The tocsin rang with screaming voices.
Louis gently touched the photograph of his son with a long, deep sigh. As he made his way to the door, a blue sword materialized and dematerialized into small blue particles that soon disappeared. He opened his door, and the voices became audible.
"To arms! To arms!" Alain shouted as he ran from house to house, his right arm missing.
The villagers rushed out of their houses with wooden shields, pitchforks, and lances. The most armed had gambeson jackets and metal helmets.
The demonic creatures arrived, leaving a trail of dust behind them. They were all different, a mixture of various beasts, sometimes human, bodies left to rot by negligent humans who ignored the sacred rituals.
A demonic creature evoking an elephant, with tails protruding from its ears, charged first, leading to shots of impure energy rays wounding the creature with purple blood.
They were only equal in their deformity, their purple colors, and their suicidal tendencies in the name of the Red Star.
The battle ended quickly, leaving a large number of demonic creature corpses and human corpses, staining the ground where their blood mingled in a foul odor.
Alain looked him straight in the eyes with a look of conviction.
"Alain, I'm not sure this is the right time to make decisions when a massacre has just occurred."
Louis and Alain were the only ones in the village to possess a mail coat and were at the top in terms of individual strength.
"Seeking the king is something we will have to do."
"But this is clearly beyond us, Alain. Not all demonic creatures are equal, and you should know that. It's just a handful attacking us. Please, just don't fall back into your raids, and don't hasten the village's destruction."
"If we all banded together, we could do something."
A strange purple butterfly zigzagged around Alain, and Louis could have sworn that, for an instant, he saw Alain's eyes turn purple.
"Alain... don't force me."
'Don't force me to kill you, as the Red Star wishes to reduce the karma of your true self.'
"I don't want to kill them; I know I can't win alone, but if we hold on long enough if the king wakes up, maybe we could survive this cycle for once! Maybe our suffering would finally end!"
"And what do you want to do?"
"First, unite the village and build a wall."
"But Alain," said Louis with a desperate sigh, "they don't give a damn about defending themselves; they don't give a damn about you and your wall. I'm only letting you do it because freedom is important to me, but honestly, I would rather stop you; it won't ever work."
"And why not?"
"Because one is more concerned with watching the other's crops than defending themselves. If they use their energies as you say, some could become corrupted or lose all their energy and die permanently."
"The situation is already untenable," said Alain, shaking his head. "What's this point of this life?"
"It's still a life."
"Whether you like it or not, this village has to evolve; it's the only choice if we don't want to suffer the apocalypses of our ancestors."
"And," said Louis, turning towards the alcoholic who was getting the villagers drunk, "you think you can convince them? As much as his 10-foot stature shows clear corruption, that one is still visible, they know what they buy. The worst corruptions are the invisible ones. You're dreaming of the impossible."
"It's not impossible if we acquire all their energy and channel it in the right direction. We just need to expand the very base of our energies, take those of the demonic creatures, and then! You follow me?"
There was a silence. Then Louis said painfully:
"I would really want to, but it's impossible, Alain. We can do nothing against our fate. We must already preserve what we have."
Alain turned and left.
'Happy are the ignorant, as they say,' thought Louis regretfully.
Then he glanced at the energies firefly swarming around and murmured:
"As a good subject, it would be time to defend our lands. He won't start with us, but we will become an obligatory target for him. Do you hear me? Do it so that we can all live a little longer. Don't let the demons corrupt you too."
He snapped his fingers, and the vision stopped.
***
"This can't go on," Rargnes told himself.
For several days, the visions had been chaining as quickly as people came in and out of his room to see him. He sometimes had flashes during communications, and when he regained consciousness, he found himself in his room.
He could no longer fight or carry out his mission.
He heard a knock at his door before doctors entered.