Four nights the prince had slept with his men in guest houses within Ceil, four nights he had awoken, clutching his woolen quilt tightly as he tore himself back to reality from the nightmare. The things he saw were always the same. The image of him clutching Yurisviel's limp frame within his arms. The image of her shuttered eyes and blood-stained face. The image of her body disintegrating slowly into spiritual particles, leaving not a single trace behind.

These images...they burned right into him, like hot iron to mortal flesh.

But he began to relish the pain. For with every stab of agony he felt, for every pang of sorrow, the prince channelled them all towards the flame of vengeance burning within him. Sometimes, the fire flared up in uncontrollable spikes, which made it difficult for him to remain placid in front of Faelynn Erisbane.

When the general had relayed her battle plan to Zenvix two days before the invasion, the prince had cut her off mid-sentence with a hint of impatience. "That won't work. If your forces were to defend the city meekly from the walls, the beastmen would run you dry in a heartbeat. Ceil might have the advantage of the wall, but you need to understand that your forces are up against non-humans. Demonically enhanced non-humans. Ceil is facing something worse than what Nox had."

"Then what do you suggest?" Faelynn asked, folding her arms at the prince.

"I say we take the fight to them," Zenvix uttered, his eyes meeting those of Misaki, who had listened passively from the sideline. "To kill a snake, you cut off its head." He turned to face Faelynn, his eyes unswervingly resolute.

"We will take down the Alpha." The prince asserted. "The minions draw strength from their leader. Take the Alpha down, and the pack scatters. Meanwhile, the moment your soldiers have glimpsed the beastmen forces from atop the wall, sound the alarm. Alert Zila, and open her eyes to the truth. Since she refused to believe what I say, she might as well see the damn enemy for herself."

"How many will you take with you?" Faelynn asked. "The mission will be exceedingly dangerous. I don't expect the Alpha will succumb easily."

Zenvix brooded for a moment. Unfolding his arms, he said, "Only one. Will you come with me?" He directed his next sentence to the swordswoman of scarlet eyes.

"I don't really have a choice, do I?" Misaki replied, sporting a hesitant half-smile across her face.

"Only the two of you?" Faelynn sounded flabbergasted.

"Dylas can assist you with the city defence. Regular soldiers wouldn't stand a chance during our fight against the Alpha. They will only become fresh meat," Zenvix responded.

"And I have seen enough deaths as it is," he finished, a shade of melancholy in his voice.

⧪⧪⧪

The day of reckoning marked its beginning with nefarious howls, the tribal beat of war drums and the smell of crushed granite. At the sight of the snarling Zargyles and their beastmen riders, the officers atop the Ceil wall gave the command, and ponderous granite rocks were loaded onto the trebuchets lined in orderly intervals across the broad ramparts.

As the beastmen drew within range, the order was given and the deadly projectiles were flung yards away to the field of battle below, disorienting the beastmen's advance. At the same moment, the heavy cavalry and infantry companies stationed near the foot of the wall readied their formations, and archers took their designated positions across the ramparts and battlements.

As per Zenvix's plan, the city bell had rung three times, signalling an invasion by enemy forces. A messenger had been sent by Faelynn to alert Zila and to beseech the full deployment of Ceil's military prowess. He only hoped that Zila would be able to reinforce the wall and the ground forces in time. They have to hold out until the Alpha is dead.

Riding stallions, the pair had already headed out the western side gate of Ceil at the crack of dawn. The strategy was to flank the beastmen leader and assassinate him as quickly as possible. The Elarian Forest, which lies to the west of the city, provided good concealment and some high ground of surveillance for them to determine the Alpha's location within the invading force.

Standing atop a rocky outcropping amidst trees and forest greenery below, Misaki asked, "How do we tell who the Alpha is?"

"From my understanding of the Frostfire war, the Alpha's location is marked as the only order among the disorderly," Zenvix replied. He pointed at the swarms of Zargyle riders pouring forth at the Ceil forces; it was reminiscent of an army of ants assailing from chaotic directions. "The beastmen are a barbaric bunch that relies a lot on speed and savagery to overwhelm their enemies before they have a chance to regroup. Look at their utter lack of formations and structures. They can afford to be disorderly and untactical because of that single, undying belief in their leader. Once acknowledged and ascended to the Frostbone Throne, the Alpha commands fanatical zeal in his followers. They can suffer wound after wound and yet, there is no thought of yielding nor any sense of self-doubt. Only a blind thirst to snatch victory for the Frostbone Throne."

Zenvix continued. "Their loyalty towards the Alpha is such that only he is protected by his own Fal'Gazar, or loosely translated as the Frostbone Guard, a personal group of beastmen whose only duty is to safeguard the Alpha."

"In other words, we have got to find a group of closely knitted beast riders, is that what you are saying?" Misaki responded.

"Yes, and not directly at the frontline of combat. At least not so soon. The beastmen would never risk the mortality of their leader during the time when battle was thickest. Once the Alpha enters the fray, however, it usually means the conclusion of the war is nigh, and not in the favour of Ceil most likely." The prince said gravely.

The pair surveyed the developing battle between the opposing forces, their eyes searching frantically for a possible candidate. As the human soldiers crossed blows with beastial warriors, the war began to turn for the worse against the city. Strong gusts of chilling air and summoned ice shards assailed the human defenders. Shamans had entered the battle, waving their tribal staffs and invoking frost powers of Icesia North to debilitate their foes.

Men on armoured horses were riddled with holes as glacial spikes pierced their mail plates, and infantry soldiers froze in their tracks, encased within bluish-white frost that forever masked their wordless screams.

"There!" Misaki said, pointing towards a peculiar group standing their ground in the field of battle. They were placed some distance away from the main conflict taking place before the city wall, and were accompanied by lines of beastmen beginning to move off from their positions towards Ceil.

The pair quickly made their way down from the tall outcropping, towards their stallions at the foot. As they rode in the direction of the Alpha under the coverage of the forest, the strong winds brought with them the smell of the dying and the dead, as odours of blood, disemboweled organs and raw flesh assailed their noses. They made haste further north.

"Do we have an idea of how strong the Alpha could possibly be?" Misaki asked as she applied the spurs on her stallion to match the prince's pace.

"If Maagros the Minotaur was of any measure, the latter could pick up a regular human by his head, and crush his skull with one palm alone like crushing a piece of fruit. To a limit, he could manipulate the density and length of his talons; piercing holes through someone-"

Zenvix stopped, as the image of Yurisivel's death came rushing back to him. The gaping orifice and gushing crimson burned once again in his mind's eye, and he fought to push the image away. An abrupt silence opened up between the two, filled only by the sound of galloping hooves.

"I'm sorry," Misaki said softly, seeming to have recognized the reason for the sudden break-off. "I wish I could have done more. She shouldn't have passed like that."

Pausing for a moment, Zenvix deliberated his next words as his thoughts centered on the lady warrior who was known as the Blood of the Valkyrie. "The Yalehearts are an esteemed clan of warriors. Even in the face of defeat, Yurisviel did not succumb alone, but took down the man with her. It was a valiant death, and I am proud she was my partner," the prince finally said.

In between the tree line, the pair saw a distant but familiar group of misshapen creatures gathered around what seemed like a hulking monster that towered above the rest. As they drove their horses through the opening in the forest, the cantering of hooves alerted the Fal'Gazar to the impending threat.

One of the Alpha's protectors, looking like a grossly enlarged armadillo-like creature, curled itself into a ball with long spikes protruding across its scale. In a flash, the beastman rolled at high speed towards Misaki akin to a rushing cannonball of death. It ran across her steed, crushing the poor creature into pulp, but the swordswoman was no longer there.

Focusing her breathing through years of disciplined practice, Misaki directed a concentrated stream of oxygenated blood flow towards her legs and jumped unnaturally high into the air. Drawing her katana, she then unleashed a crescent slash of sizzling white which, akin to an energy projectile, flew at breakneck velocity towards the armadillo-like creature, slicing the beastman cleanly in half.

As the Alpha pulled back his draconic head and let loose a defiant roar at his minion's demise, his remaining two protectors took a step back, snarling in a beast-like language that was jarring to the human ear.

Strange. Zenvix thought. Even as the prince could not understand the guttural words spoken by the beastmen, he recognized a different language emanating from the bodies of those creatures. Hesitation. But with the Alpha so close, this should not have happened. Not with the Fal'Gazar.

"Zenvix, now's the chance!" Misaki said loudly, jolting the prince into action. He immediately knew what the swordswoman meant. Nocking and releasing three arrows in rapid succession, the projectiles flew one after another at the Alpha's mammoth torso, enchanted with differing mystical effects.

The arrows found their mark, and then passed right through the Alpha's body, landing some distance away in the sand behind the creature. Zenvix blinked his eyes in confusion. Impossible, those arrows would not have missed. He thought. The massive beastman remained in his original position; unmoving, and yet, by the trick of the sunlight perhaps, Zenvix thought he saw the Alpha's body contort slightly within itself. It lasted a mere nanosecond, and then the surface of its body smoothened out into normality once more.

His eyes widened, but it was too late. As he turned his head towards Misaki, the four directions of their vision were flooded with rising violet. The amethyst energy cascaded upwards from the sandy ground, materialising into panes of solidified power which joined themselves at the edges, forming a prison cube which trapped the pair within.

"Damn it!" Zenvix said, cursing his delayed realisation that came too late. He hammered his fist at the prisonous wall in anger. "We have fallen into a trap!"

Unleashing her katana, Misaki slashed rapidly three times, firing white-hot energy projectiles towards the right-hand pane of the cube prison, but the sizzling white energy merely melded into the wall's violet surface, leaving not a single scratch behind. "The wall absorbed my Qi energy as if it was nothing. If my guess is right, this is a prison of arcane energies, which is why it counteracted my Qi attacks."

Imbuing his blade with blazing flames, Zenvix leapt at the wall and smashed his sword against the violet surface. The flames were almost instantly extinguished with no visible damage on the wall. The prince shook his head.

For some time, the pair continued to attempt various means to escape from the purple prison, but to no avail.

"It's pointless," Misaki remarked, striving to keep her composure as her last katana technique evaporated into nothingness. "The arcane energy I sense from this cube is especially dense. Probably only a highly skilled sorcerer would be able to undo this."

"But that beast..." she continued, "how was it able to avoid your arrows like that?"

Zenvix placed his head within his palm in bitter frustration. "Likely, because it didn't exist in the first place."

"What?" the swordswoman said in disbelief.

"After I saw my arrows pass through the Alpha, the creature, or rather, the image of the creature distorted right at the region where the arrows pierced. As my projectiles were enchanted, there must have been a momentary conflict of energies. Hence, the Alpha you saw," Zenvix said, "was an illusion."

"Wait.." Misaki continued slowly, "so that means someone must have set up the illusion, and then planted this spell to activate the moment the illusion was attacked?" She gestured to the surrounding walls.

Pacing around the prison cube, Zenvix thought aloud. "Yes, but why? To delay time seems to be the obvious reason. To delay us from killing the Alpha, while the real creature's location remains masked? Because if we eliminate the Alpha, we stop the entire invasion."

"That seems to make sense. The invasion is critical, for without it the Ritual of Keys cannot succeed. There wouldn't be a dead-choke of souls in the spiritual passageway..." Misaki replied.

Souls? Something seemed to nibble at the forefront of Zenvix's mind, but he could not put his finger on it. As the prince ruminated, he was caught off-guard by a sudden shift in his reality as the violet cube trembled. The walls began to flicker in and out of focus, paling and darkening simultaneously. Abruptly, the rumbling stopped.

An attack? Zenvix thought, as he drew his bow. Beside him, Misaki held one hand to her katana hilt, her eyes wary. A humming sound resounded to their left as a dark gap appeared within the purple wall.

A woman donning a strapless dress of lapis lazuli stepped in. "Ah, ah, don't shoot your saviour here," the lady said, smiling. She snapped her fingers and the violet walls shredded into countless fragments of purple light, dissipating in an instant.

"Novita Tenebrae?" Zenvix said, relief flooding his heart for a moment. He looked around. Apart from the corpses of beastmen, the Alpha they had fought was nowhere to be found.

"Yours truly," the prime sorceress of Ceil smiled, initiating a light curtsy.

"How did you find us?" Misaki asked.

"I sensed a persistent magical signature some distance away from Ceil's wall. It had to be investigated in case it entailed further enemy resistance. But I guess, the invasion had ended. The battle was largely decided anyway the moment my war mages joined the fray. The beastmen force, despite its savagery which proved troublesome, was hardly colossal in size," Novita remarked.

"They must have underestimated us," she finished thoughtfully.

"You mean to say the beastmen were actually mediocre in numbers?" The prince asked, and Novita nodded affirmatively. No, something's not right. Aderis would not have let up this easily. Zenvix thought, his eyes betraying a sense of urgency. His memories flashed across his mind in rapid succession. Souls...souls are needed for the Ritual to succeed.

The prince pinched his eyes in fatigue, trying to focus his thoughts. The scene of a massive hall with golden statues flashed by his mind's eye. A familiar female voice resounded.

Private prayer halls such as this are not uncommon among the nobility. Even Zila has one in the Palace of Esheria where she now stays as the prime minister.

A special urn containing our ancestors' ashes was placed there before the Goddess's protection.

She prays routinely as well for guidance from the souls of our departed ancestors.

Those were the words of Faelynn Erisbane.

Something clicked into place as a flood of realization overwhelmed the prince. What if the act of causing death is not the only way to create souls?

"Gods be damned," Zenvix whispered. "The invasion...the invasion is only a distraction from the true goal."

Striding up to Novita who held a puzzled look at the prince, Zenvix said, his voice in a state of agitation. "There is no time to waste. Take us to the prayer hall of the palace. Take us there now, or Minister Zila might die."