Lyricia is a city inside a fortress. It was an unyielding, adamant strategic position that withhold its wall for more than hundreds of years.
Due to its archaic feature, it was covered by moss and cracks but it doesn't stop the city from being the best of the best when it comes to warfare technology. Along the crenellations are gigantic artilleries composed of 3 meters long and 11 caliber cannons that poke their crater into the 2-meter tall parapet.
Despite the dust and all, it was maintained to last forever.
Behemoth mechanical ballistas are suspended into the air that could house two soldiers at once with a great defensive structure that could stop gunfires. In the surrounding railroads are 32 inches, internal diameter cannons called 'Earth Eaters' with firing power that destroys the symmetrical formation of a battalion in a single shot. Excluding this terrifying weapon, there are several catapults like onager and trebuchet invented by the past heroes.
The numbers of siege and defensive weapons surpass the fingers of both feet and hands making Lyricia the most powerful fortress ever built in Erestia.
This was the reason why Erestia remains untouched by the Nibelian Empire. Despite being the largest country among the four demesnes, Erestian kingdom does not only contain the weapons that terrorize them in both physical and psychological warfare but is also backed by the military power of the Felinis Kingdom making the Empire stagnant in invading it. Aside from that, they possess the killing machines called the heroes.
"HOCUK POCUS! MAGIC-MAGIC FIREWORKS! What's all the commotion? Making my head spin like WHEEE!"
Niel stands out among the crowds of panicked soldiers, creating colorful fires that disperse in a circular and heart figure. Though they are too busy to be distracted, Niel only pouts as the proud Lyrician walls collapse into rubbles through the tremors of shakes emitted unto the ground.
'The great steps' as they called it are a sign of Pupa's approach described by a sequence of continuous earthquakes depicting its cavort. It happens during an interval of 20 minutes, and because the 8th step happened just a moment ago, there are 18 minutes left till the beast took another leap.
That said, it was quite a spectacle that Niel acts sanguine despite the chaos. The number of death keeps rising as soldiers got buried underneath the stone that protects them for hundreds of years. But Niel kept her cheerful harmony as she dances along with the corpse of disentangled soldiers.
Until…
"Kyah!"
"What?!"
A small girl holding a basket of fruits bumps into her making the frail little girl fall to the ground. Niel look at the fallen lass in irritation as she broke her music, yet another moment she rubbed her eyes realizing the oddity of her situation.
"S-sorry"
Intimidated, the small girl runs towards the dark alley leaving a brief apology for Niel. One thing came like thunder into Niel's mind, isn't all citizens already evacuated? What was a girl doing here? Knocking her head, she immediately called for the girl before she was engulfed by the darkness.
"Hey, wait!"
In that little moment, she looked into Niel with a missing pair of eyes, leaving a hole of emptiness as it drips an amount of blood. An illusion? She bet it was not, she punched her own head distilling the moments of her encounter.
"Prepare the canons! Everyone, load the ballista!"
The words of that certain soldier from the first division commandment awaken her from the thought. Looking at her own palm, a black powder inside a simple plastic container falls to her left foot.
"What the hell am I doing? Drugs? Really? Damn it!"
She immediately hid the piece of illegal medicines in her pocket, only to take it back as she prepared for another instant sniff.
"Just another final sip, I really need this"
"Hero Niel, w-what are you doing? Is that…"
"EEK?!"
She was surprised by a tall muscular man in silver armor with a bearded face, despite having a red cape symbolizing the flag of Erestia, he all wore silver, from breastplate to gauntlets and greave without a helm.
He is Xiel, the first division commander of the Erestian Kingdom dubbed as the most skilled swordsman in the country. But despite his skill, he is far outmatched to the currently known weakest party member of the hero's guild, Niel Vladsmith.
"Shhh! Tell anybody. I'll kill you"
He gulped, he feared the heroes even the archivist. If she wants, Niel could make him disappear into nothing in a blink of an eye. Though he cleared his thoughts and his throat as he delivered an especial task to the hero Niel.
"Pardon me, I am just but imparting his Prince wish to meet with you on the North West defensive fortress"
"Really? Prince Hilton will going to propose to me? Aww sweet Yipeee! Coming for you darling!"
With the drugs theoretically taking effect into Niel's logical mind, she responded to Xiel with a euphoric smile, dashing and spinning as she dances her way to the fortress neglecting the presence of falling rocks.
During her cavort, a hazy figure of a shadow person whisper into her left ear.
"Kill him. You can do it…"
Despite the distorted figure of the being, like something that came out from a static television, she recognized the voice without effort. The archivist. A being that haunts her dreams and reality making her life in dismay.
"Heh? No thank you bitch! Yiepeee!"
Without the drugs, she thought she will lose herself. But the truth is, it is destroying her life even further making the simple delusions in her mind vivid as if real, worsening her ability to differentiate the truth from fantasy.
Commander Xiel who saw her behavior instinctively look at the nearby soldier carrying a box of arrows and the soldier looked at him back. They both saw the irregularity of the Hero's behavior and they can't help but raise their shoulders in mystery.
"Good morning darling! *grumbles* Shit!!"
The minute ticks as the ground shook, losing her balance, Niel stumbled in the ground, and above her is a mass of stone falling towards her head. Hilton immediately reacts using his skill to immediately save Niel, his skill allows him to move at extreme speed allowing him to kill several enemies at once. For this time being, he used the skill to move quickly and save Niel as fast as the speed of sound.
He called his skill 'Flash kill'
But unlike the majority of skills, using Flash Kill has several drawbacks such as moving quickly makes you blind as the amount of light engulfed by his eyes dissipate, and the speed literally burns his body causing Hilton to release a very hot steam every time he engaged in battle. It was a painful feeling for him until he got used to it.
As he stopped moving, a white smoke emerge into his skin and supposedly, Niel should feel like she is on fire. Hilton somehow expect her reaction to be in pain but except, he was replied with admiration as the mighty hands of Niel's idolized prince held her up.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt? You should be careful"
"O-okay. Prince Hilton! Y-your head!!"
Niel's blush fades until pale as droplets of blood hit her face, flowing out from Hilton's head. It reminds her of how reckless this hero could be, moving his body without thinking, saving his allies without worrying about his own life, though that what's make Hilton a real hero.
"No, it's fine. Shiela can heal it for me later"
Hilton only smiles into her worry, appreciating her as one of his friends. He released Niel from his grip and with her own two feet, she stands up. Though she is enraged by how reckless Hilton is, it is visible in her eyes along with her tone filled with worry.
"You shouldn't have done that! You know I could heal myself! See? Hooray! I am still alive"
With a pair of scissors laying under the table, she stabbed herself in the eyes, breaking her glasses into pieces as some of them cut through her sclera. It bleeds, she pulled it out along with her own eyeballs severing her own optic nerve and smiles at the petrified prince.
"Niel… What's going on? Everything is so wrong. Even our party is already tearing apart…"
The prince after beholding the insane state of Niel cannot help but kneel to the floor. Niel comes closer to him with steam burning into her healing eyes. She looked at him with a great smile though Hilton is still afeard of how unpredictable Niel's behavior could be.
"Maybe… I could help. I can do anything for you my prince"
"Thank you, but this is something not even you can solve. We have been betrayed again by… the archivist. Even after his death, that bastard. He said that the Pupa will strike the city 6 days after the Shitarnan Festival. But it came earlier, and he didn't write anything about its weakness. We have no way to-"
"Goddamn fucking burn his filthy crap!! Ha- ha- ha"
Revealing Rvis's journal, Niel immediately fires a ball of flames and Hilton easily evades with his skill. The pages are all scattered into fiery light as the ashes flow within the direction of the winds and out.
With Hilton's hostility emerging into his eyes and face, Niel laughs abruptly.
"Oh! I apologize if I am being rude. We don't need Rvis at all, trust me on this one okay, I have a way to stop the battle. "