Dawn of the Final Day - 24 Hours Remaining -

The carnage amongst the city only began to bloom as Damien drew closer. His hordes of demons, void beasts, and, most of all, reavers in tow, razed the city as they went. These monsters were much more coordinated than the nightmares Jack had unleashed. The reavers and monsters not preoccupied with the city's saviors were on a search-and-destroy mission. Instead of destroying infrastructure, they clawed their way through windows and doors, carefully selecting targets and slaughtering anything older than a toddler. The infants found themselves swept away, but alive and relatively unharmed. After procuring the valuable objective, the demons and beasts quickly returned to the desert through the portals to Dis. The small group of scouts, demons, and monsters was getting soundly defeated by the three heroes. Just as a reaver was about to charge into battle, it abruptly halted, making an about-face. However, the demons weren't all that intelligent. They continued to relentlessly assault the heroes, with new attackers joining the fray in a semi-coordinated manner as each one fell.

Meanwhile, the main ranks of reavers, armed with lances, and the backline of scouts continued their advance. Another scout hurried down the main street, riding as fast as his horse would carry him. "Dam'ien! There's some resistance ahead. Three Redbloods! One of them claims he's a god."

Damien's amusement triggered a boisterous laughter from the ranks of the reavers around him. "A god, you say? Well, someone quick, go inform the Pope!" The reavers responded with a resounding laughter, their swords beating against shields in approval and hooves stamping against the concrete as the riders urged their horses forward. The heavily armed dreadnaughts swiftly moved to the front of the ranks, creating a mobile wall of armor and bulk. The center reavers, led by Damien, charged ahead slightly, without compromising the integrity of their formation. This change allowed a safe area for the lighter and more agile scouts to ride.

As the scout had reported, three individuals were locked in battle with their demons, while a few of Damien's reavers were in stasis to regenerate, scattered around the fray. "Scouts!" Damien barked, prompting the archers behind him to rise in their saddles, crouching low and preparing arrows shimmering with crackling magic. Simultaneously, they launched the arrows into the air, which arced and screamed through the wind. On their downward descent, the arrows exploded, multiplying into hundreds, then thousands of smaller arrows each. The sky was momentarily cloaked in shadow as they rained down.
The tactic was reminiscent of a Roman bombardment, a strategy Damien had learned in his early life. By bombarding enemies with arrows, stones, and ballista bolts, they became more vulnerable to subsequent attacks. Damien was confident, but he wasn't foolish enough to risk his entire army. Dis was powerless to stop him, but this world didn't seem defenseless. He quickly examined souls to identify his primary targets. One soul pulsated like a rabbit's heart, complete with ears—a girl. Another woman was currently obliterating a second-generation reaver. And then there was a brighter, more anger-inducing soul. These must be his "gods."

"Heavies, continue the ravaging. Scouts, keep the bombardment going. Fan out," Damien growled, urging Zagan forward as he broke away from his dreadnaughts, who were charging off to cause more chaos. His scouts scattered, their horses carrying them past the group, some taking potshots at the enemy as they rode by. Arrows crackled with magic as they streaked through the air, embedding themselves deep into their targets.

"It's hilarious, really," Damien's voice rang out, devoid of any booming quality, but sounding rather weary instead. "My people have suffered for centuries, only for God to show up when we rise above the filth they've cast us in?" His tired tone transformed into bubbling rage as Damien dismounted from Zagan's saddle, dissolving into sulfur and powdered glass. His boots hit the cement with a shattering weight and impact.

His eyeless helmet slumped to the side, its horns grazing his pauldron with the grating noise of fingernails on a chalkboard. Warhammer firmly gripped in his plated gauntlet, crackling with concussive magic, he advanced, heedless of any incoming attacks, trusting his scouts to provide suppressing fire to a significant extent. His sights were set on the bright soul as the scouts began to concentrate their fire on Yang and Mel. The two weaved around each other—whenever one knocked an arrow, the other would swoop in for a drive-by shot. Twelve archers in total, working in perfect coordination.

Meanwhile, Damien made the first move, moving faster than anyone clad in platemail had any right to be, and brought his warhammer crashing upward, aiming to strike the godling under the chin if he was kind enough to stay still. Either way, the reaver was more than willing to try again on the back swing.

Soon as he leapt into action the other two also joined him. Clashing with the strange creatures, pale skinned with odd black markings that snaked across that pale canvas. One by one the riders were reduced to ash, clouds that rose into the air and then faded to nothing.  Cas couldn’t help feeling something, a certain kind of pity towards them but they were attacking people. They had even attacked him, which meant they were willing to kill. Especially with how accurate the strikes were. If he were a human each one would have been a kill shot.

”I’m fine,” Cas noted, looking down to his palm. The weapon had shore through the armor, and cut the palm, though the skin was already beginning to close up.  That didn’t keep it from stinging, a subtle pain that made his breath his between his teeth. The two of them proved their prowess, casually defeating a number of demons as well as the strange people that were using them as mounts and attack dogs. The woman with rabbit ears seemed to scoff at him, though he was quite used to that kind of thing. He’d gotten over the reaction, instead just rolling his eyes and looking forward.

”I am,” He responded simply, fingers clenched around the hilt of his weapon and looking over the people arrayed before them. Not as many before but they were all equally ready to fight he could imagine. Zeal within their eyes, as if they were willing to die for whatever cause was driving them. His attention however quickly snapped to something else, an approaching darkness that reminded him of someone.

His sister? It wasn’t the same however, different in texture and the dread that it made him feel. The way it made the hair stand up on the back of of neck. Reflexively he turned towards the source,  gripping his great moonlit sword with both hands and hefting it.  Arrows focused on the other two and yet ignored him, as if this darkness had picked him out in particular. Without even thinking, he raised the weapon and the next thing was the blunt edge of the sword slamming into his face.

Pain blossomed from the point of contact, followed by the sensation of slamming into something.  It took him a second to realize he had been knocked into a building, the taste of blood welling up in his mouth. Cas looked down, seeing the street dizzily below him. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, coming back with gold liquid smeared across the metal.

With a sigh, he quickly went into a ready position. The building wasn’t able to withstand the intense pressure of his jump. Shattering around him, along with the sonic boom that followed. Few beings could follow this speed, something that transcended sound itself.  Within less than a second he would be standing next to Damien, his weapon coming around  and aimed for the neck. This man was dangerous, something within him said if he didn’t kill him he would go on to destroy everything. Should the attack be deflected or blocked, he would follow through with a flurry of slashes too fast for any human eye to follow.

For a moment it seemed the trio had earned a bit of respite. Though they had vanquished their foes rather quickly, the succession in which they were attacked would have overwhelmed a normal person. Unfortunately for their enemies, these three were anything but normal. Seeing the smoke rise up into the air as the only lingering sign that an opponent once stood there. Yang would let out a small sigh as her blast of energy had done what it was intended to do. Though the safety and rescue of the civilians here were top priority, she was hoping to find something or someone that would have posed somewhat of a challenge.

“Anyone else hear that?” Yang would remark as the subtle sound of rolling thunder filled the air. However, this was no thunder. As yang focused on the horizon she could make out the silhouette of a veritable hoard barreling towards them. It didn’t take long for the faint glimmer from the magical arrows to catch her eye as they arched skyward. What seemed like only a couple hundred at first, soon splintered into thousands, then tens of thousands. So that was how it was going to be huh? She thought to herself.

Up until this point Yang had been putting much of her brute physical strength on display but perhaps it was time to play around with some finesse and technique. She’d make an attempt to reach out and seize the arrows, assuming that the glow she saw was some form of energy. When the arrows failed to heed her command she was assured that it was indeed a type of energy…magic. She sighed to herself. She’d didn’t have much time to sulk however, she needed to keep her companions safe. With her hand raised to the sky she would make a second attempt to halt the raid of arrows, this time catching a majority of them. Thin rings of light would instantly appear around the shafts of the arrows, clamping down on them and holding them in place. Though this worked for a majority of the arrows, she could not capture them all. Far more made it through than she would have liked, especially as one of the arrows she failed to grab whizzed right by her, leaving a lengthy cut in her outstretched forearm.

As if this wasn’t enough, a sizeable group from the approaching hoard road farther ahead than the rest, arriving just as Yang had halted the rain of arrows. This smaller contingent had what Yang could only assume was their leader. A large armored figure who towered over his subordinates. It was apparent from the moment they arrived, he had some sort of vendetta for Cas, and while Yang wanted to leap in to assist, there was still the matter of the swarm of arrows she was still holding onto.

A sudden sharp pain would shoot throughout Yang’s body. Her eyes would shift to her side where a freshly fired arrow found itself embedded just below her ribs. While it wasn’t enough to bring her down, and she had most certainly felt worse in the past, this only set out to annoy her. It seemed their enemy wanted to overwhelm them through a constant barrage of attacks and a sheer numbers advantage and so Yang felt it was time to thin the heard. Swinging her outstretched hand downward, the small discs holding the rain of arrows in place, would turn into a blinding golden shower of energy beams that would in a sense return the favor the hoard had sent the trios way.

With that out of the way she could focus on the riders that now circled her and Melody.