“This isn’t right,” Cyrus said. The battle had started so grand, yet now the defenders were scattered, the walls overrun, and the paladins struggling to maintain their attacks against wave after wave of soldiers coming through the broken gate. In the center of it all raged gods and the inhuman elite, and the world shook from their wrath. Thanet’s troops attempted to seal off the wall entrance and isolate the battle against the gods. It briefly worked, at least until the men and women in red robes took to the front of enemy lines. Their lack of weapons and armor confused Cyrus at first, but then they lifted their hands in prayer. Golden weapons blistering with light burst into existence, hovering in the air and wielded by invisible hands. The weapons tore through the soldiers’ ranks, the defense faltered, and Cyrus’s last hope withered. What horrid power did these invaders command?

Time lost meaning. Blood flowed, bodies fell, the armies meeting and striking and dying with seemingly nihilistic determination. A spear-wielding member of those elite twelve leaped into the air, a single lunge of his legs carrying him dozens of feet heavenward. Lycaena was not prepared, and when the spear lodged deep into her side, her scream echoed for miles. It was right then, hearing that scream, that Cyrus knew his kingdom was lost.

“How dare you!” Endarius roared. Though one invader smashed a hammer into the Lion’s side, and another knocked loose a fang from his jaw, the god cared only for the wound suffered by the Butterfly goddess. Two mighty beats of his wings carried him into the air, where his teeth closed about the elite still clinging to the embedded spear. All three crashed to the ground, but it was the invader who suffered most. Endarius crushed him in his jaws, punching through the man’s armor, smashing bones, and spilling blood upon a silver tongue.

A casual flick of Endarius’s neck tossed the body aside, but that was merely one of twelve. Eleven more remained, and they closed the space with calm, steady precision. No soldiers attempted to fill the gap, for what battles remained were scattered and chaotic. There was too much blood, too much death, and above it all, like a sick backdrop in the world’s cruelest painting, rose the billowing smoke of Thanet’s burning fleet.

“Flee from here!” Endarius bellowed as a bleeding Lycaena fluttered higher into the air.

“Only if you come with me,” the goddess urged, but the Lion would not be moved. He prepared to pounce and bared his obsidian teeth.

“For the lives of the faithful,” Endarius roared. His wings spread wide, unbridled power crackling like lightning across the feathers.

Cyrus dropped to his knees and clutched the side of the balustrade. He could feel it on his skin. He could smell it in the air. The overwhelming danger. The growing fury of a god who could never imagine defeat.