and setting alight a pleasure house of the Order of Rapture on the other side of the avenue.

Marik sprang forward to attack Fraetus just as his angel did the same, before the Enforcer-general smirked victoriously as the Malignus phased out of existence for a second, the woman Unsummoning it and them spontaneously conjuring it into existence right on top of the king and his seraph, flinging it like a projectile into them.

It impacted into the two with a thunderous detonation, smashing apart Marik's new armour as his angel used her body to protect his mortal one, the physical defence able to block the majority of the energy, although Marik still cried out in shock at the agony inflicted onto his First Sisterhood angel, his hatred of the woman rising at the injustice done to holy Akroma, as when the angel opened her wings from where they had been wrapped around the king they were blackened by the electricity and trails of smoke coming from her once-perfect armour.

She looked at him, her expression remaining completely neutral as if this was just a normal day to the Angel of Wrath (although with the vast amount of bloody and desperate combats she had participated in it slightly was), but in her cold blue eyes Marik could see obvious signs of hatred and anger. He provided her with a large amount of White mana when she let go of her Blade of Wrath – though instead of dropping to the ground it remained hovering in the air – and she opened her arms wide, zealous hymnals filling the air as a lucent pillar of White mana split through the Tempest of Craving, which roared in a thunderous rage at the attack (although when it ended the storm quickly repaired itself and filled the sky with its black mass again) as the gigantic beam crashed down into the Malignus, the beam of pure whiteness shattering the creature's essence and the street beneath it.

It saturated the air with released mana as the angel shouted, "I (pronounced more like EE in the ancient language) Voco Aus Catalysmia!", her voice suffused with an awe-inspiring resonance as the light reached a pinnacle of intensity before dying down, the Malignus utterly obliterated and Marik's heart stirring at the sight of the perfectly circular crater where the elemental had once resided, the Enforcer-general's eyes opened wide in shock at the sheer power of the spell, as Akroma left the woman to the king and rejoined the combat against another batch of Welkalite reinforcements that coincided with the arrival of Guardian Oleic and his Suntouched, the elite paladins of Civitas Sol that had had their name tarnished in the reign of the self-styled Emperor of Light Xarius Drakis Lucerna, as a squadron of Black drakes wearing armour covered in a strange skull-esque (although more like what the skull of a demon would like than a human's) sigil that shone malignantly and pulsed with heat, the battle-damaged Akroma crashing into them and stopping them from attacking the king.

Fraetus had sprung to her feet, her sheer awe that had prevented her from moving for a short moment overwhelmed by her screaming combat instincts, cracking her electrified scourge at the king, who instead of dodging the blow grabbed the edge of the barbed whip, the spikes digging into his skin and piercing his gauntlets, letting the electricity fulminate through his veins and gritting his teeth and enduring against the pain, dragging the weapon towards him. The Enforcer-general elected to let the whip go, so the king tossed it aside before it began assaulting him seemingly with a malicious sentience of its own, and drew two short-swords that were sheathed at her weapon belt, though the range of her attacks was now significantly reduced – as Fraetus, similar to a lot of Welkalites – much preferred to fight in close combat than use magic attacks, which was quite close to the Lucaelian opinion on such things however the latter fought in that way because of the glory present in such a way of fighting, whereas the Welkalites delighted in the brutality and adrenaline of it.

She charged at the king, spinning both her blades in wide arcs as they, like her whip, became infused with the crimson energy of the Tempest, and he blocked one blow on a shield of White mana before sidestepping the second, though the blade still carved a line down his armour in screech of metal on metal. Fraetus pulled back, swaying back from his kick and then avoiding a blast of light he shot out at her, spinning her swords and hacking them back towards the king, though this time he could block both on a shield of White.

However, it seemed that was what General Etin had wanted him to do, as adrenaline pumped through his veins when the blades lit up with additional power and smashed through the protection, ramming through as he leapt back, the tips of the blades slicing through his armour and cutting into his lower abdomen, though they didn't go as far as any organs and simply cut the muscled skin. In an attempt to maximise the damage she caused and minimise the risk to herself, she dragged the blades sideways across him, trying to disembowel the king and make his insides spill across the ground, but Marik rammed himself further onto the blades (ensuring that instead of cutting into any organs the vital tissue was surrounded by protective White mana) and then grasped onto the wrists of the Enforcer, squeezing hard with his prodigious strength and forcing her to scamper backwards and abandon the swords, her eyes wide at the fact that he had willingly impaled himself on her weapons to disarm her of them.

Marik ignored the stinging pain in his lower abdomen and dragged the blades out of it, the metal of them covered in his bright crimson blood, Fraetus diving forwards with her fingers extended with short metal talons crafted into the metal. Marik swayed back from the blows, one directed at his neck and the other at his face, though she still clawed his cheek, slicing apart the pale flesh to leave blood trickling down his face, mild sparks of electricity playing into the wound as the talons were crackling with small amount of lightning, but Marik knew that with the two consecutive Summonings of her Malignus that the Enforcer-general had exhausted her supply of mana. That was soon proven to be incorrect when Fraetus conjured up a pike of lightning and stabbed it into Marik's already open wounds, her battle-hardened features twisting into a victorious smile that soon dissolved into a look of pure shock and horror when Marik blocked out the agony, healing White mana already collecting around the medium sized holes in his abdomen, the king implacably smashing his fist into her head and sending her sprawling before her pulled her back and dragged her to her feet.

"How?" the Enforcer simply asked, her face at first contorting in impotent rage for a short moment before it became suddenly calm and accepting when the king grabbed her by the head, the Enforcer-general's magic finally running out and the lightning-spear dissipating into the air. Before he killed her, Marik replied calmly, "You have children as well, Enforcer-general Fraetus Etin. I'm sure that you would do everything in your power to protect them as well," before snapping her neck to the side and tossing the body away, walking over to retrieve his sword from where it lay and annihilating an opportunistic dancer that skipped over to attack him with a bolt of light that pierced through his bare chest, his mana levels still relatively high despite the battle and Akroma's spell, although it would take longer than the rest of this engagement for control of Usnaan to heal the wounds he had suffered in combat with the now dead Enforcer-general.

His mind was becoming filled with a father's fear, and he looked up at the storm roiling even more destructively above him before Akroma flew next to him, for a moment convinced that he saw two demonic and hellish gates opening before the image faded, and in the next rumble of thunder he could definitely perceive laughing. Confident that Guardian Oleic was capable of leading this group to victory over the forces of the Order of Rapture and take the Hedonist's Quarter, Marik ran in the direction of the focal point of the storm' the location where it was being channelled from that was also the location of his youngest son (as he could sense that Aurelia hadn't yet moved from where Alexander was still in the Champion's Quarter).

Marik felt an agitation similar to what his eldest son had experienced over the errant path of Caiellis, although it was exacerbated by the pounding in his skull that somehow seemed more painful than his physical wounds and tainted by his anger at the boy's defiance that had ended in him foolishly risking his own life.

I am coming, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna, and I order you as your father to not get hurt until I get there!

.*.*.*.

Guardian Tristram's axe cleaved apart the Enforcer from the Order of Gluttony, his heavy weapon's fine edge slicing through the leather armour of his opponent and hacking the man in two as his Second Sisterhood angel carved apart another woman that leapt at them, her halberd hacking the left arm and leg off the warrior in a flashing blow that left contrails of light on the Guardian's retina. He was fighting with a squadron of paladins from Capitalia Lux that were under the command of general Carlis Montlea who fought with his fraternal twins, the childhood friends of Alexander (and Tristram supposed Caiellis, but they were the older boy's friends and Cai only really spoke to them when they were with his brother) who had also Summoned.

The three members of the Montlea family in Usnaan (as their mother had remained in Civitas Sol in case Johnias reared his traitorous head at the absence of the vast majority of the legions) each possessed an elemental incarnation of the virtues of White mana: the father, who was four years older than the king he had been the champion of before Garius II died and Tristram had inherited the role, had an angel-like elemental made up of White light tinted scarlet because of the storm above, with four shining wings of the pure substance of intangible virtuousness and wielding a thin golden pole with a ribbon of magical red silk attached to the top of it that focussed Carlis's spells through it. The numinous and genderless being was named Glory, and it had apparently battled alongside Athela of the Aegis before due to the respect which the angel attributed to Glory's ability to change its defences to match the colour of mana against it, which explained the crimson colour of the ribbon.

Leodred had Summoned another incarnation, this one a spirit-like knight named Valour that was clad in ethereal armour and brandished an elegant spear that it flourished with preternatural agility and speed, killing the Welkalite foes famed for their speed before they could react and augmenting his lanky Summoner with greater combat ability as well, as the boy fought off flaming hell-hounds with his longsword as his avatar representing the bravery and sanctity of close combat systematically killed their Summoners, mages from the Order of Gluttony that stood little chance against Carlis's knights (who had dismounted in order to enter the city and fight within it, but were still exemplary warriors).

Finally Elizabex, the slightly older twin by a margin of about an hour, had the most mana intensive creature out of the three, a large elemental in the shape of a deer with magnificent black antlers wreathed in holy and other devotional offerings from the faithful. The deer had large feathered wings heavily reminiscent of those that gifted the holy angels with flight, and instead of four back-legs it had a trail of ethereal spirit energy that drifted behind it. According to Athela, who often mentally spoke to Tristram about the capabilities of both enemies and allies in the protection of the Lucerna family – or the effects they would have on the victory he wanted to achieve, something for which the Guardian was immensely grateful for as although he was good at analysing threats most of the time he didn't know what Sancturia creatures could do, whereas the Aegis Angel, Daughter of Protection and scion of Iona, had been trained in the crucible of many years of unrelenting combat to protect to defend her First Sisterhood angel leaders, which also meant guarding the precious Lucerna family that Athela spoke of with high accord.

The elemental incarnation was called Purity, and as it flew around the battlefield, its heavenly voice like a hymn of the natural world's devotion to the light of Sancturia, any offensive magic the Welkalite mages tried to fire at the knights of Carlis was absorbed into the shield of scintillating light turquoise and converted into healing mana that drifted calmingly over the Lucaelians. Elizabex wielded an ornate staff that had once belonged to her and Leo's mother that allowed her to channel healing and enhancing mana through it, casting a variety of useful auras on the other soldiers and occasionally blasting apart a foe with beams of light.

Tristram and Carlis had unanimously and silently agreed that Athela's Aegis should be deployed to affect the youngest members of their group, and as such Leodred and Elizabex were surrounded by a luminous glow that repelled attacks with a defensive ability almost unmatched by anything not of the First Sisterhood or of a similar power level. It was strange to think of the two twins as adults now, as they had become eighteen two days ago, but Tristram would probably always still refer to them as kids. The Guardian knew how jealous his eldest charge was of their older age than his, as Alex desperately wanted to be eighteen soon so that he was no longer a child and could officially have a girlfriend (though Tristram was sure that he would still be as inconsistent in choosing one and staying with them for an extended period of time). It wasn't all about that though, and Alexander's eighteenth birthday in more than ten months would signify his ascension into adulthood, which meant that he wouldn't be treated like a child any more. It was an independence thing, and Tristram had thought the same twelve years ago when he had been seventeen and almost and adult, but pushed the thoughts from his mind.

He wished that he could be by the side of Alexander and Caiellis (although the younger one of the two was already at the caster of the Tempest of Craving's position, which probably meant that he had rushed there through some new magic of his and was fighting on his own, something that scared Tristram although there was nothing at the moment he could do about it), his protective instinct for the boys still immensely strong as well as his duteous compulsion to defend the Lucerna family, but King Marik had decreed that he accompany general Carlis in the assault on the main section of the Glutton's Quarter, and he knew for certain that the older man was definitely not in the mood for dissidence, especially after Tristram had almost punched him the day before.

Their orders were to rout the foes sequestered deep within the area of the City of Pleasure, and to find and kill the newly instated Master of Gluttony – or whoever was leading these Welkalites – while the rest of the army pressed on into Usnaan, and the Lucerna family took the battle to the heretics conjuring the unholy storm that had only minutes ago blasted four gigantic bolts of crimson lightning into the New Empire's capital in a thunderous display that would have incurred significant casualties to both the Lucaelian crusaders and the Welkalite defenders. The normally relatively calm Athela had snarled in pure hatred when the blast had hit, whilst Elizabex's incarnation of Purity had yelped in empathetic pain.

Tristram's threat sense rose in his mind as he sensed an increase in ravenous Black mana as the paladins dispatched the Enforcers they had been fighting against while sustaining few casualties in return, and as they ran through a corner he then saw why. Across from him was a gigantic avenue that stretched out through the Glutton's Quarter – the Banquet Street where Ershun Firefist had been killed by Alexander and Caiellis – filled to the brim with a large number of garish and ostentatious market stalls that would have been filled with food, but had been knocked over and made into large barricades. However, Tristram knew for certain that this area wasn't filled with Gluttony Enforcers, but instead with something much more sinister, as he could sense a high level of greedy Red and Black mana saturating the area.

"Fresh meat!" a gurgling cry erupted from behind the barriers, which were flattened as soon as the knights rounded the corner, lumbering figures surrounded by swarms of emancipated humans loping forwards like debased animals with their mouths covered in blood. Their eyes were full of a crazed desire to endlessly feast, to gorge upon mountains of food until their stomach exploded from the strain, and Tristram couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor creatures who, judging by their whipped, scarred and starved bodies had been prevented from eating until very recently, and had been subjected to corrupting Black and Red mana that had accentuated that primal need until it overrode all their other brain functions.

Within the masses of barely-human ingrates, Tristram spotted several that were not of Welkalite origin, and his blood began to boil even more than it was already at the sighting of several blonde-haired and pale Lucaelians that had evidently been captured in the raids on the monorail supply trains between the flourishing Civitas Sol and the fledgling Gol Secondus that was still in the process of construction, which made the Guardian hate the Welkalites even more for the depredations heaped upon innocent citizens of the Kingdom of Light. There were tanned Yentarians as well, and even Erians, their naturally wiry bodies starved of all muscle until they became little more than skeletons with a thin layer of unhealthy skin above it. What disturbed Tristram the most was the insane look in their unnaturally pink eyes that looked twice as big on their skeletal heads with the unhealthy skin pulled tight, an atavistic craving for sustenance of any kind.

Some of the starved prisoners had expired whilst waiting for a Lucaelian force to ambush, their rangy bodies slumped on the ground within the throng, and while some had evidently died as their bodies couldn't sustain them any longer many more had clearly been gored to death by other prisoners, that, desperate for any kind of meat, had committed one of the ultimate sins and eaten their fellow humans, tearing apart their malnourished flesh to feed their own, which explained why a few had blood trickling down their chins, and Tristram's rage and abhorrence intensified at the fact that they had been reduced to this by their sadistic Welkalite capturers, some of whom stood within the throng and wielded long whips to drive the tide of starved at the Lucaelians.

Tristram's mind reached a breaking point when he attempted to find out more about the mama-signatures of the lurching giants, and then swiftly realised that they weren't Sancturia creatures at all, but debased humans so far removed from normal bodily proportions as to be absurd, plodding masses of flesh with small eyes full of the craving to gorge exacerbated by the storm above that rolled in their sockets, resting on each and every member of the party and licking their distended lips with fatty, slavering tongues.

Behind it all, sat casually on a simple throne of carved mahogany, the focus of the Black and Red (although there was much more of the former, which was unique for the Red mana based Welkalites) mana in Tristram's mind reclined and studied the battle intensely. She was an albino, slender and pale with a perfectly formed body clad in leather armour that heavily reminded the Guardian of the vampire Aksua that had been killed by Marik and the Angel of Wrath, which made him wonder if she was one, but instead of lust her eyes were simply filled with a fiery red defiance that pierced straight into Tristram's heart when she stared back at him, noticing his scrutiny and flicking her white hair to the side when she turned to look at him, and then his angel.

She seemed impassive (though not unconcerned nor distracted by something else) about this battle, dispassionate about the fact that her forces were about to clash with those of the invaders', and there was no doubt in the Guardian's mind that this was the new Master of Gluttony – the amount of mana she had locked within her, as well as the potent magical stench of a greater demon that she made no effort to conceal residing within her. However, the worst bit about it was the fact that she didn't seem that corrupt at all, in comparison to the debased forces surging between her and the degenerate vipers that she shared the city with, and Tristram had expected the leader of this disgusting Order of Gluttony to be the embodiment of the debaucheries committed by them, not looking as if she ate a perfectly balanced died. Tristram wanted a foe to vent his rage at the abuse of the Welkalite populace, the capture of innocent Lucaelians and the abduction of the princes that he had failed to stop, upon, but couldn't help but think that this bitch wasn't nearly as evil as the rest of her nation.

No, stop this. She has a demon inside of her, which means that she has partaken in an Infernal Bargain and ended the life of her former Summoning. Plus, while she may not look like it, she is the leader of the Order of Gluttony, which means that she is massively corrupt, and I can already sense her Black mana. She most likely wants to appear innocent and beautiful to unnerve her foes, and her eyes are unnatural, so I shouldn't be so concerned about killing her and releasing my anger upon her, the Guardian sternly told himself, infusing his thoughts with the adamant determination to help end this war in any way that he could, so that those that he cared about – such as the young princes who would be at the forefront of the battle and in immense danger – could be protected. His role was as a Guardian and a Champion, anyway, which meant that he had to fight to protect those that couldn't do it as well.

The Gluttony Enforcers who were urging the cannibals into battle began whipping with an even greater frenzy, their malicious barbed scourges inflicting deep scratches in the unhealthy grey flesh of their captives and spurring them on even more, just as the giants began to stagger forwards at an increased rate as well, their footfalls leaving indents in the ground as they wobbled towards the Lucaelian lines, who had locked shields and readied their longsword – as Carlis's knights, the Spears of Justice, ironically wielded large but one-handed swords when they weren't mounted, as lances would be incredibly impractical weapons when fighting on foot.

"Benedias Cerelitas," Elizabex murmured, though her mana infused words still carried over the squadron of knights, and Tristram felts his limbs loosening and becoming lighter, guessing that this spell would improve their speed as he shot forward to meet the onrushing cannibals that would be thrown at the Lucaelians to pin them in place for the giants to attack. Despite wearing his plate armour, Tristram felt unencumbered by it when in a normal situation due to his familiarity with the dented and worn but trusty suit of armour that had carried him through many battles in the civil war (although at first Hierarch Tybalt had incessantly complained about dragging a heavy suit of armour with them when speed was of the essence, but quickly shut up when it repelled the strike of a large and clawed horror and allowed him to hit back and kill the beast), so now he was practically bouncy with speed and hacked apart a poor soul before they even noticed that he was within their ranks, his huge axe seemingly weightless in his hands (though he was used to its weight so when the enchantments expired when Elizabex ran out of mana he wouldn't be suddenly encumbered by the additional weight).

Athela moved her shield in front of her, spinning it as the circular and silver guard became infused with White mana that turned scintillating and lilac (although a magisterial, holy purple, not the garish and obtrusively bright pink of the Welkalites). With a whispered word, the angel swept out her glaive, the double-bladed weapon shining with the light of her magic, and balls of purple luminescence that heavily reminded Tristram of Caiellis's mana in certain situations that extended their glow in six directions. The charging prisoners paid no heed to the magic of the Aegis Angel, and when the first of them ran through it at Tristram they were eviscerated by the invisible lines of magic connecting each of the orbs of light.

Even so, that didn't seem to deter them, and then pushed at an even greater intensity against those in front of them who were apprehensive at running headlong at the Lucaelians after what they had just observed, but those who's survival instincts hadn't yet been overwhelmed by the desperate need to obtain food of any sort were soon knocked down and trampled by the swarming mass of emancipated bodies or swept along by the throng to meet a grisly fate at the hands of the Lightmine Field, the prisoners of Gluttony pressing themselves at the barrier and tearing themselves apart, the street below becoming filled with a sea of dismembered bodies that could have easily caused a less experienced warrior to vomit (and almost made Leo and Elizabex until their father and Glory steeled them with their mana) as the magic reacted to the amount of attackers by becoming even more destructive. However, with the weight of bodies pressing the attack, Athela had to maintain supreme concentration to keep up the spell, which the angel admirably did so until an arcing bolt of disruptive lightning fired by the Master of Gluttony caught her in the chest.

The magical missile wasn't meant to harm that much, anyway, so the Aegis Angel quickly recovered and healed herself, but her focus was dispelled by the chaotic nature of the attack and the tide of cannibals seethed towards the Lucaelians. Athela stood by Tristram's side, fighting side by side with him on foot in a manner not replicated by many other angels, and both swung their weapons into the horde of bare humans with armour consisting of simple rags (although over half were not even afforded that luxury), hacking apart undernourished men and women with every strike as the scrabbled to find purchase with their long nails on their armour.

These poor souls, Athela's mind voice spoke to the Guardian just as a screaming figure charged at him head on, barrelling into his waist and attempting to tackle him over. Nonetheless, there was no force behind the charge, no weight to press against Tristram (and in a less desperate situation he would have recalled Alexander once trying the tactic when he was only nine against the twenty-two year old Guardian, the thin boy not able to move him in any way – although that would be what would happen if Cai tried a similar tactic now), so the Guardian shoved the man over and stamped on his head, his armoured boot crushing the fragile skull beneath them as he swung his already blood-slick axe into another howling individual that tried to bite him in the shoulder, hacking the woman apart and then shoulder barging another foe to the floor, where Valour's spear quickly dispatched them. We are doing them a great service by freeing their souls from suffering. Hopefully they will find peace within the heavens.

Tristram spotted one of the large giants growling in greediness and picking up speed, flattening a knight that carved his sword along its bare leg with its fist and then picking up another one. The man stabbed the inhuman glutton in the face when the giant was about to thrust him into its slobbering maw, and the creature that vaguely resembled a human shrieked in pain, flinging the man across Banquet Street where he crashed into the ground amidst the back lines of starved captives who attacked him, slowly ripping open his armour as he was powerless to move under the weight of bodies, the paladin's Lucaelian wisp frantically assaulting the cannibals as they began to feast on him while he was still alive.

The giant pawed at the large cut underneath its eye, and Athela threw her shield, the edge energised by her holy White mana and reacting to the debased nature of the man and hacking into its fatty throat, cutting all of the vital arteries before returning to the seraph as she beat her wings and launched upwards, the Gargantuan's oleaginous blood spilling out from the wounds like a fatty sludge instead of a spray of high-pressure vitae.

The angel landed next to another Gargantuan, hacking her glaive across its lower abdomen, the energised edge of the blade ripping out its guts and intestines as it wailed in agony and swung a blow at her, which was blocked on her Aegis. Athela cracked the ground beneath her feet, but her circular shield absorbed the force to the strike and she returned it with a lashing slice that had all of the giant's strength returned in it. Instead of slicing the Gargantuan open again, the force of the blow sent it crashing backwards, staggering over and slamming into the ground where the Master of Gluttony had been sat, though the woman with the fiery eyes had simply stood up and moved further backwards, the giant's head splintering her throne, though she made no move to enter the battle.

Meanwhile, the tide of bodies around Tristram was becoming thicker still, as the seemingly endless amount of prisoners the Order of Gluttony had obtained pressed against the Spears of Justice, dragging soldiers down beneath the sheer weight of numbers and ripping open their plate armour to get at the juicy prizes within. Purity flew above the masses, the deer-headed elemental's mouth opening and letting out a mournful song at the killing in the form of a lance of light channelled by Elizabex's staff into an augmenting wave of light that increased the strength of her father's knight's blows, which, combined with the inspiring presence of Glory that killed foes all around it and the combat enhancing power of Valour made them kill cannibals with every blow while Athela attacked the Gargantuans.

Tristram hacked apart another unfortunate individual, this one a blonde Lucaelian girl that had barely passed out of her teenage years but her blue eyes suffused with the need to glut herself, and then sensed a huge surge in Black mana from the position of the Master of Gluttony. He barged another emancipated cannibal out of his way and glanced at the woman, who had shadows trailing around her and dragging themselves out of her open palm, billowing around her and becoming more solid by the second just as exultant and irrepressibly greedy laughter boomed through Banquet Street. The killing intensified, the swarming humans possessed of an even greater imperative to feed, as if suddenly and primevally sensing that they would only have a few more moments to eat before the ravenous demon that would soon be entering the world claimed their prizes, just as the incarnation of Glory cast a final spell upon the knights.

The remaining Spears of Justice surged forwards as well, bolstered by the auras and spells of the three incarnations of the Montlea family, carving apart the prisoners who were woefully outmatched by the new onslaught of the crusaders and filling the street with their corpses as claret liquid spilled out into the air. The two final Gargantuans rushed into the knights, trampling them as they charged towards Tristram, sensing that he was the Summoner of the angel that had methodically hunted down and killed their vile brethren, just as Athela crashed into the back of one, splitting apart its soft skull with her glaive just as Purity shot into the other, knocking it over with her antlers and goring into its eyes. Just as the Gargantuan's pudgy and clammy hands reached towards the noble beast, she opened her mouth wide and a stream of light spilled out, obliterating the brain of the huge man and extinguishing his unholy life force.

The tide of bodies pushing against Tristram suddenly stopped, and the tall man staggered out of the mass of hacked apart limbs and brutalised corpses, the sudden easing up of the pressure making him move forwards, the ten knights that remained forming up around him and the Montleas as the darkness intensified, blocking out the vision of the Master of Gluttony and stopping even Tristram from seeing her.

"Keep your guard up," Carlis warned, and though the words were unnecessary for the Spears of Justice, who were exemplary warriors despite not having access to Summonings greater than Niveous wisps, which flickered about them and did little to dispel the voracious gloom that had descended around the small part, Tristram sensed he directed them at his young twins. There was a malevolent cackle, and the knights automatically tensed and looked in its direction just as Tristram sensed the darkness being dragged away.

Then she was amongst them. The landed in the centre of them, her flawless body tensing with the perfect landing and her limbs moving sinuously, like that of a cat. With blinding speed, one of her swords, a wicked black blade that was steeped in malevolent intent and held in her right hand, rammed into one of the knights, splitting through a small chink in her armour that had been caused by one of the malnourished attackers but had not been noticed by the warrior, who was now impaled on the Master of Gluttony's malicious blade. The other sword, a twin to the one that was being withdrawn from the first knight to be killed, flicked out, decapitating another soldier of Lucael with a fiery slash that cauterised the wound as soon as it was caused, and before the man's helmeted head hit the ground she had already leapt off the ground and driven both her blades into another man's skull, dodging the strike of the Aegis Angel that hacked through the space she had previously occupied.

All this had occurred in less than a single second, and as the three bodies hit the ground almost simultaneously she had already killed another, smashing apart the woman's block with her more destructive and brutish blade and delivering a stab with its precise identical twin, hacking through the gorget in the warrior's armour and leaving her choking to death in her own blood. Just as Valour rushed forwards to meet her, another pale figure shot through the darkness that was quickly and greedily being soaked up into it, this one much bigger than its Summoner and full of bunched muscle. Tendrils of pure midnight shot into the incarnation, which snarled in zealous hatred but was nevertheless pushed back, just as the horned demon slammed its claws into the head of one of the six remaining Spears of Justice that were getting over the shock of the sudden attack, dragging the screaming man forwards as the claws dug into his eyes, and taking a massive bite out of his head, silencing the poor warrior.

Tristram rushed to the attack as the darkness faded, but was replaced by an even greater intensity of all-consuming and ravenous hunger that took over one of the soldiers and had her screaming in pain before two bolts of fire ended her yelling, the first blocked by a shield conjured by Elizabex (who looked notably more shaken by the violence, and Tristram reminded himself that this time his two charges were not Lucernas – and while he usually professed that it made no difference to their mental state, the fact was that with two normal children in the civil war they wouldn't have survived, and the descendants of Matalis could stomach much more torment than their subjects) before the second crashed through it and immolated the woman.

There was another laugh from the demon, who was beginning to rise up to his full height, black, batlike wings punching out of his pale back and extending towards the storm obscuring the Welkalite sun with its crackling spitefulness, his horns seemingly expanding and becoming even larger and more terrifyingly curved, as the demon exultantly bellowed his allegiance to the Tempest of Craving and the realisation of desire incarnate, malicious tenebrosity trailing around his sculpted limbs and pooling in its pale eyes.

"Foolish Lucaelians," it spat, contemptuously, derisively and haughtily staring down at the humans below it, the greater demon's eyes locking with the determined blue orbs of the Daughter of Protection and glinting with primal hunger, and nine tendrils of substantial darkness curled around its outstretched talons before blasting themselves at those of the kingdom of Light. Valour, Glory, Purity and Athela protected their Summoners by cutting down the bolts of maleficent shadow, but those without powerful Sancturia creatures – the last remnants of the all-but exterminated Spears of Justice – were cut down and impaled by the spikes of gloom, dragged over to the hovering demon where they were placed on the ground next to it, probably serving as its next meal, and it continued, arrogantly declaring, "I am the Archdemon of Greed, Arrapackxia, and I am your doom made manifest! Come, Ilentia, let us kill them all!"

Tristram's short hair was buffeted by the mana released in conjunction of the statement, and the Guardian forced himself to stay calm, drawing upon his inner reserves of courage and bravery to fight against the demon, telling himself that he had to stay alive and kill this Arrapackxia to protect the Montlea twins and by extension his original young charges – if he wanted to hear Caiellis adorably call him by his pet title of "Uncle" again, then he needed to survive, and needed to banish this Archdemon of Greed from the material plane and send him back to Sancturia. Even so, with the sheer size of the towering demon against him, there was an apprehensive flutter in his stomach. He forced himself to remember that he had killed the impersonator of Hierarch Inanis, the father of the current Light-bearer of Civitas Sol Aretis, and personally banished the demon-mage's Rethrix, Herald of Torment, and he could kill another demon.

"You may fancy yourself as an Archdemon, Arrapackxia," Athela spoke, her voice full of distaste belieing her utter abhorrence of the demon that was now facing her, which had turned to glare at her with an even greater intensity, a frown curling its lip as the angel continued, "But we both know that you are nowhere near as powerful as one of the Cursed Seven."

"Be silent, self-righteous whore," the demon barked back as his Summoner shot to its side, the woman glaring at Arrapackxia with undisguised hatred before shooting a glance back into the four Lucaelians and their sanctimonious Sancturia denizens. "You only won our last battle because I hadn't eaten yet," a conceited smile worked its way onto Arrapackxia's terrifying features, and he spread his magnificently horrifying and leathery wings wide in a mocking and taunting gesture beckoning Athela to attack him, "And I can guarantee you, little seraphim, that the outcome will be different now that I have."

Tristram was unsurprised when the angel and demon began to charge at each other, his own seraph reinforced by Elizabex's enchantments whereas Arrapackxia had simply his own power to use, but what had concerned him was the utter detestation the Master of Gluttony – or Ilentia, as the greater demon (apparently not an Archdemon, not that Tristram knew exactly what one was – though Johnias had supposedly obtained one, and individually it was whispered by heretics that they were more powerful than any sole member of the First Sisterhood, so the Guardian supposed he should be immensely grateful that Arrapackxia had just been boasting) had called her – had shown towards her demonic Summoning.

However, he did not have long to ruminate long on this peculiar instance, as Ilentia leapt towards him, her twin swords flashing in alternating arcs of fire and death. He blocked one on the haft of his axe and twisted away from the other, the admittedly beautiful woman's red eyes flicking round to where Carlis had launched an attack with his longsword. She somersaulted past that blow, and then kicked Leodred in the chest when he primed his own blade for a swing, knocking him to the ground with the force of the blow and expelling the air from his lungs in a whoosh, but before she could capitalise on the advantage Elizabex blasted a beam of light at her that was blocked on a wall of solid darkness, although had Ilentia tried to kill the girl's slightly younger brother then she would have found Athela's Aegis protecting him.

Glory then dived Ilentia, who shot a bolt of flame at the androgynous incarnation before leaping back as it emerged from the flames unscathed. She was so fast, ironically so when one remembered her apparent station as the Master of Gluttony, although Tristram sensed that she was possessed of an unnatural speed and was not completely human in the sense that there was something wrong with the core of her being, highlighted by her eyes and her pale skin despite the light of the Welkalite sun.

Interesting, the woman thought, shooting a lance of darkness at the elemental, and as it then deflected that she noted that the colour of the ribbon attached to the Sancturia being's stave had changed from scarlet to onyx black. So that one can switch the colour of mana that it is immune to, whilst the deer elemental of the girl blocks and converts my attacks of fire into healing should I try to use magic against any of the others. That means that physical attacks are the key, but should I try to use them firstly the Summoning of the boy improves the Lucaelians in that area and secondly the angel belonging to the tallest man with the axe will protect the boy and girl with the invisible shield that they assume I haven't seen yet, but which my kick to the boy revealed. So I need to kill him first, which Arrapackxia will be no doubt thrilled about, having his prey dragged prematurely back to Sancturia, but I honestly don't care.

Tristram launched another attack at Ilentia, which was exactly what the Master of Gluttony wanted him to do. She ducked down beneath the swing, blocking his axe on her crossed blades and smirking when he blinked, stunned by the fact that she had simply absorbed the force of his tremendous and heavy blow on her two thin swords, though the master-crafted blades formerly belonging to Ershun Firefist were anything but flimsy. Ilentia then twisted, holding the axe on Fire while whipping round Malice to the man's elbow, cleanly hacking the forearm of his right arm off.

The pain was instantaneous and blinding, the malicious energy coating the blade amplifying the agony Tristram already felt, and it splintered with a sheer whiteness that threatened to overtake his consciousness. He could barely breath through the pain, and the force dropped him as a tormenting nothingness encompassed his entire being, the pain overriding every other stimulus and pouring through his nervous system. He was indescribably weightless yet paradoxically heavy in the same instance, and he was sure that he had cried out as blood began fountaining from the stump of his right arm, his forearm sliced off at the elbow.

Tristram could faintly hear shouting, feel himself being knocked aside as a beautiful woman with flaming rubies for eyes moved as if in slow-motion towards him before she was knocked aside. Distantly, the wounded Guardian perceived a scream of irritation, of plans thwarted, but that was before the buzzing and light headedness overcame him. A sense of desperate urgency that was pushing to the forefront of his mind, something that Tristram thought he should be paying attention to but couldn't quite grasp it, and he was briefly presented by a simultaneous overlapping of numerous painful flashbacks where similar situations involving him being plunged into hopefully brief unconsciousness had occurred – ranging from a three year old him jumping off of a second floor balcony to being smashed across a safe-house by an evil horror only around seven months ago.

Tristram knew that he should be getting up, continuing to help in this fight, but his mind insisted that he needed to rest now, at least for a short moment, and if it took him away from the pain – no matter for how long – then who was he to question it?

.*.*.*.

Caiellis stepped over the neatly dissected corpses of the Welkalite Enforcers from the Order of Rapture that hadn't been expecting an ambush from behind, and automatically shielded his eyes when he sensed the Tempest of Craving darkening the City of Pleasure increasing in power straight above him. A massive bolt of crimson lightning crashed down from the tumultuous heavens, crackling with furious intensity, but instead of impacting upon and damaging the shield he had instinctively formed around himself, the lightning was channelled into a single point on top of this hill that he was climbing, its destructive energy focussed into the one casting the storm instead of annihilating this hill.

However, three other strikes fulminated into the rest of Usnaan, and probably caused quite a bit of damage to the Lucaelian forces. Cai quickened his pace, running past the plaza that he was on and jumping over a stone wall, rushing up some stairs carved from the basalt rock of the hill in order to get to the top faster. He could still sense the roiling mana of the battlefield beneath him, many venerated Sancturia creatures including Akroma and Aurelia entering the material plane to do battle with their Welkalite counterparts, clashing in flashing displays of mana that shook the ground and caused hundreds, if not thousands of casualties. The siege of Usnaan was immensely brutal, the violence occurring at a pace that Cai had not anticipated even in his most dire assumptions, and not for the first time the littlest Lucerna cursed his weakness during the Voidwalk that had lead him to be delayed.

Caiellis needed to be fast, he needed to kill Tradax and stop his spells from destroying the legions of Lucael before too many deaths were wreaked to achieve victory, and when he shot past a corner he collected the magic of protective light matched with hatred-fuelled darkness into a ball around his right hand, blasting it as a bolt of pure unlight that shone with tenebrous radiance into a group of Enforcers that guarded the other end of a small and private alleyway, the lance of darklight slicing cleanly through them and draining their essence as it chopped them in two, leaving their two halves to slide off of each other and pitch onto the surprisingly pleasant paving slabs of the pathway. The Tempest above roared again, a reverberating howl of unadulterated thirstiness for more blood to be spilled and death to be caused, and Cai couldn't help but gulp nervously as he rounded another corner and emerged out onto a medium sized courtyard decorated with a simple but welcoming mosaic of a type of blooming desert flower, the most suitable adornment the youngest prince had seen to date within Welkas.

This place, which seemed like a personal residence that was relatively big but not greedy nor flaunting of the owner's wealth that they must have had to have obtained an entire hill within the overcrowded and sprawling Usnaan for their house, was shockingly quite agreeable and friendly, which surprised Caiellis, who assumed that the spell that summoned the Tempest of Craving into existence would have needed to be cast in an area that exemplified the emotions of primal lust for death, bloodshed and unrestrained pleasure, such as the towering, gaudy and flamboyant Palace of Desire to the right of this secluded private dwelling. He ran past a small building that looked like it would have been a stable for some sort of horse but had long since been abandoned, covered by the ubiquitous that was painstakingly cleaned from the more prestigious districts of the city below.

Caiellis slowed down, knowing that a headlong rush into the waiting clutches of Tradax and his evil compatriots could end his mission before it even began, but still kept running past the homely garden of evidently imported Erian plants that had evidently overgrown and subsequently withered and died due to abandonment and a lack of caring for the plants as they fought for the sunlight and food that remained and would have require near-perfect conditions to thrive in the dry climate of Welkas. There were only three more staircases carved into the hill that he had to ascend until he reached the pinnacle of the hill, where the main dwelling place of whoever had lived here some time ago was situated, and he could see the wrath of the Tempest of Craving conducted into another courtyard, this one larger than the others.

Caiellis felt a splash of warm liquid patter onto his left cheek, the droplet meandering down the pale flesh until it became joined by many more as the heavens opened. Cai knew that despite its unnatural nature, the malign storm above was still a formation of weather and so it could technically possess the ability to rain, and that as Welkas was a very hot nation their rainfall would be of a higher temperature and intensity than the (seemingly endless when they began) freezing Lucaelian downpours, but as more beads of the hot liquid landed from above and splashed onto him and the ground in front of him, he knew that this was no natural precipitation. He touched his free left hand to his cheek, feeling the heated liquid that was no simple water collecting on his thin fingertips, and as he pulled his hand away the fingers were wet and sticky. With horror, Cai saw that his fingertips were now covered in crimson blood as the intensity of the claret vitae raining down from the Tempest of Craving in a torrent of gore that splattered over everything, matting Caiellis's wavy brown hair with the sticky blood and almost instantaneously coating Usnaan in a layer of vivid red mingling with the lifeblood already spilt in the carnage of the two clashing armies.

I need to be faster, Cai thought, just as within seconds of the rain of blood commencing a shield of purifying White mana surrounded him without warning, the droplets of vibrant scarlet ichor sizzling as they hit the protection around him, and though he had been touched by the blood and half-covered in it he was protected from the effects of the bloody rainstorm.

Cai involuntarily gasped in pain as the blood already on him became white hot and burnt into his skin, hissing as the shield painfully cleansed the pulsing red liquid from his body, just as Orzhova's voice spoke into his head: Keep yourself protected and untouched from the effects of the Rain of Gore. This is the Tempest of Craving's second stage, a strike against wielders of Red and Black's hated enemy of White mana, and converts all attempts at healing into damage of equal amount inflicted upon the caster instead. I'm sorry about that, but I had to keep you clean of it, otherwise if even the smallest droplet was touching you if you attempted to repair any of yours wounds your healing magic would have backfired.

Cai gulped and nodded in agreement, having not though that the Rain of Gore would have had any effects apart from signalling the storm above developing further and showing that enough had died to progress to the next stage and assumed that it was simply psychological. He was immensely grateful for Orzhova's foresight, as he could have easily killed himself with the amount of healing he did due to the fragility of his body preventing him from sustaining many wounds before causing him to die, meaning that he had to keep himself healthy with magic. He just felt extremely sorry for the Lucaelians who didn't have a Sancturia creature so well versed in the dark magic the enemies of the Kingdom of Light utilised, and wondered how many selfless mages and clerics would kill themselves while trying to repair the wounds of their allies. Once again he resolved to speed up, but kept himself stealthy as he swiftly ascended the final flight of stone stairs that were covered in blood that evaporated when his enchanted footfalls touched the gore.

Cai ran through a medium sized gateway that had been flung open, the iron bars of the gates rusted with the same lack of attention to them attributed to everything else in the residence, and Caiellis racked his brain for anything that could suggest why this was the location for the storm's ritual instead of any of the massively more suitable places scattered across the City of Pleasure, just as he ran past a skeleton propped up against one of the walls of the modest mansion that were becoming covered in blood. The bones were quite old, judging by the fact that there were no scraps of flesh covering them, and the fact that the body's neck was twisted at an awful angle suggested that whatever had killed the person had snapped it.

This was not a recent death, unless some magic had been used which aged the bones and flayed the skin from them without leaving any remains, and when he shot past another room he saw another few skeletons that looked like they had been picked up and thrown aside contemptuously by a murderer with more important targets to kill, but all had had their necks snapped which suggested that they had been killed silently as to no alert said more important targets. Caiellis banished the mystery of the deaths from his mind, knowing that it had little correlation with his current objective, and took a deep breath and kept low as he snuck into the courtyard.

There was Tradax, as expected, stood in the middle of the clearing, with his hands painting malicious smoking sigils that hurt Caiellis's eyes and pulsated and throbbed, changing colours from nefarious black to bloodthirsty crimson to diabolical and fluorescent pink, and back to black again, and the red electricity from the Tempest of Craving flowed into his spindly yet still pampered outstretched hands. The Master of Rapture weaved them around, etching more symbols of dark passion into the air as the torrential downpour of blood cascaded around him, although his garish robes remained clear of the gore, retaining their obtrusive vibrancy. Tradax looked as if he was a conductor of the most debased orchestra known to mankind, and occasionally he cackled maniacally and whispered sibilant words to a muscled figure knelt in front of him that clutched his head as red lightning poured into him, periodically emitting growls of pain and sobs of anguish.

Cai pondered the burly man's identity for a second, Tradax's victim around the same age as his own father but perhaps a few (but no more than five) years older, before sweeping his gaze across the clearing and endeavouring to keep his mana presence as low as he could without deactivating the shield and exposing himself to the sadistic effects of the Rain of Gore, scanning for any more potential enemies before he launched himself at the Master of Rapture. There were several corpses surrounding the two – seven of the ten had been recently killed, their throats slit and their bodies subjected to electrifying crimson energy as their blood had pooled into a ritual circle with seven points carved into the ground that was now covered in blood from the Rain of Gore, whereas the other three had been killed a long while ago, probably at the same time as the different bodies he had discovered further back.

One of them was another adult, but two of the skeletons were clearly those of young children, one of them a bit bigger than the other, but instead of having their necks silently snapped by powerful physical force these victims had been exposed to tremendous amounts of damage, judging by cracked rib-cages, snapped arms and the fact that the adult skeleton's bones were scattered further away from each other indicated that they had been painfully pulled apart when they had been killed. Clarity erupted in Caiellis's mind, and it suddenly all made painful sense. The fact that the few other corpses – the ones that would have tended to the animals and plants and cleaned the grounds – had been dispatched silently, whereas the two children and the adult had been agonisingly and brutally murdered, most likely in front of Tradax's present victim, though to what end the Master of Rapture was using the man in this dark ritual was currently unknown to the boy.

Judging by the age of the corpses, and some documents of Welkalite history that he had read (although the inhabitants of the New Empire of Passion much preferred to revel in the moment instead of focussing on the past, which meant that the books had been written by a travelling Yentarian monk from the enlightenment-seeking League of Isak), the time when the family had been killed was twenty years ago. The adult – the mother – and her two daughters had been butchered by an unknown assassin, and the girls' father and woman's husband, Tradax's victim, Jarred Redhand, had been forced to watch as they were murdered in cold blood, the catalyst for the Protector's breakdown and the Orders of Passion suddenly finding themselves free of restraint, going crazy with the power as the New Empire became the New Empire of Passion – all that Redhand had strived to do, which was to bring peace and equality to the Empire, had gone to waste with the murder of his wife and two young daughters.

With that revelation, Cai now understood why the Protector's Mansion had been chosen for the focal point of the conjuration ceremony: all of the debaucheries committed by the Welkalites now in the name of finding the ultimate individual pleasure had been made possible by the assassination of Redhand's family, his only weakness, as killing him would have required an immensely powerful warrior. It was still a mystery who had killed the man's wife and two children, although many suspected the scheming Masters of the Orders of Passion at the time, but what wasn't a mystery was the fact that the Protector had locked himself away with only his grief for company and abandoned the New Empire, allowing the corrupt Orders to run rampant and build up their stranglehold on the nation, which had in turn led to Tradax's dominance and the abduction of Caiellis and Alex, causing this brutal war. If Redhand's family had never been killed, then Caiellis wouldn't be here now, watching him being subjected to immense amount of torments by the maliciously whispering Master of Rapture.

"Ahh, little Cai, so you've finally arrived to come and play!" the spindly man swathed by his ostentatious robes that looked even more ridiculous and pretentious than the ones he had last seen him in, though at least this time there was already enough pain in his head due to the storm so the clothes didn't cause any, cried in mock happiness, and the boy scowled, ceasing the pretence of remaining stealthy and lancing a huge beam of light towards the Master of Rapture, who batted it away with a wall of solid shadows that erupted out of the fabric of reality and crackled with a volatile electricity. The man tutted in exaggerated despair, pouting, "It's been so long since I've seen you last, Lord Caiellis, and this is how you treat me? The youth of today..."
"Tradax, the Master of Rapture," Caiellis replied, stepping out from behind his cover and hefting his Sword of Glass shone with a mixture of alternate energies powered by his hatred of the detestable man in front of him and the corrupt Orders of Passion that he was at the head of, as well as his need to protect the Lucaelians from the debased power of the storm roiling above Usnaan, and the Master of Rapture tutted again, correcting, "I'm known as the Archlord of Rapture now, my exalted prince."

You've gone up in the world, Cai thought caustically, but reserved his sarcasm for himself and rushed towards the man, blasting beams of darklight at him from his artefact weapon and conjuring up his wings of stained glass to add momentum to his attack, before and explosion of rage and flames forced him to leap backwards to avoid being immolated by the sheer force of the fiery detonation.

"YOU!" a voice, cracking with anguish and pain, screamed at him, and the abused form of Jarred Redhand attempted to stand up but was dragged back to his kneeling position by chains of darkness that thrust out of the ground and hissed with lightning that coursed through his veins, though it didn't stop his maddened shouting, "YOU! YOU! I WILL KILL YOU! YOU DID THIS! YOU WILL DIE! I WILL KILL YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!"

Caiellis's eyebrows raised in bemusement and the screaming as the man thrashed against his restraints, his red eyes full of hatred, distorted recognition and the base desire to kill the youth in any way possible. He shot a glance at Tradax, who looked just as stunned and confused as he did, before the Archlord of Rapture swiftly turned the outburst to his advantage, sibilantly whispering into Redhand's ear, hissing, "Yes, that's it! Channel the rage! Feel it course through your veins! Your vengeance will come soon!"

Yet more chains of fiery shadow wrapped around the Protector, restraining him as he desperately flailed against his restraints, his hands curling into fists as he imagined squeezing them around Caiellis's fragile body, and the nails that hadn't been cut for years digging into his calloused palms and drawing blood, the crimson liquid mingling with the gore spattering upon him from the unholy deluge of the Tempest of Craving as the corrupt vitae ran into his wounds and coursed through his bloodstream, amplifying the effects of Tradax's magic. Cai wasn't sure at all why his sudden appearance had set off the Protector, but supposed that despite him not yet being alive when the man's family had been slaughtered the addled and tortured mind of Jarred Redhand had obviously decided that he was the assassin that had killed the Redhand family.

"What are you doing to him?" Caiellis demanded, firing another wave of blinding White mana at Tradax, who jumped out of the way with an agility that shouldn't have been possible in his expensive and suffocating robes, and responded with an arcing bolt of crimson lightning that shattered apart a shield of glass-like mana Cai conjured in front of it. The man smiled, exposing his filed teeth that glinting in the frightening light of the thundering storm, flashing with every bolt of crimson lightning that was ejected out of its angry black depths, and replied, "I am simply preparing our esteemed Protector for his duty to protect the city of Usnaan against its attackers, your father's warriors, dear Caiellis. Soon, when the Tempest of Craving reaches its peak, the vessel will be ready, and the whole world will become our revel site. Even your precious cities will not be able to withstand the irresistible lure of passion, and when the Tempest of Craving reaches its peak, when the Protector is ready to accept the storm within him, accept his rapturous role as the vessel, you Lucaelians will die horrible deaths in the name of the Defiler!"

"You're insane," Cai spat, shooting forwards and launching a series of blistering strikes with his crystalline blade infused with opposite forces, carving blinding wounds of light into the man's shadowy defence before blasting shadows of his own at Tradax, who simply smiled thinly as he jumped backwards, one of the tendrils ramming through his lower calf as he shuddered in pleasure at the sudden pain, delighting in the feeling of agony as the prince's life-sapping magic cascaded through his essence, grinning in ecstasy and arcing bolts of crackling pink lightning that would cause Caiellis more pain then he had ever experienced before at the boy. As they were deflected on protective spells of light, the Archlord responded, running his tongue over his lips and enjoying the tingling feeling when his taste buds touched the blood raining from the Tempest of Craving that had splattered over his face, "It comes with the job, young Caiellis. And is it truly insanity to simply pursue one's wants? Anyway, enough with words. Let's begin this fight in earnest, since that is why you came here-"

"I didn't come here to "fight" you," Caiellis responded evenly, though every syllable of his calm words was dripping with pure hatred as his Black Sun birthmark crackled with purple lightning that was far more powerful than the crimson fury of the Tempest, and the Archlord of Rapture cocked one of his pencilled eyebrows, inquiring, "Oh? So what did you come here to do?"

"I came here to kill you," the boy finished dramatically, his eyes filling with alternate light and darkness as he ignored the pain using the Lenses of Guilt and Innocence caused, channelling his pure hatred of Tradax through him and using it to conjure up Black mana first in his Summoning ritual of Orzhova for the second time, a void of pure darkness opening up in front of his birthmark and dragging the spherical Black Sun out of it just as a malevolent and haunting hymn sprung into life, tendrils of hatred blossoming out of the unlight star and wrapping around him in a maelstrom of midnight gloom that he forced to obey his commands. Then, he moulded his desire for vengeance upon Tradax into one that was more concerned with holy retribution and the deliverance of judgement, coils of incandescent and imperious gold pulsing in time with the power of his Black mana and wrapping around it, moulding it into a vortex of light and darkness combined, suffusing his limbs with radiance and tenebrosity.

He harnessed the magic and tossed the Black Sun into the air, where it radiating darklight beams and expanded at a terrifying rate, its rumbling temporarily eclipsing that of the Tempest of Craving's as he poured hatred and the desire of justice and the protection of both the Lucaelian force, his brother (and to a lesser extent his father) and the Welkalite innocents like Kaled Denith who had been forced to live under the despotic Orders of Passion into the star of dark luminescence. Then the hymns drowned out that noise, his magic levels rising even more as he began to felt like a god, which was good as he would need divine power to take on the Archlord of Rapture, who was Summoning as well.

Caiellis rammed his relic armament into the earth, weaving sigils that he remembered from Orzhova's ritual into the air around him with a mixture of golden light and smoky dark, opening his arms wide and channelling them into the pulsing Black Sun that was expanding in size by the second, almost overwhelming the sense in his mind that Tradax was also in the process of Summoning, and he then slid the Sword of Glass that Marik had been uncharacteristically intelligent in gifting to his youngest son out of the ground, focussing on the vision gifted to him by the Lens of Guilt in spite of the agony that he overrode with his pure determination to end the life of Tradax and the Tempest of Craving and drawing Orzhova's scythe of gloom into the air. He then switched to his right eye, the Lens of Innocence distorted by the effects of the storm and the sheer lack of anything resembling innocence around the Archlord of Rapture, coating the shadowy weapon in gold as a hand, shining with a blinding intensity whilst simultaneously pulsing with a deep and hatred-filled darkness reached out of the aerial Black Sun.

This was the most powerful Summoning Caiellis had ever done, power rushing out of him as he faced the cause of the Lucaelian/Welkalite war and the death of many thousands of innocents, souls that he intended to avenge on this day, but instead of his thoughts converting into those of arrogance the greater intensity of his Black mana concentrated them into even more hatred of Tradax, who smirked indulgently back at him, like he was a foolish child that shouldn't be playing in the game of adults. Tradax's eyes lit up with the dark light of desire, the Archlord focussing on the darkness within him and drawing exultant power from the pulsating heart of corruption that was his wretched soul that he had willingly sold to a demon for even more power – and now that demon was going to fight for him. Instead of a monumental spell like that of the Tempest of Craving costing him huge amounts of power, it was gifting Tradax with mana instead, though that mana was unstable and unpredictable and could easily kill him just as much as aid him, although he knew the lord of the storm needed him alive for now, and the Archlord had made sure that his survival was essential to the plans of the dark patron.

He ripped a wall in reality just as Caiellis's Black Sun was being absorbed into a dark and terrifying yet still angelic figure that radiated hatred and evoked awe, and a large, scaly red beast tore through the rift Tradax formed and plodded into the material plane, its immense body shattering the courtyard stone beneath it as it laughed when he saw who would be facing the demon, tossing aside an unfortunate soul that was screaming in insanity and had amused the demon for a time until his Summoner called upon him.

"Meet Carramoshk, the Sire of Insanity!" the Archlord of Rapture cackled, feeling the power gifted to him by the Tempest of Craving rushing through his veins and filling him with additional mana, but also a pounding lust for pleasure that would only be satiated when the ritual was completed. Redhand's thrashing stopped as more agonising Red and Black mana ripped through him and annihilated his nervous system, leaving him twitching and drooling, and Carramoshk regarded the Protector with a mixture of triumphant exultance and thinly veiled and petty hatred combined with jealously and envy, before turning its maddening green eyes that twinkled with dark insanity towards Orzhova and Caiellis, gurgling and laughing mockingly, "Oh my, this is a treat! To have the disgrace of the First Sisterhood as my opponent today! I'm half-expecting her to stab her baby Summoner in the back and join us in our rapturous celebration!"

Orzhova didn't even bother to dissuade Caiellis from agreeing, already knowing that there was no way her hatred-filled young Summoner (echoing her own loathing of Carramoshk and his master) would believe the demon's taunts, and lanced a ray of unlight towards the lumbering red creature, who derisively batted it aside with its massive crimson hands before loping towards Caiellis, slamming his tail into the ground and shaking the plaza with every loud footstep that seeped corrupting mana into the ground. Cai was about to leap away before a crackling eruption of lightning shattered his Gift of Orzhova, so instead he shot towards the Sire of Insanity and jumped over its clawing blow, having assumed the prince would try to flee and as such misjudging the strike, as it snarled, "I am going to enjoy feasting upon you, little Lucerna (for a moment the boy was extremely relieved that it hadn't said "little lost lamb")!"

Orzhova hacked into the demon's back, her scythe pulsating with venomous dark magic that augmented the killing power of the executioner's weapon, a technique that Caiellis hadn't seen her use yet but was one that the Angel of the Black Sun had often utilising in the reign of Xarius. Carramoshk shrieked in pain and slammed her away with his spiked tail, the boy wincing in empathetic pain as some of the spines tore hunks of flesh out of his angel before the essence draining magic of Orzhova's poison healed the dark seraph, as she had already come prepared for the Rain of Gore with a shield that nullified the effects of the heal-preventing downpour.

Tradax blasted another bolt of lightning at Caiellis that split through his shield and juddered through him, sending his mind reeling as painful images erupted through it, escalating the physical pain that was caused as it rushed through his nervous system, attempting to incinerate the nerves before Orzhova erased it with a pulse of healing mana. The boy shot a storm of scintillating fragments of glass at the demon as it rounded on him, stampeding towards him with its green eyes full of hunger for the soul of a Lucerna, a familiar sight to Cai who had often faced similar from other demons (including the grinning one that had plunged its claws through his mother's stomach) as he rolled out of the way, the shards of glass tearing jagged cuts through the demon's red and sinewy flesh and sending sprays of vivid black blood that corroded the ground in all directions, hissing loudly in tandem with the demon's growl of irritation as it batted aside another bombardment of crystalline glass, shattering the fragments into even tinier pieces even as they cut into his arm.

Carramoshk snarled at the prince as Tradax narrowly avoided beams of light that cut through the air towards him, leaving smoking craters in the ground and even incinerating several holes in his ostentatious robes, Orzhova arcing her scythe towards him and deflecting the coruscations of malignant voltage that he fired in her direction in an attempt to dissuade the dark angel from pressing the attack. The huge red demon trampled towards Caiellis, who leaped backwards on a new pair of wings that Tradax was too distracted by Orzhova to dispel, dodging a swipe that left painful red after images on his retinas, but then was dragged forward when a chain of burning shadow was wrapped around his slender waist and pulled him out of the sky towards the slavering jaws of the Sire of Insanity. The boy hacked apart the unholy fetters just as the demon put on a huge burst of speed, lightning wrapping around its tree trunk legs and allowing it to shoot forwards.

The youngest Lucerna yelped in pain as an immensely strong and huge hand enveloped his entire ribcage and began to squeeze with an immense crushing force as he was dragged forward, the giant claws of the demon scraping across his back and tearing the skin (but luckily only slicing apart the surface instead of penetrating to his spine and paralysing the kid), smashing apart his wings of elegant stained glass, Red and Black mana collecting on the talons and filling the youngster with unnatural fear, the dread of the defeated that froze up his movements as a series of disturbing and terrifying images flashed through his mind.

He saw charnel houses of death with bloody corpses piled up all around him and claustrophobically crushing him, then he was assaulted by the sights, sounds and scents of a full-blown orgy of bloodshed and frenetic pleasure in the Hedonist's Quarter, innocent civilians and prisoners subjected to horrific abuse that sent Caiellis's mind reeling as he was dragged unmoving towards the hungry maw of the Sire of Insanity as the demon gnashed its teeth.

Then, an explosion of blinding light sent the denizen of Sancturia darkness reeling as luminescence rushed out of the stricken prince, Orzhova raising the pulsating golden medallion in her left hand high as shadows circulated and gravitated towards it, turning into shining luminescence as they passed through the symbolic representation of the Black Sun and then infusing Caiellis with even more mana. Carramoshk shrieked in agony as its claws and hands began to be dissolved into their corrupted constituent particles, and with a vindictive final crush flung Cai across the courtyard, where he crashed into a stone wall and when the contact with the demon was broken, the boy was freed from the visions bombarding his mind and leading it down the path to insanity.

Fortifying White mana rushed through his mind as he constructed mental defences to protect himself from the maddening touch of the demon that grinned at him, growling in a mixture of anticipation, his malicious voice halfway between a sarcastic whine and a threatening snarl as it snaked back to Tradax's side, preparing itself for another onslaught of violence to erupt. Its green eyes exuded malice, and the spines bursting through its back seemed to be extending every second, as it more power was pulsing through it and pushing the black spikes further out of its skin in a sickening extension of bone. However, the most terrifying aspect of Carramoshk that Caiellis had first hand experience in being subjected to was its malicious aura that oozed through its scaly red skin that promised an eternity of madness in the demon's vile clutches.

Do not let the demon touch you, Orzhova's vaguely admonishing but mostly concerned voice cut into the boy's mind, as the youngest prince pulled himself to his feet as glittering sparkles of White mana poured into his wounds, the infinitesimal shield of thin, gossamer-esque glass surrounding his magical essence and protecting him from the negative effects of the Rain of Gore luckily not yet cracked by his mauling at the hands of Tradax's greater demon, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to repair these wounds and stand up. The demon smiled back at him when he glared in its direction, exposing strands of desiccated soul flesh (that looked exactly the same as human flesh) stuck between its rows of razor-sharp and bone-white fangs, Carramoshk's thick and snake-like tongue lapping over the gushing viscera raining down upon the city and nullifying the healing magic of those it touched.

In spite of the fact that the battle between the youngest Lucerna prince and the Archlord of Rapture seemed incredibly chaotic and disorderly, Caiellis had noticed that there was a clear and distinct pattern to the way Tradax subtly manipulated the fight so that there was always either him, or more commonly Carramoshk, in between Caiellis and the inanely screaming Jarred Redhand, which meant that obviously "the vessel" had some large importance to the continuation of the Tempest of Craving, and so the boy filed that information away in his mind as a secondary method of achieving victory – should he be somehow unable to kill the Archlord of Rapture, then he could start targeting the forlorn Protector instead, but with the way that Tradax was acting it would be much easier to eliminate him and therefore end the unnatural thunderstorm in that manner instead.

The beast drew itself up to his full and monstrous height, flexing its gargantuan red biceps as if challenging Orzhova to come and face its sadistic might, just as Tradax squealed, his voice full of ecstatic joy, "You cannot stop the ritual, little Caiellis, even with your dark angel! The Revel can't end now! The Tempest shrieks, and the City of Pleasure is ready for the grand entrance of the Lord of Riots, and when He enters Usnaan the streets will run wild with the bloody favour of our dark patron! Soon, my master will appear, and He will smite you upstart Lucaelians into the dirt for us to trample upon you!"

Tradax's voice was becoming progressively more crazed and exultant every word he spoke, and his slitted cat-like eyes filling with crackling energy from the storm above that coursed through his veins, and with every death in the streets below – Welkalite or Lucaelian, it mattered not to the overlord of the Tempest of Craving – his unstable power rose, Red and Black mana exuding out of his skin as he raised his arms, his lumbering slug of a demon mirroring his movements as four rough orbs of magic collected at the ends of of their outstretched palms. Both Caiellis and Orzhova increased the amount of mana they were emitting, snaking tendrils of shadowy light bursting out of the ground as beams of luminescent darkness streaked down from the heavens.

The cacophonous sound of the apotheosis of extreme pleasure mixed with screams of lunacy blasted out of the wielder of chaotic Red and Black mana and his Summoning, just as Orzhova let go of her scythe to allow it to orbit around her and brought her slender and gloved hands together, the star of dark radiance that had birthed her into existence and fuelled by the conjoined force of her and Cai's hatred of their foes, the haunting hymn of the abandoned cathedral in his mind springing into life and clashing in a battle for auditory dominance with the primal screams of pleasure resounding from the other side of the courtyard. Carramoshk and Tradax brought their hands together, mixing the volatile energies they were channelling in an explosion of fire that blasted towards Caiellis, the flames taking the shape of screaming individuals with their fiery eyes full of rapturous pleasure and pain as they reached towards the boy and his angel, their hands becoming clawed and black as they extended in the direction of the holy Lucerna.

Caiellis sensed that Orzhova knew exactly what to do, so maintained his current stance of pouring additional mana into the Angel of the Black Sun, who held the spherical and shining physical representation of her namesake in her pale palms, her onyx eyes closing as crackling tears of purple lightning coursed down her cheeks. At a sudden thought as the torrent of soulfire crashed through the air towards him, Cai forcefully pulled his mind back to the night of his mother's murder, focussing in on those emotions of absolute terror, sadness and pure hatred that he had felt at the death of Emili, incandescent tears running down his own cheeks and interacting with the birthmark symbol of the orb Orzhova was holding, the display of emitted purple light reflected in the manifestation of it in Orzhova's hands as yet more White and Black mana coalesced around the angel, the coils of gold twisting around tendrils of solid gloom as waves of light were darkened into malevolent pulsations of purple unlight.

The screaming and twisting rush of flames hurtled towards the prince, whose dark seraph levitated the Black Sun above her as the light and darkness around her began to become gravitated into it, Caiellis's hair whipping up as a magical wind sprung into life that had the angel's black robes buffeted around Orzhova, the angel of the First Sisterhood slowly and dramatically pulling her hands away from each other as each was infused with a different type of mana – the left was shining with the holy light of the Sanctum Angelica, whereas the right was suffused with the dripping darkness of the abyss. Suddenly, she slammed them together, and the rumbling orb of darklight hovering in front of her and her Summoner exploded in a supernova of alternate energies that forced Caiellis to close his eyes and instinctively cover his ears as the choir without a mouth began to sing even louder, their mournful and loathing-filled voices drowning out the din Tradax's pandemoniacal magic as the rush of flames that had made Cai start to sweat within his light armour by increasing the already hot temperature died down.

He opened his eyes, and in spite of the fact that Orzhova had just released a tremendous amount of mana, still felt ready for fighting and that he could cast even more huge spells, although he always felt this way when he had Summoned and the exhaustion always came afterwards, although he had never pushed himself to the absolute limit where he physically couldn't sustain Orzhova any longer. The storm of flames that had been launched at him had been vitrified by the angel's magic, turning into an immobile sculpture of crystallised glass that contained the turbulent mana of the spell within it. The boy had to fight to keep a smile etching itself onto his features, keeping them stony and cold instead and suppressing his thoughts of narcissism under the power of his hatred for demons, and he shot forward, his Sword of Glass's crystalline edge suffused with glimmering darkness that glittered with the light of twinkling light infused into its essence, the flecks of justice mixed in with the hatred, and flew out of the way of the demon's strike of coruscating and vivid pink lightning, anticipating the Archlord of Rapture annihilating his Gift of Orzhova and turning his fall into a roll that made him land next to the Welkalite of medium height, just as the Angel of the Black Sun flew to engage the Sire of Insanity that charged at him, hacking into the beast with her spinning scythe and turning the essence that she drained from it into more healing for Caiellis, completely restoring the damage done to him by Carramoshk.

Cai found it ironic that evidently Tradax didn't know as much as the Tempest of Craving he had invited over Usnaan as Orzhova did, as otherwise the manipulative Archlord that was (in Caiellis's experience, although he had made several mistakes, such as misjudging the preparations of the Resistance underneath Usnaan that Cai had assumed had fled or been captured and killed since as far as he could see they weren't helping the Lucaelians) good at capitalising on his opponents' weaknesses would have been targeting the invisible shield that prevented the Rain of Gore from touching him and smashing that apart with his magic (as it was immune to physical attacks), as now Cai could simply keep repairing his wounds with the enormous amount of mana Orzhova gave him, so unless Tradax killed him or came close to it in a single blow then he couldn't be stopped.

Orzhova hacked into Carramoshk's chest, just as the demon gripped onto the handle of her scythe, ignoring the fact that it was burning his flesh and that he was ramming its blade further within him in an attempt to wrestle the blade free from. The angel snarled, opening her wings wide and pulsing concentric circles of darkness-hating and blinding White mana from behind her in shockwaves of luminosity, but the demon roared at her, its mouth gaping wide and a gout of oily and tar-thickened flame belching out from its gullet, spraying over the Angel of the Black Sun just as it left go of the scythe with one clawed hand and reached towards her. Orzhova shrieked in pain as the flaming black fire washed over her, burning through her pale flesh and melting some of it off of her bones, and was forced to let go of her ornate weapon and leap back from the demon before it touched her – while she was more resistant to the insanity-inducing contact as a member of the First Sisterhood, it would still slow her movements and force her to divert mana to smother it.

The second the scythe left her grip, the golden coating of parts of it bled off of it, turning into a stream of light and coalescing around a new shadowy scythe Orzhova etched into existence, the first weapon of the angel becoming a scythe of pure darkness that crackled with fire and lightning. Orzhova had no particular attachment to specific weapons, as while she always fought with the same scythe the power was within her instead of a material artefact, but handing her weapon over to the Sire of Insanity to have it corrupted and converted to his demonic will was something she had wanted to avoid.

Cai heard his angel's scream of agony and his mind pulsed with even more abhorrence of Tradax and what he was doing to the city – and wanted to do to the world – and he shot a glance back to Orzhova, whose flesh had been melted off but was in the process of being repaired by flecks of golden light. He lanced a thrust at Tradax, who danced back, a curved sabre of his own drawn that was crackling with lightning. Cai sent bolts of blinding light flying at the Archlord of Rapture, who blocked them on his shield of shadows that made the man immensely grateful for the occasionally defensive properties of the vile Black mana within him, as otherwise Red magic conferred no protection and he would have been forced to take large amounts of damage from the prince's magical assaults.

The boy launched another strike at him, and he parried it on his sabre before the metal blade was hacked in half, Tradax's eyes opening wide in surprise as his blade was cleaved through by the superior weapon of the prince, though he quickly turned it to rapturous arrogance when he felt another influx of power from the storm, suggesting that even more in the battle for Usnaan had been killed and it had greedily taken their souls. He jumped back, and fulminated a bolt of crimson agony towards the thirteen year old boy he was currently facing, grinning widely as it penetrated through the shield that he quickly conjured and sent jolts of spasming torment through the young prince.

"Can you feel the pain, Caiellis Noctis Lucerna? Can you feel the agony coursing through your veins, the blessed ecstasy of torture rushing through your nerves?" he cried, his voice suffused with frenzied jubilance, and he increased the intensity of the lightning. Cai gritted his teeth against the agonising pain, staggering backwards as the Archlord of Rapture walked closer towards him, the power of the electricity heightened by the culmination of the Tempest of Craving above him, the storm of maleficent will gifting the man with huge amounts of power as it neared completion – and when it did, it would be magnificent. Tradax taunted, moving towards the boy and sidestepping a bolt of darklight that was flung in his direction, jeering, "Soon enough will have died to allow the unholy Defiler to enter this world and fill it with the bliss of chaos! You cannot stop it, little prince, nor can you stop the slaughter of your Lucaelian subjects! Your brother and father will both die horrible deaths in the name of carnal pleasure, and their bodies will be roasted on the flames of hedonism!"

Caiellis let out a planned scream of pain as the Archlord of Rapture stepped further towards him, although it wasn't in any way forced as the Red and Black mana rushing through him was one of the most painful things he had ever experienced before – but this physical hurt was nothing in comparison to the emotional agony he had spent his life living within that had only been staved off by the presence of his big brother, whose life he would preserve by killing Tradax now. Evidently the Archlord of Rapture was too distracted by the power of the storm flowing through him and his own arrogance at his perceived victory, as while Orzhova and Carramoshk crashed in a violent battle of scythe combat and flashing mana the Angel of the Black Sun was ready for the next stage, letting the Sire of Insanity believe that by delaying her he was allowing Tradax to finish off her youthful Summoner.

Cai fortified his thoughts of hatred with the noble goals he wanted to achieve by killing Tradax, running White and Black mana through him although not to the extent that the Archlord of the Welkalites would notice, as he still needed the man closer so he crawled back away from him, whimpering pitifully at the all too real pain that would have paralysed him in a paraplegia of torture had he not have Summoned and had powerful mana flowing through his entire body. Hatred mixed with the desire to do justice and end the Tempest of Craving reinforced his mana, and he waited for a short moment for Tradax to take another step towards him, utterly and sadistically focussed on the pain he was causing Caiellis and as such unable to discern the true threat before it was too late.

Tradax grinned widely, the power of the storm pressing into his mind as the number of deaths that were needed for the final, and most impressive part of the ritual to begin – the Infernal Contract of the Lord of Riots – decreased with every murder in the battle fought between the Kingdom of Light and the New Empire of Passion, until it could be counted on two hands, and then on one hand. He blasted more lightning at the stricken form of the boy in front of him, delighting in the pain he was causing to one of the two princes that had shamed him to a great extent in front of his former dark ally and made him look like a fool, and was now trying to usurp his dominance over the New Empire of Welkas, trying to kill him and end his rapture. Not long to go now, and then the Lucaelians will be shown the error of their ways. Three – no two! - more deaths until the Defiler can greet us with his orgy of bloodletting and mayhem!

Cai opened the floodgates of the mana that he had kept pressing against a gateway in his mind, surging to his feet as invulnerability-granting White mana rushed through him, and he clapped his small hands together. Orzhova stopped her relentless barrage of scythe strikes and instead wrapped Carramoshk in chains of gold contrasting with restraints of shadow that pierced into his unholy flesh, just as a massive release of White and Black mana burst out of her young Summoner. The huge sculpture of the roiling soulfire that the Sire of Insanity and the Archlord of Rapture had launched at them at the start of the second stage to the fight shattered into millions of shards of scintillating glass that surrounded Tradax, who cried out in fury and released flames of dark frustration around him in a circle just as tempestuous laughter boomed over Usnaan, a screaming cry of destructive evil and a hysterical giggle of twisted entertainment rousing the Welkalites below to even greater acts of carnal debauchery, as the number of deaths require to activate the Infernal Contract was reduced to a single.

Tradax laughed and let the shards of glass surround him and block off his vision of the rest of the courtyard, though the few that launched themselves at him were incinerated into ash by his flames, a conceited snigger that aptly highlighted how close he was to achieving his goals – all that was needed was one more person to die in Usnaan, and the boy's pathetic spells would be swept aside and trampled by the lord of hedonism's appearance in the material realm. The mana behind his eyes and in the crackling and thundering Tempest of Craving reached a breaking point, their power only restrained by the single person left to die, and then it would burst out of him and complete the ritual.

Caiellis waisted no time with the spell he was casting, infusing each individual fragment of crystalline material with malevolent light as Tradax began cackling with even greater insanity mixed with a note of desperation when he realised that if the person didn't die, then he would lose his life instead, and the ritual would be ended. Tradax looked about him, and all he could see were the reflective shards of glass that showed his reflection within them. He smiled, and then it turned into a grimace when the first one of them detonated, a part of Tradax's soul itself shattering into pieces within the Archlord of Rapture, who frantically flung bolts of lightning out into the walls of reflective glass enclosing him in, his reflection glaring at him from all sides and staring down at him judgementally.

Why isn't the ritual finishing yet? Tradax desperately thought as he cried out in pain, the glass that he destroyed ripping pieces of his debased soul apart when he obliterated them, Surely one fucking person must have died by now?! What is happening? DIE! HURRY UP AND DIE! DIE!

It was then with a sickening lurch of fear that Tradax realised that he had been played for a fool, a delicious twist of irony that he would have found incredibly amusing had he not been the recipient of it, as his soul essence was wrung out of him from the inside and burst painfully out of his cracking flesh. The last death, the final soul, needed to complete the Tempest of Craving's second to last stage...

Would be his own.

---

New Summonings in this chapter:

Carlis Montlea: Glory

Bronn Preolm: Adakar Valkyrie

Telaia Gladium: Celestial Crusader

Eleanour Palladia: Pallisade Giant

Lucaelians: Armoured Griffin

Fraetus Etin: Malignus

Welkalites: Kami of Fire's Roar, Kragma Butcher, Deathbellow Raider, Cyclops of One Eyed Pass, Carnage Gladiator, Squealing Devil, Rakdos Drake, Havoc Festival (art).