“Understood.” The Fourth grinned nastily. “That is what many were waiting to hear.”
The general half turned. “Make certain that no one helps them fall. Alive and strong they’re worth more than food, if only by a little. I would have gifts to present to our lord as proof of the victory.”
“I’ll be sure, General. Enough will fall on their own, I expect, to ease temptation.”
The general nodded silently, dismissing the Fourth Circle demon with a casual gesture.
The world now belonged to the Circle Lords. This was the last significant holdout of humans left. Barely a few thousand of them here, and likely no more than ten or twenty thousand across the planet now…almost all right here on this continent.
They were a species about the slide into the abyss of extinction, and it was a long time in coming.
The general laughed softly as he moved through the night, ignoring the moans of pain and despair from around him…humans and lower circle demons alike.
Originally this world was projected to have fallen within a year of the invasion. The victory had been assured, they’d been promised. The enemy numbers had fallen to insignificant levels, their capability to wage war reduced to next to nothing. They were already beaten.
Those already-beaten foes had managed to wage a war that dragged on for centuries, until attrition finally brought them low. Demons were replaceable, even ones of his stature, the general was well aware. With near infinite reserves, it was possible to simply continue pouring bodies into the fray without end. Eventually, even the humans here fell.
For them to be reduced to what he had taken in that pitiful city almost felt wrong.
Better if they had died on their feet, fighting back, he supposed, musing idly more than anything else.
It made little difference to him if he killed warriors or animals. Either way his blade would be fed, but he had faced too many humans who were real warriors to take much joy in the cleanup he was now assigned to complete.
Soon. This world will be cleansed, and a new front will be opened. We’ve wasted too much time here, the general sneered in anticipation.
Out there, past the stars, past the fabric of the universe, other peoples waited for the Change. All creation would fall before them, in time.
*****
Elan kicked the door in, sending wooden splinters flying into the room like shrapnel to impale the demons within before they even realized a threat was in the area. It wasn’t enough to kill them, but the wood did more damage than one would think, if they had been human, and she took advantage of it as she rushed into the room with her sidearm blade held low and to the side.
“What the cir—” the first demon barely managed to get out, only half turning in her direction before she struck.
Her matte blade sliced through the creature’s side, sending it howling as it fell, and she moved on. With the enhanced speed and strength she now had, the demons were no match for the skill her father had imparted, and Elan realized just how much she’d been missing in the style before due to her own weakness.
In moments, the demons were dead around her, and she turned to a closed door across the room.
“You can come out now,” she said clearly. “They’re dead.”
There was a long silence and no movement, which frustrated her, despite understanding it.
“Come out,” she ordered. “I have no time for this. If you don’t, then you can just stay here for when the next demons come. I won’t be returning.”
The door creaked open slowly, and a pair of eyes looked at her and widened before vanishing back into the dark and pulling the door shut behind them. Elan sighed, growing more frustrated. Again, she couldn’t blame them—in armor she hardly looked human, for all that her form was clearly visible—but she did not have time for this.
She strode across the room and pulled the door open, revealing the three figures she knew to have been hiding within.
“We have no time,” she said. “The demons control the city, and we will not be taking it back from them. If you want to live, go to the temple.”
The older of the three, a woman well into her late age, sheltered two young children behind her. “The streets—”
“—between here and the temple are being cleared,” Elan promised. “You have to go now. Staying here is certain death. At least if you get to the temple there is safety.”
“There’s no safety in the city if the demons control it,” the woman hissed, fearful.
Elan smiled, though the woman could not see it. “Exactly. Now come.”
*****
Caleb grunted as he dispatched the last of the demons, sending it to the ground a foot shorter than it had been when he started.
“Good stroke,” the man named Kaern said approvingly. “You would gain a little more power if you pivoted from the hip as you swing, however.”
“Simone taught me,” Caleb said, a hint of pride in his voice. “She’s never mentioned that.”
“I taught Simone,” Kaern said with a smile. “And she uses a different style for her own fighting. Try it next time. You will see what I mean.”
He looked up and down the street, spotting some survivors heading hesitantly in their direction and, ultimately, toward the temple.
“Hurry along,” he ordered them. “Time matters. Simone and the others will need help soon, so we need everyone here safe. Get to the temple.”
“That’s the eighth group to show up in the past few minutes,” Caleb said, surprised. “I didn’t think Elan was this good…”
Kaern snorted. “She’s not. She’s wearing augmenting armor. Anyone could slaughter this filth with that sort of gear. Your ancestors made some truly amazing, and terrifying, weapons.”
Caleb considered that for a moment. “But…then, how…?”
“How did you lose?” Kaern asked somberly.
Caleb just nodded.
“Turning humans against one another was never difficult,” Kaern answered, heavily. “You hate each other almost as much as you came to hate demons. Hate and unfounded fear are the allies of the Circles, and they’re very good allies indeed. The First Circle has been using the darker emotions of hate, fear, and jealousy for longer than the world we stand upon has existed. They’re exceedingly good at it, and few worlds have stood strong against them when their full attention was focused. Humans tore themselves apart and didn’t even realize they were doing it.”
“That…that’s wrong,” Caleb said. “It has to be. How could we…?”
“Never underestimate two things about all people, not merely humans,” Kaern said. “The ability to fool themselves and the ability to fall into a cycle of hate at the drop of a hat. I don’t know why it is that way, but it seems like it’s something to do with free will and a limited perspective.”
Caleb stared at him, a hint of real horror in his eyes, as Kaern then shrugged.
“Or maybe we’re all just incurably stupid. Either way, those are the cards we’ve been dealt, kid. The trick isn’t getting better cards in this life,” he said. “It’s all in how you play the ones in your hand. So remember that lesson. Don’t fall into the trap of hate and fear…because maybe the person you think you hate is just the distraction someone else is using to maneuver a knife into your back.”
Caleb was silent as he considered those words, but Kaern nudged him shortly, nodding off in another direction.
“Back to work,” he said. “There’s another group to clear.”
*****
With the sun rising and the demons being forced more and more to the shadows and interiors of the city, the small group managed to get people from their hiding places and out to the temple. Those who were in bad shape, which was most of them, were sent directly. Anyone hale enough to help was directed to go shake others out of their hiding places and send them on.