Leaving the range of the towering buildings of Aegon, Caelum flew over the Roen River. This way, there would be less obstructions on his path and allowed him a better view of his destination. Every so often, a monster that looked like a tuna would jump up and try to bite him, but he would instead just drain it of its energy to boost his speed.
Soon, he neared the Watchtower which was built on the other side of the river to complement the Clocktower. One was meant to be a sign of fortitude while the other was a symbol of progress. With about the same height, it was easy to see the condition of the latter.
The smoke coming from the Clocktower was worrying, but Caelum had to make sure that the Watchtower was not under attack as well. It would not be funny if both towers were to collapse and killed thousands of people.
Scanning the area, it seemed that everyone was quick to respond as there were no longer much people nearby. The monsters have not crossed the river yet either, but they could at any moment. And right as he was about to leave, Caelum froze as he felt mana concentrating behind him.
"Oh great, another gate. What more could I ask for?"
Now he could not leave. He was about to tell Reynor about the new gate, but he stopped. The mana he felt from the formation of the gate was neither violent nor appalling. It was calm and patient like a gentle spring breeze that carried the warmth of summer.
Slowly, a radiant golden light leaked out of a single point in space, tearing it wide open. And from it came a beautiful woman. She had golden eyes on her perfect face. Her long silver hair that turned ashen toward the tips paired beautifully with her white dress. And on her back were two pairs of white feathered wings.
"An angel?"
"Greetings, human. It is a pleasure to meet you."
The angel curtsied in midair as the gate behind her quickly closed and vanished. Caelum was surprised that only she came out, but he had already prepared himself.
If only a single being came out of a gate, then it must be a being capable of doing alone what an entire army could. He prepared to fight, his wings spreading behind him. The angel panicked and spoke in a hurry.
"Please, don't! I'm not here to fight, but to ask for help!"
"What the hell do you mean? Are you not working together with those bastards over there?"
With his words, the angel looked toward the direction he pointed. She heard the screams of people and the sound of destruction, and her face paled. She hurriedly looked back to Caelum and spoke with a hint of irritation and impatience.
"If such a thing was happening, then what are you doing here?! Let's hurry before they destroy this whole place!"
"No, I was about to head there, but then you appeared. How do I know you're not an enemy? You could be acting right now and kill me with your allies there."
"Like I said, I'm here to ask for your help! My name is Erta Ki'ana, an Avatar of the Divine Obelisk! I swear on the name of Sanctuary that I am not your enemy, so please!"
"Fine! Just keep up! If you start acting suspicious, then I'll kill you right away!"
Caelum could not delay any more. The angel called Erta seemed sincere enough so he thought he should trust her for now and rushed ahead. Although another reason was because he could feel a strange connection with her.
It was like a nostalgia that nearly shook his heart out of his chest. It felt as though he knew her from somewhere. He did not know whether this was supposed to be part of his missing memories, but he did not believe that to be the case.
After all, how could this angel be part of his memories when all they should contain were things before Earth's emergence, before this damned war. It was silly to even be entertaining such thoughts in the midst of a crisis.
It was strange and worrying for him, but he decided to ignore it for now. It did not seem to be some kind of mental manipulation or a malicious attack anyway. His priority right now was stopping the invasion before the entire city was decimated.
"Hey, at least tell me your name!"
"I'm Caelum Grace, Avatar of the Imaginary Tree! Now stop talking and hurry!"
The two flew across the river and found countless corpses of humans and monsters alike. They could hear the sounds of fighting ringing loud everywhere. Near them was a small group of Chosen fighting against tens of monsters whose height could barely reach the knees of an adult human.
They had small bat-like wings on their backs that were more of a decoration as they could not actually fly even when flapping constantly. The horns on their head were visibly sharp and seemed coated with a fetid liquid that seemed incredibly ominous.
Coupled with the creatures' suicidal way of fighting, the group of Chosen was slowly being overwhelmed. Caelum swooped down and killed most of the monsters with his bladed black wing while the remaining ones were pierced by his colourless tendrils, draining their energy for his own use.
The Chosen were stunned for a while before thanking him, but he was no longer paying any attention. He looked around, sensing the dreadfully malevolent aura from these dark creatures and concluded his thought.
"These aren't monsters, these are-"
"Demons! You can tell by their dark mana, right? These are imps, the lowest ranked demons, but also the most numerous!"
"Let's hurry, Miss Ki'ana! Can you help me?"
"Of course! But I can't use my full power right now! I'll explain later, but know that I'm in a weakened state!"
"That's fine! Reynor, do you hear me?"
[My lord, where are you now?!]
"I'm near the Clocktower! Listen to me, the enemies are great in number and will use that to their advantage! They're small in size, very agile and suicidal! Be careful of their horns, they could curse you! Relay this information to everyone!"
[You're already there?! Very well, I'll relay this to GA! Don't be reckless and charge alone! We're almost there!]
"Don't worry. I'm not alone. See you later."
With that, Caelum flew again with Erta following beside him. They swept away the imps as they searched the entire area for the gate. With their help in greatly reducing the number of demons, the Chosen were able to finally push back and prevent the battle from spreading any further.
Even the Royal Guards have joined in to protect the palace that was nearby.
Things were going well, but even then, Caelum and Erta's faces were grim. They still have not found the gate and the number of imps was still increasing. And as though to make them even more depressed, another sound of explosion erupted.
"Damnit, it's the Clocktower again!"
"That sound... Caelum, we shouldn't waste time anymore! We need to find that demon causing explosions or there won't be a city left to save soon enough!"
"What do you mean?! The imps are still coming! We need to look for the gate! If we can close it, then even those bombing bastards will stop coming!"
"No! The gate is already closed! There's only one kind of demon that uses such explosive attacks in the first place, and it's always accompanied by a demon that gives birth to countless lesser demons! We need to find them quickly!"
Erta led the way by following the scent of dark mana as she described it. The imps were flooding the area and destroying everything to the point that it was no longer recognizable. Soon, they arrived at a subway station that has been completely transmogrified into a cavernous pit of flesh.
Inside were hordes of imps being born constantly.
At the centre was a large pod of flesh with a hole in the middle where the imps seemed to be spawning out of. And connected to the pod was the upper half of a woman's body hanging from the ceiling with strands of grotesque muscles and sinews.
The constant pulsing and quivering of the fleshy membrane of the pod was a disgusting thing to see. The sloppy sounds it made was even worse. Amidst the noise of fleshy abomination and the imps, they could hear the silent whimpers and moans of the woman whose very life was being drained. Erta's voice trembled with lividity as she spoke.
"That's the one. Asmedai's kin, the Sower."
"...Can the woman be saved?"
"I'm sorry… she's already gone."
Caelum walked forward silently, his white tendrils wrapped around his body for protection while the black wing of blades rampaged around, slaughtering the imps in his silent anger. The Sower itself could not attack so it reacted to his presence the only way it knew how, by spawning even more imps.
But as Caelum killed more than it could spawn, the Sower began aggressively beating like a palpitating heart ready to burst into a bloody mess. The woman's body was seemingly being sucked slowly into the demon's pod-like body which now looked like it was spasming rather than beating.
Caelum hurriedly killed the imps closest to him and unraveled his colourless wing. In their place, the black wing coiled around him like bladed armour. The tendrils formed into a singular lance, and with the addition of Erta's magic, glowed a radiant gold before stabbing the demon.
The lance split into several other spikes, tearing the demon apart from the inside, but Caelum had already turned away, withdrawing his wings to himself. He did not want to see what depraved things had been done to the woman.
"Come on. There's one more demon to hunt."
Caelum walked out of the subway immediately after, but Erta did not follow him out right away. Instead, she created a golden ember in her hand and tossed it to the corpse of the woman that was used by the demon.
It burned brightly for a while before being extinguished as both the corpse of the woman and all the demons nearby were turned to ash. She then hurriedly followed after Caelum. When she exited the subway, she found him standing nearby, waiting for her.
"Thank you, Miss Ki'ana. I wanted to do something for her, but I didn't know what."
"Just Erta is fine. And I know how difficult it is to see that. It never gets easier no matter how many I see it. Such barbarities are the reasons why I absolutely abhor demons."
No more words were exchanged after that. They flew away in search of the last demon. The tide of demons would no longer continue and the Chosen should be able to end the battle soon, but still an explosion rang out. And what they feared finally happened.
The Clocktower had fallen.