Kuchiba Yukina's fists clenched tightly, her knuckles white with frustration as she stared at the monitor displaying the chaos unfolding outside Alden's city walls. Flames licked at the rubble of the breached defenses, and bodies littered the ground in grotesque stillness. The crimson robes of the assailants, the clergy of the Fire Temple, stood out starkly against the carnage.
"The Fire Temple... Why now?" Yukina hissed, her voice trembling with fury.
"We don't know," one of her assistants stammered, his face pale. "Our research may have been exposed!"
Yukina's fist struck the wall beside her. "Damn it... we were so close to finding a way to defy those gods. And now—!"
Her sentence hung unfinished as the monitor's view shifted, displaying the invaders more clearly. A horde of red-robed zealots stood in grim ranks, their weapons glinting ominously under the sun.
