For Gemini, the past three years had been a constant routine of sorts. Every three days, when the sun was in the middle of climbing to its highest spot, the demons would appear without fail. Thousands of soldiers would run to the walls, Straight Shot version nine-point-something in their hands, and take aim at the encroaching wave of demons. In the meantime, a few hundred fliers would take to the skies, make strafing runs on the demons, and clean up the rest.

The experts of the upper battlefield, however, wouldn’t even do battle. The demon Exemplars and the Paragons of Ark City would stare at each other, then stare at the ground and watch what Gemini had privately dubbed ‘Walls versus Zombies’.

And as for Ark City and the primal demons, every day was a day of frenetic research and bold guesses.

In the case of the former, it was all about making the Straight Shots stronger, making the thick walls thicker, making the fixed defences even deadlier and helping their fliers fly even better by placing an emphasis on not getting hit at all.

Or in the immortal words of Warmaster Chamberlain, “how to minimise resource attrition while killing off these demonic buggers as quickly as possible”. There were probably a few crude words that would make normal people blush thrown in there, so for the sake of posterity, everyone had bleached them out of the records.

The primal demons’ priorities were a tad skewed, fortunately. Somehow, whoever was directing them apparently only had a few goals in mind, whose pursuit was only even made possible because the demons were capable of respawning days after death.

Priority number one was apparently getting the demons to touch the walls of Ark City for some reason, but since those who got there by sheer luck were usually out of limbs to spare, the only way they could touch it was when their bodies ran out of blood.

Priority number two was more pragmatic; the demons were clearly trying to come up with countermeasures to resist the debilitating volumes of fire. Countless iterations of the battering ram had been deployed over the past three years, as well as more and more efficient barriers of energy created by massed troops. It was fortunate that the demons never knew what artificing was to begin with, or else things might have taken a turn for the worse.

Priority three was resisting Ark City’s elite airborne troops, which had failed so utterly that the demons had fortunately given up on emulating any attempts.

Gemini, as usual, was sitting on Ark City’s walls with Lila and nibbling on some cookies. It was Warmaster Chamberlain’s turn to stare imposingly at his Exemplar counterpart; both sides had fallen into a routine after a long enough period of time. The Paragons had come up with lovely little nicknames for their opposite number; the one Warmaster Chamberlain was exchanging stares with right now was Scarface.

“Want some more?” Lila asked, her eyes on the latest iteration of the demons’ barrier. The two of them were humming a song together, the homeland song of the now-destroyed Ars Tribe. It was a catchy one, but the two of them couldn’t help but turn it into a slow song that was rearranged in a minor key whenever they thought about the fall of Ars. Gemini had started it back then, to Lila’s displeasure, but after he hummed it a few times, she too had taken to it.

Considering the scene in front of them, it was a rather good accompaniment.

The demons’ barrier was pretty to look at…although if Ark City had seen casualties in the past three years, the word used to describe these barriers wouldn’t be ‘pretty’ anymore. To not have taken any casualties for the past three years of constant assault was rather remarkable, but that didn’t stop Gemini from reliving the fall of Ars, when the Demon God’s familiar spirit attacked.

Could the walls of Ark City withstand such an attack?

He didn’t know.

Yet, compared to the attacks Ark City had taken before the demons abruptly changed course to batter at the Great Divide, having such dreams once in a while wasn’t a huge price to pay.

As the two continued to nibble away at the cookies they brought, the barrier the demons had created began to fall apart, unable to withstand the massed, coordinated fire from the overly-tuned Straight Shots. The fixed defences hadn’t been activated recently, but three volleys of combined fire from fifty thousand troops was enough to tear apart their defences.

This trend had continued for the past three months, and the others had guessed that this was the hard limit for the demons. As to what their next development was, the Congress was expecting a rotating defence. The fortunes of war would desert Ark City once the demons figured that out…and Gemini knew that they weren’t idiots.

For now, everyone was coping by intentionally weakening their fire to make the demons think that strengthening the barriers was effective, but researching how to strengthen their ranged defences and coming up with ways to rotate barriers wasn’t mutually exclusive. Furthermore, whatever little tactics they’d come up with in the earlier stages would just add more sand to the scales.

Eventually, they would get lucky.

And that would be the day the Demon God’s familiar spirit would appear once more.

“Are you alright?”

Gemini looked at the worried Lila, and rubbed his nose. “I am. I’m just thinking that the turning point’s about to come. You remember what the Congress said, right? The demons just need to think in another direction, and we’ll be taking huge injuries. Eventually, someone on their side’s going to think of it, and…”

“Best not to think about it too much, then.” Lila held Gemini’s hand, and the Constellation felt his spirits lift. “What will come will come. It’s not like we even know where their R&D facilities are, or how they even work.”

“I know, but this feeling of an impending countdown is uncomfortable. I have a feeling that it’s going to happen soon.”

“Which is why we’re ready to leave, right?” Lila placed her hands onto Gemini’s shoulders. “That’s why those ships were made.”

“I know. I know. But…” Gemini stuffed the rest of the now-tasteless cookie in his mouth as the demon Exemplars left the battlefield. “I’m just scared, I guess. Everyone doesn’t want to leave their homeland. What’s going to happen if we truly leave our Ark City behind? Are we really capable of creating a new one from stretch?”

“Have confidence that we can,” Lila replied. “After all, Ars was created in those circumstances too. If you cannot believe in yourself, at least believe our fellow citizens.”

Gemini took a deep breath and calmed his rampaging thoughts. “You’re right.”

Standing up, the two of them took to the skies, their destination the same as Warmaster Chamberlain, the Congress building. Today’s session was a particularly important one.