“Man never stood ascendant from the strength of an individual, though grand legends have always made their mark in the sands of time.

  No, our strength comes with a cost, one whose price must be paid in blood and bodies, often thousands at a time. Together, with the gods at our side, man will march forward with the fury of a thunderous storm, and cleanse all the heresies in our path. Thus, the land can be born anew under our righteous care. In their holy name, I pray.” - Templar Marcus Antonin of the Grand Order, Ninth of the Thirteen Legions (Hellenes Legion)

  Adrenaline coursed through Diane’s veins, as she stared wide and wild-eyed down the main road. Small bastions of light struggled to make themselves known beyond the confines of the divine barrier, while a steady drumbeat throbbed in her ears.

  Though the roar of the cannons fell silent, it didn’t elicit any sense of false peace. The war still raged, and without the boom of earth-shattering ordnance, the sounds it once suppressed instead carried across the city.

  Screams of pain joined into an eerie chorus of terrified shrieks, grinding metallic crunching and rough, distant booms and bestial roars that readily traveled the length of the city all the way into its heart. A chorus that steadily grew closer, at a rapidly increasing pace.

  With it, came a steady pitter patter that grew into a thunderous stampede of footsteps and clamoring voices rushing through the darkness. The others had quickly lined up behind the assorted makeshift barricades as soon as the roar of the first explosions broke the cold night air.

  The orc brandished his rusty sword, his muscles tensed in anticipation as he braced himself behind one of the barriers. Old Frida hadn’t moved, her eyes torn between the cold barricades and warm fire, as she tightly clasped onto her little kitchen knife.

  Jotuun trod to the center-most barricade, with Diane in tow as she held tightly onto his pants leg. Clover flanked her on the other side, as a yowl rumbled out of his mouth.

  “Th’ ells goin’ on?! No way they’re ‘ere already!” The bearded man yelled, as he tried to make himself heard above the din.

  “BRING IT ON!” The orc snarled, then smiled in excitement.

  Jotuun’s ears perked up, and he easily bellowed above the noise. “Many humans! Hold weapons! Stay by barriers!”

  Diane squeezed herself up on top of Clover, and checked quickly across the other barricades as the first people seemed to appear out of the darkness. Some were missing their weapons, and others had blood staining their arms or face, and their voices were able to break distinctly from the approaching mass.

  “RUN! RUN!”

  “THEY’RE COMING, THE MONSTERS ARE COMING!”

  “THEY’RE KILLING EVERYONE!”

  Where is…? Diane froze mid-thought, as she spied Frida, still by the fire.

  “OLD NAN, HURRY! COME HERE!” Diane yelled out, while the old woman looked around in a panic. Frida turned around, and tried to flee away from the crowd. However, as soon as she twisted around, a faint snap—one that was inaudible in the growing cacophony—popped from her ankle.

  Diane tried to turn Clover around to run to the old woman, but Jotuun swiftly blocked them with his giant paw as the crowd swelled into a stampede. “BRACE!” he bellowed, although it was difficult even for him to be heard above the din now. Demi-humans and humans mixed together into a swarm, rushing into the protective grace of the temples’ barrier.

  The gaps between the barricades were quickly flooded by the routing militia, as others, desperate in the crush of people that formed, began leaping over the barricades en masse. Some fell, and began to pile on top of one another as those behind them continued on relentlessly, trampling those who fell without thought or remorse.

  Jotuun slammed his paws into their barricade—his muscles bulging with the strain—while Clover roared as well as a young sabertooth could. Diane watched in horror, as the people who were too afraid to try and leap over her barrier were forcefully shoved against it and were being slowly crushed by those behind them.

  In the face of such numbers, Clover slunk down and pressed his body tightly against the barricade, right next to Jotuun. The swift change in height placed Diane into reach of a sea of hands, as people desperately grabbed at anything, trying to make it over despite being pinned by the sheer force of those behind them.

  Diane didn’t even realize she was screaming, as she tried to climb Jotuun to escape the hands flailing over the barrier, hands that grabbed onto anything they could. One of her sleeves ripped, as she pulled herself away.

  While the wooden posts strung together with bits of rubble and other debris creaked under the strain, they barely managed to hold, with Jotuun and Clover’s bulk helping to disperse the pressure.

  The other barricades weren’t so fortunate, and readily crumpled, adding more hazards and tripping those fleeing from the darkness.

  As the first panicked rush of retreating militia finally began to relent, it was soon replaced by the desperate retreat of those bearing worse and worse wounds. Some were missing eyes and arms, and others barely struggled onward with gaping wounds shorn through proper armor.

  Jotuun took the moment to catch his breath, and heaved, gasping for air. Diane buried her head into his fur from her new perch near Jotuun’s shoulder. She struggled to look away, but was unable to keep her head hidden for long.

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  “H-how…? So many already… W-will they still hold?” Diane croaked.

  Jotuun stared in disbelief. “No… line already fell. This… this route. Not far.”

  “T-then do we stay here?!” Diane asked anxiously.

  “Nowhere else to go.” The ursine answered, his face wrinkled in concern.

  She looked behind them, as the temples and fields surrounding theme were filled to the brim with screaming men and women, and people were pushing from all directions as they could find nowhere else to go.

  Then she gasped, as Diane noticed the corpses strewn across the road.

  “OLD NAN!” She shouted. Then the little girl leapt off of Jotuun’s back and rushed towards the fire. The stew that had been cooking was knocked over and spilled across the ground, and a body lay near the mess.

  She rushed to the body’s side and froze.

  You’re not…

  Diane flinched and took a step back, as she couldn’t recognize the corpse of a young man in a rough brown tunic. Blood dripped from his crushed jaw, and broken teeth were scattered across the nearby ground.

  “… here…” A feeble voice greeted her ears, and Diane spun towards the cart. A pair of legs covered in a dirtied pale-blue skirt stuck out from beneath it. Dark, wet splotches slowly spread near various points around the woman’s legs.

  Diane rushed over, and tried to lift the cart. She funneled mana into her arms and legs, and began to lift the heavy wooden vehicle a few inches off the ground. Then, she felt the entire thing leave her grasp and stumbled.

  Jotuun grunted, and moved the back-end of the cart to the side, revealing Frida underneath it. The old woman gave Diane a pained smile.

  “Well now, seems you earn a bit of your name… it took a team o’ horses just to bring o’er here…” Her chuckle turned into a cough, as Diane rushed to Frida’s side in a panic.

  “You’re legs… granny…”

  With a closer look, Diane could clearly see the old woman’s legs were bent at unnatural angles, and the white of bone peeked out from one of the darker sections of her dress.

  “I… couldn’t quite make it in time.” Frida groaned, “My hip… and everything down… its all broke.”

  “A potion… right!” Diane leapt up, and rushed back to the cart as Frida just missed reaching Diane with her hand.

  “No… please, its alright… don’t waste…” She started, before Diane cut her off in shrill, shaky voice. “STOP. I… I’ve seen enough people die, so don’t!”

  Diane grabbed one of the pink potions out of the crate, and rushed back to Frida. She ignored Frida’s feeble attempt to push her hand away, and practically forced the old woman to drink the potion.

  Frida’s grip tightened, and she bared her teeth in pain as a hiss practically blasted from her skin. Diane pulled up her skirt to check on the leg wound, and it had quickly closed up… although the bone was still sticking out from the flesh fused around it.

  Diane balked at the sight, as Frida’s breathing stabilized.

  “What kinda devil potion was that, it hurt like hell!” Frida exclaimed, after she caught her breath.

  “Well, at least you’re not bleeding anymore…” Diane replied meekly.

  Frida quickly patted around her hips, and seemed to sigh in relief, before she slowly sat up and lines of concern etched across her face. “Aye, but… ye shoulda waited dearie.” Then, Frida nodded towards the lines of injured people, many of whom stopped to look towards Diane and the old woman.

  Jotuun had also noticed, and hurried to stand by Diane’s side while Clover watched from his spot in the barricade.

  “Potions… they got potions on the cart! Healing potions!” One of the men yelled, as he began to rush over. Soon, a swarm of people surrounded the vehicle, shouting, screaming and shoving each other.

  In the midst of the commotion, the orc ran over to join Diane, Jotuun and Frida. He seemed a little bruised, but in otherwise good enough health at a glance. His sword, on the other hand, had a notable bend on it, as well as fresh, red blood.

  “HEY! That’s our supplies!” The orc bellowed, to no avail. He looked furiously towards the crowd ransacking the cart, and had just started to stride over before Jotuun grabbed him with his paw and pulled him back.

  “Why’re you stoppin’ me, that’s our-” He began, and was shut down with a stern look and a shake of the head from Jotuun.

  “Look.”

  The crowd turned violent, and those with weapons began to threaten and attack those without in order to get their hands on some of the healing potions within the crate, their eyes stained with fury and desperation.

  Then, a man with torch and a missing eye screamed out. “Back the ‘ell off, either I get sumthin, or I burn the whole damn cart!”

  He moved the torch close to the canvas cover, while another man in chainmail tried to slowly approach him.

  “Ye burn that cart, then that wound won even be the least o yer problems.” He said slowly, while pointing towards the bloodied eye socket.

  The crazed man swung the torch just a little closer to the canvas, while he crouched as if ready to tussle. The movement put his head near the same height as he held the torch. “I said not another step! Not one—”

  His voice cut out, as a bolt cut straight through one ear and out the other, before blasting the torch away from the cart.

  The crowd of injured men backed away, as D walked up calmly. The light flickered off the glasses under his hat, and his expression grim. The caster and soldier next to him both seemed equally prepared for a fight.

  “Any of you lot that are dumb enough to try an’ burn this cart will die before you get a chance. Hell, that idiot nearly killed us all!” D shouted loudly and authoritatively, as he walked over the slumped over corpse and flipped it onto its belly with his foot.

  “But she just healed that old la—” one of the other men tried to argue, before D cut him off.

  “Don’t be daft! Look at that potion in yer hand, is that red or pink?! No? Got any idea what a brown potion’ll do to you? Go ahead, drink it! Lets find out! Cant be as nice as that starry potion that I am willing to bet is in that crate too. A touch of fire hits that, and it’ll blast with enough strength to melt a greater demon. Gods have mercy for what it does to men.” The vampire hunter spit in a fury, and strode to the back of the cart.

  Jotuun lifted up Frida, then looked back at the orc and Diane and nodded. Together, they walked up to D, and with a nod from the hunter, they joined the guard and the caster, both of whom looked up nervously at the Ursine.

  “Worst injured, come first. Once its out, its out! Anyone disagree or fights, the yer gonna join our friend down there. Got it?!” D continued unabated, as he hopped onto the cart and kneeled by the crate.

  Further up the road, a blast of flame erupted at the juncture next to the adventurer’s guild and royal knight’s garrison.

  D didn’t hesitate, and the moment attention shifted, with a subtle flick of his wrist, a few pink potions disappeared from the crate.

  “We got six left, and no time, so if you don’t get one, get to the temple!” D shouted, while he tried to take a quick look at the other remaining potions. Other than two bottles of star fire, he couldn’t guess at what any of the others were.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Diane watching him like a hawk.

  “Hey noble girl, tell me what the hell the rest of these do!” D shouted while handing out the remaining health potions.

  She leapt up immediately, almost as if she had been waiting for his invitation.

  The roar of battle grew closer, and D felt at least a little thankful. Seems we aren't the only ones who still got some fight left in us.