The unknown beings have begun their advance.
Ana shockingly and dumbfoundedly gazed over them through her scope.
Their previous attack was so great that even shook the land. With all their forces as well as their artillery weapons, it is assured that the enemy should have been completely destroyed and annihilated. However, every single of the hostile entities was unharmed, not even a bit of damage.
Now, those unstoppable beings are coming towards the defenses.
Ana was shaking as she looked at them.
They were unharmed… but, if we attack now…
She lowered her head with fear crawling through her.
No… if they can't even be scratched… then what's the point in resisting.
She held her weapon tightly as she trembled in the thought of everything now is pointless, futile and hopeless.
Is this how it's going end?
She looked at the approaching beings again at the same time shakily breathing.
Can't we do anything? Can't I do anything?
What could even be the point in fighting when the enemy cannot be harmed. Everything is futile, Ana has witnessed it. Every resistance they give is going to be pointless, all for nothing.
How could beings like them exist?
Ana looked everything around her.
Her allies, as well as her friends, were also freezing because of fear with the thought of there is no hope.
I'm afraid…
She's not afraid of dying. But rather, she is afraid of not seeing her family again, afraid that her family won't be able to see her. Afraid of leaving her family behind.
Her eyes started to wet in that thought.
Then the invulnerable beings halted their slow advance.
Ana was puzzled in this. Why would they stop?
They stopped? What are they trying to do…? Could it be they want us to fight? Are they trying to force us to fight back?
Ana no longer has the will to fight, now knowing that fighting them would be all for nothing. They still have no chance against this undamageable beings no matter what.
How cruel could they be?
She weakly said in her mind.
Then she saw the one wearing a full plate black armor, he seems to be saying something. However, he is too far for Ana to hear.
After the armored man stopped talking, the soldiers on the outer defenses started to move a little.
Did he say something? They looked like they've realized something.
Ana was wondering what could have that armored man said to make the soldiers act that way.
Then a few moments later, a voice came out from her radio.
"Soldiers! Muster some courage, the courage to defend our home, the courage to bring peace to us once again. Do not let fear consume you! The enemies are in front of us, which means we can shoot them. Do not let them do what they want! Our peaceful lives will return when they are gone, so soldiers, fight until your last breath, do not lose hope! Fight for your friends and family!"
The was Jonas'.
As she processes the words, she has started to realize something.
He's right. No matter how strong the enemies are, this is still our home, my home and the home of my family. I must fight until the end. When they're gone, peace will return, and I can be with my siblings and mother again. I must not lose hope. As long as I can fire this weapon, there's a chance in winning.
Hope has started to ignite within her heart. Then at the same moment, shouts of resolve started to come out from the soldiers close by her.
"That's right! We won't let them win!"
"We'll defend our hometown!"
"We'll defeat those monsters before us!"
"We'll fight until our last breath! And peace will return to our home."
Ana warmly smiled as she heard the words of her friends and allies.
She began to firmly hold her weapon once again and looked over the enemies.
The otherworldly beings have also begun to move closer to the defenses.
As the enemies are now closer, the order to fire was given.
"All units! Fire"
Numerous weapons have begun to fire.
Heavy weapons atop the wall as well as inside the wall are rapidly firing towards the targets they wanted to fire at. Countless magic particles and bullets came shooting towards the invulnerable beings, however as expected, the attacks were ineffective.
But, that did not stop the soldiers to fire. They will never give up, no matter strong the enemies are, they will keep shooting, despite knowing the fact that they cannot be harmed. However, they still have the hope that the enemies will go down.
But, some soldiers are praying they would just leave. They were praying and hoping for that, perhaps because of the fear for their lives, or perhaps because they don't want anymore fighting and don't want to lose anyone they know or close to.
The powerful beings have also begun their attack.
Swords impaled an armored vehicle, waves of fire came hitting the soldiers but were not burned, large explosions are popping up, beam of golden light obliterating everything in its path, cannons floating beside the woman wearing a military uniform, and monstrous beings made of bones sweeping the soldiers with its monstrous scythe-like arms.
It was a horrible sight, Ana could barely keep watching at the chaos before her.
However, she couldn't just stand around.
She turned her head to look at the magic cannons atop the wall.
They're not firing?
Then she returned her sight on the chaos below.
Of course, if they try to attack, my allies would get caught up in the blast. Then, I must support them from up here.
She shifted her aim towards the black armored man who is cutting down her allies with dual swords.
Tch! Many are dying, and it's gruesome to see people being cut by a sword. If I shoot him down, I may not be able to really damage him.
The person was wearing a full plate armor, so shooting him would give a small chance of breaking his defenses. If they only have a barrier or something which is protecting them, then Ana can have a high chance of breaching their defenses and damage them if she finds a target that is unprotected physically.
She thought of one that is so defenseless and in addition, small.
She shifted her sight towards a little girl with a pointy pair of ears who is causing a lot of explosions that are vaporizing a lot of soldiers.
Ana aimed for the head of the little child and placed her finger on the trigger, but she was hesitant. Hesitant in pulling the trigger and shooting the child.
W-wait… am I really going to shoot… I-I c-can't… she may be an enemy, but she's still a child, it's obvious on how she is acting… But— no, I can't do it…
Of course, she can't, that goes the same for some of her other allies. Shooting that little girl with pointy ears is like shooting a little human child. That said, Ana would feel guilty in doing violent acts on that little girl with the intent of killing. Thus, she decided to leave it to the others who can attack the little girl. After all, she cannot bear the guilt.
However, deep in her heart, it's not just because the girl is little, but also because she somewhat reminds her of her little sister.
Unable to shoot the innocent little girl who is annihilating her allies, she shifted her sight to another defenseless looking being.
She shifted her sight to a man wearing formal clothing. A man that acts nonchalantly and waving her arms around and with it flames which seem to make people suffer.
What are those flames? Why is it that the people being hit are not burned? What's going on?
All she could do is ask in this unknown and confusing occurrence. At the same moment, she watched at the people who were burned but were not quite burned.
Faces of extreme suffering and agony can be seen on the soldiers.
They look like they're in extreme pain. What are those flames? Argh, doesn't matter, I'm shooting him down.
There's no point in keeping asking questions. Her allies are dying and asking questions won't help one bit, so she decided to just shoot the guy, at least that would help.
Ana aimed for his upper body in hopes of damaging him.
She has already boosted her weapon's power three times, so all she needs to do is shoot, and she did. The bullet flew in untraceable speed towards the man wearing formal clothing, however, there was no effect, he wasn't even scratched.
Dammit! As I thought, but I won't give up.
She aimed at his head. The head only has a mask and a mask should not have any protection, so she hoped to breach his defenses. That said, she pulled the trigger.
Unfortunately, the same thing happened, and the man is acting like nothing happened like he didn't care at all, and this bugged Ana.
Why can't I breach this monster's defenses?!
With anger and a bit of irritation, she attacked once again, but once again it has no effects whatsoever.
Augh! Still nothing! This weapon has a great piercing attack and still has no effects.
Suddenly she heard a roar.
It was no normal roar, but rather this roar gave her the chills and gave her goosebumps just a little or probably more than little.
Being creeped out, she immediately turned her head to where the roar was coming from. As she saw it, her eyes widen as she witnessed a gruesome and sickening sight as well as giant monsters made up of bones. The golems were hacking and slashing soldiers with ease, Ana felt sick and horrified as she watches over the horrendous sight. In addition to that, there were also what could be called zombies devouring humans.
What, what the hell? How could these horrifying monsters exist?
As she witnesses more of it, she felt more horrified than before. The creatures were killing her comrades with no remorse like they don't even care, they're not even slowing down or even holding back.
At the same moment, she began to shakily breathe once again. The scene could not be described or be called a war or a battle – no, not just that scene, but the entire event itself can only be called an extermination.
Unable to bear with it, she began to change her weapon's pointing direction. She aimed at the person wearing a black robe.
Numerous comrades are being killed in a brutal and sickening way by those monsters as well as by those zombies. Apparently, the soldiers below can't damage those golems, that means that also applies to her, so the only way to stop those creatures is to kill its commander.
She aimed for the head. The man has no physical protection whatsoever but only a mask so she may have a chance to breach his unknown protection, and Ana held that hope tightly.
She fired and the bullet spat towards the man in considerable speed. Unfortunately, as it hit him, the same thing happened as the others – no damage whatsoever.
I'm not yet done!
Once again, she fired her weapon towards the commander of the monsters. However, there's it no effect
Still, she has not given up yet, she again fired, but still, no effect and the man didn't even pay any heed to her attacks, he didn't even give any attention to her attacks, to begin with.
As she was about to fire again, suddenly the commander spoke from her radio.
"All cannons! Aim at the man wearing black clothes right in the middle of the plains and take him out!"
Then Ana turned her head to look at the cannons as they move their aim, and she thought.
Take out the person who didn't join the battle? Ah, I see. If taking out the enemy forces is difficult, then one of the quickest or quite possibly be the easiest in this situation is to take out the enemy leader.
The man wearing black clothing is unguarded and is right in the middle of the plains which means he is easy to take out, so why not take this chance to eliminate the enemy leader. With all the artillery weapons pointed at a single target, there's a chance that the target's defenses will break.
The cannons have begun to warm and charge up, with the help of the experimental magic cannon, the chance of breaking his defenses will increase.
Then after a few seconds, all cannons fired.
BOOOOOSSSSHHH
Ana watched closely at the bright ray of lights as they travel in great speed towards their target. This could be it, this could be the spark of their victory or possibly their survival.
As the beams of light are getting closer the more Ana's heart was pounding.
How she prays as well as the other soldiers for those be enough to damage the enemy leader.
Then the beams of light hit. However, it didn't hit the target it was intended to do – or rather it didn't even reach the target.
Seeing it made Ana so surprised and confused.
H-How? Impossible.
Three large golden magic circles blocked the beams of light.
H-How could those circles not even damaged?
Then she saw the female in a full plate white armor, she is probably the one who conjured the magic circles. However, something puzzled Ana.
Wait? How did she get there so fast?
She looked to where she was for a moment, just to ensure that's really her, but her eyes didn't deceive her indeed.
She must be the one who made those circles.
Ana thought.
Even after all those giant beams of light, she expected that those beams could damage anything. However, those circles were not broken, there's not even a trace of scratch or something.
Moments have passed and once again the cannons fired, and the circles which blocked the beams were still undamaged.
There's no way those circles are still undamaged.
She shockingly said in her mind.
Then again, the cannons readied to fire again.
The normal cannons may have limited fire sequence and when depleted, the energy source needed to be changed. However, the experimental weapon is different, with magic crystal as its core, when the magic energy is depleted, it only needs to absorb magic from the air – the technology in that cannon can indeed absorb magic to give to the magic crystal – but, the cannon cannot be used or operated when absorbing magic from the air.
However, before the cannons could manage to fire, Ana saw bodies of light came from the white armored woman.
Multiple bodies of light came flying towards each magic cannon in considerable speed. As those bodies of light hit, explosions came forth obliterating every cannon as well as everything around it.
What the hell?!
Then Ana quickly returned her sight towards where the enemy leader is.
How could that woman do that? Wait—.
She realized and noticed something so she once again observed them.
That woman seems to be really guarding him. Could it be those attacks have been able to damage him? Something like that could happen, after all, most of our attacks were aimed at him previously, perhaps his defenses had been substantially damaged. Then that means I can damage him!
With a handful of hope in hand, Ana quickly aimed at the leader of the enemy. She was sure that she could damage him judging on how he was guarded by the white armored woman.
So she pulled the trigger and the bullet spat out towards the man in considerable speed.
She expected it to hit the target, but no, it did not.
What?! Impossible! I boosted this weapon. How could she block a projectile in that speed?
The bullet was blocked by the female in the white armor set using her blade. Such a feat is unbelievable, so Ana could only ask how.
Dammit! Again!
Once again, she fired. However, it was blocked.
How could she achieve that? She's not human!
Indeed, there's no way a human being could do something like that.
Then Ana saw a ball of light flying towards her position – no, rather it looked like it was headed straight towards her.
She quickly took a step to her left and ran away from where the ball of light will hit.
She took many steps with all of her might leaving her weapon, of course, that's because life is more important than an object. Also, her friends and allies also tried to run away.
However, Ana could only do four steps, and the body of light hit the wall and a big explosion occurred. Annihilating all soldiers as well as Ana's friends.
On Ana's case, she survived, however, left her in a critical state.
She was blown away by a few meters leaving her ricocheting on the floor.
Jonas saw the giant explosion and when he took a look, he saw Ana lying on the floor of the wall, however, what he saw shocked him and caused his eyes to widen.
"Ana!"
He quickly ran towards her.
As he reached her, he slowly lifted her upper body.
"A-Ana, you're still alive, right? Please wake up."
Hearing a familiar voice, Ana opened her eyes.
"S-Sir?"
Then she instantly remembered what just happened.
"T-The o-others?"
She tried to move.
"No, don't try to move Ana."
She is in a critical state – no, critical won't be enough to describe it.
Ana's left part body was torn apart because of the explosion. Her left hand was missing and the remaining part is in a horrible state, and a lot of thick red blood were spilling from it leaving thick stains on Jonas' clothes.
Then her left leg, fortunately, it's still there, but could it really be said it's still there? Her left leg may still be there, but going lower, her knee was spilling a load of blood with the bone broken, if she stands the knee would dangle leaving her remaining skin to hold it.
Jonas does not want to tell her, because it might cause her to panic or worse lose hope in living any further. She might still not feel it because of adrenaline or perhaps because she's worried about her friends and allies.
Ana looked over the place where the explosion occurred, and her friends were nowhere to be found. However, there are still somethings, for instance severely torn apart corpses, burned and heavily damaged corpses and corpses barely hanging on the destroyed parts of the wall.
Seeing this caused sorrow in Ana's heart.
"N-No…"
"Don't use any more strength. MEDIC!!"
He called the medic in hoping to mend Ana's state. But, could they really save her?
"W-Why sir?"
She turned her head to face Jonas and there she noticed blood stains on his clothes then she shifted her eyes downward and saw her state.
"I s-see."
"Don't worry Ana. You'll live. MEDIC!!"
The medics have not come to them yet. Well, that's because a lot of medics have died when attacks came towards the cannons, and there are a lot of medics inside the walls and nearby the cannons, so that means they were caught up in the explosions.
Then Jonas heard shouts within the ranks of his soldiers.
"The enemy has fallen back!"
"Yeah, they've returned to the middle of the plains!"
Jonas felt joy as he heard those words.
"You heard that Ana? They've backed off."
"…. g-great…" She said as she forcefully smiled.
"So everything's going to be alright and you must live through this."
"…."
She seemed to not be able to answer, perhaps it's because she has weakened to the point she can't speak anymore, or perhaps because she doubts that she can live through this.
Then Ana noticed something in the sky – no, it was the sky itself.
"T-the sky's strange…"
When he heard Ana's words, Jonas quickly looked above him, and what he saw left him surprised and confused.
"What?"
It looked like the night sky has appeared above them, but something is not right, it doesn't exactly look like the night sky. The night sky seems to be darker, no, it was so dark, and little blue dots of light can be seen and their brightness can be fully be seen because of how dark the sky is. And that strange night sky has the entire town beneath it.
Jonas cannot even begin to grasp this event. It was supposed to be daytime, even the entire town is in battle, Jonas knows that not a lot of time has passed, so how could the night sky appear now. In addition to that, there was supposed to be pitch black clouds above, and now that clouds were nowhere to be found.
"…It looks like the sky is falling… what a b-bizarre s-sight…"
"Hey, Ana I told you to not use your energy."
"I k-know I won't last long…"
"Ana…"
"B-But, I don't want to go yet… I still want to see… Mother, Liam… Sara…"
Then tears started to come out of her eyes.
"I at least w-want to see them… one last time… and have d-dinner with them, laugh with them, smile with them, touch them and hold them close…"
"No no no! Don't give up Ana!"
"But… my family… it seems I won't be able to eat with you anymore…" She smiled a bit. "Well, p-perhaps in heaven…"
Then her eyes started to slowly close, however it seems she was fighting back.
"I hope these words r-reach y-you in s-someway my f-family… I love you…"
She expressed her love towards her family through her words with her last breath then her eyes closed.
"Ana?? Ana!! Nooo!"
Jonas held Ana closely and tightly as tears started to fall from his eyes.
"He asked me to take care of her… she's still too young… and now she's, she's…"
Jonas held her even more tightly.
"I failed…"
Then crumbling sounds rang out.
He looked to the source of the sound. There he saw a tall structure being torn then being shredded apart as the falling dark sky touched it.
"… so, it destroys everything, huh…"
Already lost all hope, not even a speck of dust, Jonas slowly and weakly lowered his head as he held Ana on his arms and he apologized in his mind.
I'm sorry, Nathan…
And there Ana and Jonas died.
***
Warm and freshly cooked food were laying on the table and three people were sitting to eat their smoking delicious food.
A young little girl ate a spoonful of food made by her mother.
"Hmmmm! Delicious as always mother! You really are the best."
The mother smiled tenderly at the little girl.
"Thank you, Sara. Make sure to eat all of it okay dear?"
"Of course! I need to take care of myself as what big sister Ana said!"
"Yes, you need to fill your bellies to be healthy."
"As for me, I will eat all of this so that I can be strong. And in the future, I'll be the one to protect you, mother!"
A young boy said.
"Thank you, Liam. I'll rely on you in the future, okay?"
"Yes!"
The three are June, the mother, Liam, the young boy, and Sara, the young girl.
They were temporarily staying in an apartment with a cheap rental fee. Originally, they were supposed to stay at an evacuation center, however, June decided, in order to make her children's environment better, they need to stay someplace that is close to being called a house. Luckily, there were some apartments for rent nearby the evacuation center, so June decided to stay in an apartment for the time beings, after all, they have plenty of money to spare and in addition to that the rental fee is cheap. Also, they were expecting that the battle in their town would not last long.
And they have been staying here for a few days now.
June ate a spoon of her food and Liam said.
"I wonder how is the town…"
"I'm sure everything is alright there."
"Yeah! With all the soldiers there, everything will be alright!"
"Indeed, Sara. There are a lot of strong soldiers there, nothing can go against them for long."
Unexpectedly, something like a cold gentle wind just suddenly blew within the apartment. June was a bit surprised in this, after all, they're inside a building. But later on, she thought that a window must be opened a little.
Then every single person within that apartment felt strange on their skin like the wind was embracing them. And they seemed to hear something vague but still clear to be understood.
I love you
Every single person twitched as what seemed like a whisper sounded on their ears.
They don't know what it was, and there was no one close to their ears. So later on, they thought it's just must be their imagination and decided not to tell everyone else.
"You know, Mother, Liam! When we return home, and it's time to sleep, I'm going to sleep beside big sister!"
"Haaah! That's not fair Sara! I've already planned to sleep with big sister!"
"Hmph, I planned it first! So I'll get to sleep with big sis!"
"That is so not fair!"
"Alright you two. That's enough, both of you can sleep beside your older sister."
"B-but!"
"Sara… no buts, don't be selfish okay?"
"O-Okay…"
"You both can sleep beside your older sister. Let's just say one can sleep on Ana's left side and the other on the right. Then you can embrace her at the same time if you want. Do you both agree?"
The two were silent for a few seconds and were thinking about it, and later on, at the same time, they said in unison.
"Yes!"
"Yes!"