Everyone retreated into the second layer of walls that protected the city, it wouldn’t be until the third layer that the city itself and it’s populace would be in danger of attack. The fog became thicker and somehow even more suffocating than before as the wind’s intensity began to rise.

In the confusion, many platoons and soldiers got mixed up. But through their training, they rolled with what happened and didn’t question the orders that came from up top, no matter who it was from. They could always sort themselves out later when they had the time.

They were joined in by another wave of reinforcements, bolstering their ranks. Even then, more came in, taking up positions on the third layer of walls, preparing siege and other long-range weaponry for the attack to come.

Van honestly felt a little lost on what to do, but he decided to simply go with the flow and continue on with the mages he found himself with when he first arrived to help. Amongst the crowd, he saw a few of his platoon members, also mixed up with others, though it didn’t seem to matter as the real soldiers and commanders were now in charge and issuing orders.

A state of emergency was put in place and all civilians were ordered to seek shelter. Junior students were told to retreat and to leave their troops behind for the defense of the city. All senior students were conscripted effective immediately into the defense of the wall. All reservists as well were called from the city into the army.

“Damnit! What are those forecasters doing!” Van heard one of the commanders muttering in complaint to another. “Their job is to warn us of this kind of bullshit! Now half our army is-!”

Her superior silenced her and responded in a harsh whisper, though he could still hear it with his enhanced hearing. “We are not to talk about that.” She glared. “But yes, I agree… This was horrible timing… If it weren’t for that breach down in Valdon we would have stood a better chance of repelling this wave. Now all we can do is hold out for the next two days until they return.” She said stoically.

Van worried now about their chances. He wasn’t sure they could survive even with double the amount of people they had now. But to know they were missing so many and that there had been a breach in another wall city did not leave him with the best of confidence.

“I hope Luna left safely… Hopefully Maria took her away to a shelter.” His mind filled with worry for his beloved wife, slowly drifting to his friends and classmates who were also in danger. So distracted he was with fear, it took him a while to realize his name was being called.

“-AN! VAN! Is there someone named Van here!” A soldier shouted.

Van perked up and looked around wondering what the situation was, then proceeded to walk forward. “Umm… Here…”

The soldier looked him up and down and then square in the eye. “I have been told to escort you out of here, come with me.”

He froze, that was not was he was expecting. “Where are we going?” He asked in confusion.

“I have been told to escort you to a nearby shelter, you are not a full fledged senior, you have no business being here.” The soldier responded. “Now follow me.” She then turned and began to walk away.

Van was shocked and almost a little insulted by what he heard, but a part of him felt relieved at the same time… He shook it off and quickly followed the soldier, wanting answers. “What do you mean? I can help, I helped fix the barrier when it was almost smashed through!”

“That was you?” Looking back at him with mild surprise.

He nodded, his chest filling with some pride.

“Doesn’t matter.” She continued her walk, looking in front of her once more. “Orders are orders.”

“But I-”

“Van!” Eliza snapped, making Van flinch, he had not realized she was near. Turning he noticed she was with a few other captains and commanders off to the side not far from him. His path had led them near each other.

“I know you want to help. So I’ll tell it to you straight. I know who you are. And as unfortunate as it is to lose you… You are a liability… Politically you are far too important to lose. And you do not have the power to defend yourself. So tell me…” Her eyes turned frosty. “Why should we go out of our way to defend you…”

He was deeply hurt by her words, but recognized that she was right. As strong as he was, as useful as he could be to them. He wasn’t strong enough to make the risk worth it. In the end he could only hang his head and accept the facts.

“Van…” Eliza said more gently. “This isn’t the end… We’ll see each other later.

He knew that was just her way of being kind. But he took it to heart and nodded. He turned to follow the soldier before pausing and turning back one last time. “My… Girls…” Hesitating a bit. “About them…”

Eliza waved it away. “We can only guarantee to send a dozen back with you. As I'm sure you must know, bodyguards or not, no one can refuse the call to defend.” Her eyes became a bit hard once more.

“I… Understand… Thank you…” He gave a small bow of his head.

With that Eliza turned away, ignoring him, as if he simply didn’t exist anymore. He wasn’t important right now… They had a battle plan to form with the other commanders in the hopes of defending the city.

Not long after, Van was ushered into a shelter with Karmine, Ashina, Kella, Adela and a few others. The rest would be sacrificed in the hopes of holding back the tides of carnage that will descend upon this city.

“I hope this isn’t a mistake…” His last thoughts were as they sealed him in with hundreds of other students into the underground shelter. Wondering if he should have argued to stay up top and fight alongside everyone else…

---

Malon slammed his fist into his desk, seething with anger. “Dammit all!” He hissed. “Now of all times!?”

Dreva was not far, her arms crossed, trying to look relaxed but the stress was clearly there underneath the surface. “What do we do now? This will put a hamper on our planned march. We may have to call it off this year, maybe even the next one to…”

Malon turned to glare at her. “Do you think we can afford to stop!? Every year, every decade! The crack above the Nilfan capital grows bigger. And somehow those ancient enemies of ours are still alive! Who knows what they are planning. If we don’t do anything to stop them, the fogstorms will continue to grow in power until they completely overwhelm us and then the entire world!”

Then what do you expect us to do?” Dreva frowned. “Half our army is out dealing with the breach in Valdon. They won’t be back for another two days. If even that, since we don’t know if the tracks for the trains have been damaged by the monster swarm or not.”

Malon gave a long suffering sigh as he tried to collect his thoughts. “It seems we have no choice… Bring Devi here… We are going to need a progress report on the status of those MPD’s we asked her to reverse engineer. They may be the only things that help slow down or put a stop to this assault. Not to mention the cannon…”

Dreva frowned but nodded. “I suppose we have no choice…” She repeated. “I’ll go get her.” And disappeared into the shadows.

---

“MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!” The commanders shouted to their troops as the generals and other high officials deliberate on what they were going to do about this mess they found themselves in.

There were six layers of wall within the city, the third layer being the last line of defense before the city proper and its many homes and houses where civilians live. But there were already talks about having to fight street to street, building to building, all the way to the sixth and final wall. Discussions were had about how much they were going to have to be willing to sacrifice in the hopes of surviving this attack.

Soldiers got into positions, cannons were placed and pointed towards the enemy, even old catapults, massive things from a bygone era were pulled out of storage and made usable. Everyone worked double time to place mines and magical traps. Literal kegs and barrels of explosives were put on the first outer wall, all binded into a single controller orb, to be set off whenever necessary.

As the horde of hundreds of thousands of roaches came barreling down on them, some began to mutter if the dreaded seventh alarm would be called. A sound everyone feared to hear, for that would mean everyone would be conscripted into the defense of the city. It would mean total war for the survival of all. Some thought of it as a myth, but the older generations knew better…

There were even whisperings that Malon may even call about the sleeping ones…

But before such talks could spread, the yell of a panicked soldier rang out. “THERE HERE!”

Have you ever seen a cockroach on your window from the inside? It’s a disgusting sight to be sure. Now imagine tens of thousands of those roaches smashing head long into your window and then sticking to it, trying to tear through with mandibles too big for their heads…

Suffice to say… Some people were going to have nightmares of that sight for a long time. If they survive of course…

“FIRE!”

Mages, archers, engineers, and anyone who could fire a spell or even throw a rock far enough began to send everything they had the swarm now covering their window. Thankfully the barrier was designed to allow attacks from the inside out, otherwise they would have been doing more harm than good.

The roaches though, like the death wolves, did not care for their losses. Sure they were blown away by the thousands, but ten times their number would join for every roach lost. Soon the entire dome that the barrier projected was covered with writhing giant insects. It came to a point where it didn’t even matter to aim anymore because you were guaranteed to hit something, no matter what.

It also didn’t take long for the first few cracks to begin showing themselves. And the more the roaches tore holes in the barrier, the more the tower in the center of the city began to glow, shunting more and more energy to keep the shield intact. In the end, the outer barrier couldn’t handle the weight of bugs and holes began to form as the insects ripped them to pieces. The few that got through were then met with another barrier from the second wall.

“SUMMON YOUR FAMILIARS!”

Immediately tens of thousands of seniors, soldiers, mages and more began summoning all their flying type monsters that they could, a few adding monsters or monster-kin that could wield bows and arrows, or those that can fling spikes from their body.

The monsters and roaches collided in mid air as they were backed up by the archers and mages behind them. And any insects that tried attacking from the ground were met with the soldiers and other magical beasts and pummeled into a gooey mess.

Explosions rocked the outer layer of the wall as more roaches breached through and tripped the mines. They were held back by a force of undead that were hastily summoned before everyone abandoned the wall, but they were not able to put up as good a fight as when they were still alive. They weren’t even able to slow the roaches down, the sheer weight of the bugs was like a tsunami, rolling over anything that got in their way.

“BRACE FOR IMPACT!”

A massive detonation engulfed the outer wall, blowing back some of the roaches and killing the rest. The mages then transferred more power to the outer wall and sealed in some of the cracks once more to delay the inevitable as necromancers looked sickly as they constantly downed mana potions one after another to continue raising corpses at a rapid pace, summoning their own hordes of skeletal undead while they were at it to help bolster their ranks.

The roaches trapped between the outer wall and the second were quickly killed off. But the battle wasn’t over… These monstrous creatures didn’t seem to know fatigue or fear and continued their mindless assault, not allowing the defenders any rest. But this was what Alcraynians were trained for… To outlast any opponent they faced. So they continued the fight, no matter how tired they were.

Yet the sight before them seemed hopeless… How were they going to survive this? Some generals were already debating if they should retreat further down. That was when Devi arrived with her team, bringing forth half a dozen new weapons no one had ever seen before…

“FIRE THE MANA PULSE CANNONS!”