Blinding light illuminated the sky like an explosion of cataclysmic proportions. All that magical energy projected by the Evil-Warding Pillar began to slowly descend upon the city. It formed a giant, semi-transparent dome that would not only cover its entire surface, but also seemed to reach where the battalion had stopped and raised its shields.

The miasma of Discord crashed against the surface of the dome without being able to penetrate it. It exerted pressure like torrents of water rushing against a dam, seeking to bring it down and destroy everything in its path.

"Stay close to me," Astoria urged the family and Tristessa, while several of the soldiers broke ranks under the Commander's orders and took up strategic positions near the refugee tents. She drew her longsword, the blade screaming against the scabbard with desire for violence and blood. "I won't let any aberration of the Evil Dream harm you. Mercer, I give you permission to use your weapons."

"Yes, miss." Jin knelt and quickly began loading his rifle with gunpowder and a lead bullet. Meanwhile, his wife couldn't contain a retort manufactured with anger.

"Why do you bother risking your neck for us?" she asked, the sullen expression on her face combined with the natural fear she felt. Not for herself, but for her children. Her fear was so great that she wouldn't let Lucahn leave her side or stop hugging her own belly. "They'll kill us anyway."

"Shut your mouth, imbecile." The silver-haired knightess looked over her shoulder, glaring at her with those hellish and yet cold eyes of hers that brooked no contradiction. So intimidating that even the pregnant woman couldn't immediately respond to the insult. "Against the forces of the Shadow Realm, I will protect you even if you die."

"…a bold statement, coming from someone who shares the surname with the [Valkyrie of Darkness]."

"Tiara, please!" Jin exclaimed, but she ignored him.

With that venomous comment, Tiara spoke no more. Astoria remained unfazed, immobile in her fighting stance. Focused on protecting the family and Tristessa, whose headache was slowly beginning to subside.

"Ah…ah…the sun…" Tristessa whispered under her breath, watching the miasma finally dominate the skies. It completely eclipsed the light transmitted by the brightest star through the blanket of clouds. "Fuck…"

Now all that remained was an artificial night tinged with blood, with black lightning exploding above and dense darkness on the mainland, as the miasma finally descended.

Everyone was protected beneath the barrier of the Evil-Warding Pillar, but on the outside, the dimensions that defined reality had just been violated. The fabric of space and time ripped away like the canvas of a painting, leaving imperfections hidden behind.

No… Even worse, in Tristessa's eyes, it was like watching the entire world being burned by a cosmic blaze of indiscriminate destruction, leaving charred and lifeless remains in its wake. Ashes in the wind, laden with memories and experiences destined to be forgotten.

"This is a nightmare…" she sobbed, the traumatic memories of her experience returning to her.

Like the Forest of Dead Titans, the Feydra Plains also had an alter-ego in the Evil Dream. The waters of the Maturin River were polluted by pure darkness, spreading like black ink inside a glass of crystal water. The fields themselves, green pastures and lands for cultivation, now were nonexistent. They have shifted into dead earth, from which vines made of rotten, clotted blood grew, pulsing and spreading in all directions and through several imperial vistas. They diverged from small pillars of black stone, carved with sharp geometric forms and, to Tristessa's horror, inverted human faces.

With their gaping mouths, stone eyes from which bloody roots sprouted, and the curves of their cheekbones and foreheads detailed to express the maximum amount of suffering possible. A mockery of the Evil-Warding Pillar and those who sacrificed themselves to stem the advance of the Dark Lady's malice.

But the panorama of those Pestilent Fields wasn't everything the Evil Dream had to offer. When the malignant miasma finished fragmenting the canvas that represented the three-dimensional reality of the world, it also revealed certain natural inhabitants of that twisted reality. Striding across the cursed land were humanoid individuals, wearing remnants of armor in terrible condition, old and corroded. Armed with swords, battle axes, or knives almost reduced to dust. They were rickety to the bone and their skin was ethereal-dark, as if shadows had taken corporeal form. Their faces, their skin decayed and scarred against their bones, their lives stripped away, reduced to an existence of torment.

They were [Fallen Militiamen]. Lost souls from the Age of Kings, forever trapped within the Dark Lady's dream, made manifest.

Souls searching for the light of life, in desperation. All the militiamen roaming those fields —hundreds of them— focused their attention on the city that had just appeared so close to them.

"…RAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Hundreds of shrill roars that chilled the blood in Tristessa's veins. And like moths drawn to a fire, they began to run towards Entrana and her thousands of fresh souls bound to life.

"Thaumaturges, on my signal!" the Commander ordered the soldiers armed with catalysts. "Fire!"

"FIRAN!"

"AOR TERRUM IRIT!"

Dozens of glyphs of elemental fire and earth appeared above their heads, followed by fireballs that flew toward the enemies and magic circles that appeared beneath their feet. A rain of fire that incinerated the living shadows, and stalagmites that pierced them with enough force and violence to reduce their bodies to bloody pieces.

Soon, from where they were sheltering, Tristessa began to smell the burning flesh. She saw the rain of dark blood, destroyed limbs and torn guts flying in all directions before the attack of the Imperial thaumaturges. A massacre of soldiers prepared against entities that didn't think and acted on instinct, running without stopping even when faced with the magical fury of the elements.

But they outnumbered the soldiers assigned to defend the southern wall. And the thaumaturges would soon exhaust their reserves of magical power under so many consecutive spells. Inevitably, the Fallen Militiamen would reach them, something the Commander expected.

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"Riflemen, on your mark! Shields, ready!" First in line, the Commander took up position and waited for the clash. "On my signal...! FIRE!"

Soldiers carrying rifles appeared between the ranks the shield bearers vacated and fired. The lead bullets found their targets, turning a long agglomeration of enemies that were about to arrive into a blanket of bodies.

With that reduced volume, the lost souls charged against that almost immovable and firm shield wall. Slashes and sword blows from weapons reduced to pieces, coming from hostile mindless entities. They attack without coordination, without a strategy, doomed to be pierced by the spears of the second-rank soldiers, each time the shield-bearers managed to push them back and open spaces for a counterattack.

"There are fewer than in previous occasions," Astoria commented, though without lowering her guard for a moment. "Normally, some Fallen breaks through the ranks and manages to reach where we're standing."

"But what about the Evil-Warding Pillar?" Tristessa asked, managing to tear her gaze from the morbid carnage she was witnessing. "Shouldn't it keep those enemies out?"

"No, Miss Irandell: the Pillars were erected to keep the Princess of Sin and the dragon-kin out. The threats that dwell within the Evil Dream are insignificant in comparison. We're talking about legendary beings capable of leveling entire cities in minutes."

"D-do you think she'll appear, Miss Knightess?" Astoria and Tristessa turned their attention to Lucahn, who under no circumstances left his mother's side, nor did he have any way to do so: Tiara was hugging him, protecting him and his soon-to-be-born sibling, while Jin watched the skies with his rifle always ready.

"If she does, we'll have nothing to fear," she assured him. "Under the protection of the Pillar, Ithrendyl is no threat. But to those out there…"

"Lufreya and Melian!" Tristessa's cry startled everyone. The girl stared desperately into the darkness enveloping the territory's forests, a view obscured by soldiers pushing shadowy militiamen with their shields. "They're still out there! And…and Madame Luchie, Reiden…!"

All the mercenaries and their leader, at the mercy of the Evil Dream. At the mercy of the Princess of Sin, at the mercy of those Fallen, or some evil creature like…

"TERRDRAK!"

From the top of the walls, the sentries warned of the presence of those flying creatures. Bat-winged primates approaching Entrana from the south, like a flock of black birds bringing doom.

"By Xiliarra's tits, this is going to get ugly," Astoria cursed. "Mercer, make sure that bullet's path stay true!"

"Of course!"

Jin, like all the shooters on the ground and on the walls, lit the fuse of his rifles and aimed at the dark cloud that was about to pierce through the dome of magical energy.

When it happened, Tristessa saw that the beasts had changed from what she remembered from the day before. They had increased in size, muscle mass, and ability to cause damage, thanks to the lengthening of their fanged mouths, and the sharp nails on those long fingers that made up the solid structure of their bat wings.

That flock was led by a much larger specimen, its back wrapped in a miasma-like cloud of Discord that took the form of two additional pairs of wings.

An Alpha among the terrdraks, the most vicious and vile of all, transformed into a being of shadows.

"Fire!"

At the Commander's order, the winged beasts began to be torn apart in the air. They advanced toward the walls, dodging and maneuvering to escape the firefight unscathed, though with little success. They fell like flies, crashing to the ground and dying from the impact. Their bodies burst apart by the force of gravity in the form of guts scattering around and countless lines of blood decorating the rotting earth beneath their feet.

One of them fell very close to the group, on the black brick path, causing Astoria to cover them with her free hand. She feared the beast would rise even though the impact had split its head into multiple pieces. And yet, it writhed and screamed, refusing to die.

"How is this possible?" Tristessa asked as she saw the knightess approach the terrdrak and run her sword through it twice to make sure it stopped moving. Soon several lines of blood began to run down the pristine surface coming from below its body. "They were smaller before…"

Now those beasts were as large as an adult man, their limbs deformed, and those humanoid faces so disturbing and saturated with suffering…

"It's the Evil Dream. Beasts corrupted by the Shadow Queen become more dangerous… They are [Tainted Terradraks]," the knightess explained, then raised her gaze to the sky and frowned in concern. "Shit!"

At least three Terradracks—including the Alpha—had survived the firefight. The Alpha spotted them meters below, drawn mostly by the agonized shriek of his kin. His four red eyes glowed with the malice that this increase in power had granted him, and he let out a war roar before lunging at them, plummeting downward.

"Mercer, now!" Astoria ordered the hunter. Jin fired again, but to everyone's surprise, the bullet that lodged in the beast's head didn't kill it. "Everyone back!"

Astoria braced herself for the creature's impact, while the Mercer-Archeos took cover, locking themselves in a hug, which Jin invited Tristessa into. She couldn't close her eyes, worried about the fate of the silver-haired knightess, and at the moment when the Alpha Terradrack was about to lash out at Astoria with its jaws...

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three resounding gunshots erupted near them, deafening Tristessa but not preventing her from seeing how the upper part of the beast's head finally exploded in a cloud of gore. Its lifeless body fell onto the knightess, who couldn't bear the weight and was crushed by it.

"Astoria!"

Tristessa broke away from the family's embrace and went to her without a second thought. Jin followed her, and together they pulled the terrdrak to the side. Luckily, the miasma on its back had dispersed with its death. Bare contact with that fur was painful, like being pricked by hundreds of thousands of pins, and the smell it gave off was worse than sticking your head in a septic tank.

"Fucking Abyss! Who did that?!" Astoria demanded, once she was free and standing up. "I had it under control!"

"Is that so? I'm sorry, lady. If I'd known, I wouldn't have helped you."

That voice… Oh, Tristessa felt a shudder of mixed emotions. She wasn't ready to turn around and see this man, who carried with him the smell of burnt gunpowder wafting from the inside of his revolver barrels. She simply wasn't, she couldn't; she felt like the guilt was going to kill her right away.

The events that had taken place in the last few hours had led her to believe the future was random. Any slightest alteration led to chaos, causing the Evil Dream to occur on different days, preventing a merchant caravan and a family from being massacred… But there were certain encounters that seemed inevitable.

First, Astoria Silverthorn, furious and covered in the blood of the tainted terrdrak and from her own wounds, a cut on her head when she fell to the ground.

And now… That Gunslinger who had emerged from his tent, killed the dark foe attacking them, and was walking toward them, the prime victim of Astoria's murderous gaze. His two revolvers in hand, the folds of his jacket stirred by the Discord-tainted wind, and his gaze almost hidden beneath the brim of his hat.

Raising his head slightly, the man showed those present his honey-colored eyes, narrowed with exhaustion. And judging by the way his cheekbones rose behind the handkerchief he used to cover his mouth and nose, it seemed he was giving Astoria a mocking smile.

"Did that terrdrak shit on you, lady? I can smell it all the way here, even if we're surrounded by Discord, both mine and the Dark Lady's... Oh, and that girl's," Auron Casimir commented, greeting Tristessa with a slight nod. "How about I lend a hand? Free of charge, although I'd accept the occasional soul-jewel as a donation."

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