As the sounds of a high-bell raid swept over the super-sanctuary, I felt my heart clench.

After the sanctuaries had united, we had pored over the history books to figure out why the number of Sanctuaries in this world seemed to be decreasing so rapidly. After all, during the time that we had spent on the Sanctuary, I hadn't seen anything that risked the destruction of the island, and so I had tried to figure out whether we could remove the risk of destruction entirely.

While one sanctuary had been destroyed in a catastrophic crash with another sanctuary due to simple human error, most sanctuaries collapsed for one of two reasons.

Attrition, or high level raids.

Attrition was obvious - constant raids, finite essence reserves, and tactical misjudgements made the survival of each sanctuary a dance on a tightrope. A single mistake could leave a sanctuary undefended against the next raid.

However, high level raids were the biggest obvious threat of extinction for each sanctuary. Our artificial sun made attrition far less of a threat than before, and multiplied the strength of each sanctuary - but we were still vulnerable to a high level raid. By our estimations, it would take a decade or two before the newly trained Mages were capable of drastically enhancing the strength of each sanctuary. If we could reach that point, the sanctuaries would become nearly invincible. They only needed a bit more time to finish growing.

The enemy wasn't giving us that time. They were here, to snuff the candle out before it could grow into a raging bonfire. To lose hope right at the finish line would be the most frustrating outcome imaginable for me - and we were now at danger of that happening.

<Does anyone know where the raid is coming from? What direction? Which island is it attacking? How are the defenders holding out?> I asked.

<I'm not nearby - I'm at our parent's bakery,> said Anise. <I don't see anything, but that might just be because our island is right in the center.>

<I don't see anything, and I'm near my parent's farm,> said Sallia. <They aren't coming from this direction, at least.>

<I'm near the top of the tree right now,> said Felix. <I think I see something north, but it's hard to say what it is. I don't think the enemy has reached the defenders yet, but we don't have much time.>

<North? Got it,> I said. <I'll run there as fast as I can. I'll preserve every drop of essence in case it's needed. I can still get to the other end of the city in five minutes or less.>

<I'll meet you there,> said Anise, followed by Sallia and Felix a few minutes later.

I threw a wad of money at the cashier for the chocolate I had been looking at, and abandoned all of the sweets I had been planning to buy. Instead, I began dashing towards the northern wall as fast as my legs would carry me. As I did, I tried to ignore the roaring anxiety in my ears, pounding like a drum as I ran.

<Stay calm,> said Sallia, as if she could hear my panic. <We'll fight it together - with all of the other Mages in the great sanctuary. If we can survive this, the enemy is unlikely to make a meaningful attack again before we stabilize. This is our last hurdle that we need to overcome. We will not fail here.>

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I tried to find reassurance in Sallia's words, but with the imminent knowledge that we might lose everything right now, it was hard to take comfort in her statements. I was too afraid of the end of this world coming right as we were turning the corner.

I ran faster. It took me four minutes to reach the northern wall, and I was out of breath when I reached my destination. I took a few seconds to suck in great gulps of air, before I looked to the north.

Felix was right. I could see the enemy approaching us. Its shape was just as undefined as the worst of the other monsters we had encountered in this world. There, shrouding the islands in darkness and blocking out the light from the eyeball-stars, was something. It didn't have any proper shape. When I looked at it, all I could process were broken, chaotic sounds and scents that made no sense to me. The shape looked like the feeling of someone watching me, unseen from the shadows. It smelled like the hate of a steel blade for the world, sharp and raw and metallic and buried behind in a sheath, ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice.

It tasted like raw, bloody flesh. It was the only sensation that actually made sense to me - and it was all the more disturbing considering the distance between the monster and me, as well as the fact that I hadn't put anything into my mouth.

A moment later, the great emptiness to the north of the sanctuary opened, like a pair of great leathery wings unfurling in the sky, and I saw a ray of light tear through the sky and towards one of the trees.

To my horror, I saw the life force of the tree quickly rot and wither away. Several mages in the distance did their best to fend off the attack of the monster, but their actions were like trying to put out a bonfire with a single drop of water. Their power and numbers were just insufficient to handle the attack of the monster.

To my surprise, shortly afterwards, the trunk of the great tree began to emit ominous crunching sounds. A moment later, the desiccated, weakened bark and corroded wood warped, and then, it looked as if something massive took a bite out of it. I frowned.

I couldn't see what had taken a bite out of the tree. In my eyes, the shapeless mass of darkness in the sky hadn't moved after attacking the tree with the ray of light. Yet, somehow, it had still ripped into the three like a leviathan tearing into the only thing keeping one of the sanctuaries afloat.

Hundreds of spellcasters circled the shapeless shadow, blasting it with spells, but their attacks seemed to accomplish nothing. The great shadow didn't even flinch at the spells raining down upon it.

Even more strange, the creature's shapeless flesh seemed to be boiling. Each time a 'bubble' rose to the surface of its body, it would fall off shortly afterwards, before descending from the sky. Each 'bubble' had a new soul attached to it - and most of them had at least Grade 8 or 9 Fortitude, by my estimation. As each boil of flesh fell towards the earth, it transformed into a new monster. Some were colonies of hands, while others were floating eyeballs, and others were creatures beyond my comprehension.

With another great crunch, one of the trees of the sanctuary collapsed. The effect was immediate. The other sanctuaries, which were connected to the now-treeless sanctuary, started to tilt to the side. They weren't at the point of destabilization yet - but if we lost another two trees, I suspected the entire super-sanctuary would plummet out of the sky and break when it hit the earth.

I looked at the thousands of monsters swarming the ground, the great leviathan in the skies, and the thousands of mages trying to kill it and failing to accomplish anything. I shivered, and took one more deep breath.

We had to kill this thing. If we didn't, it would be the end of this world.

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