We walked down the all too familiar antechamber and were announced, and then allowed in, to meet the city lord. The tension I felt was much higher than even the first time we entered this room what felt like an eternity ago.

We repeated our story to the city lord just as we had before, then I summoned Shimmer and we were able to convince him of the truth of our words.

Finally, we broached the topic of the explosion and I tried to tenderly bring up our current theory of its cause.

"When we infiltrated the tunnels below the city lord's manor, trying to find the bomb that was causing the explosion that ultimately destroys Shironia, I found a secret tunnel that wound deeper below the manor." I started, keeping my tone even. At my words, I noticed Calius visibly stiffen at my words. I pressed on, however; determined to make our plan work, at all costs.

"After following that path, I was captured by someone I believe to be a high ranking demonic cultivator. He wore a well tailored suit, had pitch black eyes, and was creepily jovial, despite how horrid everything he said was. He was…tormenting a man that was imprisoned within a solitary cell in the depths. After the demonic cultivator described the method by which he murdered the imprisoned man, Loran's, family, Loran performed one of the great taboos and shattered his domain, causing the explosion that, from what we know about domain shattering, ended up destroying this entire planet. Each time we've tried to save this city, the explosion has prevented us from doing so, in order to do so we need to prevent Loran from shattering his domain." I said. Letting the information seep into Calius and Brutus up on the dais.

Calius had been growing more tense as I spoke, though the smile he garnered upon hearing of Loran's family being murdered sent shivers down my spine. The unspoken question I left at the end of my speech hung heavily in the room. Calius balled up his fists on his throne even as he asked the question we knew was going to be hardest to answer.

"And how do you propose we prevent such an event from occurring?" The words feeling as though they were being pulled from his mouth against his will. Each word was an effort of willpower from the man to not let his anger overflow.

"After talking it over with Alexis, we're afraid that the demonic cultivator that tormented Loran will be too powerful for even the arrayed forces of the city to fight off after protecting the city and fighting all day. Thus we think that killing Loran to prevent his domain shattering wouldn't work. From what I heard the demonic cultivator say, he needed to poison Loran to allow him to kill your family and then be killed by you, sir, which we think means he's powerful enough to be a threat to the demonic cultivator. We may be able to save the city if we all fight alongside Loran against-" I said, before being cut off by Calius's screaming.

"Absolutely NOT!" He yelled, his rage overcoming his self control.

"Calius, please, I implore you to see reason. This is to save the city!" Alexis pleaded in our hope's defense. This seemed to momentarily make him reconsider, but then a new wave of anger washed over his face, reigniting his fury.

"Loran Dreev will ROT in that cell for the rest of his miserable life. And I will punish him every day until my rage has been quelled, Shironia be damned!" Calius bellowed, standing so abruptly from his seat that the whole throne was knocked backwards.

"So you'll just let this whole planet perish because of your anger?!" I snapped at him, causing him to look over to me and direct the full force of his attention on me. I withered slightly, but still stood strong. Even if he killed me, it wouldn't matter, though it would suck. He thought for a few moments before narrowing his eyes, and a cold, calculative tone took over where previously rage flowed like water.

"You said that should you die, you are brought back to life earlier today? And none of us will remember what transpired this day?" He said, and I nodded, unsure what he was getting it.

"So should we fail to save the city, it's likely you'll choose to not tell me of your plan next time, and go free Loran without my knowledge in your attempt to save the city?" He continued and I stiffened. I totally was going to do that if we failed to convince him this time around, though why would he car-… oh… oh no. I blanched even as the city lord seemed to have come to the same conclusion I had. He nodded before disappearing from my vision, I knew where he was heading but I couldn't make it there in time.

"Alexis we need to-" I started but stopped at the shake of her head.

"Unfortunately none of us are capable of stopping Calius at this point, even if we were we wouldn't make it there without being harried by the guards." She said. As she finished speaking, Calius reappeared by the throne, his right hand coated in blood that he was now mechanically wiping off with a handkerchief.

"There. City saved. If you truly are worried that we'll be unable to stop this demonic cultivator from destroying this city, then it's simple. We'll reserve some of the more powerful cultivators from the guards, as well as Alexis to fight with me against this cultivator. Then the city will be saved." He said, the cold anger still brimming in his eyes.

"But sir, we barely managed to defeat all the demons and demonic cultivators with the help of the more powerful cultivators shoring up our defenses and helping save the lives of the weaker guild members as well as covering large areas of defense while others rested. If you take too many of them as reserve, we might not survive the horde!" I pleaded. He scoffed.

"And why would that matter? As long as you survive, what happens afterwards is of no import. Speaking of, guards! Detain the blue haired girl. We need to keep her alive for a few days. Can't have her getting herself killed and giving her the chance to let Loran go free." He said, unseen guards appearing next to me and grabbing me by the arms. I started freaking out, and desperately called out to Rin and Alexis to kill me before the guards could take me away. To their credit, both women did try to kill me. But the spear of ice and flaming chakram were both deftly knocked aside by Calius who had appeared between me and them.

I was unceremoniously dragged from the audience chamber and into the non-secret prison cells beneath the city lord's manor. There, they fitted me with the same manacles that removed cultivation that Loran was wearing, though luckily not the exact same ones, and left me to rot for the remaining days until the invasion. I tried multiple times until then to strangle myself with whatever I could in the cell, but after multiple attempts at ending this try, they finally tied me down to the bed in the cell, ending my struggles. The remaining days I spent thinking about what to do next try, assuming I got one. From my internal clock, I felt that time had long past for the battle to be over, and normally I would have died to the domain shattering. Though, because Loran was dead, no explosion came, and even worse, when someone did come to my cell it was one of the last people I wanted to see.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here? I almost missed you because you're so weak but considering all your little weakling friends are dead already, I'd be loathe to let you live. First though, I think you look like you've been stuck in this cell for too long, how about some fresh air?" He asked, a sickly sweet tone to his voice at the end. My eyes opened slightly, then he appeared in front of me, picked me up by the back of my robes as if I was a stray puppy, easily breaking the flimsy restraints keeping me attached to the bed, and carried me out from beneath the city lord's manor. When I was once again subjected to the harsh rays from the setting sun off in the distance, he pulled me into the air and brought me high enough to see the myriad piled bodies at the foot of the city lord's manor.

Sitting atop the pile was the unmoving body of Calius, his lifeless eyes staring upwards into the sky. Slightly below him was a sight that chilled me to my core. I saw Alexis's platinum blond hair and I initially thought it was stained with blood until I realized that the red wasn't as deep as blood. No. Her hair was mingled with Rin's whose lifeless body lay in the pile right next to her. I felt the bile quickly rising up from within me and retched in the demonic cultivator's grasp.

The sounds of my personal stomach upheaval triggered the awful memories of the massacre at the inter-continental sect competition which only worsened my already tumultuous feelings. The maniacal cackling from the demonic cultivator treating me like a stray animal didn't help either.

"Ah this has been the perfect end to a wonderful massacre. I must thank you for showing me such a deliciously morose expression. Ahh I feel re-energized. All that pitiful resisting was trying on my energy stores. Well, I'm done with you now, bye-bye." He said, and before I knew what happened, the world went dark.

When I awoke back in the middle of the crowded Shironian street, I barely had the wherewithal to throw myself into a nearby alley before breaking down. The sight of Alexis and Rin's mangled bodies still flashed through my mind over and over again and I couldn't control the wracking sobs that overcame me. I cried for nearly ten minutes, even through the pounding headache that always followed a death, the awful scene refusing to leave my vision. Eventually, I calmed myself down enough to run as quickly as I could through the city and to the white forest guild.

As soon as I slammed open the doors to the building, I saw Rin standing near the receptionist counter, ignoring the flares of cultivation at my sudden use of my movement technique, I appeared next to Rin and swept her up into a hug, squeezing her probably a little too tight.

"Ah! Astra there you are, I was getting worried! Man that demonic cultivator was really stro-" She started before turning around in my grasp to see that I was crying. She said something to the receptionist and we were escorted to the room where Alexis was waiting. When I saw the older woman, I detached myself from Rin and ran around the table to hug her too. After a few seconds of me squeezing her, she held her arms around me as well, though the question she asked belied the warmth I felt from her.

"I apologize, young ladies, but I'm afraid I'm a little confused as to what's going on."

Rin walked over and dragged me back to our normal seats, though I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed at how I had so brazenly embraced Alexis, I didn't really know her that well but… seeing her lifeless body had affected me almost as badly as seeing Rin's.

In order to quickly move past my shame I quickly started explaining the entire situation to Alexis. It was getting quite tiring at this point to repeat it, but when I finally finished with the scene the demonic cultivator showed me, Rin leaned over and hugged me herself. I summoned Shimmer to solidify the truth of what we were saying to Alexis and then handed the explanation over to Rin to explain what had happened while I had been imprisoned.

According to her, after Calius had imprisoned me they tried to appeal to him to let me go, but after he threatened to imprison her and Alexis until the invasion, they had no choice but to do their best to make preparations to save the city. Despite their best efforts, the lacking manpower from the most powerful people in the city caused a cascading effect during the invasion that resulted in far fewer forces arrayed outside the city lord's manor and a far greater number of demons and demonic cultivators attacking them.

Then the well dressed demonic cultivator had shown up. He announced himself as Erazael the Malefic. Despite Calius having succeeded in reserving the strongest fighters to combat Erazael, the demonic cultivator's fighting style made their numbers more a hindrance rather than a boon. Combined with the encroaching horde of demons and demonic cultivators currently razing the city, the arrayed fighters were picked off by Erazael one by one with Calius barely unable to keep up with his speed. Alexis did her best to protect me as long as she could, hoping for a chance to land a fatal blow to the cultivator, but, alas, the horde grew too powerful. I didn't even know what killed me, just that one second I was fine, and the next I had a hole through my chest. The last thing I remember was Alexis fending off an attack from Erazael with all her strength before I lost consciousness…" Rin finished, her voice growing somewhat quiet near the end.

Shimmer jumped up onto the seat and laid her head in Rin's lap, nudging the girl's hand with her snout to coax her into petting her head, to which, Rin obliged.

We sat in silence for a little while before Alexis spoke.

"I'm sorry that you both had to go through that. I can only say I wish I could take your places, though I suppose you said this is a trial. The sect doesn't do half measures after all. I suggest we endeavor to make this time count and come up with a plan to release Loran. Being such a powerful cultivator, Loran will regain most of his powers after being released from the sealing manacles. Though his physical state, from what you explained, may reduce his capabilities. We can only hope that releasing him will be enough to defeat Erazael."

I considered what she said and decided we'd need to come up with a plan. I couldn't wait too long during the invasion before trying to release him or Erazael would show up, which meant I'd need to infiltrate the secret underground prison while the city is on high alert which…didn't sound easy at all.

I voiced my concerns to Alexis and Rin and we all sat in silence for a few minutes thinking about how we could make it work. We would have to get in somewhat early to make sure we got the manacles off in time before Erazael discovered Loran. On top of that…the mental state Loran was in when I saw him might make it difficult to convince him to fight…I'd have to figure that out when I got there but how were we going to get there in the first place? I was still wracking my brain for a plan when Rin spoke up.

"Since Alexis needs to help with the city defense, Astra and I can infiltrate the city lord's manor's underground. The security around the city lord's manor may be significant, though, do we have to tell him about the explosion at all? Can't we tell him that we just need to defeat the horde of demons and demonic cultivators? Then the manor may be unguarded enough for one of us to sneak in?" She suggested. Which…made a lot of sense.

"Rin, you're a genius!" I said, smiling widely.

"We can tell Calius the bare minimum and then maybe Alexis can help us by making a distraction so I can sneak in through the underground through the same gate as last time?" I asked, looking over to the woman who nodded her head.

"While that gate is normally guarded, up to a certain point, should we raise the alarm about the invasion, Calius will be more focused on preventing the destruction of the city than protecting an empty set of prison cells. I'll ensure there's enough of a distraction to let you two sneak in to the underground, though we'll have to time it well enough that Erazael doesn't make it to Loran before you can release him and convince him to help us." She said. Though I wasn't sure how long it would take to convince Loran. I could only hope I'd be able to do it in time.

We ironed out the rest of the details of the plan before moving on to talk to the other nobles, then Calius. We made sure not to clue them in on our plan, and we were able to convince all of them of the impending invasion, just like we had in the past. We followed through with the invasion preparations for the next few days and stood with everyone upon the ramparts as we watched the encroaching horde of demons. We fought through the streets, helping any cultivators we came across until it was finally time to execute the plan.

We were all gathered in the square around the city lord's manor when Alexis made a big show of rallying everyone and creating a massive glacier down the main street.

With everyone watching the spectacle and focusing on the demons, I was able to slink off toward the entrance to the underground beneath the city lord's manor.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.