-Lucent, Capital of Westerweald-

The pearl white walls of Lucent shone against the Argwylian sea.

Once called the jewel of the West, Lucent's once bustling streets were now hushed and vacant. All marketplace stalls had been abandoned. All houses had been vacated. Every man, woman, and child who once made a living here was long gone. It was a ghost city, and yet it still had its sentinels watching over it.

Lining the ramparts and the three-tiered wall layers were the Greycloaks who had stayed behind and the men who chose to follow them into the abyss that was coming for them all.

Their armor seemed duller and drabber than usual, and their steely, blue-eyed gazes more fixated than what the people of the city were used to seeing. Fear was not an emotion the Greycloaks ever displayed – not visually, anyway. But here, among the thick turrets and ramparts on the walls, the ordinary soldiers could tell that this is how the Greys showed their anxiety. By staring off into the gathering storm clouds in the horizon in silence. Waiting.

The ballistae and cannons were primed. Every single one, even those which had been declared unnatural weapons for their ballistics capacity, had been hauled out and placed on the main walls and palisades. Buildings within the city – some which had been used a mere blacksmith stores or general shops – had been converted into artillery platforms. Their roofs packed with gunpowder barrels and cannons loaded with grapeshot – because no one manning those guns thought they could get a direct hit on the beast that was coming. They'd seen the devastation that had been wrought on the fleet at Sentinel Bay. They'd grieved, fallen into hopelessness, and then, finally, into a state of grim acceptance. This was to be their final stand. Perhaps the final stand for all of humanity.

In the inner walls – dubbed the 'Nobles Quarter' – the Greycloak Magi waited with baited breath. One hundred of them had assembled in total. They'd given their pretty speeches. They'd had their last rites. Every single one of them – no matter their class or creed – knew that this was the final stand. The Archon would have to be broken at Lucent – in mind if not body – or the rest of the world would surely fall.

They'd prepared their greatest spells. Some of them were magicks that had been outlawed long ago – magic that even their once-brash Commander Carliah Argent would have bristled at. Some of them had studied the works of Dr Haylock of the Watch himself, and they had come away changed forever. Scarred, but with a much better understanding of how to take apart the bodies of their foes.

They stood on the six great spires that wound themselves like silvery serpents round the central palace where Viscount Mobius currently sat. He smoothed the creases on the very same chair that his King had once sat on, eyes closed to the world outside, hands folded together in acceptance of what was to come. They were on their own – all of them. And they knew that taking down the Archon was unlikely.

And yet even so, here they were, still and silent as a crypt, ready to defend their once-splendid city.

And as the clocktower in the middle of the Laborer's square struck midday, when the sun was highest in the sky, the tower guards beside the main gate reported a shadow moving past the sun.

A three-headed shadow with a pair of wings that blotted out all light for a single, terrifying moment, plunging the city of lights into darkness.

Then, it descended upon them.

"Conta-!"

The word was swallowed in the throat of the first guard as Ethan came gliding down, three beams of power flying from the maws of Revok, each one directed at a different wall section.

"Fire!" the Greycloak lieutenants screamed. "FIRE!"

But even as the soldiers on the ramparts readied the cannons, even as the archers nocked their arrows, and even as the men on the Martello towers flanking the gates cranked the ballistae, none of them could let their weapons fly at the approaching beast.

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They Greycloaks cursed the fragility of the mortals they had to protect. Some of them sliced off the hands of those who didn't dare fight in Kaedmon's name. Yet, even their mages on the spires of the palace could not aim an attack at the Archon. Whenever they tried to conjure up even a simple fireball, it simply wouldn't leave their hands.

And Ethan, gliding right on up to the city gates, smiled to himself as the entire capital stood to a halt, watching him pick up speed, watching every tree of the forest around the city uproot itself and fly with him.

He was, they would say later, more like a shadow than a real, tangible being.

And they didn't know how right they were. With his hoard of Spirit Cores, Ethan had made a few upgrades on his way here:

Ethereal Form (Grade S)

{Phase} unlocked. Your form becomes intangible, making you [IMMUNE] to all forms of DMG while you maintain this Skill.

Note: Any hostile action dispels this skill

[Mass Phase] unlocked – giving you and up to three other creatures the {Phase} property

Grade B Upgrade: While under the effects of [Ethereal Form], you may take a single hostile action without dispelling the effects.

Grade A Upgrade: [True Invisibility unlocked!] While under the effects of [Ethereal Form], you are unable to be targeted by any hostile foes.

Grade S Upgrade: [Ethereal Contagion Unlocked! You may grant the [Ethereal Form] effect to friend or foe alike by touching them.

HIGHEST GRADE REACHED!

They were forced to watch as he summoned all his strength into a [Dive] bomb attack that was aimed straight at the gates.

"MOVE!" the Grey commanders tried to warn their charges. "RETREAT! I REPEAT! RETRE-"

BOOM.

The gate exploded open. The walls of Lucent – walls that had held even during Gyko's reign - crumbled away and buried the soldiers that had been standing on them under piles of marble and broken metal. Ethan stood where the front gates once were, three heads emitting a roar that sent tremors into the air that could be felt even by the mages watching from their high vantage points.

The city erupted into immediate chaos. Cannons were turned, ballistae swiveled, and Greycloak warriors ran out of the apparently empty houses to meet the demon hat and his Host head-on.

Ethan counted fifty Grey warriors charging him, each one wrapping their blades, warhammers, and daggers in the light of their Lord.

He snarled down at them.

Let's turn those lights out, shall we, Sys?

Be my guest.

As the artillery bastions readied their next shots, they saw the Archon lift a single wing, turn to the side, and emit a gale of pure darkness across the entire residential sector of the city. The black cloud covered the Greycloak warriors, who felt the tinge of dark energy scrape away at their very beings, passing through their armor and forcing them to their feet.

But it wasn't enough to stop them. They got back up, reignited their burning blades, and made ready to charge the Archon again.

Then the screams began.

It happened when one Grey slashed at another, tearing an entire bloody chunk out of his comrade's shoulder. The wounded Greycloak turned, aghast, and saw the fear in his attacker's eyes. Those eyes wobbled and bulged like a rodent's.

Those eyes were no longer his. The downed man, lying in the street, Appraised his once-ally and found out as much:

STATUS AFFLICTION: [CONFUSION]

More yelps of pain issued from the dark fog that obscured the city streets. The Greycloaks turned this way and that, now aware that the man beside them could just as easily be their enemy. And the result was chaos.

The blades of the Greys descended on eachother, hacking and hewing eachothers' limbs apart with abandon, many of them not even able to see the shadow of the Archon now as it flew above the mess the residential quarter had become to watch the devastating assault take hold.

And watch he did. Ethan hovered above the dark cloud he'd summoned to break the vanguard of Lucent with no satisfaction. He wasn't happy to see them die. But he also wasn't going to cry about it. They would kill themselves under the effect of another new little upgrade of his:

Twilight Edge (Grade A)

{Shadow} DMG increased to 125 pts

Twilight Edge's area of effect increased to 80ft

Grade A Upgrade: [Aura of Madness Unlocked!] Any enemies struck by Twilight Edge now have a 55% chance of contracting the [CONFUSION] status effect

[CONFUSED] enemies randomly strike at both friend and foe for the duration of this effect.

Duration: 2 minutes

The Magi in their spires watched in cold terror as the screams of the first line of defense reached their ears.

"His ability's down!" one of them yelped. "Now, Brothers! For Kaedmon! FOR ARGWYLL!"

Together, all one hundred Magi summoned up a ball of flame that bathed the entire city in the heat of a star going supernova. The houses of the Nobles quarter themselves began to peel away and melt down into the earth. The Magi held this power between them, each one ready to sacrifice the entire city itself if it meant destroying the Archon for good.

But the man who had given the order to attack was the first one to see just how misguided they were.

Because the second they launched their miasma of flame towards the Archon, he saw its three mouths smile.

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