The city was in the middle of bolstering its defences, which had been planned for, but even the person who designed them would dread the day they were used. On the coast was a mixture of all the guards who had activated their power, a few of the elite, adventurers, and some of the retired fogies like Ferris.
'I really hate this set up, should we fall, the city will follow. Just who is in charge of this operation.' – "All hell breaks loose and this is the best our city could come up with?"
"At least the people in hell can see."
Ferris looked left of her, at the man in the white armour, a green dragon folk, the current leader of the guards, sitting at level 343, and the fool in charge of this operation.
"I'm Toren…"
"I know who you are."
She said as she plastered her gaze back at the seas, "I also happen to know who you are, you are the 'Singe of Hell,' Ferris. They still tell stories about your feats in the guard."
She had lived long enough to have fought monsters and battle terrors not for this world, and even though she is sure that everyone here is a greenhorn, she knew full well that she was one too, just a dull kind of green. She knows what is coming, and what the horrors coming are capable of, but most of these soldiers have never seen a destroyer, the veterans pulled from retirement know what they'll be facing, but just like her, they know that they might as well as be greenhorns in the face of the destroyers.
They had all become adept at controlling their elemental power, but when facing the destroyers, this was nothing. Unlike the guards, the veterans knew most that the best they could do tonight, when the darkness comes ashore, is survive until morning, only the knights could handle the destroyers.
On that night, the guards were almost wiped out, those who had survived, flew out by mistake. Ferris had seen her fair share of nightmares, but standing there again at the shore knowing that in a few hours the battle would resume, she was quacking.
She wished this hell on no-one, but after seeing the specs of the dragons in the sky, ridden by the knights, this became all she was wishing for. The week passed, more knights had arrived, and all others who had been there before had been decimated, the veterans, the guards, even Toren, but somehow, she somehow managed to make it to morning, day in and day out.
She was too old for this, deep down she was starting to even wish for death, but watching the knights fight for the sake of her city she could not give in. Good thing she fought with her eyes closed, she had honed herself to fight without relying on her senses. It was because on this one day a thought crept into her mind, after hearing the scary stories people told about the darkness.
'What would I do, if I was in there?'
She had developed the habit of pretending she was in the darkness in every fight she had been in. To look at the beach shore and realise, she now was in that situation, made her wish for death. Her battle style was still severely lacking when compared to the knights, but she was doing well enough to survive, even the knights had begun to recognise her, the only one in her city who still fought, those who had not died had ran, after the knights arrived, hoping they would guard the place they themselves called home.
She kept telling herself that the reason she kept pushing the fight was because she wanted to protect the city, but really, she just wanted to die. She had barely even stepped away from the shore, even during daytime, only ever leaving to go do the necessities. She would stand there looking at the clear area, burning the image into her mind, so that come night, it wouldn't feel like a different place all together.
The knights had landed her a spare suit of armour after hers broke down, so standing amongst them every day, as they prepared for the encroaching darkness, she looked like she was at home with the knights. The only thing distinguishing her was her wings. She was even starting to be able to remember where she was even after the embrace of darkness.
She had not managed to kill any of them, but like what the knights told her, all she has to do is survive and keep them at bay. Today was the fifth day, the day when things changed. Mid-day out of nowhere, every single fire dragon kin stopped, having felt this overwhelming heat in their veins, even they had never felt such heat, and just like that they all collapsed, dying on the spot. It was a strange site, a sixth of the population just up and died.
For a city that had been besieged by the darkness for a week, this pandemic of death was causing a massive depression. The whole city was in disarray. The people were already teetering on the border of a mental breakdown, and now their friends and families where all dropping like flies, the only good thing was that it was day.
The people were watching the horrifying site as they all died. Everyone wondering, who is next? That is until they all noticed the only ones who died were red dragon kin, even on the coast the knights watched as their last surviving local dropped. It was quite disheartening to watch; she had become a symbol of hope.
They all checked the bodies of the deceased, even the people from the labs were confused, they had never seen a disease or force reap so many lives at once, with such precision. In the end, all fire dragon kin were declared dead by their friend and families. Valdi and Delana were crying softly in the restaurant, they were nowhere near their boss, but they had assumed the worst.
Quite frankly it was strange to label this whole event as anything, and even harder to label what followed. Everyone who had been dragging their fallen all jumped away, causing confusion with those who were watching. Their hands had been scorched. The bodies they had been dragging, all glowed red, becoming brighter.
Until each body burst into flames, causing pillars of fire to shoot up across the whole city, giving a new meaning to a city named Pyre. The pillars burnt even brighter than the daylight, temporarily blinding those who watched. Parts of the city were destroyed, left in rubbles, or left as glowing red-hot piles of ash. The smoke rose up, making the day cloudy.
When the pillars vanished, the bodies of all those dead were standing, and to the disbelief of the onlookers they were all alive. The vermillion colour of their scales some looked more alive than they had ever been in their whole lives. Oh, what a sight it was to behold. The souls of all of them were only half dragon, but if you cut a dam in half, it will collapse.
Their half souls were not made to be alone, like cutting a human in half. With the other half of their souls re-attached, their souls and bodies were restored, with an even hotter fire burning within them. All were still stunted, the onlookers and the ones who had just been revived themselves. They were so shocked the gift of speech had not yet reached their minds, some tried to move their mouths, but their throats had been singed so nothing came out.
Their clothes were like tethered rags, even though they had been made to be fire resistant, the fire had almost burned them all off. The sheets used to cover their deceased bodies were gone though. The only one whose clothes, well something resembling clothes that held were Ferris's clothes – armour. It had been charred black, but the armour held, even if it was still glowing bright red.
The risen were still emanating heat waves, so the others could not approach them yet. Then as if things weren't strange enough, all the risen dropped to their knees, and all bowed, facing one direction.
Even thought they were scattered across the city, they all bowed their heads in the same direction, an eerie and majestic site, if not a little creepy. At the time of the bow, this is when the deceased began to form thoughts, realising that they had briefly died. Ferris herself was feeling it. 'What's happening? It's like one half of me won't obey me, no matter how hard I struggle, it is set on bowing.'
The fact that all the fire dragon kin bowed towards a single point, established this day as 'the day of the birth of the great fire.' Which is what the people speculated they were bowing at. This mad event had taken place across the whole world, everywhere where a fire dragon kin was, they got hot, died, and came back in a spectacular pillar of fire, burning hotter than ever, then bowed towards the 'great fire'.
A few moments later, they all regained control over their bodies and had cooled down. The people were still in a panic, wondering just what happened because they are sure that they had died. This was worse in Pyre city. Sadly, even though they were the most inflicted, they had the least amount of time to recover, because after a few hours they were beset by night fall, and all that panic and wonder turned into fear, really quick.
Even in this state, after surviving all that hectic chaos, piled on top of the nights in the darkness, and against the wishes of the knights she chose to fight on this night again.
"There is no excuse to sit out the war to protect my city."
She said this to one of the concerned knights, they had been one of those singed while carrying her body. Who would have known… even though she had honed her senses – her ability to not rely on her senses, memorised the place – after fighting here for multiple nights, she never would have thought that today she would see so clearly. She was in no way delusional, but she could see, almost as if day had not left.
The view which she had gotten used to was gone, the deep blue waters of the ocean would darken, and in a matter of seconds, would turn pitch black. Her view of the golden sand would fade, her view of the stars would vanish, and she would feel like she was alone.
Not knowing where up or down was, the ground being the only feedback, terrified out of her mind, and yet still forced to fight, until morning once again came from off in the horizon. But today, it did not come – the view she had grown accustomed to. The darkness came, but the sea did not vanish, the starts still twinkled, the golden sand still pushed up her sabatons, she was still terrified though.
She was not quick to label this a blessing, because even though she was not sure how the knight manoeuvred in this place, she now, like them could see the horrors of the darkness in all their malevolence. She had fought for ages, and at this instant, this brave woman ran, faster than she had ever done before. Luckily, she even knew which way was out. These things appeared out of thin air, like the knights said. They were more atrocious and disturbing to face, than she had ever imagined.
The thought of looking at one petrified her beyond limit. She knew one thing and one thing only, escape. She felt like she did die today, and the residents of hell kicked her off to a place even they feared. Part of her knew why she was there, but none of it wanted to stay, none of it comforted her, even shame did not find her.
At least when she fought in the darkness, she could imagine they were not there and could battle until morning, but today… her knees became weak, and she ran. She did not look back, the only thing that surprised her was that she was not paralysed by fear. As she ran, terrified, two sentences ran through her mind. The first had been said by the leader of the dragon kin guard, 'what is it he said? Oh, right "At least the people in hell can, see?" Why would anyone want to see this?'
Wondering if he had cursed her before dying, she remembered her own words, "There is no excuse to sit out the war to protect my city."
As she ran out, with her tail tucked between her legs. She could not even move her wings, only hoping her luck had not yet run out. She could see but it changed nothing, it only made it worse. The smiles and laughs of the knights seemed to be even harder to reproduce, 'are they even people?'
She and the others did not know this, but they were mock souls now, belonging to the void, belonging to the Vile Knight to be specific. This gave them a strange kinship with the void, for instance they could see in it now.
She ran for her life, soon making her way out, her scales still shone vermillion, but now they had a cloudy after taste of fear. On this day she vowed to never return again, as she survived her last night in the void.